The five candidates for Hays USD 489 were interviewed by the Hays Post. Their responses are being presented in a question-and-answer format. The other candidates running include: Ken Brooks, Craig Pallister, Curt Vajanr and Meagan Zampieri-Lillpopp.
Three seats are available on the board. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 4.
Age: 61
Occupation: Small business owner. I own Amazing Grace Home Care, and also the Horseshoe Bar and Grill. I'm a registered nurse.
What do you think qualifies you to run for the school board?
I feel like in my past, not only as a parent and a grandparent of kids in the school district, I have 11 grandchildren and most of them have been in public school systems here, but also as a small business owner, I understand policies and understand the economics of running a business, and the school board can be looked at that way.
There's expectations on the part of the school board to be able to manage the resources in a wise manner. I think that's one of the things that qualifies me. Over the past several decades that I've been a small business owner, we have learned to manage our resources wisely. I think that could be lended to functioning as a school board member.
Do you have a child or grandchild currently attending Hays USD 489 schools or did any of your children attend in the past?
All of my children attended Hays High and were in the public school system here, from Lincoln during grade school, all the way through. Then I have grandchildren in the public school system. Now, they're at O'Loughlin.
Why are you running for election?
I want to be able to help the school board be more in tune with the expectations of the voters. I feel like in the past few years, there's been maybe a disconnect between some of our leadership and what the citizens of Hays and the voters are expecting.
I want to be able to run for the school board and be on the school board to help citizens know that they will be listened to, that they will have input, that there will be more transparency and more accountability.
It'll be where the school board actually has a better working relationship with the voters, as opposed to having leadership that maybe has that disconnect. I want to be able to bring that to the school board and allow for a better connection between our leadership and the voters.
Follow-up question: What do you think are the expectations of the voters?
I think that voters expect the school board to manage our resources wisely. But also, of course, the school board [also has] obligations not only to maintain the buildings, you know, and maintain our infrastructure and that sort of thing, but also watch over the outcomes.
So that way, our students are competitive, our students are having scores that are commiserate with what we would expect, compared to other schools in the in the state and in the country too, but specifically in Kansas.
SEE RELATED STORY: Hays USD 489 recognized as high performing district in the state
SEE RELATED STORY: Hays USD 489 to focus on math under new state accreditation system
I would want to be able to show that USD 489 can continue to be a really strong district when it comes to making sure that our students graduate competitively.
But what I really think the voters expect is that the school board manages and navigates those resources so kids who graduate from our school systems here can afford to stay here and live here.
We want them to be able to stay, and we want them to be able to use the skills that they learned from our public school system, and maybe even, you know, go to Fort Hays and continue on as citizens of this community.
I want that to be an all-inclusive package, where we can promote future growth of Hays by making sure that we have good growth promoted by our school board.
Follow up questions: Do you think the academic standards for the local school district do not equal the state and other districts?
I think, in comparison, just from the things that I've read, it's specifically math that is the one that you know runs about 30% are not at grade level. See a report on math scores from 2024.
SEE RELATED STORY: Kansas state education board expands scoring range for student assessments
The graduation rate is good, but I think we can do better as far as the math proficiency scores and get to a higher amount.
The one thing I hope I can also bring to the table is that spending more money on something doesn't necessarily translate into improved outcomes and improved scores.
There are other factors that are involved in there, supporting the teachers and supporting the school functions as a general rule. I don't think it necessarily means we have to spend more money on it. That's one way we can also answer to the taxpayers, because we can make sure that we're not trying to solve problems just by spending more money.
Do you support the district's five-year capital improvement plan? If not, is there anything that you would change about it?
I do support the plan overall, but I do also request there be more transparency in that plan. Because as a community member attending school board meetings, it's very difficult to hear that some of the school board had not actually seen some of the [floor] plans, and some readable plans.
For the project for the new high school, when the building was ready to be started, they had not actually seen the plans yet. So that's frustrating as a community member to not have that kind of transparency, where we can expect, at least our school board has seen the plans going into the future projects.
So some of the school board members had said in their meetings that I've attended they hope they can get better. That's also something that I hope. There needs to be improvement there where school board members can ask for readable plans and get them in a timely fashion.
That way, they have an opportunity to make suggestions, maybe some cost-cutting measures that could be brought to them by the community or brought to the builders by the school board. That way, we can all work together to maybe save a little bit, but still come out with a great project.
Do you support the plans for the remaining bond projects? If not, is there anything that you would change about those projects?
Specifically with regard to the old Hays High, which will become the middle school, I think some of the building projects I would change.
I would change the plan [to eliminate] things that don't need to be redone. For instance, the most recent discussion was about the floors. And as the superintendent said, the floors are actually really in great shape there. There's nothing wrong with them. They're perfectly fine.
