School board candidates draw lines

McCOOK, Neb. -- Several McCook School Board candidates attempted to differentiate themselves from the pack during a candidate's forum at the Bieroc Cafe earlier this month. Incumbents Shane Messersmith, Sandra Krysl and Loretta Hauxwell joined newcomer Bob Elder during the event, with Brian Esch being the only candidate not to attend.

Voters will be tasked with choosing three from the field of five candidates during the Nov. 4 General Election.

Bob Elder is a McCook High School graduate and said he is active in several local organizations, including MCC Boosters, McCook High School Boosters and the United Methodist Church.

Elder manages the Sports Shoppe on Norris Avenue and said he hoped his business background would help during the budget process and in other areas as a school board member. Elder said he had a lot to learn, as this was his first attempt running for public office, and he planned to learn from everybody involved in the school system.

"I do believe in our administration. So I feel like, with their help, and talking and communicating with them, I will learn a lot more and make some good decisions," said Elder.

Elder was asked if he would consider awarding the hot lunch program to a different provider with the ultimate goal of providing a more nutritious lunch at the schools.

Elder said his focus would likely be to communicate with Superintendent Grant Norgaard and anyone involved in the lunch program to learn more about it first.

"I'm willing to learn and see where we can move it to make kids healthier, because obviously, nationwide and locally even there is a lot of obesity and we can sure help by changing that in our school system," said Elder.

Elder said he believed he made good decisions when faced with tough choices and voters had a lot of good candidates to choose from. He said he hoped voters gave him a chance to represent them.

McCook Community College instructor Loretta Hauxwell was selected to fill a vacancy on the school board in February and said she hoped to continue her role. Hauxwell said she was from Southwest Nebraska, graduating from Republican Valley High School, and McCook felt a bit like a second home to her.

Hauxwell said she came from a family that really valued education and, as an athlete, she was someone who really believed in getting students involved in the overall aspects of the school district.

"My husband and I are rooted in Southwest Nebraska. He supports the agricultural community as a agronomist and so we really believe we wanna make McCook a great place for families," said Hauxwell.

Hauxwell said she started her education at MCC and was a proud alumni who now had the opportunity to serve as a faculty member.

Hauxwell said she really valued education, "and believe that bold leaders are needed in our public schools and I would like to be one of those for McCook."

Hauxwell was asked how her experience as a college instructor would help her on the high school board. She said she offered a unique perspective and wore many hats at the college and really felt her course work was preparing traditional and non-traditional students for life.

"I get that opportunity every day, to see what college readiness looks like and I, like our state school board candidate, believe college readiness begins in early childhood education," said Hauxwell.

Hauxwell said she really valued kids starting kindergarten ready to learn and also teaches course work in it.

"I love education, I have a passion for lifelong learning," said Hauxwell, adding she thought she knew kids and knew students because she had an opportunity to interact with them on a daily basis.

Hauxwell was asked if she was satisfied with how a recent scandal involving students drinking alcohol at the home of a McCook teacher had played out and if not, what she would have liked to have seen happen.

"You know I'll be honest, I love my community, I love the students, love the school, but I honestly didn't do much study into that. I sometimes may be called naive but I'm not on social media. I just spend time doing what I find valuable and that is educating kids. I love my own children, you'll find my house full of kids an awful lot and I just want to make the best for them, right there, right then. And so I'm just gonna be honest, I don't know much about the situation. I know it brought division in our school board and I believe when there is division in the school board kids are hurt."

Hauxwell said when you hear her communicating with the community or the school board there is one thing you can expect from her and that is honesty, integrity and doing everything she can to keep adult issues, adult drama, away from our children.

"I just absolutely do have a passion for kids and I wanna just uphold an ethical standard that brings out the best in our community. Kids are best when the adults in their lives are stable and so I hope you can count on me to do that for your community and your children," said Hauxwell.

Hauxwell said she appreciated the support she received over the last seven months and hoped she got the opportunity to continue representing kids in McCook Public Schools for the next four years.

Hauxwell joined the school board in February following the resignation of Larry Shields, which at least one board member attributed to Shields being "consumed" by the controversy surrounding allegations a special education teacher allowed underage drinking at her home and in other scenarios.

In June 2013 school board members Shane Messersmith, Diane Lyons and Larry Shields voted in favor of reprimanding the teacher, with Tom Bredvick, Sandra Krysl and Teresa Thomas voting against it.

