Deborah Sykora, the candidate who received the most votes in the Valley View School District 365U school board election this week, said she was humbled to be elected.
Sign up for our free, daily e-newsletter.
Like Bolingbrook Patch on Facebook.
Sykora will be a newcomer to the board. She ran on the "Friends of Valley View" slate, along with Chrystal Hansen, Ronnie Bull and Daniel Falese. Sykora said she ran on the slate after "meeting them and voicing my concerns about current issues in the school system."
"They were willing to still have me on their slate and listen to me and work hard for our campaign," she wrote in an e-mail to Patch.
Sykora said she was glad to continue to work for the betterment of education for Valley View students.
"The people that I have gotten to know that I will be working with are very caring people that I feel will listen to what I have to say about what works in the classroom and what we are currently doing that may not be working," she wrote.
Chrystal Hansen was re-elected to the board after winning a two-year term in 2011. She said that after seeing election results, she felt an "immediate feeling of appreciation and honor."
During the past two years on the board, Hansen said the board "(has) continued with sound budget reductions that have not affected class sizes, but have increased educational rigor to better prepare our children for their future."
She mentioned recent initiatives past such as all-day kindergarten, aligning the curriculum from K through 12, better resourcing early grade levels and aligning to the Common Core standards.
"We’ve already begun seeing the trend toward higher scores in areas where change was initiated," she wrote.
Hansen said she chose to run for another term "to provide common sense financial practices and excellent educational choices."
"There is still work to be done," she wrote. "I believe these first two years have laid a foundation for future positive outcomes and I desire to see that continue."