The current school board and administration at GHAPS wrote us off as a small group of “angry parents”. Christine Baker openly said her response to concerned parents was to “marginalize them”. (Around the 2:35 mark here). Welcome to the club of between 6,952 and 9,017 “marginalized” concerned parents. Those numbers are the lowest and highest vote totals for the three Ottawa Impact vetted candidates, Thomas Hoekstra, Tommy Van Hill and Roger Williams. That is a large contingent of the community to marginalize, don’t you think? Understand, though these three candidates lost, by around 1.5%, this is not just a small group of angry parents. This is a large percentage of the district that has been disappointed in the current board and the direction the school district is headed.
This is also just the beginning. Through campaigning, I became aware of more issues through personal conversations with parents in the community. We aren’t done, and our support continues to grow. Moving forward, we will continue to expose policy violations, corruption, marginalizing of thousands of parents/citizens and more.
Over 7,000 voters are ready for change. It’s coming, just not as soon as we’d hoped. That number will increase the more the actions of this school board become ever more apparent. Over 7,000 voters saw through the name calling (fascist/racist/book banners/etc) the ridiculous arguments - the idea that Nicole Stack was an effective handler of school finances, the illogical appeals - Carl Truetler claiming the challengers’ lack of school board classes taken made us not qualified, ignoring the obvious point that you can’t take the classes unless you are elected to the board, hilarious claims (kitty litter!), a realized change is needed. It didn’t come this election cycle, but it will. And 7,000+ votes shows that they can’t just ignore the multitude of issues these voters have with the current school district, unless they enjoy declining test scores, declining enrollment, and feeling the need to spend six figures on marketing such as billboards along the highway. Stay tuned, join us at school board meetings, speak up, and make your voice heard. This is only the beginning.