There’s lots at stake within the South Washington County School District in Tuesday’s election.

Voters can be electing three candidates to the college board and deciding whether to approve a $200 million, two-question bond referendum to fund improvements at the faculties. Also on the ballot: a matter asking voters to extend the district’s current $2.8 million technology levy to $5 million.

The district, which has 18,790 students, includes all or parts of Woodbury, Cottage Grove, Newport, St. Paul Park, Afton and Denmark and Grey Cloud Island Townships.

School board candidates

Eleven candidates are running for 3 seats on the college board, including incumbents Melinda Dols and Simi Patnaik. School board member Louise Hinz decided to not run for re-election.

Also running: Fekadu Kassa Ayichew, Chad Borseth, Ryan Clarke, Priscilla Kathryn Dimbo, Randall Johnson, Jaime Kokaisel, Anthony Mahmood, Satonia Moore and Molly Schaefer.

Although Ayichew’s name is on the ballot, he said Thursday he has dropped out of the race.

Clarke, Kokaisel and Mahmood are running as a slate of candidates and have been endorsed by Minnesota Parents Alliance, a conservative group formed last 12 months to thrust back against K-12 initiatives that promote racial equity and support for LGBTQ students. Dols, Moore and Patnaik have been endorsed by Education Minnesota.

In a candidates’ forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters of the Woodbury Cottage Grove Area, the candidates were asked what they felt was the primary issue that should be addressed by the college board.

Borseth is a special education teacher at Central High School in St. Paul who previously worked as a special education teacher at East Ridge High School in Woodbury.

“Having worked in the faculties for five years, I imagine that the primary priority facing our schools is our college culture,” Borseth said. “Too many children, students, parents and staff are walking into our schools, they usually don’t feel comfortable. We’ve got got to get to a spot where we don’t must have school-inclusion centers in our schools because everyone feels included. They be ok with walking into the door. With school culture, relationships are strengthened, and these relationships are what the FBI says is the primary thing that we will do to reinforce our college security. Eighty-one percent of instances of violence in schools, others have known about it prior. I’ve experienced similar things like this, to not this degree in East Ridge, but similar. It’s about relationships and college culture.”

Clarke said the highest priority that should be addressed by the college board is “academic achievement and excellence.”

“That’s really what we’re about,” Clarke said. “We’re a various group of individuals. We’ve got diverse viewpoints, diverse world views, diverse experiences. All of the people who find themselves sending their children to high school, what we’re expecting, as a stakeholder on this, is that our youngsters come out of college in a position to have some aptitude and acumen with certain things. Overall, that’s a very powerful thing. Is the fiscal and financial side vital? Absolutely. Nevertheless, the cost-per-pupil has gone up principally 12 months over 12 months for an entire decade, and what has happened with the test scores? … Those scores have gone down because the cost-per-pupil goes up, so I’m not necessarily sure throwing money at it’s (the reply). … It’s lots about having parents involved, having good kids, good behavior, good expectations, high expectations for our youngsters, for our educators and our parents.”

Dimbo said the board has a “responsibility to get back to the fundamentals.”

“It goes back to high school culture,” she said. “As a society, we weren’t all the time testing at 50-percent grade level. Back in 2013, we were testing 78 percent above grade level. So what modified has been the culture. We try to select and select where we’re attempting to fit a private-school final result in public-school income. We will’t do this. We’ve got to get back to basics and understand that not everybody goes to suit into a selected mold, but nearly all of the people will, and people are the folks that we have now to care for after which care for everybody else, so that everyone looks like they matter.”

Dols, a mental health therapist, was elected to the college board in 2019. The primary issue facing the district is its growth, she said.

“It’s really a double-edged sword,” Dols said. “It’s wonderful that we’re growing, and we’re the sixth-largest district and which means homes are selling like hotcakes. Our land is developing in all places, so which means an increasing number of students coming into our district, and it means less and fewer space, so it’s harder to take care of transportation and we have now to work out the boundary issues and we’re having to do things like bonds and levies to maintain up with our tremendous growth. However the positive of that’s just how desired our district is and that folks are moving to this district due to our highly rated schools – each academically and just students feeling secure in the faculties. … When we have now overcrowded schools, it’s really hard to maintain those kids physically secure after they’re in class, in order that’s a number of why we also must have these (bond) referendums pass.”

