Election Sept. 8: Vote for Hemingway, Yates, Liebig

Captions: From left, Phil Hemingway, running for a four-year term on Iowa City Community School District Board of Directors; Tom Yates, also running for a four-year term on the board; and Chris Liebig, running for the two-year term vacated by Tuyet Borauh when she resigned.

While many recently graduated attorneys struggle to find work and English and fine arts majors wait tables, there is skilled work available, but not enough skilled workers to do it. The construction industry is surging and would surge more, and so would our economy, but for the lack of carpenters and plumbers.

That’s why the Iowa City Community School District’s elimination of the former Home-Building Program makes no sense. Iowa City students used to build houses near our neighborhood. I know, because one of my daughter Sarah’s best friends in elementary school lived in one. It was well built and located in the Village Green neighborhood not far from our house.

Phil Hemingway is the only school board candidate running for a four-year term who has strongly emphasized vocational education as a component of junior high and high school education.

Vocational education is not just for average students, either. Students invited to participate in the Belin-Blank Talented and Gifted Program at the University of Iowa also like to work with their hands. Our daughter Sarah, as a child, would cut out freehand outfits for her teddy bears and sew them up. They would always fit. Later she designed and made jewelry, clothes, and successfully sold them to a boutique downtown.

Jesse, our son, started with Legos, built rocket ships and aircraft carriers, graduated to bicycles and bicycle tools, began building bicycles, and then advanced to computers, computer parts, and began building computers. Now he’s on to cameras, lenses, and photography as a serious pursuit. He studies online and takes courses in photography, always wanting to learn more about his favorite topic.

Both adults have always been very hands on. AP courses and vocational courses do mix. They don’t have to, but sometimes they do.

We need a school board candidate who understands that. Phil Hemingway, who works with his hands for a living, and whose daughter Monica took a lot of AP courses at City High and is now studying engineering at the University of Iowa, takes education of all sorts seriously and also keeps a watchful eye on how the district spends taxpayer funds.

Please consider voting for Phil Hemingway and Tom Yates for four-year terms on the ICCSD board, and Chris Liebig for the two-year term on the board. We need school board members who can think for themselves and exercise critical oversight. Phil Hemingway, Tom Yates, and Chris Liebig have demonstrated to me, at least, that they possess critical thinking skills and independent judgment. The board members who serve now have done little more than serve as a rubber stamp for Supt. Steve Murley’s mismanagement of district finances.