Natrona School Board Interviews: Smith and McCullar

This is the seventh article in a series of interviews about the 15 candidates running for Natrona County School District (NCSD) board.

Kiana Smith is serving her first time on the school board and works as a member solutions specialist at a federal credit union.

She said the school board has become much more contentious since she originally ran for office four years ago.

“I obviously enjoyed my time on the school board. It’s become a position that I think when I ran four years ago didn’t seem very important to people, people didn’t pay attention to it, sort of a throwaway position,” Smith said. “I don’t want it to sound like it wasn’t important, but there hasn’t been a lot of focus around it, and that’s definitely changed since COVID and the whole political climate. So I think there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done. Obviously, there’s always work to be done. And I look forward to takes on some of those challenges that we’re facing right now.”

Smith said there are several challenges facing the district.

“The biggest thing everyone is talking about right now is the book problem. I know it’s something that’s not unique to Natrona County, it’s across the nation, but I think it’s an important thing to think about and really look at,” Smith said. “It’s definitely one. , there are always, of course, budget issues, that’s something that’s always been there. Just making sure that we’re spending the money wisely and using the taxpayers’ money well. Another big concern of mine, and always has been, is transparency. Yes making sure that we’re doing things openly and that people have access to information about how their government and school district is operating…I think transparency is something that you really have to keep an eye on. to have that person in the room who’s willing to say hey I think we need to make this a little more open or get the public involved in this or make sure we’re putting information out there just so people are aware what is happening”.

Smith said during her time on the board, they were able to address some of the challenges they had with transparency and the budget.

“One thing with the budget is that I think we really need to start with providing information about where the money is going, because if you don’t know where it’s going, then you can’t do anything to change it,” Smith said. “So I pushed for additional information to be added to the budget a few years ago. They added it in the form of an appendix at the end that gives a more in-depth breakdown of the different departments and how the money is spent in each of those departments. So that was fine as far as the budget was concerned. Another thing in terms of transparency was during COVID, we moved to virtual meetings, and I think it was a really good thing that after that happened, they ended up installing cameras in our physical meeting rooms, so when we went back to having physical meetings meetings, we still stream them live and make them available to people who can’t attend in person. “

Smith said he believes they handled COVID-19 as well as possible given the circumstances.

“I think our district has really done a really good job, especially if you look at school districts across the country,” Smith said. “We’ve done a good job of making sure we get back into the classroom as soon as possible because we’ve recognized the value of in-person training over virtual training, which can be challenging for many people. Obviously there was a lot of controversy about masking and things like that. I don’t know at the moment, looking back, obviously with the information we had, I think we handled it as well as we could, hindsight is always 20/20. But overall, we did the best we could with what we had and making sure we tried to keep people safe but also value the students and their education.”

Debbie McCullar, who served two terms on the school board and worked as a language arts teacher for 37 years.

She said the board did well while she was a member.

“We kept our children in school during the pandemic. Our test scores, even though they didn’t go up, we maintained a high ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which is the national report card,” McCullar said. “I just think we did well as a council. And I believe I did well in my contribution. I acted as chair of the board’s academic steering committee where we look at school improvement and focus on student learning So I’m quite happy with what I’ve been able to do and my ability to work well in a group of trustees as nothing it doesn’t happen unless you have a 5-4 majority… you don’t do anything with you have to have consensus and so I can’t take credit, I mean personal credit, I didn’t do all these things myself, but as a board I think, that we have done very well.”

McCullar said she is pleased with what they have been able to accomplish at the Pathways Innovation Center during her tenure on the board, and that there are some areas for improvement.

“I’m leading the effort to bring civics back into the curriculum. And that was accomplished during my last term,” McCullar said. “One of the other things I took the lead on through the board’s academic steering committee was a more concerted effort in what happens in Pathways. So it started with the academic steering committee of the board, when I met with some teachers from the PIC, with three other trustees and in the business community, and we had a great conversation that took us forward. We then spoke with the district leadership and they designed a straw design that will help improve our efforts there. So as a result, the community is happier with what’s going on. Our attendance is up, there are more kids being offered the opportunity to attend there if they’re interested because we put the high schools on a common schedule and that alleviated a lot of issues as well…I think technology is an ever-changing field, so I would wanted us to keep up with things that are happening and new. I would like to develop a stronger partnership with Casper College.”

McCullar said there are a few things going on in the area that concern her, but that they are doing everything they can to address those concerns.

“Our truancy report is of concern to me and our disciplinary recommendations are to me. So as chair of the academic board, I would like to take a closer look at them and see what strategies we need to develop or implement to improve these areas,” McCullar said. “Teacher retention is also a big deal, that’s probably the most important thing because they’re the ones who do all the great things for our kids.” It doesn’t help teachers when we have kids who don’t show up regularly in class and are disruptive. It’s all kind of blending together… I think things are working out right now. We started recruiting earlier so we could get more help. We used ours [Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief] financial aid funds with teachers to help give a little boost there. We have hard to fill positions… I guess you could call it an apprenticeship program in the field that we use for hard to fill positions. We visit our schools and maintain good communication with our teachers, giving them the opportunity to visit with us about their concerns. So I think we have a good relationship there.”

McCullar said she wishes test scores weren’t the determining factor in determining how well students are doing.

“I wish there were other ways to measure learning besides test scores, because to me, all those test scores are just a snapshot in time. And they’re not really indicative, I believe in the success of a child when they get out of school,” McCullar said. “There are many other things that are more important than their test scores. Determination, affection, curiosity. A lot of things that these tests don’t measure… I think schools are working hard in trying to engage all kids. And that’s difficult when you have government intervention that has certain requirements, like the testing requirement. What we give now, the Wyoming assessment, is called a criterion-referenced test. And this assessment takes about 12 hours for kids to complete over several days. We used to give what’s called a … normal reference test like the Terranova or the SAT is sort of a standard reference test. But when we gave Terranova, we had a comparison of all our schools in the district, the state, nationally. It didn’t take the kids 12 hours to complete it and it gave an idea of ​​what the basic skills are. So I think it makes more sense to come back and do something like that.”

McCullar said she never considered not running either time because of how much teaching she has done in her lifetime.

“I think it just got in my blood. I was born in Casper, attended school in that neighborhood. I was an active successful teacher for 37 years. I’m part of this community and education is part of my life,” McCullar said. “My husband and I started a 501c3 charity in the Dominican Republic to promote education for poor Dominican and Haitian children. So education made my life better, as a teacher… I had just retired from the school district and I knew that statistically, they said if you retire and you don’t have goals in mind, you won’t live that long. So that was another reason. I thought I was doing really well with the school board, the school district at the time, but I learned that I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.”

Both Smith and McCullar said they didn’t want to comment on where they were with the books until the board held a meeting about it.

Former Roosevelt High School for sale