Edward Buster
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Edward Buster is an at-large member of the Vail Unified School District in Arizona. He assumed office on January 1, 2023. His current term ends on January 1, 2027.
Buster ran for election for an at-large seat of the Vail Unified School District in Arizona. He won in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Buster completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Edward Buster was born in the District of Columbia. He served in the U.S. Air Force from 1985 to 2006. Buster earned a high school diploma from Windsor High School, an associate degree from Pima Community College in 2012, and a bachelor's degree from the Eller College of Business in 2014. His career experience includes working as a project manager, lifeguard, soldier, avionics test and development engineer, IT networker, university instructor, and financial investigator.
Buster has been affiliated with the following organizations:[1]
- Corona de Tucson Community Alliance, president
- Vail School District Foundation, board member
- Corona Cares, board member
- Pima County Public Library, advisory board
- Southeast Regional Council, chair
- Vail Preservation Society Vail Connects, board
- Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, board member
Elections
2022
See also: Vail Unified School District, Arizona, elections (2022)
General election
General election for Vail Unified School District, At-large (2 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Vail Unified School District, At-large on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Jennifer Anderson (Nonpartisan)  | 25.9 | 11,699 |
| ✔ |  | Edward Buster (Nonpartisan) | 24.4 | 11,050 |
 | Anastasia Tsatsakis (Nonpartisan) | 18.2 | 8,217 | |
| Leroy Smith Jr. (Nonpartisan) | 14.5 | 6,566 | ||
| Geraldine Kleber (Nonpartisan) | 9.5 | 4,312 | ||
| Jayme Morris (Nonpartisan) | 6.9 | 3,135 | ||
| Other/Write-in votes | 0.6 | 266 | ||
| Total votes: 45,245 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Angelica Hemme (Nonpartisan)
- Justin Walker (Nonpartisan)
Endorsements
To view Buster's endorsements in the 2022 election, please click here.
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Edward Buster completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Buster's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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My name is Edward Buster. My family and I moved to Corona de Tucson approximately 16 years ago. My wife and I had the good fortune to raise our family of five boys in this community. Each of our now adult sons graduated high school, some notably achieved to the highest expectations and graduated post-secondary education and now are making huge contributions in the professional world.
We have the greatest appreciation for our community and the Vail School District for providing the finest education and experiences to our young men during their formative years. I desire to lead the VUSD to enable and perpetuate similar incredible outcomes for the benefit of each parent, student, educator, and stakeholder.
If elected, it will be an honor to work with the board and represent our citizenry to ensure our community has a voice in making educational and administrative decisions while preserving and improving the quality of our school system. I will be the catalyst in creating a shared vision for academic achievement. I sincerely hope you will vote for me and my running mate, Jennifer Anderson. Thank you.- The main reasons for my desire to serve on the Vail School District Governing Board, is our school district’s positive influence on the successes of my five now adult sons. With this opportunity, I can now pay it forward to an extraordinary community that so warmly embraced me and my family when we moved to Corona de Tucson almost 16 years ago.
- I have long been and continue to be a strong proponent for education. I am running because the school board should set the direction for our schools through a collaborative vision, advancing policy, demonstrating accountability, developing a consensus and by maintaining leadership roles in the community.
- My overarching vision is to ensure as our well-prepared students go away to college, trade school, accept apprenticeships, or establish themselves, they will one day endeavor to return to the Greater Vail Area to raise their families as it is in the community’s best interest to have and maintain a smart, well-educated, community-minded, and healthy workforce.
Governments and businesses are facing increased challenges with supply chain globalization and technology advancement. I support legislation to encourage policy that includes and empowers employment opportunities for total people to fully realize and develop assets and resources. This includes people with developmental disabilities in all facets of community life by eliminating barriers, creating opportunities, empowering people, and promoting innovation.
All children belong in families where they feel loved and cared for, with the opportunity to learn to be successful and the potential for independence. All students with developmental disabilities have a right to an appropriate, individualized, and quality education, alongside their non-disabled peers, that empowers and prepares them for life post-graduation.
I've had many mentors throughout my life, but none that so influenced me than Colonel (Ret) Mario K. DiPrimo, USAF. He was an outstanding role model, tactician, organizer, planner, and a master at logic and reason. He led by his example. He regularly challenged and inspired me to exceed my personal and professional goals and aspirations I thought were beyond reach. Due to his mentoring, I've successfully utilized the management and leadership strategies he generously and compassionately taught to me for the benevolence and successes of others.
A good public official must employ characteristics that present confidence, professionalism, and ensures the public trust. The individual should be able to communicate well, be committed to public service and possess self-confidence.
