Richland-Bean Blossom Community School Corporation
School Board Election 2020
The Candidates
RBBCSC At-Large
Bradley Tucker (incumbent)
Bean Blossom district
Jimmie Dale Durnill (incumbent)
Richland district
Lawrence J DeMoss
How do I vote for the candidates?
RBBCSC At-Large
Bradley Tucker (incumbent)
Bean Blossom district
Jimmie Dale Durnill (incumbent)
Richland district
Lawrence J DeMoss
How do I vote for the candidates?
- The candidates will appear on the back of the ballot. Sample ballots can be accessed here.
- The Richland–Bean Blossom school board race is nonpartisan.
- If you vote straight Democrat or Republican, you still have to vote for school board candidates.
- Although the candidates represent specific districts, they are all "at large" which means you can vote for every district.
- Please see Monroe County's election page for more information here.
- See our main election page on how to ensure you are voting for public education.
Richland-Bean Blossom School Board Forum Recording
The school board forum was on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
You can watch the recording here.
Press on the school board race
Emily Cox, "MCCSC Board Has 3 Contested Races ; R-BB Has Just 1 Candidate for Each Seat," Herald Times, August, 26, 2020.
Emily Isaacman, "Here Are Monroe County's Elections to Watch for November 2020," Indiana Daily Student, August 27, 2020.
"R-BB School Board Candidate Forum Set for Tuesday," Herald Times, September 10, 2020.
Emily Cox, "Forum Held for R-BB School Board Candidates," Herald Times, September 16, 2020.
The school board forum was on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
You can watch the recording here.
Press on the school board race
Emily Cox, "MCCSC Board Has 3 Contested Races ; R-BB Has Just 1 Candidate for Each Seat," Herald Times, August, 26, 2020.
Emily Isaacman, "Here Are Monroe County's Elections to Watch for November 2020," Indiana Daily Student, August 27, 2020.
"R-BB School Board Candidate Forum Set for Tuesday," Herald Times, September 10, 2020.
Emily Cox, "Forum Held for R-BB School Board Candidates," Herald Times, September 16, 2020.
Candidate survey
We sent out a questionnaire to every candidate.
The questions
We sent out a questionnaire to every candidate.
The questions
- Describe your connections to public schools.
- Why do you want to be (or continue to be) a member of the RBB school board?
- What is the role of the school board?
- What skills and experiences will you bring to the board?
- What is the goal of a public education system?
- What are the biggest challenges facing the Richland–Bean Blossom Community School Corporation?
- What are your budget priorities?
- A new law in Indiana allows public school districts to share money raised through a referendum with local charter schools. Would you support sharing referendum money with local charters? Why or why not?
- How can the school board support teachers?
- What is the best way to evaluate our schools?
- What are your ideas for how best to involve and communicate with RBB community members, faculty and staff about the school board’s decisions-making process?
- Is there anything else you would like the RBB Community to know about you and your interest in serving on the RBB School Board?
The responses
LAWRENCE J. DeMoss
1. Describe your connection to public schools.I have a long and cherished history with public schools.
I attended public schools K-12 in Hamilton County, and both of my sons attended RBBCSC schools throughout their youth, graduating from Edgewood in 2000 and 2004. I taught English at EHS for 32 years, retiring at the end of this past school year. My mother was a cafeteria worker and then custodian at the high school I attended, my sister is retiring soon from twenty years in administration in central Indiana after spending more than twenty years as an English teacher, and my wife Susan teaches fifth grade at Edgewood Intermediate School.
2. Why do you want to be (or continue to be) a member of the RBB School Board?
While I felt the time was right to retire from the classroom, I continue to support the efforts of RBB to grow and progress. I believe that the past several years have seen the laying of a foundation for an exciting future for our students and families, along with some challenges, and I believe I have both the knowledge and the commitment to help that future to continue to brighten and grow.
3. What is the role of the school board?
The most important duty is to select and support an effective superintendent in his or her duties: to manage the resources of the corporation wisely' to provide the best educational opportunities possible for students; and to maintain the facilities and programs so that they remain a source of pride and unity for the citizens of Richland and Bean Blossom Townships.
