Keep Bacon on Fayette school board

Incumbent Melissa Bacon is facing challenger Samantha Rodarte in her re-election effort to represent the 1st District on the Fayette County Board of Education.

We endorse Bacon for another four-year term.

A nine-year veteran of the board, she was elected chair early this year and was a member of the board that hired Superintendent Manny Caulk last year. In her interview with the editorial board and at the candidate forum sponsored by the Lexington League of Women Voters, Bacon demonstrated a deep understanding of the challenges facing the district and a commitment to Caulk’s plans to meet them.

In this period of transition — after a tumultuous couple of years that included a devastating state auditor’s report, the resignation of the former superintendent, an openly fractured board, an interim superintendent and the death of the former board chair — the district needs the continuity Bacon can help provide.

Rodarte brings a passion to erasing the equity gap and creating an environment in which all children can learn. Although this is her first run for office, she has served as president of the Cardinal Valley Elementary PTA, has four children enrolled in district schools and has worked as a volunteer with several efforts to provide more opportunities for children and families in Cardinal Valley and elsewhere in the district.

However, at this critical juncture, she would be doing too much learning on the job about the range of issues facing the state’s second-largest school district. We encourage her to seek out opportunities to serve on district-wide committees or task forces to expand her knowledge of the district and its multiple constituencies.

The two candidates agree on many things, including opposition to charter schools in the district, enthusiasm for Caulk’s leadership and support for his Blueprint for Student Success, the need to provide more resources and teachers for struggling schools and to improve services to help children new to the United States to transition into public-school classrooms.

An issue in the race has been a report by the Kentucky Office of Education Accountability that found Bacon had in years past violated state law by meddling in personnel matters at Dunbar High School, which her children attended.

Bacon took issue with the findings, saying some of her actions were not correctly represented and that she had simply been presenting concerns as a mother and those related to her by constituents. The OEA required additional ethics training for Bacon but suggested no other discipline.

While this is not a minor matter, the actions are now more than two years in the past and, viewed in the context of Bacon’s nine years on the board, don’t disqualify her from continued service.

We expect Bacon, as chair, to lead the board toward putting to rest the deep divisions of the recent past. She must encourage dissent and disagreement while keeping debate centered on policy, and not personality.

This story was originally published November 1, 2016 at 7:26 PM with the headline "Keep Bacon on Fayette school board."