EDWARDSVILLE – Madison County now has its first Republican Regional Superintendent of Schools.
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Robert Werden worked in several rural school districts across the Metro East teaching agriculture. He spent a year in the Highland School District, two in Litchfield and 15 in the Staunton School District. He has also put seven years of his professional career into the administration of Madison County's Career Technical Education (CTE) program, or as he prefers to call it – vocational training.
“Sometimes, our new acronyms for things work to our own detriment,” he said. “If you Google CTE, the first result you get is traumatic brain injuries caused from football, and the second thing is a rap group I've never heard of called Corporate Thugs Entertainment. When you're losing Google identification, you need to do something.”
Werden is taking that career in vocational studies to school districts in Madison County. Werden said he plans on helping students in each Madison County School District seek more vocational training if they want it. He said the current model of training each student for a four-year university education is doing students and the future workforce of America a great disservice.
“Pushing kids to four-year college is doing them a disservice, and making them take classes in which they have no interest hurts them when they should be working toward electives that interest them,” he said.
Helping Madison County students seek vocational classes is one of the main reasons Werden said he ran for that office. He described the election against Democratic favorite Andrew Reinking as “a whirlwind,” adding he has visited every municipality in Madison County in order to better understand what parents and students wanted from the office of regional superintendent.
“I saw a chance to increase the platform and make it a bigger microphone to reinvigorate, maintain and build vocational programs at schools to make sure every student has the opportunity to be successful,” Werden said.
When asked about some of the main issues with school districts, such as unfunded mandates and a new funding formula, Werden described unfunded mandates as “well-intentioned” laws from Springfield, which “handcuff school staff, teachers and students,” passed by lawmakers who have never been in a classroom as an educator or administrator.
He said the new funding formula was a “rearranging of chairs,” adding what is good for the lower income districts may cause more well-off districts to have to raise property tax rates. He also said the new funding formula, which many claim to be more simplified than former models, is actually more complex.
As for changes in the office, Werden was hesitant to say much. He said he wants to make sure taxpayers know his office is ran as efficiently as possible, saying taxpayers don't mind paying taxes as long as they feel good about how their money is spent.
He also spoke highly of former Madison County Regional Superintendent Robert Daiber's administration, despite Daiber being politically opposed as a Democrat. He especially appreciated the regional office's “Give 30” Program, which encourages volunteers across Madison County to give 30 minutes of their time to assist students with subjects such as math and reading.
“If it ain't broke, we are not going to fix it,” he said. “We will fix what isn't working and bring the best practices from across the country to Madison County. I am all about local control of school districts.”
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