What the board members said about redistricting when they were candidates

I wrote yesterday that there’s no reason to think that the community supports using major elementary school boundary changes to meet the district’s diversity goals. One reason for that is that most of the current board members did not campaign on that kind of approach when they were running for the board.

Right before the 2011 board election, there was a candidate forum focused entirely on issues related to redistricting. Here’s what the candidates who were elected had to say (transcript after the jump):

I included Karla Cook in that clip, even though she’s no longer on the board, because she was elected, which tells us something about what the voters wanted, and because she was part of the 4-3 board majority who enacted the Diversity Policy, which directed the superintendent to meet numerical goals for the percentage of kids eligible for free- and reduced-price lunch at each school. Marla Swesey and Sally Hoelscher also voted for the Diversity Policy, while Patti Fields and Jeff McGinness voted against it. (Once it passed, McGinness said that he would work to move forward with it.)

The Diversity Policy did require the superintendent to meet the diversity goals by certain dates, and put very few restrictions on how to meet them. It did not, however, require that the goals be met through extensive redistricting. In fact, it contained language suggesting a preference against “non-voluntary movement of students,” and its supporters on the board emphasized the possibility of using incentives such as magnet schools to entice students to change schools voluntarily.

The superintendent’s proposal, however, uses “non-voluntary movement” as the primary (and almost exclusive) means of meeting the diversity goals. Under the proposed maps, for example, almost 80% of the kids at Coralville Central would change schools; so would 63% of the kids at Kirkwood and 54% of the kids at Lincoln. Those changes would be attributable almost entirely to pursuing the diversity goals, since there is no new school opening in that cluster. Although the changes do not involve much busing, many of them would send kids (especially kids from low-income areas) to schools significantly farther from their homes. It’s awfully hard to square that kind of extensive, diversity-driven redistricting with the board members’ positions as candidates.

My point isn’t that board members can never change their views, though fidelity to campaign stances does have value in a democracy. My point is that there is no reason to think the community supports the superintendent’s approach, and that, if anything, the election of these board members is evidence of the opposite. We can only speculate about what would have happened to candidates who campaigned on boundary changes like these, because nobody did.

That was then

I’ve been drafting a post about what our current board members said about redistricting when they were running for the board, and I came across this moment, on a different issue, from the 2011 school board campaign (transcript after the jump):

All five of those candidates, after they were elected, supported the plan to close Hoover Elementary and build 500-student schools in cornfields on the edge of town. (Four of them voted “yes” on the closure. Swesey, after explaining why she was going to vote “yes,” voted “no” when it became clear that there were enough votes to pass it without her support. In any event, she later opposed reconsidering the closure.) It’s enough to make you wonder whether there’s any point in going to candidate forums. Sure, board members can change their minds about an issue. But if you run for office on one platform, and then suddenly realize, after you’re elected, that you support a very different one, shouldn’t you get the community on board for your new opinion before imposing it?

School board chair: Rewards are unnecessary gimmicks

Our school board tonight elected Marla Swesey, the top vote-getter in the recent school board election, as its new chair. In response to my candidate questionnaire, Swesey, who was a teacher here for twenty-six years, had this to say about using rewards in school:

I have never been a believer of stickers or prizes used to reward students for good work or behavior. Students should be motivated to feel the intrinsic worth of doing a good job on their schoolwork or doing a good deed. Students are capable of feeling pride in their accomplishments without prizes. Students are naturally curious and should get excited about learning without all the gimmicks. There are times when classes need to celebrate in some way for accomplishments or great deeds that the class achieves. But these celebrations would not be done on a regular basis.

Yes, she did go on to say that “this is not a decision for the school board to make but it certainly can be a discussion with the Superintendent so that he can pass on the discussion with the school principals, who in turn can discuss the issue with the teachers.” I think even that approach would be a step in the right direction. Not that long ago, it was probably true that the district itself had no policy about rewards, and the practice probably varied a lot from school to school and teacher to teacher. But I wonder if the new chair realizes that that’s no longer the case, and that the district is now requiring schools to use rewards extensively, and whether that would affect her conclusion about whether the board should have some say in the matter.

