Incumbents absent as School Board hopefuls share their visions
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Staff writer
One candidate spoke from the perspective of a single mom, another from the experience of having three children attend schools in the Burlington Area School District.
Another wanted to see fiscal responsibility, and a fourth stressed transparency and accountability.
By the end of the night Tuesday at the Burlington Area School District School Board candidates’ forum, four challengers for two available board seats had made their pitches as to why they should be elected – with the two incumbents glaringly absent.
The six candidates in the Feb. 21 primary election will vie for four positions in the April 3 general election.
Scott Elblein, Philip Ketterhagen, Roger Koldeway and Megan Shuemate all participated in the forum, which was sponsored by WeVote Burlington – a local political-action committee, as defined by founding member Bonnie Ketterhagen, who chaired the event.
Bonnie Ketterhagen made a brief statement about the group and explained its roots and the various application processes both for the group and for setting up Tuesday’s forum.
She then handed off the forum to five questioners – local businessman Christopher Impens, Rotary Club President Bill Schoessling, former Spring Prairie Town Chairman Jim Simons, Marsha Stoner – a citizen representative on the BASD policy committee – and Taylor Wishau, former School Board member and now a citizen representative on the curriculum committee.
The format was based on two blind draws. Each of the five panel members drew a card, with the owner of the high card asking his question first, the second-highest card second, and so one.
Impens ended up going first, followed by Schoessling, Simons, Wishau and then Stoner. The panel member then drew a name at random to determine which candidate would answer first, and then go in order down the table from there.
Each candidate had two minutes to give an opening and closing statement.
The questions varied, and 11 in total were asked. After two rounds of four questions by the five-member panel, that panel gave a unanimous thumbs-up to opening the forum to questions from the audience.
There was just enough time to get three questions in from the sparse audience of about 40 people.
Each candidate offered variations on a theme all evening.
Shuemate, a single mother who moved to the district from Kenosha, said she would support a voucher program and school choice in BASD. Her plan includes students getting a chance at expanded electives, perhaps through Gateway Technical College.
Koldeway went on record saying that the district residents went about change in the wrong way last fall – acting too late to bring about any real change.
This time, he wants transparency in the process. He also stressed the idea of maintaining elective choices for students by not switching to a seven-period day from the eight-period, block-schedule format.
“I’m not running because of what happened at the annual meeting,” said Koldeway, referring to the grassroots campaign started by WeVote in the fall that first voted against a tax levy increase and then forced a second meeting of the electorate – which drew about four times the number of the initial meeting and approved the tax levy increase.
“I’m running for everything that’s happened since then,” added Koldeway.
Elblein said he was among those laid off when the economy tanked in 2008, and rising taxes drove him to getting involved.
“I don’t mind the money being spent, but I’d like to see it spent a lot more responsibly,” he said.
And Philip Ketterhagen, Bonnie’s husband – which she acknowledged at the beginning of the forum but didn’t play favorites with, even cutting off her husband when he went over time – tried to outline a few basic staples to an overall plan he believes the district should follow.
Lacking the time (with question answers limited to two minutes), Ketterhagen repeatedly referred attendees to his website: www.philipketterhagen4schoolboard.net/
Ketterhagen also urged those in attendance to use their own minds and standards in choosing a school board.
“Hopefully you’ll be able to get rid of the noise on the right and the noise on the left” and use independent thinking, Ketterhagen said. “You will come to a conclusion. It’s important for you to keep that decision and vote Feb. 21 (in the primary).”
As to the actual questions, there was little variation in the answers. All four candidates said they would vote their conscience if it came to it, with concessions that they would debate and listen to the public.
“We also have to think about public opinion,” Shuemate said. “We are elected for three years, and with that election comes responsibility.”
All four also agreed that children come first, and that fine arts are an important part of the educational process.
Along those lines, Koldeway took the chance to chide the district from moving away from block scheduling to a seven-period day, which would eliminate some elective chances.
Simons flat-out asked all four candidates not to dance around the million-dollar question – did the School Board do everything possible to hold the line without a tax increase last year?
Both Philip Ketterhagen and Shuemate said no, while Koldeway and Elblein said no with caveats. Koldeway said it was “hard to tell” just what the district is looking at, but that he was sure there were plenty of savings. Elblein said the bigger issue was with the large reserve the district has, $3.6 million.
Elblein was likely referring to the district’s fund balance, which was actually criticized as likely being too low by a financial consultant speaking with the board’s finance committee Monday evening. And the fund balance fluctuates depending on the time of year. However, he said a reserve of 1 percent, perhaps $360,000 would be enough to guard against problems.
“What we need to do is start lowering taxes,” he said.
Other questions included priorities when elected, and a candidate’s view on what the job of a superintendent is. They were also asked about how to improve education in the classroom, with Shuemate touting education through voucher programs, Elblein wanting teachers to teach, Philip Ketterhagen stressing improvement in the board and committee meetings, and Koldeway seconding the thought of teachers closing the door and teaching.
Marsha Stoner also asked about evaluating teachers and student performance. Shuemate said testing the students twice a year wasn’t the answer, because students don’t necessarily excel on tested material. She added that teachers could be looked at from an infractions standpoint, or parent and student feedback.
Merit pay gained the backing of the candidates, especially when asked by an audience member about a statistic showing the more money spent in a district, the lower achievement tended to be.
But all four tried to skirt a direct answer for the final question from the audience: if you have to make a cut, what do you cut and why?
Shuemate said everyone is being forced to cut back, and perhaps cutting the higher levels of a program but still offering the first level of it would work – an idea Elblein also supported. Philip Ketterhagen said he couldn’t answer the question.
“I don’t know what programs out there need cutting,” he said, adding that if he’d had to when his kids were in school, he might have suggested going to fee-based participation in sports.
Koldeway said he would ask the community and work with the community.
“Find out what it is they think they can support,” he said.
And in their absence, the two incumbents – Susan Kessler and John Anderson – drew a question from the audience not to the four candidates present but to Bonnie Ketterhagen, a question simply of “Where are they?”
Kessler declined to participate because of WeVote sponsoring the forum and the perception of bias. Anderson was out of town this week with plans made before the forum was announced, but he also agreed with Kessler’s reasoning in an interview with the Standard Press.
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