As far as I am concerned, and based upon what I know and have seen from this Board of Education, if she’s unseated then a wholesale flight of parents from Toledo or the TPS is entirely warranted. You can’t run a school system based upon substandard education purchased by ever-increasing costs of labor. Within 20 years, at the current rate of degradation, it will only make sense to pay teachers and administrators to just stay home at half pay, and then put all the children into charter schools with the rest of the money. That’s effectively what we have now, isn’t it? We pay teachers and administrators to NOT educate. It’s just a “union bribe machine”.

I’ll attend the fundraiser, and I’ll vote for her, but I harbor no illusions; the last Board election cycle clearly demonstrated that Toledo voters want an establishment of institutional politicians running the TPS. We need to demonstrate to Toledoans that institutional control of the school system is not in the interest of anyone but those institutions. It’s certainly not in the interest of the taxpayers.

1) by providing the most effective, visible notification to students and parents on their rights to opt-out of directory information sharing, which is a federal and state requirement;

2) to eliminate unnecessary and privacy-invading testing of juniors and seniors in high schools; and

3) to equalize the access by all recruiters in high schools as required by federal law, instead of preferential access allowed to those with infinitely larger budgets.

In support of students and parents’ rights to privacy, Darlene Fisher has taken a proactive, steady stance in these important initiatives. She has been responsive to communications, listens to the concerns in detail, understands why they are necessary, and makes certain that policy changes receive school board consideration. She demonstrates that she is an ally to students and families throughout the district.

Darlene Fisher is the memory function of the TPS Board- consisting of her more than a decade of attending the Board & their Committee meetings, researching their evolution with many open record requests [much like a true journalist], and listening to a full spectrum of community memories & perceptions in order to seek the likely behaviour patterns of the parties & groups at “play”.

Darlene always includes the students [not the simplistic "My Babies" of some] as an important component among the variables at play.

I first came to know Darlene through her involvement with various parent organizations back in 2002. I was working to change and improve the TPS Building For Success program and she was supportive of my efforts.

Darlene became a valuable asset to me for her information gathering and her ability to question illogical leadership by the previous TPS administration and school boards. Whether it involved school buildings, teaching models, discipline or achievement she was always on the side that made sense.

She is a firm supporter in the belief that the only way to turn TPS around is for the walls of Fort TPS to come down and for its leaders to be open and honest with the public in regards to all issues. Instead of being willing to accept poor performance levels, loss of students, and a never ending tax burden to Toledo, we needed a school board that would accept responsibility for it decisions and become proactive for this community, parents and students.

Since Darlene has been on the Board, they have had to be more open. It has been harder for them to continue business as usual because she wouldn’t settle for it! She has continued to push and ask the neccessary questions, not letting the board rely upon the administration for its decisions. Demanding information in a timely manner in order to make the best decision for TPS and Toledo.

Darlene is a nice, open, honest and approachable Board member. She is not a single issue leader, and reacts to all issues. At the same time she has the strength to maintain a positive direction for TPS and the backbone to speak out against those who threaten to keep TPS in the dark ages of education.

While the walls may still stand around TPS, the drawbridge is down, and we are one board member closer to an excellent public school system. We need to keep Darlene Fisher!

She promised to work for academic performance, fiscal responsibility and accountability and
community engagement.

She’s stayed true to those core values and I see progress in many areas. While she’s had to deal with some very entrenched and uncooperative people she’s kept her cool and kept at her goals.

I’ll work to see that she has another term to continue that progress.

But then, I’m concerned about the kids and don’t care a whole lot about A and B team and who likes who best. The democratic endorsement process was a great example of how that game playing is letting our kids down when that becomes more important than working for better education.

If we don’t tolerate that kind of behavior out of the kids in the school district – we ought not to put up with it in our political parties.

Darlene’s willingness to serve on the school board while being a full-time parent and a full-time employee has shown that she is committed to providing every student with a quality education.

The responsible use of funding, and maintaining the integrity of the school buildings to provide a safe and productive learning environment has been a challenging issue at best. Darlene has always met those challenges head-on, even when taking a different position may have been more acceptable to her fellow board members.

A re-election vote for Darlene Fisher will allow her to continue her exemplary work for the students in our community – her record speaks for itself.

For the last several years she has been fighting to bring educational reform to our under performing schools – for the kids that need it the most.

Honest, trustworthy, kind, loyal, can do, disciplined, principled are but a few of the adjectives I can think of when I think of Darlene Fisher.

She has my vote, she has my trust and she has any effort I can put forth to get her re-elected.

My View April 1, 2009
By Jack Ford
The Truth’s Political Columnist

Here is a portion of Ford’s article in support of the re-election of Ms. Fisher to the TPS Board.
“…Fisher has rubbed many people the wrong way. She had a long-running feud with former school board member Larry Sykes and she campaigned against me when I ran for the board seat. Having said that, I think Fisher is an asset on the TPS
board. She is prepared for committee meetings, she holds her points in debate, she has been consistent in supporting minority youth improvement. She does not have to like me for me to recognize her usefulness to TPS students.”
I have rarely seen such an honest assessment of a perceived opponent in Toledo politics. Thank you Jack for looking at the greater good.

She gave the Scott High Community full support in our effort to keep Scott open. When others wantewd to close Scott and build two small schools, she helped us.

Support her fundraiser and vote to keep her voice on TPS School Board to speak with the voice of children, community, and the future of Toledo Public Schools!

Fisher will host a fundraiser at 6:30 pm. April 14 at The Distillery at 4311 Heatherdowns Blvd.