Opinion: Inspiring Personal Success at Franklin Public Schools

I am Jeff Lewis, and I am running for the Franklin School Board.

I am running for School Board to be a rational and practical voice for the community. As a product of Franklin Public Schools, I strongly believe in the quality of Franklin Public Schools.

I am fair, decisive and fiscally responsible. My education has provided me great opportunities to expand my knowledge personally and professionally. As a compliance attorney, I am faced with constant challenges to understand all sides of every issue – from A-Z. My global business experience at GE Healthcare has provided extensive experience working across global, functional and organizational barriers. I pride myself on my communication, fairness and decisiveness – three characteristics every School Board member should possess.

Franklin deserves a Board that will put education first. My first priority is ensuring students have the necessary tools to succeed in the real world. Too often, graduates enter the work force with high expectations, but with little skill. As a district, we need to renew our focus on providing educational offerings to allow every student to opportunity to succeed. Regardless of whether a student attends a 2 or 4-year college, or learns a trade and enters the workforce immediately after high school, I am committed to ensuring every student has skills to succeed.

Franklin deserves a Board that values open communication and transparency. Requests for transparency and the availability of technology require a Board to value communication. Too often, decisions are made without input from those affected. I am committed to holding listening sessions with staff, administration and the public. We need to be committed to transparency. The Board needs to consider every angel, including feedback from parents, staff and administration.

Franklin deserves a Board that is educated and understands issues prior to Board meetings. Board members are not educational experts – the Board should not be driving system changes. Rather, the Board should be committed to understanding the issues and communicating those changes to all interested parties, including the staff and public. I am committed to preparedness and doing my homework. My experience and education helped prepare me to understand all stances on all issues.

Franklin deserves a School Board that is fiscally responsible. We need to maintain lines of spending. However, we need to ensure costs don't outweigh benefits. I am committed to ensuring the Board weighs all costs and benefits for every issue. The first question asked for funding requests should be, “What is the benefit for our students?”

Over the past 3 years, the Board has been faced with many tough decisions - all require reason, logic and common sense. Providing a great K-12 education should be our #1 priority. If our school district continues to grow and improve, all of Franklin benefits.

Common Core Standards, Standards-Based Grading Systems, creating a K-4 curriculum, updates to Forest Park Middle School, etc, are all issues that need to be addressed. Whether solutions include increased communication and transparency to providing public surveys, I am committed to listening, communicating and working with our constituents and staff to find effective resolutions. Some things we all can agree on are: (1) we need to ensure our constituents and parents are educated on the status of the district; (2) teachers must have the necessary tools and training to succeed; and (3) students must have a safe, productive and effective learning environment.

This post is titled Inspiring Personal Success, because I believe the Board has lost sight of the purpose of the district… to provide the best public education possible. The Board must weigh both costs and benefits to provide the best public education possible. The Board needs to re-emphasize the purpose of the district.

We need to improve the status quo. Franklin deserves leaders that are prepared and ask the right questions... We deserve leaders that Inspire Personal Success.

I appreciate your support on Tuesday, April 7th.