School board candidates respond to final questions at party hosted forum

The Hot Springs County Republican Party hosted a School Board Candidates forum at the fair building on Sept. 30. In the general election, there are four seats open for the Hot Springs County School District #1 Board of Trustees. 

This is part three of the forum coverage. Part one and two ran previously in the IR. A special general election section will be printed in next week’s IR with info on our local candidates and state candidates.

There are two incumbents currently running for reelection, they are Clay VanAntwerp and Nichole Weyer. Marshall Keller is also running and is currently an appointed trustee who filled the seat from Will Ferrell who recently resigned. Trustee Joe Matinez is not running for reelection. 

The other new candidates running for the school board are Justin Budd, Beth Lewis, Jessica Lippincott, Ben Postma, and Jean Skelton. Candidate Jessica Lippincott was unable to attend the forum due to medical reasons. Incumbent Nichole Weyer did not attend but provided a statement. 

The forum was moderated by Mary Ann Jager.

Can you give three positive things this district is doing?

Marshall Keller:

Three things that are positive that this district is doing. One, as we talked about earlier, that just started was the issue that’s been brought up by Mrs. Deromedi during the last meeting where they’re going to be evaluating kids on how they treat each other. And that’s going to be going all the way up to the start. The other thing I think the district does really good is reviewing the curriculum and everything that comes before the board to make sure it’s appropriate, whether it’s in the libraries and as well as any of the textbooks. The other thing I believe our district does do, which is wonderful, is the amount of time everybody puts into our district and our kids. Everybody is actually really passionate about it. I don’t think anybody is a slacker by any means or ill will in our school district. I actually think they are very hard working people and deserve credit.

Justin Budd:

I think the district does a great job of teaching the standards. Second, I think, there are educators that are fiercely committed to the success of children in our district as well. And, finally, I also appreciate that the district has the district guiding coalition. I think that’s a great forum for other educators and other staff members to provide input to the operation of the district.

Beth Lewis:

First of all, I think we have some really amazing teachers in our district. Both of my two older kids are in the middle school, and I know they just got the National Blue Ribbon Award there. So they’re doing a great job with teaching our kids. And then the other thing that I have seen that I’ve really appreciated is, and I haven’t been this year, so I assume it’s still going, but the Monday following school board meetings, Mr. Hunt has the Ask the Superintendent meeting that was informal and there’s no agenda, and it was just a nice place to be able to go visit with him about concerns that I had, throughout the last school year.

Ben Postma:

I think one of the things is starting to take a look at teacher retention, staff retention and how to resolve that. I think that we’re stepping in the right direction there, to start to work towards a solution. So I think that’s great. Two, we’re starting to look at getting the right people into the positions, and allowing that growth and career development for those individuals. Three, I think one of the great things is the ability of the kids to be able to do school, associate sports or other activities. All the teachers are supportive of the kids and they help the kids get involved in all that stuff. So I really appreciate the energy and time that the teachers poured into our kids to ensure their success in their growth.

Clay VanAntwerp:

I think probably our greatest strength is our student centered focus. I mean, I don’t care what level you’re talking about. Our focus is student centered, and it doesn’t just happen in the classroom. But when you talk about transportation, it’s student centered. When you talk about the food service department, it’s student centered. And so I think that’s something we can do really well and something that I would be passionate about continuing to keep that student center focused. I think we’re doing a great job of educating kids. And I think there’s a lot of different ways to look at it. Everybody says they’re more than a test score. And I couldn’t agree more. Look at our academics. Look at the kids that are on the student honor roll. And there’s been a time in history when we had every kid on the honor roll, but they didn’t do very well on these tests over here. So there wasn’t a correlation between the academic rigor and the tests. And now we have the grades, GPAs and they’re showing on those tests. So I think you’re doing a great job educating our kids. The other thing I think we’re doing a great job and to the best of our ability, is compensating the staff and not just… it’s all staff across the board. We have processes in place where we meet with the staff before we do contracts in the spring and whatnot, and we try to get their input on what focus do you want? We used to get a bunch of sick days, now they’re personal days. And now it’s a staff retention effort. And we’ve done the teacherage that’s to try to bring staff into the community. I think we do a good supporting our staff and our administration team. So those are the things. And if you have any other questions you want to talk to me about, I’m always available and I’m open. So give me a chance.

