Tim Howley wants to retain HCPS teachers and help students’ mental health if elected
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October 23, 2024 10:28 am
HARRISONBURG, VA (Rocktown Now) — The following is a transcription of an interview conducted with Harrisonburg City School Board candidate Tim Howley. To hear his full interview along with other candidates Kaylene Seigle, and Matt Snyder, click here. Please note that Rocktown Now and WSVA attempted to contact Harrisonburg City School Board Candidate Hazzar Pastor Perdomo multiple times but received no response.
Question 1
Why do you believe you should be elected for the school board?
Tim Howley: Well, thanks a lot for having me today. I have four children. My oldest is a senior at Harrisonburg High School. My daughter is at Thomas Harrison Middle School. I have a son at Bluestone Elementary, and my youngest is a future kindergartener. Maybe next year, he’ll be at Bluestone. So, God help all those teachers. But I think from being an involved father, I’ve been involved with the schools for a long time, and I’ve seen the schools at multiple levels.
My wife and I, when we decided to buy a home, we were intentional because we wanted to buy a home in the city because we valued a lot of what the city represented and the city school system. So, I’m very proud of our schools and I like what they’re doing, and I want to continue to keep doing what we’re doing.
I have experience educationally. I have a background in health and physical education. I have a Master of Arts and teaching. I taught in the public schools down in Chesapeake, VA, for a year as a health and PE teacher. I’ve worked as an educator at JMU for, this is like my 18th year doing that. So, I have a Doctorate of Education and Kinesiology and so I think I can bring a lot of my educational background, my personal experiences, and then my experiences as a father to the school board to kind of keep our City Schools something that I’m proud of and someplace where I want to send my children to go to school.
Question 2
We’ve been seeing an increasing amount of threats in schools, even around here in our area. What do you think the solution is to eliminate the number of threats that schools face today?
HOWLEY: I think that’s really a challenging, multifaceted issue of, you know, of what’s going on. I think one of the best things that we can do is build community within our school systems, right, so that people feel connected and have a sense of belonging to our schools. I think opening up Rocktown High School this year was a huge advantage, for us, because our teachers and our administrators were doing an amazing job at Harrisonburg High School with how crowded it was. And so, to be able to split that school, essentially to have like half the size, I think creates more opportunities for the students and the teachers to be able to get to know each other and build that community and build that sense of belonging. And so, I think making sure that our schools don’t get overcrowded, I think opening up Rocktown was great and now that’s a new school building. And so that community is working to create their community and sense of belonging. And I think that’s great. And I think that will be helpful.
I think we need to continue to support and fund mental health in our schools, so make that our counselors aren’t overloaded, making sure that we have mental health professionals working in the schools and then make sure that we have like our school liaisons connecting with our families and again, building that community, building that sense of trust within our school system so that when people do see issues that they’ll report them and we can work to address those things before they become something, you know, that that that’s harder to take care of. So, trying to be more upstream in, in approaching this than focusing on the downstream efforts.
Question 3
What parts of schools would you like to see more investments go into?
HOWLEY: When we look at investing in our schools, I think we definitely want to invest in our people. And so, they’re our best resource. And so, I want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to recruit and retain really good teachers. I want to make sure that we’re recruiting and retaining all personnel in our schools. Our bus drivers, our substitute teachers, like everybody in the school system, have an impact on our children’s lives and so we want to make sure that they want to work here in Harrisonburg City and in order to do that, I think we have to really invest in our people. I think that’s the number one thing that we can do. And then I’d also be interested in investing in things to support mental health. We know that well-being and mental health of children and adolescents has been declared a public health emergency by the US Surgeon General, and so anything that anything that we can do to support the, the health and well-being of our children, I’m going to be a big fan of.
Question 4
What’s your main goal for being on the school board?
HOWLEY: My main goal to be on the school board, again, is to promote the health and well-being of our children, and so anything that we can do to lift our kids up and make sure that they’re healthy–physically, mentally, emotionally, I’m going to be a big supporter of and I’m going to be advocating for those children in that.
Question 5
Is there anything else you would like to add today that we didn’t mention?
HOWLEY: Yeah, I think, you know, one of the reasons that I got into the race is because seeing some of the things that have gone on in school boards across the country and specifically here in The Valley, of seeing how people have used the school boards to push their own political agenda and to do things that it, quite frankly, I think is hurting our children and the mental health and well-being of our children like things like banning books and banning flags and micromanaging our school systems, our schools, our administrators and our teachers, and so, that was one thing that really motivated me to get in the race.
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