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Karen Graf
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Karen Graf is the District A representative on the Alexandria City School Board in Virginia. Graf sought another term in the general election on November 3, 2015.[1] Karen Graf won the general election on November 3, 2015.
Elections
2015
Opposition
The Alexandria City School Board is a nine-member board elected by district to three-year terms. There are three districts on the board with three board members per district.[2] The general election was held on November 3, 2015.[3] The seats of all nine incumbents were up for election.[4]
Incumbents William Campbell and Karen Graf and challenger Harold Cardwell ran unopposed and won the three District A seats. District B incumbent Kelly Booz lost her seat after facing challengers Cindy Anderson, Mimi Goff, Margaret Lorber and Veronica Nolan. Anderson, Lorber and Nolan won the three District B seats. The District C race for three seats featured incumbents Ronnie Campbell, Patricia Hennig and Christopher Lewis and challengers Darla Dillard and Ramee Gentry. While Campbell and Lewis won re-election, Henning lost her seat to Gentry.
Results
| Alexandria City School Board, District A, General Election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Karen Graf Incumbent |
36.2% | 7,131 |
| William Campbell Incumbent |
32.4% | 6,371 |
| Harold Cardwell |
29.3% | 5,770 |
| Write-in votes | 2.12% | 418 |
| Total Votes | 19,690 | |
| Source: Virginia Department of Elections, "2015 November General", accessed November 3, 2015 | ||
Funding
Graf reported $8,759.37 in contributions and $3,353.34 in expenditures to the Virginia State Board of Elections, which left her campaign with $5,406.03 on hand as of October 28, 2015.[5]
Endorsements
Graf earned the endorsement of the Alexandria Political Action Committee for Education.[6]
Campaign themes
2015
Ballotpedia survey responses
Graf participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates. The following sections display her responses to the survey questions. When asked what her top priority would be if elected, the candidate made the following statement:
| “ |
My top priority would be to support our districts budget, capacity and academic strategies so they are better aligned. We are redistricting and challenged with building schools, while still building academic supports for all our students. [7] |
” |
| —Karen Graf, (2015), [8] | ||
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues by importance in the school district, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. This table displays this candidate's rankings from most to least important:
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in Virginia. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
| Expanding career-technical education | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Expanding arts education | |
| Improving college readiness | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer 10 questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are in the left column and the candidate's responses are in the right column of the following table:
| Question | Response |
|---|---|
| "Virginia does not do Common Core." | |
| "No." | |
| "No." | |
| "No." | |
| "Districts need to analyze students data and understand how to align the needs with the budget." | |
| "Practices such as positive behavior strategies should be used before expulsion is considered." | |
| "1. Analyze the leadership model at the schools 2. Look at the teaching staff closely through data (certifications, student data, years of teaching, etc.) | |
| "Yes." | |
| "Set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district." | |
| "-Make sure all the Board business is posted in a public way to promote transparency. -Attend PTA and school community events. |
Additional themes
Graf answered the following questions from The Connection about issues in the district:
| “ |
What is one issue that defines your call to serve, why does it matter, and how will you tackle it? For these next three years, my top priority will be to continue pushing academic excellence for ACPS, while addressing our capacity and budget issues. I like to strategize around the improvement of academic support to help schools be effective. By looking at data to identify the division’s needs, the budget and staffing models can become more aligned which will result in division-wide improvements in the state benchmarks like we have seen to-date. What distinguishes you from your opponent(s) and why should voters choose you? Process, Persistence, and Performance. With strong processes, members of the Board can be more effective to make decisions and communication the direction. I love building processes. Even with good processes, sometimes it takes a lot of work to get the decision realized. This is where persistence is imperative and I have a lot of it. I will stick with a problem until it is solved or completed. Lastly, whether it is the School Board itself or the division at large, performance is the result of working hard and functioning well. Alexandria City needs a high performing school division and I have the determination to work effectively with many types of people and issues to move towards excellence. How can Alexandria address overcrowding within the current budgetary confines? What ideas and skills do you bring to solving this? I do think this is a problem and it does need to be addressed. But I believe in the next three years that we will explore all type of ideas that will align capacity, academic advancement and budget in order to provide for future ACPS families. The most important concept is that our decision making has to advance our academic goals and to create a vision that the community can believe in for ACPS. During the redistricting for elementary schools, I believe we have the opportunity to carefully consider preschool, middle school and the high school crowding issues. I have a host of ideas for the budget and academic models that will be researched in the coming months. As for my skills, my experience in technical communications allows me the ability to play with data and concepts in order to find a solution that is right for Alexandria City. I enjoy researching information, developing strategy and planning communication methods. While the majority of Alexandria schools remain accredited, what can be done about continuing problems facing Jefferson-Houston? For incumbents, what lessons have been learned from the problem? For non-incumbent candidates, what would you have done differently? In Jefferson-Houston’s case, we are fortunate that Alexandria City has the resources to provide for the school. In the last three years, the School Board and Superintendent have analyzed the academic needs, the staffing models, the school leadership team, and community engagement methods. It has not been easy in the past three years, but this work led to the success we are seeing today. The School Board worked hard to help support that school community so they could get double-digit growth in most all the subgroups and in every subject. The progress made in the last school year exceeded the state’s one year goals for the school and nearly all the two year goals. This school, now in a new building, is primed to be accredited this summer. The progress is occurring fast compared to average educational turnaround standards and I couldn’t be more excited for the JH community. [7] |
” |
| —Karen Graf (2015), [9] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Karen Graf' 'Alexandria City Public Schools'. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Alexandria City Public Schools, Virginia
- Alexandria City Public Schools elections (2015)
- Incumbency no guarantee of success in Nov. 3 school board elections (November 6, 2015)
- What happened in Nov.'s top board elections? (November 4, 2015)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Virginia Department of Elections, "List of Candidates," September 9, 2015
- ↑ Alexandria City Public Schools, "School Board," accessed September 17, 2015
- ↑ Virginia Department of Elections, "2015 November Election Calendar," accessed January 27, 2015
- ↑ Alexandria City Public Schools, "School Board Members," accessed January 27, 2015
- ↑ Virginia State Board of Elections, "Campaign Finance Reports," accessed October 27, 2015
- ↑ AlexandriaNews.org, "Alexandria Educators Endorse Candidates," July 13, 2015
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2015, "Karen Graf's responses," October 18, 2015
- ↑ The Connection, "School Board–Alexandria District A: Karen A. Graf," October 26, 2015
