Ron Bellus

Ron Bellus

Education

Bachelor's

Brigham Young University

Personal

Profession

Business owner

Contact

Personal website

Ron Bellus was a candidate for at-large representative the Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board in Arizona. He was defeated in the November 4, 2014, general election.

Biography

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Bellus earned a bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism and production from Brigham Young University. He owns a marketing and public relations firm.

He is also a hearing officer in the Maricopa County Justice Courts. He has also worked as a substitute teacher in the district. He was the vice-chair of Gilbert's first Human Relations Commission and a member of the Anti-Gang Task Force. He was a committeeman for the San Tan District of Boy Scouts of America and continues to be a merit badge counselor.

Bellus has lived in Gilbert, Arizona, for over 21 years. His family includes his wife, Gina, their seven children and nine grandchildren. Six of his children attended Gilbert Public Schools.

Elections

2014

See also: Gilbert Public Schools elections (2014)

While at-large incumbents Staci Burk and Jill Humpherys were up for re-election for Gilbert Public Schools Governing Board, Burk did not file to run in the election. Dawn Brimhall, J. Charles Santa Cruz, Reed Carr and Ron Bellus joined Humphreys on the November 4, 2014, general election ballot.

Humpherys and Santa Cruz won the general election.

Results

Gilbert Public Schools, At-Large General Election, 4-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Jill Humpherys Incumbent	31%	17,109
	Nonpartisan	J. Charles Santa Cruz	28.3%	15,613
	Nonpartisan	Dawn Brimhall	15.7%	8,660
	Nonpartisan	Ron Bellus	12.8%	7,073
	Nonpartisan	Reed Carr	12.3%	6,765
Total Votes				55,220
Source: Maricopa County Election Department, "General Election Results," accessed December 20, 2014

Funding

Bellus reported reported $1,755.00 in contributions and $71.20 expenditures to the Maricopa County Recorder's office, leaving his campaign with $1,683.80 on hand.

Endorsements

Bellus was endorsed by the following:

• Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R)
• State Treasurer Doug Ducey (R)
• Sen. Andy Biggs (R-12)
• Rep. Eddie Farnsworth (R-12)
• Rep. Warren Petersen (R-12)
• Commissioner Bob Stump (R), Arizona Corporation Commission
• Commissioner Brenda Burns (R), Arizona Corporation Commission
• Commissioner Susan Bitter Smith (R), Arizona Corporation Commission
• Commissioner Gary Pierce (R), Arizona Corporation Commission
• Bill Montgomery, Maricopa County Attorney
• Hos Hoskins, Maricopa County Treasurer
• Eddie Cook, Gilbert Town Vice Mayor
• Victor Petersen, Gilbert Town Council
• Jared Taylor, Gilbert Town Council

Campaign themes

2014

Bellus provided the following issue statements on his campaign website:

