HUMBOLDT — Four of the eight at-large candidates for USD 258’s school board appeared before about 30, mostly teachers and staff, Saturday morning. The results of the April 7 election will propel the ballot’s top four vote-getters into that office. BRIANA WILKERSON is a school psychologist currently working in Garnett. She and her family live in Humboldt, where her two daughters attend the elementary and middle schools. Prior to working in Garnett, Wilkerson was for five years a special education teacher in Humboldt, working for the ANW Co-op. Wilkerson describes herself as a data-based decision-maker, whose ability to work with students, parents and the community is not simply an untested promise — but a function she performs on a daily basis in her current role as school psychologist. JOYCE ALLEN is a past graduate of HHS, who recently moved back to her “old stomping grounds” after 35 years working as a director of medical imaging in Coffeyville. Married, with four grown children and seven grandchildren — two of whom are enrolled at Humboldt — Allen drew the audience’s attention to the eight years she spent on the school board at Labette County-USD 506 and the “strong and valuable experience” that follows therefrom. CLAYTON Schoendaller grew up in Chapman, but has lived and raised a family in Humboldt for the last 15 years. After high school, Schoendaller attended North Central Kansas Technical College to become a welder. Upon entering the workforce in Wichita, Schoendaller met Matt Aikins — production manager at B&W Trailer Hitches — who lured the welder to Humboldt, where, Schoendaller said, “I found B&W and where, in turn, I found my wife of 15 years, Hailey” — a USD 258 high school teacher. Schoendaller credits his work as a production supervisor at B&W with fostering the sort of leadership skills required of a school board member. SCOTT MURROW and his wife have “graduated two children from the Humboldt school system, and we have four more yet to go.” After leaving his primary career as a manufacturing plant manager, where he oversaw the work of 100-plus employees, Murrow began substitute teaching at area schools, Humboldt included. Whatever their private disagreements, Saturday’s polite audience question-and-answer session — while disclosing something about each candidate’s level of preparation — revealed very little disunity in the substance of their answers. How would each of you deal with the budget constraints you will inherit from the state? What are your feelings about the district’s popular building trades program? Could you share your views on “fair dismissal policy” — “or what used to be called ‘due process’?” Layne Sterling, president of Allen County Farm Bureau, moderated the morning’s well-run forum.
Absent were Craig Mintz; Donald Hauser, who was called away to attend a family funeral; and incumbent candidates Sandra Whitaker and Joe Works.
Candidates had five minutes for introductions.
Wilkerson is the only candidate to have attended every school board meeting since August.
“This is not about the platform,” Wilkerson said. “The students, the kids in this community, are my constituents, as well as the patrons of USD 258. We have an amazing district here, and in order to keep progressing in the right direction it will sometimes involve change…. I think there needs to be a group of individuals on [the board] who are listening to the people in the community and looking at what is best for our kids and what will positively affect them in the long run.
“Because your school,” Wilkerson said, “really is the heart of your community.”
“I feel I have a vested interest and would like to help play an important role in providing a happy, caring and stimulating environment where children will recognize and achieve to their fullest potential, so that they can make the best contribution to their society upon leaving HHS.”
The Schoendallers have four children. “We’re vested in this community. We’re going to have kids coming through this district for the next twenty-some years. I’d like to see that their education is moving forward, and I’d like to be a part of that progress by being elected to the school board.”
“One of the things that always impressed me about this school,” said Murrow, “when you come down this foyer, you see our sports trophy cases, but you also see all the other achievements that our school has made, whether it be Scholars Bowl, school newspaper or our band. And that is one thing that I’d like to see us continue to work on as we deal with the challenges that are going to come down from the state level. We need to be creative in finding ways to make all of these opportunities available for our kids.”
All four candidates, throughout, acknowledged that their budget decisions, if elected, would be made in the forbidding shadow of state funding cuts — a topic which provoked the morning’s first question:
Allen suggested forming a committee, “getting ideas from students, from parents, teachers, everybody, so you can collaborate” on how best to apportion the spending within the district.
Wilkerson argued for greater transparency in the process of board spending, an increased attention to the voices in the community and advocated for a course of budget priorities that will have the least negative impact on students. “The last thing I would look at cutting is personnel…. It’s not just the teachers; it’s the paras, the staff in the cafeteria, the office staff. We are a well-oiled machine because of all those parts.”
Schoendaller advocated a top to tail reevaluation of the budget. “Are we spending that money wisely and getting the most bang for the buck? I would hate to cut any personnel or any activities…but there are going to be times when we have to cut back on some things…just to make sure we’ve got the education part of this taken care of.”
For instance, Schoendaller suggested, some of the money expended on new weight room equipment might have gone instead toward teachers. “I don’t know if we go to weightlifting competitions. I haven’t seen a champion come out of there yet, but I do see a lot of champion teachers in these facilities.”
Murrow praised the excellence of the program. “Anything that is vocational, we need to have. There are kids out there that don’t want to go to college — kids out there that have a very high mechanical aptitude, and we need to provide opportunities for those kids…. There’s nothing more satisfying than building something with your own two hands.”
Wilkerson is “all for” the program and recalled her previous work as a special education teacher. “Part of that role was trying to figure out ways to make sure that not just a few of our kids graduated…but that they all did. That meant finding out their strengths and building on those strengths,” which was often trade work. She also listed, as a local model, the well-regarded high school welding certification program offered by Neosho County Community College.
Given his career path, Schoendaller said, the building trades program hits close to home. “It’s not always that you have to go to a four-year college to make it in life.” He would like to see the program grow, and suggested adoption of a similar program that would take students inside the walls of local businesses, like B&W and Monarch, “to see what they can actually do in this town, show them they don’t have to move away to have a good life.”
All of the candidates, in front of this teacher-heavy crowd, expressed their support for a rigorous fair dismissal policy that is “applied consistently so that everybody knows what the expectation is. Nobody wants to have a job where you are fearful of losing that job” (Murrow).
“If you don’t give any of these teachers any information about how to get better,” said Schoendaller, “and you just say ‘You didn’t make the grade, so you’re out,’ we’re not going to grow the teachers that can be good in the long-term.”
For Wilkerson, a fair dismissal policy “gives a teacher the right to communicate what they need for their students, to advocate for their students or advocate for their peers, without the fear of being retaliated against or terminated. The bottom line is if we want to keep the teachers we have — I think we are one of 22 schools in the state that doesn’t have some sort of fair dismissal language — and if we want to be an appealing district, we have to have these policies in place.”
During Allen’s previous school board appointment, she claimed, her policy was one where “If you’re not doing your job, you’re out of there” — but conceded that a teacher deserves a fair amount of “coaching” before being let go. “We should want everyone to be successful.”
Several USD 258 contenders speak
