Only handful of people showed up for the Oxford School Board candidate forum held at the middle school Monday night, but there was no shortage of good questions.
Sponored by the League of Women Voters Oakland Area (LWVOA) and Oxford Leader, the forum gave incumbent Colleen Schultz and challenger Sue Tombrella an opportunity to answer a wide range of questions from the newspaper and audience members.
Challenger Alan Weber did not attend the forum as he was out of town, but a written statement he prepared was read during the forum’s opening.
Two, four-year seats on the Board of Education are up for grabs in the Tuesday, May 2 election.
Oxford Community Television Channel 19 was there to videotape the candidate night. It will be rebroadcast every night at 7 p.m. from Friday, April 28 through Monday, May 1.
Here’s what the candidates had to say:

Biographies
Schultz: 44 years old. Lived in Oxford for 19 years with husband Tom. Two daughters attending OHS, one daughter at Lakeville Elementary. Currently works at St. Joseph Catholic Church in the Christian Outreach Department. Serves as a trustee on the Oxford/Orion FISH board. Served on school board since 1998. Taken almost 40 hours of continuing education through the Michigan Association of School Boards in the areas of curriculum, policy, finance, labor relations, community relations and parliamentary procedures. Currently serves as the school board’s treasurer.
Tombrella: 44 years old. Lived in Oxford Village since 1992 with husband Stan. One son attending OHS. Employed as the vice president of Ajuba International, a health care management company. Twenty-five years experience in the business world. Former member of Lakeville PTO. Volunteer with Athletic Boosters. Youth Director at Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Oxford.
Weber: 23 years old. A 2001 OHS graduate who will be graduating from Oakland University this month with a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Political Science. Applying to the University of Michigan Flint to pursue a master’s degree in Public Administration. His ‘ultimate goal? is to attend law school. Competed on the football, baseball and cross country teams during his high school career. Former Clear Lake Elementary student.

Reason for running
Schultz: ‘I’ve been a board member for seven years and feel that my years of experience will benefit the district with the upcoming challenges, both financially and with the changes in the high school curriculum. I’ve lived in Oxford for 19 years and have a vested interest in the schools. I have three daughters who are students in the school district. Schools are a critical part of a community’s development.?
‘I take my school board position very seriously and feel that I have the right qualities and experience to make a good school board member. I’m honest, hard working, direct, a good listener and most of all ? I want what’s in the best interest for the kids in Oxford.?
Tombrella: ‘As parents, you know the pressures our children face every day. The need to fit in, academic challenges, peer pressure and life after graduation. As community members, you understand the pressures we face as a district, budget reductions and limitations, increases in educational requirements from the state and lastly, maintaining the ability to keep our children challenged academically and athletically. Members of the community, these are our problems to face together. The time has come for us to work to address these issues head on, meet them with confidence and endurance, and create an environment for our children to excel. As I stated earlier, our children face enough challenges each day, we must not let them worry about operating expenses, state demands and potential athletic cutbacks.?
Weber: ‘The question has arisen within the community of why I believe that I am qualified for this truly influential position that in part determines many individuals? lives including students and staff. Because I am a recent graduate of the district and a college student, my perspective incorporates aspects that are conducive to the task of preparing our students for their future in a university setting or real life experiences. This I personally believe allows me to look at proposals and ideas in a different educational and worldly manner. I also perceive myself to be a mature adult but still having the ability to be a mediator between the views of the current students and adults of our community.?
‘I have chosen to run in this district because of the high educational standards that they have strived for and the exceptional education that I have received within the district.?

