Five candidates chasing three school board slots

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Oct. 30, 1998 | 11:12 a.m.

Patrick Boylan wears khaki shorts and a red UNLV hat to walk the campaign trail. He hopes the path leads to a seat on the Clark County School Board next week.

The 46-year-old community college teacher has been trying to reach the 70,000 homes in his district one door at a time.

"You really get a history of the neighborhoods," Boylan said, as he strolled a southeast Las Vegas side street one recent afternoon. "All kinds of people have moved to Las Vegas."

Boylan is one of five candidates vying for three open seats on the 7-member school board. His District G opponent is substitute teacher Sheila Moulton.

School board president and Realtor Susan Brager is battling travel agent Jack Levin to keep her seat in District F. And current board member Larry Mason is running unopposed in District D.

The five candidates say they have run moderately quiet campaigns of door-to-door neighborhood canvassing, mailing fliers and passing out yard signs.

Compared to the mud-splattered, high-profile campaigns waged by more high-powered politicians, school board candidates this election season have toiled in relative obscurity.

You might not know them unless they turned up at your door.

"Hello -- hello there," Boylan says as he hands his yellow campaign flier to a retiree who reluctantly answers his doorbell. "I'm running for the school board. Here's some information. My number is on there, feel free to call if you have any questions."

He has run into all kinds: many who never pay attention to the school board, lonely people who just want to talk, and a few who slam the door.

The biggest concerns for the parents Boylan meets: school safety and the school bond issue, a Nov. 3 ballot measure that would freeze property taxes for 10 years to build 88 schools.

"They want to know 'What did you do with our 1994 and 1996 bond money?"' Boylan said. "I say, 'I want to find out. That's why I got into it."'

Boylan, who is also a technical writer for Gaming Systems International, just recently met Moulton. Neither has uttered a harsh word about the other.

"She seems like a very nice lady," Boylan has said.

Moulton, 48, has been walking her district, too.

She has mainly curriculum concerns: she wants more technology in the classroom, more phonics in reading instruction, more vocational education.

Moulton has repeated her message for "relevance" in classrooms. She believes in making school work more exciting by making it more meaningful.

In high schools, that means doing a better job of teaching students occupational skills they can use upon graduating high school, she said.

Moultan said she has run into a lot of people who work in schools who have a number of ideas about how to improve education -- including principals.

"They just want to be heard," Moultan said.

Levin also said he has enjoyed the quieter but still hectic pace of his second race for a school board seat.

Among Levin's goals is closing school on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, Jewish holy days. Levin has made the construction of two-story schools the center of his call for the board making better business decisions.

"I will be passionate about my views," Levin said at a recent mixer for parents and politicians at Western High School. "If we looked at everything from a business perspective, we wouldn't lose as much."

Brager stresses increased safety. She also wants to finish work she started to establish a common calendar for year-round elementary and middle schools. She prides herself on improving reading programs.

At a recent board meeting, Brager led a push to put another teacher in the one-teacher elementary school in Goodsprings, the district's smallest school with 20 pupils, nine of them kindergarteners.

"Actions like that are when you're really helping the child," Brager said.

Mason said he has been more concerned lately with crafting solutions to the drop-out problem than on campaigning.

One solution may be giving kids need more to keep them involved in school, such as athletics in the middle schools, which the district does not sponsor.

"If you gradually integrate it, it will take off," Mason said. "And you'll see student athletes becoming more involved in the academic process."