Candidates Tamara Rhomberg, Phillip Milligan and Thomas Dunn are competing for two seats on the Board of Education (BOE) this year. The election will take place Tuesday, April 2.

Tamara Rhomberg, acting board member, said she is running again because the district is on an upward swing from the pandemic.
“Scores are improving, the district is in a good place financially, and I want to be part of continuing to see that we grow,” Rhomberg said.
Rhomberg said she has been a teacher and administrator in the district for many years.
“Sitting on the opposite side of the table is very different. As a school board member, I am focused on 19,000+ students, over 3,500 staff,” Rhomberg said.
Rhomberg said what separates her from other candidates is that she already has experience on the board and an understanding of how it operates.
“I understand the budgets, I understand the processes, I understand governance,” Rhomberg said. “I recognize that there are multiple voices on any issue, so I am very objective in terms of listening to both sides and coming up with the most plausible solution.”
Rhomberg said she hopes to meet the difficulty of keeping an open line of communication between constituents, including students and their households.
“Plus we have many residents in our district that don’t have students in our schools, but they are taxpayers in our district. Their voices all need to be heard,” Rhomberg said.

Thomas Dunn was a district board member from 2019 to 2022 and has worked in different public agencies.
“I had attended and spoken at board meetings, and I had found out that the only way to have a voice in that is to become a part of it,” Dunn said.
Dunn said he has invested interest in the district because his children attend school in the district.
Dunn said he has learned from being on the BOE in the past that the board needs to work together if they are to progress.
“There are times when not all board members agree, which is fine, but realistically to have anything done or looked at or anything else, it’s got to be all seven board members,” Dunn said.
If elected, Dunn said he wants to make sure students continue to achieve.
“I want to make sure that kids are in a safe learning environment, that teachers get all the tools they need to succeed,” Dunn said.

Phillip Milligan has been involved in the district since 1989. He taught at Lafayette High School as the band director, has been the principal at two schools and has two children who have graduated from the district.
“The district has given our family so much and has been so good to our family that it was time to try to give something back and help Rockwood remain the fantastic school district that it is,” Milligan said.
This is Milligan’s first time running for the BOE and he said the election process so far has involved a lot of door-knocking.
“It has been great to meet people and hear their experiences with Rockwood,” Milligan said. “The more I talk to people, the less apprehensive I get about it being my first time running.”
Milligan said some of his abilities are leadership, communication and the ability to listen sincerely to various sides of an issue.
“That is what I think we need,” Milligan said. “People who are truly going to listen to one another.”