Bigfork School Board candidates answer community submitted questions

This is a transcript of the Bigfork School Board candidates' introductions and answers at the Candidate Forum hosted Thursday night by the Bigfork Area Chamber of Commerce and the ImagineIF Library Foundation. The event was moderated by Daily Inter Lake Director of Advertising Anton Kaufer. The views expressed are those of the candidates and not those of the Bigfork Area Chamber of Commerce, ImagineIF Library Foundation or the Daily Inter Lake. The hosting of this forum is not intended and is specifically disclaimed as an endorsement of any candidate.

School Board Trustee Aaron Parish was unable to attend the forum due to prior family plans.

Introductions

Zack Anderson:

Well thank you very much. I want to start off by thanking the Chamber of Commerce, Rebekah, for putting this together and there’s a few other people here I’d like to thank … first I want to recognize my wife Mrs. Sally Anderson and my son Angus, appreciate them coming. Furthermore, I count four or five teachers here in this building, that I want to make sure they get recognized because they are a tremendous asset to our community and I’m sitting up here in front of you guys as a possible voted person onto the board that works with those teachers. We have a great staff and I’d like to name them individually but I don’t think there’s room for that here. Then, I’ll get onto myself: I’m currently on the school board and it’s a thankless job. It’s fun at times, but it’s a pretty important job and I appreciate doing it. I grew up here in Bigfork, I’m a third generation bricklayer, I have a construction company here in Bigfork and we build masonry buildings. I got two children, one currently in school, he’s a 16-year-old sophomore. I had a daughter that graduated a couple years ago and she’s down at MSU. Other than that, I grew up here. I graduated from high school out of Bigfork and currently sitting in this room is my principal when I was in 8th grade, right here Mr. Hiller and his lovely wife Francine. So, without any further ado I’ll pass the mic on and look forward to further conversation.

Roger Ball:

Good evening, I’m Roger Ball and I have 50 years experience in education. Starting down south in Arizona I graduated from university in 1971 and spent 30 years doing junior high and middle school, followed by high school. I retired from that after 30 years then I worked for the state of Arizona’s prison system doing GED, following that I worked in Pablo down south in their college and I did what would be political science history, and I retired from there in 2021, last year. So, I have a lot of experience in education. During the course of my first 30 years I also finished my master’s degree and was certified as a principal and also the superintendent. So, I feel I have the knowledge and background that I can beneficial to the people of Bigfork and to make sure that the school system here meets the wishes of the people, it’s important that there be an agreement between what the district board wants and what the community wants and it needs to be a win-win situation. So, with that in mind, I’d like to participate in the future of this district and make things as good as they can possibly be.

Christina Relyea:

Hello, my name is Christina Relyea and I was on the Bigfork School Board for six years. And some people are sort of jokingly asking me why I’d want to come back and I can tell you that there’s a really good reason and it’s that I’m very passionate about public education. I think it’s a right as a United States citizen and it’s what our country so great, that you can have children that come from families with no money and you can have wealthy children, you can have children whose parents may speak another language and their new to the United States and get a public education, it levels the playing field for every child in our community. And I feel very passionate about that, I feel that teachers are heroes in our community and they’re the ones that are dedicating their time, and we all know that salaries could be improved, right? But they are out there and they’re not doing it to become wealthy, they’re doing it because they love those kids and they want to see those children succeed. I want to support the children of our community and I want to support the teachers and administrators of our community. I believe I have the skill set, I’ve been in education my entire life. I can honestly say that I fit that ‘lifelong learner,’ I’m still taking classes. I’m a community member, I’ve been in Bigfork for 20 years. I’m a parent— I have an 11th grader, Dale, who I thank for coming to support his mom at this super fun event. And I also have experience as an administrator, I’m a college professor at Flathead Valley Community College and I’m the Director of the Honors Program. Also, FVCC is really well known for our Honors Program and the interdisciplinary model we have. So, I’ve been on the national board for two-year honors colleges for five years. I have experience in all the areas: I’m a student, a community member, a teacher, an administrator and a parent, and that’s what it takes to make a healthy school. And I believe healthy schools make a healthy community and I love Bigfork— I think we have a strong school and I have a skill set that I think I could contribute and help that continue to be possible.

