Have you run for public office before?

Yes. My first time was running for school board in 2017. And then I ran again in November of 2021, and this would make it the third time.

Why are you qualified to be on the school board?

One, it goes back to just my professional experience. I work as an administrator at the University of Iowa within the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. So in that position, I have experience managing budgets, planning for facility renovations and new construction, overseeing human resources aspects of a job, supervising people, which I think is a huge part of a skill set that board members need to bring to the table since it will be our responsibility to supervise our one and only employee, which is the superintendent. And I think you need to have an understanding of how to do that in order to effectively do that. And just my record, my commitment to being a representative for all of our families, not just families that live on a certain side of town or in a certain town.  I hear that quite a bit from families across the district, North Liberty, Coralville, University Heights, that they appreciate the fact that my decisions are measured, taking into account everyone’s best interests, not just a small subset of our community.

Why are you running for School Board?

I ask myself that everyday. I sincerely had hoped that I could step away after serving eight years. I always believe that it’s important to encourage others to give back to our community, and I worked really hard in trying to convince a couple people to run, but it just wasn’t the right time for them. All of the remaining board members that’s aren’t up for election encouraged me to run. So that made me pause and give some thought, and I would ask them why. And they expressed that my experience and leadership was important to continue on on the board.

There’s still work that I want to see us get further along in that started when I first joined the board, like FMP projects, we are entering FMP 2.3. I want to see that through further along. I want to continue to work with our administration and ensuring that we’re doing our very best for our special ed teachers and families and staff. So those are just some of the reasons why I decided to try and seek a third term.

What would you say is the biggest issue with public education today?

Funding. I mean, the biggest issue is funding. It is not funded nearly enough for everything that a public education has to provide for our students. I would love to see our districts or even all public school districts being able to offer free breakfast and lunch. So we don’t have to have negative accounts or families don’t have to fill out the free and reduced lunch application because we know if a child is distracted by hunger, they’re not going to be able to focus in class. So again, that’s tied to funding because it costs so much and we can’t do something like that.

Our class sizes are the size that they are because of funding. So funding is one of the biggest issues and tied to that is vouchers, because vouchers take from that public education funding pool where people can then have private education off the backs of public dollars.

How long have you lived in the district?

Oh, man, I have lived in the Iowa City area since 1994. I came to the University of Iowa, did my math, my undergraduate, my masters, and then my husband and I decided to make a family here. My husband is a school teacher in our school district, and my daughter completed her education at Lucas Elementary, Southeast, and City High.

What are your positions on the bills regarding education being passed in the Iowa Legislature, specifically the attendance, voucher, and smartphones laws?

What I have seen from sitting at the table, these bills get passed, not necessarily in support of public education and not even well thought out. It’s laws that they think that they’re fixing a problem that’s not really a problem, but they base it off of a small subset of feedback or information or talking points that they hear on a national level and it’s not well thought out. They don’t give consideration to the other side. And so oftentimes we’re left with laws that absolutely, we will follow the law because we’re not going to break a law. But at the same time, they make it really difficult. A good example of that is the truancy law that was passed last legislative season.

And part of that law was certified letters had to go out to families. The district spent 30,000 plus on sending those letters. Oftentimes, a lot of them got returned unopened because of bad addresses, they couldn’t deliver them, what have you. And now they took that piece out of the law because we are a rather large district and 30,000, yes, that hurts, but we were able to afford to cover that. But some of our smaller rural districts, that was crushing their budget. I’ve talked to some from small districts where you can’t expect them to comply with a law, but give no funding for it.

How are you prepared to address student achievement gaps?

We have been dealing with that question since the dawn of time. I think as a district, we have tried a variety of things to try and to move that needle. And one of the things that I know for some of our various student populations, we have made some gains over the years with our students on IEP, students on free and reduced lunch, but obviously we need to do more. We need to look into ways to ensure that we capture them early or identify some of their needs early instead of passing students on from fourth grade when we know that they’re reading two grade levels below. We need to make sure that we’re giving them the additional support, whether that’s reading support, math support that’s needed. Looking at some of our standardized tests, those tests don’t always give a good insight into a person’s achievement. So we also need to ensure that we’re looking at different ways to see if our students are achieving and retaining knowledge from level to level.

