School Board — District 1: Edward Viltz

Age: 69

Occupation: Retired executive, classroom teacher and mentor

Hometown: New Orleans

Family: Three grown children; six grandchildren

About: Edward Viltz is a 35-year veteran executive of leading international corporations and nonprofit organizations and also a teacher and education consultant. 

Several schools are at or over capacity. How can you as a board member have an impact?

The most immediate priority is building a new high school in Parrish to relieve the overcrowding (as well as extended busing) at Lakewood Ranch and Palmetto High. As a board member, the first priority is finalizing and approving the land purchase to break ground, followed by providing financial oversight on building the new facility.

Most importantly and on a countywide scale, I would ensure that the accepted recommendations from the De Jong Richter future schools study, which was supported by the community-based task force and approved by the school board is effectively implemented. In addition, ensure funding was made available through impact fees, the sales tax extension and the capital fund.

Do you think elementary schools need school resource officers?

This has become an emotional issue. The reality, however, in our elementary schools to date, there has been no justification for school resource officers with regards to outside intruders or unruly students. Until there is justification, staff oversight appears to be the most prudent and cost effective approach at the elementary level. The original intent for resource officers was for use in middle and high schools for potentially dangerous student situations. The current realities do not support the expense of expanding the program to include 33 new positions in elementary schools at this time. 

Manatee County Schools got a mixed bag for grades this year? How do you think county schools are performing academically?

We have reason for concern regarding our school district falling from a “B” to a “C” this year (testing controversies notwithstanding). In dissecting the data, there are several interesting observations. First of all we are actually beginning to see some of the investments in Title 1 schools beginning to show results. This year, performance gains were measured in addition to proficiency assessments and there have been gains even in the absence of high scores. Many of the traditionally high-performing schools, while proficient, had no gains and exhibited poor performance in the lower 25% of the student population. This resulted in a lower letter grade. In part, this may be due to an increasing mobile demographic, but the end result is performance has fallen, and the lack of gains is evident. As a school board member, I would focus particular attention to our bottom quartile and expect to see gains among our proficient students.