GILLETTE, Wyo. — Election season is well underway and County 17 has sent a list of questions to each candidate who has filed to run for office in contested races.
These questions are designed to give our readers a better understanding of the people behind the names on the ballot. All candidate responses submitted to County 17 are republished as they are received. County 17 solely made minor edits to the responses, for clarity. Minor edits may include correcting punctuation, capitalization or spelling.
Below, get to know Dr. Tim Hallinan, who is running for a spot on the Campbell County School District Board of Trustees:
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- Please introduce yourself and describe your educational and employment history. Please include your name and hometown along with highlights of your past involvement in the Campbell County community.
I am Dr. Tim Hallinan. Home Town: Pasadena, California. Resident of Campbell County for 40 years. Father of 3, grandfather of 2, 4 of whom were educated in Campbell County. Married for 52 years.
Educational History: I graduated from St. Francis High School in La Canada, California, in 1963; Stanford University in 1967 with a degree in economics (with honors); and the University of Utah in 1975 with a degree in medicine.
Military History: United States Army 1968-1970 finished as a Sp4, United States Navy 1976-1981 finished as Lt. Commander. Wyoming Army National Guard finished and retired in 2000 as a Lt. Colonel.
Employment History: Family physician in Campbell County from 1982-2012 as a partner in Family Medical Care along with Dr. Garry Becker, Dr. Laura Anders, among others.
Highlights of involvement: Hospital board 1996-2005, Wyoming legislature 2007-2011 and 2017-2022.
2. What prompted your decision to run for school board? What do you have to offer the community as a board member? What do you believe your role is as a board member?
What prompted me to run? I am deeply concerned for the future of our school system if we do not wrest control of our curriculum, standards, and culture back from the federal government and radical collectivist group like the NEA. We have seen their vision realized in districts across the country, but we must not allow it to ruin Campbell County’s schools.
What do I have to offer? My education, my patriotism, the skills I honed as a physician, my experience as a legislator.
What is my role as a board member? To help create an environment in the district where parents, teachers, and students are supported and prioritized by the school board and the administration.
3. How do you propose Campbell County School District attract and retain quality educators and other staff, given employee shortages? How can board members help provide an environment in which employees can thrive?
To retain teachers we must pay at least the median salary along with good benefits. We must also listen to them and enforce policies that help them in their role as teacher leaders. To attract new teachers and staff we must again have good salary options, and the board, administration, and district should have a good reputation.
4. What does a successful school district look like?
A place where education results in nurturing the mind and spirits of our youth to the maximum extent. A place where teachers are heard and encouraged to excel in their job. A place where the board is dedicated to the goals above.
5. What does the school district administration do well?
What does the board do well? It has set the pay appropriately for teachers and staff in general.
6. How has education impacted your life?
It made me what I am and what I may become in the future that I have left.
7. What advice would you offer parents of school-aged children to empower students in their learning?
Set an example of lifelong learning and reading.
8. What lessons did our school district community learn from the COVID-19 pandemic? How will you help the school district’s efforts to recover the academic losses associated with the pandemic?
That it must look critically at the advice given by “experts.“How do we recover from the academic losses associated with the pandemic? By encouraging the teachers to challenge the students more.
9. Should the school board promote more community involvement? If so, how? If not, why not?
Yes, they should involve the community in what the curriculum, standards and culture of the school should be. They can do this by openly discussing these items and debating them in school board meetings and writeup of them in the minutes of the board.
10. Is there anything else voters should know about you and your perspective?
I will not be a rubber stamp for the administration or the board as presently constituted. I have a record of soberly looking at the facts and taking my position after studying both the costs and benefits. I am not a bomb thrower, but you can expect of me that I will bring forward some new ideas and controversy.
