Oskaloosa School Board Candidate – Nik Rule

Oskaloosa School Board Candidate Nik Rule

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The Oskaloosa School Board is holding elections on September 13th, 2011 for its board. They will be filling Director Districts 1, 3, 4 and 6. Only one race is being challenged, that being the one for Director District 4 between the incumbent Donald Patterson and Charlie Comfort.

Nik Rule is seeking his first term in office with the Oskaloosa School Board for Director District 1. Nik took time out of his busy schedule to visit with me about his candidacy for the board. We covered questions and recent concerns, expressed by our readers, about the Oskaloosa School System.

My first question is: “What motivates you to be on the school board?”

“That’s a question I’ve been asked a few times. Six years ago when I first came out to Oskaloosa, a roommate and I, we were at Penn playing soccer and we decided to take this group of kids, they were about 8 or 9 at the time, and started coaching them. We coached this same group for pretty much five years, ten seasons, fall and spring. We’re done coaching those kids now. They’re beginning to get into high school and I don’t have any kids. So some people may ask, ‘why?’. I care about those kids and I’ve grown to care about the kids in this community. I’ve spent a lot of time coaching those kids and seeing them grow from being 8 and all of a sudden they’re getting into high school and they’re growing into young men. I want to be able to do something and make decisions for them that is going to best prepare them for the future educationally. Nothing more important in my mind than a good education.”

“What do you believe your role as a School Board Member is?”

“I think the role of a school board member is, one, we have to listen. We have to listen to parents, we have to listen to kids, and we have to listen to teachers. When it comes down to decisions, I see that the role of the school board is when you make your decisions, they have to be educationally based. There can’t be any other agendas or anything that comes into it. When it comes to budget decisions and things like that, education has to come first. It’s the science, the math, the reading, all areas where in the United States and in Iowa, we’re struggling. Iowa use to be top in the nation 20 years ago, and now we’re just not. Only West Virginia has worse scores than us. That’s unacceptable.”

“How would you address parents that are displeased with fees such as a $25 parking fee and a towel fee, when it’s reported that often there is no towel to use?”

“You’ve got to be visible. You get elected by your constituents and you go out and you don’t just show up to meetings. You’ve got to be visible. Things like this, the towel fee, these kids are being charged, and these families are being charged $10.00 for a towel fee and there’s no towels there, that’s unacceptable. If there’s gonna be fees that are going to be paid, there’s gotta be services given for that. And if they are going to pay a certain fee, there needs to be a service provided for that. And if that’s for a towel, then that towel better be there.”

I wanted to focus more on the $25.00 parking fee with Nik.

“Here’s the thing, I been to a few meetings and I served out at William Penn. One thing I’m a firm believer on is asking questions. If something like that comes across at a meeting, talking about a parking pass-$25, I will ask these questions. I’m not afraid to ask questions. I’m not afraid even if some people think they are ill advised or, at times, rudimentary in a way. I’m not afraid to ask questions because, even though I may think I know the answer, I don’t have all the answers and I’m going to be reaching out to my constituents for their opinions on some of these hot-bed issues. When it comes to parking, questions like that should have been asked, it’s a public lot, and I don’t know if they will or not. But to me it seems too like they need to be asked in those meetings; it’s a public lot. Are we even able to do this? I would like to find the logic behind it. And again, I wasn’t in that meeting when they made that decision, but still, those questions need to be asked.”

“Do you believe that the school calendar needs looked at? Do you believe items like early outs on Wednesday’s and Spring Break need to be reviewed?”

“It is important on things like spring break, Christmas break, and things like that; it’s good to have those things. I look at other nations right now and what they’re doing educationally, it’s a rigorous program. I watched the governors program on education and Arny Duncan had said that states have more strict academic standards than Iowa. Than Iowa? The home of the ACT, the home of the Iowa Basic Skills Test, and our academic standards are lagging? That concerns me. If it has to do with schedule, it has to do with curriculum. I don’t know, but we have to be more rigorous starting from grade 1. We need to have a more rigorous training for our students and a more rigorous curriculum. If there’s a situation where we’re having a lot of early outs, I don’t see how having early outs all the time is being beneficial for our students. Getting out at 12 o’clock, I mean, at times is necessary. If you’re getting out at 12 o’clock and it’s like you’re having a spring break, to where your kids can go with the family on vacation, that’s important stuff too. But that’s something that needs to be looked at. And the question again coming back to it, I love doing this. Why? I’d like to ask fellow board members, Why? What’s the logic behind this?”

The new laptop program: “Do you believe that the costs of $100 and $200, respectively, for repairs are fair for low income families?”