I won’t get my hopes up that anything will change, but nonetheless it’s nice to hear someone connected with the school system -- the school board chair, no less -- talking sense about the use of rewards in school.
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Live-blogging the school board election results

Consider this your source for nerdy commentary on the school board election returns as they come in tonight. For precinct-by-precinct results, read the updates that appear below the tables. For information on the candidates, click here.

Candidates’ responses: Patti Fields

Patti Fields, who had contacted me a week or two ago to say that she was working on my candidate questionnaire and hoped to finish her answers in time to reply before the election, just sent me a response to most of them:

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

I am going to answer this question in two different roles.

As a board member, this is not an appropriate issue for the board to review. It is a programming, staffing and building-level decision. There is an appropriate process for this issue to come the board through the Board Complaint process. This process is available to anyone with a concern that they do not feel has been handled appropriately in the district.

As a parent, of course I want my child to have enough time to eat lunch for healthy eating habits and choices. The difference is between respecting the appropriate roles of a board member and a parent.

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

Why I’m voting for Julie VanDyke

The geeky political junkie in me has enjoyed covering the school board election on this blog. But to the parent and voter in me, it’s felt more like a duty than a pleasure. I think what our schools need more than anything is an infusion of local democracy. School board elections are our best shot at translating our community values into educational policy, so I wanted to make as much of that opportunity as I could. Yet as I attended the forums and read the candidates’ statements and profiles in the paper, it was hard for my eyes not to glaze over. There was some good discussion of budget and oversight issues, and some real disagreement there. But on most everything else, there were platitudes and bland agreement. (The most common answer, by far, at the candidates’ forums was “I agree with the other candidates.”) And there was the usual conspicuous absence of any discussion about how our kids are actually being educated: about the choices a district faces in how to help kids learn and grow.

It would go too far to compare the candidate forums to Nero fiddling while Rome burned. But to me, the biggest issue in education, by far, is the way that No Child Left Behind is dumbing down and impoverishing our kids’ education -- not just by putting negative labels on schools and teachers, but by changing the content of what goes on in the classroom, and the way kids experience and think about learning. That issue strikes me as far more important than, say, where to put the boundary between City and West. Yet most of the candidates made little or no mention of NCLB in their personal statements or at the candidate forums.

Yes, I know -- school board members don’t have the power to repeal NCLB. But I think that’s a lame rejoinder. They can minimize the harm only if they’re conscious of how bad it is. Moreover, precisely because they don’t have the power to change NCLB, and precisely because they’re tasked with carrying out its damaging mandates, they should be raising hell about it at every opportunity. Where is the outrage?

At one of the forums, the candidates were asked about the use of standardized test scores by our schools. Incredibly, only one candidate mentioned NCLB in her answer: Julie VanDyke. Until she did, I had begun to feel like the candidates and I were looking at two different school systems on two different planets.

I had that same response to VanDyke’s responses to my candidate questionnaire. I don’t mean to disparage the other candidate’s responses; I admire the other four candidates who responded, especially given how unresponsive some of our current board members have been to people’s questions. And several other candidates did recognize that NCLB has had harmful effects. But only when I read VanDyke’s response did I feel that I was in the presence of a person who is seeing the same world I’m seeing:

NCLB has lead to a nationwide culture of shame, blame, negativity, hopelessness, and punishment in K-12 education. . . .

Teaching to the test, almost a requirement at this point, has further decimated time and funding spent on all areas with the exception of reading and math. Art, physical education, science, history and the humanities in general have been reduced or cut entirely. The most gifted students have lost access to resources and teaching staff they need to excel, while the below average children have the life and joy stripped out of their school day replaced by preparation for standardized tests. . . .

The culture of failure labeling and impossible goals that has grown out of NCLB has negatively impacted the morale of the entire public education system: from administrators-to teachers-to students-to parents-to communities.

It’s about time! This was the only statement I heard from any candidate that came close to recognizing the full disaster that is No Child Left Behind.

In general, I thought VanDyke’s other answers also exhibited a humane and thoughtful understanding of education. I also remain struck by the fact that in Iowa City, home of one of America’s great research universities, the candidates for school board are unwilling to say (in response to my question 6) that indoctrination has no place in education, period. VanDyke’s answer came closest to my feelings on that issue as well.

