DONNA LASINSKI IS on AAPS Superintendent Jeanice Kerr Swift’s Blue Ribbon Advisory commission, a group of parents who meet with Swift monthly to give her feedback and counsel. Lasinski is polite and personable. She’s tough, too, and doesn’t shy away from being challenged or from pointed questions. She doesn’t lose her composure.
Should the teachers have a contract?
“Absolutely.”
What about getting rid of that third of any district’s teacher cohort whom U.S. Sec. of Education Arne Duncan has said shouldn’t be in the classroom, the bad teachers?
“If there were a way to spot the bad teachers, I would get rid of them all. I would stand behind engaging student thought and feedback in the teacher evaluation process at every level. The tenure process needs to be strea-lined, and quicker.”
When asked if any AAPS staffer had encouraged her to run she said no.
“Glenn Nelson asked me to run,” she says. “He told me he admired my involvement with the schools.”
Glenn Nelson has donated $200 to her campaign, according to campaign finance disclosure forms filed with the County Clerk. Current BOE Trustee Andy Thomas must admire her, as well; he donated $1,000 to her campaign.
Lasinski could, conceivably be called a Millage Maven. Over just the past five years, she has supported millages drives that asked parents for an additional $124 million in funding for the public schools. She has worked on every millage proposed by the AAPS over the past half a dozen years. That, alone, could cause voters to shy away from her candidacy. However, she is more than just a tax-and-spend candidate. For starters, she earned her MBA from Northwestern.
“I really try to listen,” she says. “I try to take complex issues and make then understandable.”
One way to do that is to increase transparency and implement better financial controls. Lasinski says she supports zero-based budgeting and putting the AAPS’s checkbook and P-card statements online for parents to see.
That the union refused to endorse her was a rude awakening. “In my interview with the union, there were no questions about students. The job of a BOE member is to understand what it means to be a high-performing student.”