03/11/2022
The following article was published in the Lebanon Reporter Oct. 13, 2022. It has since been shortened on their website. Here is the longer version, which provides additional information.
Meet Zionsville's School Board Candidates
Oct. 13, 2022
Candidates for the Zionsville Community Schools Board of Trustees faced off Tuesday, Oct. 4, in a community forum at Zionsville Town Hall.
The eight candidates addressed issues ranging from the boardâs role and school funding to safety concerns and mental health. About 150 people attended, and an additional 150-plus tuned in to the livestream.
Rocky Killion, former superintendent of the West Lafayette Community School Corp. served as moderator. The event was hosted by Boone County Voices for Change, a grassroots organization that seeks to bring balance to the local political conversation.
The complete recording of the forum is available at www.facebook.com/BooneCountyVoicesforChange.
Residents of the Zionsville schools district vote for three candidates, one each from the At-Large, Eagle, and Union districts. At-Large candidates include Matt Keefer, Sarah Sampson and Christy Wessel-Powell. Eagle candidates are Michael Berg and Tim Hardt. Union candidates include Mike Coussens, Marcus Such and Jen Valentine. (See bios in sidebar.)
The moderator first asked candidates what their top priorities would be if elected.
Incumbents Berg and Coussens, as well as Wessel-Powell said the board would need to help with the transition as longtime superintendent, Scott Robison, retires and is replaced by Rebecca Coffman early in 2023.
Several candidates said they would focus on improving communication between the school board and parents. âToo often over the last two to three years, parents were showing up at school board meetings to express concerns over a wide variety of things, and those comments were effectivelyâŚunheard,â Such said.
Such, Hardt and Sampson are endorsed by Parents for Accountable Schools (PFAS), a political action committee that was formed in 2021 to help elect school board members who embrace accountability and transparency. PFAS believes that several school board members did not take seriously concerns about mask mandates during the covid pandemic, according to its website, www.accountableschools.org.
A few candidates also said they would like to return teachersâ focus to academics. Keefer said he would like to âempower teachers to educate, not indoctrinate.â He added, âWe need to simplify the teachersâ workload so itâs focused on educating the kids and not satisfying the state.â
Hardt said he wants to make sure that âteachers have the time and the ability to focus on their core content.â
These statements echo a national movement in which groups similar to PFAS, such as Moms for Liberty, have called for returning teachersâ focus to âtraditionalâ or âcore Americanâ values. PFAS advocates for limiting social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum and keeping concepts including âsystemic racismâ and âwhite privilegeâ out of classrooms, according to its website.
Berg and Valentine said mental health is a top priority coming out of the pandemic. âItâs extremely important to address it and to normalize it to help these kids and teachers through these times,â Valentine said.
Killion next asked candidates about the role school boards should play with regard to classroom curriculum.
Hardt and Keefer advocated for the board to take an active role in managing curriculum. âThe state has empowered school boards with great authority and autonomy to make sure whatâs going on in the classrooms and in the schools is reflective of the community,â Hardt said.
But Wessel-Powell disagreed. âIt is not the purview of the school board to direct curriculum,â she said. "That is in the hands of professionalsâthe teachers that we have hired that are guiding the activities in classrooms according to state standards.â
Such said teachers need to have a stronger partnership with parents and publish curriculums more widely, especially when it involves âmature and controversial topics.â Sampson said she supports offering an âalternate bookâ for people who donât agree with the curriculum.
Regarding transparency, Sampson and Coussens pointed out that curriculum plans are already posted online, and parents have a chance to review them every spring. There is also a form on the school website in place for parents to submit curriculum objections, Valentine said, adding that the board needs to educate parents to know that these mechanisms exist.
Asked about tax referendums, most candidates agreed they would support them if needed to retain teachers after considering other budget options. Keefer said he would look at âadministrative bloatâ and possibly thinning the ranks of administrators as an alternative to a tax increase.
âI would look for areas that are able to be cut that donât impact the students as much,â Sampson said. She said she would look into having parents drive their kids to school instead of busing.
Wessel-Powell said she would like to see the Zionsville community advocate for additional funding from the state.
Both incumbents, Berg and Coussens, agreed referendums are absolutely needed under the current state funding formula, which results in Zionsville receiving one of the lowest per pupil funding levels statewide.
âWe do all these due-diligence checks to make sure that we are in a position where we need those referendums,â Coussens said, "and I do 100 percent agree that we do have a need for it.â
When asked about school safety measures, most candidates said they appreciate the school resource officers (SROs) Zionsville already has in place, as well as lock-down drills that are routinely performed.
Most strongly opposed arming teachers. âI think thatâs an accident waiting to happen,â Wessel-Powell said. âSo please no, never. That is a horrible idea.â
Sampson, however, indicated she would consider arming teachers. âI donât want to make anybody a security guard that doesnât want to be one,â Sampson said. âI canât say that I would be against if a vetted and licensed carrying gun holder was asked to have one in the west wing and one in the east wing. I donât know.â
Valentine and others also supported improving traffic safety for pedestrians and bike-riders on their way to and from school.
Berg, Keefer and Such said safety measures should also include a focus on mental health to prevent school shootings. Berg added thatâs where SEL has its greatest impact.
