Christopher R. Fee,
Candidate for Re-election to the Office of School Director
Upper Adams School District

Personally, I am committed to maintaining and to improving the schools of Upper Adams because these are the schools my children attend. Our oldest child loves Bendersville Elementary, where she will begin sixth grade in the fall, and our middle child will start fourth grade there at the same time. Our youngest, now at Biglerville Elementary, will be a member of the Biglerville High School Class of 2023. I therefore have good reason for making a long-term commitment to the Upper Adams School District!

I have served consistently as a classroom volunteer at Biglerville and Bendersville Elementary Schools for the past six years, I enjoy the interaction with the kids, teachers, staff, and other volunteers, and I plan to continue in that role. Moreover, I was raised to believe in active citizenship: when the afterschool tutoring program funded through the LIU was cut two years ago, I stepped in and helped to form a partnership between the Upper Adams School District and Gettysburg College which through the resulting program has provided dozens of our district’s children with a nutritious snack, homework tutoring, and mentoring relationships with college students two days a week. This program has been an unqualified success for two years at no cost whatsoever to the school district, and exemplifies my view of my role in the community: I believe that it is my job to step up when I see a problem, to identify what I can offer to help solve that problem, and to build partnerships with others in my community to do what needs to be done. During anyone’s first term as a School Director the learning curve is steep: The complexities of school funding, for example, require a great deal of time and effort to master. I was up to speed quickly in my first term, however, and soon became something of an expert in Commonwealth legislation concerning education; moreover, I have been consistently active on all the board’s major committees, with special interests in the Curriculum and in Co-Curricular Activities.

As a member of the Menallen Quaker Meeting, I serve on the preschool committee of the Menallen Friends Preschool, a program which is familiar to many students and parents in the Upper Adams District. My personal commitment to public service is grounded in traditional Quaker values, one of the most crucial of which is listening: As a member of any board or committee, I believe that I have much to learn from each member of the community or the board who speaks to the concerns that we face in common. I believe that I am quite likely to learn more from the speaker who disagrees with me than from the one who tells me what I’d like to hear, and thus it is fundamental to my faith that I listen carefully for the spirit which causes the words to be spoken, and not just to the words themselves. In simplest terms, I would like to continue to serve our community by listening carefully to the concerns and ideas of all involved, and by voicing thoughtfully such helpful suggestions as I can.

Professionally, I have a PHD in English Language and I have taught at Gettysburg College since 1997. I have taught a course required for teacher certification to hundreds of aspiring teachers over the course of more than a decade, and my students regularly complete their student teaching in the Upper Adams Schools; I'm also on the Gettysburg College committee that assesses which students the college will recommend to the state for certification to teach in the public schools. I teach an additional course concerning the problems faced by small rural school districts, and I work with students in that course to identify and to address some of the very challenges faced by the Upper Adams schools today. I'm also an Advanced Placement reader, and every year I bring a lot of knowledge back from the experience working with the Educational Testing Service, as well. I have broad first-hand knowledge of issues concerning curriculum and assessment, and I would like to continue to be of service to my community by bringing this knowledge to bear on issues facing our schools.