Editorís note: Rounds one and two of the Goshen County School District #1ís Board of Trustees candidates appeared in the Wednesday, October 23 edition. The responses to each question of rounds three and four are below.

GOSHEN COUNTY – Monday evening, members of the community, parents, teacher and registered voters attended the Education matter: School board candidates forum in the Torrington High School Auditorium. The event was sponsored by the Goshen County Education Association (GCEA) and members Jennifer Brummel and Stacie Fullmer presented each candidate with a series of random questions. 

Round three

Brummel: “How would you as a board member strive to strengthen the relationships between schools, families and their communities?” 

Travis Grosz: “Number one is communication. I mean that’s critical to anything we do in life. You have to communicate. You know, backing the teachers up, backing the administrators up, listening to what they have say, what the kids have to say and what the parents have to say I mean that we need to communicate we need to listen. I think sometimes it’s you know it’s too much of what I want to do and how I want to do it and not listening to what is going to work best for everyone else.”

Brummel: “How will you as a board member, support Goshen County students in becoming productive 21st century citizens?”

Dylan Hager: “Over the last, it’s probably a couple of years, just on our school board we’ve been working on drafting a new mission and vision statement. One of the big key components in that I was super passionate about was just allowing the kids to kind of have a working relationship. Kind of in their own pathway like what they want to do when they grow up just having them think about it at an earlier age instead of being told, ‘Go take English,’ ‘Go take whatever else,’ just give them an opportunity to help decide some of their own future.”

Brummel: “How do you plan to support teachers and ensure they have the resources they need?”

Michael Harrison: “Ask them. You have to ask them what they need and you have to listen. That’s hard because sometimes we already think we know what the answers are but we don’t always listen to what they’re telling us. God gave us two ears and one mouth. You’re supposed to listen twice as much, right? In the spirit of this, ask them what they need and ask them what resources would be beneficial for them and then work on getting them those resources. My mom, as a school teacher, said that all the time she wished she had an X, Y and Z nobody listened so she bought her own stuff so she would have X, Y and Z. I think if we want our teachers to be successful and to be productive to do everything that we ask them to do we have to give them the resources and listen to when they tell us what they need and then work our best and give them those resources.”

Brummel: “How would you ensure transparency and open communication?”

Valerie Lamb-Sharp: “For me, open communication is just, it’s a respectful thing. We need to listen to the others when they’re talking. We don’t need to be thinking about our response. We need to be actively listening. So many people when they have their own agenda and so when somebody else is talking all they’re thinking about is how they’re going to defend themselves, how they’re going to counter that and that is not respectful and that is not enough communication situation. We need to listen. We need to actually be open minded, and we need to be respectful of the people that we are listening to and we are talking to. Transparency for me is being honest and open. If I mess up, I mess up. Own it. You know, let’s just do it because we all make mistakes. We all make decisions that may or may not be what everybody else wants but when we do things, we need to own what we’re doing. We need to take the accountability and the responsibility for what we do.”

Brummel: “What do you feel is the primary function of a school board member?”

Ryan Larkin: “I think the primary function of the school board member is to work with the other school board members, obviously, and to support and hold accountable the superintendent, to also work with them. I think it’s important to be able to have those relationships with the with the schools to be able to support them so you know what they need as well as you know drafting policies in various different less exciting things.”

Brummel: “What in your background leads you to believe you would be an effective school board member?”

Kelly Meeboer Strampe: “I’ve been dying to talk about this all night. I’m, as I said, a college English professor and so I see the students who graduate from our school district and then come up to Torrington to take classes and I also have high school students in my classes right now, in my online classes. I also get to see students from all over the state and all over the country and so I think that from that perspective and also thinking about the trends over time that I am uniquely positioned to kind of talk about what I’m seeing with students, what I’ve seen in the past, how things have changed. We’re seeing how COVID affected certain levels, you know, when they were in middle school or high school during the time that they were at home and so I’m hoping that that can be an asset on the board is just having that different perspective from a different level of education.”

Brummel: “Are you familiar with the three initiatives focused on professional development for the Goshen County School District? MTSS, our multi-tiered system of support, PLC, professional learning community and the Leader in Me. Do you support continuing this work in the Goshen County School District?

Jo Meininger: “I seemed to be familiar with some of that. Some of that has changed in the one year out but yeah. Some works really good it’s like fine, fine, as long as it’s not in not adding more work for the teacher who’s still trying to teach kids. You know, you only have so many hours from the from morning to the end of the day. You’ve got to get your basics in but some of these things are very helpful. They kind of teach the kids you know how to respect each other, how to work together with each other. Of course, behavior seems to be one of our biggest problems so if it’s helpful, I’m supporting it, but if it seems like it’s kind of just something added on another piece put on that the teachers doesn’t have enough time to get through anyway, then I probably wouldn’t support that. But only if it’s helpful for my kiddos. Whoops, I don’t have kiddos now do, I?”

Brummel: “What will you do to ensure that the board operates efficiently and effectively avoiding gridlock and partisanship?

