A former Waukesha College Board member who misplaced her seat within the 2021 spring elections is one among 4 candidates working for 3 seats on the Waukesha College Board on April 4.
Diane Voit, who served on the board from 2018-21, is searching for a spot on the board, together with incumbent Corey Montiho and challengers Bette Koenig and David Wadd.
Incumbents Karin Robertson and Joseph Como are usually not searching for reelection.
The candidates responded to questions on their priorities and considerations, in addition to their views on a parental rights decision handed by the Waukesha College Board in January. They have been requested to restrict their solutions to 100 phrases.
What’s the prime precedence for the Waukesha College District, and the way would you deal with it?
Koenig: I’m working for the College District of Waukesha College Board as a result of as a former educator inside the district and a mother or father of three SDW graduates, I see a number of areas of concern concerning our well being and efficiency as a district. My prime precedence is to refocus our district’s consideration to the tutorial achievement and workforce success of our college students. We have to return to varsities serving their unique function of offering a wonderful training for his or her college students, freed from political bias and social distractions, in addition to full and clear instructional accountability with dad and mom and the neighborhood.
Montiho: The one reply to this query is pupil efficiency. I’ve lengthy believed that if you wish to make a distinction, stroll out your entrance door, level in direction of your nearest college, and go there. I’ve performed that. I fought this battle via COVID. I search reelection as a result of the work will not be performed. My focus is transparency in public training. I’m working to elevate the veil on public training by empowering dad and mom and our neighborhood. We’re constructing a curriculum and requirements of excellence that concentrate on pupil success.
Voit: The highest precedence should be to present our public college college students the most effective training attainable for them to realize their fullest potential. To make this occur, we should appeal to and retain high-quality educators and assist workers —reversing the numerous workers resignations underneath the present board. We should additionally make all college students really feel welcome and revered for the superb range every brings to our neighborhood. Plus, we should provide high-quality curriculum so all college students can develop important educational and employability abilities to be prepared for faculty and the careers of their future.
Wadd: The College District of Waukesha has been seeing regular declines in standardized testing that measures educational proficiency throughout all grades for over a decade. These developments should be reversed. The district’s core mission and highest precedence must be driving educational excellence for all college students.
To perform this the subsequent board must prioritize:
- Persevering with to improve to difficult curriculum which has been confirmed to ship wonderful outcomes.
- Guaranteeing all lecture rooms are protected and wholesome studying environments.
- Setting formidable and clear objectives for enhancing pupil efficiency and holding itself and the district workers accountable to attaining these objectives.
The Waukesha College Board not too long ago handed a parental rights decision. What are your ideas on that decision?
Koenig: I assist the latest mother or father decision handed by the Waukesha College Board, permitting dad and mom to be absolutely knowledgeable of their youngsters’s instructional expertise. Until there are authorized stipulations, dad and mom must be knowledgeable of all selections that straight affect the well being and well-being of their youngster. Dad and mom additionally ought to have a proper to know what’s being taught of their youngster’s lecture rooms and what sources are offered to or accessed by their youngster within the college. Lastly, dad and mom ought to count on the school rooms to be free from political and ideological messaging that transcend the scope of related or authorized curriculum.
Montiho: I supported it and voted for it and would do it once more. The function of public training is to teach our youngsters, not elevate them. The decision empowers dad and mom to decide on what they imagine is morally proper for his or her youngster. The decision empowers dad and mom and helps all college students in acquiring the most effective training attainable.
Voit: As a former enterprise and particular educator, I actually worth the important collaborative function of oldsters, however I’ve considerations concerning the transparency and content material of this “decision.” The “like-minded” board unanimously authorized this “perception assertion” usually written to affect legislators however went past that to incorporate a directive to the administration to focus on a few of our most weak transgender and gender non-confirming college students. This coverage was carried out with out going via any of the standard committee overview steps that may have allowed stakeholders to present voice to the psychological well being affect this directive could have on these marginalized college students.
