School Board Candidates Answer the Tough Questions

Oskaloosa School Board candidates answered questions at "Politics Under The Stars" this past week.

Oskaloosa School Board candidates answered questions at “Politics Under The Stars” this past week.

by Charlie Comfort

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Around 80 potential voters flocked to Oskaloosa’s square Tuesday evening for the resurrection of an old tradition not seen in Oskaloosa since the 1990s. Politics Under The Stars, hosted by Oskaloosa News, provided voters with the opportunity to hear a school board forum on the City Square. All five Oskaloosa School Board candidates participated in an at times spirited discussion on what issues currently face the school district. Student achievement and discipline, Iowa’s open meetings law, and the public perception of the board were all topics discussed at Tuesday’s forum.

During opening statements, Board President Tom Richardson stated that he is running for re-election because of his passion for the community. He noted his involvement with the high school marching band as well as the city band as some of the numerous things he is involved with in the community. He also noted his involvement with the school district since the time his children have been in elementary school, saying he is proud of the district he and his wife send their kids to school.

“I am very proud that my kids attend the Oskaloosa School District,” Richardson said.

Tom Richardson

Tom Richardson

Richardson’s challenger, Lynette Stream, said that she became involved with the schools after speaking at a parent meeting held last year to address concerns parents had with the Oskaloosa school system. Stream said that at the parent meeting she attended, parents felt like they were not being listened to.

“I’m finding a commonality that they [parents] don’t feel they are being heard and they want change. I don’t have all the answers, but I’m willing to take a stand,” Stream said.

She said after sharing her vision for the district at that meeting, she began attending school board meetings. Stream said she is running because she believes the time is ripe for a change in the district.

“I’m not okay with the status quo,” Stream said.

Incumbent At-Large board member Carl Drost said that his motivation to run for re-election came during a family vacation to Hawaii. After helping his granddaughter with her math homework and having concerns about the curriculum, Drost said that he did research and found math scores below the state average.

Carl Drost

Carl Drost

“I was interested in making sure that when we made a decision on math curriculum that it was proper and appropriate to what we needed in the math program at the Oskaloosa Schools,” Drost said.

Drost’s challenger, Kym Life, said that her motivation to run for the board came after deciding it was time to give back to the community that she and her husband had been apart of. Life said that her goal is to look to the future when it comes to providing education for students.

“I want to maintain and improve the public school education for all current and future students and make this school one that is attractive to people coming into town,” Life said.

At the onset of Tuesday’s meeting, all five candidates were asked to grade the schools. Four of the five candidates rated the Oskaloosa Schools with a B. At-Large candidate Kym Life said that it was difficult to give a letter grade to the entire system, saying the focus should be on individual students.

“I think it’s truly an individual thing after looking at each kid and what they can get out of the system,” Life said.

Incumbent Carl Drost ranked the schools as a B, saying the district has room for improvement.

“I think A’s go to the teaching staff and their dedication and their hard work and the way they care about kids,” Drost said. He also said the school district has the best facilities in the area.

However, Drost said that he has concerns about how the school is ranked on the state report card, saying that is a factor in him not giving the district an A. He said the district has room to grow.

“We’ve got room to improve but there’s a lot worse systems than Oskaloosa,” Drost said.

Shelly Herr

Shelly Herr

In giving the school system a B, board member Shelly Herr, unopposed for re-election, said that the district has a lot going for it, noting the district has strong co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. However, she also expressed concerns about student achievement and the district’s current standing among several rankings, including the state report card.

“I still think there’s room for improvement,” Herr said.

Echoing what Drost said, candidate Lynette Stream said the district has a strong teaching staff and has top notch facilities. She acknowledged that the district has had a rough couple of years in regards to student discipline and achievement as well, however.

“We definitely have issues, anybody can always strive for better,” Stream said.

Board member Tom Richardson noted some of the positives of the district in ranking the school system, including the districts strong fine arts programs. He said the 2015-2016 school year had been tough in regards to discipline, however, he gave credit to staff in handling the issues.

“I give a lot of credit to teachers, principals and guidance counselors in that building,” Richardson said.

College readiness has been a goal discussed by current and past board members. In response to a question on college readiness, board member Tom Richardson said that the Iowa State School Report Card, which shows 38.2% of students being college ready, is not accurate as it only takes into account the Iowa Assessments.

“The Iowa report card is about 95% on the Iowa Assessments,” Richardson said.

