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Gets the Big Picture

I’m honored to recommend Seth Klaskin’s re-election to our Board of Education (BOE). Seth gets The Big Picture: for 15 years on the BOE, he advocated tirelessly and passionately for bringing our deteriorating schools up to par with 21st-century facilities designed to complement a much-needed 21st-century curriculum. He saw benefits for Madison (valuable, more efficient assets), for taxpayers (real property value increases and reasonably stepped tax impacts over time), and for our children (providing the tools needed to be competitive and successful in the 21st-century workplace and society). Seth persistently bucked a “kick-the-can” approach and was an accurate harbinger of truth, warning that that approach would result in a harsher tax-impact future reckoning.

During later years, Seth became the BOE’s Facilities Committee Founding Chair; he helped formulate the schools’ 10 Year Maintenance Plan that provided transparency on our schools’ physical needs, helping to bring these issues forward to an $89.2M School Renewal Town vote; and he prioritized the development of a new 21st-century curriculum.

In 2021, Seth was asked to fill a BOE vacancy, and was elected the BOE chair to implement the School Renewal Program and new curriculum. Remarkably, throughout this challenging period, Seth’s leadership

remained true to his overarching goal of keeping costs and tax impacts down, reflected by a six-year less than 2% annual average budget increase, despite FIXED contractual and other costs rising more quickly. Madison’s spike in standardized test performance and its’ receiving the CIAC Michaels Cup for Sportsmanship indicate the success of focusing on student behavior and responsibility.

The BOE under Seth works in a successful, bi-partisan manner and, together with the Madison Public Schools Administration, has ushered in a new era of academic achievement and fiscal responsibility.

Please vote for Seth, and let’s make sure that his vision gets to continue!

Jude Hession

Madison