Incumbent school board member and former president Dave White believes the Oswego Board of Education should sit down and meet with the community to get the district back on track.

“I think we really need to get our house back in order. We can’t continue to go on the way we’re going.” He said that the district’s budget has been on a roller coaster ride the past few years.

White said the board of education should sit down with members of the business community, average workers, teachers, support staff and administrators, as they did during the capital project, to “figure out a price we can live with and want to pay” for the district’s budget. “As a community, we’re obligated to teach children,” White said. “We need cooperation not confrontation.”

The board member stressed the need to stabilize the district’s budget. “Every time we have a crisis, we round up the usual suspects,” White said, noting the theater and music departments always take hits when it is time to cut from the budget. He also stated that the district needs to increase its graduation rates.

“Somewhere along the lines, we failed the kids,” White said, noting that at the elementary level students must be provided with the tools and tutors they need to be able to be successful readers. White pointed to the new remedial reading program the district is implementing in the upcoming school year for incoming ninth-graders as a tool for improvement.

White thinks that it’s obvious that the district will have to take another look  at reconfiguration and that the board is going to have to sit down to evaluate declining enrollment.

“I’d like to sell the ed center too,” White said. “I can’t see selling the ed center and putting administrators in different schools.” He said that a plan will need to be developed to map out what do with administrators in the district before selling the education center located on East First Street.

One of White’s biggest complaints is how difficult it is, at times, to get answers from administrators in the district  — the lack of information totally amazes him. “I think we need better communication from people in the administration to the board (and) to the public,” he said. “People who are paying the bills have a right to know. ... The more open you are in government, the better people feel and the more they trust you.”

White is not going to change anytime soon and stop asking questions. “I think you have the right to ask questions,” White said. “So the decisions I make are hopefully good ones.”

White believes he has been able to accomplish a great deal in  the three years he has served on the board. He is glad to see that the capital project was approved and that the goal to keep class sizes small, with less than 20 students from kindergarten through third grade, has mostly been maintained.  “One of the best things we’ve done is the universal pre-K program,” White said.

The past school board president did not name specific candidates he would choose to run with. He did say that candidates Sam Trip, Tom DeCastro and Doug Buske all came from the same background as he.

“Ultimately everybody has to sit down to pull the wagon in the same direction,” White said. “(By) working with them, with people, you know what they’re thinking.”

White said he has enjoyed the past three years he has sat on the school board and that they were interesting. “I’ve been into town politics, but this is different,” he said. “It’s been a learning experience. I’d like to do it again.”

As for his message to the voters, he said, “Do what’s right, vote for White.”