Thomas Carey (Colorado)
Thomas Carey is an at-large member of the Colorado Springs School District 11 school board. He assumed office on December 6, 2023. His current term ends in 2027.
Carey ran for election for an at-large seat of the Colorado Springs School District 11 school board. He won in the general election on November 7, 2023.
Carey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Thomas Carey was born in Madison, Wisconsin. He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 2012 and a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 2018. His career experience includes working as a science teacher for the Air Force Academy Preparatory School.[1]
Elections
2023
See also: Colorado Springs School District 11, Colorado, elections (2023)
General election
General election for Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education At-large (4 seats)
The following candidates ran in the general election for Colorado Springs School District 11 Board of Education At-large on November 7, 2023.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | Jill Haffley (Nonpartisan)  | 12.9 | 27,055 | |
| ✔ |  | Thomas Carey (Nonpartisan) | 12.9 | 27,016 |
| ✔ |  | Parth Melpakam (Nonpartisan) | 12.5 | 26,106 |
| ✔ |  | Jason Jorgenson (Nonpartisan) | 12.1 | 25,366 |
 | Rachel Paul (Nonpartisan) | 11.5 | 24,000 | |
 | Darleen Daniels (Nonpartisan) | 11.0 | 23,008 | |
| Kathryn Singh (Nonpartisan) | 10.5 | 21,899 | ||
 | Shay Dabney (Nonpartisan) | 9.8 | 20,574 | |
 | Mary Coleman (Nonpartisan) | 4.0 | 8,357 | |
| Jeremiah Johnson (Nonpartisan) | 2.8 | 5,828 | ||
| Total votes: 209,209 | |||
| = 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. | ||||
Endorsements
Carey received the following endorsements. To view a full list of Carey's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here.
- Colorado Springs City Cncl. Memb. Lynette Crow-Iverson (Nonpartisan)
- Colo. State Board of Education Memb. Steve Durham (R)
- Peggy Propst (R) - Colo. State Board of Ed. cand.
- Frmr. state Sen. Bill Cadman (R)
- Frmr. state Rep. Tim Geitner (R)
- Colorado Conservative Patriot Alliance
- Housing and Building Association of Colorado Springs
- Smart Choice Colorado
- Jeff Crank (R) - Americans for Prosperity Regional Dir.
- Darcy Schoening - Frmr. El Paso Cnty. Moms for Liberty Chair
Campaign themes
2023
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Thomas Carey completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2023. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Carey's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
| Collapse all
Together, my wife Sonia and I raise our five children ages one to ten, one of whom has significant special needs. We love playing complex board games, exploring the Colorado outdoors, and reading – we read everything from classics to graphic novels. Our family’s favorite getaway is Estes Park. I am an avid rock climber and mountaineer and have done technical climbs in RMNP.
I am running for the School Board in District 11 because I have a firm conviction that K-12 education is vital to the future of our country and that every child deserves a quality education.
I have seen firsthand in my work at the Air Force Academy Preparatory School that students often come out of high school underprepared for the rigors of college and that universities are having to play catch-up to address deficiencies in content knowledge and skills. These problems were greatly exacerbated by learning losses over the last three years when students were removed from the classroom in public schools across the country.
My primary guiding principle on education is simple: Academics First.- The central priority of any educational institution is academic outcomes. District 11 continues to underperform state averages with a little over a third of students proficient in reading and only a fifth of students proficient in math. Particularly in the aftermath of disastrous interruptions in learning over the last two years, we need to get back to basics and ensure that our focus remains firmly on learning.
- Parents are the primary stakeholders in education, entrusting their children to be educated, mentored, and cared for. Parents and the community fund public education through their tax dollars. Parents choose which schools their children attend and parental attitudes and buy-in are closely related to academic outcomes. District 11 is accountable to parents, and therefore we need to promote strong relationships between parents and staff to empower parents to make the best choices for their children.
- Learning occurs in the context of a relationship between a student and teacher. As a teacher, I know firsthand that quality teaching requires the support of administration, professional development opportunities, and a positive working environment. In order to attract and retain the best talent, District 11 needs to provide teachers with an excellent working environment and competitive compensation. Our students and parents deserve no less.
For years, Colorado Springs District 11 has underperformed state averages. Our children deserve better: educational outcomes must be the central goal of any school. As a school board director, I would work to right the trajectory of poor public education:
1. I would work to ensure that District 11 focuses on student educational outcomes as the number one priority.
2. I would make sure that District 11 is accountable to parents, providing them with a voice and choice in their children’s education.
To hold someone responsible for something he or she does not have authority over is unjust. To permit authority to act without being held responsible and accountable is foolhardy.
Public institutions suffer from both problems. Only in recent years have voters realized that public schools have been operating with little to no oversight or accountability and it is long past time that elected school boards work to fix that problem. Public schools cannot be allowed to operate with near-unlimited authority over the learning experience of our children without being held responsible for it.
It was a good first job -- I learned a lot about the importance of punctuality, hard work, and organization, and it gave me a lot of respect for people in the service industry.
Put it on next time you have some tedious chore to do and tell yourself you'll just work until the song is over. Absolutely incredible high energy jam for getting work done; it's my go-to for grading, exercising, washing dishes, picking up the house, etc.
The most important job of a school board is to optimize academic outcomes, which must be the primary goal of any educational institution. A school board sets goals and priorities for school administration (the superintendent, primarily) as well as guardrails. A school board listens to the values of the community that elected them and
takes into account the wishes of the parents who entrust their children to our care.
Colorado Springs has passed two Mill Levy Overrides in the last few decades and there continues to be a perception from voters that taxpayers are getting little for their money, given D11’s poor standing in state student assessments.
That being said, I firmly believe that educational institutions across the country made the wrong choice. We learned early on that coronavirus risk scaled heavily with age. It was known that online learning would inevitably lead to the widening of achievement gaps, delayed social milestones, and serious learning loss for our children. All three of those have predictably come true.
Especially in the early days of the pandemic, I believe caution was warranted – the institution I teach for went online in March 2020 along with everyone else. However, I believe school administrations across the country kept schools closed far longer than was warranted by the data. The World Health Organization and the CDC both recommended re-opening schools long before many institutions did.
Furthermore, as a teacher myself, I believe most school administration did little to prepare teachers for the reality of remote learning. Teaching online is nothing at all like teaching to a classroom – the technology poses problems, keeping students engaged is a serious challenge, and designing assignments to keep students on-task and properly assess achievement is tricky. I do not believe these difficulties were adequately considered by institutions.
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.
Other survey responses
Ballotpedia identified the following surveys, interviews, and questionnaires Carey completed for other organizations. If you are aware of a link that should be added, email us.
Carey responded to questions from the Colorado Springs Indy. Below is one question from that survey and an excerpt of Carey’s response:
What is the foremost issue facing the district and what will you do about it in your first 30 days in office?
“The most pressing issue in District 11 is ensuring that focus remains firmly on student educational outcomes. Many educational institutions in recent years have experienced mission creep where they place other goals ahead of the primary mission of any school: academics … Drawing from my experience as a teacher, I will seek to collaborate with teachers and staff to identify the major barriers to student academic success and craft a plan to remove those obstacles to enhance educational outcomes for every student.”
See also
2023 Elections
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on September 18, 2023
