ISD #118 School Board Election... Five vie for three positions on Northland School Board

On November 8, Northland School District residents will be voting to fill three board member positions. Citizens who are running for these terms are incumbents Aaron Ammerman, Tyler Seifert and Bill Wake and challengers James Dahl and David Kitchenhoff.

   Recently, the Press-Citizen submitted the following questions to the candidates. What motivates you to want to continue/become a board member? What do you see as the major issue(s) facing your school district and possible solutions? What is your vision for education in this community?

   The following candidates have responded as of Oct. 21. Any responses received after this date will be published in the following issue of the Pine Cone Press-Citizen.

Bill Wake

   I want to help build a school district that focuses on the core areas of education and provides opportunities to have a well rounded school experience. As a board, we have focused on keeping our kids in school through Covid and ensuring that they receive a traditional education experience. I intend to continue to push for these values.

   Discipline and parent involvement. We expect a lot out of our teachers and staff - as parents and community members, we need to support them by making sure our kids are getting to school ready to learn and working with our staff to make sure that we have a safe and productive environment in our school.

   Driving our enrollments higher by proving a product that gives our parents a great experience for their kids. This includes focusing on core educational areas, a well rounded extra curricular offering , and most importantly, a safe learning environment.

Tyler Seifert

   To continue helping our community and hopefully being a good spokesman for our kids/community’s needs.

   Too much input from the state level on issues that should be left up to our community. The solution to this is to keep having discussions and pushing back against certain over reach.

   To continue to give the kids a well rounded education and for them to have a little fun while doing it.

James Dahl

   The desire to participate in transforming the Northland School District concepts on how to best educate the students in the district by replacing present boards’ theory’s on “how to lead” with a total examination of the policy decisions over the past six years and bring forward fact based conclusions.

   Obviously, the major issue in the district is the coffee klatch mentality of present board as identified by the chairman’s recent ad on the upcoming election. There is little debate/dialogue taking place at board meeting on most issues (You can read the minutes of their meetings to confirm) resulting in limited concepts and ideas being processed to improve the learning experience for students and the community. Leadership is the problem and has resulted in the poor results seen on almost every educational measure.

   I believe that the only way to give the students, instructors, staff along with the overall community is to overcome the “baby sitter mentality” priority pervasive in education and start using the major communication advances available. If you want to follow the herd over the uneducated cliff, keep following the existing theory on how to develop people so they have a chance to succeed while meeting the overall communities’ needs.

   We can no longer wait to reinvent the development process by addressing one minor problem at a time. Our students deserve teachers, staff and leaders that can think out-of-the-box while making the larger conceptual changes needed throughout the educational/development process. This includes not only where to teach but how to teach as the existing process cannot keep up with society’s needs. 

David Kitchenhoff

   I would like to be part of a group who work with administration and school staff to develop an educational standard which is so positive and productive that it attracts the attention of other school districts. Instead of our school looking outward to find models to apply, the other districts will be attempting to be more like us.

   Getting parent involvement in education and recreation and discipline. Bringing the public back into the school district needs to become one of our priorities. Possible solutions: having more school and public activities; possibly opening the school to the community with things such as school fairs, more open houses, school carnivals; bringing back the homecoming parade to the City of Remer; making the elementary school part of that celebration.

   I would like to become part of the team which makes Northland Community Schools the model instead of following other schools. We need to encourage our staff to open up and feel free to develop teaching styles/activities that make us the ones to look up to. this will make parents look our direction as the place to bring their children to find the best education. We need to continue to improve our discipline structure so students feel safe and are able to focus their abilities on their education.