Fourth in a series
Re “School Board More Efficient Than One Before, Silbiger Says”
[img]1789|right|Mr. Silbiger||no_popup[/img]Four years after he became the youngest elected member of the School Board, at 28, Karlo Silbiger never seemed all that young because he started early.
At 11.
As he runs for a second Board term in November, he never really has seemed pink-cheeked young, and Mr. Silbiger can look back on more than 20 years in the politics biz.
Now as he asks voters for a second endorsement, it is time for the sometimes awkward task of introspection.
“I am not any less idealistic now than I was four years ago,” Mr. Silbiger said. “My goals have remained the same.
- “The main things I ran on were to make sure all budget decisions were made in a balanced manner, so we are not cutting solely teachers, solely arts or solely anything.
- “Finally doing something about environmental sustainability within the District.
- “Transparency and openness in dealing with our security issues.
His Objectives Remain Firm
“Those are the big ones I ran on,” Mr. Silbiger said, “and they have remained pretty much the same.”
Does the youngest person ever elected to the Board take a different attitude into meetings than he did in 2009?
Mr. Silbiger winced.
“That’s tough,” he said. “My temperament has stayed the same. I have come in with things I want to do. I try to work as collaboratively as I can.
“I have had good relationships with all of my colleagues, all six of them, and I have worked with them on different things.
“The one area where I have changed is being all right with things taking a little longer. There was some impatience on my part when I got there, not understanding why some things took so long to happen.
“The biggest change on my part is going in with goals, and understanding the timeline it will take, being okay with progress even though it is not as quick as I want it to be.”
Being the youngest person on the Board, has that been a drawback?
“When I first got on the Board, I felt a little bit of patronizing from some people. They would say things like, ‘Here’s the kid. He will learn. He will come along.’
“But that stopped pretty quickly,” Mr. Silbiger said. “People realized I knew what I was talking about, and in many ways, I had more knowledge than the other people in the room, especially as we have gotten new staff, and people new to the District.
“Some members of the early staff were teachers when I was in school. There was definitely a different relationship.”
(To be continued)
