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Keith Schachter
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Keith Schachter ran for election to the Brevard Public Schools school board to represent District 4 in Florida. He lost in the primary on August 20, 2024.
Schachter completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Keith Schachter was born in Miami Beach, Florida. He earned a high school diploma from Piper High School and a bachelor's degree from Florida Atlantic University in 1999. His career experience includes working in advertising. Schachter has been affiliated with Take Stock in Children Leadership Council and Eau Gallie Arts District.[1]
Elections
2024
See also: Brevard Public Schools, Florida, elections (2024)
General election
General election for Brevard Public Schools school board District 4
Incumbent Matt Susin defeated Ava Taylor in the general election for Brevard Public Schools school board District 4 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Matt Susin (Nonpartisan) | 59.5 | 42,541 |
 | Ava Taylor (Nonpartisan)  | 40.5 | 28,972 | |
| Total votes: 71,513 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Brevard Public Schools school board District 4
Incumbent Matt Susin and Ava Taylor defeated Keith Schachter and Max Madl in the primary for Brevard Public Schools school board District 4 on August 20, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Matt Susin (Nonpartisan) | 48.3 | 12,164 |
| ✔ | | Ava Taylor (Nonpartisan) | 33.2 | 8,343 |
 | Keith Schachter (Nonpartisan) | 10.7 | 2,691 | |
 | Max Madl (Nonpartisan) | 7.8 | 1,965 | |
| Total votes: 25,163 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Crystal Kazy (Nonpartisan)
Endorsements
Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Schachter in this election.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Keith Schachter completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2024. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Schachter'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'm a loving husband, proud father, and great son to my mother, who lives with us. I'm an former education professional, having served 17 years in the Florida Public School system as a teacher, magnet school coordinator, & assistant principal. After graduating from college in 1999, I landed a job as an advertising sales account executive for RH Donnelley, the company that founded the Yellow Pages. I achieved much success, & finished as the top sales professional in the Tallahassee office. At the time, advertising sales did not fulfill my desire to make a difference in the lives of children. Teaching was my calling, and I pursued the career after a few years in advertising sales. I landed my 1st teaching job at Lauderhill Middle School in Ft. Lauderdale, & I never looked back. I taught 5 years in Broward County, & moved to Brevard County in 2008. From 2008-2019, I worked in Brevard as a teacher, magnet school coordinator & assistant principal. In 2012, I was one of 6 proud finalists for Brevard County's Teacher of the Year. In 2019, I left the education profession and founded B2K12 Branding Solutions, a company that serves the interest of public schools through the sale of advertising. My company is contracted with 2 central Florida school districts, & to date we have raised over $1 million dollars of unrestricted funds for the schools. My ultimate goal is to influence positive and much needed reform in our public schools.
- If public schools do not address the student enrollment crises, the institution is in big trouble. Public schools must do a better job at earning the trust of the public, so that parents choose public schools for their children, over other options. Public School funding is based on student enrollment, and because student enrollment has been declining, schools district have no choice but to make significant budget cuts, which adversely affects the educational experiences of our children. Declining student enrollment is the largest issue that faces public education today.
- Curriculum reform at all levels is desperately needed. Our schools are stuck in the past. We are still teaching classes that were taught in the 1960s. Our economy has changed drastically, especially in the last 30 years. The tech boom has caused sweeping changes to industries across a wide variety of industries. We need to inject more innovative curricular offerings to our students, so that our schools produce students who are more ready for today's world of work. By addressing an outdated curriculum, we can attract more students back into the system. More students = Bigger budgets, so that we can address the needs of our children today.
- Teacher Shortages are a huge problem. Research consistently shows that good teachers have the greatest impact on student achievement. School districts across Florida and the nation are dealing with a crises in teacher shortages. We must do a better job at making the teaching profession an attractive field to new professionals and those looking for a career change. This will require sweeping changes to improve teacher salaries and working conditions. We need to increase the standard for teachers, pay them respectably, & reward those that perform above expectations. We need to give teachers more autonomy, better professional development, & more respect. We need to inject a stronger sense of pride in the teaching profession.
Honestly, anything and everything that has to do with public education. A strong public education system is of paramount importance to our society. A strong educated base of citizens, with skill sets to serve a modern workforce, should restore American greatness on the global stage. The United States used to dominate other nations in this area, and currently we are not even close to competing with many other modern nations. With positive reform, we can reignite American pride and regain a prominent status on the world stage. In doing so, our economy will thrive, and most importantly, our children will be better positioned to pass thr torch to future generations.
Remember the Titans- Despite a very challenging time in our nation's history, when our schools faced great challenges in transitioning from segregation to integration, this movie is a great examplar that very hard work, consistency, fairness, decency, and a common will to win can overcome anything.
Ethics must guide elected officials across all issues. Doing what is right is always a better choice than doing what is popular.
I am politically moderate and can view things from multiple perspectives. I work well with people from all backgrounds. Everywhere I have worked, I have formed great working relationships with people. Don't take my word for it. Ask people that worked with me at Stone Middle, Palm Bay High and Jackson Middle.
School board members should work together to ensure that they are fiscally responsible in managing the budget. Decision making should be guided by state law, and what is in the best interest of our students. Core responsibilities include maintaining a positive presence in the community, supporting local schools, attending all school board meetings, and making conscientious decisions on issues that are guided by the highest standard of ethics.