Yes, as many people have pointed out, VanDyke is not Ms. Diplomacy. She can be combative and “uncivil.” I don’t deny that, and I hope that she can find a way to focus her strong feelings clearly on issues and not on people. But I hope she never becomes so civil that she’s unwilling to denounce in the strongest terms possible the things that need denouncing, like No Child Left Behind. I’d rather have a board member who errs on the side of strong feeling than one who is so polite and civil that you’d barely know anything is wrong. This is especially true given the temptation that board members face to be hands-off and let the district run itself. VanDyke certainly sounds like someone who can resist that temptation.

I plan on casting four votes in the election for the four-year seats, too -- probably for Hoelscher, McGinness, Swesey, and either Hemingway, Porter, or Tate. (Although I wasn’t crazy about Hoelscher’s responses to my questions, she grew on me at the candidate forums. And she did answer the questions, after all, which counts for something.) I’m sure that if any of my candidates are elected, I’ll probably be giving them a hard time in this space before long. So let me give them all their due right now: being a board member, or even running for the board, is a huge and largely thankless sacrifice. As someone who can barely find time to write a blog post every week or two, I don’t know how they do it. We should all be grateful that anyone would take it on.
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Candidates’ responses: Julie VanDyke

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

Given the attention span of most small children I know, 15 minutes for lunch is unacceptably short. Given the attention span of ADD/ADHD, 15 minutes for lunch is inhumane and counterproductive. The ICCSD’s Wellness policy includes the following:

“The school district provides a comprehensive and integral learning environment for developing and practicing lifelong wellness behaviors. The entire school environment, not just the classroom, shall be aligned with healthy school district goals to influence a student’s understanding, beliefs and habits as they relate to healthy nutrition and regular physical activity.”

“The school district supports and promotes proper dietary habits contributing to students’ health status and academic performance.”

Neither of these assertions is evidenced in by the district’s 15 minute lunch. Everything I read on healthy eating indicates that food should be eaten slowly and chewed one bite at a time, not inhaled and rushed down with milk. I assume that the shorter lunch periods are a direct result of NCLB’s pressure to spend every possible moment in class towards more progress on standardized testing. I don’t think the board can mandate a longer lunch but I think elementary students need a minimum of 20 minutes to be able to eat enough food in the healthiest manner. I would do everything I could to help the Superintendent and district administration re-evaluate the lunch period towards extending it to 20-25 minutes. I would have gladly signed the petition to do so. This isn’t going to make me popular but then, honesty is more important to me than popularity…I would like to see High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) containing foods and condiments removed from the breakfasts and lunches provided by the school district. Frequently eating foods containing transfats, lots of added sugar, high saturated fat, HFCS, pesticide residue, MSG and artificial dyes is not healthy. I believe they are at the root of the obesity crisis and the skyrocketing number of ADD/ADHD cases (maybe even the increase in autism spectrum incidence) in this country. One of the main problems with HCFS is that it interferes with leptin and insulin which subsequently impairs the body’s ability to properly regulate and store energy. Please see this link for the most recent research from Princeton http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S26/91/22K07/. These studies are also helpful: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/37385 and http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/94/5/1562.full.pdf . I hope to see more research published on HFCS’s affect on behavior in the future. Since fructose and HFCS have not been integrated into food processing/manufacture in the European Union, as opposed to the United States, it would be interesting to compare the two in regards to increases in prevalence of obesity, ADD/ADHD, and Autism Spectrum Disorders.

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

Candidates’ responses: Marla Swesey

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

School lunch time has been an issue for a long time in the ICCSD and I suspect other districts, too. Although, it isn’t a school board decision to be made- it still deserves discussion as it is something that can be approached by the Superintendent when he talks to the principals about scheduling. At the beginning of the school year, the principals have to decide on the scheduling for all the specials, including the lunch/recess times for all classes. It is a tough job. Most schools have 15 min. for eating and then 15 min. for noon recess. The rationale behind the recess after the lunch time is to provide whatever extra time is necessary for kids to finish their lunches before they go out for recess. If a slow eater takes longer to eat, the extra eating time is taken off of their recess time. In all the years that I taught, I didn’t see too many students giving up their recess time to finish eating. Many times, I saw students rushing to eat so they would get more recess time. Some schools or classes in schools, have recess before lunch so that there is no extra time for the students to eat if they are only given 15 minutes. It would be nice to have 20 minutes of eating time and 15 minutes of recess but principals would have to do some creative scheduling to make that happen. Is it possible? Perhaps one of the meetings scheduled for the Superintendent and the principals could be used to talk about some of the creative ways that more time for school lunch could be accomplished.

