Eric Stengel
From Ballotpedia
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Eric Stengel ran for election to the Richardson Independent School District school board to represent Place 7 in Texas. He lost in the general election on May 1, 2021.
Stengel completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Eric Stengel was born in Plano, Texas. He earned a bachelor's degree from Texas Tech University in 2003. He also graduated from the University of Texas at Dallas in 2007. His professional experience includes working as a medical staff professional. He has been affiliated with the Society of Human Resources and the National Association of Medical Staff Services.[1]
Elections
2021
See also: Richardson Independent School District, Texas, elections (2021)
General runoff election
General runoff election for Richardson Independent School District school board Place 7 At-Large
Christopher Poteet defeated Amanda Clair in the general runoff election for Richardson Independent School District school board Place 7 At-Large on June 5, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Christopher Poteet (Nonpartisan) | 56.5 | 6,915 | |
| Amanda Clair (Nonpartisan) | 43.5 | 5,333 | ||
| Total votes: 12,248 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
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General election
General election for Richardson Independent School District school board Place 7 At-Large
The following candidates ran in the general election for Richardson Independent School District school board Place 7 At-Large on May 1, 2021.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Christopher Poteet (Nonpartisan) | 36.2 | 6,367 | |
| ✔ | Amanda Clair (Nonpartisan) | 27.4 | 4,820 | |
| Blake Sawyer (Nonpartisan) | 13.9 | 2,441 | ||
| Nicole Foster (Nonpartisan) | 12.5 | 2,188 | ||
 | Eric Stengel (Nonpartisan) | 5.6 | 990 | |
| Nicholas Frank LaGrassa (Nonpartisan) | 2.4 | 426 | ||
| Gavin Haynes (Nonpartisan) | 1.9 | 334 | ||
| Total votes: 17,566 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Campaign themes
2021
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Eric Stengel completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2021. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Stengel's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I am a parent of a child that attends the local school system, a property owner and an actively engaged constituent of Richardson ISD schools wishing to use my time and talent to give back to the school district that has given me so much as an alum that attended the public school system. With over ten years of progressive experience in the for profit medical industry as a medical staff professional addressing compliance and talent management issues, I am a successful change agent that can ensure the continued success of the public school system in RISD continues. My education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Tech University with a major emphasis in History and minor in Philosophy. I attended the University of Texas at Dallas teacher certification program and possess an active teaching license, having formerly taught for nearly 1.25 years of service with 2 years of substitute teaching experience. I also attended the local Community College program and the University of Dallas institutions. My current professional associations and certifications include Society of Human Resources Management professional (SHRM-CP) and National Association of Medical Staff Services (CPCS) making my background unique in regard to the talent and compliance side of running a large urban/suburban school system. I possess a servant's heart oftentimes volunteering for my local community church and other events. I believe in the power of paying it forward to make a difference.
Transparency: Ensuring that the current goals and objectives of the school district align with the guiding principles of student academic excellence and be open to communication with the community as a BOT member.
- Fiscal Responsibility: Ensuring that the school district maintains a continued fiscal footprint as good stewards of taxpayer revenue and that student achievement is maintained across the spectrum.
- Leadership Management: Ensuring the Superintendent continues to fulfill the objectives and measures of the mission of the school system as adopted by the Board of Trustees both on the local level and the State governance level.
The major area of public policy I am most passionate about is ensuring that students not only graduate from High School, but possess the ability to obtain a career after High School, or have the ability to attend a local community college, four year university or vocational or trade school. Career readiness and the ability for our K-12 institution of public learning can remove any barriers to racial inequity or disparity, socioeconomic gaps and other issues by ensuring that the path to upward mobility is granted through the model of a great public education model. Knowledge and education is power. Our local school campuses must be centers of excellence with a mission for success that instills in our students the innate desire to be life-long learners always striving to become better citizen leaders in whatever vocation they choose after they leave High School. "Scientia potentia est...knowledge is power." "Ex nihilo nihil fit. Carpe diem, carpe noctem" (Out of nothing comes nothing, seize the day, seize the night) are mottos we should be striving for in our local communities.
