Michael Pomes has been in the hunt for a seat on the Lawrence school board before and he’s hoping his third time is successful.

“With this being my third time running for the school board, I don’t give up easily,” Pomes said.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment geologist is the secretary for the Park Hill Neighborhood Association and he has a 9-year-old daughter, Jennifer, in fourth grade at Broken Arrow School. So, he says he’s closely tied to the Lawrence school district.

“We (the neighborhood association) had worked through with the school district on the work that they did to Broken Arrow School with the expansion and also South Junior High,” Pomes said.

That experience also spoke of the need to get other local groups involved.

“As a board member, I want to reach out to other neighborhood associations to let them know that we’ll try for better community relations,” Pomes said.

But he made another discovery during his work with the school — shale. He collected the rock and created a unit called “Local Rocks are Cool” that was taught at Broken Arrow last year.

“I though it’s just better to localize instruction as much as possible,” Pomes said. “There are two sets of these earth science kits up at the district headquarters.”

‘Most important time’

Pomes said this is the best time to run for school board because of the financial situation.

“It’s certainly the most important time because of all the budget cuts that could be taking place,” Pomes said.

He wants to make sure that education is protected so the district does not end up in a position that is worse off.

“If we don’t have kids coming first in education, then we won’t have kids that are able to work out in the current workforce,” Pomes said. He said that translates to a loss of businesses wanting to locate in Lawrence.

As for cuts, Pomes wants to start at the top, but says there isn’t much wiggle room in the administration.

“The best people to ask about cost savings would be the teachers and staff that work directly with the students,” Pomes said. “They’re the ones that see how things go on a day-to-day basis and they would be the first ones to point out if there’s any cost savings that could be made.”

Another thing Pomes wants to look into is electronic textbooks. A simple download upgrades the material and families without computers could be given electronic readers.

“You don’t have to worry about the physical textbooks going out of date in two years,” Pomes said.

Other issues

Another matter of concern with Pomes is accessibility. The construction at Broken Arrow school helped ease the problems he saw there.

“There’s actually no curb there to get into the school and make it down to the gym,” Pomes said. “We’re really pleased.”

But Cordley School is still without an elevator, he said. And that is an issue for him.

“An elevator is needed so students can go to classes on the second floor,” Pomes said.

But Pomes said being a geologist who works with storage owners and operators has made him a good listener, which, he believes, is an important for a school board member.

“One of the things I do most often on my job is listening,” Pomes said. “I think above all a board member should be one that listens.”