By JAN LARSON McLAUGHLIN
BG Independent News
The four candidates for two Bowling Green Board of Education seats faced questions from a slightly more boisterous audience last week.
After answering questions at the more reserved League of Women Voters forum earlier last week, the candidates faced different questions and a different audience at a forum hosted by the Bowling Green Republican Club.
The four candidates began by introducing themselves.
Norm Geer, the current board of education president, has practiced law in Bowling Green for 50 years. He grew up here, graduated from here, raised his children here. His parents and wife were educators.
“Education is the most important thing in civilization,” he said.
One of the board’s responsibilities is planning ahead.
“We need to have plans in place with incremental milestones along the way,” Geer said.
Peggy Thompson, who owns a carpet cleaning business with her husband, raised her children here and has grandchildren in the school district now.
“Kids need to be first,” she said.
Thompson expressed her displeasure with the district spending so much time in virtual classes last year.
“I watched my grandchildren struggle with not being able to be in the school buildings,” she said.
“Over the years, the school board hasn’t listened,” said Thompson, who retired as a district accounts payable clerk.
Jessica Swaisgood, who manages an adoption agency in Toledo, has children at the Middle School and Conneaut Elementary.
“I’m not typically someone you would expect to run for school board,” she said.
“I know how boards are supposed to operate,” and the current board is not functioning properly, Swaisgood said.
Decisions made have led to the loss in enrollment, she said.
“We’ve lost so many amazing families to other school districts.”
“I feel like we need a change,” she said. “You need to be represented in this community.”
Ryan Myers, who was appointed to the school board in November 2020, grew up knowing he wanted to work in education.
“My dream was to coach and teach,” which then led to his current position as supervisor of special education at Penta Career Center. “I knew that I wanted to make a difference.”
Myers has children in the Middle School and Kenwood Elementary, and was a proponent of getting students back in the classrooms last school year.
“I’m not afraid to disagree,” he said.
“This is what I’ve chosen to do with my life,” he said of education.
Thompson’s and Swaisgood’s comments were met by applause from the audience. Geer’s and Myers’ comments were met by silence, or at times by negative reactions from the audience.
Geer and Myers have been endorsed by the Bowling Green Education Association.
The questions posed to the candidates covered these topics:
School facilities
Geer said the voters have spoken, repeatedly, about not wanting a consolidated elementary. Though a single elementary would be more economical, allow sharing of resources, and provide more equity for students, district voters prefer the current “cozy” elementaries, he said.
The elementaries are not true “neighborhood schools,” since many of the students are bused in, he said.
“It’s clear that’s what Bowling Green wants,” Geer said.
Whatever direction the district decides for facilities, Geer would like to find a solution that at least 65% of the voters support.
“The current elementaries need something drastic,” he said. The board has approved the installation of air conditioning in the three schools currently without it.
Geer would also like to see how the district voters feel about a new high school.
“That should be the flagship of our district.”
Thompson said the main problem with facilities has been the lack of maintenance on the school buildings.
“I was paying the bills and I could see we were not maintaining our buildings,” she said. “I was just paying bills. I didn’t have any power.”
Thompson said she suspected that district officials had a strategy – “Make things fall apart so we get new buildings.”
Thompson said she prefers smaller schools, and did not like the proposed location of the consolidated elementary proposal.
“We need to focus not on buildings right now, we need to focus on people,” she said.
Thompson said the mental health of students is suffering with the mask requirement in schools. Students can’t tell if their teachers are smiling or frowning, she said.
“I think we did more harm,” she said.
Swaisgood said the consolidated elementary school concept is dead.
“Clearly the community has spoken – not once, not twice, but three times,” she said.
Swaisgood said she voted in favor of a consolidated elementary the first time it was on the ballot. But she no longer supports that concept, “now that my eyes have been opened up a little bit more.”
She was critical of the district for still floundering on the facilities issue.
“It just shows a lack of planning that this leadership is doing,” she said.
Swaisgood talked about her efforts to get students back into the classrooms last school year, by creating the BG Voice organization. She said the district should have used the time when schools were closed to students to get work done, such as the air conditioning installations.
“It’s too little, too late,” she said.
Myers currently serves on the district’s facilities committee studying options for school buildings. The committee of 75 people represents a cross-section of the community, he said.
The group is working on a needs assessment of each building, identifying problem areas, and planning ahead for educational needs.
Myers said it is still unknown if the district will invest in the existing buildings or build new ones.
“I’m not trying to ride the fence,” he said, explaining that he wants the committee to decide on the best option.
As for the decision made recently to install air conditioning at the high school, Conneaut and Kenwood elementaries, Myers said the district had to apply for the grant which just recently became available for such projects.
Biased curriculum
Thompson said the Ohio Department of Education website promotes Critical Race Theory, which she opposes.
She said it doesn’t matter if students are “black, blue or green,” that children don’t see the color of other children.
Teaching children about color is “going backwards,” she said.
“Our children need to all be treated the same,” Thompson said. “These are children. They need to know they are loved.”
Thompson is not in favor of equity in schools. She believes treating children equally is better.
Swaisgood said that people have “ingrained biases” on differences such as color, gender or religion.
“As a caucasion woman, this is difficult for me to answer,” she said about the existence of bias in curriculum.
“I do agree with people learning about empathy,” she said.
Critical Race Theory is intended for study in higher education. “That was never meant for an elementary classroom,” she said.
Swaisgood, who has spent decades advocating for people with developmental disabilities, said some children need more help than others.