What is your position on the current ICCSD phone policy and the state law regarding student smartphones?

So obviously I voted to pass our cell phone bill. In hearing from our teachers, full disclosure, my husband is a teacher, so hearing from even him and his exposure to students with cell phones, I think that this first initial policy, it’s great. But I also think that with any policy, you need to revisit it and make necessary changes as you collect more and more data. And hearing back from students last may, I heard from students that it’s great that we have a cell phone policy, but staff’s not following it. So then following up, if we’re asking our students to do X, we need to make sure the adults in the building are also trying to model this. So if you’re in the class and there’s not supposed to be cell phones out, well, you can’t pull out your cell phones and start checking social media or anything like that. So I think it’s a good policy. When they shared the data with us, there was a drop in the amount of students that needed reminding of the policy or, you know, had their devices taken. But we also can’t become complacent. We have to look at how we can improve it more and make sure we give an opportunity to get that feedback from those that it’s impacting, our students.

What are your thoughts on the current school calendar and the days off, relating to balancing religious holidays and working families?

That’s a struggle. I have to say I am a supporter of having the recognition for other holidays in our calendars. That goes back to 2020 and being contacted by several students that our calendar negatively impacted [students]. One student shared that having to go to school on a holiday that was important to their family made it [difficult] and, you know, how would I feel if I had to go to work on Christmas, or Easter, if that’s an important holiday? And in talking one-on-one with these families that we obviously can’t give everybody every single holiday off, but as a school district, I think it’s important to ensure that our students and our families feel a part of our educational community. And if it’s one holiday that they see as being the most important, I encouraged our superintendent to make sure that we’re able to fit that in. And I know it’s a struggle for families, but I hope with enough notice [they can find child care]. I know it’s a struggle. I was a working mom as well. And there were days that I would have to take off because school wasn’t in session or school got canceled. So I know that comes with a balancing act and that somebody will be on the short end of that stick.

Have you run for public office before?

I have not. This is my first since high school student council. I have served on the Iowa City Public Library for four years, and I was on the West Branch Public Library when our family lived in West Branch.

Why are you running for School Board?

 So with my experience and commitment to public service, I think this is a natural role for me, where I’ll be able to support educators and students in the Iowa City Community School District.

Why are you qualified to be on the school board?

So my background is 100% in education. I’ve been a teacher. This is my 24th year in the classroom, and so I have a firm understanding of how education works, but beyond just my experience in the classroom, I’ve served as a union leader here in West Liberty for over 10 years. I’ve been our lead negotiator in negotiating our contract with the district and the president. I’ve worked very closely with the district, which has given me a great insight into how school districts work from finances to policies. And I see the work of the school board as being critical to support educators and students.

How long have you lived in the district?

I would have to do some math because I first moved to Iowa City on the day before 9/11, so September 10th,  2001. I left in 2005 or 2004 to teach in Arlington, Virginia. I hated living out there. I came back to Iowa City 20 years ago in 2005. We moved to West Branch in 2010, and then moved back to Iowa City in 2018. So I’ve considered Iowa City my home for almost 25 years, but in that time I’ve lived in a couple other places. 

What would you say is the biggest issue with public education today?

So, two, but they’re really one and the same. The first one is funding. I’ve been incredibly concerned over my career to see how our annual per pupil funding has barely increased for so long. And I am scared for the future of funding for public schools as the state spends more and more money on private school vouchers. Iowa City has been fortunate to see increasing enrollment, last year [it] had the record enrollment. The first day numbers were up in Iowa City, so that will be helpful going forward, but we will not be in a position where we will be able to spend the money that our students and our educators deserve. The role of the school board is to make sure that we are spending the money that we have in an equitable fashion to support all students within the district. 

