Harris, Calhoun to fill Norwood School Board seats

Harris won by far with 329 votes. Calhoun and the third candidate, Chris Parrino, were only six votes apart after San Miguel County votes were counted. Calhoun gathered a total of 264 votes and Parrino had 206. 

 Harris and Calhoun will fill the seats for Doc Williams, who has served for ten years, and Bob Harris himself, who was appointed two years ago to fill the seat of Tom LaFramboise when he stepped down to take the vice-principal position.

Of the 897 ballots sent out to Norwood area voters, only 327 voted and sent their ballots back to San Miguel County to be counted last night.

 “ We’re all here for the kids,” said Harris in his closing remarks at the recent school board candidate forum. 

Calhoun, in an October interview, was ready to go to work. “It’s time to take my turn. I don’t have any big plans, but I can’t complain unless I step up and be part of the Board,” he said.

In addition to his main job as a school board member, Calhoun wants “to accommodate all our kids, so that the focus isn’t just academics or sports.” At the candidate forum he said that he wanted to improve the school with “a more diverse and advanced curriculum” and that the students and teachers should be asked for input on how the need might be addressed.

All three of the candidates agreed that the greatest challenge for the Board will be the budget. Harris said that at Colorado Association of School Board (CASB) meetings, the talk about money at the state level “gets gloomier and gloomier at each meeting. ‘We’re only at the edge of this economic storm’ is what they told us,” said Harris. Luckily for now, he said, Norwood School is doing pretty well. The mill levy that voters passed two years ago is keeping the school in good financial health.

Although the budget has always been and will always be one of the main functions of the school board, and  money is driving the school board more than ever now, the candidates also agreed that one of the top priorities and most important ways to improve communication and bring the community and the school together is to get parents involved. 

So. Parents. Call your new school board members and ask them what you can do for Norwood School. Or, attend the next school board meeting to meet and greet and hear what is happening. The meetings are on the third Tuesdays and convene in the Norwood High School library. The next one is Tuesday Nov. 17. The community will be saying farewell to Doc Williams, welcoming Calvin Calhoun, and re-instating Bob Harris.