One of the people hiring the next state superintendent will be from Stark County.
Unofficial election results show that John P. Hagan of Marlboro Township has been reelected to a seat on the State Board of Education, which appoints and evaluates the state superintendent, makes legislative recommendations to state legislators and sets educational performance goals.
Hagan represents District 9, which includes most of Stark and Geauga counties, along with all of Portage, Trumbull, Ashtabula and Lake counties. The southwest part of Stark County, including Beach City, Brewster, East Sparta and Navarre, are covered by District 8 with 17 other counties that mostly sweep along the eastern state boundary.
Hagan, 67, owner of Hagan Heating and Plumbing, garnered 60.6% of the 300,132 votes cast in the race over Streetsboro school board member Robert. R. Fulton, unofficial election results show. A county-by-county breakdown of the vote shows that Hagan won in each county and earned nearly 63% of the 99,268 votes cast in Stark County.
Hagan’s seat was one of five, four-year terms up for election for the 19-member state board, which is comprised of 11 elected members and eight appointed by the governor. Tuesday’s election saw three incumbents, including Hagan, winning reelection with two teacher union-backed newcomers, retired Cincinnati Public Schools teacher Katie Hofmann and Solon insurance agent Tom Jackson, poised to join the board in January.
Board members, who are considered nonpartisan, receive $32 an hour for the time they spend attending meetings and tending to state business. On average, a board member earned $6,400 last year, according to state data.
What are John Hagan’s goals for his new term?
Hagan, a former Marlboro Township trustee and former state legislator who first was elected to the state education board in 2018, said his primary goal during his new term will be to help the board refocus on student academics and move beyond the culture wars over racism and gender identity that have usurped much of the board’s time.
“This isn’t that I’m not going to continue to push back against things that I think shouldn’t be happening in our schools but my emphasis has been and always will be getting us back to basics and getting better outcomes academically for children, and that means focusing on the subject matter rather than everything but,” Hagan said. “Unfortunately, we’ve been in the world of everything but (academics) for a long time now.”
He wants the board to revisit and revise Ohio’s five-year strategic plan for education that began in 2019 that emphasizes addressing the whole child and broadens a school’s focus beyond academics to include meeting students’ social, emotional, physical and safety needs.
“It also takes us off track,” Hagan said. “The idea should be let’s get good at reading, writing, arithmetic, the arts, etc. before we worry about getting into all kinds of social issues. I think we’re so distracted on social issues that we’re losing the overall picture and not getting the job done as far as getting kids ready to be out there in society and being productive members.”
One of the first tasks facing Hagan in his new term will be the hiring of a new state superintendent to oversee the education of 1.7 million children in Ohio’s public schools.
Hagan said he prefers a superintendent who values putting parents first and who prioritizes academic subject matters over social issues. He doesn’t believe interim Superintendent Stephanie Siddens, a 16-year Ohio Department of Education employee, should be promoted to the permanent role because she likely would be unwilling to change the direction of the department she’s worked at for so long.
Reach Kelli at 330-580-8339 or kelli.weir@cantonrep.com.
On Twitter: @kweirREP