The other one is anti-education legislation. I think legislators have an unrealistic view of or understanding of what happens in classrooms. They pass laws meant to limit what teachers can do, which then has the effect of making teachers feel like they’re on the defensive in the classroom. I think it’s critical that the school board and administration within any district makes sure that we let teachers know that we have their back. Because of all of these laws, we’ve seen more and more people leaving the profession. We’ve seen huge teacher shortages across the state. We need to, as a district, ensure that we’re doing everything we can to support educators so that we can continue to have the best educators in the district.

What are your positions on the bills regarding education being passed in the Iowa Legislature?

I think they are definitely laws that want the right thing for our kids. I know my daughter in particular hates the new rules with regards to phones because she likes to have an earbud in.

But overall, I do support keeping phones out of kids’ hands, particularly during instruction time in class. I think Iowa City had a good policy about this, and they updated their policy to align with that law. As a teacher, I understand the need to help students focus and learn. But there’s a lot of other things Des Moines could be addressing. If they’re spending their time on this, maybe it’s better than some of the other things they could have done. 

As far as attendance, again, I think attendance is absolutely critical to student success. I know in our district, West Liberty, we’ve done a lot to look at how attendance affects students’ grades and graduation. So we absolutely need to focus on attendance. I think the way that the law was implemented this past year was overly onerous on school districts in terms of what they had to do. But again, I appreciate the focus on attendance. I’m glad that there’s been a little bit more clarity going into this year. The district won’t have to spend as much money and time on registered letters to families. Yet again, I think it’s something that we need to focus on. I don’t know that the laws from Des Moines are what we needed for our community

What is your position on the current ICCSD phone policy and the state law regarding student smartphones?

I think it’s a good one. I know there are those in the community who want a bell-to-bell policy, meaning students wouldn’t have access the entire day. I have a hard time supporting that given the reality of teen phone usage. [West Liberty] has moved in the last couple of years to explicitly allow phone use in the hallways between class. I felt like as a teacher, that lets them get their fix, so then they are less glued to it or trying to sneak a text in or a post in during class. But that being said, I mean, yes, I think education would be a lot better without phones, but we also have to deal with the reality that we’re in. I know I’ve talked to a number of families who have made the decision for their kids not to have a phone. I think that is an excellent decision for them. My son, not to put him on blast, but after the implementation of the new phone policy, last year my son had to spend like a month turning his phone into the office in Southeast every day, and I think that was good for him. Overall, I am in favor of limiting student access to phones, but understand that the reality of today means we probably can’t just shut them out completely.

What are your thoughts on the current school calendar and the days off, relating to balancing religious holidays and working families?

I mean that is one, especially for me as a parent who teaches in another district it has been hard at times to make sure my kids have someone there. I mean when they were younger and having something going on during Iowa City days off that are not shared more widely in the community. That has been difficult for our family. That said, I appreciate the recognition of different cultural groups within our communities. I think that we as a district do need to be proactive in recognizing and celebrating the various communities that make up our district.

I am in favor of those holidays that recognize different cultural groups. I don’t have a specific plan or thought, but I think schools, finding a way to offer low cost childcare on those days, particularly for elementary age kids would be hugely important. I know, you know, the BASP programs are great, but it can be expensive if you have multiple kids that need to have somewhere to be on those days.

How are you prepared to address student achievement gaps?

So, I think there are two issues related to that. First, we have a question of the numbers from state testing. Those are easy to look at and we need to do something about which we do.

But I think a really important piece of that is not just the targeted test prep type education, but ensuring that all students are feeling supported and welcomed in our district. I think Iowa City does a great job of creating community within the school and within the broader community. That’s something I hope to see expanded ways that families can be involved and connected with their kids’ schools and invited into that space. I think those things that help increase students’ sense of belonging and support will help with those achievement gaps. I think when we focus just on the achievement gap, the solutions we get are focused on just passing tests, buying products, buying digital products for students to drill certain skills that will help them pass the test that don’t necessarily help them be better prepared for life. 

Have you run for public office before?

