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Incumbent Kevin Patrick seeks second district school board seat.

Kevn Patrick.
Photo provided.

Voters in the second district of the Huntington County Community School Corporation's board of trustees have the choice of returning the board's president for a second term or selecting a newcomer to serve on the board.

Kevin Patrick, who has served as the board's president for three years, is up against newcomer Jon A. Moore on the ballot.

Although the school board election is held at the same time as the Huntington County primary election, the school board is a nonpartisan body and its members are not chosen through political primaries. The winner of the school board election this spring wins a spot on the board.

Patrick and Moore are running in the second district, which includes Warren and Clear Creek townships and part of Huntington Township.

Kevin Patrick

Age: 47
Address: Huntington
Current occupation: Vice president of a local bank
Family: Cyndy, wife; daughters Tyffany, Mariah and Kayla
Office sought: District 2 School Board
Political experience: Completing first term as Huntington School Board member, president of the board for the last three years of term.

What are your qualifications for the office that you seek?

I have a passion to make sure that every kid in this county gets the best education possible. I am willing to listen to anyone who wants to discuss our kids and their education. I will invest the time to understand the issues and then help to develop policy to make it happen.

How can you, as an elected official, help local government operate efficiently as revenues decline?

We must look at everything that we do and see if it can be improved. We must get away from silos such as school, city government or county government. We must all get together and see if we can do things differently as a community to improve all of us. I met with a City Department head to discuss how the school corporation buys fuel. They changed the way they bought fuel and saved $20,000.

We as a school corporation are moving in the right direction. We are getting better every year in relation to our kids. We must continue in that direction. We have to look to other areas such as transportation, energy and economic development. We continue to focus on reducing expenses and we will, but what happens if more businesses and industries come in our community? We need to become more aggressive in our approach.

Aside from budget woes, what do you see as the major challenges facing the office you seek? How would you meet that challenge?

We continue to see unfunded federal and state mandates that do nothing except create negative feelings in our classrooms. It's true that economic challenges we are experiencing are far reaching. Families are hurting.

Our teachers are working harder and smarter than ever but the ever-changing environment makes it hard. They are becoming overwhelmed.

Technology is changing quickly, and yet it takes money to keep up.

We talk about rigor and relevance in education but relationships should be our greatest priority. We must get the kids engaged in their own educations.

Many of the things that we do in school every day, we never take the time to explain to the kids why we do it.

I have stated many times - it takes an entire community to raise kids. We must find ways to engage our community. That is what I will be striving for if elected to another term.

For information about the other candidate for this office click on the government link on the left side of this page.