There are five Pinellas County School Board seats up for election this year, four of them to be on the ballot later this month.

On Tuesday night at a candidate forum hosted by the Historic Kenwood Neighborhood Association in St. Petersburg, representatives from only the two at-large countywide seats were invited to give their pitch to the audience assembled at the Metro Wellness Center, and even one of them, District 3 countywide incumbent Peggy O'Shea, wasn't present (she's was recently diagnosed with breast cancer).

O'Shea is being challenged by Kent Curtis, a USFSP professor perhaps best known for being the founder of the Edible Peace Patch Project, a nonprofit organization that teaches kids about local, organic, sustainable urban gardening and nutrition. Curtis gave a brief but intense speech on his concern about the quality of schools in the county.

"It concerns me because I know that our public schools are places where our communities are remade each and every day. If we want to live up to the promise of democracy, where every child has an opportunity, we want to fulfill the promise of merit that our country promises to every child. If we want a strong and healthy economy, and strong and harmonious neighborhoods, we have got to succeed in our public schools." 

Curtis said he will enhance policies in the school system to deliver career training, technical training and apprentice training for graduates not headed to college. And he assailed the idea that a failing grade given to a school doesn't mean anything, that it's simply a one-time test, as he says some school board candidates have characterized it. "It says something to that child. It says something to that community. And parents like me do not put their kids in schools that have an 'F' to them." 

Referencing the fact that the county has some of the worst schools in terms of reading scores in the state, Curtis called that "absolutely unacceptable," and said he would do whatever was necessary to change that trajectory because "the kids deserve it. Our future demands it."

District 2 incumbent Terry Krassner said that though there have been tough times within the district, she feels that the tide is turning. "I feel like we really are moving forward," she says. But she also recognized that the reputation of the district has taken a beating in recent years. She said that the district is providing more choices for career technical programs than ever before, and that the graduation rate is getting better.

Her opponent is Chris Tauchnitz, a software engineer and husband of a middle school teacher in the district. He said that schools are failing "not because of bad teacher, bad administrators or bad facilities. They're failing because we have no parental involvement."

He also said he has a policy dispute with Krassner for supporting the school board's support for charging "Level II" volunteers $50 for fingerprinting and FBI screening. "If we don't have the money in Pinellas County to allow volunteers to just volunteer, we have an issue," he declared, adding that he believes the total cost is approximately $200,000. "If we can't find $200,000 to offset that? [Then] we have a problem."

Tauchnitz says he wants to expand fundamental schooling in the district. Those are schools that provide a structured environment with a focus on student responsibility and self-discipline and require more engagement from parents than at traditional public schools. He blasted Krassner for opposing the expansion of such schools, but said she benefits from them directly because her daughter child attends such a facility. 

All of these candidates and others are scheduled to participate in a debate on Thursday with the Suncoast Tiger Bay Club in St. Pete.

This article appears in Jul 31 – Aug 6, 2014.