Within my professional background and on each of the boards where I’ve served, boardroom capital was built on five different types of intelligence: financial, strategic, relational, role, and cultural. I’ve owned the budget, P&Ls, scrutinized assets, and investments, and leveraged to drive free cash flows and challenge earnings. I’ve reviewed organizational business models, understood how it relates to strategy and operations, and how changes potentially put at risk or destroy goodwill and perceived economic value. I’ve made it my business to value others, develop trust, and improve the backgrounds and experiences of others through engaging in cross-functional, cross-industry, and cross-culture groups. If elected, I will bring those same focuses to the school district governing Board.
A school board member is a multifaceted position with primary responsibilities set the vision and goals for the district; to hire, monitor, and evaluate the school superintendent; to adopt policies providing the school district direction and set priorities; to approve district curriculum and budget, and ensure the district successfully accomplishes its primary goal of preparing total students to achieve successful outcomes.
I want the opportunity to cultivate, develop, and ensure a shared vision with plans for total student achievement based on data and deliberation reflecting the common values and core beliefs of the entire school district and community with clear expectations and accountability. Through this, I endeavor to provide effective leadership supporting district goals to empower hiring the highest quality staff, foster collective commitment to the community and a culture that enables team learning, innovation excellence, and research-based professional development. Accomplishment of these goals will allow our school district to be a positive example and catalyst for other educators, school districts, and communities throughout Arizona.
As a youngster, one of the first historically defining moments I remember was the Iranian Hostage Crisis. It was a defining moment as my parents attempted to explain the complexities of world politics and that different people have different experiences, rationalizations, and ideologies.
My first job was as an Avionics Technician on B-52, B-1, B-2 aircraft and multiple other airframes in the United States Air Forces with a career spanning 20+ years with retirement as the Chief of Operations and Personnel.
A school board member is a multifaceted position with primary responsibilities set the vision and goals for the district; to hire, monitor, and evaluate the school superintendent; to adopt policies providing the school district direction and set priorities; to approve district curriculum and budget, and ensure the district successfully accomplishes its primary goal of preparing total students to achieve successful outcomes.
The constituency of the Vail Unified School District are my constituents, they include the parents, educators, and all people who live, work, attend classes, and vote in the Vail Unified School District and every stakeholder that affects or impacted through its sphere of influence.
Governments and businesses are facing increased challenges with supply chain globalization and technology advancement. I support legislation to encourage policy that includes and empowers employment opportunities for total people to fully realize and develop assets and resources. This includes people with developmental disabilities in all facets of community life by eliminating barriers, creating opportunities, empowering people, and promoting innovation. All children belong in families where they feel loved and cared for, with the opportunity to learn to be successful and the potential for independence. All students with developmental disabilities have a right to an appropriate, individualized, and quality education, alongside their non-disabled peers, that empowers and prepares them for life post-graduation. Those students with disabilities should be equipped to enter postsecondary education, the workforce, and their communities ready to pursue opportunities that are both relevant and meaningful. They should have access to resources, opportunities, and the supports necessary to eliminate barriers, exercise control, make their own decisions, promote innovation, and live in their own homes; preventing unnecessary institutionalization and isolated settings, this ensures they are included to make contributions to their families, society, and to community life.
I firmly believe all people, groups, and organizations are stakeholders. I will utilize my personal and professional network to reach out to the widest audiences and sphere of influence to meet, engage, and to assist and inspire our school district to be the best in ensuring our students gain the successful outcomes.
I believe we should seek strong teacher and staff candidates, provide growth opportunities, and employ the best individuals suited for each professional position we offer. People often gravitate to successful school districts, and school districts become successful via their incredible staff thus, the policies and procedures that afford gaining and retaining talented, compassionate, and focused staff should be well-documented, duplicated, perpetuated, and shared.
I believe when we work together (students, educators, parents, and community stakeholders) in an Agile way we can overcome any obstacle through clearly defining a successful outcome for every issue, concern, and stakeholder. When we work together to develop a plan, ensure all priorities are included, inspire to gain collective collaboration, make the concern relevant, ensure all stakeholders are contributing, we can work together to build alignment to outcomes and output critical for forward movement, total engagement, and successful growth.
Good teaching aligns to being a good student and is about active listening, questioning, being responsive, nurturing, and remembering that each student is distinctive, and each class of students is unique with their own special gifts and talents. Students learn through a multitude of techniques and many different means. A good educator never stops learning, developing, and working to reach, inspire, and in being the best example others desire to be. Thus, teacher ongoing professional development is key. In addition, through a balance of summative and formative assessments data helps educators understand students’ needs and aid them to improve performance. Assessments are a part of schooling for students and parents, as educators must be able to measure student progress and ensure positive learning outcomes through to graduation.