Jean Skleton:

Three things that the school district does super well. One, I don’t know if you guys have seen there was a school board meeting where two of the second grade teachers came up and showed what they do on a day….Well, an hourly basis and the amount of work that they are putting into their curriculum to line it up with the standards is truly unbelievable. You guys should watch that and see how much work it is to build their own curriculum. A lot of districts have a McCann curriculum. Well, here they literally write their own curriculum. I think that it’s really important to know how much work the teachers are really putting in. The other thing is that not everybody probably cares about it, but every expenditure that goes through the district is printed, and you can see every dime that’s spent at Hot Springs County. And that’s a transparency issue that our school does really well. The third thing I was thinking was that it’s just a little bit different than what these guys said, for such a small school, we do offer a lot of extra curricular activities and the kids can be involved in robotics and things that aren’t necessarily thought of. And I think that our school does that well.

Do you believe the teacherage was a necessary expense? Does it interfere with private business? 

Jean Skelton:

I do think that it is in direct competition with the local property owners. I know that they are subsidizing those teachersage with stipends for the teachers. So they are definitely undercutting the rental owners in Thermopolis.

Clay VanAntwerp:

There is no stipend that goes along with those. We don’t give them any kind of a stipend for rent. They pay rent on those, and that’s how that is. But, I do think it was necessary. I’ve been here a long time, and we have lost our top candidates, because they couldn’t find a place to live. Tell me it’s reality. It’s the way it is…Yes... It’s just something that we did to try to bring in the top candidates. And so, it’s just a good example of us doing everything we possibly can to help bring in the best possible staff. And at the time when we built those and I challenge you to look into this now there’s almost nowhere to live in Thermop.  The rentals that are available… The feedback we got from the people that we lost were like, I got a college degree and I worked hard to get here. And then I want a certain standard of living and, I’m sorry, that’s the reality of it. And so that’s why we did that. And I think it’s going to pay out. It’s already worked in our benefit to have that. So, I mean I think it’s a necessary evil.

Ben Postma:

It may not have been the best decision. I definitely keep a pretty good eye on the real estate around this area. It’s a hobby of mine. And maybe there would have been other options as far as maybe we could buy a house versus building new houses. Like I said, there’s lots of different ways that we could cut that pie. But as mentioned, one of the things that this district is doing good is we’re identifying issues and we’re trying to move forward in how we keep people. So that decision was made and that’s what we have. So I think now it’s how do we move forward from this point? Let’s sustain that property and let’s keep it nice. It is what it is. And so now that’s just one more tool that we have now to hopefully help retain people.

Beth Lewis:

I don’t believe the school district should be a landlord. I feel like the teacherage was not a necessary thing. I would have much preferred working with a private landlord or something like that and saying, can we work out something that way? We know new teachers who come in, who have a place to live or something like that. I think there’s other options out there that were available. However, that being said, this is where we are now. I agree with Ben that the only thing you can do is use it to our advantage at this point and move forward.

Marshall Keller:

I think one of the main issues that came out as this whole thing unfolded about the teacherage, was not enough information was put out there. And by that, I’m not necessarily talking about the administration putting out information, but typically on something like this, I’ve seen where the people from the community who are in the industry come in and talk and put out information on what to do. So everybody goes and makes a decision based off of that. Going forward, something that I would push for is that we get input from outside of just the school board when it’s needed. The other thing that’s been stated, it’s done. So now we need to move forward. And I think it’s a great thing now that we have it. But it does compete with business. And that is the reality of it. There are line item budget issues that come up on that. But regarding maintenance and taxes and everything. We have it and it is a great tool now for recruiting teachers. Let’s use it to our advantage.

Justin Budd:

You know, whether or not it was necessary, I don’t really have an opinion about that. I would applaud the district for the use of the internal resources that they put against that, you know, construction of the teacherage because they utilized in-house expertise and talent to build those units. So it’s one thing I do applaud the district for. As far as recruiting and retaining talent, I don’t know if it’s that effective for new teachers coming straight out of their university studies or young teachers. Yeah, I think it’s a great benefit, but I don’t know that it really attracts or retains top talent.