Powell School District 1’s school board candidates participated in their second forum of the general election season in the Powell High School Auditorium on Monday evening, discussing a wide array of topics from the type of classes offered to what they’ve learned about how the school board works.

The forum was hosted by the Powell Education Association and moderated by PHS Band Director John Fabela who serves as the treasurer for the Powell Education Association and the treasurer for the Wyoming Education Association.

“The Powell Education Association is a professional organization that strives to improve public education and the lives of Park County School District 1 students. Our educators support students academically, physically and emotionally to ensure that students perform and engage to the very best of their abilities,” Fabela said. “We are dedicated to building and strengthening relationships with parents, community leaders and elected officials to help students and to improve public education.”

All 10 candidates were present for the forum during which they had 90 seconds to answer questions. The first three questions were created by the Powell Education Association while the remaining questions were submitted by the public.

Diverse education in PCSD1

One question asked of the candidates was how they would ensure that students continued to receive “diverse learning opportunities, including art, music, physical education, social emotional guidance, world languages, career technical education and advanced courses.”

PCSD1, which holds the highest eighth grade WYTOPP scores from the 2021-2022 school year and offers a range of electives, is known for its diversity of educational opportunities for students.

All candidates praised the learning opportunities at the school and importance of offering a variety of classes while acknowledging monetary factors.

“First of all, we’re very fortunate to have Northwest College here, close. I know with my children they are going to take college courses, then there’s someone like my nephew who doesn’t have the opportunity to do that,” Jennifer Franks said. “I’ve been on the CTE board. It’s amazing seeing the growth that I get to see since I have been a member of that board. The opportunities that kids have — to be able to go into a welding program, being able to go into plumbing, electrical, various different things they have an opportunity to take classes on, and they don’t have to pay for it.”

Franks also emphasized the importance of traditional classes like physical education, and the importance of counselors being able to present students and parents with the different opportunities available to them. 

“Some feel that districts should focus solely on the core subjects and that teaching anything else should be avoided because it’s too controversial,” candidate Zac Opps said. “I disagree. I feel that this is a time that’s important for children to explore many fields and become well rounded to discover their talents and passions.”

He said school is also about giving students opportunities to develop persistence and competence along with education. Opps mentioned the district’s use of professional learning communities that allow teachers to collaborate and encouraged potentially expanding these PLCs to even further classroom collaborations. 

Incumbent Trace Paul praised the programs offered in the district and emphasized the importance of funding, and adapting to lower funding from mineral rights in the state.

“So I think that we have to make sure that we provide the time and resources so that the staff can have the appropriate training ongoing that they need as well,” Paul said. “Aside from that I think that we offer the courses that are appropriate to make sure that our students are leaving Powell High School, ready to be productive citizens of society.”

Beau Fulton, who has a daughter in the district, praised the opportunities in the schools and said that it is important to maintain the funding to offer these diverse opportunities.

“Park County School District does look like quality education, I don’t think there’s a lot of people that would argue with me on that,” Fulton said. “And the nice thing about this school system is that these kids are offered a lot of opportunities and those opportunities cost money. Athletics, art club, a lot of different things, these things cost money. I think those kinds of things are equally as important to a child’s education as math, science, history.”

Fulton elaborated on this idea by adding that the core classes are incredibly important but the secondary programs, classes and activities provide motivation to students. 

Incumbent Lillian Brazelton also praised the ability for students to enroll in Northwest College classes as well as STEM classes offered in the school district.

“I agree with Miss Frank’s talking about the opportunity that we have at Northwest College and  the Career Development Center,” Brazelton said. “Our STEM classes that are offered [are good], we have robotics clubs in the elementary schools. So we do offer a lot, we also have a great community that supports our kids.”

Brazelton echoed other candidates in the importance of funding and said that it is important to advocate for school funding in the Legislature as costs rise.

What candidates have learned from attending board meetings

Another question the candidates were asked is whether or not they have been attending board meetings, the number attended and what they have learned.

“I knew nothing about the school board. I trusted everyone who was on the board and so when I was thinking about running for the board, I started attending every meeting for the past three months and it’s been great,” Laurie Larsen said. “I’ve learned a lot — the processes, what goes into being on the board, I think I have a little bit more insight into what goes into the board meetings. There’s a lot of teamwork. There’s a lot of cooperation. There’s a lot of discussion and it’s been very educational.”

Dan Morrow agreed with Larsen that an important part of the meetings are cooperation and teamwork. He also noted that budget discussions are a big part of board meetings.

“I’ve been to one or two in the last year or so. I keep up with the minutes as they’re posted. As far as what I have learned, yeah, there’s a lot of group discussion, working as a team, that’s pretty obvious,” Morrow said. “[You] probably need to be comfortable with droning on about budgets and policies. That seems to be the heavy lift, is budgets. That’s what I’ve learned and I look forward to being at more [board meetings].”

Dustin Paul admitted that he has not attended a board meeting because he teaches Tae Kwon Do classes Tuesday evenings. However he said he is a member of a parent group that sends delegates who discuss the meetings with the other members. 

“I have a little bit of a different opinion of what’s coming out of school board meetings. From what I’ve talked about the last couple of years. It seems like a lot of just going along with the flow. A lot of ‘yes, sir, yes, let’s do this, this, this is where we’re going along,’” Dustin Paul said. “If you’re looking for a person to go to a school board meeting and be a member of the school board, and just be a yes man, I’m telling you right now I’m not you’re guy. I’m not that person. I am here to represent a group of people in our community.”

Rich Stearns said that since attending meetings and reading the board’s governing policies he has learned more about the way the board works.

“Since I’ve attended two I’ve learned a little bit just sitting and watching. Most of what I’ve learned more about the school board and how it operates is if you go to the website and look, you can see the agendas,” Stearns said. “The most important thing to me that was interesting was reviewing all the different policies for the board and the board governing policy, how that works. Lots of insight gained from those documents.”

Joni Bennett said that her experience attending board meetings as a parent influenced her decision to run for the board.

“That is part of the reason why I decided to go for the school board. We have attended quite a few of the school board meetings, we had sent emails to the board and only received a response back from one of the members from the board,” Bennett said. “A few of the meetings that we went to, we were glared at when we were sitting there.”

She added that communication with the public and the ability for members of the public to discuss agenda items or have an issue added to the agenda is difficult and could be approved. As a board member Bennett said she would be open to listening to the concerns of the community.

The general election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 8.