Richardson said that one option for ensuring college readiness is to survey recent high school graduates who have gone to college and see how their first year of college is going, and then make any necessary changes based off of those interviews. Richardson’s opponent, Lynette Stream, agreed.

Lynette Stream

Lynette Stream

“Get feedback from our students and their families,” Stream said.

She also suggested that the board take a look at current curriculum to see if there needs to be any changes.

One issue that has dogged the current board is student discipline. Two different philosophies on how to handle student achievement have been common in prior board meetings, and internal disagreements have become very public. Board member Shelly Herr said she is pleased with how the board has handled the issue of student discipline.

“I think generally, I am in agreement with how things were approached,” Herr said. “When it came before the board, I think the board took it serious,” she added.

Herr said that some of what the board did to handle student discipline included allocating more resources towards behavior disability education. She also said that a behavior discipline classroom for students with behavior issues has also been established at the elementary school.

During the debate on student discipline, the school board’s perception among the public began to take a negative turn as board members began to openly disagree among one another and accusations were made of open meetings law violations. Board Member Carl Drost said that he does not believe he went too far during the discussion on the issue on any of his proposals, or in retaining an attorney in regards to the open meetings law.

“When there is an issue that is causing parents to cry their eyes out in front of me about how their children are being treated and things like that, I won’t take it sitting down. Other people can ignore it, but it probably won’t go away,” Drost said. “I am not afraid to stand up for young people in Oskaloosa. I am not afraid to stand up for kids in Oskaloosa. I am not afraid to stand up for teachers in Oskaloosa,” he added.

Kym Life

Kym Life

Drost also said that he took the issue as far as he wanted to take it when he retained an attorney to speak to the board about an open meetings law violation. He said he could have taken it further.

“No, I don’t think I went too far. I took it as far as I wanted to and I probably should have taken it the rest of the way,” Drost said.

Board President Tom Richardson for his part acknowledged during the forum that there had been an open meetings law violation, but that it had been by complete mistake that an item was left off of the agenda. He claimed that board member Carl Drost was the only member who was aware of the issues to begin with.

“We had no idea. The administration did not know that. The six members that attended did not know that it was not included. For some reason, Carl Drost is the only one that knew that. So there was no willful violation because we spoke immediately on what took place,” Richardson said.

He acknowledges, however, that he may have played a part of the friction on the board when he did not allow board member Carl Drost to make a motion regarding implementing a discipline program at the elementary school.

“Was I part of causing friction? Yes, I was following the advice of an attorney who specializes in education with the Iowa Association of School Boards, who said if he will not tell you what the topic of his motion will be, you cannot do that. You must notify the public 24 hours in advance,” Richardson said.

Richardson’s opponent Lynette Stream said that she believes if a board member wants to have an item placed on the agenda, they should be allowed to do so.

“The way I look at it, if somebody wants to put something on the agenda, they should be able to,” Stream said. “There’s also been times that there’s been items on agenda that haven’t been discussed,” she added.

In response to this, Richardson said that he gave Drost an opportunity to the put the item on the agenda and speak to it, but that he refused to do so.

“It was there. Carl refused to speak about it. I asked him three times,” Richardson said.

Stream responded to Richardson saying that Carl had, in fact, spoke to it and had made a motion to that effect, but Richardson called it out of order.

“It’s all on Youtube. You can watch it. If my memory serves me right, what you’re speaking of, that you wouldn’t let him, has nothing to do with his motion the second time he brought it to the table,” Stream said.

Board member Shelly Herr also responded to the issues of open meetings violations saying that she did not believe the board had tried to usurp the law. She also stated that, since then, changes have been made in how the agenda is handled. She also added that she favors allowing an item to be placed on an agenda for discussion if it is something another member wants to be added. However, she said that it’s time for the board to power through the current disagreements and focus on the issue at hand.

“I think we’ve spent a lot of time discussing he said she said, what happened in the meetings, I’m not sure that’s getting us anywhere. I think that’s part of the problem and we need to push through some of that,” Herr said.

In response to a question from the public about what new ideas candidates would bring to the table to address issues of student achievement and improve test scores being reported to the state, candidate Kym Life said the board needs to focus on all students and see how the education process for each student can be improved.

“I think we have to look at the whole education that they get from here,” Life said.

She also said that she believes the school needs to address students who may not want to be at school and may not choose to go to college. Life said the school needs to reach out to those students as well, to see what improvements can be made in their education.

“I think we need to teach these kids how to learn, and make them want to learn,” Life said.

Incumbent Carl Drost said that if he were a young parent looking to enroll his children in the district, he would be concerned about what is reported on the report card.

