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Hyattsville resident Hillary Kassembe, a father of three, said he has been fighting to improve education for years — and now he hopes to expand his efforts by running for the District 3 Prince George's County school board seat.

"There are a lot of kids that want to be challenged, but the programs just aren't there to challenge them," said Kassembe, 36, whose two oldest children are enrolled in the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program. "You can't teach a bored kid much ... their minds start to wander."

Kassembe's oldest daughter first attended a neighborhood elementary school in Hyattsville, but soon he found she was finishing her work too quickly, he said.

"We were lucky enough to get in the lottery. I don't know what we would have done," he said, referring to the school system's lottery process for enrolling in specialty programs. "But we were considering private school."

Kassembe, a native of Tanzania, moved to the U.S. when he was 11 and attended middle and high school in Washington, D.C., where he said his education was not all he had hoped.

However, Kassembe said he plans to make school curriculum equitable across the county, so parents do not have to opt for private school.

"We need to balance [specialty programs] throughout the districts so the child doesn't have to go very far and will still be challenged," he said.

The biggest challenge of the school board, Kassembe said, is not falling back into the same cycle each year: focusing on balancing the budget and forgetting about long-term education goals.

"Decisions are being made for short-term goals just to fulfill the budget, but not taking the long-term into consideration," he said. "Almost every year we are going through the same motion of teacher layoffs or a few schools closing."

Kassembe said he would bring leadership and management skills from his eight years in the U.S. Army, where he learned to abide by strict guidelines and make decisions that were best for the whole.

"Fighting for your goals is always what it's about," he said.

Hillary Kassembe

-Place of residence: Hyattsville

-Age: 36

-Time in county: 13 years

-Place of birth: Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

-Current occupation: Truck driver

Education: Business management classes at Prince George's Community College

-Community associations: None

-Professional associations: Veteran of the U.S. Army

-Family: Married with three children, ages 11, 7 and 2

-E-mail: nigelpub@yahoo.com

-Web site: None