A three-man race is underway for Blaine County School District board of trustees Zone 2, which includes south Hailey and rural areas to the west and south of the town.
Incumbent Kim Nilsen, a construction contractor and a seven-year school district board member, is challenged by Steve Guthrie, security coordinator at Friedman Memorial Airport, and James Laski, an attorney who lives west of Hailey.
Guthrie and Laski were interviewed Friday by the Idaho Mountain Express. Nilsen, who was in Ecuador, was interviewed by telephone Tuesday.
While there are various other issues, three main ones have emerged in the campaign. They are (1) a question of whether or not there is enough public involvement in the school board decision-making process, (2) the challenge of changing demographics in the Wood River Valley and (3) allocation of resources for students at varying achievement levels.
Steve Guthrie
Guthrie, co-president of the Wood River Middle School PTA, thinks public involvement needs to be improved in the school district.
"I hear from a broad group of the community that the public is not as engaged as the public would like," he said. "The public is not always engaged in policy issues and decisions our board might make."
Guthrie said school board meetings need to be restructured so public comment is "welcomed at the beginning, at the end and during the meeting." Also, he thinks the location of the board meetings needs to be changed from the district office in Hailey to a facility that will accommodate more people. Town meetings are another option that the board should consider, he said.
"I've got very good listening skills and I think leaders need to be able to listen, plain and simple. If elected, I will welcome genuine public engagement in the process of running our schools."
Guthrie has two children, ages 10 and 13, enrolled in the district. He was involved in development of the district's new Strategic Plan and often volunteers to help with various classroom projects.
"First and foremost, I'm running on behalf of our children," he said. "Secondly, I'm running on behalf of our teachers and administrators. And thirdly, I'm running on behalf of our taxpayers to see that they are fairly represented."
Guthrie said the district is not doing enough to address changing demographics in the valley as the percentage of Hispanic students and families increases.
"I'm a supporter of Dual Immersion, but I'd like to see all of our children given the opportunity to participate in a foreign language curriculum," he said.
The Dual Immersion program, where students are taught in both English and Spanish, currently involves 520 students in grades K-7.
"I think we need to do a better job of closing the achievement gap, particularly with the Hispanic students. I'd like to see more of these kids graduate."
Guthrie said more money would be available for students if the district curtailed its building program.
"At this point in the game, I would like to see that a lot of those funds be allocated to classrooms," he said. "We're proud of those facilities, but it's time to switch directions now."
He said the district needs to move faster on implementing the International Baccalaureate program, a project-based learning curriculum that is currently a pilot program at the Wood River Middle School.
Also, he'd like the district to provide more advanced placement offerings so students can earn more college credits in high school than is currently the case.
Furthermore he'd like more opportunities for extracurricular activities.
"One thing I feel passionately about is what happens after school is just as important as what happens during school hours. I think the district is doing a good job on that, but I would like to see a little more emphasis put on that so that all students have an opportunity to participate in those activities.
James Laski
Laski's main campaign platform is the "need for fair and appropriate allocation of district resources." He said that's not now the case, but declined to be specific, other than to say some parts of the district aren't getting a fair shake.
"School resources should be allocated fairly throughout the valley without favoring any geographical area or program, or based on the amount of parent involvement," he said.
Laski, a partner in the Lawson & Laski law firm, has a son at Bellevue Elementary School and a daughter who will be in kindergarten next year. He serves on the board of directors for Sun Valley Adaptive Sports and has past board experience with the Blaine-Ketchum Housing Authority and the Animal Shelter of the Wood River Valley.
He helped develop the district's new Strategic Plan and currently serves on a committee to implement the plan's goal of ensuring that "our students are prepared for a multicultural and multilingual world."
He's a proponent of the district's Dual Immersion program, but doesn't think it benefits enough students.
"Fifty percent aren't getting it," he said. "Our cultural differences are bigger because of our language barriers. Somehow we have to breach that gap of Spanish participation. Presently they (Hispanic students) are about 30 percent of our population. I think one of our board members should be Hispanic.
