Meet the Candidate: Jay Rueckl

"Meet the Candidate" is a feature on Mansfield-Storrs Patch designed to help you get to know your local candidates before you take to the polls this November. Each profile was submitted directly by the candidate. 

Take a moment to review each profile so you can be informed and prepared when you go to the polls on Nov. 8.

Name: Jay Rueckl

Age: 52

Party, Position Seeking: Democrat, Mansfield Board of Education (MBOE)

Family information: My wife Julie Brown and I have two boys—a 6th grader at Mansfield Middle School and a 3rd grader at Southeast School.

Occupation: I am a cognitive psychologist in UConn’s Psychology Department.  I teach undergraduate and graduate courses and I conduct research on reading, language, and learning.

Political Experience: This is my first time running for public office.

Other Experience:

Why are you running for office? I’m committed to public education in general, and I’m proud of Mansfield’s school system in particular. We have excellent teachers and staff, small elementary schools, low student/teacher ratios, and we offer a full program of educational activities (including programs in music, art, and world languages, as well as the core curriculum). However, we also face a number of challenges: diminishing state aid to the town, increasing energy costs, the costs associated with maintaining and repairing our present school buildings, and fluctuations in enrollment. I am running to help maintain and improve the quality of the education we provide in the face of these challenges.

If elected, what would be your primary areas of focus? My main focus would be ensuring that we continue to offer a high-quality education to every Mansfield child, which means offering a broad program without sacrificing the quality of the core curriculum, and offering both remedial and enrichment programs to ensure that both struggling and advanced students are well served.

What do you feel is the biggest issue facing Mansfield today? We need economic development initiatives like Storrs Center and the Four Corners projects. They will create economic and employment opportunities and increase town revenues to offset losses in state aid. There are also a number of issues related to our senior citizens that deserve to be highlighted. Chief among them is the need for independent-and assisted-living facilities.

What skills do you have that you could bring to the community? My scientific training will help me evaluate the evidence relevant to school policy decisions, and I have experience in educational administration at UConn. With regard to decision making, my general approach is to address policy issues by gathering as much evidence as possible, including both factual information and the views from a diverse set of perspectives, and to arrive at decisions that balance short- and long-term considerations.

Anything else you would like to share?