Danville School Board Race – Update #1

There’s usually no excitement or fireworks in a Danville School Board election and this one’s going right with that trend. Let’s take a look at the candidates…

This hasn’t been a good couple of years for the Danville Public School System. They’ve had botched school closings, major discipline problems, budget questions and a new superintendent who wanted things his way.

There’s three open seats in the year’s School Board election and we’ve got two incumbents and three challengers running for them. George Wilson and Philip Campbell are the incumbents in the race with Rebecca Bolton choosing not to run again. The three challengers are Henry Walker, Steven Gould and Sharon Dones.

I’m basing this rundown on what I saw of these candidates at the Danville Voters League and the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce’s forums, as well as the candidates’ written answers to questions that you can find on the Chamber’s website.

Let’s take a look at the candidates along with their strengths & weaknesses. We’ll start with the incumbents…

George Wilson:

• Strengths: Over 16 years on the school board. Has served as chairman.
• Weaknesses: There’s an undercurrent of anti-incumbent feelings floating around and it’s quite justified with the school system’s recent failures. Wilson’s school board record has been quite passive on most issues and that’s not playing well with me, because I feel that a strong active school board is needed to solve the problems. He also was unprepared at a recent budget meeting and suggested a closed session to get more information. That idea was shot down by the board’s attorney quickly and correctly.
• Overview: Wilson’s quiet demeanor is not what’s needed now. Even with his tenure on the board, I’m finding it hard to push for his re-election so far.

Philip Campbell:

• Strengths: Very strong personality and strong knowledge of the school system. He’s got a strong take-charge attitude in this campaign and I like it.
• Weaknesses: None that I can detect.
• Overview: I’m highly impressed by Campbell’s ideas and performance. He’s willing to directly talk about the problems. He’s an incumbent that should get another term.

Now let’s look at the three challengers.

Steven Gould:

• Strengths: Very outspoken on his criticism of the problems and has specific ideas on how to get things changed. He’s soft-spoken but quite forceful on his ideas.
• Weaknesses: I can’t see any.
• Overview: Gould came out swinging from the beginning and he hasn’t let up on his campaigning. Unless he implodes (and he’s not going to), he’s on his way to a seat on the school board.

Sharon Dones:

• Strengths: She’s pushing her campaign towards staff retention which is important and will play well with current staff.
• Weaknesses: No name recognition and no education experience. No “outside her base” campaigning that I have seen. One minute it’s like hearing a good friend talk, and the next it’s like a cold robot talking to you.
• Overview: I was originally only lukewarm towards Dones at first, then moved to her side based on her opening statement at the Danville Voters League forum. During her responses, I cooled back to lukewarm. I think she’d do a good job on the school board, but only as a “that person”. I want some strength and tough words from her before I cast my vote. To have a chance, she’s got to get the old white people voting bloc to support her and I see no evidence of that yet.

Henry Walker:

• Strengths: He’s definitely got the education credentials with his classroom experience. He;s got some decent ideas, too.
• Weaknesses: He blurts out his ideas and discussion points in a startling way at times. He also has relatively low name recognition
• Overview: I’m leaning towards Walker for my third and final vote, but he’s not there yet. He needs to push his “get out the vote” effort to make it in.

And there you have my take on the five candidates. Danville has never seemed to give a damn about school board elections and they’re not this time either. So far, I’m strongly behind Philip Campbell & Steven Gould and they’re heading for the SouthsideCentral endorsement. As for the third vote, I’ve got Henry Walker slightly ahead of Sharon Dones and George Wilson but I’m not at the point where I’ve made my decision to endorse position #3… and I don’t know if I will, honestly.

You’ve got my opinions on the candidates, so now it’s time for you to form our own opinions and break Danville’s apathy about the school board. Learn about these candidates and vote for your choice on Tuesday, May 6th.