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Meet The Candidate

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Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
May
Year
1974
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

Tanya Israel ñas annyunced I her candidacy for a iposition I on the Ann Arbor Board of I Education in the June 10 elecI tion. I She submitted the following I statement. I "Over the past few years, we, I as a community, have witI nessed several failures in our I educational system. Capable I children gradúate without the I academie skills essential for I economie independence. I Academically successful chilI dren bècome disenchanted I with the school system and I drop out. Young people find I vocational training ineffecI tive. Too many handicapped I children are not receiving inI struction. Too many children fear assault and conflict and have no faith in just discipline. Drug abuse in the secondary schools continúes. "In our frustration and fear, we lose sight of the fact that these problems are not: unique to Ann Arbor. Many of them are reflections of the times in which we live. It is time for us all - teachers, ach ministrators, board members, : parents, students, and other concerned citizens - to stop blaming one another and start working together. If solutions! are to be found, it will be through mutual trust and cooperation, not mistrust and altercations. "The teacher is the cornerstone of a child's education. The Board of Education must make sure that the numbers of good teachers in our school system continúes to increase. Hiring procedures for new personnel and staff development procedures can be improved. "Academie and social failure begins in the elementary school. Each child should enter secondary school with a self image of sucicess and personal worth. We should direct more of our resources toward this end and we should use these resources creatively. In particular we should invest more in acquiring the ser-, vices of volunteers and paraprofessionals. "Children and staff need to know where they will be attending school. We have not planned well and we have not followed through on good plans when we have had them. The adoption of Plan F is a case in point. The community owes the dedicated , staff and students at Clague the opportunity to test thel middle school concept. There should be no busing of the sort involved in Plan F without the positive involvement of the children riding the buses and their families. . "Ann Arbor should lead in implementing the Michigan Mandatory Special Education Act requiring school districts to provide all handicapped children, from birth to age 25, with an educational program We have not provided programs for learning disabled children or for pre-school and post-high school handicapped children. "Even in times of inflation, good education is the best investment of our money. Not only is a good educational program desirable, but the lack of one will be more costly to the community in the long run. If I am elected to the Board of Education, I shall do my best to see to it that the human and financial resources of this school system! are fairly distributed to the entire community." Mrs. Israel, 38, a former special education teacher, lives at 2037 Winsted with her husband Jerold and their three children. A resident of j Ann Arbor for 13 years, she has been employed as Director of the Association for Children with Social and Learning Difficulties, and as a supervisor of student teachers for Eastern Michigan Üniversity. ] She has served on the Board of the League of Women Voters, the Lawton P.T.O. Board and the Elections Proposals Committee. She is presently ser ving on the Citizens advisory Committee for Special Educational Needs.