CANDIDATE PROFILE: Jeannie Kerr

By Jesse Duarte
STAFF WRITER

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Jeannie Kerr, one of four challengers running in the Feb. 23 school board recall election, says “respectful communication” is the key to restoring faith in the St. Helena School Board.

Kerr is running for the seat held by Trustee Cynthia Lane. But Kerr says she doesn’t think of the election as a contest between her and Lane.

“This is about bad choices the board has made that took money out of the hands of our students,” said Kerr. “The community has lost trust in our board members. We don’t have time to wait for the November election. We need to make positive changes now.”

Kerr has been involved with the parent groups for the primary/elementary and middle schools and the St. Helena Public Schools Foundation. She has children attending St. Helena Elementary School and RLS Middle School.

She also serves on the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission. In 2003 she spearheaded the renovation of a playground at Crane Park, leading the St. Helena Chamber of Commerce to name her “Citizen of the Year.”

Kerr said the recall can be traced back to April 9, when the board invited Assistant Superintendent Robert Haley to succeed the retiring Superintendent Allan Gordon instead of conducting an open search, as some parents urged.

“There were many, many engaged parents in that room who were very upset and frustrated with that decision,” said Kerr. “We felt that there should have been some kind of open search, and our district was at a point where we could have used new leadership.”

Kerr said the movement that would grow into the recall campaign gained momentum in May when the board, in spite of numerous public comments, letters to the editor and e-mails to trustees endorsing an open search, approved a two-year contract with Haley.

If the board had slowed down the process, hired Haley on an interim basis and conducted an open search for candidates outside the district, the recall could have been avoided, said Kerr.

Spending questioned

Instead, she said, parents’ outrage only grew when they became aware of the lucrative retirement packages offered to Gordon and retiring high school principal Jim Zoll, said Kerr.

“It saddened many of us to think that they could offer something like that and at the same time take away programs for our students,” she said.

Kerr, who has helped organize the Harvest Festival, Holiday Home Tour and Just Imagine! fundraisers, said she was particularly shocked “because I know how much time — hundreds of hours — it takes for parents to raise that kind of money for our students. To see that money go out the door without any thought was astonishing to all of us.”

Communication urged

During the entire saga, “we were trying to communicate with the board, and our voices were not being heard,” said Kerr.

That will change if the recall succeeds, she said. She said she and her fellow challengers would bring “respectful and thoughtful communication, positive leadership, and more fiscal responsibility and transparency.”

The new board would be more open-minded and do a better job listening to their constituents, said Kerr.

“I’d be able to bring people together,” she said. “I could bring our major stakeholders — administrators, principals, teachers, parents — together and provide a forum where we could openly communicate and move forward in a positive way.”

Focus on students

As far as the district’s financial situation, “anything could happen,” said Kerr. But it seems likely that the district’s budget will shrink, not grow, in future years, she said.

To prepare, the board should take a hard look at its fiscal priorities, she said.

“Right now too much of our budget is going to administrative salaries and not into our students’ hands,” said Kerr. “We need to look for ways to budget so that more financial resources are going to our students.”

The impact of the current board’s decisions about retirement incentives and administrative salares is being felt in the classroom through discontinued programs, fewer teacher’s aides and fewer books and supplies available in the classrooms and libraries, said Kerr.

In addition, parent groups are being asked to fund things the district should be handling, she said.

The district’s teachers and support staff are excellent, but Kerr is concerned that some groups of students, such as at-risk, special education and English language learners, aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

“I feel very strongly that every single child in our district should get the resources they deserve,” she said.

If Lane is recalled and replaced by Kerr, Kerr would serve out the remainder of Lane’s term, which expires in November 2012.

If Kerr isn’t elected to Lane’s seat, she said she’d seriously consider running again.