4. What skills and experiences will you bring to the board?
In addition to my thirty-two years of classroom instruction, I led the RBB Education Association as president and co-president for sixteen years. I have served on a number of corporation committees, including strategic planning, curriculum development, textbook adoption, professional development, and technology integration. I was a member of the board of the South Central Indiana School Trust (which provides health insurance for RBBCSC employees), serving as its president for seven years. I was one of the original members of the Indiana Charter School Board in 2011, serving four years as that body developed guidelines for charter school authorization and operation, although much of that work has since been undermined and diluted. In my first career (in food service), I completed monthly profit and loss statements, managed payroll and inventory, and was responsible for recruiting and hiring a staff of about seventy.
5. What is the goal of a public education system?
I believe that public education is the foundation of a successful nation. Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Now, more than at any time in human history, all people have the ability to access information instantaneously along with the formidable responsibility to think critically about the information they find. Over the course of my career, I developed four main parts of my understanding of education: (1) expand your awareness of your own ignorance; (2) learn to formulate better questions; (3) learn to question your own ideas and assumptions; and (4) recognize connections among the various knowledge that you have acquired.
6. What are the biggest challenges facing the Richland Bean Blossom Community School Corporation?
In the short term, managing the concerns presented by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate the planning and decision making by families, teachers, and administrators. While I know there are many who disagree with specific details of the way that RBB has responded, I am confident that the priority has been to create the safest environment for students and staff while achieving the best education for those students.
In the longer term, challenges that RBBCSC will have to address in the coming years is the changing face of our community with predictably inadequate fiscal support from the state. Additionally, the recruitment and retention of talented teachers will be a challenge for all schools as fewer young people are attracted to the profession. While that lack of qualified candidates cannot be solved by RBB alone, we can continue to make ourselves competitive by making our community and schools more attractive.
7. What are your biggest budget priorities?
The first budget priority has to be the central mission of the school--the educational program. The largest portion of that budget is, and should be, devoted to the personnel who are involved in instruction, so making sure that part of the budget is effectively managed will be my number one priority. Programs that support students with special challenges require constant attention. The maintenance and enhancement of our buildings also contributes to the attractiveness of our schools and the safety of our students.
8. A new law in Indiana allows public school districts to share money raised through a referendum with local charter schools. Would you support sharing referendum money with local charters? Why or why not?
Given the way the law is designed, I would not support such an arrangement. When charter schools were first conceived, their authors thought of them as partners in achieving the goals of public education. However, as they have been legislated, they have become competitors for tax dollars. If a true partnership could be instituted to offset the current system, I might reconsider my opposition.
9. How can the school board support teachers?
I was fortunate during the last two-thirds of my career to work with a sequence of effective administrators, after a number of years of struggling with administrators who were perceived, rightly or wrongly, as ineffective at best, to, at worst, active adversaries of the teachers. For the past twenty years, though, the relationship between administrators and teachers has been, on balance, very positive. The key has always been communication, and when problems arise, being able to discuss them productively has generally resulted in satisfactory resolutions. The school board's role is to actively support the flow of communication, especially when the messages to be communicated are difficult, in their own interactions with personnel, community members, and each other, and emphasizing communication as a professional expectation, starting with the board and superintendent, and moving throughout the corporation.
Material support is important, of course, and RBB needs to be competitive in salary and benefits; furthermore, teachers need to believe that their professional judgments and decisions will be respected.
10. What is the best way to evaluate our schools?
This question is at the heart of much political hand-wringing and posturing, but in the end, schools are successful when their students are moved from wherever they are when they arrive to a higher level of ability and competence. Measuring that movement presents the same challenges for evaluators, but a holistic, honest view of what happens in the school is really not that difficult for students, families, and caring professionals. It becomes more complex when political agendas and pedantic bean-counting gets in the way. The best way to evaluate a school is to watch what happens every day and ask if it makes sense, if it helps students, and if things are moving forward for those students as they should. Trying to put a number on those factors is folly.
