Politics & Government

Candidate Questionnaire: Pattie Booker

The Radnor School Board candidate answers our questions.

Name:  Pattie Booker

Party affiliation: Republican

Previous political experience (elective and appointed positions):  existing, school board director

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Education: BS Mech. Engineering, AS Mfg. Engineering, PMP Certification

Career: Program Manager in electronics industry

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What are the most critical issues in the school district and how would you address them?

  • Currently Radnor School District is on strong financial footing, largely because the Board has worked very closely with the Administration to dig deep into the budget and identify inefficiencies and opportunities to run the District on a leaner budget.  Some of this was forced by Act 1, but some is due to the unrelenting effort of a few board members, me included.  Regardless of our local efforts however, by 2015-16 school year we will be faced with a $17million deficit, largely due to pension and healthcare costs.  If we want this District to thrive and be able to invest in excellence, we have to get more involved in Harrisburg.  It will take unrelenting leadership to address these issues – leadership that Pattie has demonstrated over the last four years.
  • Radnor residents need to be able to rely on the School Board, the Administration and the staff to deliver the best education their tax dollar can buy.  Immediately upon becoming Board President I pushed the District to identify, prioritize and adopt a list of District goals and objectives to provide a clear roadmap for the school community.  This tool makes clear the work we are doing, what is expected and when it is expected.  We need to implement more tools to measure our performance as a District, and as individuals, including the students themselves.  It is this level of accountability throughout the District that will enable the delivery of a truly exceptional education.
    • Leveraging the accountability, I will look to improve our existing programs and strategically invest in programs that give Radnor students a real advantage. It should be noted that not all of these things will increase costs; they may take reprioritization of existing funds, or simply better utilization of time and/or resources.  Encouraging more students to take AP classes starting in 9th grade, improving the guidance office services to engage the kids earlier, bring in the decision makers from local and not so local colleges and talk to them about acceptance criteria, especially that which is beyond test scores, and look more closely at the remediation rate of Radnor students, and finally putting into place a process by which motivated Radnor students are encouraged to take classes at local universities in senior year.

What skills do you have that you think would be an asset to the board?

 

  • Program and organizational management – being able to recognize issues/challenges, set high level objectives to address the issue, and set up organizational systems, processes or procedures to achieve the goal in a timely manner.  I believe I am also an effective communicator.

What do you think the school district is doing right and what does it need to improve? How would you improve it?

  • Over the last 4 years the Board has made very difficult decisions that have now put the District on solid financial footing. Having Board members that can “look under the hood” and really dig into the budget is critical.  Moving forward we need to put systems in place that reinforce the measures taken over the past 4 years and we need to address the issues and building for the future as outlined in the “most critical issue” section noted above.

Curriculum in the schools has had to be altered because of budgetary reasons over the past few years. What do you think the shape of the “Radnor education” is right now and how would you improve it?

  • For me the clear way forward is to think out of the box regarding the use of technology in the classroom.  We need to free ourselves of the typical “eduspeak” regarding technology and create systems that are dynamic and responsive to the ever-changing world of electronics.  Students should be able to bring in their own devices and plug in to the District.  And it is not all about the expensive hardware, but using “the cloud” to provide unprecedented access while in the school and from home.  Gone should be the stagnant, 20lb text books, we should have online text books that are dynamic and available to the students from any computer or e-reader.

Do you support implementing full day kindergarten? If so, what would you do to make that happen?

  • At this place in time I do not support full day kindergarten for Radnor for several very important reasons: 1) latest studies show that the educational benefit of FDK is negligible by the end of 1st grade for students in our demographics, 3rd grade for others. 2) Radnor offers a FDK program for parents that want to use it right in our own buildings as provided by Family Support Services, 3) increased enrollment anticipated with FDK will likely cause a discussion of redistricting, 4) increased annual operating cost starts at $500k – I believe there are better places to use that kind of funding, 5) unintended consequences of FDK on the local private schools and community organizations

How would you represent the interest of tax payers who do not have children in the school district?

  • Through constant communication with members of the community that I interact with through my other volunteer efforts for the Radnor Memorial Library, in the schools, and in my church.  I am very responsive to emails from community members, and have encouraged the District to host Open Forums and invite all community members to come and share their thoughts and concerns about the schools.  I have pushed for streaming video of our meetings and increased viewing times for the televised version of the meeting.  And most of all, I have done my best to listen to and respond to members of the community that address the Board at our meetings.

Tell us something about yourself that would surprise us.

  • I don’t like piña coladas or walking in the rain, but I do like challenge my kids to a full-on game of Risk – bragging rights are key in our household!


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