What is your experience with public education? How has, or will your own experience influence your work as a board member?

Ball: My experience was as a teacher for 30 years and then afterwards. But what that will do for me is give me the opportunity to make sure the teachers in Bigfork have an opportunity to prepare in their classrooms for the students and the curriculum that they’re charged to deliver to the students. I think that’s very important that they have the resources and the time to make sure they are prepared to deliver it. At the beginning of the school year typically everybody wants to have a meeting and meetings kill the opportunities for new teachers to begin learning their curriculum and what to do. So, I would make sure teachers have enough time in their classrooms.

Relyea: I guess what I would say at this part, is that I also taught high school, right, and that was the hardest job I’ve ever had. So, I am college now. But my experience with public education— I’ve been in school for 48 years. So I have a lot of experience. I think it will influence my work as a board member because I’m able to look at different perspectives. Anybody who knows me, knows I’m an independent vote and I do my research. I come with a notebook and I write every piece of material when I was on the school board before, and if that wasn’t the case, I wouldn’t vote until I had the ability or the time to read all of that information. And so I would continue to do that if I’m elected again .

Anderson: My experience with public education; I graduated out of a public school and went on to go to a public university. But more importantly here and now with what’s going on, I’ve found being on the board with the tremendous staff from the administrators, to the teachers to the janitors, it’s our job as board members to let them do their job and make sure they’re doing their job well— and stay out of the way. Obviously we as board members have to vote on things for policy and how the money’s spent, so on and so forth. I don’t claim to be a teacher, I’m not but I know this place, our school up on that hill has some of the best teachers there are and it’s my obligation and my work as a board member to support them and make sure they stay doing what they’re supposed to do, cause they’re darn good at it.

How do you intend to keep a pulse on the needs of the students, teachers and the school? As new needs arise throughout the year, how do you plan to budget for these additional expenses and where will you direct funds to ensure required services are provided?

Relyea: Well, I intend to keep a pulse on the needs of the students, teachers and the school by visiting the school. Those of you that maybe knew when I was with the school board the past six years, I would go into the classroom, I would try to visit the elementary school, the middle school and the high school. I would observe the teachers, talk to the teachers, talk to the parents, see how the students were doing, so I could continue to do that again and be visible as a board member and be available. I would listen to anyone who wants to talk about something going with the school, or something that they have a question about. As far as the budget, I was on the Finance Committee for many of those years and we have a lot of different accounts, but I’m really proud of Bigfork in the fact that we are a solid school. While a lot of schools are struggling, we’ve done a good job and we pass our audit every year.

Anderson: How do you keep a pulse on the needs of the students, teachers and school? I don’t believe it’s my responsibility or obligation to do such. I see the folks down there, the superintendent, the three awesome principals that we have, that’s their job and it’s their job to bring to the board their recommendations to spend the money and however they think it should be spent. Either I agree with it or I don’t, so I vote accordingly. Sometimes I’m with the majority and sometimes I’m not. But again, it’s not my job to go down there and micromanage, I don’t ever intend to. Sometimes we have to do uncomfortable things like be on negotiating committees and stuff like that. It’s a thankless job, but nonetheless, I’m not a micromanager and we have good people down there to do the job.

Ball: Stakeholders say that school board members must be in the building at least one time during the school year. I would be there much more than that, I would try to take the pulse of the building, take the pulse of the student body and faculty and make sure I understood what the issues were and worked to find some sort of remediation that would be satisfactory to everybody. In essence, promote a win-win situation and by doing that, I really believe that the school will move forward and the teachers will be working and the students will benefit in this community. So, with that in mind, I will be in the building to work with the faculty as they want to talk to me.

What do you envision as the next project, direction, or difficulty for the Bigfork School District?

Anderson: Great question, I guess the first thing that pops into my mind is that we just got notification that we have to move to Class A in our sporting events due to the population of our school. I don’t see this area going backwards, people want to move here, it’s a great place to live. I see buildings need another place to build another building to put more students in it. We just spent a bunch of money, obviously, but as we grow, which this community is, as well as the whole valley, I see that as an issue. And we need to find land to do so, it’s not free and we’re going to have to put buildings on it. When this happens, I don’t know; next 10 years, next 15, I’m not sure. But that’s what we need to be thinking about.

