I’m voting for Deborah Abramson Brooks for a second term on the Port Washington School Board because I like people who know what they’re doing. Deborah is a good friend and neighbor. She’s an exceptionally devoted mother. She’s an uncommonly nice person. These are all fine reasons to want her voice helping to guide the schools our kids attend. None of these, however, are why I back Deborah.

Serving on a school board is not a simple job. Common sense often falls short of the philosophical, budgetary, and political hurdles that are the unremitting characteristics of the modern education bureaucracy. Outsider disruption by itself invites both chaos and stagnation. Our kids deserve serious people in these serious jobs.

Deborah Abramson Brooks is a serious person. She’s a seasoned attorney, well skilled in the peculiar complexities of contracts and legislative procedure. She’s an experienced political activist, bearing an extensive background in community organizing and progressive cooperation among federal, state, and local governments. And she is an expert in the field of education, having spent years researching and advocating for specific policies that seek to improve Port Washington schools for all students. Deborah has the tools to do this job.

Deborah has the added advantage of perspective. She comes with a core set of beliefs but remains open to opposing points of view. She is not a single-issue candidate. When circumstances demand, she works with the realities facing our schools to find a way forward regardless of her own policy preferences. She is not using our schools as a stepping stone for her own ambitions. Deborah comes to the job to do the job in all its complexity and with the commitment it deserves.

As a person, Deborah is humble, inquisitive and eager to learn. As a professional, she is qualified in every conceivable way. The Port Washington School Board needs more people like her. This is why I’m voting for Deborah Abramson Brooks on Tuesday, May 17.

Douglas Parker
Port Washington