This election season, most of the incumbent school board members up for election ran unopposed, however, that wasn’t the case for the most senior member of the school board: Dan Burke. Burke gave his inside scoop on the workings of the school board and how he plans to help students and educators in Delta County.
Burke said, “The main thing that we want to do is keep our board going in the right direction. We want to make policy that is legal and makes sense for our district. What works in Grand Junction won’t necessarily work in Delta and what works in Delta won’t necessarily work in other places.“
Talking about attendance, which has been a huge issue at Delta High School, Burke said, “I’ve been on all sides of that as a principal; I tried tightening policies, I tried loosening policies, and neither worked. What we need to do is make sure every class is valuable because kids are smart, they know what is valuable for them and what isn’t, so skipping one morning can turn into skipping one day, and once you make that into a habit, it’s really hard to break.”
Burke believes that there are a few ways to best help people at the high school. “The main way to help educators, and maybe kids won’t realize this as much, is resources. I mean that resources are money and funding for different things, especially salaries. We like to keep a competitive salary because in the past we have lost teachers to other districts in the area that are also very competitive.”
In Delta, the average teacher’s salary is ≃31% below the state average while the average teacher’s salary in Mesa County ≃13% below the state average, and the average teacher’s salary in Gunnison is ≃17% below the state average.
Burke thought that the best way to help students at the high school is greater investment in career and technical education courses. “I know that we have the TCR right in our backyard and I think that we should get the message out that not everyone has to go to college, and there are only a few people who should go [to college].” Burke went on, “When I was a counselor I would tell all the kids that they had to go to college, and that’s just not true for a lot of people. Those CTE courses are the way to go.”
As the most experienced member of the school board, Burke has the unique ability to see things from many different perspectives, which has helped him in elections; most recently, Burke won with 56.07% of the county-wide vote.
Burke said, “I’ve been an educator all my life, and I’ve been a principal, and just as a citizen I’m able to look at policies and see how they will benefit people and how people will look at them.”
