Johnson seeks school committee seat to fight for students, teachers

By Kelcy Dolan
Posted 7/28/16

“We are at a tipping point,” Dean Johnson, candidate for one of the two at-large School Committee seats, said in a recent interview. “We need to decide if we want to continue as we are or if we …

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Johnson seeks school committee seat to fight for students, teachers

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“We are at a tipping point,” Dean Johnson, candidate for one of the two at-large School Committee seats, said in a recent interview. “We need to decide if we want to continue as we are or if we want real change, and I think this is when you want a lion fighting for your kids.”

Johnson, 39, grew up in Warwick, attending both Drum Rock and Hoxsie elementary schools, before moving to Florida for a few years. He returned at the age of 12 and went on to attend both Aldrich Junior High and Pilgrim High School.

Graduating in 1995, Johnson studied business at Johnson & Wales University for one year before joining the U.S. Army, specializing in communications. During his service, he was stationed in Korea for a year as well as in the Balkans for peacekeeping.

In 2000, during a blizzard, Johnson was returning to his station, Fort Drum in upstate New York, from a weekend leave in Rhode Island. He had pulled over several times throughout the day to help people who had slid off the road during the storm.

While in Albany, he had pulled over again to help a family that had spun out. It was then that an 18-wheeler was unable to stop, and although Johnson was able to get the family out of the way, he got caught between the truck and the guardrail.

Johnson lost both of his legs and broke his back during the accident. He would go on to receive the U.S. Soldier’s Medal and the Rhode Island Cross Medal for his heroism.

“Just because you are out of uniform doesn’t mean you stop being a solider; it doesn’t mean you stop caring and giving. I always thought it was my responsibility to help when I can. I got to help that family. Now the young boy is off to college and the family is doing great things,” he said.

After extensive healing, Johnson attended Rhode Island College to receive his degree in education in 2008 with hopes of becoming a high school history teacher. Due to complications from his accident, though, he never pursued that career. Instead, he began selling houses and opening Veterans Gaming. He now considers himself retired.

Johnson became involved with Warwick schools when he and his wife Heather’s son, Toby, now 11, started at Holliman Elementary. His younger son, Corey, 5, will be attending kindergarten there in the fall.

It began with donations to the PTA, and then Johnson started going to the meetings and volunteering after school. He began taking on projects to improve the school, refurbishing shelves, and working on classrooms and the playground for teachers and students.

“Little things can make a big difference in kids’ lives, and then I began thinking if our school needs all this help, what about the rest?” Johnson said.

He started attending school committee meetings, only to be disappointed with how much “animosity” there was and the “lack of decorum” from the committee.

Two years ago, he ran as well, only to lose to Gene Nadeau by 30 votes.

Although there are a “myriad of reasons” Johnson is running, including a sense of duty to his city, he said it is “frustrating” to see how the committee treats people, both parents and teachers.

With his son in school, Johnson said he saw day in and day out how school committee decisions affected his son. He and his family have resources outside of school, but Johnson questioned how struggling families throughout the city were coping with the tumultuous year the district has had.

“We are shortchanging our kids,” he said. “Our kids are not a line item. They are an investment into the future of our community. Our schools should be the embodiment of a community, a beacon of the city’s future. Now, it seems like we are trying to push them aside and hide them. That’s not right.”

If elected. Johnson said he would first want to bring back “decorum” to the school committee, to make sure meetings focus on having discussions, not “screaming and dictating.”

He noted that inevitably, two of the six candidates running for the seats will be elected. If he is a winner, he would want to reach out to the other candidates to hear their ideas. If he loses, he hopes the winners would do the same.

“It’s not Dean Johnson to save all the schools. It will take all of us united to fix these problems and move forward. We are not supermen, but together we can do great things,” he said.

If there is still not a contract with the teachers’ union, Johnson wants to reopen negotiations in “good faith,” to reach a true compromise and begin repairing the relationship between to the two parties.

Teachers continue to be blamed by the school committee, he said, and yet are expected to work without “adequate supplies or adequate support.” They continue to do the best they can, even throughout the contract dispute, he said.

“That is completely demoralizing; how would you expect them to feel?” he said. “We need to find a compromise. Neither party will be ecstatic, but we can all leave satisfied. When we do that, you know who wins? The students.”

Johnson would also focus on the budget and allocate funds for more educational programs rather than a PR firm. He said even small changes throughout the budget could add up and be put back for the students of Warwick. If elected, he said wouldn’t accept the position’s $4,000 annual salary, and would put it back into the schools. If the district would not accept, he said, he would donate it all to VOWS.

Johnson would also like to look into possibly constructing a new school, rearranging the feeder patterns to Toll Gate and Pilgrim, and consolidating services not only with the city but other districts. He would also like to reach out to local businesses and unions to partner with the school to offer different educational programs that can give students a “leg up transitioning into the real world.”

“I’m not saying we should do it all, but these are ideas we should at least be exploring and it is a discussion worth having,” he said.

Johnson would also like to establish not just a one-year plan, but also two-, five-, and 10-year plans so the district can be “proactive, rather than reactionary.”

He used consolidation as an example, saying declining enrollment was a known issue, but rather than planning for consolidation, action was continually “put off” over time and is now being “rushed.”

One of the reasons Johnson thinks he would be successful on the committee is he is “accountable to his own children.”

“I have to come home every day and explain why I did or didn’t make certain decisions,” he said. “I am going to see how things will be a benefit or a detriment every day. That’s a big responsibility, and if you can’t justify it to a kid maybe you shouldn’t do it.”

For more information on Johnson and his campaign, visit his Facebook page, “Dean Johnson for School Committee 2016.”

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  • Scal1024

    Wow. What a story! I haven't met you before Dean but I think this says alot about your character. I wish you the best in this campaign, and hope there are more folks like you entering into politics.

    Tuesday, August 2, 2016 Report this