How school board candidates feel about book bans and the dismantling of the U.S. Dept. of Education

Editor's note: This is part of a series of stories ahead of the May 13 Sioux Falls school board election. You can find the first story here, and keep following Sioux Falls Simplified for more details ahead of election day.

Simplified: Four people are vying for two open seats on the Sioux Falls School Board. Sioux Falls Simplified sat down with each of them and asked a slate of questions related to various issues relevant to public schools. Here's what they had to say about their priorities as they seek to lead the state's largest school district.

Tell me more. Who are the candidates?

The four candidates are (in ballot order):

Elizabeth Duffy
Trish Ringold
Nan Kelly
Thomas Werner

Here's a look at how each candidate answered some questions from Sioux Falls Simplified:

Schools are facing quite a bit of funding uncertainty at both the state and federal level. If elected, how will you approach conversations about budget and, if needed, advocate for public school funding?

Duffy: I think the health of our public school funding is really a direct reflection of the health of our communities, and public schools are absolutely vital. Public funds should be used for public purposes, including school.

I understand that it's difficult when you feel like you don't have enough to go around, and tough decisions have to be made. I would be prepared to hold legislators accountable to what they’ve said they will do, and if they don't do it to provide that communication about why.
Tell them: because you're not upholding your part of this, directly because of the lack of funding, these things are out of our budget. So then when we get questions about why are literacy rates falling, well, because we had to reduce reading interventionists because we didn't get the funding that we needed.

Ringold: I am totally on board with going to Pierre. If I need to go knock on (U.S. Sen.) Mike Rounds' door, (U.S. Sen.) John Thune's door, anyone's door I need to knock on to have that conversation so they can look me in the face and tell me why their grandchildren are not worth the funding – why they're willing to put their grandchildren's education on the line because of U.S. Department of Education cuts.

And that's what needs to be done. Someone needs to go have these hard conversations with these guys. But ... we to be proactive and figure out what we’re going to do to replace at least a portion of the funding we get from the federal government.

Kelly: We need to start with a conversation across a broad group of stakeholders – that's the first point.

If you just look around, we’re doing a lot of things right, but it doesn't go without having an intentional strategic plan and the proper funding to operationalize that strategic plan. And that's where I’m seeing a gap.
As a district to the extent that we can build those bridges to have those conversations to bring together a bipartisan group that wants to champion with us the value of education and the opportunities that it gives kids – also that it's essential for economic development and quality of life in this community

Werner: Theres some very mixed feeling with what's going on with DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) and the federal government –some in support, some not.

Maybe it's time that we do a line-by-line analysis of everything and see if there is any trimming that can be done that is not extremely detrimental.
As with our state dollars in general, a lot of times things can be put to waste ... I’m a single parent myself, so being able to handle my ambitions, but yet all of my kids do taekwondo, how do you juggle all of that. I feel a lot of that life experience could be brought into the district budgeting.

One of the functions of the federal education department is to enforce civil rights laws and protections for students with disabilities. How will you ensure kids with disabilities in the school district have access to the supports they need to learn?

Duffy: That question is so poignant, it makes me a little emotional. There is so much uncertainty, and everyone’s feeling it.

When it comes to the school board, in particular, having certainty or just being able to trust and have that consistency is so important.
The fact is that right now, we just don't know.
I think the one thing that I have taken a little bit of comfort in is that we have a longer runway with Title funds–we know that this next year we’re good. We have some time to explore options. I hope we would get public support around us to advocate for protecting that funding.

Ringold: With a son that has autism, this one really hits hard because it's just even those little bitty adjustments you need in the kids’ learning styles to make them successful.

Again this is one of those, go knocking on the doors of those legislators and say hey, if you’re our representatives not only are your representing the adults in our state, you're also representing these children who can't speak for themselves.

Kelly: Ten percent of our funding is from the U.S. Department of Education. In the past those funds have been used for kids with disability, low income school, rural schools, English learners ... We have to look at those federal dollars –what’s attached to those.

These are taxpayer dollars whether its our local, state or federal revenue so we have some accountability to the taxpayers on how those funds are being spent. That's where I come in.
That’s the kind of a responsibility of a board member. I have a fiduciary responsibility to make sure those fund are spent the way they're intended and that's my promise to the taxpayer, that we’re carrying those out.

Werner: I have taught a wide range of students with martial arts. I have taught the extremely high competitive athletes, and I have taught individuals with different challenges such as autism, ADHD, all of those types of things.

Having different resources and different outlets for what's going to work for that student is very important.
I don't take a cookie cutter approach to teaching students myself with different challenges, and sometimes you have to be flexible and be able to work with those students – some simple accommodations that can be implemented with minimal costs.

Let's talk book bans. How will you strike a balance between protecting kids, and protecting freedom of speech and access to information?

Duffy: In all my conversations with people throughout this campaign, I've learned more about the policies and practices already in place. If parents have concerns about particular books or the appropriateness of different materials in our libraries, they should absolutely follow those processes for having those materials reviewed. I think we have very strong policies in place for those things.

Ringold: I’m not a big fan of the book bans. The books they want to ban are books that are our new norm. If a child wants to check out a book about a same-sex couple, I mean, you can walk down the street and probably see five or six same sex people because it's so common.

Why are we stopping people from trying to understand (others). Everybody needs to understand the way people live, and I think that is one way to help stop the bullying both in adults and in children is by just understanding how people live. I think (book bans) are a hindrance to everyone involved.

Kelly: We follow the guidelines that are set by the state Department of Education. That is implemented in our school district, and we have a robust committee process that the curriculum goes through as well as the library book material

We have administration and educators that are well-versed in what's age-appropriate for the learner. They do an outstanding job.

Werner: There are a lot of safeguards that are already in place. There’s so many safeguards when it comes to the computer systems and things like that. Obviously, with written material there’s so much discretion that plays into that, because what I find offensive, someone else may be their normal.

Any type of library or written material should be with that mindset that it should be inclusive. How I'm raising my children, I have to be able to trust that I'm doing a good enough job for them to make the right choices of their own. And if they find something in a library that they disagree with, then they need to make that choice of excluding that content on their own.