League of Women Voters of Ohio Education Fund
Hamilton County, OH November 8, 2005 Election
	David Birdsall Answers Questions Candidate for Board Member; Wyoming City School District

Questions & Answers

1. What are your Qualifications for Office? (50 word limit)

A vested interest in the district both personal (3 children in the system) and economic ( home value preservation and less tax burden) My job allows me to be exposed to the operation of numerous local governments and school systems throughout the Midwest and that can provide helpful perspective

2. What plans do you have to address your top three priorities? (100 word limit)

1. School Funding + The State will not do its duty in supporting our schools and the taxpayers are overburdened. We must look to the private school/college funding model to our resources in place to create an "endowment" that will allow the school system to become more self sufficient. The board needs to support this to help unify all of those efforts that are currently focused on the goal of subsidizing current funding ( Wyoming School Foundation, PSA, Boosters)
2. Improving Communication + Implement technology to fully engage the community and save costs. Use email to give board updates, post all board members email addresses on the district website. Change culture of the board to improve perceptions of lack of communication.
3. Maintaining "Excellence" + Support our Superintendent to ensure focus on the daily operations of the district.

3. What will you do as a Board of Education member to increase parental involvement in your school system? (100 word limit)

Parental and community involvement will be a key component of trying to change our funding structure. We will need community "buy-in" and support if we are going to try and reduce our tax burden. That means that the community will need to see that their childrens education will not suffer as we try to save ourselves from drowning in tax levies and income tax increases

4. As a candidate, how can you improve community relations with residents?

In this day and age of 24 hour access there is simply no reason not to utilize technology to make the board both accessible and responsive. Email is one of the most effective tools available and we should give residents the opportunity to receive board updates via a mass email "blast" that I believe has a better chance of being read and would serve to better engage the populace as a whole (not to mention the cost savings on printing and postage)

I would also have email addresses for ALL board members posted on the district website thereby enhancing accessibility.

Finally, I would work to change the culture of the Board so that perceptions of lack of engagement, lack of transparency and lack of sensitivity to the needs of the community (all evidenced in the recent neighborhood school debacle) are ended.