Washington school board race heats up

With Election Day coming Nov. 2, the races for the Washington school board are heating up. In District 2, incumbent James Almelien is running unopposed, but the District 5 seat and at-large seat on the board are both races between two new candidates, with current officeholders declining to run again.

District 5 candidates are equally invested, with different perspectives

District 5 candidates Mindi Rees and Kendra DeWolf both have plenty of reason to value education.

Rees said she’d had kids in the school system for years, and has 12 years of volunteer time logged in a variety of school groups.

“I’ve been involved in the parent-teacher groups all the way through in every school, I’ve been a classroom parent just about every year in Stewart and Lincoln,” she said. “Also the fact that my children have been very involved in all kinds of activities all the way through. I’ve been to sports games, music, drama, I’m very well seen in the community.”

Rees said she favored the school board’s recent decisions and pledged to maintain progress.

“School boards across the country have had to make really tough decisions over the last two years,” she said. “I think our Washington school board has done an outstanding job of balancing the safety of our students and staff while still giving our students an education. I want to be a part of the school board so I can continue to make those well thought-out decisions for the district.”

DeWolf, on the other hand, is an expecting mother, which she said was a major source of her inspiration to get involved.

“My husband and I are expecting our first child, and I just want to make sure that all children, mine or anyone else’s … are growing up in this community that really values education and individualism,” she said. “Being part of a community, it really means a lot to be able to give those kids different things from what I experienced growing up.”

DeWolf said she had some specific goals in mind, and would feel out the specifics of how to accomplish those goals once in office.

“The priority is to build emotional resilience, test scores, and critical thinking throughout our district,” she said. “I know that I really want what’s best for our kids, and I really want to be able to have them all succeed. They all have different life goals, they all have different backgrounds … and I just really want to be able to bring those together.”

At-large candidates have similar goals, but different approaches

At-large candidates Johnathan Bartholomew and Michael Liska both said they were focused on improving student outcomes, but their approaches to that subject differ greatly.

“Especially with COVID-19 hitting, I’ve been watching the test scores, and I’ve noticed a huge downtick,” Liska said. “I want to make sure that we bring those test scores back up. I don’t want it to get out of hand, I want to make sure that we’re hitting this from all fronts.”

Liska said his main policy goals were staff issues and the aforementioned test scores.

“I want to make sure we’re looking into how we can bring more staff in, how we can retain staff, and really get a good pick of the litter of graduating teachers,” he said. “The second thing that’s on the top of my list is bringing those test scores back up so it doesn’t look like these kids have lost a year, two years, of their education.”

Bartholomew said he wanted to focus on raising the bar for students, citing similar concerns with test scores.

“We have a problem in our community, which is falling standards of education,” he said. “We invest so much money into education and yet we’re falling behind so many others in our state and those directly around us … I talked with a business leader in our community, and he was concerned that we were hiring people who graduated from our school who couldn’t spell simple words. I talked with another business owner, and he was struggling to find people who could read a tape measure. That isn’t really OK.”

Bartholomew pitched himself as a candidate focused on change.

“Improving our school district isn’t going to come from electing ‘status quo Joes,’” he said. “We don’t need members who are just going to go along and get along. This election is about those coming after us, and you need people that aren’t afraid to rock the boat a little bit for the betterment of our students.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com