A few candidate planks and profiles stuck out during the latest debate at the Intergenerational Recreation Center, August 6, all nine candidates running for three seats on the Indian River County School Board attending.
Asked if she believes in a strong school board or strong superintendent form of governance, Devon Dupuis said, “neither,” claiming “a strong teacher system” should lead, while all the other candidates said “board.”
Dupuis is running for District 2, the most crowded field with four candidates. As an academic advisor at Indian River State College for seven years, she has seen too many students “who weren’t destined to go to college” flunk out first semester. Instead, they should have been tracked to become “plumbers, electricians or carpenters,” she said, advocating for more vocational education.
The biggest issue facing the district is “Foundational–the wrong persons are in positions of authority,” she said, not naming, but using the recent case of Assistant Superintendent Carter Morrison being accused of fiscal wrongdoing by Superintendent Mark Rendell as an example.
Dupuis claimed Morrison was “transferred to a different positon for losing millions.” Asked how she knew he was transferred she said, “Perhaps I used the wrong word, but he wasn’t at the meeting [budget public hearing, July 31] and they are required to attend those meetings.”
Jacqueline Rosario, also a District 2 candidate, led with “I am a woman of faith” in her introduction, the only candidate mentioning religion.
Having worked as an assistant principal of an alternative high school in New York state, where students “were over-age and under-credited,” she said the district’s alternative school “is just a holding place for kids with behavior problems.” Vocational training is a real alternative “for non-college bound students,” she said.
Merchon Green, also a District 2 contender, said school climate is the top problem, based on teacher input. Many of them resent “iReady,” the $800,000-a-year instructional computer program instituted over the last two years “without asking teachers, with no statistics or evidence it was effective and no one read how to implement it,” she said. After calling other districts, she learned it’s grossly overused, validating teacher complaints it eclipses needed instructional time.
“Not one board member asked why,” Green said, before approving the curriculum change.
“I’ve done the work [of a school board member] for a year and a half,” Green said, claiming she’ll have no learning curve if elected, continuing to do “independent research” to “be a check and balance” on the superintendent and staff.
The fourth candidate for District 2, Ruben Bermudez, said he would support the guardian program that arms teachers “if done with the help of the sheriff’s office.” Bermudez was a School Resource Officer at Oslo Middle School and the Freshman Learning Center, as well as holding other positions with the sheriff’s office.
Discipline, Bermudez said, is the biggest problem, solved by “more counseling and mentoring” outside the classroom. “Let the teachers teach,” he said.
One of two candidates running for District 1, Eugene Wolff gave teacher morale “a one or a two” in a scale of one-to-10. “They lost 200 teachers last year.” Basic managerial mistakes are evident, he said, the district assuming “It’s a hierarchy with a one-way flow of information. They don’t understand they are in a people-intensive relationship. They want to run the district on numbers and from a distance.”
“I know where the district’s been and what it needs to go forward,” Wolff said, claiming 23 years of insider knowledge through his teacher-wife and student-children. “I know what is actually happening in the classroom versus what the district may be spinning.”
Mara Schiff, also running for District 1, said the biggest problem is “Teacher morale—not discipline–which is a symptom. . . Morale decreases as discipline decreases.”
“It is difficult to manage a classroom well,” she said, recommending teachers be supported with more classroom management training and other professional development, besides being given more pay and resources.
If elected, Schiff said the district will be getting an “expert in justice and education, hired by other districts for the last 10 years to create safe schools.”
One of three candidates running for District 4, Randy Heimler said the five charter schools are propping up the district’s grade, which would drop from a B to a C without them.
“I speak with teachers all the time and the culture and climate is horrible,” he said. “They are not happy with the superintendent. I’m not going to just shake the tree, I’m going to cut it down—remove the superintendent.”
Stacey Klim, “milk spelled backwards,” said “bad culture, poor administration, nepotism and retaliation against teachers” contribute to low morale and teacher turnover.
After studying the budget, Klim determined, “We need to give teachers a raise, and there is money to do it.” The board also needs to “give teachers a seat at the table.”
Appointed by the Washington State governor to serve as a disabilities advisor to help draft legislation, Klim said she will help combat over-testing at the state level in Florida.
Teri Barenborg, also a District 4 candidate, said she running because there is “a lack of communication and transparency.” The way to solve the biggest problem, “the culture,” is better communication, she said. “We need to make sure we have people who are happy.”