11. What are your ideas for how best to involve and communicate with RBB community members, faculty and staff about the school board’s decisions-making process?
However Utopian, I hope that all of RBB's stakeholders share a common view of the goals of the corporation and help to improve the means of achieving those goals. Moving toward that goal, welcoming the active participation of as many students, parents, community members, and staff as possible in contributing to the progress of the corporation is essential. In the era of social media, we need to be able to come together to support our schools and our community and not work at cross purposes. Legitimate concerns and problems need to be brought to light and addressed openly and honestly. Differences of opinion are healthy and should be embraced for their potential to reach better solutions. However, decisions have to be made that will not please everyone, and sometimes it is best to accept another person's decision as an honest difference. Ultimately, though, the school board should set policy and select the superintendent, and then they should see that the superintendent is effectively carrying out those policies, respecting the professional judgment of the superintendent, unless that judgment proves ineffective. Most communication, therefore, should go through the administration rather than the board.
12. Is there anything else you would like the RBB Community to know about you and your interest in serving on the RBB School Board?
Many in the community know me and my contributions to RBB, and I hope they will recognize that I will continue to support the achievement of our students in any way I can, whether announcing basketball games or sitting on the school board. I love RBBCSC. The opportunities that it has afforded me and my family have shaped the course of my life, and I feel that I have a duty to repay those who have supported me in the past by helping the community the school serves and those who are still actively engaged with the school system.
I attended public schools K-12 in Hamilton County, and both of my sons attended RBBCSC schools throughout their youth, graduating from Edgewood in 2000 and 2004. I taught English at EHS for 32 years, retiring at the end of this past school year. My mother was a cafeteria worker and then custodian at the high school I attended, my sister is retiring soon from twenty years in administration in central Indiana after spending more than twenty years as an English teacher, and my wife Susan teaches fifth grade at Edgewood Intermediate School.
2. Why do you want to be (or continue to be) a member of the RBB School Board?
While I felt the time was right to retire from the classroom, I continue to support the efforts of RBB to grow and progress. I believe that the past several years have seen the laying of a foundation for an exciting future for our students and families, along with some challenges, and I believe I have both the knowledge and the commitment to help that future to continue to brighten and grow.
3. What is the role of the school board?
The most important duty is to select and support an effective superintendent in his or her duties: to manage the resources of the corporation wisely' to provide the best educational opportunities possible for students; and to maintain the facilities and programs so that they remain a source of pride and unity for the citizens of Richland and Bean Blossom Townships.
4. What skills and experiences will you bring to the board?
In addition to my thirty-two years of classroom instruction, I led the RBB Education Association as president and co-president for sixteen years. I have served on a number of corporation committees, including strategic planning, curriculum development, textbook adoption, professional development, and technology integration. I was a member of the board of the South Central Indiana School Trust (which provides health insurance for RBBCSC employees), serving as its president for seven years. I was one of the original members of the Indiana Charter School Board in 2011, serving four years as that body developed guidelines for charter school authorization and operation, although much of that work has since been undermined and diluted. In my first career (in food service), I completed monthly profit and loss statements, managed payroll and inventory, and was responsible for recruiting and hiring a staff of about seventy.
5. What is the goal of a public education system?
I believe that public education is the foundation of a successful nation. Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Now, more than at any time in human history, all people have the ability to access information instantaneously along with the formidable responsibility to think critically about the information they find. Over the course of my career, I developed four main parts of my understanding of education: (1) expand your awareness of your own ignorance; (2) learn to formulate better questions; (3) learn to question your own ideas and assumptions; and (4) recognize connections among the various knowledge that you have acquired.
6. What are the biggest challenges facing the Richland Bean Blossom Community School Corporation?
In the short term, managing the concerns presented by the COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate the planning and decision making by families, teachers, and administrators. While I know there are many who disagree with specific details of the way that RBB has responded, I am confident that the priority has been to create the safest environment for students and staff while achieving the best education for those students.
