Incumbents, new candidates run for Groton Board of Education

Groton — The race for Board of Education features a mix of incumbents and new candidates for the available four-year terms.

Liz Porter, Dane Stevenson and Frances Whitney are seeking their first terms, and incumbents Gretchen Newsome, Kim Shepardson Watson, Rita Volkmann and Jay Weitlauf are running for re-election. Democrats endorsed Shepardson Watson, Volkmann, Porter, Whitney and Stevenson, and Republicans endorsed Newsome and Weitlauf.

Five seats are up for election on the nine-member school board. Due to minority representation rules, only three of the open seats are available for the five Democratic candidates.

Republican Newsome, 53, who was elected to the board in 2015, has taught and is currently working as a nanny and finishing a master’s degree in science curriculum and instruction design.

“I want Groton to be a town where kids can go back to and raise their own kids in,” she said.

Newsome said she wants to support students while also being fiscally responsible, for example by planning ahead for changing technology and maintaining buildings so the town doesn’t have to build new ones.

She said she also wants to balance new ways of teaching with ensuring students learn the foundational skills of writing clearly and concisely and being confident in basic math, reading, and having conversations.

Newsome also said she wants all children to have a chance to excel.

“I think we need to study more about how boys learn,” she said. “The world has been so focused for decades on how to make little girls excel we forgot to go back to look at how little boys learn.”

Democrat Porter, 61, is a retired teacher who is the chair of Groton’s 2020 U.S. Census Complete Count Committee and regional coordinator for Connecticut History Day.

She said she is running because she thinks education is a calling, and she feels her background with over 30 years in education, and her expertise and training led to her candidacy this year.

Porter named improving communication as a top priority, including from the district to the schools, and from the schools to the parents.

Fiscal responsibility is anoth

er priority for her. She said she supports an assessment of the district’s needs — for example, looking at what kids need and seeing if the district is supplying enough support — while also making sure the board is not overspending.

“We have to make good solid decisions based on the data,” she said.

She also said increasing civics education for children at all levels is imperative, from adding more high-school opportunities to getting younger students more involved, such as through the kid governor program.

Democrat Stevenson, 29, is an engineer who serves on the Representative Town Meeting.

“I’ve always held education and learning as very important ideals in a society,” Stevenson said. “It’s society’s responsibility to educate the next generation and to give the children tools on how to make their own lives better and better society as a whole.”

A top priority is to get to the root of why Groton has been struggling with its test scores. He said he would hear directly from teachers, parents and students and see what he can do to help, he said.

Another priority is to ensure the transition to the new middle school next year is as smooth as possible. It’s important to implement policy to promote equity and view every decision through the lens of what is best for students, he said.

He added that another priority is to explore opportunities for teachers to have direct input, for example at meetings or potentially creating a faculty senate.

Incumbent Volkmann, 70, a Democrat and retired teacher, has served on the school board since 2003 and represents Groton on the LEARN Board of Directors and is a member of the LEARN Executive Board.

“I really felt it was important to have an experienced board member on the board since we will be going through so many changes in the next couple of years,” Volkmann said.

Top priorities include preparing for the new Groton Middle

School, which will open in September 2020, and then planning for the opening of two new elementary schools at the former middle school sites in 2021 and the closing of three elementary schools.

With the transition to new schools in the future, Volkmann said she has called for more communication and community meetings so people are aware of everything, from scheduling to busing.

“I think it’s very important to involve parents in the community as quickly as possible so everybody understands the transition,” she said.

Volkmann also said closing the achievement gap in Groton is a priority for her.

Board Chair Kim Shepardson Watson, 55, a Democrat, who served on the school task force for the Groton 2020 Plan and is a licensed clinical social worker, was elected to the board in 2011.

She said she is running for re-election because she is excited about what’s been happening in the district and wants to see through the Groton 2020 plan.

She said she is committed to the continued growth of the district.

