Q&A: School Board Candidate Ted Velkoff

Ted Velkoff, who received an endorsement from the Fairfax County Democratic Committee in June, is running for an at-large seat on the School Board after nearly 10 consecutive years of volunteering for PTA boards at his children's schools.

At A Glance

Educational background: Bachelor's degree from University of Cincinnati; two masters degrees from Indiana University for music and computer science.

Community involvement: PTSA president at Chantilly High in 2010; held officer positions for PTA at Pleasant Valley Preschool, Poplar Tree Elementary, Rocky Run Middle and Chantilly High schools; stage manager, parent volunteer and performer at Fairfax Ballet from 2000-10

Campaign website: http://tv4sb.org

Why are you running for at-large school board member?

Two things. First of all, I have a vision about where I think our schools need to go and that starts with insuring the kids graduate with the intellectual and social skills they'll need in adulthood. That's one point. Second point is ensuring the kids are well-rounded, that they'll have the opportunity to participate in arts, athletics and after-school activities. I think it's very important to have multiple opportunities like that.

I'm very concerned about our teachers. The quality of our schools comes from the people who work in the schools, and we've already asked those people to go two years without an increase in compensations. So I want to work to increase their compensation over the years ahead. We need to make sure they have a secure retirement. And I want to support their professional development.

Another point is the fact that I want to support teachers to resist the pressure to teach to the test. It's important the kids graduate with what we call 21st-century skills, so things like critical thinking, communicating clearly through speaking and writing, collaborating with one another, and remaining creative human beings. ... So those things need to be priorities for the school system, and I want to make sure they are embedded in the goals and values of the school system. 

What experience have you had dealing with the school board, and what did you learn from those experiences?

I have also worked as a volunteer for my district school board member, Kathy Smith. When she ran for the school board 10 years ago, I was a volunteer for her. ... She really was an inspiration for me to get involved in PTA. And PTA was very beneficial to me. I started communicating with other parents and getting to know them. Now over the years, I was paying more and more attention to issues at the school-board level. So over the past couple of years, I have had occasions where I've made public statements to the school board on a couple of issues. One of them, in fact, was when I spoke up in favor of increasing employees' compensation. I felt that as a parent, after them going through a few years without an increase, they needed to make that a priority. I was very delighted the school board did that in this last budget.

If elected, how do you plan on using your position on the school board to achieve the betterment of life skills and well-roundedness, which you list as priorities? 

What the school board calls this is strategic governance, which is a term that most people don't know. Essentially, it outlines the vision statement and the goals and values of the school board. In the current statement, there are things about kids participating in their community, managing their own lives with responsibility, and making healthy life choices as individuals, as well as a host of academic skills that are outlined there. In some sense, what I'm arguing for is a continuation to make sure these things are important because they are. I do believe that it's very important that the next school board place an importance on the revision and review of these goals. ... We're going to have a number of new people serving on the new school board, so I think it's very important those people get together and develop a collective consensus about what's important.

How would you suggest next year the school board get the money to increase teacher compensation?

That's a very good question. The first thing I want to articulate is it's a matter of priority. The thing I can absolutely guarantee to people is the goal of increasing compensation is the first priority. Of any other spending choice, that to me is the most important thing. It's important to note, though, the school board does not raise the revenue. The revenue comes from a combination of money from Washington, which I believe is in the vicinity of 4 percent, of money from the state, which is about 25 percent, and the remainder comes from the county. The school board in the end cannot determine what that funding is. I can tell you, I'm very appreciative of the situation the school board was in when they increased the pay because they were under a tremendous amont of fiscal difficulty. So to some extent, there are going to be circumstances outside the control of the school board, and the what the funding picture is going to be is not clear. It's not a guarantee at all that it's going to be rosier than it was this year. But as far as making that a priority, that's going to be the first thing I'm looking for. It's easy for me from the outside to say this, but if there are ways to find efficiencies elsewhere in the school system to find money that's already in the current budget level, of course we need to go there first. The other thing is in the end, if we can demonstrate to the Board of Supervisors in particular, that we are managing the money as efficiently as we can, then I think we're in a stronger position to go to them when we think our employees have needs.

Why run for school board now?

To tell you the truth, I think that being a parent requires so much effort, I can't imagine trying to have served on the school board while my girls were in school. Both my wife and I are professionals, we're both working. There's a huge investment in time as responsible parents and caring parents that we were putting into their lives that thinking of a task like the school board, I can't imagine having done that. Right now what I feel is with my girls now both off in college, I feel I have more time I can devote to this, and I have a perspective now having seen my girls go through the school system.