Wadd: I absolutely assist the Parental Rights and Transparency Decision handed unanimously by the varsity board. In doing so, the district despatched a transparent message to the dad and mom of scholars at SDW colleges that they acknowledge “the basic proper of oldsters to play the principal function in directing the training of their youngsters.” This decision set clear and common sense boundaries to information the district in its partnership with dad and mom. Each productive partnership is rooted in belief and the decision set a stable basis for rebuilding belief with dad and mom, which had been quickly eroding lately.
What are different urgent considerations dealing with the Waukesha College District, and the way would you deal with them?
Koenig: I plan to concentrate on supporting and retaining wonderful academics and supply them with protected, orderly and respectful classroom environments. I additionally wish to present academics with wonderful curricula and sources to make sure that our college students proceed to be taught the important abilities and information they must be assured, extremely profitable and well-rounded adults. I want to decrease the variety of households who selection their college students to surrounding districts by providing distinctive instruction and sources. Lastly, I wish to encourage parental engagement and transparency throughout the instructional course of via wonderful communication and steady alternatives for mother or father suggestions.
Montiho: Proceed to get rid of distractions and noise from interfering with our ethical obligation to ship the most effective training attainable to our college students. This consists of pupil self-discipline and security. If our college students and educators are usually not protected, they can not be taught or educate. We should cease letting the few hurt the various; the district is present process a bottom-to-top overview of pupil self-discipline. All the pieces is on the desk. The few might not rob the various of their training.
Voit: The funds structural deficit is a priority. Annually, we should make funds cuts to superb packages, shut colleges and promote buildings. An enormous cause for that is that Wisconsin’s college funding method is unsustainable. I advocate for extra reimbursement for mandated particular training providers by the state Legislature. At present, they’re solely reimbursing about 30% of the required providers for college kids with particular wants — creating an $18 million hole every year to cowl the price of these providers. The state must return again to the earlier reimbursement charge of 60%, which might alleviate lots of Waukesha’s budgetary struggles.
Wadd:
- Closing structural deficits by aggressively figuring out efficiencies in operations, proper sizing administration and staffing to ship to district objectives and eliminating wasteful spending;
- Making the College District of Waukesha a vacation spot college for households residing within the district who presently select to ship their youngsters to varsities exterior the district or to nonpublic colleges, in addition to by making the district a vacation spot in open enrollment for college kids from exterior the Waukesha College District;
- Shield college students from dangerous supplies in class and on district units, such because the iPads issued to all college students.
Bette Koenig
Age: 57
Handle: Waukesha (candidate didn’t present full deal with)
Previous political expertise: None
Neighborhood involvement: 30+ years as an educator on the elementary and center college stage, adjunct professor of training (Wisconsin Lutheran Faculty)
Contact information: bette4schoolboard.com, bettekoenigforschoolboard@gmail.com
Corey A. Montiho (inc.)
Age: 45
Handle: 1904 Dixie Drive, Waukesha
Previous political expertise: Incumbent since 2019
Neighborhood involvement: President-elect, Waukesha County Bar Affiliation; metropolis of Waukesha Plan Fee, metropolis of Waukesha Board of Zoning Appeals, Housing Motion Coalition Board of Administrators (former), Girls’s Middle Volunteer, PTO president (former)
Contact information: 262-510-4328; attymontiho@gmail.com
Diane Voit
Age: 69
Handle: W261 S3142 View Drive, Waukesha
Previous political expertise: Served on the Waukesha College Board, 2018-2021
Neighborhood Involvement: Volunteer within the colleges via Eras Senior Community, St. Luke’s Lutheran Church: Whittier/Hadfield Partnership, Blessings in a Backpack and Waukesha Training Basis; Plowshare Honest Commerce Market Board of Administrators; Wisconsin Retired Educators Affiliation; Tanzania Partnership Committee for the Higher Milwaukee Synod
Contact information: votevoit@gmail.com, http://tinyurl.com/votevoit
David Wadd
Age: 54
Handle: W278 N1577 Lakeview Drive, Pewaukee
Previous political expertise: College pupil authorities
Neighborhood involvement: Waukesha Youth Sports activities soach, Cub Scout den and pack chief, Meadowbrook Elementary College Website Council
Contact information: WaddForSchoolBoard@outlook.com
Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or alec.johnson@jrn.com. Observe him on Twitter at @AlecJohnson12.
