By JAMES RICKMAN
Los Alamos

I’m pleased to share my elation after voting for Christine Bernstein for Los Alamos School Board, District 3.

I think it’s fantastic that an actual educator is running for a seat on the local Board of Education. Both of my parents were teachers—and excellent ones at that, based on the recollections of their former pupils—and I remember them talking often about administrators and policy makers who knew little about the realities they faced, yet who held the purse strings and the power to make meaningful changes on behalf of students and educators.

Electing a teacher to the board should provide some deeply needed pragmatism and legitimacy to discussions that affect the educational direction of our community. This is why I was pleased to vote for Christine Bernstein.

I suppose one thing most people can agree upon during these deeply divided times is that the déjà vu politics of career politicians is doing nothing to improve the fabric of our society. Electing new voices to political bodies at all levels is the best chance we have for creating positive change to an imperfect system.

As I was leaving the polling place, I realized one other neat fact: Christine Bernstein’s name rhymes with itself. I couldn’t think of anything that her opponent’s name rhymes with, except perhaps “trans fats,” which should be avoided. The universe sometimes gives us affirmation in strange ways. Please vote for Christine Bernstein for the Los Alamos School Board, District 3.