With experience as an educator, coach and administrator – something no other candidate has — Ryan Myers
believes he is a great candidate for the Bowling Green City Schools Board of Education.
“This has been an interest of mine for the past few years,” he said.
“It’s gotten to a point within our community, with the divisiveness on both sides, I really feel with my
experience and my education, I can really benefit the community and the students.”
Myers is vying for one of three empty seats on the school board. There are eight candidates on the Nov. 5
ballot.
“I want to add positive change,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be coming in to this blind as a rookie, because I’ve supervised hundreds of school employees.
I will be a superintendent one day. This isn’t a stepping stone toward that. This is a way for me to
affect an entire district I love.”
He has spent 22 years coaching, from T-ball to varsity basketball, 20 years in special education in
Fostoria, Swanton and Olentangy, and 15 years in education administration. The last seven have been
spent supervising the special education programs at Penta Career Center in Perrysburg.
He has two children at Kenwood Elementary.
“The perspective that I would be able to offer the board, the community and the schools is unlike anyone
else’s.”
He sees several challenges facing the district. On Nov. 5, voters will decide on funding one consolidated
elementary school with a 1.6-mill property tax that will collect $20 million, and a 0.25% traditional
income tax that also will collect $20 million.
“Regardless of what happens with this bond issue, on Nov. 6, the district will have to deal.”
In his 20 years, he has worked with more than 40 school districts, several with bond issues similar to
this one, and he has seen the ability of teachers to have better and more access to students and have
the ability to team teach.
“I am 100% in support of the bond issue,” he said.
He admits 1,500 students is a large population, “but you also have a large population of staff that can
collaborate.”
Pullout intervention and addressing sensory needs is much more cohesive when staff are all together,
Myers said.
He said he understands the territorialism and nostalgia around the three elementaries, but one building
is more economical and he supports “being able to service the students better in one building with the
entire staff being able to work together for the education of students.”
Myers then would like to see a focus on literacy in grades K-3, and review what is being done after third
grade. He said there are checkpoints until third grade then the focus “falls off the shelf.”
Reading transcends across the curriculum, he added.
There is data from the State Report Card, including on-track literacy that says 50% percent are on track
in kindergarten, 70% in third grade.
“Our teachers are doing a great job once they get the students in.”
But those numbers tell him students are entering school without literacy or reading skills, Myers said.
He would like to talk with Bowling Green State University about developing a learning lab with its early
childhood students to provide both training and help in the preschools.
“I think we can make that accessible to the public, to really work on those individual reading skills.”

He also would like to look at the Prepared for Success area of the report card.
Many teachers think students need to take one of two paths: either college or a career center.
“It can be both. Students that are interested in going to college can still go to Penta.”
He would like to see career technical awareness added to the middle school.
“Our location is prime with all kinds of business and industry. I would like to look at what partnerships
we’re building with business and industry to get pre-apprenticeships while they’re going to school.”
He also wants to address teacher retention.
“The single biggest impact on a student’s life is the teacher they have. If we’re not able to recruit or
retain our great and effective teachers, then our education is going to suffer as a result of that.”
With not a lot of money available, the district will have to be creative in delivering services and
programs to keep staff.
“My first answer isn’t always to throwing money at something.”
But it goes beyond salaries.
‘’People at Penta don’t usually leave. There is a belief that we want to be the best career center in
Ohio. Every decision we make, every initiative we go into, is around that focal point.
“When teachers think what they are doing is impactful to students, they don’t want to leave,” Myers said.

He sees how one decision will impact 100 more, and how each will set a precedent, he said.
After moving to town in 2013, he said he wanted to devote those skills to the district he lives in, where
he sends his kids to, “and that I love.”