In the race for Janesville School Board on April 1, six candidates have offered to lead a school district thats not perfect but neither all bad.
In making our endorsements, The 69蹤獲 Editorial Board looked for candidates who would hold district administration accountable for weak state report cards, promote good internal and external communication, ensure that buildings are safe and secure and that learning spaces meet staff and student needs. We sought candidates who will promote collaboration and demand fiscal responsibility while supporting teachers and advocating for state and local taxpayer support of public education.
The six candidates on the April 1 ballot are incumbent Michelle Haworth and challengers Julie Richardson, Colton Measner, Cory James, Tyra Johnson and Veronica Hereford. Three seats are open.
Five of the six Haworth, Richardson, Measner, James and Johnson, participated in individual endorsement interviews with the Editorial Board. Hereford did not respond to an invitation to participate.
We thank James and Johnson for participating.
We appreciate James focus on accountability and on restoring a winning culture in the Janesville schools, and his overall commitment to kids, especially those from underprivileged backgrounds. We also appreciate that while his children currently attend private school, they plan to enroll in Janesville public schools for high school.
We appreciate Johnsons first-hand grasp of the importance of funding classroom aides via last Novembers successful operational referendum, and her parental lens on the school districts charter schools, that some of her eight children have attended. We also appreciate her view that test scores need to keep coming back up from their COVID drop.
However, in our view, Haworth, Richardson, and Measner would best move the School District of Janesville forward in the coming term. They earn our endorsement.
In Measner, a recent Janesville Craig graduate who unsuccessfully ran last year for the school board, we see an emerging understanding of the role board members play in an era of tight budgets, often polarized community politics and pressure to ensure all students thrive. His support of both referendums last November and his support for hiring the Studer Group to ensure the school district has a plan for broad accountability, and his view that standards and expectations need to be higher districtwide, are good for the Janesville schools. Its clear Measner also fundamentally grasps the balancing act required to manage a school district with a finite budget, noting that he agreed with asking teachers to contribute more toward health insurance in order to keep critical programs running that affect student learning, while keeping taxes down.
In Haworth, we see a longtime incumbent whose commitment includes regular in-person visits to school buildings, and thoughtful decision making on issues like ending the TAGOS charter school, saying she fully believed students would be successful if moved to other existing programs. Haworths support of last Novembers operational referendum, which in part ensured classroom aides were funded, and her view that the school district could better communicate to parents regarding opportunities like apprenticeships, demonstrates her commitment to kids and families. Haworths realistic views that academic achievement can be improved but will take time to fix, and that cell phones should be put away during class time also take Janesville schools in the right direction.
And in Richardson, we see a parent of two recent Janesville graduates who will advocate for additional tutoring and mentoring to make up for COVID learning loss, and who will push for teachers across the district to participate in common grade-level planning, to learn from their colleagues. Her views that cell phones should be turned off in class and that high schoolers must be made both college and career ready, to maximize their post-graduation options, are good for kids. And as the spouse of a local small business owner, she sees the importance of community partnerships, while expressing concern about the drop in test scores in recent years and demonstrating a core knowledge of how state funding for public education has affected Janesville schools in recent decades.