School boards are responsible for crafting the overall educational vision of districts. Included in that vision planning is approving the districtwide curriculum. Generally, members of the board are not subject matter experts in this area. To ensure the program(s) are the best for students, the board must stay educated on key elements, ask poignant questions, rely upon the professional advice of superintendents, administrators, teachers, staff, and may employ curriculum experts to facilitate periodic and annual reviews ensuring the board wisely approves the overall district curriculum.
Much of any curriculum is mandated by state law. Board members considering curriculum recommendations must review the needs of the community with a balance to the budget up to and through approval and adoption of any curriculum. Boards must challenge the administrator to communicate the process to total stakeholders, especially parents so they may review, ask questions, to provide sufficient justification for curriculum design and goals to meet the needs of student populations.
If I am voted to serve our community on the Vail School District Governing Board, I will further review spending, understand our collective needs vs. wants, discuss to determine what is important to our community, compare our collective short and long-term goals as well as review our financial buffer. I will challenge to maintain an effective and efficient budget because the success of every student relies on the effective use of each and every dollar.
Our district priorities and strategies come from our people, each tax paying citizen. As a representative of the people, the people expect a school district to meet the educational needs and desires efficiently with effective use of finite resources. The Board has a primary responsibility to each stakeholder and taxpayer to operate the school system ensuring expenditures do not exceed revenues.
School Safety remains a paramount issue throughout our nation. I will employ every strategy, resource, and collective experiences to ensure our schools remain the safest through regular review and implementation of school safety information, resources, guidance, and best practices.
Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make healthy choices. Mental health is hugely important at every stage of life, from childhood, through adolescence and into adulthood. Through ensuring a student, educator, staff and total stakeholders have safe, secure, and healthy environments to learn and grow, structures to identify, and mechanisms to assist when needed, we can assure the most successful outcomes.
VUSD is an outstanding school district with an ample number of educational opportunities for every student. We live in a world that is rapidly and consistently changing with advancing technologies and a diverse global marketplace. It’s a world that demands current, evolving, and applicable skills in every workspace. Technology affects us in total aspects of our lives. Within each discipline and career path tomorrow’s students need a different kind of education than the ones previous generations of students received. Academia recognizes but struggles with the challenges of keeping up with advancements and the exponential costs of providing technological resources at the cost of taxpayers. We must consider every possible modern academic program, strategic partnerships, and global solutions which will provide educators efficient, effective, and advanced tools to teach, and deliver the means for every student to gain a successful future.
I would recommend greater coordination between our schools and the technical industry and alliances with businesses to help bridge any technological gap. This will ensure the Vail School District experience provides top results for the widest number of students toward any future career. We need to continuously evaluate and challenge our processes to ensure the task of meeting or exceeding the technological needs of our students and tomorrow’s leaders. This added capacity will allow for more differentiated instruction and individual attention for every student in K-12, leading to more responsive instruction and better learning and development outcomes within whole-learner frameworks. Through expanding partnerships with private technology companies our administrators, educators, and most importantly our students gain insight, experience, and preparation for the world to come.
I would recommend greater coordination between our schools and the technical industry and alliances with businesses to help bridge any technological gap. This will ensure the Vail School District experience provides top results for the widest number of students toward any future career. We need to continuously evaluate and challenge our processes to ensure the task of meeting or exceeding the technological needs of our students and tomorrow’s leaders. This added capacity will allow for more differentiated instruction and individual attention for every student in K-12, leading to more responsive instruction and better learning and development outcomes within whole-learner frameworks. Through expanding partnerships with private technology companies our administrators, educators, and most importantly our students gain insight, experience, and preparation for the world to come.
The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically shifted the way children were being educated. I believe pre-planning with total stakeholders to have measures in-place to address emergency issues is key. With the aid of state and district leaders setting metrics for achieving access and equity in the roles schools play in academic achievement is critical for implementing plans, personnel, and district operations. Then active and continual communication to total stakeholders help to establish, develop, strengthen mechanisms to engage diverse community voices, as local community members often best understand the specific ways in which their own schools support or impede community resilience.
It is my firm belief that parents have very busy lives and often have difficulties attending in-person as well as remote meetings. I plan to make myself available to parents and total stakeholders to ensure everyone has a seat at that table and able to discuss the issues at times and places that make it more convenient for them.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on October 10, 2022
