Flynn Says He would take a Conservative Approach to Spending

Patrick Flynn, 48, of 4124 Mona Park Rd., Caledonia, describes himself as a long-time schools advocate. He’s a 1981 graduate of Walden III High School and the fundraising chair for that school’s PTSA. He is also a member of the Racine PTA Council, event coordinator for RACINEkids.org and the Young Professionals of Racine.

Flynn is regional vice president of franchise development for United Franchise Group. His wife, Mindy, is a special education teacher at Fratt Elementary School. Their children are 2, 13 and 16 years old. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Caledonia Town Board in 2001 and mounted an unsuccessful write-in campaign for the Caledonia Village Board in 2009.

The Racine Unified School District has long struggled with an achievement gap between its white students and its students of color.  What do you believe can be done to improve the learning of all RUSD students?

We’ve got our hands full, there’s no doubt about it. The present reality is, we don’t have the money to hire additional teachers. I believe we should stop and take a step back.

Teachers have the ability to tighten that (student achievement) gap, but they don’t have the ability to overcome disruptive behavior in the classroom. The district now has a new tool—the virtual school. I favor placing disruptive students in the virtual school setting. I think that could be a most powerful tool to tighten the gap. It’s a resource, I’d like to see us pursue.

RUSD currently has a building maintenance backlog in excess of $80 million.  What should be done to address this?

The reality is, Gov. Walker’s proposed budget is a game-changer. Given that tremendous change in our finances, I believe we need to slow down, revisit the needs of each school and develop a long-term plan for dealing with the maintenance of each individual school.

I’d like to see a detailed maintenance budget for each school with funds set aside for emergencies. If we’re going to ask the taxpayers for money, I want them to know exactly how every dollar is going to be spent. I’d like to see a two-year moratorium on all new construction so we can determine what our needs truly are.

In your opinion, does the general public have a favorable or unfavorable impression of Racine’s public schools?  Why?

As a whole, it’s very unfavorable particularly among people that don’t have kids in school. I think the perception of parents with kids in school is that they like their individual school and the teachers.

Overall, the perception of Racine Unified is there is a lot of waste. And, I think that’s right. I believe that three things have to happen for the community to regain its confidence in RUSD. The first is fiscal responsibility by the administration. I think we need to look carefully and eliminate all non-essential services. Where there are things we want to keep, let’s be creative about how to support them. Second, we need to eliminate any employee that is dragging the system down. That’s not just teachers, it’s principals, administrators and custodial staff. We just can’t allow poor performance in the system. Third, we need to focus on more parental involvement. We need to educate parents and students on what’s expected of them from inside and outside the classroom.