Wide-ranging issues mark Lakota school board candidates forum

Candidates for Lakota’s school board squared off Wednesday evening in an election forum, touching on a wide-range of issues but veering from any major disagreements.

Last week the Journal-News reported some of the six candidates — vying for three open seats — took issue with candidate Todd Parnell, who has publicly contended he is the only fiscal conservative running for the governing board.

But none of those disagreements surfaced during the forum, which was sponsored by the West Chester and Liberty Chamber Alliance and seen by an audience of more than 70 in the Lakota Central Office in Liberty Twp.

Instead, unity was the overall theme of the evening as the half dozen candidates found themselves in agreement more often than not.

“I want to keep the positive momentum going,” said Parnell of Lakota Schools’ relatively stable financial status and generally improving academic success.

Earlier this year Lakota officials announced the school system’s cash projections have it operating without a deficit until 2020 — and given adequate funding from the state and other favorable variables — may be able to sustain its current solvency to 2026.

“We don’t need to cut anything. We are in the best financial shape in our history,” said Parnell, who did say there is room for improvement and that residents often mention a desire to see high school busing restored, which was eliminated in 2011 as part of sweeping budget cuts.

Candidate Ray Murray said the board needs to maintain and broaden its communicative bridges to the Lakota community, which comprises Liberty and West Chester townships, and that includes listening to students and their needs.

“As a board if we don’t get out of this building (Central Office) we don’t know. We need to get into the classrooms,” said Murray, who also advocated for restoration of all-day kindergarten, expanding school days from six to seven periods and expanding arts, music and physical education class opportunities for more of Lakota’s 16,500 students.

Ernst Gause, echoed the importance of listening to students, saying board members should “ask them a single question: What’s important to you?”

“Sometimes we over think issues. What is important to them (students) is what we have to consider when the board is making decisions,” said Gause.

Fellow candidate Kelley Casper said “it’s important at the junior high and the high school level to empower the students. At both high schools we do a tremendous program called Be The Difference, which teaches kids how to accept kids for who they are.”

“If you reach out to the kids to let the kids help the kids … that makes a big difference,” said Casper.

Brad Lovell stressed that comparisons to adjacent Mason Schools and its performance on the state’s annual report card are problematic.

“We have challenges we are facing here in Lakota that Mason doesn’t have to face,” said Lovell. He added that in the Ohio Department of Education’s report card, academic “growth isn’t always accurately identified.”

Jason Baldwin said the district’s community outreach needs to be “a layered approach.”

Board members have to “go to the schools and put in the face time” with students.

“When you do that, the students feel they have a stake in the game,” said Baldwin.

The stakes in this year’s Lakota board race are historically high, with a majority of three open seats on the governing body that oversees Ohio’s eighth largest district and the largest suburban school system in Southwest Ohio.

Moreover, current Lakota board member Lynda O’Connor’s seat may also open up if she is successful in her campaign bid to win a seat among West Chester’s trustees.

Should that happen, the school board’s members after the Nov. 7 election would vote to appoint someone to the seat, resulting in what could ultimately be a four-member turnover on the five-member board.

And the next set of board members will be overseeing new Lakota Superintendent Matt Miller, who began work in August.

Ohio school board members serve four-year terms and the boards hire district superintendents and treasurers, while overseeing and deciding on the spending of millions of tax dollars as well as whether their districts will seek school tax hikes from local residents and businesses.

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