Idaho Statesman picks these two candidates for six-year terms on the Boise school board
The Idaho Statesman editorial board endorses Beth Oppenheimer and Dave Wagers in Race 1 for the Boise school board.
Wagers and Oppenheimer are proven incumbents with the experience and background needed to continue the Boise district on a positive path forward.
Oppenheimer is the executive director of Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, with extensive experience in the education field. She has served on the Boise school board since 2016, and she demonstrates a deep understanding of the role, responsibilities and duties of the position.
Wagers, president of Idaho Candy Company, similarly has a deep understanding of the role of a school board member, having served since 2015, currently as president, and has chaired the strategic planning, facilities and communications committees.
Their opponents, Krista Hasler and Greg Woodard, raise significant issues that we hope the incumbents listen to, though.
Primarily, we have heard a theme of concern about transparency and communication. Hasler and Woodard both charge that the board is not transparent enough and not responsive enough to parent concerns.
Hasler, who is a stay-at-home mom who previously worked with children as a licensed clinical social worker, also raises legitimate concerns about behavior in school, mental health challenges and providing more personalized education.
Woodard, a lawyer, said he is running for the school board because his experience as a parent in the Boise district has shown that the board and district have not been responsive to concerns that he has raised in the past.
While we believe board members need to be responsive to complaints, we also recognize that they work with a number of constituencies, including students, parents, teachers, taxpayers and administrators. Board members shouldn’t micromanage individual schools or programs.
We also detected in Hasler and Woodard an attitude that if the trustees made a decision that they disagreed with, such as masking or returning to in-person instruction, that meant trustees weren’t listening to parents.
It’s not that trustees weren’t listening; it simply means they made a decision that was different from what some parents wanted. That’s an important concept to understand when you’re a trustee, who is faced with difficult decisions all the time, many of which will upset one group or another.
We are concerned that Hasler and Woodard are still grinding axes over COVID mask mandates and a delay to in-person classes. We believe Boise school board members made the best decisions they could, with safety and health in mind, with the information they had at the time.
Hasler and Woodard also complain that board members didn’t communicate with parents enough about the decision to move from half-day to full-day kindergarten.
That, to us, is a no-brainer, and we agree with Wagers when he said simply: “I’m just so excited to have full-day kindergarten and to have those opportunities for our families to do that.”
He concedes that communication could be better, and he committed to improve transparency and communication.
There’s always room for improvement, and we believe Oppenheimer and Wagers are the right people to make those improvements.