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The race for two Lee County School Board seats is heating up a bit, following the deadline to enter last month.
Candidates have begun sparring over issues facing the $1.5 billion school district — Lee County’s largest employer — with less than two months to go before election time.
Both incumbents, Chairwoman Jeanne Dozier and Vice Chairwoman Jane Kuckel, say successes were abundant during their two-term, eight-year tenure and are focused on solving the district’s future challenges, especially the financial ones.
Their competitors are veteran educator and businessman James Middlebrooks, who is running against Dozier, and district parent and financial whiz Raymond Rodrigues, whose experience is questioned by Kuckel.
“I’m not sure what Mr. Rodrigues, what he has done to bring himself up to speed,” Kuckel said. “I’m not aware of any committees that he’s been on. I know that he has attended, over the last couple of months, some of the board meetings.”
Rodrigues has worked on large budgets for 15 years, most recently as budget manager for Florida Gulf Coast University’s College of Arts and Sciences. But he counters Kuckel’s comment with the first-hand experience he has as a parent and parent teacher organization participant.
“The prospective that I bring and she doesn’t is that I actually have a child that is in the district. I think a parental perspective, that is very important,” said Rodrigues, who has a son entering kindergarten at Spring Creek Elementary in Bonita Springs.
But Kuckel knows education. She has 45 years of experience as a teacher, principal and assistant superintendent. She also has her PhD in education leadership and curriculum.
Rodrigues also has served as an elected supervisor on the community development board of his Estero neighborhood and was appointed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush to the Lee County Housing Authority in 2005. Rodrigues said his private sector experience has benefits for the board, as well. Such experience may benefit a district reeling from massive state budget cuts that threaten all but the district’s core academic programs, he said.
“In past boards, there have been very valuable contributions from people who do not come out of the education environment,” Rodrigues said.
James Middlebrooks, on the other end, has four decades of education experience, including as a district administrator and professor at Edison College. He’s competing against Dozier for the District 2 seat, composed mostly of central Fort Myers. Rodrigues is vying for Kuckel’s District 3 seat, which focuses on southern Lee County.
Though the nonpartisan candidates run for seats associated with districts and certain schools, they are considered running at-large and all Lee County voters will have an opportunity to cast a vote during the Aug. 26 primary election.
Middlebrooks questions whether the district’s actions over the past eight years justify keeping the incumbents.
Kuckel and Dozier oversaw the district during a time of massive growth. When they were first elected, the district had about 58,000 students. Now it has nearly 80,000.
“We pulled together. We were building three to five schools a year and very efficiently. We weren’t just scrambling to make it happen,” Kuckel said. “We looked at it very deliberately.”
The two incumbents approved the drafting of prototype school designs, which were inexpensively tweaked for each piece of land. They also approved the renovation of existing vacant buildings for use as schools and the district’s Fort Myers headquarters.
Kuckel and Dozier also appointed current Superintendent James Browder. Since his appointment, the district has been accredited, scores have risen and each school’s curriculum has been standardized to avoid problems with students who transfer.
But it doesn’t take eight years, Middlebrooks said, to get the district to its vision of being a world-class system.
“You can make a lot of changes even in your first year on the board,” Middlebrooks said. “It doesn’ take eight years to make us a number one class system in the state ... I’d like to increase that real quick and we can do that in many ways.”
Middlebrooks currently owns and operates Anything Engraveable in Fort Myers and was principal of Riverdale High School in Fort Myers from 1974 to 1980. He said the district needs to focus on equality to improve its students’ scores. He said the district’s summer programs are unequal and that every school can have similar academic programs, among them International Baccalaureate and technical preparation.
“It ain’t going to cost any more. I’m so sick and tired of people saying that we can’t do this and we can’t do that. We can do just as we please,” Middlebrooks said. “We can set our priorities in the right way.”
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Name: Jeanne S. Dozier
Age: 56
Education: Master of science in education leadership
Experience: Has been an educator for 30 years. For the last eight years, Dozier has been a member of the Lee County School Board.
****
Name: James A. Middlebrooks Jr.
Age: 66
Education: Master of science in education administration and counseling
Experience: Former principal of Riverdale High School and professor at Edison Community College. A total of 41 years as an educator. Now owns and operates Anything Engraveable in Fort Myers.
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Name: Jane Kuckel
Age: 65
Education: PhD in education leadership and curriculum
Experience: Has been an educator for 45 years. For the last eight years, Kuckel has been a member of the Lee County School Board. Kuckel is also an adjunct professor for Florida Gulf Coast University and Nova Southeastern University.
****
Name: Raymond Rodrigues
Age: 38
Education: Bachelor of arts in political science
Experience: Has a son entering kindergarten in the Lee County School District, and a mix of public and private work experience. Rodrigues currently works as Florida Gulf Coast University’s College of Arts and Sciences budget manager, and previously worked in finance for General Electric and Vastera.
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Dozier and Kuckel have experience spending billions of tax money.
http://budget.leeschools.net/budgets.htm
I plan to vote for Middlebrooks and Rodrigues to reduce wasteful spending if they become part of a board majority with Chilmonik.
Government over-regulating and over-spending create unintended consequences.
When government assumes many duties, it's tougher to do the important ones right.
#1 Posted by jacktanner on July 4, 2008 at 7:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Rodriguez would be a definite asset to the Lee County School board.
The rubber stamping of Browder's agenda by the current school board needs to stop!
Moreover, having someone with Rodriguez's financial background would benefit the runaway spending and financial mis-management of the current
school board
#2 Posted by AuH20 on July 5, 2008 at 1:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The facts do not support the continued personal attacks that occur in these blogs. If you are SO CERTAIN that there is financial mismanagement and waste, how about you look at the dozens of financial audits done - with not ONE showing any proof of what you're looking for. It is VERY easy to sit back and point fingers at a large governmental agency and make accusations, but without any data - and I would LOVE to see Mr. Rodrigues, Mr. Middlebrooks or anyone else bring forth such evidence - all this amounts to is people looking for other ways to personally attack people. And please don't get started on board member Chilmonik's continued hints of mismanagement - he hasn't proven a thing, aside from the fact he's an uninformed elected official.
When the complainers and whiners in here - or elsewhere - bring forward hard data or evidence that money is being wasted - or worse - then it's time to have a serious discussion about it and work to remove those responsible. Until that time, get over your petty personal problems.
#3 Posted by justobserving2 on July 5, 2008 at 7:10 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Lee school district officials make it very difficult to access financial data.
I wasted many hours and dollars trying to get the data.
Support candidates for public office who will vote to make ALL government files available online to the public without fees.
Government over-regulating and over-spending create unintended consequences.
When government assumes many duties, it's tougher to do the important ones right.
#4 Posted by jacktanner on July 6, 2008 at 12:26 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I am most concerned with the high level of crony-ism (appointing cronies to positions of power) that goes on with Dr. Browder's regime. Principals and Directors and Coordinators are mostly his personal friends. It's impossible to get a promotion through merit; the only way to advance in the Lee County School District is by knowing someone who can pull strings for you and who can make a phone call and get you a better position. That is no way to run a school district of 80 thousand students and thousands of employees! Cronies tend to be mediocre. In a world-class school district, all (or even 'most' would be a good start) promotions should be merit-based, looking at quantifiable factors such as advanced degrees, years of experience, expertise in the specific field or domain, and other measurable skills.
#5 Posted by mryp on July 7, 2008 at 3:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
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