Bob Whitehead for Radnor Township School Board

This election cycle is getting nastier and more ridiculous by the day. As Dave Falcone said, DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT. This is a call to action. As a District and community, we are at a crossroads. Decide for yourself if the direction we are headed matches your values and priorities. Are the voices of the whole Radnor community being heard and respected. The time for sitting on the bench and assuming it will work out is GONE. This is too important. VOTE. Talk to 5 p...eople you know about why you think it’s crucial, and ask them to vote too. Together we can correct this course and return Radnor to the balance and focus our stakeholders deserve. Please share this post, please get people involved and please VOTE.

Want to learn a bit more about the candidates from a students perspective? Check out this get to know the candidates piece published by Radnorite. I’ve been asked a lot questions lately, but Ellie Davis and this staff of talented young journalists put together some of the most pointed and relevant to date. Enjoy! https://radnorite.com//q-a-with-the-school-board-candidat/

Homestretch! Please give me 5 minutes of your time. With so many people to meet and talk to, I have made the mistake of keeping things high level and lacking specifics. As voters, you deserve more from me. There are 3 topics that I hear concerns on day in and day out. These are my thoughts and ideas on those topics. I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I am determined to improve RTSD to the best of my ability. Radnor is a FANTASTIC school district. My goal is to provide new ideas, a different voice, and work to reset the culture of the Board to one of service and leadership.

Dave Falcone absolutely nails it here. From day 1 we have been committed to running as individuals who want better for the students, parents, and taxpayers of Radnor. Put politics aside and ask yourself if this Board would benefit from a diversity of opinions and perspectives on the issues at hand. Would rational conversation between 9 individuals who are deeply committed to Radnor, and dedicated to considering the wide spectrum of stakeholders, improve your experience and the cohesiveness of the community. If so, is that what we currently have, or is some change needed? November 2nd it’s imperative to consider each candidate as an individual, and build the Board that you feel will accomplish this goal.

I am all about silver linings in life. The last two years have been rough, but they have allowed parents to become much more deeply involved in the processes by which School Boards and Districts make decisions. I personally have been in awe of the hard work and flexibility of staff and teachers. That said, one of the primary issues we face has been the PROCESS (or apparent lack thereof) involved in making major decisions/implementations whose effects are wide reaching. Pl...ease read below. I mentioned this program in an earlier video as it was something I heard about over and over from people, and nobody knew about. In fact, I was in attendance at the Budget Resolution meeting and missed the :15 PowerPoint slide where it was mentioned until I went back and rewatched it. I have questions as a parent and taxpayer, and we should not have to dig and submit FOIA requests to get the answers. - How are ESSR funds earmarked for Learning Loss applicable to students who have not yet been in school? - Why/how was the RES site selected as the best location? - I have learned there are 12 students. How were they selected and who had access to this process? There are ABSOLUTELY more than 12 children in RTSD that would benefit from this program, why was it not available to them? Were their parents even aware? - Where does this pre-k curriculum come from and how much training do the teachers have with that age group? Are the students receiving the experience they should be? - Is mid-pandemic, during an assessment and tax hike year, facing $250M debt/liability and $6M budget deficits the best time to start looking at universal Pre-K? Whether RTSD funding and supporting a Pre-K is viable from a financial and physical space/resource standpoint is a separate discussion. I (and WE from what I’ve heard) would need a LOT more info before forming a position on it. If you are going to run a pilot program using Covid learning loss funds, it’s unacceptable for stakeholders to not be aware of it. The current RTSD students deserve it, the teachers who were re-classed, had to change rooms, and lost access to their expected program space deserve it, the taxpayers deserve it, and most of all the district pre-k kids who would benefit from this and were never even aware or considered deserve it. Put plainly, you (WE) deserve more.