New Hope-Solebury School Board candidate Mark Cowell combines skills of educator and business administrator

Mark Cowell is one of four Libertarian candidates running for New Hope-Solebury School Board. He lives on Hillside Lane in Solebury with his rescued cat Czarina, the first feline this self-described dog person has ever owned. Among his animal tenants are also 34 koi fish housed in an 8,000-gallon pond nestled among the flower beds and manicured lawn of Cowell’s home. Aside from gardening, he also collects clocks, mirrors and other antiques.

A graduate of Rider University with a BS in business administration and a Masters in educational administration, Cowell first taught math and science in Pemberton, NJ, and then became a curriculum supervisor and, ultimately, business administrator. When the district superindent retired, Cowell agreed to fill the position on an interim basis, although he served for several years more. Even after retiring, Cowell wound up working for the State of New Jersey as an educational fiscal monitor in Asbury Park, where he served for two years, followed by similar roles in Trenton and Camden.

I asked Cowell why he decided to run for school board, and he said candidly, “Having been a business administrator and superintendent, my neighbors have been after me for years to run for the board, and I said I would certainly do that once I was done working. I retired in May, and Alison’s sister lives down the street, and that’s how it started. A few days later there was a knock on my door and someone saying, ‘Are you really serious about running?’ and I said, ‘Yeah.’ I thought they meant next year, I didn’t know they meant right now. Some of my neighbors are not happy that I chose to run — they felt I should have run in the primary and not the way I’m doing it. And I said to them ‘I’m too far into it. I know too much now to just back out.’ And I think the district can use my skill set,” he explained.

“I’ve read some comments in the Free Press where people say Libertarians are against public education, which isn’t true. I don’t know much about Libertarians because I’ve only been a Libertarian for eight weeks. It doesn’t matter to me. And when this campaign is over, I don’t vote for parties, I vote for who I think are the best candidates. I vote for Democrats and Republicans and all the other parties,” added Cowell.

“I don’t think anybody really grows up thinking they’re going to get involved in politics, and I certainly didn’t, and I don’t think anyone grows up thinking they’re going to end up on a board of education either. There really isn’t a course you can take to prepare for it. So in my particular situation, I think I’m unique in that I’ve been a board secretary for 15 years, and have been the superintendent for five and a half years, plus being a fiscal monitor over superintendents and boards…I’ve already been a non-voting member of a board for 25 years,” he said.

And what does Cowell hope to accomplish if elected? “I’m an educator. I understand if you’re going to turn a district around, you’ve have to start with the young children — early childhood education, which is K-8th grade — and in my old district, I really stressed reading skills, reading programs, reading specialists, and six, seven, eight years later test scores for the district have really changed for the positive.

“So, I want to say yes, I’m a money person, I’m a geek when it comes to that, but I’m also the educator, and when I hear people say they want small class sizes, I’m for small class sizes, because I know you can’t put 25 pre-school or kindergarten kids in a room and expect them to learn, it’s just impossible. I think 18 kids in a first grade class is fine, and when you get to second and third there shouldn’t be 25 or 30 kids in a class. And even when you get up into middle and high school, don’t come to me and expect me to vote to get rid of AP classes — I won’t do it. Even if there’s only five kids in that class. It saves residents a lot of money for these courses that these kids can just skip. So I come from both sides,” he continued.

Cowell is acutely aware of the budgetary pressures facing the New Hope-Solebury school district, saying, “It”s hard to find money, because you want your students here to have the same things these big districts have — be it lights on a football field, be it advanced placement classes, be it a really top-notch chemistry labs and biology labs — all those trappings and the technology that goes with it. But where do you find that money? Ninety percent of that budget is fixed —  I’m talking about salary, pensions, utilities — things the district has no control over. I’m not running because of any problem I see with the educational side of the houses. I think the teachers are excellent and  I’m amazed at the poise and intelligence of our students. The only thing about the educational side is that I want to know how we’re going to maintain it, how do we keep upgrading our technology if there’s no money in the budget?”

Pension funding is another big concern for Cowell. “When I hear the parents say they we want to have new playgrounds, they want to have a gym in the lower elementary school, and they need to fix these athletic fields, and they want to have a new football stadium, and there are ADA issues, and there are security issues…all that costs money; they have the plans, but they don’t have the money to do it. Now it was suggested that when these bonds come due we can just can go in debt and fix all this. But my only concern is that you’re going into debt again, you’re taking $1.7 million out to balance your budget, you’re taking 1.4 million out of that same reserve to take care of the increases in the pension costs, and in five years you’re going to take out $2.4 million out of the fund again to fund the next five years of pension costs…I don’t think you can spend that money two or three times.

“You need to have people on that board who have a business sense, who can take a look at how we’re going to move the money around, to make sure that we can maintain this excellent school district, that our children continue to get the great education they’re getting, and we still have all those things that we need to have done, whether its a new football field, whether its a new gymnasium, whether its security, or whether it’s health and safety, we may end up having to borrow money to do that, but we have to be sure we can pay that bill,” continued Cowell.

“One of the things I think we could do is to name the stadium after someone who’s willing to donate enough money to do the job. Maybe somebody wants to have the auditorium named after them. You can name things after people and they can contribute millions of dollars if they want, so everyone is happy,” he said.

Added Cowell, “I’m not criticizing the superintendent or the business administrator, I think they’ve done an excellent job, but I think looking forward, the four of us bring a great skill set to the table so that we can maybe come up with different ideas. And I think the four of us are very collegial — we work really easily with people, I’m not going to sit there and argue with you because I’ve been the business administrator, I’ve been the superintendent, I know what it is like when you work on a board and they don’t work together. That’s not how you run a school district. Everybody forgets that a board’s job is to set policy — and the superintendent is responsible for developing the regulations to make sure the policies are implemented. Now, do we also make decisions on how to spend money? Yes, we do. But again, it’s that superintendent’s vision that comes to us, and we listen to the public, and we make sure the money’s in place to do it, then we vote on it,” he said.

So, what would Cowell’s first priority be if elected? “Well, for me, it has to be the safety of the kids. And the students’ needs come first, whether it be a football stadium or whether it be smaller class sizes, all those things are important. But you must prioritize those needs — you must say security of those kids comes first.”