Eight Campaigning For School Boards St. Maries, Plummer/Worley, Harrison Have Contested Races

New schools, dropout rates and student competency concern the eight candidates competing in school board races in southern Kootenai and northern Benewah counties.

Contested races include one in the St.

Maries Joint School District, two in the Plummer/Worley School District and one in the Kootenai Joint School District in Harrison.

The election is Tuesday.

The St. Maries race pits first-term board member Sally Danielson against write-in candidate Jeff Wolter. The 1,280-student district has four schools.

Danielson, 44, has lived in the area for 25 years. Her two sons graduated from St. Maries High School. She has a fourth-grader at Upriver Elementary-Junior High School, and her grandson attends kindergarten there. Danielson and her husband own Danielson Logging and Danielson Properties.

“Living here as long as I have, I think I’m pretty aware of the challenges facing kids today,” Danielson said. Accomplishments she points to are the high school’s new football field, the middle school’s new multipurpose room and fencing recently installed at Upriver.

The projects were completed using a plant facilities levy passed in September 1998.

Issues that concern her include the number of students who have been expelled recently for drug use.

“It’s a growing problem. We don’t know what to do about it. We’re trying to adopt new policies to deal with it, and in our athletic code as well,” she said.

Wolter, a forester for Potlatch Corp., has lived in Santa, southeast of St. Maries, for five years with his wife and two children, who are in the fifth and sixth grades. He leads a 4-H group and coaches youth basketball.

Wolter says the Upriver community needs a strong voice on the board.

“We have a school district that has five facilities. Four are in St. Maries, one is in Santa,’ said Wolter, 38, who worried about the imbalance.

“This school system has involved parents and is a good school system. I would like to have a voice in the decisions that are made.”

Wolter said schools are taking on too much of a parental role these days. He wants schools to return to a more traditional approach.

“That would be teaching the subjects that are on the report card and not going off on tangents that seem to change with changes of administration,” he said. “I would also work toward maximizing the teachers’ inclass time with students and work toward minimizing classroom distractions.”

In the Plummer/Worley School District, First-term board member Randy Holt faces Joe Wienclaw.

The district is considering a levy in the fall for a new elementary school, and Holt, 35, said he wants to stay on the board to “see that through.”

The district’s three schools have 550 students, half of whom are Native American.

Holt is single and has lived in Worley for 30 years. He farms wheat, barley, lentils and bluegrass. Not having children makes him a more objective board member, he said.

Holt said he ran for school board to be a voice for Worley, which is home to only one of the district’s three schools.

“They were talking about closing the Worley school and I didn’t want that to happen,” Holt said. “They want to move everything to Plummer. I feel Worley should keep a school.”

Wienclaw has three young children who will enter the district. He has lived in the area, on and off, for 20 years. He has also worked in Salt Lake City, Portland and Boise in hotels and restaurants.

“I’ve got kids here, and I’d like to have at least a small part in deciding what’s going to be offered here,” the 37-year-old said. He works for the Pacific Northwest Fiber plant in Plummer and volunteers for Worley Ambulance as a firefighter and EMT.

Wienclaw said he’d like to see the district administer a test similar to the general equivalency diploma before allowing students to graduate.

Wienclaw said he is concerned about the number of dropouts in the district. This year, 10 of Lakeside High School’s 170 students have dropped out. He thinks the level of parental involvement in the district needs to be higher.

“I’m not afraid to be confrontational. People say I’m opinionated. But I do my homework before I open my mouth,” he said.

The district’s other contested race pits incumbent Jack Bowlin against newcomer Jess Arthur. Bowlin was appointed a year ago when another board member resigned.

Bowlin said he wants to increase individualized instruction in the district.

“I think teachers should have all the necessary tools to do the best possible…for the very slowest kid and for the most gifted,” he said.

Bowlin, 67, retired to the area in 1994 from 20 years with the federal grain inspection service. Before that, he taught elementary school and was a principal in Wyoming, southern Idaho and in Kentucky. Bowlin is married and has two grown children.

“I wanted to get back and use my background in education to help kids,” Bowlin said. “I strive to be very broad-minded and understand each person is different.”

He’s also concerned about the dropout rate and said the district will have to build a new school soon.

Arthur lists the dropout rate as his top priority.

“I wonder if there’s anything being done about that, if there’s anybody going to the houses, door to door, and asking them about their children,” Arthur said.

Arthur is a member of the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and works there as a property records officer. From Lapwai originally, he’s lived in the area since 1991 and has a first-grader at Lakeside Elementary School and a 7-month-old.

Arthur serves on the district’s Title 9 committee and is on an advisory board for the elementary school. He’d like to see more parental involvement in the district.

“If elected, it’s not just my zone I would be worried about, it’s the whole district,” he said.

Also in Plummer/Worley, school board Chairwoman Connie Johnson has changed her mind and decided to run as a write-in candidate. She and incumbent Roy Williams are not challenged.

In the Kootenai Joint district, a recently failed plant facility levy floated to build a new high school motivated Tom Lamb to enter the race. His opponent, also a newcomer, is Dave Gustin.

The district has 275 students and two schools.

Some 53 percent of voters said no to the $3.2 million levy. Supporters said the spread of misinformation caused its failure. Opponents said the levy would have placed the district too deeply in debt.

Lamb opposed the levy, but said he’s not against building a new school. He wants to bring the community back together following the divisiveness.

“The biggest reason I’m running is to try to find a compromise solution that will have the support of the community,” Lamb said. “People have to continue talking and get personal issues pushed to the side.”

He points to the fact that 78 percent of voters supported the bond used to build most of the elementary school in 1991. That bond was for $850,000. The school’s multipurpose room was built using plant facility levy money.

“I don’t see any reason why we can’t see a high school built in the same manner,” Lamb said.

Lamb, 50, is a logger whose youngest child is graduating from Kootenai High School this year.

“All of us have a stake in this community. We have to look at the young and see that they have a chance to continue the community on,” he said. “I’m probably a little rough around the edges, and I’m not going to change, but I’ve always tried to say what I think.”

Gustin supported the levy and would like to see a new high school built. However, he said that’s not what motivated him to run. A log scaler with three children in the district, he said he’s running “to support the kids.

“I have the kids’ interest at heart,” said Gustin, 42. “I do a lot with the kids.”

Gustin coaches grade school basketball and is the head coach for the region’s Little League program. He helps with the booster club and is working on a project to put lights on the football field.

He moved to the area in 1970 and graduated from Kootenai High School in 1976. He moved to Coeur d’Alene for five years, then moved back in 1981 and bought 450 acres, which he farms.

Most important, he said, is keeping good teachers in the district and acquiring more.

“Our quality of life is the main reason most people want to live here,” he said.