Jim Geddes
Race: Douglas County School District Board Director District B
Age: 65
Occupation: Surgeon
Family: Wife, two children in private school
Residency: Has lived in Douglas County for 12 years
Political experience: Serves on University of Colorado Board of Regents
Education: Bachelor’s degree in molecular biology, doctorate of medicine
Website: drjimgeddes.com
Why he’s running: Geddes said he has learned a good deal about education and has a very keen interest in it since he was a student and a regent. He is interested in continuing the board’s exciting new school reforms, including furthering student choice through the voucher system to help those who could not otherwise afford to send their children to private schools, and through open enrollment.
“I think it stimulates a competition and striving for excellence among all the various schools in the district, meaning our children, which is what this is all about, come out as benefactors,” Geddes said.
He also supports the new pay-for-performance plan and evaluation system rewarding teachers who put their heart and soul into their profession because that raises the quality of education in the classroom, setting up children to have a successful and productive life.
Geddes also wants to make sure the district has the proper funding for its initiatives and that it is using the taxpayer dollar as efficiently possible. He hailed the district for taking money from administration and putting it back into the classroom. He has experience streamlining the University of Colorado budget as a regent.
He said he supports the board severing ties with the Douglas County Federation teachers’ union because it has been degrading education for the last 30 years and has pushed a leftist social engineering of children, which he found offensive and detracting from the core curriculum of math, reading, writing, civics and social studies. He said in part that’s why sometimes high school graduates are not prepared for college, as he’s seen at CU.