Retired dentist Roger Wright among hopefuls for Pueblo D60 school board
Dr. Roger Wright enters the pool of candidates for the Pueblo School District 60 school board with a doctorate of dental surgery and a master's degree in education.
Wright's professional experience includes time as an assistant professor at the University of Iowa's College of Dentistry and over two decades of dentistry practice in Pueblo County. Wright came to Pueblo in 1989 and, with Pueblo West Dental Care, was one of the first dentists to serve the growing Pueblo West community.
Now retired from dentistry, Wright is a volunteer science teacher at Family Worship Center Academy — a private middle and high school started by Family Worship Center church in Pueblo.
"I'm kind of a business outsider, because I'm not part of the school system," Wright said. "I went to school in other places, but not here. I know there's a lot of problems with the school district that need to be corrected or at least looked into... I thought that it would be a good idea for me to get involved."
What Wright's priorities would be
One of nine candidates hoping to be elected to four school board seats this November, Wright is campaigning with emphases on parental choice, academic improvement and school safety.
"Parental choice of being able to go to the school that they want — I would think that if we want to establish more schools, we could do some charter schools that would give people much more choices instead of going to the few schools we have now," Wright said.
Wright also told the Chieftain that district budgets need to prioritize student achievement. He called for a reevaluation of how revenue is being spent along with a "top-to-bottom" evaluation of academic programs throughout the district to determine which programs are doing well and which programs need improvement.
"You can't just simply say 'a school does this well,'" he said. "Why are they doing something that is successful? Let's see if we can do something to repeat that success. That's the way you run a business... You do successful things, you repeat them."
On his campaign website, Wright also lists safe school facilities among his priorities for Pueblo D60. Wright told the Chieftain that he supports having security assigned to every school in the district.
"When my son was young the school that he attended experienced a school shooting," according to his website. "It was traumatic for all the families and especially hard on the students. It is the reason I am passionate about ensuring we have safe schools and facilities and that we focus on ensuring students and staff are safe."
In 1984, Wright's son Daniel attended Southeast Polk Junior-Senior High School in Altoona, Iowa — where 17-year-old Todd Dunahoo killed 16-year-old Valerie Rockafellow before dying by suicide, according to information from Wright's wife Ann and a news story archived by United Press International.
More on Wright's background
The middle child of seven, Wright spent much of his childhood in various small towns in Northwest Iowa, attending public school in one-room schoolhouses.
His family briefly lived in Illinois, but moved back to Iowa after Wright's father, Joe C. Wright, died in an automobile accident. Wright was just 8 years old when his father died. After three years of postsecondary education at a small Lutheran school, Wright transferred to the University of Iowa.
Wright earned a bachelor's degree in general science and his doctorate of dental surgery from the University of Iowa. His master's degree in education was received from Boston University following three years of Army service. Wright has been married to his wife Ann since 1966. They have three children and six grandchildren.
More about elections: Pueblo D60 school board incumbent Anthony Perko running for board seat
Pueblo Chieftain reporter James Bartolo can be reached at JBartolo@gannett.com. Support local news, subscribe to The Pueblo Chieftain at subscribe.chieftain.com.
This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Retired Pueblo dentist enters race for school board