“The board has really made an effort to make sure our staff have the tools that they need in order to move our kids forward in such a changing dynamic,” she said. She said the board has been integral not only in meeting the Common Core State Standards, but also creating district-wide initiatives that have helped students achieve and their test scores improve.

She said the board has given its full support to the food service program, added more social workers, is implementing the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program, and applied for grants for math, science and writing programs.

She said continued collaboration with the town’s boards is another goal.

Republican incumbent Weitlauf, 54, works in property management and has served on the board for about four years. He is the chair of the Board’s Finance and Facilities Committee and a member of the Negotiations

Committee.

“I see myself as the voice of the parents on the Board of Education in all this and I’m just excited to be involved with such a great district,” Weitlauf said.

“My top priority all the time is student achievement and providing a safe learning environment and meeting every student where they are to ensure that they are receiving the instruction that they need,” he said.

Overseeing the huge Groton 2020 construction project is another top priority, and he said bringing two communities together into one middle school will provide a much better opportunity for equity.

He said the project is a huge investment, and the board will have to be good stewards of the money the town electors approved for the project and ensure it is being used in the best possible way.

Whitney, 42, an unaffiliated candidate endorsed by the Democratic Town Committee, is a teacher and department chair at Ella T. Grasso Technical High School. She serves on the Groton Parks and Recreation Commission. She said she’s running to bring the perspective of an educator and a parent of two students in Groton Public Schools.

“I would like to see policies and practices that can help support learning for all kids and make sure everyone has full access to maximize their potential,” she said, naming a top priority.

Whitney said the new middle school is “a big step in that direction” and wants the school district to continue and build on being responsive to student needs.

Whitney said she would also like to see the district’s test scores improve and to see good communication with stakeholders. She said it’s important to look at the data and see what educational initiatives worked best for the community, or if something needs to be tweaked or made more responsive.

With five Democrats wanting to run for the three seats, the Democratic Town Committee decided to throw it to the voters to decide, said Committee Chairman Conrad F. Heede.

“Every one of these candidates brings something unique to the table, and I think it’s going to be an exciting election for them,” Heede said.

In addition to endorsing Newsome and Weitlauf, the Republican Town Committee had endorsed in July three other candidates for the Board of Education — Bruce McDermott, Daniel Hetzel and Bonnie Nault — but those three are no longer running for the school board.

“Unfortunately they decided they just didn’t have the time commitment for the positions and respectfully stepped down,” said Republican Town Committee Chairman Ken Richards.

Incumbent Board of Education member Katrina Fitzgerald is not running for re-election.

In addition to the Board of Education and Town Council, voters will also vote on Nov. 5 for Representative Town Meeting members. The candidates for the RTM, with the parties that they are listed on the ballot under, are as follows:

District 1: Sheila Perry (D), Wilmer Lambert (D), Ali Starkley (D), Roscoe Merritt (D); Karin Adams (R), and Kathy Chase (R).

District 2: Beverly Washington (D); Portia Bordelon (D); Syma A. Ebbin (D); Eric Ossmann (R).

District 3: Dane Stevenson (D); Autumn Hanscom (D); Albert Colon (D); Jill Rusk (D); Taylor Salva (R); Chase Foster (R).

District 4: Michael Whitehouse (D); Shawn D. Powers (D); Nancy Driscoll (D); Kristen Powers (D); David Gauthier (R); Robert Bailey (R); Lauren Gauthier (R).

District 5: Juan Melendez (D); Melinda Cassiere (D); Gary Welles (D); Michael Whitney (D); Susan Deane-Shinbrot (R); Rosanne Kotowski (R).

District 6: Cindy Fortner (D); Jeanne Baker (D); Rachael Franco (D); Jim Gustavson (D); Kate Richards (D); Thomas Frickman (R); Bruce Flax (R).

District 7: Jen Desillier-Fleming (D); Clarence Casper (D); Nancy Mello Miller (D); Bruce Jones (D); Lynn Crockett Hubbard (R); Paul McGuirk (R); Scott Newsome (R).