MOM Awaits Fairfield Board Election Results

BY EMILY STEWART
NOV. 6, 2007

As the four candidates running for the Fairfield School Board await results from today’s elections, so do 200 mothers who are part of the group Moms On a Mission (MOM).

Fairfield Mothers Jeni Brodsky and Sharon Ko formed the self-described “pro-schools” group in 2004 after a working together to help promote an operating levy for the district. Three years later, MOM has regrouped with a new mission in mind: get candidates Diana Bailey and Jerome Kearns elected to the school board.

“This board election is just as important, if not more important than passing the levy in 2004,” Brodsky said. “People may have forgotten about us since then, but we haven’t forgotten, and we’ve never gone away.”

MOM began to remobilize after current Fairfield Board Member Arnold Engel filed a lawsuit in September against Hannah Goodman, a Fairfield graduate who was a friend of Brodsky’s son David. Engel brought the suit in response to a letter Goodman wrote to the editor of The Fairfield Echo over the summer that criticized his behavior toward students and (what he calls) “pro-levy” parents during the levy campaign of 2004.

“We try to educate our kids to have opinions, and when he tried to sue Hannah, that just set wrong with us,” Brodsky said.

Engel is endorsing candidates Erik Rivera and Lee Maloney for this board election, who are part of his group Citizens for Accountability and Results in Education (CARE). Should these two get elected, the majority vote would be in favor of Engel, who has recently proposed a series of budget cuts that would take Fairfield schools to the state minimum level.

“He’s trying to get his two candidates elected to the school board, and he said those two will do whatever he tells them to do,” Brodsky said. “So we feel we need to stand up for our kids.”

With just a few issues on this November’s ballot, MOM fears that few voters will make it out for this election. MOM is attempting to be more visible in an effort to get as many voters out to the polls as possible, Brodsky said.

“It will be a challenge getting people to take the time out to vote since there aren’t a large number of issues on the ballot this year,” she said. “We know Rivera and Maloney supporters will be out, so we want to make sure we do our part to get Bailey and Kearns supporters out too.”

Since the beginning of October, MOM has been handing out fliers, holding rallies in Fairfield/Fairfield Township, attending all school board meetings and taking out ads in The Fairfield Echo to encourage the community to not only vote, but to vote for Bailey and Kearns.

“Schools are a direct reflection of our community, and this election is critical,” Ko said. “We want the community to get fully informed so they can pick the responsible and qualified candidates, and we think those two candidates are Jerome and Diana.”

Although campaigning has been at the heart of MOM’s cause, Heidi Bruzina, the group’s “public face” in this election campaign, says that by getting involved in the school board race, MOM is working for the children, not the politics.

“We have no real political aspirations. None of us got into this for power, prestige or to make any kind of political name for ourselves,” she said. “We simply care about the future of children in this community, and the future of this community itself. The issue of education is the future of our community, and it’s too important to just let it go.”

MOM’s first and foremost priority has always been the future of children, Brodsky added.

“Education is the key that gives you choices, and so this board election is really about the children,” she said. “We’ve become a part of this emotional side of education where we don’t just protect our own children, but all children. We’re the mother bears protecting our cubs.”

Accordingly, MOM plans to stay visible and organized throughout the community beyond these school board elections.

“We would like to stay energized and begin to lobby for some real changes to the unconstitutional way public schools are funded in Ohio,” Bruzina said. “I guess the old adage is true: if mom ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”