Two residents loosely allied with a group encouraging greater communication and parent participation have declared they will run for School Committee. Michael Fain and Kristin Lehoullier both made their announcements on the Facebook page East Greenwich Parent for Excellence earlier this week.

Fain, who grew up in East Greenwich (EGHS Class of 1987), is a self-employed financial consultant for Oracle. He will run as an independent.

“The 1:1 issue got me going to School Committee meetings initially,” said Fain, referring to the one computer device per high school student proposal passed by the committee earlier this year. While he is not opposed to technology in the classroom, he said, “My biggest concern was that was not a lot of training built into the proposal.”

Fain, who has a BS in electrical engineering from URI, founded a software consulting firm in 1998, where he served as chief technology officer for several years. He continues to do some technical consulting.

“I definitely believe from a technology perspective, I can bring some clarity to the School Committee,” he said.

He cited the recent upset caused by changes to the special education program at Meadowbrook as an example of poor decision-making by the administration: “decisions being made seemingly in a black box.”

He added, “I’d like to be a little more fact-based.”

Fain said he recognized there are several hot school topics right now, including the later school start time. While he said he thinks a later start time is best for kids, he was not willing to say he was definitely for making the change.

“There’s a lot of complexities – I don’t have an informed opinion on the issue yet,” he said.

Fain is on the board of the East Greenwich Education Foundation.

He is married to Bethany Fain, who also grew up in East Greenwich. Her parents, Ray and Carol Alfano, were longtime teachers in EG schools. Fain’s mother was a teacher in Warwick for 32 years.

He and his wife have three children, two boys in elementary school and a daughter in preschool.

Look for a post about Kristin Lehoullier Thursday.

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