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Mary Sinclair
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2018 - Present
2026
7
Mary Sinclair is the District 2 representative on the Shawnee Mission School District school board in Kansas. Sinclair won a first term in the by-district general election on November 7, 2017.
Sinclair participated in Ballotpedia's 2017 school board candidate survey. Click here to read her responses.
Biography
Sinclair graduated from the Shawnee Mission School District. Her work experience includes serving as a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri at Kansas City and as a principal investigator at the University of Minnesota. She earned a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University, a master's degree in education from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. in special education from the University of Minnesota. She started serving as a member of the PTA in 2002. Sinclair also served on the Fairway Parks and Recreation committee and the ad hoc Johnson County Public Square committee. She and her husband have two children who also attended school in the district.[1]
Elections
2017
Three of the seven seats on the Shawnee Mission School District Board of Education in Kansas were up for general election on November 7, 2017. A primary election was held on August 1, 2017, for the at-large seat and the District 4 seat. In his bid for re-election to the District 4 seat, incumbent Craig Denny ran against challengers Lee Biard, Laura Guy, and Christopher White. Denny and Guy advanced to the general election, where Guy won, defeating the incumbent. Mandi Serrone Hunter and Heather Ousley defeated incumbent Cindy Neighbor and fellow challengers Robert Roberge and Fabian Shepard in the at-large primary and advanced to the general election, where Ousley won the seat.[2][3]
The District 2 seat did not hold a primary election as fewer candidates filed to run for that seat. Mary Sinclair defeated James Lockard for that open seat in the general election.[4][5]
District 4 candidate Lee Biard announced that he stopped actively campaigning, but his name still appeared on the primary election ballot.[6]
Results
| Shawnee Mission School District, District 2 General Election, 4-year term, 2017 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Mary Sinclair |
77.42% | 6,029 |
| James Lockard | 22.43% | 1,747 |
| Write-in votes | 0.14% | 11 |
| Total Votes | 7,787 | |
| Source: Johnson County, "Election Summary Report 2017 Fall General Official Final Results," accessed November 17, 2017 | ||
Funding
Sinclair reported no contributions or expenditures to the Johnson County Elections Office in the election.[7]
Endorsements
Sinclair was endorsed by the following organizations for the general election:[8][9][10][11][12][13]
- National Education Association-Shawnee Mission’s Political Action Committee
- Equality Kansas
- Education First Shawnee Mission
- MainStream Coalition's political action committee (MainPAC)
- Kansans Advancing Women (KAW)
- Kansas Families for Education
Campaign themes
2017
Ballotpedia survey responses
Mary Sinclair participated in Ballotpedia's 2017 survey of school board candidates.[14] In response to the question "What do you hope to achieve if elected to the school board?" the candidate stated on August 24, 2017:
| “ | My goal in serving on the school board is to preserve and enhance the quality of our public schools. I am a parent, patron and alumni of Shawnee Mission and an educator by profession. I believe that quality public education is the cornerstone of a thriving community and healthy democracy.
My top three issues include:
Renewed focus on student success for all. I will encourage an inclusive and evidence-based decision-making process to prioritize the use of increased K-12 funding from the 2017 state legislature. Districts will see a partial restoration of state aid, with an estimated increase of at least $10 million to Shawnee Mission toward the more than $25 million in budget cuts made since 2009. Creating opportunities for every student to make meaningful progress toward college and career readiness is a primary goal of public education. Open Communication and Transparency. I will prioritize a review of board procedures and district practices directed at improving communication with parents and the Shawnee Mission community. One immediate change I will bring to the board meetings is my tendency to ask questions and an expectation for public discussion among board members. I will also encourage consideration of procedures that are more effective at demonstrating active listening, respect and responsiveness to concerns raised in open forum. Rebuilding Professional Learning Environments for Teachers & Principals. Effective teaching and learning is more likely to be found in districts whose leadership is trusted by teachers and principals. An important trait of a trustworthy superintendent is the use of a management approach based on mutual respect and shared leadership - grounded in a common vision, clear expectations and informed decision-making. I will encourage the selection of a new superintendent who fits this description of an inspiring instructional leader, in alignment with the expectations of community stakeholders.[15][16] |
” |
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues based on how they should be prioritized by the school board, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. Each ranking could only be used once.
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in Kansas. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Improving relations with teachers | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Improving post-secondary readiness | |
| Expanding arts education | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
| “ | Kansas has chronically underfunded public education, reducing state aid by a half a billion dollars in a three billion dollar budget in the five years. The 2017 state legislature voted in a partial restoration of state aid and are waiting upon another state supreme court ruling. District's have had to manage repeated state inflicted budget shortfalls and funding cuts for too many years.[16] | ” |
| —Mary F Sinclair (August 24, 2017) | ||
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer eight questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are highlighted in blue and followed by the candidate's responses. Some questions provided multiple choices, which are noted after those questions. The candidate was also provided space to elaborate on their answers to the multiple choice questions.