What I would like to do is focus on the things that are OK and renovate only the areas that need improvement. I think we could save a considerable amount of money rather than demolishing something that is actually OK and usable.
That's something that community members would do in their own personal lives, in their own homes and their own small businesses. Nobody would demolish a perfectly good floor just because we have money to spend on it.
I think I support the plan, but I think there are ways that we can navigate through that plan and make some changes that would actually result in a lower amount of money spent at the end of the day.
How would you view your role as a school board member, oversight with administrators and teachers handling day-to-day operations, or the board manages all aspects of operations?
I think oversight because the teachers and administrators should be in charge of daily operations. The teachers should be in charge of their classrooms.
I think the school board should be able to provide oversight to all of those functions and intervene from a policy standpoint if they see a problem. Collectively, if the school board votes to re-examine some of those policies, that's where I think their obligation would lie.
Do you think the district is adequately managing its budget? If not, what would you change or cut?
I think the answer to that question lies in an audit from top to bottom of all expenses, because any functioning business, which you know, the school district is a functioning business, has an opportunity to find and root out any waste.
Something, maybe funds would be better used over here. I would answer that question by starting with an audit and look at everything from top to bottom.
Because without looking at that and seeing where each itemized transaction, where all that money is going, I can't really say what I would cut, because that's not fair.
That's not fair to the school board or to the budget in general, without an answer to that question, without being able to audit it and see where the money has gone.
Follow up, do you have any idea how costly that might be to do an audit? The district already has to undergo an audit every year of its accounting practices.
But this would be a different layer. This would be a different layer, and yes, there's an expense involved in auditing. However, usually the outcomes of those audits offset the expense of the audit in general. That's what I mean.
Most businesses find that to be true, because the reason for doing an audit in the first place is there's questions that haven't been answered.
If there's any hope of adjusting the budget to be more efficient, it has to start with an audit. It's not a negative thing. Actually, to do an audit is a positive thing because it's a search for more efficiency. It's a search for more savings. It's a search for moving money around. So maybe this project over here can get off the ground. It's not a negative thing to audit yourself.
Are there any policies that you think should be changed? How would you change those policies if you had the ability?
I think one thing I would change is the statement made at the start of the school board meetings that the community is told not to bring up something that's already been brought up. There may be a better way to word that.
I understand that the intention behind it was not to have community members all coming up and saying the same thing. But when that is said to the community, it makes them feel like they're supposed to be able to keep track of what everybody else brought up, which is impossible.
Also, it makes them feel like, if more than one community member is saying the same thing, that the perception is that no one's listening if they have to keep saying the same thing over and over again. So I would change that because I think it would go a long way in changing the community's perception of the school board.
It would make the community feel like the school board is there to listen, and I want people to feel that way. I want people to feel like they're going to be heard and they're going to be listened to.
Not told that way, you can't say this, or you can't say that, because somebody else already did.
I would also change a policy where people could tune into the school board meetings via Zoom in real time, so that way, if they had a question or part of the community participation could be questions put into the Zoom chat.
Even if those questions couldn't be answered during that school board meeting, they easily could be answered later in a different format that would allow for greater community participation. I think people would feel more heard if they could ask a question and not necessarily have to stand up in front of everybody.
I don't think community members should be required to give their address, as it becomes public information when recorded on video and shared on YouTube and other platforms.
So I don't think community members should have to give their address, because I do know from some people in the community that's one of the reasons that they won't speak at the school board meeting.
For whatever reason, they're required to give their address, and they don't want to do that. I realize that protects us from having people from outside of Hays come talk at school board meetings as part of the community.
They could just say, 'I'm from here in Hays.' I don't think they should have to give their address, and I would like to see that policy change.
Is there anything else that you would like to add?
This is something that I have said to people, not only just over campaigning, but also just in general, is that we have leadership that is perceived to be a little out of touch with the voters and with the community, and this is true of school board, city commission, state and federal government.
It doesn't matter what level it is, any level of leadership we have to make sure that our public, the voters, know that we're not out of touch, that we do listen to what they have to say, and that we care about our the impact of our decisions.
When you have leadership that's out of touch with the voters and with their constituents, it's really easy to raise taxes. It's really easy to make decisions without feeling the pain that the people are going to feel in an average household.
It may seem like only a few dollars over here, but when you add all those things together, some people are really suffering. It hurts me that we have so many people talking about moving out of Hays because of whatever the issue is, whether it be property taxes or bond paybacks.
I mean, whatever the issue is, I'd like to see us take an opportunity to turn that around to where we don't have people talking about moving out of Hays. We have people talking about moving into Hays. I want to fill that high school with as many students as it can handle, and I think there are some things that we can do to make that happen.
As told to Cristina Janney/Hays Post