The Ypsilanti Courier
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Three to run for election in May
Incumbent, teacher, student to vie for two seats
By Dan DuChene, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: March 15, 2007
Voters from Lincoln Consolidated Schools will have the opportunity to choose from three candidates running for two seats on the Board of Education.
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Both President Kimberly Samuelson and Secretary Jeffery Stokes have terms that will expire this summer. Only Samuelson plans to run for re-election, while two other candidates have announced their intention to run for the seats.
Trustee Jeanette Upston is the longest-serving trustee currently sitting on the board. Stokes and Samuelson are the next in line and both are serving their first term on the board.
"It's a young board," Samuelson said.
Board elections will be held from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. May 8. The two candidates with the most votes will win the two seats on the board.
Kimberly Samuelson
Samuelson, 47, is serving her fourth year on the board and her first year as president.
"The first term is really all about learning and listening," Samuelson said.
A part-time manager at a hair salon in Ann Arbor and an independent sales consultant for Mary Kay, Samuelson has three children at all levels of the school system. Her daughter Emily, 16, is a sophomore at Lincoln High School; Laura, 13, is a seventh-grader at the middle school and Julia, 10, is in elementary school.
Samuelson said her family used to move around a lot because of her husband's employment with the U.S. Army. Now he works for Ford Motor Co. She said she has lived in Iowa, Texas and New Jersey. She and her family have been living in the Lincoln School District for seven years.
"This is the longest we've been in one school district," she said.
Samuelson said she is running for re-election to maintain the board's cohesiveness and to help direct the board forward.
"I have the time, the desire and the support," she said. "I just feel like my work is not done yet."
Jason Salhaney
An elementary teacher for Romulus Community Schools, Jason Salhaney has been living in the district for four years. An Eastern Michigan University graduate, he has been living in the Ypsilanti area for several years.
Married to Tracy Tscherny for eight years, Salhaney, 33, has two children attending Lincoln schools. Both his 5-year-old son Noah and his 6-year-old daughter Olivia attend Bessie Hoffman Elementary.
As an educator, Salhaney said he could give a fresh, new perspective to Lincoln's board. He said he has a vested interest in the quality of the district because his two daughters are enrolled in the schools.
"I think we need to push Lincoln forward," Salhaney said. "I think it's sort of on an upward cycle."
If elected, he said he hopes to establish a five-year vision for the district. He said he wants the board to start planning ahead in the areas of the budget, infrastructure and curriculum.
"We need to develop a multi-year budget," he said. "I think we need to look at limited school of choice."
Salhaney said he wants to open up a limited amount of spots to students living outside the district to increase the number of student enrollment.
Infrastructure improvements, he said, would include looking into absorbing Bessie Hoffman students on campus and selling of the existing building because of the money it costs to bus students out to the remote school.
Jeremy Keeney
After graduating last year, Jeremy Keeney, 19, started attending the University of Michigan to study political science.
Before graduating and fulfilling his wish to attend Harvard Law, he hopes to serve on the Lincoln Board of Education.
Keeney has lived in the school district his entire life and spent his educational career in the Lincoln Consolidated Schools. It's this perspective that he says will bring a unique voice to the board.
"I thought it would be better if they had a younger voice with some fresh ideas," he said.
"I can see the short falls and strengths of a Lincoln education. If a program were looking to be cut by the board, I would know the impact on that specific area."
When it came to fixing the budget, Keeney said the district should look into ways to increase the district's income.
He said there should be more grant funding and savings should be sought from contract negotiations. He said opening up the problem to the public could also give Lincoln some new ideas.
"The district isn't very transparent on budget issues," Keeney said. "If you can't see where the money is going, it's hard to find places to cut it."
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