Steve Berrey

I received the following letter from district six candidate, Steve Berrey.

Mr. Guerrieri,

My name is Steve Berrey and yes, I am the husband of a teacher, the father of five children - four of which have graduated or are attending DCPS. No professional development is NOT what I stood for. I don't know if you got that from somewhere else but it didn't come from me

I want to massively downsize the bureaucracy that is 1701 prudential drive... I want to restore teacher control of the classroom and end social promotion - for the students and the administrators that have often failed as principals so we move them up. I want to give teachers more accessibility to successful training - not the one-size-fits-all Shultz Center.

My business background is secondary to my concerns for our economy. We cannot continue to lose residents to Clay, St. Johns and Nassau counties due to our poor schools.

But when a teacher is told to "stop writing referrals" that makes no sense to me. When a principal is told to "not suspend so many students" you handcuff both the teacher and the principal from doing their jobs ... Then we blame them when the test scores go down.

It's time we ENFORCED our dress code; our truancy policy; and our attendance policy. It's time we let the teacher TEACH ... Not instruct or baby-sit

Thank you for this forum. I only wish I had found it earlier.

Steve Berrey

I completely agree with all of Mr. Berreys points and if he wins I hope he can follow through with them and doesn’t get bogged down in the massive bureaucracy that inhabits 1701 Prudential Drive, like some ghoul might inhabit a crypt. If somebody else wins I hope they enact Mr. Berreys ideas and we need lot’s of ideas. A colleague earlier today when talking about the district said, we have more issues than Time magazine. I didn't disagree.

Finally I believe I read in the Folio that Mr. Berrey was for increased professional development, and I admit profession development does have it’s place though the way the district does it leaves much to be desired. If I misconstrued that or even plain out got it wrong (it’s been known to happen) I apologize.