Yes, so I’m currently a member of the school board. I ran for the first time four years ago, and now I’m running for re-election.

Why are you qualified to be on the school board?

Well, so my past service over the past four years qualifies me. Prior to that, I was on the Equity Committee for four years, and I chaired that committee for two of those years. So those are some additional qualifications I have for being on the board.

Why are you running for school board?

I’m running because I want to keep our school district strong in the face of all of the attacks on public education, particularly the new voucher law. 

How long have you lived in the Iowa City School District?

About 30 years. 

What would you say is the biggest issue of public education today?

So again, I think it’s the vouchers and just the overall lack of funding over the past decade. So I you know, there’s lot of issues, of course, but for me, that one stands out as being the biggest one. 

What are your positions on the bills regarding education being passed in the Iowa legislature, specifically the vouchers, phone policy and attendance law?

Well, I’m opposed to the vouchers. I think public money belongs in public schools, and if they’re in, you know, intent on funding private schools with public money, then there needs to at least be oversight, and they need to play by the same rules that the public schools need to play by. It’s an invitation to waste, fraud and abuse, the current system that we have. 

The phone policy, our policy that we passed in December, and that started in January, complies with the state law. So I don’t really have a lot to say about the cell phone policy, because I think we’re already what the state wants us to do in that regard. 

Then the attendance policy. I’m grateful that they took away the requirement for the certified mail, because that was a huge burden on us, both financially and also just administratively, sending all those certified letters. So I’m glad that they took that requirement away. I think that it has helped some with our attendance. There some people got into some bad habits because of the pandemic, and I believe that’s probably why they decided that they needed a law.  I think the main focus of the attendance policy is getting services to people who need them. So that’s the way our district has approached it. If we have a student and a family and they’ve reached that cut off, where we have to notify the county attorney, what that does is it triggers a meeting with the family so that we can troubleshoot with them to figure out what are the barriers that’s preventing you from getting your student to school, and to work on that. Rather than it being punitive, it really is focused on helping the students get to school.

How are you prepared to address student achievement gaps?

First of all, what our district is doing with the preschool program, I think is amazing, how we’ve expanded. I think it’s one of the things I’m most proud of how we’ve expanded our preschool offering to all day in all of our schools, and that really is, I think we’re going to see some changes and improvements with the achievement gap, with that early learning, it’s so important to to start early. There are statistics that will tell you that if we can get students to third grade reading level by the time they get to third grade, when they start to  change from learning to read to reading to learn. That is where we’re going to see the benefit of the preschool, and starting early, is the improvement in the rate of third grade reading level. That’s that’s one way, the preschool. The other is hiring the best teachers and making sure that our class sizes are a reasonable size.

What is your position on the current ICCSD phone policy?

I voted for it. I actually, I went into that discussion wanting something a little more restrictive, but with the discussions with the teachers and the administrators, I also wanted something that was going to work. This is what they told us they felt was workable. We certainly didn’t want to start this policy off and set it up for failure. So the board is committed to sort of bringing this back on a regular basis quarterly, and taking a look at the numbers and seeing how it’s working and getting feedback. So because we’re open to changing it and it sounds like it’s working, I’m in favor, and I voted for the current policy. 

What are your thoughts on the current school calendar and the days off relating to balancing religious holidays and working families?

I do get some feedback on that. There are some that would rather not have so many holidays and have a longer summer break. There are those that really like those holidays, especially that fall holiday that we have in October. We have that long weekend. I think it’s important to honor different traditions and religions. My own husband is Muslim, and so I’m in favor of those religious holidays and balancing that. We have a Jewish holiday, we have a Muslim holiday, we have a Chinese New Year. There may be some other days, though, that maybe we should think about cutting back on so that we’re not going to end the school year every year in the second week of June. I do think that we need to be careful about that and make sure that we’re not ending in the second week of June every year. 

Have you run for public office before?

No. 

Why are you running for school board?