I look up to the many people in life that have shaped my experiences from my grandparents, parents and other family members. My teachers that I have had over the years have shaped me and molded me. My religious pastors and other church parishioners as well as my best friend and wife Angela are all people whose example I wish to follow. At the end of the day, the best example and person to follow is oneself as our ontological journey and development must start and end with ourselves.
Start each day and each moment as a tabula rasa or blank slate. One's life is never completed and a book, essay, film or other philosophical approach to life and leadership is limited according to circumstance and the choices we make each and every day. As poet Robert Frost's 20th century "The Road Not Taken" work posits, it is about undertaking the journey and travelling down that road that forms our philosophical way of life.
Veritatem, Justitiam Diligite: "Love ye truth and justice" is the greatest principle to abide by for any elected official.
I'm a continual learner that has a servant's heart. I'm always volunteering at my local church community, or supporting the works of various charities when I can. In my free time I offer people support in career counseling, career guidance and helping others to find their livelihoods for we are better as a community when all are successful.
The core responsibilities for someone elected to the Texas school board according to the Texas Association of School Boards are the following five responsibilites: Local school board responsibilities can be grouped into five categories: 1. Adopt goals and priorities and monitor success. 2. Adopt policies and review for effectiveness. 3. Hire and evaluate the superintendent. 4. Adopt a budget and set a tax rate. 5. Communicate with the community. (https://www.tasb.org/members/enhance-district/texas-school-board-roles-and-responsibilities/)
I'm not one for legacies or historical interpretations. I believe the greatest legacy one can leave is to look in the mirror each day and ask themselves how they will make the world a better place today instead of in the future.
The first historical event that I recall was the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in January of 1986. I was a student in the 1st grade at the time.
My first job was mowing yards in the local neighborhood using a push wagon and lawn equipment that I performed for nearly a year at the age of 14. At the age of 15 my second job was working at a grocery store as a baggage clerk.
One book - haha. My most favorite book was Jules Verne's "Journey To The Center of the Earth" as given to me by a fifth grade teacher as a gift. It sparked in me a desire to be a continual learner and my young boyhood dreams of my love for science and quest for truth was brought to fruition by reading this book.
Indiana Jones - the character possess both the academic integrity as a professor as well as the adventure of finding lost treasures and antiquities
While so two years ago, Blanco Brown's "The Git Up" dance song was in my head for quite awhile.
The greatest struggle in my life has been the ability to focus on the meaningful goals in life while putting aside the less important goals. Having a great career, source of income, and certain job title are important things to have in supporting one's family and household. However, the macro-level side of life is way too important these days in the need for myself to address community cohesiveness, citizenship, educational pursuits, introspective analysis and those lessons in life that matter most for our children are the future and they will see how we prioritize those important teachable moments.
Per the Texas Education code, the primary job of a school board trustee member as a body of trustees is to "oversee the management of the school district" and to "ensure that the superintendent implements and monitors plans, procedures, programs, and systems to achieve appropriate, clearly defined, and desired results in the major areas of district operations" (TX Education code Title 2, subtitle C, section 11.051).
For the at-large position seat for place 7, the constituents for RISD represent all stakeholders in the District including local businesses, parents/guardians, property owners, those with students in the district and those without students in the district as well as those whom work in the district.
The best ways to support the diverse needs of the district's students, faculty, staff and community is by being a presence and listening ear on the board of trustees. By working with the current board of trustees members and the Superintendent in reporting feedback from the community to being a visible and listening servant leader can one instill a support for the rich and diverse needs of the district.
In order to build relationships with the broader community, one must reach out to the local chamber of commerce entities as well as the municipal and county run areas of governance to obtain a greater sense of how school district governance and relationships impact the broader community.
Diversity recruitment is important for any organization and I would defer such recruitment practices to the current board of trustee members and Superintendent until elected. Specific policies of starting salary, district messaging in regard to what makes the district unique as well as other factors of attrition and other incentives are crucial to maintaining a diverse workforce.
