Ultimately, having school board elections is the most effective form of parental control in public education. Click here to contact our editorial staff, and click here to report an error. More recently, Bousselot appears to have taken a liking to COVID-19 misinformation. HE ONE WHIT 54% OF THE VOTE. She is a financial controller for Principal Financial Group. That happens best when our public schools are fully funded and have the resources to provide what their students and families need. Lori Lovstad:Iowa has a well-established system of parental choice in education by allowing parents to choose public, privateor home-schooling as an option for their children. More and more families are leaving public schools because they are unhappy with the curriculum, dissatisfaction with virtual learning during the pandemic and social issues. If not, correct the error or revert back to the previous version until your site works again. Public schools will need to continue to provide excellent educational opportunities for every student who enrolls. It can positively impact the school community. Shelly Northway:It all starts with creating spaces for difficult conversations to take place. Stacy Pierces yard in south Ankeny, just off the suburbs main drag of strip malls, is covered in pro-Trump flags, including one that reads TRUMP JFK JR. WHERE WE GO ONE WE GO ALL 2021, a reference to a zany QAnon conspiracy theory about the former president retaking the White House this year with a man who died more than two decades ago. They should be making key decisions that impact their students educational experience and ability to learn and thrive at school. We need to do everything possible to give them the support and the help the students need in those two groups. SHE SUPPORTED THE GOVERNORS PUSHED TO GET KIDS BACK IN THE CLASSROOM FIVE DSAY A WEEK ACCORDING TO BARTHEL THOSE SHARED VIEWS ARE THE REASON THE GOVERNOR IS NOW SUPPORTING HER CAMPAIGN. It's clear the former Reynolds and Branstad aide shares several of their false beliefs himself, although you wouldn't know it from news coverage of the race. Reynold's campaign did not provide comment on whether she will be involved with future events or other school board races. Already, the governor has made a campaign stop for an anti-mask candidate for the November school board election with apparent ties to the Mama Bears named Sarah Barthole. This election saw incumbent mayor Joyce Craig, a member of the Democratic Party, re In 2016, Donald Trump (R) won 19 out of 160 state House districts in Massachusetts with an average margin of victory of 5.5 points. Where do Ankeny School Board candidates stand on diversity and inclusion efforts in classrooms? That process must start when students are in elementary school, where there is time to give needed help and supports to students and their families. Shelly Northway:I am concerned and thats part of the reason I am running. , both Republicans. Not every child will attend college and we could be doing more to meet these students' needs and preparing them for a great job right out of high school. , school board members ran against mask mandates and won several seats. There were seven candidates that campaigned for the election. Certificate of Achievement for Excellence in Financial Reporting; August 31, 2021. Polk County GOP Chair Gloria Mazza congratulated the school board candidates, regardless of whether they won. Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Iowas school board races are nonpartisan, but several candidates in 2021 ran and won on a conservative platform. These are former students who are now in college and are great people. Ernst also said federal programs which enable (Americans) to comfortably exist without a job were exacerbating workforce shortages. Lori Lovstad:No. Trent Murphy:If the Ankeny school district rises to the challenge by encouraging more meaningful parental and community engagement, parents will keep students enrolled in our district. What I think we must do to help keep students enrolled in the Ankeny School district is by providing more teacher, student conferences when necessary and by providing more resources for the parents, teachers, and students to help the students and parents want to stay in the school district that will help them become more and more successful. Trent Murphy grew up in Bondurant and has a masters degree in education. I should point out that creating a more inclusive and welcoming environment does require resources. AND $10 MILLION FOR LAND PRESERVATION. LET US START WITH THE AT LARGE RACE. We can also continue to discover new ways to prepare our youth for life after high school. Reicks and Peterson repeatedly spoke out against the requirement at school board meetings. Reicks and Peterson call themselves the Iowa Mama Bears and have a website on which they claim their children were abused by the schools mandatory masks and mask policy. When Reynolds signed the mask mandate ban into law, the Mama Bears stood by her side, Reicks holding a sign falsely alleging that her daughter got a staph infection on four occasions caused by a mask she was forced to wear at school. Joy Burk:We need to create a culture where people embrace diversity in the classroom. POLK COUNTY VOTERS PASSED A SIMILAR MEASURE BACK IN 2012, WHICH LED TO $20 MILLIONN I INVESTMENTS AT EASTER LAKE PARK. ButI would like to say that this conversation has been so blown out of proportion and turned us against one another. Candidates running for four seats on the Ankeny school board participated in a forum Sunday night hosted by the Ankeny Parents Association and the Elementary Parent Teacher Organizations. In presidential elections between 1789 and 2016, Massachusetts voted Republican 36.2 percent of the time and Democratic 34.4 percent of the time. So again, it was open to anybody in the public. He is running for school board because he feels there is a disconnect between the current school board