If Ellicott School District 22 were an airline, Gary Dahn would have plenty of frequent-flier miles. Ellicott has schooled his own five children, three foster kids, seven nieces and nephews raised in his home and a bunch of teenage boys living in the state-funded group home he operates.

But Dahn is not happy with the district, which is why he’s one of nine candidates running for three open seats on the five-member board. The top three vote-getters will join Todd Schainost and Sherry Jorgenson-Davis, who are midterm.

Dahn, 49, cited falling academic performance, a decline in school spirit, the departure of many effective and popular teachers and a lack of communication with parents.

“The number one indicator for me that there’s turmoil,” Dahn said, “is that there are so many people running for the school board. People are saying something needs to change.”

Dahn was the most outspoken of the candidates on what he sees as the district’s decline. But others echoed his complaints.

“Parents are saying something and they’re not being heard,” said MaryAnna Clemons, 41, a marketing/media consultant whose main concern is high teacher turnover. “Something is amiss in either the hiring process or the communication.”

Jennifer Ades, 26, a 2001 graduate of the Ellicott district who sells Mary Kay cosmetics, said the school board had ignored a student petition to save the jobs of several teachers who were being let go.

“The teachers that are staying are the teachers that aren’t teaching the students anything,” she said. “If the school board decides that they’re going to get rid of the teachers that the students are learning from, and the students decide that they want to keep those teachers, the school board should listen to those students.”

Stefanie Dickinson, 35, an X-ray technologist at Memorial Hospital, questioned the district’s ability to pay competitive salaries and said it should look into hiring a grant-application writer to increase the pool of money available for teacher pay.

But Gary Lake, 55, said teacher turnover was, in part, a result of values conflicts between a conservative, rural district and teachers coming in from outside.

“I think a lot of people are running for school board because they want to change something,” Lake said. “I’ve run because I want to keep some things the same.”

Lake, a rancher who was term-limited out of a previous stint on the Ellicott board, said his experience makes him stand out from the other candidates.

“We do need to come up on academics,” said Bea Twiss, 52, a dental contractor. She also said she wants to see the district provide more academic programs and more mentoring for the children of military families coming into the area.

Robert Miller, 73, another frequent flier who has had 18 biological or adopted children in the Ellicott schools and also owns a group home for at-risk teenage boys, said his main concern was getting students comfortable with diversity and ready for the competition America faces in the world.

On a questionnaire for The Gazette’s voter guide, being published in installments beginning this weekend, Miller listed a Ph.D in philosophy from the American College of Metaphysical Theology. It’s in Minnesota and sells doctorates for $249.

Is this the quality of education that will help Ellicott students hold off the Chinese? “Goodness, no,” he said. “I hope they all get eight years of college.”

Sherry Ferriman, 42, an enrollment counselor at Colorado Christian University, said her top priority is student safety. “Being rural, I think that people sometimes get a false sense of security,” she said.

Katrina Sutton, 38, a substitute teacher and coach in the district, said she hoped to see it offer more after-school programs, but offered no suggestions about how to pay for them.

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Contact the writer at 476-1654

MEET THE CANDIDATESThe Ellicott school district has scheduled a meet-the-candidates night starting at 6 p.m. Oct. 19 at district headquarters, 395 S. Ellicott Highway.

Stef Dickinson–HO Photo by

MaryAnna Clemons–HO Photo by

Gary Dahn–HO Photo by