Mary Grace Reed Endorses Paula O'Brien, Bill Beckert and Ellen Siuta for Board of Education

I want to encourage Farmington voters to re-elect Paula O’Brien, Bill Beckert and Ellen Siuta on Tuesday, November 5th.

 Paula, Bill and Ellen have a combined BOE service of 12 years during which they have dedicated themselves to ensuring a high quality education for students and a high value for taxpayers. Over the past 5 years, Farmington Public Schools have ranked in the bottom 3rd in expenditures among towns and cities in Connecticut while still remaining a leader in education.  Farmington High is currently ranked 5th best high school in CT by U.S. News &World Report and 4th most challenging high school in CT by the Washington Post.  

Paula, Bill and Ellen have demonstrated an ability to implement strategic cost containment initiatives in four of the most difficult budgeting years our nation has seen.  Some of these strategies include:

~ Entered into energy-saving performance contracts for the Town/Board that had no cost to the district and produced rebate savings in 2013;

~ Negotiated employee contracts with consumer-directed health plans that will yield significant savings for the district;

~ Piloted a “thin client” technology approach throughout the district, resulting in computer cost savings of 46%; and

~ Opened an additional preschool program in the district to better serve all of Farmington’s students, allowing us to keep pre-schoolers with special needs in their home system and reduce excessively high out of district tuition costs.

Paula, Bill and Ellen are dedicated to ensuring that Farmington students will reach global standards of achievement, leadership and citizenship.  To ensure that goal, they have worked with Superintendent Greider to develop the District's 5 year goals and Vision of the FPS Graduate which articulate the skills our children must demonstrate before graduation.

Please join me in voting for your experienced BOE team of Paula O’Brien, Bill Beckert and Ellen Siuta.  They have worked hard to maintain the core values of a Farmington education. 

Mary Grace Reed