The greatest obstacles that get in the way of a quality education are politics and funding. If one can remove certain barriers from a State and local governance side and look at inefficiencies in the many tasks an educator must perform each day that take away from instructional quality time, these would remove many disparities in a quality education.
Good teaching is measured with not only State and local benchmark testing measures, but also other factors such as grade level advancement, national benchmark achievement standards, High School graduation rates, admissibility to other academic programs and outside educational measures such as IQ testing and behavioral testing measures. Overall, good teaching is also reflected in the various public relations posts featuring the great teacher awards not only in the District, but in surrounding communities. We must instill and nourish in our teachers a love for teaching and praise them for their great work whenever their classrooms are exhibiting that special something. A Master's level teaching fellowship specific to the district might be one solution, however I would defer to the current modus operandi in the District as a candidate.
I would like to see the STEM model advanced in all of the area schools and focus on technical training and apprenticeship programs at all area High Schools. We must adequately prepare our next great workforce of student graduates with tools and they need to obtain careers after High School if that is what they wish to do.
Outside of the current funding mechanisms at the State level, I would make sure to analyze the budget for any potential waste and redundancy costs, look at how our District can obtain the needed funding without necessarily raising the ad valorem property tax rate and work with the current board of trustees members to find ways to generate revenue as appropriate to maintain adequate funding for our school campuses. Bond measures are one good way of generating capital without raising local property taxes just as long as current bond rates and market conditions dictate success.
Safety in schools starts and ends with awareness from the local community, parents/caregivers and students as well as the administrative and teaching staff. Unfortunately, we live in a world where we must have training drills for not only the risk of a bad weather event or natural disaster, but also the possibility of a school lockdown due to an active shooter in the area. When local school communities are prepared for crisis situations that might occur where safety standards in schools fail, then we are better prepared as a school community to address such issues in regard to policies for safe schools.
The local school district personnel and counseling staff should always be the first line of support for the mental health needs of the district. However, other resources such as the county medical society resource list, local behavioral health groups and the many great charities that offer support and guidance for mental health support are additional tools and outreach resources the board of trustee member should be familiar.
Technology use in the classroom and outside of the classroom is more important than it ever was before, especially in the world of virtual learning where not only our District, but others had to conduct online learning. With any technology comes responsibility. Limited and meaningful use technology is needed for the younger grades since young learners must first learn the social, behavioral, fine motor skills and emotional characteristics of learning before advancing to technological applications. For the upper grade levels, the use of technology should not be 100% given that various research data suggests the prefrontal cortex of the human brain does not develop until about the age of 25 years of age. Ensuring that students are in a stable mental, emotional and developmental state to use technology is important for technology can never replace the critical thinking, analysis or human interaction of our society no matter how much automation technology brings to the workplace.
I used to have a handle on life, but then it broke (reflection from the Great Pandemic and DFW winter blizzard)
Students and people are resilient. All components of our society had to adjust to schooling during pandemic times. Parent(s) and Caregiver(s) had a greater appreciation for the role of a school teacher. Teachers had a greater appreciation for those who worked in the homes and for those students they saw within the confines of their home. While the online schooling model was not ideal, it changed our worldview and allowed all of us to become more aware of our diverse backgrounds and conditions as a human race for we learned how to not only care and be there for others, but also how to cope with the basic human condition of illness, suffering and tragedy. Despite obstacles of low bandwidth, technological inadequacies and the need for rigid health safety precautions of hand washing, face mask wearing and basic hygiene and social distancing standards put into place with the current epidemiological data we had at the time; I am optimistic that we will come out better from this pandemic experience in the way we view 21st century education.
The work of a school board trustee is a thankless task with many hours of service. From being present at local community banquets and committees, to attending PTA events to reaching out to the inner city schools to offer support and guidance under the direction of the Board and Superintendent, relationships are a team effort and communication and trust is crucial to maintaining parental involvement and support.
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
2021 Elections
External links
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Candidate Richardson Independent School District school board Place 7 At-Large |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on April 3, 2021
