Dan Clarahan for Wrightstown School Board

Educating, teaching and forming the next generation is among the most important thing we do as
adults. Family, faith, community and schools all have very important, and different, roles to play in the
process of raising children. I'm grateful that our community has allowed me to play a small role in that
process as a School Board Member in Wrightstown. I'm running for re-election to the School Board
and I look forward to your support. I am proud of what our schools have achieved, but I am not
satisfied that it is good enough, so I'm running again.

Many of you reading this may not know me so I thought I'd outline (further below) a few of my thoughts
on:
1. My background
2. Student Achievement
3. School Financial Management

If you'd like to discuss any of this, please feel free to call me or e-mail me. Thanks, and I'm looking
forward to your support.

Dan Clarahan
cell: 920 540 5291
e-mail: dan.clarahan@gmail.com

FaceBook Page (hold ctrl and click to follow) the link:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dan-Clarahan-for-Wrightstown-School-
Board/191255130904337#!/pages/Dan-Clarahan-for-Wrightstown-School-
Board/191255130904337?sk=wall

1. Background:

Family - Married, two children in Madison in college, both went K-12 through Wrightstown Schools.

Resident of Wrightstown School District since 1996, resident of Brown County since 1979

Education - Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering; University of Illinois

Professional –Principal of CNZ Solutions LLC, a Business/Technology Consulting Firm, and Chief Operating
Officer of a EcoCombustion Energy Systems (a startup Bio-Energy company)

Community – Youth sports coach and organizer (basketball and soccer coach; VP Foxx Soccer and VP East
Central District of Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association). I think sports are key activities in the development
of children (one of my favorite quotes is from Wellesley Wellington: "The battle of Waterloo was won on the
playing fields of Eton" --- highlighting the importance of sports in developing team work in children), active
community volunteer (United Way, Habitat for Humanity, etc)

Incumbent School Board Member in the Wrightstown Community School District; sat on the Policy &
Resolutions Committee for 2 years (statewide Policy formulating Wisconsin Association of School Board’s.

Key Belief: It is imperative that we improve public education in the U.S. (Wrightstown included). My wife,
mother and grandmother were all public school teachers at one point, and I feel like I have an obligation to
follow their example and to help improve our schools.
2. Student Achievement

Are we “good enough”? ? In my view

view: no. We are arguably among the top schools in the area, but I feel we
need to become one of the top schools in the State.

Over the last several years Wrightstown has demonstrated significant and continuous improvement in Student
Achievement as measured by several quantitative measures such as the ACT test, MAP testing, testing and the WKCE
(the annual State test).. As you can see in the chart below, Wrightstown is now consistently performing above
the WI State average on composite ACT results, and Wisconsin is consistently among the highest scoring
States. This is a result of literally years of hard work and focus on the part of teachers and administrators in the
t
Wrightstown School District to better align the curriculum, the programs and the teaching methods in
Wrightstown.

23.0
23.2 ACT Results
22.8
23.0 Composite Score
Average composite ACT Score

22.5 22.2
22.0 21.5
21.5 Wrightstown
21.0 20.6 Wisconsin
20.5
National
20.0

Academic Year

Wrightstown has also continued to improve in various "soft measures" (qualitative measures)
measures of Student
achievement that are harder to directly measure. Participation in extra-curricular activities such as music,
forensics, art, sports, etc. has continued to grow. The Wrightstown Future Problem Solvers (FPS) are sending a
record number of Teams to State level competition this year year, to highlight but one of our great programs.
programs
Wrightstown has much to be proud of in every aspect of the education we provide our children.

While K-12
12 education in Wisconsin continues to be ranked among the best in tthe U.S.,, unfortunately our country
is continuing to slide down the international rankings and we now are behind many other industrialized countries
in various measures of Student Achievement. The following link is just one of many studies that outline the
challenges we face in education in this country, simply put we are falling behind.
http://www.all4ed.org/files/IntlComp_FactSheet.pdf

It seems like a daunting task, and certainly many people are working on this challenge at a State and National
level --- but ---I firmly believe we have to con
continue
tinue to take on this challenge at our Local level,
level and I believe I can
help us continue to focus on that goal.

3. Finance

I think we need to take on a attitude of "no excuses" for moving backward in performance during this time of
change. I believe that as a community and as a school district we have to continue to focus on Student
Achievement as our first
irst priority. In this environment it would be very easy to focus on what we don't have or
play "aint it awful".
The State of Wisconsin has obviously been in a great deal of political turmoil over the last several weeks. What I
know is that as the State budget proposal currently stands, funding of the Wrightstown Community Schools will
be significantly reduced for 2011/2012. I don't pretend to be an economist or to have a crystal ball to look into
the future, but it seems pretty apparent that we will be funding schools at a lower level for quite a while to come,
and I suspect that 2012/2013 budget will be an even bigger challenge than 2011/2012.

I am very encouraged that we can and will continue to improve, even with fewer financial resources. A few
weeks ago I had the opportunity to participate in a Olympian Conference "In-Service" day which was held at
Wrightstown this year. On a day when many teachers from other school districts were calling in sick and
spending the day in Madison, I was delighted to see Wrightstown teachers leading seminars with their
colleagues from around the conference. Frankly it was very impressive to see our teachers sharing techniques
and practices with other teachers, and it made me very proud to be a part of Wrightstown.

The most important resource we have in the Wrightstown School District is that the people involved are
passionate about teaching the next generation: we have exceptional educators, committed custodians, cooks
and support staff, a very strong administrative team, and most importantly, a community that is committed to a
“quality education for every student” (the District Mission).

How do we balance “Doing more with Less”?

(Principles for continuing to improve Student Achievement with less money)

1. We cannot assume that the way we have previously evaluated the school, our programs, and our budgets is
sufficient. This will inevitably mean the Board has to put more pressure on the administration and the school
district to be more creative, with no drop-off in achievement.

2. Employee costs comprise 75-80% of the school, so management of employee cost will remain the most
important “control knob" for the Board to manage. The arithmetic of Employee Cost is very straightforward:
(Cost/Employee) x (Number of Employees) = Employee Cost. Both elements need to be carefully managed.

3. The Board needs to resist hiring new employees at every turn, we need to ask: "can we do the same or
better with the people we already have?” We need to give our staff the opportunities to grow and stretch
and demonstrate just how good they are! We need to avoid the situation where we hire staff over a
summer, only to turn around and lay them off the following spring. It’s demoralizing to staff and will
inevitable take the focus off of the students.