Two things made me decide to run this time. One is just that I was so concerned about what I was seeing happening to public education in the country, in our state and I and I wanted to help protect and support our own district. And then Ruthina Malone, who’s the current board president, said, Hey, would you consider running? And I realized that if I didn’t run, if I didn’t try now, I would really regret not trying, and so I decided I needed to jump in and run and learn what I needed to learn about running and just give it a shot.

I view public education as one of the most essential elements of having healthy individuals, of having a healthy community, state, and democracy. Right now, there are a lot of factors that are working to dismantle quality, accessible public education in America and in our state. I want to put my beliefs into action and really being an active part of supporting public education for that reason. One thing that really moved me in this direction was June of 2022, the week the Supreme Court handed down some decisions. [One said], it’s okay to give public money to private education. And while I am absolutely supportive of and believe that public or private education has an important place in our educational ecosystem. I do not believe public money should go to private education, and I was extremely worried when I heard that decision, and I thought it’s going to make things very difficult for public education in the coming years, and that’s what’s happened, and so I want to help.

Why are you qualified to be on the school board?

There’s a bunch of reasons that I feel I had a lot to contribute. One is that I started out as a teacher, a public school teacher. I was an English teacher, but I was one of those people who switched majors several times in college. I started as a music education major, and then I was a Physics and Chemistry Education major for two and a half years. And then I thought, now I want to teach English, which is what I ended up doing. So I have a lot of experience in learning about education in a lot of different academic areas, and then experience in the classroom for six years. After I decided to leave teaching and do some other things, almost everything that I have done over the last 30 plus years has had something to do with education. One of the first things I did was I was an editor for an educational publishing company working on science and language arts materials. I spent 16 years at ACT, working not on the College Testing part of the business, but on the workforce development part of the business. In particular, a lot of the time  I developed programs and tests to help people who are really trying at the intersection of education and work. They’re trying to work while they’re continuing their learning and advance through their career pathway. We talked a lot about young working learners in the work that I did there, and I feel like that’s really relevant to a lot of the things that our district is interested in addressing. Then, 10 years ago, I started a consulting business that’s focused on strategy, which is really all about asking, where are we going, and how are we going to get there. I’ve had the opportunity to work with all kinds of groups in our community and in our state and a little bit nationally as well.  I’ve worked with school districts, community colleges, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University. I’ve also worked with a lot of nonprofits tackling the challenges that our community faces, public health, and all kinds of things that intersect in education. I just have a really broad perspective of our community and of all of the challenges that maybe that a school district might be expected to tackle, and I can look at it from both the perspective of a classroom teacher and outside of the classroom as a community member…I just want to contribute it to being on the front line to help keep our district as strong as it is and growing.

What would you say is the biggest issue of public education today?

I really think that it is the systematic stripping of resources for public education, whether it’s just baseline funding or access to expert resources like our area education associations, or all the other things. Education is where our whole world needs you to come to school as a whole person, and it’s not just this little academic brain, it’s your whole person. So we need to meet students as whole people at school. We need a lot of different types of resources to do that. And as the state and federal decisions are being made to reduce those resources, it makes it harder and harder for us to provide that quality, accessible public education for everybody and and so that, I think, is the biggest bottom line problem, and then everything else comes from there, like helping make sure we we close achievement gaps between different groups of students, and making sure that every student can get to school and be not hungry and safe, and all of those things. All of those feed from that bottom line issue of funding and resources.

How long have you lived in the district?

I came to Iowa City in 1987 to go to the University of Iowa, and lived in the district ever since, because I love it here. I have two kids who are graduates of City High also, and right now they’re back living in Iowa City, which is pretty fun for me, and they love it here too.

I was born in Dubuque. I lived there most of the time, but I did live in Western suburban Chicago for two and a half years, and so that’s where I graduated from high school, but I’ve been here ever since then.

What are your positions on the bills regarding education passed in the Iowa legislature, especially the attendance law, the voucher law and the one about smartphones?

