Patricia Hennig
Patricia Hennig was the District C representative on the Alexandria City School Board in Virginia. Hennig sought another term in the general election on November 3, 2015.[1] Patricia Hennig lost 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 C, General Election, 2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Christopher Lewis Incumbent |
25.4% | 2,808 |
| Ronnie Campbell Incumbent |
22.8% | 2,520 |
| Ramee Gentry |
17.5% | 1,938 |
| Darla Dillard | 17.2% | 1,910 |
| Patricia Hennig Incumbent | 17.2% | 1,900 |
| Total Votes | 11,076 | |
| Source: Virginia Department of Elections, "2015 November General", accessed November 3, 2015 | ||
Funding
Hennig reported no contributions or expenditures to the Virginia State Board of Elections as of October 28, 2015.[5]
Endorsements
Hennig earned the endorsement of the Alexandria Political Action Committee for Education.[6]
Campaign themes
2015
Hennig 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? Communication. I am frustrated by communication breakdowns among school staff, families, and the community. Parents don’t know who to contact with questions or concerns, or worse are rebuffed after an initial query and disengage. Teachers that create effective classroom strategies don’t have the opportunity to share their ideas with colleagues. Alignment of expectations and curriculum from elementary to middle to high school is compromised. Fortunately, I’ve also been able through my work in schools to help bridge communication divides and see positive outcomes as a result. I have a passion for this kind of work and will strive to bring all of us together. We all want the same thing — excellent schools for our city. What distinguishes you from your opponent(s) and why should voters choose you? Leading division-wide committees and PTAs has taught me how to reach out to the wider community and build consensus. My volunteer work has given me knowledge of the unique needs of students with disabilities, ELL students, low-income families, and students identified for gifted/talented services. ACPS staff and families consistently name our schools’ incredible diversity as our greatest strength and I concur. However, with this diversity comes the challenge of meeting the needs of many different students, and that includes the so-called “average” student. My dedication to all these different types of learners will guide my decision-making. I want every student to succeed and I want no family to feel neglected. How can Alexandria address overcrowding within the current budgetary confines? What ideas and skills do you bring to solving this? We must complete redistricting by the start of the next school year. Redistricting will not resolve our overcrowding issues, but it is a crucial step in identifying where the most urgent capacity issues will be. School Board and City Council must have more frequent and earlier discussions regarding budgets. Education funding makes up the bulk of any city’s budget, so we must have consensus about our needs. It will require a combination of creative short term (renting vacant office space, installing temporary classrooms) and thoughtful long range construction planning. In my professional life, I am responsible for all projects in an exhibition space that sees over a million visitors a year. All work must be phased, due to budget constraints and the requirement to remain open to the public while work continues. Identifying needs, establishing priorities, tracking progress, and evaluating programs are the kinds of skills I can bring from my job to the board. 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? Jefferson-Houston was hobbled by a building with outdated features that hampered learning. It also suffered from a lack of urgency when scores initially began to drop. Once we reached “crisis” mode, the school experienced so many new programs and administrators it was impossible to identify which systems were working and which needed to be removed. In addition, some programs were allowed to continue despite less-than-favorable results, and/or evaluations were timed too late in the school year to implement course correction. With the significant gains we’ve seen in the last year, the best course forward for Jefferson-Houston is to hone in on the programs, personnel, and policies that can be tied to this success and ensure that sufficient supports are in place to maintain and expand these accomplishments. [7] |
” |
| —Patricia Hennig (2015), [8] | ||
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms 'Patricia Hennig' '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
- ↑ Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Connection, "School Board–Alexandria District C: Ramee Gentry," October 26, 2015