Lena Moeller: “I can speak to what we have been doing. There’s a lot of discussions and we’ve got to be respectful and just understand where everybody’s coming from. I don’t know that we’ve had any moments of gridlock on the board since I’ve been on, but I do feel like open communication that can be respectful. I do not think that a board member is effective that sits back and says nothing or doesn’t share his or her perspective or opinions because that’s why we’re in there. There’s nine of us to provide a wide variety of different perspectives and opinions so I think in order for us to be efficient and effective we’ve got to talk to each other. We do learn to work with each other and there are some hard conversations that take place but if you’re going to sit as a board member and say nothing then I ask why you’re on the board.”

Brummel: “What unique qualities do you bring to this role?

Diane Servantez: “I think my training and experience in education bring a plethora of experience that I could add to the district. I was a crisis negotiator for the FBI so that might help, it sounds like. I do feel like, you know, when I took on the role in continuing my education, I focused on prevention education. I focused on Latinos and education, on diversity and education so I kind of knew the totality of what we could do as a community to better serve the kids that have those needs. I had a child that was in special ed and so I feel like having that knowledge and being able to listen to a lot of other people that have had some of the same challenges and the teachers, special ed teachers that have had challenges bring just a special person in.”

Brummel: “Torrington and Goshen County have a history of diversity, rooted in agriculture and a wide range of socioeconomic background. As a protentional school board member, how would you support and meet the needs of these diverse populations within our community?”

Kate Steinbock: “I think I always come back to that we need to listen. We need to pay attention to what the teachers are telling us and how to best support all different groups of students, whether they be diversity in terms of race or socioeconomic status whatever that may be how can we best serve all of the students. I think we just need to listen we need to pay attention to what students and staff have to say. I really feel like teachers are the experts they are like the students eight hours a day, seven hours a day. They get to know them and their families. I do think that if we can figure out ways to get families involved, parents involved, in in the school a little bit more that would be helpful, and I think that would also support as supporting the different diversity.”

Brummel: “How would you educate yourself if there is a topic in front of the board of which you have limited knowledge?”

Michael Tighe: “I think it just comes down to taking the time to find out everything you can about the subject, how the community feels about it, how the parents feel about it and breaking it down to how exactly it will benefit our students. I think putting students’ needs above a lot of our adult needs would help at least sway your actions on some of these tough subjects. I think the biggest thing is finding out from the people that deal with our children every day. They’re the ones that, I mean, half the time these teachers spend more time with our children on a given day than we do so if it’s a subject that they have some input on we need to listen to them and learn everything thing about it.”

The candidates were then given one last opportunity to speak for one minute to the general population during the forum Monday evening.

Round four

Michael Tighe: “First of all, I would just like to say thank you to the GCEA for putting this on. Very tough questions. I’ve never spoke in front of this many people and been this nervous. I just want to say that, you know, I’m willing to listen to that and what needs to be done to make our schools better, to make our children better, to make our teachers better, to make our staff better. When I decided to do this, I said that there was going to be no agenda and I was not going to bring any kind of politics into this. I’m going hold to that, I mean, it’s all about the kids and it’s all about Goshen Schools being the best. I would also like to thank all of the candidates that decided to actually show up. Then lastly, something came out today in the news that, by all means, ACT scores were the highest among all states that require students to take the ACT test so all the teachers and staff out there, congratulations.”

Dylan Hager: “[The] first, I guess, I’d like just to thank you guys as a community for to spending the time here and listening to us as candidates. I think it’s super important that the community does have their best educated knowledge on the candidates up here because we can’t change a whole lot, but we do we do have some impact on your students and the community so thank you guys for just wanting to be here, I guess. The biggest thing for me is I don’t think anybody should bring their personal agenda up here for support and 100% all politics shouldn’t be here just about serving our community and our students.”

Michael Harrison: “I want to thank all the parents of all the students in the school district. I’m one, you are one of them. We raise our kids and hope when we send them off to school that they’re going to be taken care of and I think for the most part they are. I think change takes time and I have to thank that the teachers and the staff and faculty of all the schools because they’re doing the best and they know how to do with the best that they have the resources to do. My mom being a teacher and my wife working for the school district and lots of friends that you know working on in Goshen County with the school district, you guys do a hard job and I applaud you guys because at the end of the day it’s a noble calling to be a teacher, to be a para, to be a faculty member of any of the schools here and I think there’s lots of work that we can do and we can do it together and I just want to be part of that and to help where I can.”

Valerie Lamb-Sharp: “I would like to thank everyone for showing up. I am the one that showed up late. I have to apologize for that, but I will own my mistakes. I believe that I bring to this organization a sense of leadership. I have a background in leadership, and I would love the opportunity to serve you, serve this community. I love children and I believe that learning in school is just the beginning of our lives. We will continue to learn through the rest of our lives. We are setting the basis for our students right here in the school system. We need to teach them to love to learn because the rest of their life depends on their ability to continue to learn. I would ask that you would give me some consideration and there’s many good people up here on this board, so I know it’s a tough choice.”

