Mark Brentley will be entering his fourth four-year term as the Pittsburgh School Board member in District 8 with Tuesday night's win. He beat Rosemary Moriarty, a retired principal. The incumbent gather 60% of the vote. Brentley said that his concerns are the district's budget and ensuring that all children in the city have the same opportunities.
"I hope to continue to be a good fiscal watchdog for the public in terms of watching how dollars are spent and making sure there is an equity plan in place so certain kids are not left out of certain things the district is involved with," he said, shortly after his win.
In District 6, Sherry Hazuda, the current school board president, has been re-elected. She beat Lisa Jones, a high school chemistry teacher by a 62%-32% margin. She said that she's pleased to have an opportunity to finish the job she has already started. While the school board faces a $38.2 million projected deficit for 2012 and has been grappling with low academic achievement scores, Hazuda feels that they have made great strides in recent years.
"We're doing a really nice job of turning it around," she said, "It's hard, it's challenging, but we've made some great inroads, and we need to continue doing that."
In District 2, Regina Holley broke the re-election trend by defeating incumbent Dara Ware Allen. Holley said she wants to make sure the districts resources are equitably distributed among all students, "I'm totally against 30 students in a classroom unless those 30 students are going to be 30 students throughout the district, not just certain schools."
Holley said she was elected with a mandate of change and she will take that to the board meetings. Among her other top priorities is finding a way to reduce the number of teachers that will have to be laid off in the coming year.
Holley took the seat by gathering 75% of the vote.