“	STOP COMMON CORE I oppose Common Core for many reasons and on many levels. One size does not fit all; Common Core is unconstitutional and violates three other federal laws; Common Core’s unproven teaching and testing methods are suspect; and the data gathering of information on our children and not allowing parents access to it is insidious. For over 200 years Congress has been sensitive to the dangers of putting curriculum matters in the hands of the federal government. In addition to the obvious fact that the US Constitution does not grant the federal government any authority over K-12 education, there are at least three laws that specifically prohibit the federal government and in particular the US Department of Education of having any control in the area of curriculum. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the first federal attempt to regulate and finance schools, stated: “Nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” school curriculum. The 1970 General Education Provisions Act stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any” federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction or selection of instructional materials by any” school system. The 1979 law that created the Department of Education forbids it to exercise “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school system. The amended Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now called “No Child Left Behind,” reiterates that no Education Department funds “may be used . . . to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” grades K-12. Our founding documents and the legislative history of these ideals are very clear—the federal government is forbidden to have any role in establishing K-12 curriculum. Now we have Common Core. Common Core supposedly began as a state-generated idea to create national education standards. We wanted to compete with the rest of the world with high standards in our K-12 curriculum. A lot of folks jumped on board because, who doesn’t want high standards for our children. Unfortunately, the standards weren’t so high as much as they were different: radical, unproven teaching methods, including some of the most convoluted ways to do simple math and social engineering masquerading as language arts. The more parents and teachers looked into Common Core the more they didn’t like it. I’ve met with many parents who have had their first introduction to Common Core teaching methods just in the first few weeks of school this year and they are not happy. Teachers are doing their best to explain the silliness but many of them are not happy and some are even leaving the profession rather than teach Common Core. (Interesting side note: In an article by the Huffington Post, not exactly a conservative instrument, writer Peter Greene reports that just last year, 2013, 76% of teachers polled supported Common Core. Today, in 2014, only 46% support it. Source: Huffington Post, The Blog, ‘How the Common Core Lost Teacher Support,’ Peter Greene, 8/20/2014].) Today the Obama Administration is funding the development of national curriculum guidelines, testing procedures, testing models and national teaching materials. They are using the Common Core national academic-content standards as the basis for this effort in direct violation of the Constitution and federal law. US Education Secretary Arne Duncan said this when announcing his department’s grants to two Common Core testing groups on September 2, 2010: he enthusiastically noted that one of the groups was “developing curriculum frameworks and ways to share great lesson plans” and the applauded the other group for developing “instructional modules.” This is all being funding and directed by the US Department of Education in violation of the law. Through Common Core, well-intentioned but misinformed elected officials around the country and here in Arizona have invited the illegal federal takeover of our local schools. That needs to stop. As a member of the Gilbert School Board, I will do everything I can to prevent Common Core from being illegally forced on our students, parents and teachers. It needs to stop. We can begin here. PROTECT THE CLASSROOM “Protect the Classroom” is my maxim. This is my explanation of what that means. I’ve had the chance to talk to several teachers and spouses of teachers during the past few weeks. It appears to me that for the most part they have three main concerns: 1) Too much micromanaging from the District Administration including too many “changing horses in midstream;” 2) Large class sizes; 3) Salaries frozen for years. One teacher I met with for about 40 minutes spoke eloquently and passionately about all three concerns. I don’t have his permission, yet, to use his name but he has been teaching in GPS for many years. He said that when he first started teaching several decades ago, he was given a textbook and a classroom and told to teach what you know. Since then, and mostly in recent years, teachers have been given new and different programs and systems to follow that seem to be more about “one size fits all” from the top down, rather than what he as a teacher can do in the classroom to best instruct his students. He also expressed concerns about how large class size negatively impacts the education process: When you have 33+ students in a classroom, discipline declines and learning declines with it. He also said he knows of many teachers who have had their salary frozen for as long as seven years (that’s just not acceptable), and many teachers have had to work a second job at nights and on weekends to make ends meet (that’s not acceptable, either). The Gilbert School Board and the District Administration need to immediately address all three of these issues. They need to settle on a curriculum program (NOT Common Core) and stick with it; stop changing every time a new government program is suggested or a new software package comes on the market. Why do we need expensive software programs anyway? Our teachers are professionals; they know how to teach. Let them teach. My maxim of “Protect the Classroom” is exactly what class size is about. When the budget committee made its recommendations to the Board with the understanding that there was a need to cut $7.4 million from the budget, the first recommendation was to eliminate 80 teaching positions. Why is that the first thing to do? That should be the last thing to do. When you eliminate a teacher, you are not just impacting that one teacher and his/her family, but you are impacting every child and their family who would have been in that class. So the negative impact is magnified 25+ fold. In addition, you are now negatively impacting other teachers and their students and their families because of increased class sizes. The recommendation included eliminating just one $75,000/year position from the District Administration (that’s two starting teacher salaries). I would suggest we reverse that: eliminate 80 positions from the Administration and hopefully no teaching positions. We must do better to “Protect the Classroom” and that includes not even considering eliminating teaching positions until all other alternatives are exhausted. The District needs to get the teachers back on track with their respective salaries. When considering salary increases for District employees, we should not suggest that everyone get the same increase, whether it’s a percentage or a specific dollar amount. And considering the salary freeze of so many of our current teachers, they should come first, not an across the board increase for all District employees. And speaking of salaries, there needs to be a complete study and probably an overhaul of the salary structure of the entire District. We need to re-evaluate where our priorities lie and provide a common sense salary matrix for all District positions. For instance: last year at this time GPS had a Public Information Officer with a yearly salary of $130,000. That is unacceptable. There is no reason to pay a PIO for a school district that kind of money. There might be other positions that are similarly overpaid; we need to find out and restructure District salaries where necessary. We can make Gilbert Public Schools competitive—in our salary structure for employees and more than competitive in the education we provide to our students.	”
—Ron Bellus' campaign website (2014)

He also stated:

“	I join many voters who are tired of voting every three or four years for a public schools override. It's time we agree on an amount we are willing to fund our Gilbert Public Schools and find a permanent funding process to do so. We need to come together as a Board, as a District and as a community. The Governing Board's and the District Administration's most important responsibility is to support our principals and our teachers in their primary work of educating our scholars. We need to refocus our efforts on that. I support incoming superintendent Christina Kishimoto's maxim: Protect the classroom. We need to provide the best possible education to our scholars by providing the best curriculum and the best resources to our principals and teachers at the school and classroom level. The development of the curriculum needs to be done at the District level and not by mandate from the federal government. We need to improve the discipline in our classrooms and on our campuses. A safe environment is essential to providing a proper setting for scholars to be taught. Scholars and their parents sign contracts at the beginning of the school year that they agree to certain rules and procedures. These need to be enforced for the safety and security of all scholars, parents, teachers, staff and visitors.	”
—Ron Bellus' campaign website (2014)

What was at stake?

As incumbent Staci Burk did not run in the election and incumbent Jill Humpherys faced four challengers, the 2014 election meant the district was guaranteed at least one new member.

Issues in the election

Humpherys signature gathering criticism

The blog WestieConnect alleged that incumbent Jill Humpherys inappropriately gathered signatures for her re-election candidacy. The blog posted photographs it alleged showed Humpherys was soliciting signatures for her candidacy petition outside Gilbert High School on March 18, 2014, which the bloggers viewed as a violation of district policy. They cited Section KF of the district's policies, which states, "Posting of political signs and other electioneering activities will not be permitted on school property at any time including Election Day at school sites used as polling places." They argued signature gathering constitutes electioneering.

Hyumpherys responded to the allegations on her Facebook campaign page, saying, "I campaign in the correct way and abide by the law and by policy. I have been falsely accused of improperly collecting campaign signatures." She cited an option from the attorney general's office which states the following:

“	Board members, personnel or others acting on behalf of a school district may act as advocates, circulate petitions, and distribute election literature but only as private citizens, during non-duty time outside the classroom or other instructional settings, using their own or other private resources. Board members, personnel or others acting on behalf of a school district may engage in these activities at school-sponsored extracurricular activities, such as athletic events, only if they are not on duty or supervising or assisting with supervision or organization of the event. Personnel must not represent that they are acting on behalf of the school district or charter school while engaged in activities to influence the outcomes of elections.	”
—Attorney General of Arizona, (2004)

Recent news

This section links to a Google news search for the term "Ron + Bellus + Gilbert + Public + Schools"

Ron Bellus News Feed

See also

• Gilbert Public Schools, Arizona
• Gilbert Public Schools elections (2014)

External links

Suggest a link

• Gilbert Public Schools
• Campaign website