Dan Luce: An Every Day Dad
by Rowan Beck,
June 17, 2010, page 9.....

Charlotters may think of Dan Luce as a Charlotte Central School Board member or the “man who takes care of the fish tank,” but he is much more than that. He has lived in Charlotte with his wife, Kathy, and daughter, Emily, since 1994. A dedicated volunteer, he has served his community in many ways. Dan set a personal goal many years ago of volunteering for one hour a day. He consistently exceeds that goal and surpassed it in the past few months just by working on the budget with fellow School Board members.
Dan wanted to “volunteer in a way that he could be close to Emily.” Emily is Dan’s only daughter and she graduated from CCS this week. “It goes by fast,” he says with a smile. When Emily was three, Dan began by creating playgroups in the multi-purpose room and the cafeteria annex at CCS. They were “hanging out reading books, doing art, and playing with play dough.” From there he transitioned into volunteering in the classroom. He worked with the exploratory groups and then took on the fish tank. His next step was to run for the School Board on which he has served for the past three and half years.
Dan’s volunteering has evolved as his daughter Emily has grown older. He has now promised her that high school is all hers. “I will not be as involved. Her personality is already formed. She needs her independence and to learn from the experiences she has at high school on her own. It’s part of the letting-go process.”
According to Dan, letting go is one of the biggest challenges for parents today. Other challenges are the Internet and the media. Children are constantly “shifting the needs they have. There are peaks and valleys,” Dan sighs. “Most of a kid’s personality traits are set by the time they are two.”
Dan has a huge interest in the media and its influence on children. “It’s critical to talk to them about it by the time they reach the fourth grade.” He reflected on how he and Emily used to watch “Little Bear.” “The relationships that he (Little Bear) had with his mom, dad and friends was profound. It was not the superficial Barbie World.” He laughs and then says, “As a joke a friend gave Emily a Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs Barbie.” He rolls his eyes. “I spent hours being Grumpy, Doc and Sneezy, and we would ad-lib for hours.” He loved to role-play with Emily. He happily admits that he smiled when he heard the snap of Snow White’s head from the back of the car.
When Dan watched TV with Emily he would have a running commentary. They would talk about the content and the ads. Sometimes he would even push the mute button and talk just about the ad, or he would perform an improvisation of what the ad could be talking about. He would turn it into a comedy so his message would be well received. “I would just get her laughing. I would use my sense of humor and then move into the lesson.” In Dan’s opinion, “a child’s foundation needs to be laid between two and four.”
Dan feels that “media studies are the purest reflection of what we as human beings are.” It was his fascination with media studies that helped him bring Tom Bagenski into the school to do a media program. Dan is very helpful in making sure that people who want to volunteer in the school can. He helps them “navigate the waters to what level they need to get them in to volunteer.”
Dan also has an interest in technology and computers. He used to build computers for fun. He feels that all twenty-first century learning happens on a computer. “As soon as Emily could drive a mouse we immersed her in technology.” Now she can type faster than Dan and she can “walk up to any computer and make it do what she wants,” he says with a huge grin. Dan will also say that this ability is a double-edged-sword, and he is currently faced with time-consuming Internet challenges. “I have to roll with it because it’s not going to go away. It’s the challenge of technology and the media creature. It will just be something else in two years.”
Now that the school budget has passed, life is calmer for Dan. “The CCS School Board has been in a period of rapid change in the last two years; it’s just the nature of the animal. There have been problems with the ’49 building, ongoing maintenance issues, a huge turnover in administration, three board chairs and two failed budgets.” Individually these would be complicated and time-consuming issues, but the CCS Board has had to deal with all of them at once.
Dan tends to be quiet at the board meetings, listening, asking questions and not saying much. When asked why, he simply replied, “Because it is more important to listen than it is to talk. Then I can make an informed decision.”