Buenas noches and good evening. [That opener got a huge appreciative chuckle from the membership, which is at least 50 percent Hispanic.] My name is David Learn, and I'm running for the school board because I'm a believer.
I'm a believer in education. I taught middle school in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and in Pennsylvania; and when my daughter missed the cutoff date for kindergarten in her district, I homeschooled her for a year rather than waste twelve months, when she was already eager to learn to read and to discover the world around her.
I'm a believer in charter schools. With their innovations in education, charter schools lead students to see the real-life value in their lessons, and they give children work that matches their ability levels, rather than leaving them frustrated or bored. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of charter schools like ours, our children are making education a lifetime journey through wonder and discovery, rather than the dreary ho-hum of one-size-fits-all schooling and the tedium of low expectations. Our public school system is better, our communities are stronger, and our state is richer, because of charter schools like this one.
And I'm a believer in Gary Barker. My older daughter is a second-grader here. I've been impressed by the commitment of her teachers to see her reach her potential, and I've been impressed by all that they've done to keep her work challenging and at her interest level. In the time that Evangeline has been a student here, I've been a regular volunteer at the school. I've helped to lead a Girl Scout troop, I've worked with students on their reading and math skills, and last year I read poetry by Edgar Allen Poe to the middle-schoolers. My daughter's teacher no longer asks me to volunteer for school activities; she takes it as a given that I'll be there.
Being on the school board of trustees simply would be the culmination of that volunteer effort. I'm under no illusions; I realize that if you elect me tonight, you'll be entrusting me to something a lot weightier than showing up this Saturday for a few hours to add a new flower bed to help improve the school grounds. It's a job that will require a hefty commitment of time and energy, and it carries with it the heavy responsibility of ensuring that all our children get the high standard of education we expect the school to provide.
I don’t have an agenda that I'm setting out to accomplish if I'm elected to the board, except for this: I want our school to be the best it can be, to deliver the best education it can, in the best environment possible. If you place your trust in me and elect me to the board, I'll pursue that agenda with everything I have.
Because I'm a believer.
I thought my speech was well received; the highest praise I got was from a student I passed on my way to the bathroom, who remarked, "Nice speech." My wife told me I was one of the few candidates who actually could be heard in the back, even with the microphone, and she figures that alone will garner me a number of votes.
I won't know the results until at least tomorrow, I think. There were six seats open, with a total eleven candidates running. On the other hand, I've been down at the school so often volunteering that people I don't recognize call me by name. I also learned from Evangeline's teacher that a number of the teachers were discussing my candidacy yesterday evening, in a generally positive way. Certainly a number of them wished me well. So I probably won, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad one.
Evangeline told me a few times that she hopes I lost. I realized this morning that she's probably serious, so I'll have to find out why.
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