Virginia Cannon, Concord School Board Candidate

Virginia (Gina) Cannon

Age (as of Election Day)

58

Position sought (including district number if applicable)

Concord School Board

Party Affiliation

Independent

Family

Married with one daughter

Does anyone in your family work in politics or government?

No

Education

BA from Dartmouth, JD from Vermont Law School

Occupation

Retired

Previous or Current Elected or Appointed Office

Concord School Board

Campaign website

N/A

Why are you seeking elective office?

I’d like to continue to work on bringing transparency and accountability to the school board. We’ve done some good work in the past few years. We’re headed in the right direction and we’ve brought great people in to the district. Now we need to support our administrators and teachers in bringing all the great initiatives to fruition.

The single most pressing issue facing our (board, district, etc.) is _______, and this is what I intend to do about it.

As we try to recover a sense of normalcy following the pandemic, it is of paramount importance to support our teachers on a daily basis. We need to make sure they have the right tools and administrative support to bring students back to academic and behavioral expectations.

What are the critical differences between you and the other candidates seeking this post?

I’m not sure that I know enough about my competition to be able to answer this question.

If you are a challenger, in what way has the current board or officeholder failed the community (or district or constituency)

N/A

Describe the other issues that define your campaign platform.

We need to move forward with plans for the middle school. Right now those plans aren’t even fully on paper. There are so many unknown variables at this point in the process. However, we need to keep pressing forward because the physical building that is Rundlett continues to degrade and does not serve our middle students well.

What accomplishments in your past would you cite as evidence you can handle this job?

One of the things the Policy Committee has accomplished is that we have worked incredibly hard to bring our policies up to date. Our state legislators have been very active with legislating new requirements for school boards and schools and our committee has diligently kept pace.

The best advice ever shared with me was:

What else would you like voters to know about yourself and your positions?

I think that the diversity of thought on the board is one of its strengths, but it makes it imperative for members to keep an open mind, truly listen to their colleagues and the administration, allow ourselves to be informed by opinions different from our own and work collegially towards optimal governance of the district.