“First off, on the program itself. It’s an intriguing program from this aspect: We gotta find a way to get ahead of the game. For example, I’ve used other nations as examples today because other nations are excelling in education better than our state, better than our country you know, better than our community. In Korea, in 5 years they’re going to have no text books. It’s going to be all digitally based through laptops. It’s an increasingly technological world and so the board made a decision, an interesting decision, and a cutting edge decision, in my opinion, to provide these laptops. How the logistics beyond that, the $100 fee and low income families, there’s going to be some issues with that. And those are probably going to come about, if I’m lucky enough to serve, and I think that’s something that’s just going to have to be addressed at that time. I don’t know the whole specifics and everything that went into the contract but I know the whole premise of the laptop and I think the idea of it is good; it’s a change we’re not necessarily use to. The question to me is: Are we trying to get ahead of the curve and the laptop program is part of that? I think it’s a good thing. Now if it’s just something we’re jumping into because we want to try to do something different, then it’s an issue.”

Is it true that a student that is assaulted in school by another student can not defend themselves with also being punished. This could have other impacts to parents and students, such as repairs costs for the ’1 and 1′ laptop.

“To me, when someone is attacked, and I don’t know if this is a board issue, so I should say if this issue ever came to the board, you have to look at, saying your kid can’t defend themselves, that’s somewhat troubling. We don’t want brawls or anything like that, but we also don’t want a kid that’s being bullied not to be able to stand up for themselves. And I’m not talking violence, I’m saying, just standing up for themselves. If this is something that ever came to the board, it’s something that would have to be looked into. Now the situation with the laptop program, I think in the next 4 years, this is going to be a major issue. And more and more I talk to people, and looked on Facebook and things like that, I think this is going to be a major issue.”

Parents have expressed that their concerns are not being listened to. “What steps would you suggest the parents take, and school board members take in order to foster better communication?”

“Well here’s the first thing, the first part of your question is, what steps should parents take and then school board. But to me it should be what steps should the school board take to communicate with parents and then parents reciprocate that back. It’s an election, you’re a public servant. You’re voting for your constituents. That shouldn’t come lightly. One thing I would ask is for people to meet, maybe once a month at Smokey Row, just sit down and have an open invitation and talk to me about what’s going on. If it’s an hour, two hours, it doesn’t matter, I’m fine with that. You know we have so many way today to communicate. I mean 10 years ago, or 20 years ago in Iowa was a leader in education, I mean we had land line phones and word of mouth really. I mean think about that today, we have e-mail, we have text messaging, we have cell phones, we have land lines, Facebook, we have Twitter, so many ways of communicating. Why not use those things. Communication should be the last thing we’re struggling with.

“What plans and ideas do you bring to the table to help Oskaloosa Schools continue to improve and grow in the next 4 years?”

“Well here’s the first thing. In this state and in this community, in 20 years we’ve gone from the most educationally advanced state in the nation to sliding down to the middle. In within the past 20 years, we’re about dead least in student improvement. I thought about this a lot, and when it comes down to education programs we should find every single possible way not to cut. We have to provide these educational services to the students. I think the curriculum needs to be a little bit tougher, I think we need to have a more rigorous academic approach. There are 48 other states in the nation that are doing better than us in the past 20 years. It’s obvious in the past 20 years we’re not getting something right. My question is do we continue on that same path, just continuing doing what we have been doing, or do we find a new way? This is what I want to bring to the table. Hey, let’s research. Let’s do our homework. We ask our kids to do their homework, lets do our homework. Lets find out why other places are succeeding and we’re not.

Now I open it for the candidate to talk about what they want, their goals and desires for the Oskaloosa school system.

“I want to be a voice. I believe in constituent service and service leadership and servant leadership. If it’s ward 1 or any other ward in town, I want to have an open policy where people can come up and say ‘Hey, why is this?’. I love that. I love the exchange of ideas and if someones got a question and they want to find out why, if I don’t know the answer, I’m going to find out for them.” ”

One of the other reasons why I wanted to run, I grew up in an educational system outside of Iowa. I’ve spent going on my 7th year here in Oskaloosa. When I was in school [Idaho] we took Iowa Basic Skills Test. I had a teacher, Mrs. Sllecki, and Mrs. Sllecki was my favorite teach of all time and she was a motivator. When we took Iowa Basic Skills Tests she always would say ‘Hey, we’re studying because we want to beat the Iowans.’ The Iowans? So the premise the teachers used to say was we needed to beat the Iowans. That’s not the case anymore, I think that’s sad. It’s sad because Iowans are tough. We look our presidential candidates in the eye, and we want to find answers. I feel like communication is a huge issue here, in this community, there’s no reason why my communication should be an issue. In order to be accountable, we need to communicate with our constituents.”

“I’ll be a voice for the parents, I’ll be a voice for the students and I’ll be a voice for the teachers to. They have questions they want answered, I’ll ask the questions, I’ll find out the answers.”