Name: Michael C. Helbert
Age: 56
Occupation: Attorney
Education: B.A., University of Kansas, 1972; J.D., University of Kansas, 1975
Family: I am married to Sandra Helbert. I have one child and two stepchildren. My wife, my child, and my step-children were all educated in Emporia. I came to Emporia in 1975 to practice in the law firm of Atherton, Hurt, and Sanderson. I started my own firm in 1978, and have been self-employed since that time.
Q Why are you running for school board?
AI believe that public education is essential to a properly functioning community, state, and nation. We are faced with incredible challenges in our school system and I would like to help this community face those challenges.
Q If elected, what are your goals?
AMy goals are to maximize the educational opportunities for our children. By that I mean that I want to make sure that students at every level of achievement are obtaining a fair share of the resources allocated to our educational system. I want to make sure that we are providing our students with the tools they need to succeed in life, and do it in a fiscally responsible way.
Q How will the Emporia school board be better with you as a member?
AI think that my passion for public education will be the most important asset that I bring to the Board. I believe that I can bring a critical analysis to the questions that will appear before the board. I also believe that my occupation has given me the opportunity to work with every socio-economic level of our community, and that this experience will be an asset to our community. I hope that my education, my experience in the community, my experience as a parent, a small businessman, and a taxpayer will be of value to the board.
Q What do you think is the biggest issue facing the Emporia school board and how would you resolve it?
AI do not know if there is just one issue that can be called the “biggest” facing the board. I believe that we are faced with two major challenges. One challenge is finances. That can only be addressed by continued efforts at fiscal responsibility and maximizing the amount of revenue that we can obtain from the U.S. government and other resources. The other challenge is more difficult and has no easy answer. It is how do we assimilate large numbers of non-English speaking people into our educational system. Traditionally, this has meant dealing with Spanish-speaking children and the Spanish-speaking parents of children. However, we now have other ethnic groups that may create additional challenges. How to fulfill the mandates of Federal and State law in teaching the children in our district who do not use English as a primary language and, at the same time, providing the needed and deserved educational opportunities to the English speaking children of our district is a huge challenge. This challenge involves the allocation of our monetary resources, as well as managing the personnel necessary to accomplish the goal of providing superior educational opportunities to all children. I believe that we must make this the primary commitment of the community and use all community resources available.
Q What should the Emporia school board’s priorities be when it plans a budget?
ALike all service industries, the largest expenditures in the school budget are salaries, payroll taxes, and employee benefits. Consequently, the first priority must be insuring that there is sufficient money available to meet those needs. That is critical when the negotiations between the district and the teachers have not been completed by the time the budget must be adopted to be in compliance with state law.
Q Looking to the future, what are three things you would like to see happen in the Emporia school district?
AA. More money available for one-on-one teaching to those children who want and need additional attention.
B. A complete plan to provide mentoring to new teachers. New teachers are critical to our school system and the turn-over rate of new teachers is too high.
C. Working with other community education resources to provide more opportunities.
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