John Hartman: School Board Candidate

We had lunch yesterday with John Hartman at It’s All Greek on Clint Moore near 441. He is one of three candidates for Palm Beach County School Board. District 3 runs mostly north of Clint Moore and west of Military Trail. We previously interviewed candidate Dave Mech, and hope to meet with incumbent Karen Brill as well.
A teacher, Hartman sees a number of things wrong with the current school system and he demonstrated a clear understanding of it from the inside. He presents an interesting contrast to Mech, who seems motivated more by his pending lawsuit against the school district and less aware of practical concerns we’ve heard from many parents.

See Hartman’s campaign website.

Hartman is particularly focused on Common Core, corruption in the school district, and charter school abuses. He recognizes that the Somerset Academy charter school near the Canyon developments is popular and does well, but feels the current charter system fails on accountability. We’re not sure the regular public schools are much better on that, but he is persuasive.
The real race seems to be between Hartman and incumbent Karen Brill. He notes two key distinctions. First, Hartman is an educator, while Brill is a real estate agent. He feels that having a background in education makes him more qualified to serve on the school board. We aren’t sure about that but he certainly seems qualified.
Second, Hartman is opposed to Common Core. He describes Brill as leading the charge for it and points to her involvement in the “Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards” as evidence of that. We hope to ask Brill to clarify, but the evidence is compelling:

The full pdf of that document is at bottom.
We would also note a third distinction – Hartman is clearly a political outsider. You can read more about Brill on her website, but it appears she is well-connected within the establishment.
On the politics, this looks like a big climb for Hartman. While he does have a strong message, he doesn’t seem to have a clear plan for communicating that message to voters. We hope to meet with Brill next.
[gview file=”https://westbocanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/GFCSBGoals.pdf”]