In the longer term, challenges that RBBCSC will have to address in the coming years is the changing face of our community with predictably inadequate fiscal support from the state. Additionally, the recruitment and retention of talented teachers will be a challenge for all schools as fewer young people are attracted to the profession. While that lack of qualified candidates cannot be solved by RBB alone, we can continue to make ourselves competitive by making our community and schools more attractive.
7. What are your biggest budget priorities?
The first budget priority has to be the central mission of the school--the educational program. The largest portion of that budget is, and should be, devoted to the personnel who are involved in instruction, so making sure that part of the budget is effectively managed will be my number one priority. Programs that support students with special challenges require constant attention. The maintenance and enhancement of our buildings also contributes to the attractiveness of our schools and the safety of our students.
8. A new law in Indiana allows public school districts to share money raised through a referendum with local charter schools. Would you support sharing referendum money with local charters? Why or why not?
Given the way the law is designed, I would not support such an arrangement. When charter schools were first conceived, their authors thought of them as partners in achieving the goals of public education. However, as they have been legislated, they have become competitors for tax dollars. If a true partnership could be instituted to offset the current system, I might reconsider my opposition.
9. How can the school board support teachers?
I was fortunate during the last two-thirds of my career to work with a sequence of effective administrators, after a number of years of struggling with administrators who were perceived, rightly or wrongly, as ineffective at best, to, at worst, active adversaries of the teachers. For the past twenty years, though, the relationship between administrators and teachers has been, on balance, very positive. The key has always been communication, and when problems arise, being able to discuss them productively has generally resulted in satisfactory resolutions. The school board's role is to actively support the flow of communication, especially when the messages to be communicated are difficult, in their own interactions with personnel, community members, and each other, and emphasizing communication as a professional expectation, starting with the board and superintendent, and moving throughout the corporation.
Material support is important, of course, and RBB needs to be competitive in salary and benefits; furthermore, teachers need to believe that their professional judgments and decisions will be respected.
10. What is the best way to evaluate our schools?
This question is at the heart of much political hand-wringing and posturing, but in the end, schools are successful when their students are moved from wherever they are when they arrive to a higher level of ability and competence. Measuring that movement presents the same challenges for evaluators, but a holistic, honest view of what happens in the school is really not that difficult for students, families, and caring professionals. It becomes more complex when political agendas and pedantic bean-counting gets in the way. The best way to evaluate a school is to watch what happens every day and ask if it makes sense, if it helps students, and if things are moving forward for those students as they should. Trying to put a number on those factors is folly.
11. What are your ideas for how best to involve and communicate with RBB community members, faculty and staff about the school board’s decisions-making process?
However Utopian, I hope that all of RBB's stakeholders share a common view of the goals of the corporation and help to improve the means of achieving those goals. Moving toward that goal, welcoming the active participation of as many students, parents, community members, and staff as possible in contributing to the progress of the corporation is essential. In the era of social media, we need to be able to come together to support our schools and our community and not work at cross purposes. Legitimate concerns and problems need to be brought to light and addressed openly and honestly. Differences of opinion are healthy and should be embraced for their potential to reach better solutions. However, decisions have to be made that will not please everyone, and sometimes it is best to accept another person's decision as an honest difference. Ultimately, though, the school board should set policy and select the superintendent, and then they should see that the superintendent is effectively carrying out those policies, respecting the professional judgment of the superintendent, unless that judgment proves ineffective. Most communication, therefore, should go through the administration rather than the board.
12. Is there anything else you would like the RBB Community to know about you and your interest in serving on the RBB School Board?
Many in the community know me and my contributions to RBB, and I hope they will recognize that I will continue to support the achievement of our students in any way I can, whether announcing basketball games or sitting on the school board. I love RBBCSC. The opportunities that it has afforded me and my family have shaped the course of my life, and I feel that I have a duty to repay those who have supported me in the past by helping the community the school serves and those who are still actively engaged with the school system.
Bradley Tucker
Did not provide a response.
Jimmie Dale Durnill
Did not provide a response.
Additional Information
The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce webpage on MCCSC and R-BB candidates
The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce webpage on MCCSC and R-BB candidates