October 5, 2011

Sharon Jones says she’s a team player whose priority is education. That, she says, is why she’s running for a seat on the Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board.

For Jones, a Republican committeewoman in Pennsbury Township and internal auditor for Chester County, this year’s election is her first attempt seeking elected office.

She’s running with incumbents Timotha Trigg and Frank Murphy, of Chadds Ford, to represent Region C.

She said she was approached last November and asked to run, but personal matters delayed her decision.

“I didn’t give it a second thought until January when Timotha and Frank and my area chair came back and said, ‘We were serious when we asked you. We would really like you to consider running.’”

One of the reasons for her deciding to run was what she had seen with previous boards. As with the two Democrats in the race, Gregg Lindner and Kathy Do, Jones didn’t like what she was seeing.

“As adults, they couldn’t agree to disagree,” she said.

Directors were too busy pushing their own agendas and wouldn’t listen to each other. They wanted the others to agree with them without any debate, Jones said.

“My number one priority is going to be the kids. They should be. They should be up front [as a priority] on everything, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to say to the taxpayers, ‘I want this, so we need to increase taxes.’ I think we need to find other ways of generating revenue.”

As with Paul Price — who is leaving the board and whom she hopes to replace — and also her Democratic opponents, Jones thinks selling naming rights is one way to generate that extra revenue.

She said that to make that happen, or to make any idea work, there must be ongoing discussions; not just to bring it up once, but then let it drop.

She added that she’s passionate about children and their education. She was in favor of the high school renovation project when the referendums were up for vote several years ago, but said her reaction was similar to the recent teachers’ contract.

“I didn’t agree with the entire referendum, but just like with the school teachers’ contract, as one of the school board members said, it’s a package deal. You’re not going to like bits and pieces of it, but, as a whole, it’s workable.”

While she didn’t agree with everything that was proposed, she supported the measure because it meant getting the students out of trailers and into real classrooms.

“I didn’t move here for my kids to be in trailers. I thought those children who had to go through that deserved better.”

Jones was reminded that during the controversy over the referendum for the high school renovation, there was talk about the possibility of the middle school needing work, too, and there might be a need for another high or middle school.

“Well nobody told me it would be easy. Because of my background [as an auditor] I’m an objective person. I can take a situation and put all the pieces together and say this is a good idea, but what’s it going to cost me in efficiency, not only in dollars. What is it going to cost as far as far as the negative aspects of it? Everything has a price tag, whether it’s monetary or in efficiency. So, to walk into something like that, our homework needs to be done.”

She said it’s a matter of seeing the numbers, of understanding the number of students that the schools would have to handle and what the costs would be.

“We want to make sure the classroom sizes stay reasonable. You don’t want to overcrowd them because the children don’t get the best kind of education. It’s not a one on one learning experience. But, just to keep up with the Joneses or the other towns, they have this or they have that, that’s great, but it’s about what our kids need.”

Jones said she wants to show other members of the board that she can be a team player and running on a ticket with Trigg and Murphy helps her do that.

“If we make it together are going to be working on the board, let’s start working now. Let’s start getting our ducks in a row and planning for the future. I know where they’re coming from, I know what they want to accomplish and we kind of have a common goal.

“We each bring something different to the table. Timotha is very good with education and curriculum matters. She has more of a background when it comes to school disciplines. Frank is an attorney; he has more of a background when it comes to legal matters and contracts. I’m your bean counter. What I bring to the table is not only fiscal responsibility and how to save money, but independence and how to look at things and be objective.”