Candidate in the Belleville School Board Primary Election - Tierney Keyes
The Tuesday, February 16, 2021, election includes a primary for Belleville School Board
February 11, 2021
Tierney Keyes
Age: 42
Occupation: Stay-at-home mom
Years lived in district: 2 1/2 years
Incumbent? No
Have you been on the school board or held any other public office before? If so describe: No.
Why are you running for the school board? I am a mother of two children in the Belleville school district, a sophomore and an 8th grader. I believe as a parent our sole function is to teach our children core values such as kindness, fairness, work ethic, responsibility and respect. Along these lines, one of the greatest gifts any parent can provide their child is a quality education.
During the last 10 months, I, along with parents in this community, have watched our children struggle to obtain that education. Due to my personal concern for my own family, I became far more involved and educated on how our local board of education was managing a national crisis. I can only imagine how difficult the last 10 months has been on the board members, administration and staff. However, it has been very clear to me after evaluating the objective data that families should be allowed to make the decision to have full-time in-person instruction. Boards of Education should not be clouded by politics and personal agendas. Rather, its sole focus should be supporting the educators and advancing each child’s educational needs.
I enjoy public service and have consistently volunteered in various organizations throughout my life. I would like to invest my personal time to support the administration, educators and children of our district.
What issues do you find most important to the school board? How would you handle these issues? I am concerned for our student’s mental health, declining grades and increasing education gap caused by virtual learning since March of 2020. I am an advocate for in-person learning and allowing families a choice in which education platform fits their needs. The medical data tells us that there is lower transmission of the virus with in-person learning in comparison to virtual or hybrid based platforms. Students and staff members with medical co-morbidities that place them at high risk can be accommodated with virtual options.
The district needs to continue to attract excellent staff. We are blessed in Belleville to have phenomenal educators, and we need to retain this talent. Listen to the staff, and then support them.
We need greater transparency in decision making between the board and the community. This has been frustrating as a parent in the district over the last year, and I know that I am not alone in that sentiment.
Belleville is not Madison. Moreover, national, regional and local medical experts have refuted the guidance that has been imparted to our district from Public Health Madison Dane County.
The Board of Education desperately needs to have more efficient meetings. Five-hour meetings are not constructive, and are not fair to the community, administration or staff. In particular there needs to be tighter agendas, time constraints, concrete action plans, and each member needs to be prepared for each meeting.
Belleville needs to attract incoming families with its excellence. In particular, I believe we need to advance the ACT prep curriculum to prepare our students more effectively for the advanced placement exams. This ultimately will continue to attract prospective students and families outside of our district. We need to continue to build upon our current skilled trades classes offered. The demand for skilled work is high. The goal of every educator is to ensure that our students are college or career ready when they leave our halls.
I have lived my entire adult life as a fiscally responsible person. I will always evaluate any School District related financial decision with the same responsibility for the taxpayers of this community.