Levy isn”t only issue on the ballot

It isn’t just the $14.6 million supplemental levy on the ballot in the Coeur d’Alene School District on Tuesday. In two zones, voters will also choose a trustee to sit on the Coeur d’Alene School Board.

Next door, in the Lakeland School District, a parent is attempting to unseat the school board chairman.

In Post Falls, however, the school board races are uncontested. The lone candidates for each of the board’s two open seats are Trudi Kuhn and incumbent Donagene Turnbow.

Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in Coeur d’Alene on Tuesday, with incumbents Diane Zipperer and Sid Fredrickson fighting to retain their seats on the five-member board.

Polls will be open from noon to 8 p.m. in the Lakeland School District, where Paul Morton is challenging longtime trustee Don Soltman. Barbara Puckett, the incumbent in Lakeland’s Zone 2, is unchallenged and will serve another term as trustee.

School board terms are for three years.

“Coeur d’Alene Zone 4

Diane Zipperer is being challenged by write-in candidate Kathleen Silvas. Zipperer, a structural engineer and mother of two, was appointed to the school board to fill a vacancy in 2004.

Zipperer, 48, has served on the school district’s long-range planning and Advanced Learning committees and, at one time, was president of Sorensen Elementary’s PTO.

“The time I’ve spent volunteering in the classroom has really impressed me with what the schools do with the kids,” she said. “I want to be involved in the whole process.”

Silvas, a 40-year-old mother of four, was a high school and middle school administrator in California and has worked as a teacher and special education coordinator. She left her job when her youngest child was born.

Silvas has lived in the rural southern end of the school district for a year. She quickly became involved in the community and the Mica Flats Grange. Silvas said she was urged by members of the grange to run for the school board.

She said many of her neighbors feel the school board is “unapproachable.” Residents there would also like a local polling place so they don’t have to drive into town to vote, she said.

“I would be happy to represent them,” said Silvas. “I can’t be a puppet, but I promise to communicate what’s going on and, as an elected person, try to vote on issues I know this area is concerned about.”

Zipperer said there are no particular issues that she wanted to address as a trustee.

“I’m just doing it because I’m interested in the schools and the kids,” she said.

Both candidates said they want to improve teacher pay and agreed that dealing with growth is one of the biggest issues facing the district. Silvas said she’d like to see increased vocational opportunities for students.

“Coeur d’Alene Zone 5

Diane Tetzner is critical of the supplemental levy that her opponent, Sid Fredrickson, and other members of the school board are putting before voters on Tuesday.

She decided to challenge Fredrickson after learning that many of the district’s textbooks were no longer on the state approved list and that the district had fallen behind the state’s textbook adoption cycle in many subjects. Tuesday’s levy includes $1.5 million over two years for textbooks and curriculum.

Tetzner, 38, said she is “infuriated and outraged” with Fredrickson. Instead of asking for levy funds to purchase textbooks, Tetzner said, the district should dedicate a portion of its annual budget to textbooks.

The mother of three, and wife of activist Randy Tetzner, said she can’t support the district’s proposal to add programs for the district’s high achievers.

“First we need to have the basics for all students in place before we can support programs,” Tetzner said.

Fredrickson, 59, was appointed to the school board in 2002. He is the city of Coeur d’Alene’s wastewater and utilities superintendent. His children graduated from Coeur d’Alene schools, and he now has grandchildren in the district’s schools.

In 1970, Fredrickson began teaching but soon switched to the engineering field and a better-paying job. He said he never lost his passion for education, though, and decided to apply for the school board when the opportunity arose.

As trustee, Fredrickson has served on the district’s negotiation committee, the attendance zone committee and the policy review committee. He said he wants to continue his service so he can see the district’s strategic plan through to conclusion.

Fredrickson said his experience working with budgets and construction management makes him a good candidate for the school board. He describes himself as “level-headed” and a “consensus builder.” If re-elected, Fredrickson said he’d like to address concerns about sex offenders living near schools.

“I’d like to look at what other districts have done, if anything, that would lend toward the safety of the students in walking zones around registered sex offenders,” he said.

“Lakeland Zone 3

The chairman of the Lakeland School Board and the man trying to unseat him agree on one thing: Growth is one of the most pressing issues the district is facing.

Don Soltman, who has served on the school board for more than a dozen years, said his experience and background knowledge will help him address those issues.

“I think I can still make a difference,” said Soltman, Kootenai Medical Center’s vice president of ancillary and support services. He is the father of a Lakeland High graduate, a member of the Rathdrum Chamber of Commerce and a member of the West Kootenai Rotary Club.

Soltman was recently appointed to a committee formed by Idaho’s Legislature to look at teacher mentoring programs, which he said he supports.

Paul L. Morton, Soltman’s opponent, is the father of three Lakeland graduates and has a son who is a freshman at Timberlake Junior High. The 64-year-old retired Defense Department investigator said he was asked by others to run for the school board.

“I figured I got a son who has three more years of high school and the term is three years,” Morton said. “So why not?”

Morton said he spent a couple of months investigating overcrowding in the district’s schools and the anticipated growth in the district’s population. He said he made some recommendations to the district’s school board and administration, and the district appointed him to its facilities planning committee.

“This was supposed to be, I thought, a sampling of patrons throughout the school district with related concerns,” Morton said. He described the committee as “a kangaroo court” heavy with members of the school board, district administration and school employees.

“I realized that I would just be arguing against deaf ears, so I resigned my position,” Morton said. He said he does not agree with the committee’s recommendations that the district build a new elementary school in Twin Lakes and remodel Lakeland High. Instead, he said the district should add two classrooms to Betty Kiefer Elementary to ease overcrowding there and build a new high school.

He would like to add ninth grade to the high school and move sixth grade from the elementaries to create a middle school with grades 6 through 8. Middle school students could be housed at the current high school and the current junior high could serve as an additional elementary, Morton said.

The longtime member of the Timberlake Booster Club said he believes school board members should have children or grandchildren in the schools.

“I have my ear to the ground, perhaps better than my opponent,” Morton said. “I have nothing bad to say about Don Soltman, but I believe people will be more apt to talk to me about their concerns, problems they see, what they’re in favor of.”

Soltman said he is able to get input through the community meetings he attends as a member of the Rathdrum Chamber of Commerce and Rotary.

“I’m available to the business community that’s out there,” he said. He said others can contact him by phone or e-mail and that the information is posted on the Lakeland Web site.