Ryan Larkin: “Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight, for putting this on so that you all have the opportunity to come and educate yourselves before you vote. I think it’s extremely important to be educated before we vote. It’s a big, big decision on who’s going to be making policies and supporting the district for the next few years so it’s not something we need to take lightly. As far as what I would bring in, I think I’m a pretty well-rounded person. Most people that know me would tell you that I’m pretty level-headed. If you’ve got something to say, I’m more than willing to listen. At the end of the day, we may agree, we may disagree but we’re going to leave knowing that that’s okay either way. It’s important to be able to hear both sides of the story and be able to understand that.”

Kelly Meeboer Strampe: “I think when you run for something like this you want to believe that you are one of the best choices and I do think that I can do a good job on the board but I also want to acknowledge that after tonight, I have a really good idea that we do have a lot of good candidates and that this is going to be a tough decision. I think one thing that was clear is that everyone has the best interest of our students in mind, and I also wanted to emphasize that we have a lot of really effective good caring teachers and staff in the district. I know that one of the challenges that the district faces sometimes is keeping people but that’s kind of a America’s rural education. We have the same issue at the college sometimes so I think it’s really important when we get people who are effective at their jobs that we make it a place that they want to stay and I hope that I can help with some of the things that might contribute to keeping people around.”

Jo Meininger: “I’ve been in the trenches and I’ve been in three elementaries so I know a lot about La Grange Southeast and Torrington. I have that experience and that’s it’s been wonderful experiences. In my case, I didn’t actually have any children, but I did have these kids for nine months so it’s just like I have them. Of course, I like to pay attention when they graduation to see if all my kids are graduating so you’ll see me at the graduation. I have their little picture because that’s what’s cool about fifth grade you have the class picture and I just kind of check off, okay, these kids are graduating. Alright. Sometimes they sneak out and they go over to Lingle or Southeast and graduate. I don’t care. I like to see that they graduated and so I really want to promote that we get our kids graduated, where they want to show up to work. What I find is our kids aren’t, you know, to show up for their class they’re not showing up to their job. They’ve got them getting that plan that when they the workforce they’re going to have to show up for work so with all my experiences I think I can do it. I am a social butterfly.”

Lena Moeller: “You know me, a minute is not enough time so I will try not to talk fast. First and foremost, let’s talk about those scores. I am proud of this school district. I’m proud of each and every one of the educators in this room and all of those that served this district. These scores that were released show that what you’re doing in literacy and math, it’s working. It’s working and we have got to be consistent in keeping up that work for it to continue to work. Now is there room for improvement, absolutely, there is in everything in life but what we are doing now is working. We’ve got to remain consistent for it to continue to work. I have to remind myself that this is a forum and not a debate because I’ll be honest, school board meetings feel like we are under attack, a lot. Don’t allow that narrative to come into this school district. Don’t allow it to come into our community and our schools. Continue to listen to the teachers. Listen to those that are on the trenches or in the trenches. Trust those that are your neighbors and your family and your friends that you are sending your kids with the majority of their day, every single day.”

Diane Servantez: “What about those test scores? When I first applied to be on the school district, I read an article published regarding the top schools in Wyoming and I was really excited to start reading that because I really expected Torrington to be on that or Southeast or Lingle but unfortunately, we weren’t. Burns was, who I was surprised it was, I was like Burns beat all of us?  You know, and there were a lot of other schools on there that just blew my mind that we were not on, and I want to see us on that list, that’s one of my goals is to get us there. The other thing is that I heard somebody talk about the behavior problems which has always been an issue in in schools since I worked there. I was an SRO, so I know a lot about those and I want to be able to help and in making programs and listening to those teachers and being able to help those kids that do have behavioral problems that way all kids are learning and there’s not disruption in the class if we take care of those things then the other needs are going to follow.”

Kate Steinbock: “I also want to thank GCEA and all of you for organizing this and showing up to listen. I want to also thank the other candidates. This isn’t easy. This is intimidating but it’s important and I think that you know we have a lot of really good things that are happening in this district. Test scores are one of them and they are improving. I think that it’s important that we support those things, that we support our teachers and our staff. Just like with everything, there’s room for improvement. You know, I don’t know what that specifically is because I don’t have an agenda in terms of what I want to change. I just want to continue to support the things that we’re doing well and look for ways to improve in areas where we can improve. Thank you again for doing this and I appreciate all of you attending.”

Michael Tighe: “I’d like to thank you thank you guys for putting this forum on. It sure was nice to know that we were all invited to this one. I definitely want see our teachers and students supported and there’s so many good things going on in our district. Like everyone said, the scores are coming up and not just coming up. They are meeting and exceeding some standards and some goals. It sounds like everybody’s goal is to keep moving beyond those high standards and just keep going up and up. I’d like to see us play the long game as a board and see some of things through. Keep the politics out of our board and off of our agendas and do everything for the benefits of our students and our students alone.”