Three Clark Township residents are facing off in a race for two seats on the Clark-Pleasant school board, which has eight candidates total running for three available seats.
Laura Cope and Rodney Benker are running for the two Clark Township seats, driven by the impact of the switch to standards-based grading and the school board’s lack of transparency, they said.
Isaac Brewer is running because he’s had five children in the school system and was encouraged by friends to seek a seat.
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School board members are responsible for setting the school district’s annual budget, approving teacher contracts, hiring and reviewing the superintendent, setting policies and procedures, as well as making decisions regarding construction projects and any redistricting that may be necessary.
They are paid an annual salary — typically about $2,000 per year — and attend monthly board meetings.
There is no evidence to prove that standards-based grading works in the higher grade levels, said Cope, director of student services at Goodwill Education Initiatives.
Cope’s daughter, now a sophomore, transferred out of the district this year because of standards-based grading, something that doesn’t have a place at the middle and high schools, she said.
She’s done her own research on the students who have only ever been subject to standards-based grading, and there has been a constant and steady decline in their test scores, she said.
“That decline would not be happening if standards-based grading were actually working, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking that we’ve lost so many teachers and students because of it,” Cope said.
She has no problem with it being used at the elementary level, she said.
For Brewer, the new grading system took a lot of time and money to implement and ending it would be a waste, he said. He’s talked to teachers at all levels about whether they think it’s working.
“At the elementary level, it’s full blown. Teachers at that level say it was a lot of work, but once it was done and in place, they believe their kids are getting a better education than anyone’s kids, and they believe they are better teachers because of it,” Brewer said.
“Now, if someone were to gut the system and turn it over, there would be a lot of demoralized teachers.”
At the middle school level, the teachers and administrators are still working through the kinks, he said.
“To be honest, I don’t have an opinion at the high school level because I don’t have enough information to form one,” he said.
The one thing that does need to change is the level of communication to parents about it. They don’t understand how the rubric works, said Brewer, who has three kids in the school system.
“There is a huge disconnect between concerned parents and the administration, so communication needs to be improved. I’d be OK hitting the pause button until things are worked out,” he said.
The new grading scale is the No. 1 reason Benker is running too, he said.
“The teaching methodology behind it, I appreciate. But as a whole, it’s an extremely complicated system that’s designed to make it difficult for a parent to know where their child is standing at any given time. The parents are out of the loop, and it’s extremely difficult for them to understand,” Benker said.
If he wins a seat and has the chance to vote to completely remove standards-based grading and return to traditional education, he would vote in favor of that, he said.
Should taxes increase to pay for police, mental health?
Voters will be deciding whether to approve a property tax hike to add full-time school resource officers, licensed therapists or crisis counselors who can diagnose and treat children with mental health disorders, and a new and improved security monitoring system.
The candidates support parts of the referendum, but not all of it, they said.
Cope supports technology upgrades and mental health, but not a publicly funded, private police force, she said.
“Of course I’m for school safety. If I knew in a perfect world that I could send my kid to school and a little bit of extra money would make him safe, I’d be all for it,” Cope said.
Brewer trusts that the school board and administration need the extra tax dollars to improve public safety. But he wonders if there would be room in the budget to implement these new ideas slowly, or if it’s something that should have already been budgeted for, he said.
“As a taxpayer, I’m opposed. But as a parent, I’m all for it. I understand the situation that the school board is in. If this wasn’t accounted for and thought of previously and now we have a need in light of recent tragedies across the country, maybe they feel their hands are tied and we have to do something,” he said.
“If it does pass, I would make sure those monies are used for school security, period.”
He supports the priorities administrators have laid out in terms of the referendum, he said.
Benker does not support the referendum, he said.
“Yes, it’s important for me to have a safe environment for my children. But at the same time, I don’t want to be taking money away from the community for my kid’s benefit. The way the referendum was rolled out, introduced and marketed just screams knee-jerk panic reaction after the Noblesville incident,” Benker said.
“I think that the referendum as proposed is extraordinarily short-sided, at best, and at worst, is setting us up for continuous small referendums. Ultimately, if we are going to raise taxes in the name of anything, it should be first to keep up with the growth that we are going to continue to experience in this area.”
Clark-Pleasant is one of the fastest growing districts in the county and state. They welcomed about 100 new students this year, a trend they expect will continue as more and more houses are built in the area. A new elementary school is in the works and is expected to open in the fall of 2020.
Cope supports building new facilities to keep up with that growth as long as the district doesn’t need more referendums to do it, she said.
“I am excited to ensure that the board is fiscally responsible as we project what we need and build a long-term plan,” Cope said.
“Now is a good time. They seem to have a really clear budget in place for the new building.”
Brewer trusts that the current school board and administration made the right decision regarding the new elementary school, he said.
“On the surface, it seems that they have done their homework,” Brewer said.
“It seems to me that the schools are getting packed. But there has to be a happy medium between having smaller class sizes and the expense of having that.”
As the parent of three kids in the school system, he doesn’t have any real concerns with the way school officials are addressing growth, he said.
“From the outside looking in, it seems to me that the administration has done what they can to address the growth. We certainly don’t have kids studying in temporary trailers like some other school districts in the area, so I think they’ve stayed on top of things,” he said.
Benker appreciates that school officials fixed their financial problems and found room in the current budget before they moved forward on the new elementary school, but it’s past due, he said.
“My daughters in the elementary schools complain about how many kids are in their classes,” he said.
Benker is a proponent of small class sizes. The goal for all school districts should be to keep it at 18 to 20 students per class; 25 is too many, he said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”The Benker file ” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Name: Rodney Benker
Residence: Whiteland
Family: Wife, Bethany; three children
Occupation: Self-employed digital marketing professional
Educational background: Noblesville High School graduate; degrees in business and digital marketing from Full Sail University in Florida
Past political experience: Ran for Johnson County Council in 2016
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”The Brewer file” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Name: Isaac Brewer
Residence: Clark Township
Family: Wife, Julie; five children
Occupation: Small business owner; commercial and residential real estate owner; farmer
Educational background: Rushville Consolidated High School graduate
Past political experience: None
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”The Cope file” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Name: Laura Cope
Residence: Clark Township
Family: Husband, Lance; two children
Occupation: Director of Students Services at Goodwill Education Initiatives
Educational background: Switzerland County High School graduate; degrees in education, curriculum and school administration; Ph.D. candidate in educational leadership at Indiana State University
Past political experience: None
[sc:pullout-text-end][sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”About the job ” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Clark-Pleasant school board
Term: 4 years
Pay: $2,000
Duties: Review superintendent, approve school district budget, review and approve new school policy
Represents: All of Clark-Pleasant school district
[sc:pullout-text-end]
