Six candidates are vying for three seats on the Wrangell School Board.
Angela Allen, Alex Angerman, Brittani Robbins and Elizabeth Roundtree are running for two open three-year terms. The top two vote-getters will win the election.
Julia Ostrander and Jessica Whitaker are competing to fill one seat for an unexpired one-year term.
Although each candidate has similar goals they want to achieve during their term if elected, they all have varied backgrounds and experience they believe would lend a unique perspective to the board.
Julia Ostrander
"I believe being a community member, a small business owner, I work full-time at the clinic, I'm a parent, basically I'm invested in this community," Julia Ostrander said of her qualifications to serve on the school board. "I think the school board is all about the community working together. It needs the community."
Ostrander, 36, who moved to Wrangell from Colorado just over three years ago, used to work on a volunteer ambulance in Colorado and was involved in parent-teacher councils. She's looking to get more involved in Wrangell and decided to run for the one-year school board term.
She believes the key to solving issues like lower enrollment (and losing state education dollars because of fewer students) is listening to the community.
"The community doesn't feel like they have a voice in the school here," Ostrander said. "If I get elected, I want to be the voice of the community. The school needs to be accountable to the community that's paying the taxes for this. And they need to have a voice and input on what happens at the school."
Ostrander said the community also isn't being listened to on things like masking, and that decisions need to be reasonable and balanced.
Another problem she would like to see addressed is an overuse of technology during class.
"I once sat in my son's classroom where he was on an iPad for six hours," she said. "He did his spelling on the iPad, he does
his reading on the iPad. I would like to see the school review that and make sure we're being reasonable on how much time they're spending on those devices. I don't think a child develops the fine motor skills - fine handwriting - by being on an iPad all day."
Technology should be gradually increased throughout a child's educational years because it's a necessary tool, not used all at once, she said.
Ostrander would also like to see more programs that would direct children toward higher education, and then encourage them to return to the community to fill jobs.
Angela Allen
"I want to run to make sure the kids are getting the quality education that they deserve," Angela Allen said. "It's time for me to get involved again."
Allen, 40, has two high school-aged children and a first grader. She's been "involved in the parent advisory committee for a long time. ... I run the Hooligan Reading Fair race every year, I have for the past eight to 10 years. Obviously, I have a long investment because my daughter is in first grade and I have a long way to go," she said.
On top of vying for a three-year seat on the board, Allen also operates a sawmill with her husband, works full time for SEARHC as a referral care coordinator, clinical assistant, patient access representative, pharmacy tech and scope tech. She's also a CPR-first aid instructor.
She moved to Wrangell from Redding, California, in 1998 when she was a senior in high school.
For Allen, the biggest problem facing the district right now is COVID-19-related.
"It's the masking and the social distancing," she said. "Wrangell just had a spot where we had very high COVID count, but now we were at one the other day, I'm assuming we'll be at zero soon, hopefully. Our kids socialize outside of school with all of their classmates at one point or another. I think it's unfair for them to be expected to go to school and wear a mask and distance from their friends when our case count is so low."
Allen is also frustrated the district sent out surveys asking for input from parents about mask wearing.
"It was under the impression that it would be evaluated for our children to not wear masks after the first two weeks of school," she said.
She would like to also be involved in picking curriculum, staff, funding and maintenance.
"Like I said, it's time for me to be involved," Allen said. Unlike other candidates, she thinks that technology in use by teachers and students and teachers is a good thing, saying it's a new day and age, and tech is a large part of that.
Alex Angerman
A recent college graduate, Alex Angerman is no stranger to public service.
Angerman, 23, is currently on the planning and zoning commission, is the CARES Act coordinator for the Wrangell Cooperative Association, was an intern with the Spokane Lands Council (in which she assisted with tree planting), a member of the National Society of Leadership and Success, and was a member of the Association of Student Planning at Eastern Washington University.
She has been a resident of Wrangell since 2011 and graduated high school here. Along with two younger brothers who are still enrolled in school, Angerman's mother is a kindergarten and first grade teacher, and her father has served as school board president.
"I have a college education, so I have an understanding of what can best prepare students for life after high school," she said. "Overall, I have a passion for education and the student experience means a lot to me."
Angerman is running for a three-year term on the school board, and she believes the biggest issue facing the district is the effect that COVID-19 is having on school life.
"From the political tension to the budget crisis, the pandemic has hit the school district hard," she said. "This is not just a Wrangell issue, as the pandemic has affected education globally."
The school district's current mitigation plan is working, Angerman said, and she would keep that plan in place to prioritize student and staff safety.
"The greatest yearn from the community is that students are able to be in class with their peers and following the safety measures will allow them to do so," she said.
For Angerman, education goes beyond what students learn from their lessons.
"Good schools are about much more than covering the curriculum, managing classrooms and preparing students for the future," she said. "Good schools help students feel accepted, safe and appreciated."