“Somehow through standard testing, we must improve the state report card that is out, and everybody reads it,” Drost said.

Incumbent Shelly Herr said that she believes part of the problem is PR for the school.

“We really need to be doing a much better job talking about all the wonderful things that are happening in our district,” Herr said. She did acknowledge that the district has some ground to make up in test scores.

“We need to stay the course, dig deeper into that data, see what it’s telling us and make adjustments accordingly,” Herr said.

Another issue discussed was that of open enrollment. Incumbent Tom Richardson said that open enrollment numbers could be deceiving. He also said that the school had done a study of the district and found that most parents chose reasons other than student achievement, ranging from parents working out of town, to better athletic opportunities.

“I question anyone to give us a quick answer on how to change parents mind on such an important issue from those who represent a huge majority of the reasons why,” Richardson said.

Richardson’s opponent, Lynette Stream, questioned the results of the school survey.

“I don’t believe that the results of the survey that was conducted on open enrollment in 2015-2016 to be accurate. I question the way that the survey was conducted and how the data was compiled,” Stream said.

She added that less than half of families who choose to open enroll were surveyed. She also stated her belief that a simple survey may not be adequate in getting reasons for open enrollment, saying that it sometimes requires a one-on-one conversation.

“They need to believe you need to hear their hearts and not collect data,” Stream said of parents who choose to open enroll.

Stream also suggested that if discipline and achievement were not an issue being questioned, more parents might choose to stay in the district.

“Would you deal with the fact that Oskaloosa is a bigger district if they were performing well academically and behavior was excellent,” Stream rhetorically asked.

Richardson responded to Stream’s answer by saying that the school cannot control who does and does not answer a survey.

“There were a number that tried to be contacted by phone for this survey multiple times,” Richardson said. “We can’t control how many people responded,” he added.

To close out the forum, candidates were asked to say one thing they admire about each other.

Incumbent Tom Richardson said he admires his opponent Lynette Stream for choosing to get involved in the school.

“There’s no pay; there’s lots of time, there’s lots of frustration, I admire that,” Richardson said.

Stream said she admires Richardson for his dedication to the schools and involvement in school activities outside of the school board.

“With Tom, you can see he has a great passion for our schools,” Stream said.

Incumbent Carl Drost complimented his opponent, Kym Life, for excelling in her profession.

“I want to complement Kym on being a great doctor,” Drost said.

Life said that she admires her opponent for his strong involvement in the construction of the Oskaloosa Bike Trail system.

“I think that thing [bike trail] has changed everyone’s satisfaction with living in Oskaloosa,” Life said.

While candidate Shelly Herr does not have an opponent in this year’s election, she did complement each of the four candidates sitting next to her at the forum Tuesday evening.

Herr said she admires Kym Life for her thoroughness.

“She’s very thoughtful and does her homework,” Herr said.

Speaking of Carl Drost, Herr said she appreciates his past experiences as a board member.

“I do call him at times… I do appreciate that experience,” Herr said.

Herr said she appreciates Lynette Stream’s willingness to put her name out there as a candidate.

“She comes to meetings and is really trying to do some research on topics,” Herr said.

Lastly, Herr commented on Tom Richardson’s involvement with the school and the community.

“Tom cares a lot about the community and the district,” Herr said.

The final question of the evening was directed at Tom Richardson and Carl Drost, both of whom have been known to openly disagree with each other at board meetings. Richardson and Drost were both asked to say one thing they admire about each other. Drost said he appreciates Tom for his involvement and opinions, even when they differ from his.

“I appreciate Tom for having his views, and they don’t even agree with mine, and I hope someday we can say ‘hey, we’re on the same page,'” Drost said.

Richardson said that he respects Carl for his passion for the children of Oskaloosa and for also expressing his views, no matter where you stand.

“I respect Carl in that he says what’s on his mind. You can leave a board meeting and there’s no question if you agree or disagree with him, he’s made it very clear,” Richardson said.

School Board Elections will be held on September 12, with the polls open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Voters can vote for any of the five candidates regardless of whether or not they live in the same director district as a candidate. There will be two polling locations in this year’s election, those being at the ISU Extension Office on North I Street and the Assembly of God Church on Highway 23 South. Voters may also vote early until 5 p.m. on September 11th in the Mahaska County Auditor’s Office.

You can watch the forum in its entirety below. Watch Oskaloosa News next week for further candidate profile pieces.

Posted by on Sep 3 2017. Filed under Local News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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