'I'm running because it's the right thing to do' Brinkman says
David
Brinkman, 36, knows but two speeds. Stop and go.
He doesn't do much of the former, and when he
goes, it's at one speed only, all out.His kids, Liliana and Logan, he said, are his life, and they're the best reasons in the world that he's thrown his hat into the ring to seek a position as a Boundary County School District 101 trustee in the May 17 election.
But he's also unlike most other candidates seeking an elective office, even if this happens to be one in which the rewards are few and the pay is zero. He doesn't dislike his opponent, incumbent Sulet Hiatt, and he refuses to say anything but good things about her.
"She's good people willing to help a good cause," he said. "At the end of the day, she's just trying to benefit the community, just as I am. If my ideas win, great, if not, I win anyway, because by running and presenting my ideas, sitting board members might have faced a challenge and might see that different ideas are needed."
Brinkman, along with his wife, Melinda, now run a transitional house for young men, but their background is widely varied. David has worked for major retailers, including Macy's, he's been a manager at Boundary Trading Company. They home taught their children, he said, but came to recognize what an amazing job our public school system does, and enrolled their kids in school.
"David and I are both so thankful for the work that Mrs. Katz and Mrs. Stagliano (kindergarten teacher from last year) have done with our daughter," Melinda said. "Both are amazing teachers who come with so much experience and passion for their work. Our daughter has a passion, some could say obsession, with dinosaurs that goes beyond most kids' interest, and while a lot of people might a bit overwhelmed with this passion, these two women embraced her desires and used them, to the best of their ability, to help educate our daughter. We are just very grateful to these women."
"It reminded me," David said, "of when I was going through school. I grew up in a troubled family, my dad abandoned us when I was 10 and I was raised in a single parent home. I could have slipped into the cracks, but my teachers wouldn't let me. When I started veering sideways, I had teachers who knew who I was and what my background was, who somehow slipped their hand under my arm and said, 'no, why don't you try going this way?'"
An outstanding athlete, he recalled the joy he felt, having been hurt, of being able to finally lay aside his responsibility to the team.
"I was ready to be gone," he said. "No more drills, no more practices. I couldn't play, so I was done. Then my coach pulled me aside and said, 'guess what? You're team manager now!'"
Brinkman, in working with the Head Start program, starting locally and moved up to serve on the board at the state level, and in working with the local school district with the boys at the Brinkman House, some of whom participate in sports as members of the Badger teams, saw in our local educators what he saw in the educators he once knew; teachers and coaches who view what they do as more than education. They're mentors and life-long friends.
"We have amazing teachers," he said. "They aren't just teachers looking to get through the day. They're looking out for our kids, and they're doing an amazing job."
Teachers, he said, don't get paid much and they often don't get credit for the good work they do.
"Travis Hinthorn spends his days in the classroom, and works evenings and weekends coaching his team," he said. "People don't see that he has a wife and three kids, and still coaches and gives of his time. Clint Arthur, same thing. Ed DePriest, Janis Tucker. You always hear bad things about them when the Badgers lose a game, but do you ever hear about all the things they do right? They don't get much credit for the kids they send to college, the Adam Hiatts and the Adam Halls who have been in the papers recently, and who learned what they know from our neighbors, their teachers."
He's running, he said, so that his two kids will have the same opportunity to shine.
Maybe, though, it's time for a new face on the school board. Time for new ideas.
He blasts Idaho Education Secretary Tom Luna, who, he said, is implementing measures that give local boards heightened jurisdicion, but that don't provide for funding, placing the burden on the backs of the property tax payer. Able to cite chapter and verse of Luna's education measures, he decries Luna's focus on technology over teachers, on using computers to replace people.
"A computer can't press a kid's nose to the grindstone like a teacher does," he said. "And what are computers teaching our kids? That it's easy to find the answers without having to know how figure out the answers out for themselves. What do parents with a computer complain about most? Kids who won't go outside any more because they're too involved in whatever game they're playing. They don't know how to write, or do sums. They would be lost if the technology suddenly went away. Technology is a good thing, used properly, but if it deprives our kids of learning how to think and figure for themselves, it's no longer a good thing. We need good teachers willing to work to teach our kids."
While he has high praise for our teachers, Brinkman said that he knows, if elected, he doesn't serve the teachers, but the constituents who elect him.
"The bottom line I would have to think about," he said, "is what's best for students, what's best for the community, what can I do to ensure that this school district is doing all it can to give our students the best possible education with what's available?"
He also mentioned another amazing teacher, Jan Studer, who told those gathered at a recent school board meeting that all she needed to do her job was a room of four walls and a class full of kids.
Was that what, she asked, the parents of those kids wanted for their children's future?
Brinkman, a parent himself, says no. As a parent, he said, he recognizes all that this school district is doing right, and he is running, he said, to make sure that his kids have the same opportunity as BFHS graduates in the past have enjoyed.
New ideas may be needed, he said, especially in this time when deeper cuts are inevitable.
"I'm running," he said, "because it's the right thing to do."