Issue Position: Education

Issue Position

Education is a big deal to me due to the fact that I am the first college graduate in my family. I have been very fortunate to be able to help all five of my children get college degrees; two have Doctorates in Pharmacy and work in our family businesses. We are very fortunate to have two excellent schools of higher education in southern Utah with Dixie State College and SUU. These schools are cooperating very well together on a number of fronts and have different missions, which allows the students here in our area to have excellent higher education choices. They also are a big catalyst for economic development in southern Utah. I am a product of the public school system in Beaver, and my kids have all gone through the public school system in Iron County. I continue to hear from a number of sources that the school districts in Washington and Iron are the best in the state. I have worked very hard to stay connected to the teachers and administrators in my House District the past four years while serving in the House of Representatives. Over the past two years I have met with every school faculty in my district and most of them twice; getting their invaluable input and answering their questions. I also met weekly with the rural Superintendents at the Capitol during the session. I understand and appreciate the role that charter schools play in our public school system and also meet with their faculties and representatives so that I know and understand what their needs are as well. The charter schools in our area offer our parents and students good options from which to choose. I would love to be able to say that I could give education all the money they need, but as long as 70% of our state is in the control of the federal government, we will always have a funding issue with education. Until that changes, we need to continue to be frugal and do more with less like we have been. I like the direction that SB 64 started this year in moving towards making teachers and administrators accountable for the student outcomes that they produce, and providing more local control over our schools. This is a good first step and we need to build upon that. There was a significant amount of money that went into public education this past session. I would have preferred to see more money go to reducing the number of students in each class. A lot of the funds that were appropriated went to technology and assessment, which are needed tools, but I would like to see more resources go to reducing classroom size. I favor giving schools and parents choices and options for sex education. I much prefer to see sex education taught in the home and would hope that this is the case, but I am also realistic enough to know that this is not always so. I did vote for HB 363, primarily due to some information that I received just prior to the vote that Planned Parenthood was giving students literature that was very offensive to me. I did not learn until after the bill went from the House to the Senate that the Utah State School Board had already corrected this situation. I do support the Governor's veto and think that it was the right thing to do. I think that this entire exchange was healthy, and that further discussion is not a bad thing. As a general rule, I am always in favor of local control. I trust our elected school boards, mayors, city councils, county commissioners, etc., to make good decisions. I am constantly looking for ways in the Legislature to give local officials more power to act in a way that they think will most benefit the constituents that they represent.

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