Get to Know Young K. Park, Candidate for School Board Director

Ambler Patch: How would you balance the district budget? Would you use to help balance the budget?   

Young K. Park: We just had the Audit Committee meeting on November 1, 201.  For the fiscal year ending June 30, 2011, the district did better than balancing the budget.  The district had a surplus.  The district cut the expenses almost $7 million, while the revenue was down less than $2 million.  Therefore, the district had approximately $5 million in surplus which means that the operating revenue exceeded the  operating expenses.  Instead of using approximately $2 million in fund balance as planned in the budget for that year, the district actually added $2 million to the general fund balance.  The general fund balance increased from approximately $17 million to approximately $19 million. The total fund balance for the district as of June 30, 2011 is approximately $24.1 million.   Our budget also includes approximately $6 million for debt payments for this year and $4.5 million for next year’s debt payments.  However, in about 2 years, our annual debt payment should be reduced to $100,000 a year.  With such financial projection, our fund balance should remain strong.   There are many school districts that have less $1 million in fund balance.   Our district’s budget is well controlled and our board plans to continue to exercise fiscal responsibility to maintain the district’s overall financial strength.   With the strength of our fund balance and the financial projections for the near future, the use of the fund balance should not be an issue in our district for the near future.

AP: One of the Board goals is to support a “” How would you help support this goal?

YP: We have already started the process a few years ago.  We have our technology and curriculum plans for the future and those plans are constantly evolving to adopt the new learning and teaching innovations and technology.  Our classrooms with the smart boards and other technology implementation are the proofs.   Presently, we are looking into initiating 1 to 1 lap top to student.   The technology is there, the district is in the process of developing the overall strategic and financial plans to support the goal.  Our district is constantly developing and redefining our curriculum and teaching plans to take advantage of the new technology to help our students achieve the best they can.  More importantly, our  sound fiscal management will allow us to meet those goals.  Without strong financial means, it would be impossible to support a “21^st Century Learner,  without imposing undue tax burden on our residents. 

AP: This year the Wissahickon School District encountered issues with its . How would you remedy this problem so it doesn’t happen in the future?

YP: This year a number of the school districts agree to form the transportation consortium.  The goal was to have much more efficient transportation system by sharing a much larger network of the multi district transportation system.  However, due to a withdrawal from the consortium by a number of the other districts, our district experienced the difficulties.  In order to insure our district’s financial stability, we have to look into new ideas and strategies.  Implementation of new ideas is one of the main reasons our district can maintain strong finance and accomplish student achievements without increasing the real estate taxes.  It is an accomplishment only a very few school districts can claim.  Our district leaned from the poor implementation of the busing strategy and weak alliance with the other school districts.  Therefore, in the future we will not be repeating the same mistakes.

We can assure the public, we will not undertake any new initiatives, if such initiatives result harms our students in any way.  The board will not compromise our students’ safety to save money. 

AP: Student Achievement is one of the Board’s goals. How would you support this as a board member?

YP: Everything we do is to accomplish Student Achievement.  During my past 12 years as school director, Student Achievement was the most important goal.  I will implement the necessary programs and whatever is necessary to provide the best education to each student in our district.  Also, I am constantly looking the ways to challenge our students to compete with the best students in the world.  As the district, we should explore other school districts, states, and countries to find new ideas and plans to help our students.  In order to do this, we have to have financial commitment.   Our past responsible financial management will allow us to spend necessary funds to help student achievement.  Our district’s achieving of AYP for the entire district and everyone sub-group in our district is that the our board is the proof that I as a member of the board supported student achievement.

AP: Transparency and Accountability is important to the residents of the Wissahickon School District. What do Transparency and Responsibility mean to you?

YP: Transparency is much easier to answer.  As a public entity, all of our major and non-confidential decisions(certain matters such as human resource issues cannot be discussed in public) are discussed and decided in the public meetings.  All of our financial statements are fully available to the district through printed materials for the public meeting and  the district’s websites.  Also, the public has the right to request almost all of the district information under the Right to Know Laws.  Everything the board and the district do is transparent.  We are required by the law to be transparent. 

Responsibility may have different meanings to different people.  To me, as a school board member, I have to be concerned with the needs of ever group in our district.   In our district, to list a few groups, we have public school students, private school students, their parents, we have taxpayers with school age children and we have taxpayers with no school age children, we have working taxpayers and we have retired taxpayers, we have teachers, and we have businesses.  I am a firm believer that everyone in our district wants the best for our children.   However, we are living in a world with limited resources.  Therefore, it takes a delicate balancing act to meet the needs of every group in our district.   I can assure everyone that I will do my best to do what is the best for our children, because they are the most precious gifts to all of us.   At the end of my tenure as school director, whenever that may be, I should be able to look back and be able to say to myself that I have done the best I could and I have no regrets.  This is my definition of being a responsible school director.