Myers said the district’s curriculum is not biased toward people of color. “Nor do I believe CRT is infused in our curriculum,” he said. “I know it’s a big controversial topic at the national level.”
Myers voiced his opposition to House Bills 322 and 327, which would change the way race and racism could be taught in schools. Teachers need to be able to teach about those issues, and students need to learn critical thinking skills, he said.
Myers said the bigger issue facing the school district is helping students recover from the learning losses from last year.
“We have a lot of other higher needs we have to address with our curriculum,” he said.
Geer also said the district’s curriculum is not racially biased. The district follows the curriculum suggested by the Ohio Department of Education, he said.
Geer said he supports equity in education.
“We have students with special needs,” he said. “They need more of the resources we have.”
“That’s our mandate,” to make sure each child reaches his or her maximum abilities, he said.
Geer said he would like to see more emphasis on preschool education, since many children arrive at school already at a disadvantage. The district would benefit from a community-wide preschool early childhood education plan, he said.
Hiring of quality teachers
Swaisgood focused her answer on the hiring of the next superintendent. “For some of us, that can’t get here soon enough.”
The district should not use the same consulting firm used the last time, she said.
“Our school is an absolute mess,” Swaisgood said, with an “amen” coming from the audience.
“The board never should have hired him in the first place,” she said. “We need to start planning for that now. It’s one of the only ways we can turn around our district.”
Myers explained his experience after 22 years in education. “I hire teachers every year,” he said.
The key for Myers is finding teachers with high energy and high passion for kids. In his experience those qualities are often more important than experience.
He credited Bowling Green teachers with making great strides in getting children unprepared for kindergarten up to speed in time for the third grade reading skills test.
Geer said the school board votes on teachers recommended by the superintendent.
“I think Francis Scruci has done an amazing job of hiring people,” he said.
Thompson said that “young and energetic” means “inexperienced.”
In her 32 years as an accounts payable clerk with the district, she said the number of student teachers and community members in classrooms has dropped.
“We need community involvement,” she said. “We need to know what’s going on in those classrooms.”
Thompson also suggested the district’s teacher salaries may be limiting its options.
“We are not competitive,” she said. “We may not be hiring the best and brightest.”
Diversity, equity and inclusion
The candidates were asked for their feelings about programs that require people to accept or abandon the theory of white privilege.
Myers said, “I don’t want any students to have any type of guilt,” but that he wants to make sure all students are accounted for regardless of their race, religion and other differences.
He pointed out that raising some people up does not mean others are lowered.
Geer noted the increase in diversity in the school district.
“Those kids are learning to work together,” he said. “Racial prejudice is on its way out.”
“Society is changing. Bowling Green is starting to look more like the rest of the U.S.,” Geer said.
As for white privilege, Geer said he has benefitted from his education and economics.
“I feel I’ve had chances that other people haven’t had,” he said. “To say that everybody has the same opportunity in America is just not true.”
That statement drew groans of disagreement from the audience.
Thompson repeated her belief in equality – not equity.
“I want everyone to have an equal chance to graduate and be a productive citizen,” she said. “We can’t treat every child exactly the same. We need to help everyone where they are.”
Thompson noted the high poverty rate in Bowling Green. “We need to make sure our foundation is strong.”
Swaisgood said students need to be taught empathy. “That’s what our kids need to learn,” she said. But students should not be told they have privilege.
“They don’t see color until the adults get involved,” she said. “Bringing that divisiveness in the classroom is only going to start a fire.”
“We can’t even get the basics right right now,” she said.
Masks
The audience was then allowed to ask a few questions. The first came from a man who asked the current school board members if they read the “accredited scientific research” presented at school board meetings, showing masks actually harm children.
Myers said he did read the information, Geer said he did not.
“All the evidence was there on the masks that shows they don’t work. There’s no evidence anywhere that they work,” the audience member said.
Geer said masks were recommended by the Wood County Health Department, and “for us, masks work to keep the kids in school.”
Myers said, “I hate masks,” but added that more students would be missing school if they weren’t wearing masks – and the test scores show they need to be in school.
The audience member continued, “You’ve got flawed data coming in. You’re making a decision based on flawed data.”
Another member of the audience told the board members to allow children to “take the suffocating diapers” off their faces. “You are denying them the right to breathe the air God created their bodies to breathe in.”
Continuing tax levies
An audience member asked how the candidates feel about the changing of time-limited tax levies to continuing levies.
Myers said he supports the effort to make the current district income tax a continuing tax at the same amount.
Passage would free up $3.5 million from reserves, plus it would save the district the expense of repeatedly showing up on the ballot for the same issue.
Geer agreed, saying a continuing levy allows the district access to money that otherwise has to be saved in reserves, and it allows that district to do better planning.
“We can’t use it. It’s crazy,” he said. “I think we should have access to it for educational purposes.”
Thompson is opposed to turning time-limited levies into continuing levies.
“We as voters, as taxpayers only have so many things we can control,” she said. She also suspects that the district will ask for more money, rather than be fiscally responsible.
“The current board does not let us know what they are thinking. They make a decision and we’re just supposed to be happy with it,” she said.
Thompson also said it is too difficult to get information from the district administration. She currently has a request in for records that should take 3.5 minutes to find, she said. But she has been told it will take 10 to 15 business days to get the records to her.
Swaisgood is also opposed to continuing levies.
“You are talking about absolute power,” she said. “Why as voters would we ever embrace that. This school has never earned that.”
Swaisgood also questioned the board’s decision to hire financial consultant David Conley again, at an increased annual salary of $50,000.