and the community as a whole. Hes liked a handful of tweets that misrepresented the views of Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to the president, to accuse him of lying about the pandemic, including one from far-right Congresswoman Lauren Boebert; and a couple others about ivermectin, the anti-parasitic drug whose use as a COVID-19 treatment is unproven and not recommended by the FDA while it undergoes further clinical trials. The Ankeny school board race was thrown into the spotlight when Gov. When students text the number, it will go straight to the administration, which is a much easier solution rather than the student having to walk straight to the school office. Help us HOLD THE LINE on September 14! reads a pitch for donations to Bousselots campaign thats been widely shared by Republican operatives and politicians, including the governor, Iowa House Speaker Pat Grassley, and his grandfather, Charles. Beloware thbiographicalinformation and answers to each of the questions asked. Bousselot appears to support many of these views himself, as evidenced by a screenshot compilation of tweets he has liked that was provided to the Informer (you can view that full document here) and our own review of the candidates Twitter account. 404 means the file is not found. (Laura Belin has written more about Bousselots negative ad campaign, as well as his role in Medicaid privatization, at Bleeding Heartland.). KCCIS AMANDA ROOKER TELLS US WHY GOVERNOR REYNOLDS WAS AT A CANDIDATES CAMPAIGN KICKOFF. Teachers also need the flexibility to meet students where they are in the process of becoming more culturally aware, in order to bring them along in the journey towards inclusion. Out of three In this process, the Board gives direction to the school district as to their priorities and goals, and the administration then develops the best procedures and practices to fulfill those goals.. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of photos and graphics. Presently in our community, COVID is running rampant threatening the health of students and staff, resulting in unprecedented levels of student and teacher absences. Web/local/des-moines/2021/09/02/ankeny-school-board-election-sarah-barthole-masks June 21, 2021. Look for the .htaccess file in the list of files. May 1, 2023. This fall, Central Iowa voters elected. I think that the School board should hold a meeting with all Special ED Teachers from all schools in Ankeny to discuss a plan to help the students be successful and to take care of the students' needs. The School Committee, which is having its first election cycle with a map that creates six district committee members and two at-large members, also appears to Barthole said Reynolds supports her campaign because of their shared views. Lori Bullock:I support our local school boards ability to make decisions that are in the best interest of students, teachersand staff. I am not an anti-masker. Approximately 97% of Ankeny students obtain a diploma. Hes also running to improve student achievement, support teachers and staff, spend wisely, improve communication and unite the community during the transition to new facilities. Below is a full list of election results for school board and city council in the metro. I supported masks when little was known about the virus. SHES FOLLOWING THE DES MOINES CITY COUNCIL RACES. Town Election Results 2020. I think that parents need to monitor their students' actions and their activity consistently because if they do not then that is when their academic standards start to drop and how well they do in school. Dishonesty is central to Bousselots pandemic politics, at a time when COVID-19 has surged in Iowa schools whose ability to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus has been undermined by the candidates would-be legislative allies. What can your district do to keep its students enrolled and area families engaged? $2MI0 LLION FOR PARKS. Christian Mathew Holtz:You can look at this in both ways. Conservative candidates also ran as a slate in Waukee, though they lost the election. One thing Ankeny could do to keep students in our schools is to offer more work-based education, such as opportunities to learn trade skills in high school. Stay up to speed on all the latest local and national political news. Dunwell took a seat that Democrats had held for decades, House Speaker Pat Grassley said. As a result of our actions, the Mama Bears website boasts, another Trump loyalist and QAnon proponent General Flynn awarded us as the first recipients of the Fearless Fighters for American Values award on stage in Tampa. On January 6, they were in Washington DC at the Stop the Steal rally to protest the supposedly stolen election. Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. I would recommend policies like smaller class sizes, improving access to mental health careand giving school employees the support they need to be effective. Iowas congressional candidates answer questions on, Hotel inspection update: Moldy air conditioners, cockroaches, Restaurant inspection update: Sewage, rodent carcasses, mold. School districts have until May 2023 to adopt their director districts. 2022 The Iowa Torch, a publication of 4:15 Communications, LLC. Altogether, the nation had 206 Pivot Counties, with most being concentrated in upper midwestern and northeastern states. Were going to do unbelievably next year, because people are fed up with what the Democrats are doing, said guest speaker Sen. Rick Scott of Florida. The average public high school event dropout rate for the United States remained constant at 3.3 percent for both school year 20102011 and school year 20112012. I think there are many students across the district that need academic help, and parents and teachers should work together to develop the best support plan for each student to help them achieve personal success. He is running for re-election because he enjoys serving his community.