Candidate: Shelia Arnett

I am Shelia Arnett and I am running for School Board, District 1.

I am married to former County Commissioner Earl Arnett. We have three children and four grandchildren. Our children are 49, 36, 21 and our grandchildren are 23, 17, 10 & 9 – so any age kid we have at least one.  We have lived and worked in Marion County for almost 40 years.

I have been a hospice specific healthcare recruiter since 2000. Healthcare clients hire my firm from all over the Country to help them fill key management positions. We do market research in their area, identify their competition, and, at times, contract with these healthcare agencies to identify weaknesses in their organizations and help train their staff on ways to grow their businesses.

Earl and I have owned several businesses in Marion County. We owned a BMX bicycle shop and a baseball card store. I was the office manager for Earl’s private investigation firm for over 14 years. I also published a magazine in the Villages for 2 years.

I am currently on the Board of the Marion County Homeless Council and a former Board Member of the Marion County Literacy Council.

After spending years with my husband working on many city and county issues, I’ve come to realize we both have such a passion for serving our community, that I decided to run for School board, after much prayer and consideration.

I felt I had just the right fit to help and compliment the current school board. After working many years in business, I can see a need to unify the board in a direction that is more productive and civil to each other.

As I tell the healthcare clients that hire my firm as a consultant, unity and stability are important in their companies - this is doubly true for our School Board. A corporation, and the School Board, must be moving forward in the same direction to succeed. Our children are our most precious asset and their education is of paramount importance.

I also realize as a mom and grandma there is a need to have stronger discipline policies in our schools. In light of the recent school shootings around the Country, we are hearing way too much how the shooter was a discipline problem, or bullied by other kids who were not well disciplined, by either their parents or Teachers.  We also need to make our schools a harder target.

I believe teachers should come to school and be able to teach kids who are there ready to learn. Kids should not be coming to school to socialize or act up or bully anyone and that includes students or teachers. We hear so many horror stories about school threats and concerns on a daily basis. I would like to see more strict changes made to school safety and bullying offences and just tighter more effective school discipline policies overall.

A child who is a constant disruption at any age is not fair to the other students or the Teacher. That child makes it difficult for the teacher to teach and the other students to learn, so why are we allowing them the privilege of being in one of our schools? We should be able to expel them and have their parents be accountable for paying and providing them the education they are taking for granted.

I know that many of you have already paid to raise and educate your children and now we ask you with your tax dollars to raise and educates our current young folks.  I promise to be a watch dog over our tax dollars and make sure that the school board budget, which is almost $600,000,000, under tight scrutiny and make sure that every dollar is spent wisely and out of necessity.

As we slowly open our ecomony back up after the COVID-19 shutdown, we are just starting to see the financial fallout. We need strong leaders to navigate these turbulent financial waters that, unfortunately, will affect us for years to come. I am that strong leader! I look forward to hearing any of your thoughts or concerns and I look forward to serving on our School Board. I ask for your vote on August 18th!

-Shelia