Brittani Robbins
Brittani Robbins is running for a three-year term on the school board. Currently, the 36-year-old is executive director of the Wrangell Chamber of Commerce and serves on the finance committee of the school district. She's also a Little League coach, Girl Scout leader and volunteers for different community events.
"I'm hoping to join the policy committee, but there can only be two board members per committee because of quorum," Robbins said of the open meetings law that limits when three members of the five-member school board can gather. "I want to be on at least two committees within the district. I feel like there needs to be a lot more advocation for the students and the parents, and a lot less advocation for the staff."
Robbins, who came to Wrangell with her family when she was just about to turn 4 years old, is now married and a mother of two. She believes the lack of advocacy for students, parents and classified (non-teacher) staff has a lot to do with the teachers union and negotiated contracts.
"It's all about the certified staff and the administration," she said, adding that maybe that's in the past. "We have just started with [Schools Superintendent] Bill [Burr], so I don't want to say anything bad about him. I'm actually quite excited to see [how he does]."
She worked for two years at the school in the IT department as coordinator, and she advocated for less technology use on the part of students, believing they had too much screen time.
Along with too much tech, Robbins believes the most pressing problem is that parents are not being heard. "I'm not saying no one is getting heard, but they're not getting heard enough," she said. "When you have a majority [of parents] saying one thing, but [the district] moves in a different direction, it makes those who are trying to have a voice feel like they don't deserve to have a voice, so why would I say anything because they're going to do what they want no matter what."
The focus for Robbins has always been the students.
"I have a history, both with the community and with the school, but the most important thing is I want to be on this board to be a voice for our kids," she said.
Elizabeth Roundtree
Elizabeth Roundtree came to Wrangell four years ago when her husband, John, got a job working with TSA. Moving from Connecticut, she began her research into the community.
"I have no reason to say, 'no,'" Roundtree said. "The school system's great; there's not that many people here; the crime is barely on the register. I get here and I start getting phone calls and text messages. 'Do you know what your daughter is doing?' I was like, 'I'm in 1950 America! What's going on? I love this.'"
Roundtree, 35, is a veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard. She describes herself as a person who "just dives in" to whatever she's doing, which is why she chose to run for the three-year term on the school board. She also volunteers for various community events where she can.
She has worked as a paraprofessional for the school, been a Girl Scout troop leader for six years, and currently works at Wrangell IGA. Roundtree believes kids aren't given enough credit and that the community doesn't have a voice when it comes to school decisions.
"I feel like it needs to be more about the kids and the families and the community, and a little bit less about the politics and the bureaucracy," she said. "I feel like the school board seems to care more about the teachers, and less about what the community needs or the building needs. There's a reason why a bunch of people stopped going to school and tried to homeschool their kids when COVID hit."
Roundtree's children - fourth and fifth graders - weren't among those homeschooled, as both her and her husband work full-time.
She feels the biggest issue facing the district is a lack of trust and no communication between the board, the schools and the community. But that was partly due to the previous superintendent, she said.
"I think the people in the community need to know they can call up the school and ask questions. The community seems quick to jump to Facebook and start putting down the school and saying things are horrible, but they don't reach out to the school to see what's going on," Roundtree said. "I don't know if that's because they're uncomfortable, but I think a line of communication needs to be set up. There's got to be a way to communicate to the community about their fears and concerns."
She also believes too much time and money is spent on technology, leading to a lack of conversational skills.
Jessica Whitaker
Except for a short time away at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, Jessica Whitaker has spent her entire life in Wrangell. While in college, she decided she didn't want to be a teacher and returned to her hometown to figure out what she wanted to do, now working as an administrative operations manager for behavioral health with SEARHC.
"I know that it's a commitment to run for the board and there's a lot of work that goes into it, but this year specifically I just wanted to see what kind of commitment that is [before running for a three-year term]," Whitaker, 36, said of why she decided to seek the one-year term. In addition to working full-time, she also has two small children and is going to college full-time.
Even though she kept her children out of school last year due to the pandemic, Whitaker kept attending meetings to see how the school board was going to approach the problem.
"What I was looking for myself was, I didn't want my kids to be in school and then the next week be out of school, and be in school and out of school," she said. "I couldn't manage a schedule where they were flip-flopping like that all the time."
Whitaker believes she is qualified for the position since she grew up in the district, has been a volleyball coach, sat on several community boards and been a contract employee for the school, her husband works in the custodial department, and her children are enrolled this year.
She believes the problems facing the school district are two-fold: a balanced budget with sufficient funding, and mitigating COVID-19 to keep kids in school.
She would solve the budgetary problems by researching dedicated grant writers and looking at spending, seeing where cutbacks could be made, and reallocating funds where possible. However, she admits that without studying the budget, she can't give a detailed answer.
As for COVID-19 mitigation, "it's continued partnership with our local EOC (emergency operations center), making sure that we're looking at things regionally, utilizing resources that are readily available like making sure we're following recommendations by pediatrics, the CDC (federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control) and our own state medical director," Whitaker said.
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