Jon Olinger and Evert Mol Jointly Announce Candidacies for FWCS Board

FORT WAYNE – At 1pm today, on the courthouse lawn, Evert Mol and Jon Olinger will jointly
announce their candidacies for the upcoming Fort Wayne Community Schools Board of Trustees
election. Olinger will be seeking re-election to his fourth term as the 3rd district trustee while Mol
will work to replace 28-year incumbent Steve Corona in the 5th district.

Mol is a graduate of South Side High School and the Purdue University School of Chemical
Engineering. During his career he worked as a control systems engineer and an operations and
maintenance manager in world scale petrochemical plants. Before retiring from Exxon Mobil in
2000, he was the team leader responsible for the design and construction of a $500 million dollar
expansion of a polymers plant in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, making it the largest plant of its kind in
the world. Since returning to Fort Wayne, Mol has spent five years teaching and tutoring in
district classrooms as a volunteer several days a week.

“The school district is defined by what happens in the classrooms, not by what is said in the
boardroom. I have had the opportunity to see firsthand some of the difficulties our teachers face
each and every day and it has helped me appreciate why our ISTEP passing rates are below those
of suburban districts. That’s a gap we must strive to close for all students across the district,”
Mol said.

Both Olinger and Mol fought the $500 million property tax increase proposed by the
administration last year with Olinger casting the sole vote against the facilities project and Mol
leading the successful remonstrance that ultimately defeated it.

“I could not support such a massive property tax increase, especially considering that taxpayers
were already staring down the barrel of record increases due to changes made at the state level,”
Olinger said. “There is significant work that needs to be done on our buildings but we need to
develop a plan that taxpayers can afford and support.”

Mol opposed the tax increase because it went far beyond the stated purpose of correcting school
deterioration. “We need to do what is necessary to keep the buildings viable, but above all the
district needs to re-establish funding to the Capital Projects Fund to allow future upgrades and
repairs to be done on a pay-as-you-go basis,” Mol said.

Olinger and Mol believe adopting the Balance Score Card was a step in the right direction in
regard to student achievement and academic accountability. “Student achievement remains the
number one priority and the Balance Score Card now gives us benchmarks that we can use to
quantify our progress as we move forward,” Olinger said.

Mol believes that literacy achievement in grades K-3 is especially important for student success.
“In the elementary schools is where we will first have to concentrate resources,” Mol said. “We
also need to develop student accountability in the middle schools before the high schools can
improve. I look forward to working with Jon, and all the other board members, as we tackle the
issues that are critical to the success of our students and ultimately our community.”

Source: Jon Olinger

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