Oshkosh School Board election

Two seats are up for election on the seven member School Board, and four candidates are challenging the two incumbents. All quotes below are from this article by the ONW.

The incumbents are Ben Schneider II and Tom McDermott.

Ben Schneider has served on the School Board for six years, and is billed in the ONW article as a budget and finance guy:

"I'm always looking to the future and how a resolution will impact our future education or future budgets," said Schneider, who has three children in the Oshkosh school district. "I feel that frankly it is a perspective that is ignored on the board and I do feel that in order for us to kind of move and get some health back to this district we're going to have to start changing the way we do business and not always making decisions that seem like a good idea for a short period of time."

Tom McDermott is also seeking a third three year term. He says he wants to see the 10-year facilities plan completed:

McDermott said he is seeking a third term because he thinks it's important to complete the 10-year facilities planning process.

The long-range facilities planning process, which began more than a year ago, will close some schools, add onto and renovate other buildings and redraw boundary lines to create equity among schools throughout the district.

"We're at an important point in developing and moving that plan forward and I'd like to be a part of that process," McDermott said. "It's a really important process. The plan will provide for facilities that are going to last for a long time."

Challenging these two incumbents are John Daggett, Kevin Janke, John Lemberger, and Michelle Monte.

John Daggett, who is also challenging Bill Wingren's County Board seat, has run for School Board before along with a handful of other offices. Daggett has raised the bar on the label "perennial candidate" at this point.

Kevin Janke, a parent with children in the OASD who was involved with the community response team aspect of the facilities planning, appears to be running to get that facilities plan completed:

"I am to the point of frustration because this process is taking so long," he said. "I'm very disappointed in some of the board members for being so negative about the district and the facilities plan."

John Lemberger, a UWO education professor and ONW community columnist, may be the most qualified academically with a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. He is a former teacher and has a history with the OASD. Lemberger:

Among the issues Lemberger hopes to address are neighborhood schools, district spending and teacher hiring practices. He said he also hopes to strengthen the relationship between UWO and the school district.

"I think we ought to preserve our neighborhood schools," he said. "I don't agree with spending $46 million to basically close a bunch of neighborhood schools."

Michelle Monte is launching her third run in three years for a seat on the School Board. Based on the conversations on the blogs, Monte is the "Hillary Clinton" of this race - people either love her or hate her. Will this be the year that she breaks onto the school board?

"I'm running because I never give up on the future of my children or the community's children," said Monte, who has two children in the Oshkosh school district.

Monte has a degree in education from the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay and is currently pursing a master's degree in English at UWO.

With no Common Council race we can expect a lot more attention to be paid to this school board race and the various County Board seats this term.

There is chatter already taking place on online forums around the city including Michelle Monte's blog, Theresa Thiel's blog, The ONW forums, and more soon to come. And of course we encourage discussion here on this site as well.

Who do you like at this point?