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

One-stop shopping for the school board election

I want this post to serve as a collecting spot for information about the candidates in our local September 13 school board election. I will keep adding to it as more information becomes available. I’m sure I’m missing things; please feel free to suggest additional links in the comments or via email. (I hope you’ll also feel free to check out some of the site’s other posts while you’re here.)

ELECTION RESULTS

For live-blogging of the election results as they come (as well as early reports on turnout), click here.

THE BASICS

Eight candidates are competing for four at-large seats on the board. In addition, voters will choose between two candidates, Julie Van Dyke and Karla Cook, to fill the unexpired term of Mike Cooper. As a result, five members of the seven-member board will be chosen in this election. Here's what the ballot will look like. Find your polling place here. (Go to your “school precinct,” not your “regular precinct.”)

The polls will be open from 7 am to 8 pm on Tuesday, September 13. Same-day voter registration is permitted. Absentee ballots must be requested by Friday, September 9, and postmarked by Monday, September 12.

Voters will also decide whether to approve a new bond for Kirkwood Community College.

QUESTIONNAIRES

This blog’s questionnaire to the candidates, with links to their responses
The teachers’ union’s questionnaire and responses
Press-Citizen’s “Questions to Ask School Board Candidates”

DEBATES

I know of four scheduled debates:

Monday, August 29 at 7 pm, Hills Community Center, 100 E. Main Street, Hills;
Thursday, September 1 at 6:30 pm, Iowa City Public Library;
Tuesday, September 6 at 7 pm., City High (focused on curriculum and funding); and
Thursday, September 8 at 7 pm, West High (focused on redistricting).

The September 1 debate is available here as a podcast.

The September 6 debate will be replayed on local cable channel 21 on:

September 7 at noon, 2 pm, 4 pm, and 9 pm;
September 8 at 10 am, noon, 2 pm, 4 pm, and 9 pm;
September 9 at 2 pm;
September 10 at 8 am, 5 pm, and 9 pm; and
September 11 at 8 am, 5 pm, and 9 pm.

The September 8 debate will be replayed on local cable channel 21 on:

September 9 at 10 am, noon, 4 pm, and 9 pm;
September 10 at 10 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm;
September 11 at 10 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm; and
September 12 at 10 pm, 2 pm, and 9 pm.

The September 6 and 8 debates are organized by the District Parent Organization; historically, those debates have had a pretty tightly constrained format. The September 1 debate is sponsored by the Press-Citizen and the Iowa City Education Association; historically, their format has been more of a free-for-all.

COMMENTARY

This blog’s posts on the election
Commentary by John Deeth here and here
The teachers’ union summary of the candidates’ pros and cons
Press-Citizen: Reasons to learn more about the school board election
Iowa City Patch: Live-blog commentary on September 1 forum
Another local blogger's take on the September 1 forum
Press-Citizen: Vote yes on the bond issue
Press-Citizen endorses Cook, Swesey, McGinness, Hoelscher, and Porter
More commentary by Mariaconz
The Gazette: Why to vote
Mariaconz's election eve thoughts
Iowa City Patch: Live-blog commentary on the September 8 debate
Press-Citizen: Daunting tasks face everyone who wins today
This blog's choice: Why I'm voting for Julie VanDyke

NEWS COVERAGE

Press-Citizen: Ten candidates seek school board seats
Gazette: Plenty of candidates for school board
Coverage of August 29 debate here
Press-Citizen: Hoelscher to hold forum
Press-Citizen: School board hopefuls sound off at forum
Hoelscher to host listening posts
Federation of Labor endorses Tate, Fields, McGinness, and Porter
Coverage of the September 6 debate is here
Press-Citizen: Teachers' union endorses Cook, Swesey, Fields, Porter, and Hemingway
Coverage of the September 8 debate is here
McGinness to attend coffee event Sunday
John Deeth: McGinness Top School Spender
Daily Iowan: School Board candidates discuss transparency, enrollment