But that whole [attendance law], I’m glad that they’re continuing to fine tune this. I do think that that a one size fits all solution is rarely a good solution, so having the opportunity for

one on one and sort of individualized intervention and offers of support is really important. Obviously, you have to be in school for your own benefit and development, but also sometimes you need help getting there. So I am supportive of continuing to fine tune that to get to better policies that are helpful to all students and is sensitive to individual needs. 

As far as the voucher law, I am strongly opposed to that. I do not think that it’s right, morally right, to take public money and funnel it to private education that does not have oversight, is not required to serve all students and often goes to for-profit schools. I think that public money for public education should be used for the public good. 

Smartphones. I see how my own phone interferes with my life sometimes, and I think it’s very difficult to manage. App developers understand how our brains are wired to just be kind of trapped by our phones, and so I think it’s very good to have a policy that minimizes the interference of phones during class and during day to day. I very much support encouraging not just students but all people to interact more face to face and not digitally. I do see that there’s great value to be had in digital connection. I’m connected to people I would never be connected with today if it weren’t for my phone and some of the apps that are on it. So I don’t think they’re inherently bad, but I do think we are struggling to learn how to manage them and not let them manage us, and so I do support thoughtful policies and rules around accessing your phone during the school day. 

How are you prepared to address student achievement gaps?

Somebody just sent me an article that was laying out a way to go about education was that everybody has to take a test every Thursday, and if they didn’t learn what they were supposed to learn in the last week, then they gotta catch up and right away. And my response to that is that would never work, because each person learns differently. That’s one of the harms that underfunding public education is doing. It is reducing the access that we have to resources to individually help students and to design methods of instruction that are more engaging for students. I know our district has so many amazing teachers that design all kinds of cool projects and ways to engage students. Those are messier. They’re more difficult to manage, and so we need time and resources to approach education [in a] way where it really is meaningful to students. We also need to make smart use of the standardized assessments that we do have. I think that there are bad ways to use standardized assessments and good, helpful ways. They are just one piece of information. They are a snapshot of a student’s performance on a given moment, but they can provide information about where those gaps exist, and then how to identify students who would benefit from additional resources. So I think that continuing the work that our district is already doing to see what it can do to keep class sizes as small as possible and still within budget constraints is very important. The smaller class sizes are helpful. Finding ways to help families connect with the school district is also really important, because when families are more engaged with the district, it’s helpful to students, and so finding those families who might not feel as connected and trying to find ways to bring them in and be more part of the community would be helpful to closing those achievement gaps as well.

What is your position on the current ICCSD phone policy?

Well, like I was saying before, I think that, it’s important to have a thoughtful policy. I’m very curious, since there’s a new policy in place, how it’s performing. What I advocate doing, and try to do in projects that I’m working on, is to find ways to make sure that when you start doing a new thing, you’re closely monitoring it and looking at what kind of impact it’s having, so that you can see what kind of adjustments you might need to make. Is it having the impact that we want it to have? And if not, what are the changes we should make, and if it is having the impact we want it to have, then cool, keep it going. I feel like I actually need some information to be able to say, Oh, I think it’s working or it’s not. But bottom line, I do think that we need a policy. We need to have a way to help students and all members of our school community engage healthily with phones.

What are your thoughts on the current school calendar and all the days off relating to balancing religious holidays and living families? 

Oh, that is a hard task. We do have families from so many cultural and religious backgrounds, all of which are worthy of respect and consideration. It also is very difficult for working parents to juggle days off. I was there myself, and it when my kids were little, and it was always a challenge. I think it’s a work in progress. I know that there have been changes that continue to be made, fine tuning to happen over time as we see the impact of certain changes. I think that’s the right way to go about it. I don’t think there is one right answer, but I do think it is right to continue to try and fine tune as we go. It’s really exciting what the district is doing and able to do, to offer preschool and sort of wrap around care and different options for families who need it. The more we can continue to do about that, the better. YPromoting community is really important. The families can sort of team up. I had a group of families that sometimes did that on those days off, I’ll take a day off and stay home with a bunch of kids next time somebody else can help. So I think creating support for those kinds of solutions is something that the school district can do, but it’s a difficult balancing act.

