Washington Township native, John Fencl, is looking to be re-elected for his second four-year term in district three. This year Fencl’s seat is not being contested, unlike 2016 when Deitric Hall was running against him. In 2016, Fencl won with 70% of the votes, beating Hall by a large margin. Fencl attended North Central and is looking forward to continue improving the high school and township.

Q: What are your short term goals for the township?
Following through with the strategic plan would be a short and long term goal of mine. You have to start working on it now for it to be accomplished in the future.

Q: What is the strategic plan?
It is a five year plan from 2020 to 2025. It deals with having equitable achievement amongst all students and ethnic groups, hiring and retaining high quality and diverse staff, strong partnerships with the community and a financial component.

Q: What is the number one thing you would change within the township? Why would you change it?
The strategic plan really is a combination of what’s important, how we’re going to spend our time and how we can really help the district. As well as making sure the referendum dollars get spent well and that we can have strong schools going forward.

Q: How would your goals help the students and teachers?
I think this equitable achievement will help the students, particularly the ones that aren’t performing quite as well, and focus on all minority groups. We want to offer a good pay and benefit package to our staff, encouraging them to stay. If we switched teachers every two or three years there wouldn’t be the same continuity.

Q: What motivates you to still want to be a school board member?
I want to help deliver the best public education that I can for the students and their district. I want to see today’s generation be successful and be ready for the world.