Steve Drakos said goodbye to the Oxford Board of Education last week, but not to the Oxford/Orion area.
“My new house is only two blocks from Oxford,” he said.
Drakos recently announced his resignation from the school board effective Feb. 20.
The local attorney and his wife of one and a half years, Teresa, purchased a new home in Lake Orion.
“I look forward to moving back to Lake Orion which is where I grew up,” he said. “I still have a lot of ties to Orion.”
Drakos said he doesn’t consider it moving to a “strange neighborhood” because he’s “always considered Oxford and Orion as one community.”
Drakos said it’s “bittersweet” and “very emotional for me” to leave the school board he’s served on since 1998.
Although he and his wife have no children, Drakos said he’s always considered that “more reason to get involved and partner with local youth.”
“We need to provide direction for our children as a community,” he said, noting he’s a former president of the Oxford/Orion Boys and Girls Club.
One of the accomplishments Drakos is proudest of as a school board member is how he’s helped maintain the “quality of the teachers” by making sure “in-depth research” and “good interviews” were done for new hires.
“We had a lot of (teacher) retirements while I was on the board,” he said. “I helped make sure we replaced good people with good people so we’re not going backward.”
His parting advice to the school board is to focus more on drug and alcohol awareness, prevention and education.
As an officer of the court, Drakos said he sees more teens involved in alcohol and drugs than he believes “teachers and parents are aware of.”
“I think because a lot of them don’t see it, they don’t think it’s there,” he said. “I see youth paying possession tickets (in court) without their parents there.”
Drakos said he favors random drug testing for Oxford student athletes as a way to “discourage them from experimenting.”
He likened it’s effect to the random locker searches the high school conducts with drug-sniffing dogs.
“Teens know not to bring drugs in the school because of this,” he said. “They won’t try drugs, if they think they could be tested the next day.”
Drakos said random testing could “take away some of the peer pressure” to try drugs because an athlete would be able to say no using the excuse that he doesn’t want to lose his standing on the team.
Although he’ll be living in Orion, Drakos said he’ll “always help out” Oxford Schools should any problems arise.
“I promise to assist Oxford in any way I can,” he said.
Under state law, the school board has until March 21 to appoint someone to Drakos’ seat.
Candidates must be 18 years old, a U.S. citizen, registered voter and resident of the Oxford Area Community School District.
Candidates must submit a letter of intent to Superintendent Virginia Brennan-Kyro, who will in turn provide applications to the interested parties.
Deadline for submitting these applications is Wednesday, March 12.
The applicants will be publicly interviewed at a special school board meeting to be held Tuesday, March 18.
The school board will appoint one of the applicants to the seat by March 21.
That appointee will serve on the board until the annual school district election on Monday, June 9.