| Should new charter schools be approved in your district? (Not all school boards are empowered to approve charter schools. In those cases, the candidate was directed to answer the question as if the school board were able to do so.) |
|---|
| No. I am not aware of any charter school applications in our district. Charter schools are not very prevalent in Kansas. Our state includes about 285 public school districts, across which we have about dozen total charters. According tot state statute, every charter school in Kansas is subject to the accreditation requirements of the state board of education and must be accredited to maintain its charter. The charter must obtain sponsorship from the public school district. Our state recognizes charter schools as independent public schools that operate within a school district. Parental school choice in Kansas includes public, private, home schooling, virtual and charters. Many districts provide post-secondary options in which high school students can earn college credits before graduation. I would oppose any legislative efforts to allow for-profit authorizing entities. |
| Which statement best describes the ideal relationship between the state government and the school board? The state should always defer to school board decisions, defer to school board decisions in most cases, be involved in the district routinely or only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. |
| The state should only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. The state should only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement, or to provide support to struggling districts. |
| Are standardized tests an accurate metric of student achievement? |
| No. Yes and No. When results are used appropriately, standardizes tests are informative. They can be used to identify the prevalence of or changes in achievement gaps among students with special needs across the country. However, the results of standardized tests can also be misused and lead to inaccurate conclusions. For example, NAEP test results are often used erroneously to judge the effective of a state's public school system - regardless of whether that state's education goals and standards are aligned with the NAPE tests. |
| How should the district handle underperforming teachers? Terminate their contract before any damage is done to students, offer additional training options, put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve or set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district? |
| Offer additional training options. Offer additional training options. Put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve. Set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district. |
| Should teachers receive merit pay? |
No. The education community, practitioners and scholars alike, dismissed the notion of teacher merit pay decades ago as an ineffective motivational strategy. Of the variety of problems and fatal flaws, several reasons merit pay was disregarded are noted here:
|
| Should the state give money to private schools through a voucher system or scholarship program? |
| No. I oppose the use of tax credit scholarships and vouchers for the tuition of private, for-profit, non-public schools. Public funds should not be given to schools with the authority to discriminate in admissions, provide religious instruction and operate under different rules of transparency and accountability, not subject to the same legal requirements as public school districts. |
| How should expulsion be used in the district? |
| Rarely. Kansas statute includes conduct which endangers the safety of others or which substantially impinges upon or invades the rights of others at school, on school property, or at a school supervised activity. |
| What's the most important factor for success in the classroom: student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, teachers, parent involvement or school administration? |
| Teachers. All of the above, with teachers at the core. A teacher's effectiveness and likelihood for a successful classroom is enhanced by a reasonable ratio of adults to students, a relevant and engaging curriculum aligned with state standards, parental support for learning and a school administration empowered to create a professional learning environment. |
Candidate website
Sinclair highlighted the following issues on her campaign website:
| “ | Why I am Running.
My goal in serving on the school board is to preserve and enhance the quality of our public schools. I am a parent, patron and alumni of Shawnee Mission and an educator by profession. I believe that quality public education is the cornerstone of a thriving community and healthy democracy. Top three issues include:
|
” |
| —Mary Sinclair (2017)[17] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Mary Sinclair Shawnee Mission School District. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Mary Sinclair School Board SM East Area, "ABOUT – Sinclair for School Board," accessed October 13, 2017
- ↑ Johnson County Election Office, "Election Summary Report: 2017 Fall Primary Official Final Results," accessed August 8, 2017
- ↑ The Kansas City Star, "Slew of first-time candidates raise stakes in Shawnee Mission school board primary," July 27, 2017
- ↑ Johnson County Election Office, "Unofficial Candidate Filings - August 1, 2017," accessed June 1, 2017
- ↑ Johnson County Election Office, "Unofficial Candidate Filings - November 7, 2017," accessed June 1, 2017
- ↑ Shawnee Mission Post, "Our questions for the Shawnee Mission Board of Education candidates," June 19, 2017
- ↑ Johnson County Election Office, "Campaign & Committee Reports," accessed December 11, 2017
- ↑ Shawnee Mission Post, "National Education Association-Shawnee Mission PAC endorses Ousley, White in school board primaries," June 27, 2017
- ↑ Equality Kansas, "2017 Municipal and School Board Primary Election Endorsements," July 16, 2017
- ↑ The Kansas City Star, "Education First Shawnee Mission endorses Mary Sinclair in school board race," September 20, 2017
- ↑ MainPAC, "2017 MainPAC General Election Recommendations," accessed October 13, 2017
- ↑ Kansans Advancing Women, "2017 General Election Endorsements," accessed October 13, 2017
- ↑ Mary Sinclair School Board SM East Area, "Candidate Questionnaires," accessed October 13, 2017
- ↑ Note: The candidate's answers have been reproduced here verbatim without edits or corrections by Ballotpedia.
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2017, "Mary Sinclair's responses," August 24, 2017
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Mary Sinclair SMSD School Board, "From the blog," accessed July 20, 2017
| Shawnee Mission School District elections in 2017 | |
| Johnson County, Kansas | |
| Election date: | Primary election: August 1, 2017 • General election: November 7, 2017 |
| Candidates: | District 2: • James Lockard • Mary Sinclair District 4: • Incumbent, Craig Denny • Lee Biard • Laura Guy • Christopher White At-large: • Incumbent, Cindy Neighbor • Mandi Serrone Hunter • Heather Ousley • Robert Roberge • Fabian Shepard |
| Important information: | What's at stake? • Additional elections on the ballot • Key deadlines |
