Candidate for Harrington School Board: Tony Hamilton

Age: 67

Family: (Wife) Colleen Hamilton, (Daughter and Son in law) Micheal and Selena Lauridsen, (Grandson) Adyix Lauridsen

Day Job: Pastor Harrinton Community Church

Relevent or Volunteer Experience: 19 years Transportation/Maintenance Supervisor Harrington School District

Profile questions (please respond in 100 words or less per answer):

Question 1: For the past two years, Harrington has entered a co-op with Lind-Ritzville for athletics. Did the school board make the correct decision when approving that move? Should that co-op be continued in the future?

This was a hard decision for our current school board to make. When our school board made the decision to enter the sports combination the district did not have the student numbers to field several sports teams This decision allowed students to have an opportunity to play sports that the district would not have been able to do on our own. This decision does come with a cost, extra work for the transportation department, and much more time is spent on communication between schools. I hope in the future our district can return to having our own sports teams.

Question 2: The school district saw a sharp decline in enrollment from last year to this year. Is this concerning to you? What would you attribute the decline to, and what measures, if any, could the school board take to address this trend?

I don't believe I would call this a trend. Obviously, the sports combination with Ritzville has some bearing on enrollment. It makes for a very long day for a middle school student to live in Davenport, attend school in Harrington, and play sports in Ritzville. But I also feel that people are losing faith in public schools in general. Harrington School district has an excellent caring staff who are still educating children in a way that will help them do well in life. We need to do a better job of communicating that truth with our population here in Lincoln County.

Question 3: State-mandated sexual education has been a topic of debate on the Harrington School Board in the past year. Is the current state model of sex ed age-appropriate? Why or why not?

I have not seen all the curriculum. But I really do not see the necessity of teaching the early grades such as kindergarten through fifth or sixth grade. I have seen some of the lesson titles for older students and I am not comfortable with what agenda they seem to represent being taught in our schools. I feel that this is an area that all concerned parties such as administration, school staff and especially parents need to get up to speed with. This is an important issue, and our children and their children will bear the consequences if we get this wrong.