Sports and extracurricular activities
Schultz: ‘I think sports brings fans into the buildings and I think that we have to be very careful to remember our kids are students first. They’re student-athletes. I think sports is very important and I think that we need to continue to combine and offer as many options for our kids as possible. I think we really have to keep in focus that academic achievement is for our students first. Parents ask us and charge us with educating their children.?
Tombrella: ‘I agree. I think that our children do go to school to learn, however I do feel that extracurricular activities are a huge part of what a child needs to experience within their overall educational experience. I think that if a child does not have the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities they’re really sold short in life. Extracurricular activities teach so much to our children that reading, writing and arithmetic don’t address. Don’t get me wrong, reading, writing and arithmetic are critical, but sports teaches a child to understand how to learn in a team environment, to participate in a team environment. It teaches them sportsmanship, how to belong to something, how to play as a team. I think that all of those things (give students life lessons and life values that) make you a better person. I think that we have a great extracurricular program presently. I think we certainly have room to grow . . . I think we need to look for different ways to generate revenue so that we can fund certain things like a swim team, like a tennis team.?
Weber: ‘I would like to assert my stance that sports are part of the educational process and allow students to become more socially inspired and willing participants in the educational system. I hold to the idea that we must strive to find ways to keep extracurricular activities and sports active within our school system to keep our students more dynamically aware. We must find ways to accomplish this by rallying the community as a whole to get involved and sustain our educational district.?

Privatizing school services
Schultz: ‘From the budget end it looks really good. The thing that concerns me with our district if we went to privatization, many of our employees are parents in our district. Behind all those jobs are real people and they’re real families and they’re real mortgages and car payments. That is a big concern for me. Although we’d be saving money I don’t think we can make decisions based solely on money for our district. We need to look at what’s in the best interest for the district as a whole and the whole family.?
Tombrella: ‘I don’t think it’s an option I’m in total favor of. I think it would definitely have a detrimental effect on our student body as well as our community as opposed to dealing with where we are right now. I think privatization is an issue that has to be dealt with very delicately. I think it would have huge impact on our students, the relationships that have been established.?

Is the district doing enough for the learning disabled and the highly gifted students?
Tombella: ‘I do think that we do a fairly decent job with regard to learning disabled children and children with handicaps. I think that we mainstream them into our district. We have paraprofessionals that come in and work with them one-on-one and allow them to be a part of everyday educational opportunities. I think that is important. With regard to our gifted children, I’m a huge promoter of challenging the kids to achieve more and try to do more. I think some of these guidelines and extra requirements the state is promoting are going to help increase and challenge some of our gifted students a little bit more today.?
Schultz: ‘I don’t think that we can ever rest on what we have right now. I think that we always need to be looking to the future and working on figuring out what we have to do for kids at both ends of the spectrum. How we can continue to give support to kids that have special needs even when we have budget constraints and I think we need to look at what kind of curriculum we need to offer for kids who are higher achievers.?

Creative ways to raise more revenue
Schultz: ‘I think thinking outside the box is a good idea and I think that the time has come for school districts to look at other ways, but I also think that when you’re dealing with people’s children you need to be very, very cautious on how we sell our name and what we sell our name to. People have approached me, specifically, about possibly putting wind-generated power sources up by our high school. I know our district has been approached in the past about a cell tower and a water tower and I don’t think those are necessarily bad ideas, but I think that we have to be really cautious about which way we go and in what direction.?
Tombrella: ‘This is an area I feel very strongly about and I think it is critical and essential that we think outside the box. I don’t think that the state demands are going to lessen. I don’t think that the financial situation is going to be any different. Three years from now I think it’s going to get worse. I think for that reason we have to be very creative and we have to start thinking outside of the box with regard to where we’re going to go. . . I agree with Colleen in that we need to be very cautious and careful. We pride ourselves with our schools, our school name and our district, so I don’t think that we can treat this lightly. There are many, many ways right now that I can think to increase revenue in small ways. We can start charging for our facilities. We can potentially look at some of the excess land that we have. The old football field. There’s many things we can do (to) increase revenue coming in as opposed to looking at constantly how we have to cut back.?

When to vote: Tuesday, May 2
Polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m.

Where to vote:
In Oxford
Precinct 1:
28 N. Washington St.
(Vets Hall)

Precincts 2 & 7:
109 Pontiac St.
(Oxford Elementary)

Precincts 3 & 5:
790 S. Lapeer Rd.
(Oxford Free
Methodist Church)
Precinct 4:
1550 W. Drahner Rd.
(Christ the King)

Precinct 6:
530 Pontiac St.
(Oxford Public Library)

In Addison
Precinct 1:
23 E. Elmwood St. (Rowland Hall)

Precinct 2:
1440 Rochester Rd. (Addison Twp. Complex)

Precinct 3:
4026 Forest St.
(Fire Station #1)