CANDIDATE STATEMENTS AND PROFILES

Jeff Alden: Statement, statement, profile
Karla Cook: Statement, statement, profile
Patti Fields: Statement, statement, profile
Phil Hemingway: Statement, statement, profile, profile
Sally Hoelscher: Statement, statement, profile
Jeff McGinness: Statement, statement, profile, profile, interview
Bob Porter: Statement, statement, profile
Marla Swesey: Statement, statement, profile
James Tate: Statement, statement, profile
Julie VanDyke: Statement, statement, profile

CANDIDATES’ CONTACT INFO

Available here.

CAMPAIGN WEBSITES

Patti Fields
Sally Hoelscher website, Facebook page
Jeff McGinness
Marla Swesey
Julie VanDyke
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The teachers’ union on the school board election

When I sent out my questions for school board candidates, I mentioned how most such questionnaires tend to focus on “budgets, buildings, and boundaries,” with little, if any, attention to the district’s educational philosophies, approaches, and goals. The Iowa City Education Association (i.e., the local teachers’ union) has its own questionnaire -- the responses to it are here, and their summary of the candidates’ pros and cons is here -- which I think demonstrates my point. Eleven questions, and not one that invites any discussion of what the district’s educational mission should be, or even acknowledges that there might be more than one way to think about educating people. (Number 7 arguably qualifies, but is pretty narrowly focused on accommodating socioeconomic diversity.)

Don’t get me wrong: I think the ICEA is asking about important issues, and I’m happy to link to them here. But as a parent, what I most want to know is: Why is the district treating my children this way? Why does it seem to be striving so hard to teach my kids that learning is an unpleasant chore? Why is it so bent on turning my kids into quiet, obedient little worker bees who will score high on standardized tests and fear authority, instead of skeptical, questioning citizens who will speak up and think for themselves? Why does the district have such a blinkered idea of how people learn, and such an impoverished conception of what it means to be well-educated?

As I’ve made clear before, I don’t mean this as a criticism of the teachers. This approach to education is being imposed on the teachers partly by the district and partly by individual principals. We have no way of knowing how the teachers really feel about it, and I think many of them strive to keep as much joy in the learning process as they can, under the circumstances.

Deborah Meier frequently talks about how schools should be striving to create a “feisty, democratically savvy citizenry.” Our district, though, seems to want to stamp out all traces of anything resembling feistiness from the kids. For the kids who are deemed “disruptive,” we’ve adopted million-dollar programs and entire curricula to train them -- and all the kids -- not just to obey the rules, but to internalize and agree with them. For the kids who are too people-pleasing, too quiet and docile, too unquestioningly obedient, too happy to be told what to think, too fearful of authority -- nothing. The district doesn’t see those kids as a problem. In fact, they appear to represent the district’s ideal student.

Why?
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Candidates’ responses: Karla Cook [Updated 8/29]

Karla Cook just sent me a partial response to my candidate questionnaire, and said that she “will continue to work on your concerns and questions,” which I hope means that more responses will be coming. In the meantime, here are her thoughts on two of the questions:

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

As to the lunch time issue, I talked with a parent at Hoover and 2 grandmothers in the district. The parent thought the time was appropriate. However, the grandmothers indicated that they thought the children appeared to be rushed. I would be in favor of allowing the children to finish their lunches whether that was 15-25 minutes. It would be taken out of the lunch recess or whatever activity that was planned for that extra time. I would hope that no school personnel would encourage students to eat too fast or throw away needed food.

3. Do you think that standardized testing plays too large a role in our school system? If so, what should the school board do about it?

When I taught at City High, we were concerned with "teaching to the test" in order to make our schools look good. We determined that it would not encourage students to become life-long learners - just momentary-learners, enough to do O.K. on the test. I know that happens in other states and districts. From the number of schools on the SINA list in Iowa City, I think that is not happening here. I am not in favor of "high stakes" testing in any part. Standardized testing is supposed to be a measure of how much progress a student is making. It is not always a good measure as some students do not test well for what ever reason.

