Tarken: Passion, Leadership Highlight School Board Tenure

For Wayne Tarken, serving a three-year term on Cherry Hill’s school board was about passion.

It was a passion to serve the district that got him through the sometimes-brutal commute down the Schuylkill Expressway to committee and board meetings, and passion that kept him going, despite his opinions not always falling on the majority side.

“You can’t do this job just kind of showing up, you really have to have some passion,” Tarken said. “You need something that motivates you…you need that passion to deal with the challenges that come up.”

But that passion had started to flag toward the end of his term.

“I said to myself, it’s probably time to move on,” he said.

His loss in the November election clinched it, and Tarken will step aside officially on Jan. 3, the school board’s first-ever January reorganization meeting.

While he may have not always agreed with his fellow board members, especially when it came to budget issues, and had to weather criticism from the public microphone, Tarken said those were the valuable moments.

“Your most successful times are not really when you accomplish something, but maybe when you learn from something or dealt with adversity and stood your position,” he said. “I really feel a sense of accomplishment…even though many of my viewpoints were not in the majority.”

And given his own experience as an executive coach, Tarken said he was particularly impressed at the growth he saw in current board President Seth Klukoff and Vice President Kathy Judge, calling it one of the highlights of his tenure.

Even in the board’s trying times, Tarken said the board’s leaders remained strong.

“That’s what leadership’s all about—taking a position and dealing with the consequences, good and bad,” he said.

He encouraged his fellow board members to continue that push for leadership at all levels, from administrators on down.

“We need that leadership capability that we need to develop in all the employees of the district,” Tarken said.

Now that he’s done with his term, Tarken joked about getting the chance to return to future board meetings as a member of the public, free to dish out the criticism he’s had to accept, but added that opposing viewpoints help strengthen the school system.

“That’s why this is such a great district, because you have such a divergence of opinions,” he said. “It’s not isolated, it’s not insular...and that can only make it stronger. Contrary views are important—they may drive people crazy, but they make us better.

“Those who have contrary opinions, keep showing up.”