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Willow Run Board of Education candidate John Brooks thinks now is the right time for him to run for the seat.
The 38-year-old parent of three has been living in the district with his wife for 11 years, after he left the US Navy. He has three sons. The oldest is a 20-year-old 2006 Willow Run graduate. The youngest is an 8-year-old Holmes student.
Brooks has been active with the district since 1999, when he started working with the district’s athletic boosters after his son picked up basketball and football. The Ford employee said he had been thinking of running for the past few years, but a shift change prevented a run in the last election.
Now, Brooks said he has the seniority to where he can choose shifts that shouldn’t interfere with board involvement.
“I see things that need to be done that aren’t done correctly,” Brooks said.
The largest affliction in the district he could point to was “bickering” between board members during meetings.
“You can’t have a split head and expect the body to follow,” he said. “It’s tearing the district apart.”
Brooks said he would like to see board members more active in the schools and more visible in the community. He suggested a program that would assign a member to each building and require them to make frequent and regular visits.
“I feel I’m more in tune with the community,” Brooks said. “I’m in the school every day of the week.”
From that point, Brooks said the board could collaborate and discuss a more accurate picture of what the community wants.
Brooks said he would like to reprioritize the budget and find alternative revenue to fund programs that would attract students to the district. He pointed to private donations from community businesses that could fund new athletic programs. He said he has personally seen a lack or removal of programs that have led directly to enrollment decreases.
Specifically, Brooks mentioned adding bowling and lacrosse as competitive sports. He said allowing the boosters to pick up more costs to run the program would allow the district to spread its money further.
“Those are big sports to pick up,” he said. “That attracts kids.”
Brooks also said he wants to put the successful programs the school is already running out in the public eye. He used Willow Run’s district-wide spelling bee as an example.
“Nobody has ever showcased that,” he said. “That’s something that needs to be put out there.”
Brooks also pointed to the district’s open enrollment program, which allows parents to send their student to any elementary school in the district and provides busing for that choice, as a place Willow Run to save some money.
“That’s overlap,” he said. “That’s overspending on man hours.”