Adrian Harris

Adrian Harris

Education

High school

Southside High School

Bachelor's

State University of New York, Brockport

Graduate

Grand Canyon University

Personal

Profession

Teacher's aide

Contact

Personal Facebook

Adrian Harris was a candidate for an at-large seat on the Buffalo school board in New York. He lost the general election on May 6, 2014 to incumbent Barbara Seals Nevergold and challengers Larry Quinn and Patricia B. Pierce. Harris also ran unsuccessfully for the Park Subdistrict seat on the school board against Carl P. Paladino on May 7, 2013.

Biography

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Adrian Harris is a resident of Buffalo, New York. Harris graduated from Southside High School before earning his bachelor's degree in criminal justice from the State University of New York at Brockport and his master's degree in special education from Grand Canyon University. He is employed as a teacher's aide in the Lancaster Central School District and has a child enrolled at South Park High School in the Buffalo school system.

Elections

2014

See also: Buffalo Public Schools elections (2014)

Adrian Harris lost to incumbent Barbara Seals Nevergold and newcomers Larry Quinn and Patricia B. Pierce for the three at-large seats in the general election on May 6, 2014. Candidates Bryon J. McIntyre and Daniel Rockwitz Reynolds were removed from the ballot after they did not meet the petition signature requirements.

Results

Buffalo Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 5-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Larry Quinn	16.1%	8,806
	Nonpartisan	Patricia B. Pierce	14.7%	8,061
	Nonpartisan	Barbara Seals Nevergold Incumbent	13.6%	7,449
	Nonpartisan	Bernie Tolbert	11.5%	6,298
	Nonpartisan	John Licata Incumbent	9%	4,930
	Nonpartisan	Samuel P. Davis	7.9%	4,334
	Nonpartisan	Sergio Rodriguez	6.3%	3,447
	Nonpartisan	Gizelle Stokes	5.6%	3,059
	Nonpartisan	Ralph R. Hernandez	5%	2,733
	Nonpartisan	Wendy Mistretta	4.4%	2,414
	Nonpartisan	Stephon Wright	2.3%	1,242
	Nonpartisan	Adrian Harris	1.9%	1,066
	Nonpartisan	Stephen Buccilli	1.7%	936
Total Votes				54,775
Source: Erie County, NY - Board of Elections, "Election Results Archive," accessed June 11, 2014

Funding

Harris reported $180.00 in contributions and $319.38 in expenditures to the Erie County Board of Elections, which left his campaign with $139.38 in debt. Harris contributed a total of $60.00 to his own campaign.

Endorsements

Harris did not receive any official endorsements for his campaign.

2013

Buffalo Public Schools, Park Subdistrict General Election, 3-year term, 2013
Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Carl P. Paladino	79.3%	2,704
	Nonpartisan	Adrian Harris	20.7%	706
Total Votes				3,410
Source: Erie County, NY - Board of Elections, "Election Results Archive," accessed March 26, 2014

Campaign themes

2014

In response to a survey published by The Buffalo News, Harris answered several questions outlining his campaign themes, preferred education reforms and priorities.

“	Cite an example of a school program (here or elsewhere) that you think should be replicated in Buffalo: Cincinnati School District has implemented proven instructional approaches while nurturing a culture in which administrators, teachers, parents, and community groups closely communicate and work together as teams. Has improved both test scores and graduation rates since 2003. Describe two or three specific actions the district should take to help close the projected $50 million deficit for 2014-15: 1) Bring all unions into serious negotiations to settle wage and benefit issues. 2) Request more financial backing from the City of Buffalo. 3) Have the city comptroller do a top to bottom audit of the school system to identify waste. List the three most important things you want to accomplish if you are elected: Advance the idea of shared responsibility for problems and solutions. Increase Career & Technical Educational that will lead to immediate employment or the need for limited training after high school. Promote the neighborhood school as a necessary element in the success of that community, and the education of that community's children.	”
—The Buffalo News survey (2014)

Harris provided another overview of his campaign priorities in an interview with Buffalo Rising:

