*What I have done in the past with this guide is not compensated and takes dozens of hours of research and interviews. While some time is spent transcribing much of my time is spent constantly trying to contact candidates to get answers to self-designed surveys with questions not typically asked. I did not have time to put that effort in this year so I apologize to any who were expecting that.



I was pleasantly surprised to discover people remembering this site even though I have not advertised it this year and all previous advertising was very limited.


Saturday, October 1, 2011

School Board Seat G: Ryan Smith Round 1 Q & A

Here are the answers from your first round of questions.

Thanks for taking the time to get to know those of us running for election this year. I am running for School Board seat G:

For me the most important attributes for a candidate are integrity, honesty, and responsibility.

It is difficult to think of the five principles that I live my life by because it is not something that I really think about it is simply how I was raised. I guess I would have to go with reliable, trustworthy, respectful, honest, and caring.

Reliable is a must because I feel follow through is very important. When I tell someone I will do something or work on something it is important to me to know they feel comfortable knowing I will follow through with what I said.

Trustworthy is something everyone should hope to be. For me my word is my bond, it is probably one of the most important and valuable assets a person can ever have.

Respect is something that should be shown to everyone. I have seen a lot of people who resort to name calling when they have a disagreement with another person and I feel that is counterproductive. There is no reason to treat anyone as less important or their ideas as worthless. There is a civil way to disagree with anyone and it is simply professional to do so.

Honesty goes hand in hand with trustworthy. I think it is vital to be able to look out at a group and tell them the fact and have them know in their hearts that you are telling them the truth. Once anyone starts to become dishonest they lose all credibility and they will no longer be able to make an impact until they earn that credibility back again.

Caring is a must when running for any office. It is hard to be fully engaged in any action when it is not a high priority in daily life and that is one reason so [many]items seem to fall through the cracks. I do think anyone running for school board has [this] principle or at least I hope they do because there is to much at stake to go at this half way.

I think what makes a community a great place to live is the people. When looking at the involvement of those around the community and the different kinds of fund raising that takes place for a variety of causes I would have to say Fairbanks is one of the kindest communities I have ever lived in.

This is the first time I have done anything in the way of politics so I am unsure if I have taken any missteps yet or not but one thing is for sure, we will find out in October.

I would say experience can be a great asset or a great hindrance depending on the office one is seeking. When it comes to the School Board I don’t see experience as any kind of golden goose. The test scores for the school district have been stagnant for years with very little movement up or down. I think it is time to try something different. As an academic advisor up at UAF, I think I am the only person running for the School Board that actually has experience with these students once they get out of the system. I see the test scores and I know how college ready the students really are. I know for the engineering department (where I work) of the students that are not college ready only 7% graduate with an engineering degree. That is a real life vision of what happens when students are not held to a higher standard while they are in school, a more profound vision is the fact that about 40% of our students are not college ready when they get here. I see the results of a just pass them through system and I feel I can help get things back on the right path.

As I said above I am new to this so I don't have a blog of anything set up but once I find out how to do that I will pass it along to you.

Thanks for being part of the election process and if you have any additional questions or know anyone that does please fell free to send me another message.

Ryan

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