"Economic and cultural differences are a significant issue that the district has to deal with today and an issue that that will become more significant given the present state of economy," Laski said.
Laski said "Spanish language instruction should be available for everyone, beginning in kindergarten."
Laski doesn't think the present school board is doing enough to involve the public.
"I think there is a clear outcry for more public involvement. I think there is a need for more parent involvement with the board, particularly the most engaged parents. Those are the ones who feel they're marginalized."
He acknowledged that the school board has a public comment agenda item for each of its monthly public meetings, but said the board should provide public comment opportunities on an "item by item basis."
Laski was also critical of the board's decision-making process.
"All too often it seems that the board is making decisions without legitimate dialogue. Unanimity is the sign of a board that is not doing its job."
He acknowledged that the public has the opportunity for involvement in various committees, but said committee meeting times are not usually convenient for the public.
"I have a history of serving on boards, that plus being trained to be an attorney has helped me to work in this context,' Laski said. "I'm going to be involved in the school district because of my children and this is a chance to be involved at the highest level."
Kim Nilsen
"I didn't come down here to dodge a hotly contested election," said Nilsen, referring to his presence in Ecuador. "This is a trip we've planned for years, and it probably won't be our last one."
Nilsen has two daughters in Ecuador who line up volunteers for various orphanages. Once Nilsen and his wife, Marilyn, arrived on their 10-day trip, he said, they got recruited and spent the majority of their vacation taking kids on field trips, changing diapers and doing other things to "try to make the kids smile."
Nilsen has seven children. All of them attended schools in the Blaine County School District. He also has 10 grandchildren. If elected, Nilsen said, it will be his last three-year stint as a school board member.
He said the school board has taken extensive steps to involve the public, but that sometimes the public doesn't seem to want to be involved.
"I'm sure there's always room for improvement, but over the last few years we've done a lot for public involvement and I find it interesting that sometimes when we set things up they're unattended. If the public wants to be involved, the public has the opportunity at least once a month to comment at our school board meetings."
Nilsen cited development over the last few years of the district's new Strategic Plan, a process that involved more than 100 members of the public and continues now with public participation on the 10 committees for the plan's 10 goals. Committees involving members of the public are frequently set up for other purposes, such as in planning for school bond levy votes.
"More often than not, we pretty much take the recommendations of the committees," he said.
Nilsen said the district's Dual Immersion program is helping address the changing demographics in the valley as the population of Hispanic students continues to rise. The program, now in its eighth year, continues to be expanded.
"I think we've been way more proactive than most school districts," he said. "We want them [Hispanic students] to be proficient in English so they can function well in the country."
Nilsen said he thinks the school district has "done a pretty good job" with allocating resources so that students at all skill levels can achieve. He particularly cited the advanced placement program in which high school students can earn college credits while still in high school.
Nilsen cited other recent accomplishments of the school board, such as implementing an accountability system for district employees, overseeing property acquisitions prior to the real estate boom four years ago and helping place the district in a "sound economic" position.
"The major job that we have is to hire a good superintendent and fire a bad one," he said. "Fortunately, the superintendent we have is phenomenal. Dr. [Jim] Lewis has put this district in better financial shape than I would say any school district in the West."
Terry Smith: tsmith@mtexpress.com
Election set for May 19
The polls will be open from noon until 8 p.m. on Tuesday, May 19, for the Zone 2 position for the Blaine County School District board of trustees election. Voting will take place at Hailey Elementary School at 520 First Ave. S. in Hailey. A majority is not required—the candidate with the most votes wins. The school district describes Zone 2 as "south of Croy Creek Road, Fox Acres Road and Quigley Gulch Road, including Woodside subdivision and southwest Hailey, and north of Glendale Road and Muldoon Canyon Road, excluding the city of Bellevue." A map and complete description of the zone boundary is available at the school district Web site at www.blaineschools.org.
Steve Guthrie
James Laski
Kim Nilsen