“	Why are you motivated to run for school board? I’m someone who believes that when regular individuals get involved then things will improve and I’m truly a regular individual. I’m not trying to use this as political stepping stone, wanting to be a judge or get bumped up to the County Legislature. I don’t have a political or ideological agenda that’s divisive and destructive. I’ve worked with at risk youth for 30 years in capacities developing and implementing educational programming. I have a Master’s Degree in Special Education and presently work in the Lancaster Central School District. I have an in depth understanding of the students who have the most challenging academic needs. I also have a son who attends a Buffalo public high school; I’m a homeowner and longtime resident of the City of Buffalo. I am invested in public education and its success. Because of the Common Core, which the school board has been almost silent about, I realize that I have to run. It’s been implemented badly. There has been no training and no resources allocated to carry out the implementation. Excessive test taking hurts some kids, especially urban kids who come from non-structured, non-disciplined contexts, because good test taking skills require structure and discipline. [...] What is your number one policy priority? Improving CTE Career & Technical Education programs. Right now the vocational programs that do exist are inaccessible and underrepresented. We need technology centers that teach trades again. We need whole campuses that are specialized. Let’s breed creativity by getting students with similar interests together at the same campuses. I’m a proponent of having a Career & Technical Education center in areas of the city that are accessible and I absolutely believe one should be in Park district (South Buffalo). [...] What is your assessment of Dr. Pamela Brown? It’s evolving. There is a disconnect between her and the district’s stakeholders, particularly with the parent group which I have said in the past I disapprove off. She is obviously trying to turn that around now, improving her accessibility to the community – but we need to really feel it, which we don’t right now. In public, Dr. Brown comes off as a very mild mannered, professional person, but I’m told by people who I trust, that behind closed doors she can be mean spirited, and people see that as disingenuous. I know that some people want to be patted on the back for waking up in the morning, but she needs to exude a more collaborative demeanor and promote that atmosphere to the people around her. She needs to inspire people, not seem above them. Will you be voting to extend Dr. Brown’s contract beyond its 3-year term? I really can’t say whether or not her contract should be extended without having access to a lot more information. [...] How do you deal with truancy and other “at-home” issues? You can’t just use hard discipline with kids and expect them to do what you want. They will rebel and do what they want. They will act like they don’t care, and they will see you as an adversary. Instead, you need to get to the core of the issue, which requires that you understand their situation so that you can figure out what motivates them. It’s far more productive to engage with students in a respectful way built on trust. Do you support charter schools? I don’t support turning more Buffalo Schools into charter schools. When I ran last time, I was perceived as very anti-charter. I’m not so anti-charter, I’m just concerned that their basis of success is entirely rooted in the socio-economics of the students they accept and limited focus on special needs students. For instance, look at Tapestry. They have a very strong elementary school program, but a weak high school program. That’s because many of their elementary students then go to other public high schools or private schools. So in terms of their success it’s less to do with structure and more to do with clientele. There are some charters, like Applied Technologies and Enterprise, that have strong leadership that’s very supportive of the staff and they have diverse student bodies and high standards for teachers. I am very supportive of those charter schools – but you need to have strong, inspired leadership, that’s the key. Do you support vouchers? No. Taxes are too high. Where are we going to get the money? This state has been under funding education for decades. Even if we could afford it, how would we pay long term BPS pension costs that the charters don’t have because they’ve only been around for the last 5 years or so? There are also legal issues that might be involved. The person in this community that promotes vouchers uses Louisiana as an example of it working, but the program was declared unconstitutional by their highest state court and 40 million dollars came from other state resources. It’s only been around for three years, so to call it a success when there’s no information proving that is misleading at best. They never use Milwaukee as an example, because of the so, so results. The city has used a combination of charter schools and vouchers for years, but those initiatives have provided the same academic results as traditional public schools. Do you support tuition tax credits? Again, where do we get the money? It sounds nice if it’s coming from the State, but where does the state get the money? When I was sending my son to Canisius, I would have liked to get back that tuition, but how could we possibly afford it? It would have been nice to have a tax credit for some of the other expenses, like books, uniforms, and i-pads that they required – but tuition? Parents send their kids to private schools because they want their kids to be safe, so I’m sympathetic to the idea, but I don’t see how it’s affordable. Do you support neighborhood schools? Yes, absolutely. If you want to attend the school that is closest to where you live, then you should be able to attend. There will still be busing, the demographics of the city aren’t conducive to having schools for everyone to walk to. If you want to attend a school outside of your neighborhood fine, but we shouldn’t be forcing kids on buses for 3 hours a day, if there’s a school that they want to go to right down the street. Also having that type of educational certainty will help build stronger neighborhoods and increase Buffalo’s tax base. Make that school strong by being part of the community and it will become a catalyst for the entire area.	”
—Buffalo Rising interview (2014)

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "Adrian + Harris + Buffalo + Public + Schools"

Adrian Harris News Feed

See also

• Buffalo Public Schools, New York
• Buffalo Public Schools elections (2014)

External links

Suggest a link

• Buffalo Public Schools
• Campaign website
• Twitter page

Additional reading

• The Buffalo News, "Harris aspires to School Board from perspective of a parent seeking cooperation, accountability," April 21, 2014