5. Do you support the current pervasive use of token rewards to get students to comply with school rules? If not, what role should the school board take in reining that practice in?

I read some of the blogs and while I agree that students should not be rewarded for what should be normal good behavior, I know that some students have not received the appropriate parenting before attending school. This is still obvious in some students at the high school level. That leaves the schools to deal with teaching the behaviors that are needed in school. It is hard to have a group of students treated differently than the rest. I would imagine that the teachers have decided that all students will be rewarded so that the ones who are in need of the instruction will not stand out.

I would hope that the reinforcement of the behaviors by giving token rewards would taper off as the student population becomes accoustomed to the rules.

Links to other candidates’ responses are here.
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Candidates’ responses: Sally Hoelscher

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

It is the responsibility of the School Board to make policy decisions, not operational decisions. Therefore, the amount of time designated for lunch is not under the purview of the Board, but rather a decision of the administration of each school. As a parent, you are entitled to (and I believe, correct to) be an advocate for your children on this issue. Building principals and the superintendent are the officials to address these concerns to, as you have done. When my children were in elementary school, I also acted as an advocate for them on lunch issues. I do know that some elementary schools have made some in their lunch procedure for this school year.

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

Candidates’ responses: Jeff McGinness

Jeff McGinness, one of our school board candidates, is the first to reply to my list of questions. Here are his responses (I’ve added a link to the article he mentions):

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

Unquestionably, yes. My oldest Gavin, now in second grade at Weber, requests home lunch everyday because he knows his time is limited if he has to stand in line for school lunch. If an 8 year old recognizes the problem such that he changes his own habits I question how the district cannot similarly recognize the issue. I know the administration is finally starting to look at the issue because I had a conversation with Steve Murley in which he mentioned his own kids doing the same thing.

One option being talked about is placing the scheduled recess following lunch, instead of before or at some other time. It has had some success at a few of our schools and gives kids more time. The obvious concern is that kids may then voluntarily shorten their own lunch to go play. Thus, they should look at extending the time by 5 minutes in addition to moving around recess times.

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

Questions for school board candidates, continued

The list of candidates for our local September 13 school board elections is now final. There are ten candidates for five seats: incumbent school board chair Patti Fields, Jeff Alden, Phil Hemingway, Sally Hoelscher, Jeff McGinness, Bob Porter, Marla Swesey, James Tate, Karla Cook, and Julie VanDyke. (Some interesting commentary here.) I have just sent all of them my list of questions for school board candidates, prefaced with this introduction:

I find that most school board candidate questionnaires tend to focus on what you might call the “three Bs” -- budgets, buildings, and boundaries. Those are certainly important topics, but one of the reasons I started blogging is that I think we don’t hear enough discussion of what the mission of our schools is, and about how that mission is reflected in our kids’ day-to-day experience of school. The questions below are my attempt to get at some of those issues in a concrete way.

The questions, slightly revised since I first posted them, are:

1. Should the school board ensure that elementary school students get more than fifteen minutes for lunch? If so, what should the minimum lunch period be? (See the petition about this issue here.)

2. On balance, has the No Child Left Behind Act been good for Iowa City’s public school children?

3. Do you think that standardized testing plays too large a role in our school system? If so, what should the school board do about it?

4. Local school boards have been increasingly subject to state and federal mandates. Do school board members have an obligation to think independently about whether those mandates are good for kids? If so, what should a school board member do if he or she concludes that those mandates are not in the best interests of the kids, or are contrary to our community’s values? (See this post.)

5. Do you support the current pervasive use of token rewards to get students to comply with school rules? If not, what role should the school board take in reining that practice in?

6. How should the schools approach the teaching of moral or ethical values? (See this post and this post.)

7. What should the district’s plan be as the number of SINA schools grows and the number of schools into which those students can transfer shrinks?

My hope is that the candidates’ responses will not only reveal their thoughts on these issues, but will also tell us something about they will respond to public questions when they are in office. I’ll post responses as I receive them. Feel free to suggest additional questions in the comments.

UPDATE: Here are responses from Jeff McGinness, Sally Hoelscher, Karla Cook, Marla Swesey, Julie VanDyke, and Patti Fields.
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