GRAND ISLAND -- The push for new Grand Island Public Schools leadership has so far been limited to Facebook posts and whispers of who could be in the candidate pool.
However, the group behind the push has begun the process of establishing a PAC and has named its first candidate.
Leaders within the group, which includes former Grand Island Mayor Jeremy Jensen, have chosen the name “Chaperone" and put forward Hank McFarland, as a candidate for the Board of Education representing Ward B.
Wheels began turning faster when candidate Carol Schooley filed a declination of nomination form on June 20 with the Hall County Election Commission.
Schooley was set to face Tim Mayfield for the Ward B seat, but because she withdrew from the race, Mayfield is currently running unopposed.
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Because filing deadlines are past, McFarland, vice president of private banking at Pinnacle Bank, is trying to get on the ballot via petition.
A total of 680 valid signatures from Ward B voters are needed by Sept. 1 in order for McFarland's name to appear on the general election ballot.
McFarland said he expects to gather enough signatures.
“I have friends who are teachers and the horror stories that they were telling me, that’s another reason I wanted to get involved," McFarland said. "The problems are not with the teachers, the problems are not with … the students … it’s the administration and the board (of education).”
Teacher strife has been a common theme, but according to Michelle Carter, president of the Grand Island Education Association, there has been little response and fewer questions.
“We want board members who will support teachers, who will listen to teachers — absolutely will seek out teachers’ opinions,” she said. “While we have administrators, they’re not in the trenches with us every day.”
McFarland comes from a family of teachers.
His parents both taught at Grand Island Public Schools and his wife, Kathy, was an interventional counselor with the district. McFarland’s kids, he said, had a “wonderful experience at Stolley Park Elementary School” a little over a decade ago.
McFarland, himself a Grand Island graduate, remembers his time in Senior High and realizes its influence.
“Chuck Hamner, my English teacher at GISH said this: ‘Speak clearly, speak concisely and mean what you say,’” McFarland said. “When I went to college, that was the only discipline that I was really ready for — college English — because Chuck Hamner beat it into our heads the importance of knowing the fundamentals.”
McFarland noted, “Grand Island Public Schools has some wonderful things going on (but) we need to pull the rug back and find out what else has been going on.”
One solution, McFarland believes, is shifting power and having a “decentralized system” where the “teachers are left to teach.”
“If they needed help, they went to the principal; the principal knew what was going on in the classroom. That principal observed the teacher, and it was kept within the system within that small microsystem. That’s gone,” McFarland said.
Chaperone’s mission has begun to congeal, according to Jensen, a former mayor of Grand Island and the school district's boys soccer coach until he was fired last spring.
“Everybody wants what’s best for the kids, there’s no question about that,” he said.