Help guide the school the district move forward in accordance to their stated objectives, and make decisions that will help pave the way towards a brighter future for our students. This always requires the willingness to go against what is popular with other board members or school district officials. There should be a respectable level of discourse on a school board. Having all members aligned is not the proper way to move forward. A "fall in line" culture should never be the norm.
All people that have children.
I will always do everything in my power to ensure that all students, faculty, staff, and community members, regardless of the ethnic, National, religious, political, gender, or sexual orientation be treated with dignity and respect. There is no other way.
My primary target group would be the business community. I feel strongly that public education should do a much better job at seeking the feedback and advice of successful people in the business world. We need to do a better job at giving local businesses a seat at the table. For too long public education has operated in a silo, and has been too proud to ask for feedback, help and guidance. Financial experts should be consulted when dealing with a large budgets; business leaders feedback should be sought when considering new curricular initiaves; law enforcement should be consulted to help guide safety decisions; public health officials and mental health experts should be included in policy discussions; skilled labor industries should be involved in the creation of new CTE programs; Large defense contractors, the space industry, and engineering forms should be consulted on what their needs are, etc. We need to work collaboratively with all the bright business minds in our talented ecosystem across the space coast, so that we can shape public education to be a positive contributor to the needs of our local economy. From a social standpoint, public schools should engage more with local churches, temples, and mosques, so that we can further connect with families in our community. Civic organizations, such as the NAACP, and similar organizations that represent the latin community, should also be engaged. Feedback should always be sought from distinguished mebers and groups across our county.
The most essential ingredient to good teaching is relationship building. Good teachers teach students first, then content. You can measure good teaching through a wide array of measure. We should not put all of our stock in narrow data sets, like reading and math scores. Students can be brutally honest. Want to measure good teaching? Ask the students!
We need to expand CTE (Career and Technical Education) to more programs, and we should look to start these programs in earlier grade levels. We should also include more relevant coursework in soft skills, financial literacy, and practical skills. We should expand the Arts, because the Arts can be the glue that holds all the curriculum together. Creative thinking is mission critical across all subjects, so therefore the arts should be more valued across the board. If given the opportunity, I would like to see more efforts to provide interdisciplinary coursework. Rather than teach one subject in a silo, we ought to look at practical approaches to combine subject matter that is interrelated. Technology integration in all subject areas is also a necessity.
Involve bright minds outside of education and give them a seat at the table. We need to be more fiscally responsible. There is a lot of wasteful spending in public education. In order to properly dissect funding needs, we need to first manage the budget we are working with. If we involve businesses more in our decision making, we may discover new revenue sources that have not been available in the past. If we can collaborate more with local businesses, we might be able to carve mutually beneficial pathways towards sustainable budgets.
Our schools have done a great job in making our schools safe, structurally. Fences, security films, bullet proof front offices, improved safety protocols, armed personnel, etc. All of these measures improve safety. But, do our students feel safe? A good percentage of school shootings come from offenders inside the walls. Does the public truly know what is going on inside our schools? Are our students safer if their guidance counselor is helping with test administration? Are they safer if their regular classroom teacher resigned and chose another career? Are they safer if there is a shortage of staff? Are we offering adequate mental health resources? My feelings are that public education is always reacting. School shootings lead to safer structures, but we fail miserably at proving needed human resources to support students that struggle with their mental health. We need to be more proactive, and that provides proper planning and more financial resources improve the human resources that are available to our students.
I just answered this in previous question.
I would like to see that are discipline is handled more consistently. Simply stating that you are going to be tougher on discipline, and giving teachers more power to write discipline referrals is not the answer. Good discipline plans require buy-in from all parties: teachers, parents, administrators, and students. The great Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” That is what our district did this past year with disciple. They had no concrete plan. All they did was execute a PR stunt with no plan. Another unrelated policy I would like to see change in schools is energy management. I wonder if the public is aware that schools actually turn off the AC once the kids are out, and in many buildings over the Summer. Conventional wisdom here is that is saves on electric bills. But, how much does it cost, when it creates a perfect storm for mold, mildew, pests, and other conditions that over time cost teh schools much more. This is one great example of why school officials should actually consult outside professionals and stop practices that make very little financial sense.
An environment that caters to the individual strenths of each student. One of the first theories educators learn is Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, which states that human beings typically have a couple or more talents across several areas. Our school system should put more stock in these talents, so that students are more engaged. A more engaged student body will naturally lead to improved test scores.
Schools did the best they could. Some things they got right, and others they got wrong. But, hindsight is 20/20. That was a tough time in our world. The soilver lining in the pandemic is that it opened the public' eyes to our shortfalls in public ed. Now we need to regain what we have lost in the area of students. That will come with systemic reform in public ed.
Enage them and offer flexible ways for them to participate. Not all kids have the luxury of having parents who can attend their school's open house on a certain date and time. It is 2024, and technology is awesome today. We need to do a better job of offering parents flexible options to engage with the children's education professionals.
I answered this question in previous answers. Engage the business public, and ask for their feedback. How dio they recruit talent? What has been their strategies? What has been successful? What has failed? Go beyond where we have gone before. This is mission critical.
I answered this earlier when I stated that "Ethics must guide elected officials across all issues. Doing what is right is always a better choice than doing what is popular". This means that we must always maintain full transparency in the use of public school funding, and those that are found to violate ethical standards should be held accountable, always.
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
2024 Elections
External links
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Candidate Brevard Public Schools school board District 4 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on July 23, 2024
