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EDUCATION

Get to know the Dysart Unified board candidates: Charles Wilson

Posted 10/8/20

In the November election there are six candidates vying for three seats on the Dysart Unified School District governing board.

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EDUCATION

Get to know the Dysart Unified board candidates: Charles Wilson

Posted

In the November election there are six candidates vying for three seats on the Dysart Unified School District governing board.

Current board members Christine A.K. Pritchard and Jay Leonard are seeking reelection, while member Jennifer Tanner chose not to run.

The candidates running are Ms. Pritchard, Mr. Leonard, Rhiannon Miett, Jo Grant, Chrystal Chaffin and Charles Wilson.

The Surprise Indpenenedent will feature each candidate leading up to the election.

Get to know Mr. Wilson here: 

Q: Please list your 3-5 major priorities for the district and how you plan to address each of them?

A: There are things I would like to influence. Dysart has a gradebook system that doesn’t work well for everyone. It’s 60% test scores, 10% classroom work, 20% projects and 10% final exams. And certain people don’t have projects or things to put in there and that classroom needs to be expanded. If you made the classroom work worth 30% or even 40% that would be good.
I never saw anyone fail because they didn’t do their homework, they failed because they didn’t learn anything. Testing, I feel, is essential and you need to test all the time and not a big, elaborate test. You can throw in little tests here and there. You need to look at them and see how the student is doing and if they do well on the test. The tests need to be teacher authentic because the teacher knows what’s going on.
I would like to cut back on things teachers have to do and give them more time to teach and especially cut back on meetings building administrators have to do. Administrators should be out of the office and in the classrooms while instruction is going on.

Q: What is your occupational background?
A: I taught for 25 years retired from Dysart at Willow Canyon predominantly taught English and also taught back in the old days when there was business and transferred into computers, and I am not real strong in that area. When I was certified, you had to have 36 hours in a course. I had business and English and history. Although I did finish up in my last two years at Willow, I transferred to teaching American and world history. I had been teaching junior English for 10 years and wanted to do something different.
Curriculum on there and if I stayed there I would have to learn something completely new and I can do history and so I switched there.

SmartSchools I retired at the end of 2016 and stayed in same classroom and worked for Dysart end of 16 and smart school end of 17th.

Q: How do you plan to address the budgetary issues the district faces?
A: Major budgetary priorities are as follows: academics, staffing, student services should be funded at current levels, if possible, or close to current if we are underfunded. If cuts should be necessary, classroom should be the last area touched.

Q: What are your thoughts on the innovation and the district as education takes on an even bigger technological role?
A: Things are always changing and even as a teacher I always had to learn the new ways curriculum was being taught to students. It is just what happens now with technology and we are changing with it.