Johnson didn’t take part in the candidates’ forum. In a response to the Pioneer Press’ “Election 2023” online voters’ guide, he said his top priority if elected can be: “Ensuring that the curriculum is there to support our future, not hinder them. I used to be held back a grade, it’s okay, not everyone matures at the identical pace. … Let’s be sure that everyone seems to be getting the education they deserve.”

Kokaisel said academics is the primary issue that should be addressed by the college board.

“We was once much, a lot better in our academics,” Kokaisel said. “That has fallen, as could be seen by the ‘World’s Best Workforce’ reports. And the (Minnesota Department of Education) sets the standards for us to be following, and we will not be meeting any of them. Simply to list off a few of those: the power for our youngsters to be ready for college, third-grade reading proficiency, kids are in a position to graduate. … We will not be in a position to meet any of them, and that didn’t was once the case.”

Mahmood said “education of our youngsters” must be the board’s top priority.

“Are our youngsters doing well?” Mahmood said. “A few things that I’ve read (show that) 50 percent of our youngsters are passing for his or her grade. That’s not good. I don’t think that’s good. So I feel that’s primary issue is figuring that out. How can we raise our youngsters’s test scores? We do this by specializing in reading, writing, math, science, history — those are the things that we’d like to concentrate on.”

Moore said academics, safety and funding are all areas of importance, but said the board must also concentrate on the scholars’ social and emotional well-being.

“If a student shouldn’t be socially, emotionally and academically prepared to learn, they won’t learn anyway,” Moore said. “You may’t just consistently concentrate on only academics. I’ve seen this for too a few years. They must be well-rounded in all areas.”

Patnaik, who was elected to the college board in 2019, said the most important issue facing the board is the district’s funds.

“Every little thing stems from here,” Patnaik said. “It truly is what allows us to make any strategic decisions that we may need to make going forward. Once we come up with the money for within the bank, it allows us to pay staff competitively, which may forestall teacher shortages. It allows us to take a position in curriculum like our American Reading Corporation curriculum that basically allows us to dig deep on literacy and make some big changes there. It allows us to handle the expansion that’s happening in our college district. Two years ago, we made $10 million value of cuts in our budget, and it was really painful, but one in all the advantages of that’s that it’s allowed us to redeploy the cash that we were spending in other areas (to do things) like giving raises to paraprofessionals.”

Schaefer said the “safety and well-being of scholars” is the primary issue that should be addressed by the college board.

“At the tip of the day, the college board is here due to our students,” Schaefer said. “The district is here due to our students. That’s our primary priority, and to be sure that our students have a secure and equitable education, where they’ve what they need to be able to achieve whichever area that they decide to pursue. Primarily, we’d like to be sure that every student is treated as an entire person. Meaning understanding who they’re, where they arrive from, and allowing them to start out being vulnerable to be able to learn. … We want to permit our students to feel secure enough to get up and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know this, I’m going to be vulnerable on this place.’ And that in itself will help elevate a few of our test scores that we’re seeing where we’re really falling behind, and that can even help with a number of the life skills that our students need.”

Bond referendum

Last 12 months, voters within the district decisively rejected a historic $462 million bond request by a virtually two-to-one ratio. Now, district officials are back with a smaller ask in a two-question format.

The primary query asks if voters would support a $160 million bond referendum for safety and security enhancements, expansions and renovation at secondary schools.

The second query asks voters to support a $40 million bond referendum for additions at 4 elementary schools and the development of more bathrooms at five Sixties-era elementary schools.

The passage of the second bond query is contingent on the passage of the primary query. If the second query fails, elementary school attendance boundary changes can be implemented for the 2024-2025 school 12 months, Superintendent Julie Nielsen told the Pioneer Press in September.

The third query on the ballot asks voters to revoke the district’s current $2.8 million technology levy and renew it at the next amount. If approved, the $5 million levy, which is proposed for 10 years, would “enhance cybersecurity, maintain technology infrastructure, upgrade security cameras, expand digital access to curriculum and learning tools, update educational and business software licensing, and maintain the devices distributed to students and staff in the course of the pandemic with a refresh cycle to maintain devices updated,” in response to district officials.

If passed, the measures would add about $9 a month, or $111 a 12 months, to the property tax bill of a $409,000 house, the median value for homes within the district.