Bredvick, Krysl and Thomas stated in a complaint filed a month later they couldn't support retaining a teacher under the reprimand found in the motion and if the motion had been termination, their vote would have been yes.

The complaint was later dismissed by the Nebraska Commissioner of Education and made public by Messersmith during a school board meeting. Krysl and Bredvick both expressed their objection to making the information available to the public at the time.

During the candidate's forum Sandra Krysl said she graduated from McCook Public Schools and loves both the school system and the community.

Krysl said McCook Public Schools has had a lot of success over the past five years, including consecutive growth in ACT scores and improvements in other assessments. She said the school district had kept up with the 21st century by going with the one-to-one initiatives related to the $244,290 purchase of IPads for high school students and installation of air conditioning in all of the learning environments.

"We are doing what we can do to make the best learning environment possible for our kids. We also have a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful group of teachers that works so very hard for our kids. I do not drive by a school, any time of the day, and not see a teacher's car there. We have that at every single school, day or night," said Krysl, adding "Monday through Sunday, everybody is there and I love that about the dedication of our teachers."

Krysl was asked about the disconnect between McCook graduating a great bunch of kids and local businesses struggling with finding enough qualified employees, as del as if there was anything that could be done to address it.

Krysl said she wasn't sure if the disconnect is with the graduation of our good kids or with the community struggling bringing in industry enticing enough to keep the kids here.

"That might be my question. Is it that the kids want to stay here but there just isn't the industry to bring them here, the industry to keep them here. I don't know, I guess maybe that's something that we need to look into because we do graduate wonderful kids, we graduate kids that want to have great careers,"said Krysl.

Krysl said looking at recent history McCook Public Schools had employed several graduates as teachers, two in the past year and three the year before.

"They are coming home, so it's getting better, but I think that we need to look at the community as a whole, in making sure that we're providing the opportunities for them to come back too," said Krysl.

Krysl said the school board needed to continue to be fiscally responsible and make sure they were doing the things they already do pertaining to strategic planning, "planning for the big expenses that are coming."

"We already set aside money, every year, every month, for all of our large expenses that we know are coming, but we also set aside money just like you do with your family budgets, for the unplanned, for the unknown, something that's going to go wrong. We do that all the time and we need to continue to do that, we need to be very responsible fiscally. We also need to make sure that we keep up with the 21st century, we need to make sure that we are keeping our teachers ahead of the curve, we are keeping them educated, we are keeping them up to date with the most current curriculum, the most current standards," said Krysl.

Krysl said the district was just getting into new language arts standards passed by the State of Nebraska.

"We are going to have to redo our language arts curriculum, thats a great thing, thats great for our kids, thats great for our teachers, we need to make sure that we continue to do that," said Krysl.

Krysl said a quality education is one of the best things we can give our kids.

"I would be honored if I am reelected to this position. I will continue to make every decision from my heart with the best interest of every single child in mind," said Krysl.

Shane Messersmith said he was finishing up his second term on the school board, "being on the board for eight years, I mean, there's a lot of things you go through. It's hard to believes its been eight years on this board, making a difference for the kids."

Messersmith said early on his main goal was to give the kids from McCook the best opportunity to get a great education.

"From getting controlled climate year round to hiring one of the best superintendents in the state of Nebraska. We have controlled spending while lowering the tax levy almost every year since I've been on the board," said Messersmith.

Messersmith was asked his thoughts on the two-reading rule removed by the school board in recent years and to elaborate on comments he made related to ensuring the superintendent realizes the school board is his boss, and not the other way around.

Messersmith said he voted against removal of the two-reading rule because having time for response from the public was an important part of the process.

"Right now, a lot of times they bring it to us on Thursday, we vote it on Monday, we don't have time to background check it. I'm not a huge supporter of this, I want this rule to come back," said Messersmith.

"With the superintendent there is a system of checks and balances that our forefathers created and when I got on the school board, it wasn't there. We gotta realize the superintendent works for the school board, we work for the taxpayer. We can't become friends with the superintendent, because if we decide, if they have a wish list, do we go with the wish list, or do we go with what the taxpayer deserves, being fiscally responsible with their money."

Messersmith said he would like to see more agriculture throughout the schools and get back to the three R's, reading, writing and arithmetic.

Messersmith said it was a great honor seeing local kids graduate and then return to the area with a degree and apply for a teaching position, "they want to teach in the school that has given them a great opportunity, that's what I love about McCook schools."