Have you run for public office before?

No.

Why are you qualified to be on the school board?

So I have an extensive background working with students from very, very diverse places. I worked with inner city students. I worked with students who have come from war torn countries. I worked with students in Special Ed. I’ve worked with children for probably 40 plus years now, when my children joined the district. We had friends in Iowa City. We’ve been here for 17 years. My wife is a pediatric specialist in the classroom, and we had friends who were teachers and staff. We would hear things weren’t being done as they could be done, and we just kind of followed along. When my children joined the schools, in about 2018, we started kind of seeing some of the issues. The first issue that we saw was we walked into his kindergarten class and they had a crash cart of iPads. My wife, as a pediatric specialist, had been addressing the use of screens. She had some concerns. I reached out to the administration, and the response that I got was far less than satisfying. I reached out to the board, and likewise, the response was far less than satisfying. There was basically just a complete disinterest. I sent out a very well written letter to the board, and two people from the board contacted me. They wanted more information. Five people didn’t even acknowledge that they had received the letter. I see a lot of areas where the administration can improve, and I have a lot of personal experience in addressing issues with students, kind of from the ground up in the classroom, working as a remedial tutor, working as a one on one aide. I think a combination of the insight and the awareness gives me a perspective to be able to want to construct some policies that can either approach things differently or possibly bring up some questions that aren’t being asked. The bottom line is, I think we can do things better. I think we have a number of different areas that we can really improve on and based upon what I’ve done in the past, I think I can offer some insight. I think the other thing I offer is I’m pretty darn good at asking questions and meeting with people. I’ve been meeting with different people around the district. I’ve been meeting with retired teachers. I’ve been reading, meeting with the current teachers, and asking questions, and I’m pretty good at trying to get information and understand the big picture, and I guess in the end, bring people together to work together to solve some of these problems.

Why are you running for school board?

Really, to try to improve things. We’ve been here 17 years, and the district is not getting better. They’re kind of keeping their nose above water. Our current administration has now been in approximately eight years. We just need to be moving forward. I think the district in general, every day, people need to be looking for ways to improve things.

What would you say is the biggest issue with public education today?

You know, it’s interesting, because I was frustrated at how the district was administering technology. It just wasn’t being done as well as it could be. And I’ve got fairly extensive experience enough to know that things could be done better. And so that led me to teachers and asking them, you know, what’s going on in the classroom? How are you guys using technology? And a lot of teachers would address that question, but then they say there’s a bigger issue. We have a lot of behavioral issues. We have issues with students not having sufficient academic skills. People not being prepared and being moved on. They started really talking about deficits in our leadership and making sure to address these issues in a way that the students are actually getting their needs met. So I’m seeing the biggest issue is that we need to address behavior in the classroom. I think this has always been an issue. It was an issue when I was a student. It was an issue with my brothers and sisters. It’s an issue with my children. The district does not have a good comprehensive plan or resources, and they’re trying, but I think that it can be done a whole lot better. Children and teachers need to feel safe. Students need to feel like they’re learning. Teachers need to feel like they’re respected. Teachers need to feel like they’re accomplishing what they want to accomplish. If somebody is having a behavioral issue, the big question is, why? For years and years and years, we punish children. When I grew up, we used to get hit by our teachers, and it never worked. You know, children are at a stage in their life where they need to be independent, and if you try to control someone through punishment, they’re just going to fight back. We need better mechanisms in place. We need to move forward in that direction.

How long have you lived in the district?

18 years.

What are your positions on the bills regarding education being passed in the Iowa legislature, specifically, the laws about attendance, vouchers for private education, and smartphone and the laws around smartphone policies?

