03/29/2024
My candidate profile from a local Newspaper:
What prompted you to run for another term on the school board?:
I want to continue the good work that I've been involved with on the board since 2017 and ensure that all students within the district are able to be successful.
What qualifications/experience/attributes do you have that have been beneficial to serving on the school board:
I have served two terms on the Rhinelander School Board and have learned a lot about how the board and district function. I will continue to work with the other members of the board and the district employees to continue moving the district forward! I have also attended the state education convention each of the past three years, where I was able to interact with board members and educators from around the state. Lastly, I have been a member of the State Superintendent's Reading Advisory Council since its inception in 2022, which focuses on reading advancement and improvement in the pre- kindergarten through 2nd grade levels.
List three top priorities for the School District of Rhinelander over the next four years:
Recruitment/retention, reading at the elementary level, and state-level school funding.
Recruitment and retention: I believe that the best way to support our students is through the supporting of our teachers, specifically in ensuring that they are adequately paid for their work. In this way, we will reduce turnover and keep our highly-skilled employees. We need to continue to provide salary increases that are at or above inflation.
Reading: The ability to read and to comprehend what you are reading is the one skill that can best set a student up for a successful educational career as well as a successful life. To this end I believe that my participation on the State Superintendent's Reading Advisory Council has given me a better understanding of the reading process as well as a deeper empathy for the challenges involved in both teaching literacy and learning to read. We must continue to put focus on our early-elementary reading efforts and ensure proper supports for our emerging readers.
State-Level School funding: I am concerned that the school funding formula hasn't been adjusted in the past 30 years. This has resulted in districts receiving unequal amounts of state funding (Rhinelander for example only receives about 30% of our school funding from the state, while the other 70% is covered by our local taxpayers). We need to keep pushing on our legislature to update the formula and provide for more funding to reduce the burden on our local taxpayers.