Ball: I envision the next big project being finding a way to take your new employees and be sure that they have a place to live in Bigfork, so they can work here and raise a family here. Presently, we talk about high cost of living, high cost of housing, utilities, etc. But, Bigfork needs to find a way to work with the locals and utilize what is in existence during the school year. I personally would like to see the opportunity to talk to some of these large hotels that would like to be at full capacity during the winter, during the nine months of our school year, and we can put some people in housing by using their offices and facilities, these could turn into efficiencies if they’re willing.

Relyea: So, I totally agree that we’re growing and we’re going to need to think about a larger school as families increase. I also think that another thing they need to do is stay steady and focus on educating the kids, and educators are kind of being attacked from all sides and it’s hard to focus on reading and math when you’re also having to defend the choices that you’re making in the classroom. So I think we need to support our teachers and allow them to do their jobs and so I would work on the morale of the staff, students, teachers and community as well.

What could be done to prevent students in Bigfork from slipping through the cracks? Specifically those who have special needs, borderline or at-risk due to family or living situations?

Ball: SLG students, specific learning disabilities and special ed, all have a lot of protections, and if I was on the school board I would ensure that the faculty ensures that those students get their protected rights and that gives them accommodations for a level playing field and to be successful, that’s important. Also, in regards to others with special needs, we get special funding for students from different ethnic groups and from students from low-income families, so that would be an increase in funding there, not to say there would be more of those students, but they would be taken care of.

Relyea: So I think one of the things would be that we need to take advantage of funding that becomes available to us for the special programs for students with special needs. Whether they encourage training and also have resources available for students and any of the students at risk. I think we also have a great community and community support, in that we have groups working in the community to support the schools like Rotary and Threads that can provide clothing, so I think having that community partnership with the schools is important to continue. But then also training and and then providing resources that students have access to if they are in one of these categories or just having trouble in a living situation.

Anderson: I think I want to start off by first of all recognizing the incredible job that our staff and our school does for these particular students. It’s an unbelievable burden that they go through, I’ve spoken with some of them, there’s some real tragic events going on out there and I want to commend those folks that are already doing it. I would continue whatever recommendations that are brought to us by the administration and continue to support them in those endeavors and to make it better for the kids and make it better for the staff. It’s getting difficult out there to find staff, I believe, that want to continue working in these environments. So, I think it’s my responsibility as a board member to support the administration, the staff, and all the teachers, because every student has a special need, and I would continue to support that and reemphasize to commend the teachers that are already doing it.

How do you plan to recruit and retain teachers? Taking into account the cost of living, housing availability and current Bigfork salaries.

Relyea: Well, I think the first way to do it is you recruit and retain teachers by having an awesome school, and I think we have a really good school. There are certainly things that can be improved upon, but if your teachers are happy then it trickles down and the students are getting a really good education. So, I think that one way to recruit teachers, who wouldn’t want to work at a school that teachers are excited about working at? Right? So that would be one of the first things. It’s tough for the cost of living though, the prices in this valley have skyrocketed. So that’s a difficult one and I think we would look into— it wouldn’t be the school board, but the county needs to look into affordable housing. But basically, a healthy school attracts teachers that want to teach there.

Anderson: Another good question, I agree with what Mrs. Relyea just said. A happy environment, a good culture, good leaders, appropriate pay scale grades— those all recruit and retain people. How to solve this land expense and this housing expense, I don’t have an answer for that, other than that I’d like to sell my place and reap the benefit of it, but there would be no place for me to buy after that. Maybe Christina has the right idea there that the county has a responsibility, who knows if they have the answer, but I certainly don’t. That’s about all I can say on that.

Ball: I would like to increase the number of residences teachers could move into, if not actually control them to making offers, again outside vendors. As far as salaries are concerned, Bigfork we couldn’t afford to pay more. Other school districts around the state and the county pay more and the state has complete control of that with their financial formulas. So, one thing that you got to do to get more money in the district is to have more students sitting at their desk during the day. So, increase ways to get student attendance up and that will increase the revenues. And ideally, it’s all back to location, location, location.