âSchool shooters, as people have mentioned, are disenfranchised students. They donât feel connected to their community; they donât feel like they have friends,â said Berg, a professional mental health therapist. âSo a big part of safety ultimately boils down to all of the things we do to help people feel like they belong here.â
More broadly, all of the candidates agreed mental health is an area that needs more resources, especially given the increased needs of students and staff, as well as the national shortage of mental health professionals.
Berg said that the schools have gone from a contract with one therapist for the district to having a therapist for each school.
However, the candidates disagreed sharply about the role of SEL in school. Zionsvilleâs social-emotional learning curriculum is called Second Step, and it includes lessons about empathy and managing emotions at the elementary level, as well as goal-setting, bullying and social conflict at the middle school level.
Berg, Valentine and Wessel-Powell said they support SELâs role in school, but other candidates suggested social-emotional lessons should be handled by parents at home.
âThereâs a number of instances where SEL can go too farâwhere it starts to, rather than identifying implicit bias, it actually builds in bias into our students,â Such said. âIt also covers a number of complex and very mature topics which are not necessarily what all students at a certain grade level are ready to hear.â
Keefer said he believes that SEL should be limited to âtroubled studentsâ and students whose parents wish for them to be in an SEL program. âI believe that SEL is a waste of mainstream kidsâ time to actually get educated in the classroom,â he said.
Coussens pointed out, however, that SEL is a state mandate. âSo thatâs pretty easy to say yes, we should do it,â he said.
The event concluded with candidates giving closing statements. Hardt claimed to be âthe only candidate here with any really significant public-school teaching experience,â although Wessel-Powell was also a teacher.
Coussens, an engineer, joked âyou donât have to be a rocket scientist to do this job, but it does help.â And Keefer gave a shout-out to Such, calling him a âkind, brilliant man.ââ˘
Candidates:
At-Large
Matt Keefer has been a practicing anesthesiologist for 36 years. He describes himself as an independent candidate who he says is disliked by both the âextreme leftâ and âRepublican leadersâ because he âcanât be controlled" and is ânot compliant with outside interests.â Keefer said he thinks critically and has experience leading people through stressful times. âIâve been described as wanting to dismantle the system,â Keefer said. He added, âI am the biggest ally of children, teachers and parents of anybody up here.â
Sarah Sampson, the current president of Zionsville high schoolâs parent teacher organization (PTO), has a background as an accountant working for Deloitte. She said as a board member she would be fiscally responsible and transparent. Additionally, she would like to add electives in industrial arts and consumer science to the high school. âWeâd be giving skills and dexterity to this generation while simultaneously working to help address the limited supply of trade labor in the current workforce,â Sampson said. She is endorsed by Parents for Accountable Schools.
Christy Wessel-Powell is an assistant professor of education at Purdue University where she teaches and conducts research on literacy and school equity. She also is the principal investigator for a literacy grant with the Indiana Dept. of Education. Previously, she was an elementary school teacher in Chicago, St. Louis, Brooklyn, N.Y., and Gary, Ind. âIâm excited to bring my background as an education researcher and former teacher to the board to enhance the good work that they already do,â Wessel-Powell said. She is endorsed by current school board member Debbie Ungar.
Eagle
Michael Berg, an incumbent school board member, has a background as a mental health therapist. He oversees the non-medical HIV program for a large hospital system. Berg said heâs running for re-election because heâs come to love and respect Zionsville teachers and administrators. âI feel like there are folks who are trying to cut down on their autonomy,â he said. He added that he wants to protect property values. âSchools are the No. 1 reason people move to this community,â Berg said. âIf we drive the teachers out and the [administrators] out, weâre going to lose that.â He is endorsed by current school board member Debbie Ungar.
Tim Hardt, a sales training manager at Angie, has a background as a coach, nonprofit board member and teacher, including being a former chair of the English As A New Language department at North Central High School. âI feel itâs really important we restore some transparency and accountability as well as communication with the board to families,â Hardt said. âIâm also very excited about the opportunity to get back to refocusing and allowing our teachers to refocus on the core academic content that they went to college to learn how to teach.â He is endorsed by Parents for Accountable Schools and U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.).
Union
Mike Coussens, also an incumbent school board member, is an engineer at Peerless Pump Co. Coussens said heâs focused on academics, school safety and financial responsibility. In particular, he is interested in helping facilitate a smooth transition as longtime Superintendent Scott Robison retires and is replaced by Rebecca Coffman in early 2023. âI want to ensure that Mrs. Coffman has the team in place to help support her with her new initiatives that sheâs going to bring to the school corporation,â Coussens said. He is endorsed by current school board members Debbie Ungar and Jeff Papa.
Marcus Such is an actuary who has experience with data analytics, finance and statistics, as well as managing teams and budgets. He said he would like to see a stronger partnership between the community, parents, and the school board. âIâd also like to see increased transparency and accountability from our school board so we can better understand motivations and planning underlying some of the decision-making that goes on at the school board meetings,â Such said. He added that he would like to help empower teachers to ârefocus themselves back to academics and teaching.â He is endorsed by Parents for Accountable Schools.
Jen Valentine, who has a degree in human resource management, worked for 15 years at an accounting firm in the Detroit area overseeing software implementation, budgets, and staffing as well as report-writing and team-building. She and her family moved to Zionsville in 2014 primarily for the schools, and she has become an active volunteer in the schools and elsewhere. âIâm a doer,â Valentine said. âI am enthusiastic about learning and educating, and I love our teachers and our administrators. I will do everything I can to support them and all of our kids moving forward.â
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