All three of those I know enough to be dangerous. Smartphone policy, I agree with the direction that the state moved in and the district actually moved in before the state and getting cell phones out of the classroom. I’m actually a strong believer that cell phones should not be used during the school day. I think if a student brings a cell phone to school, fine, put it away, get it out when you leave school. Students need to socialize, and this kind of goes back to my issues with technology. Screens are incredibly stimulating. When a child is looking at a screen, it ennervates a certain part of their brain. They need a certain distance or time away from that to be able to exercise other parts of their brain, thinking, being one of those. And so when a student leaves class, they have the ability to look at their phone, put their phone away, look at their phone, put their phone away. They’re just not getting the rest that they need. They’re continuing to be distracted. As I touched on socialization, they’re not talking to people. I’ve talked to my children about what happens in the lunchroom. People are distracted. So I think we actually need to go a step further with that policy. 

In regards to vouchers, this is complicated and very political. I understand the reasons why.

There’s the argument that some people would like to have a more religious teaching. So you’ve got that group that would like to include religion in the day. Some people look at our public schools and think they want a better option. I can understand where they’re seeing deficits, but also look at how well we’re doing. We have children that are going to the very best schools. The bottom line is we need to support public education, and public dollars should stay in public schools. There needs to be a solution to make sure that everybody’s happy, but at the same time, we’ve got to support our public schools. 

Another little bit of a complicated issue [attendance]. Why are children missing school? I think our primary concern is where a child misses school because they simply don’t want to come and there’s no parental supervision or guardian supervision. You want to make sure that that child’s in school. All children need to be treated the same. So I understand how the district has to make sure that their policies apply to all students. So if a student is missing school for a different reason, it needs to be documented the same way. It just has to be fair. It’s difficult. I know families that take children out for trips, there’s an argument there. They can be educational, they can be purely leisure and for fun. What’s the benefit to the student? Do you have the resources and time to address all those issues, but you need a policy that just kind of covers everybody, because it’s difficult to take the time to address each one individually. So I’m going to have to say that the schools are obviously doing the right thing and trying to address attendance. Our attendance has improved over the past year. The letters issue makes sense, because a lot of those letters were bouncing back and weren’t even being read. So you know, be it a telephone call. Be it another means, the letters just simply weren’t working. But it is an issue that’s got to be addressed.

How are you prepared to address student achievement gaps?

This is huge in our district, and I don’t feel like we’re doing it right at all. I don’t believe this has a lot to do with individual teachers. The teachers that I’ve met and spoken to are incredibly skilled at what they do. I see the gap. You got to take things a step back. When you have a student that isn’t performing where they should be, why? Where do they start out? You’ve got to address those reasons. And I know people have talked about the home, they’ve talked about food security, they’ve talked about home security, they’ve talked about transportation. Those are all essential parts of the puzzle; we cannot simply pushing students forward. I know that within the math department, there were issues that wanted equity within math, and so they got rid of certain classes that were classes that maybe address skills at a lower level–that’s moving in the wrong direction. We need to have more remedial classes to bring students up. Every individual student needs to have somebody, teacher, counselor, somebody, overseeing how they’re progressing. I think that’s the big thing. I’ve talked to principals at different schools, and there seems to be a consensus that there are children who simply get overlooked and slip through the system unprepared, and we just can’t have that. So more feet on the ground. How are we going to pay for it? Big question, we need to get a lot of people together, I think, to answer that question.

What is your position on the current school district phone policy?

So again, I think back to phones. I wanted it to actually be no phone use during the entire day of school.

What are your thoughts on the current school calendar and the days off, relating to balancing the religious holidays and working families and child care?

That’s a good question. There’s another component there, which is giving teachers a break. I think we need to be really smart about these days off. The religious holidays are an issue because now we have so many different people in the community from so many different places with so many different holidays, and we need to be respectful. That’s something that needs to be addressed, because you obviously can’t prioritize one group’s holiday over another group’s holiday. We also need to look at the days, though. Sometimes I see a Thursday off, well, great. So then the students come back Friday. Why not make it a multi day weekend? We need to be a little bit smarter about how our days line up. And then we need to make sure that we have at least a certain number of days off within a certain period. We shouldn’t be running for eight weeks before a day off and then two weeks before a day off. We just have to look at the calendar and be really smart, try to address everybody’s needs. But at the same time, we have a certain number of school days to complete too.