Video: School Board Candidate Wendy Huntoon

Editor's Note: Watch the short video interview with Wendy Huntoon. The story below ran on Chartiers Valley Patch during the primary. All of the candidates and profile stories can be found in our

Wendy Huntoon is a self-described “statistics nerd” who thinks that both the academic curriculum and expectations are falling short in .

“I’ve found that academics is what I am really interested in and Chartiers Valley is falling short in the programs they are providing to the students,” Huntoon said. “You see how smart our students are and creative they are. But you look at our tests scores and they’re not on the same level as Mt. Lebanon and others.”

Huntoon is on both the Democratic and Republican ballots for the Nov. 8 general election.

She said the district must first elevate its academic expectations before it can improve education. Huntoon thinks that must begin at the school board and community levels before it can move into the classroom.

Huntoon pointed to a program in the intermediate school that screens third-graders on their proficiency in math. Programs like that would allow some students to move onto a more difficult class that would challenge them.

“It doesn’t have to be just for the top students in the class,” she said. “You can enrich all of the students. Every child should be able to succeed with whatever they’re good at. What you don’t want is for them to say this is good enough.”

Huntoon, 50, of , has a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University in Boston and is currently the networking director for Carnegie Mellon’s Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center. She has one daughter who went through Chartiers Valley schools and a son still in the system.

“People think to raise the academic requirements that it means raising more money. But I don’t think it does,” she said. “Do we have the right programs in place, and are they effective?”

Huntoon said her experience helping her own children would be an asset when working to improve education for all students in the district.

“I feel like I have seen what they’re delivering to the students and I have a good idea what can be done,” she said.

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