Oskaloosa School Board Candidate Susan Boxler

Susan Boxler

Susan Boxler

Oskaloosa News sent out an email to all candidates with the exact same questions. Our question is in bold text, with the candidates answer following just below in normal text.

First and Last name.
Susan Boxler

Your education level and where did you attend?
I graduated from Plainfield High School in Indiana. I earned my bachelors in elementary education from Ball State University and my masters in education from Olivet Nazarene University.

What other training that you believe makes you qualified for the school board?
I am a wife, mother of two daughters and an Assistant Professor of Education at William Penn University and I believe this also qualifies me to make a positive impact on the Oskaloosa School Board.

How long have you called Oskaloosa home?
6 years

How do you believe your service on the school board will make a difference to the school system and the community?
As an educator I believe I can bring my knowledge as a teacher to continue to impact the lives of the children in the Oskaloosa community. Since I was in the first grade I knew that I wanted to be a teacher. My passion for engaging student learners is a part of my life and I believe that passion has the potential to provide valuable information to the Oskaloosa School Board.

Some of you are running for the first time, other have in the past or are currently serving, but what moment made you realize you wanted to serve? How do you believe you will be able to impact the school district and make a difference with that?
I have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge over the past four years. I have also been able to share my knowledge over the past four years. I still have a child in the school district and I think it is important for me to continue to volunteer in the Oskaloosa community. Every time I see positive situations occurring in the school district it makes me want to continue to serve. I believe my experience as an educator and my passion for children will make a positive impact on the Oskaloosa School Board.

Recently at the school board meetings, the subject of the good conduct policy came up. What are your thoughts on the current policy, and why do you believe your opinion is the correct one for the district?
Let me answer this by giving some perspective on the process of creating the good conduct policy.
1. The extra-curricular activities we have at Oskaloosa are deemed to have educational benefits and are extended to students as a privilege that is supported by our taxpayer’s dollars and our staffs and volunteers time investments in these activities.
2. The policies that we put into place surrounding these activities reflect the expectations that we have for our students who want to participate in these activities. These policies are developed in cooperation between the board and the school system and serve to guide our administrators on how to determine whether an individual student meets the expectations required of them in order to participate in the extra-curricular activities.
3. The policies that we have in place for extra-curricular activities are open for review and are reviewed annually. In this last review cycle the board and the school system identified some changes that they felt would be beneficial to maintaining the goal of having students participate in the activities and maintain the expected behaviors that represent the school communities expectations (both in and out of school) to represent our community
4. The policy is also reviewed by our schools legal counsel to ensure that we are creating policies that meet all the necessary legal requirements involved with setting school policy. It is important to understand that we have to balance many parties interests in setting these policies and taking a narrowly focused approach is usually not optimal. The recently passed policy represents the best effort of those involved in the policy to provide a reasonable approach to student conduct.
5. It was important to us as a board to give our administrators a tool that would adequately guide them in determining how the good conduct policy impacts each individual student’s situation without unnecessarily restricting an administrator’s ability to use his expertise in assessing a situation. As a board, we want to work to make sure that we recruit and maintain high quality administrators who will act appropriately given the policies that we agree on.
In this particular situation, I know that Superintendent Reiter has addressed the concerns raised regarding specific infractions and has worked diligently by meeting with teams and coaches to explain how the good conduct policy is being applied to eliminate any confusion that may have arisen from the recent revisions. I would hope in the future that we can continue to maintain this kind of working relationship where we can produce effective policy.

Posted by on Sep 9 2013. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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