Center Grove School Board candidates talk teacher retention, budget priorities

Five candidates are vying for two at-large seats on the Center Grove school board this fall.

Incumbents Amy Counts and Rob Daniels, and candidates Dr. Charity Flores, Nicole Kemp and Robbie Daniels are running for the seats.

To help voters make their decision in this race, the Daily Journal asked the candidates their takes on issues affecting Center Grove schools and the education field ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Why they’re running

Counts has served on the school board for the last three and a half years. She has one child who graduated in 2018 and two children still attending Center Grove. Before serving on the school board, Counts served for four years on the Center Grove Education Foundation board. If elected, Counts will listen and push to have topics that need to be heard, heard, she said.

Daniels is running to contribute to Center Grove’s model of providing quality educational opportunities to all students. Daniels believes Center Grove has to “offer to prepare students for life after high school,” he said. He credits Center Grove for preparing him for college and law school and his wife for her career as a registered nurse. They run a family IT business and have two daughters who also attended Center Grove. His priorities as a school board member are fiscal responsibility, providing quality educational opportunities for all students, preparing students for life after Center Grove and transparency and accountability.

Flores was motivated to run for office based on unanswered questions about curriculum, growth and fiscal challenges. Flores’ expertise will help her serve the community in that capacity, she said. Flores’ career has been focused on education since graduating in 2001. She served as a classroom teacher and spent 13 years at the Indiana Department of Education, most recently as chief academic officer. She attained her administrative licenses as principal and superintendent in graduate school and earned her Doctorate in education in 2015. Flores has two children who attended Center Grove High School where she volunteered for their wrestling and lacrosse teams, she said. Flores owns a small consulting business helping schools across the state manage complex policy issues, she said.

Kemp has been passionate about public education since her son started kindergarten 10 years ago, she said. Kemp worked with Center Grove Elementary’s Parent Teacher Organization which allowed her to “learn about their concerns and what it takes to truly run a classroom,” Kemp said. That, coupled with her involvement in day-to-day activities as a substitute teacher, has helped spur her passion for public education. Since 2022, Kemp has spoken with and learned from teachers about collective bargaining, school funding, teacher curriculum and teacher retention. Kemp felt that speaking at board meetings and educating the public wasn’t enough and wanted to take a seat at the table, she said.

Williams’ commitment to the district couldn’t be any stronger, he said. As a parent, a family member to teachers in other districts and a coach, he understands where parents, teachers and students come from, he said. His children and their peers are what gave him the motivation to run for school board, he said. Williams was also motivated by his commitment to making decisions in the best interest of the students, he said. Williams also has experience teaching EMS classes at Central Nine and health care courses at Ivy Tech Community College in Bloomington, he said.

Budgets

Candidates were asked how they would balance preparing for school growth and keeping taxes, along with what they would prioritize when it comes to shaping the district’s budget.

Every year the board is tasked with reviewing the school’s final budget, Counts said. The budget should match the school corporations’ priorities and needs for the next year, she said. The school board recently approved an energy savings guaranteed project that Counts points to as an example of balancing taxpayer money when it comes to school growth.

When it comes to the budget, Daniels is fiscally conservative, he said. His top priority when it comes to budgeting school funds is weighing what will benefit students in both the short and long term, Daniels said. The district is limited by state funding and property tax revenue impacts Center Grove’s budget. The district loses funds through the Indiana School Voucher program, property tax caps and tax increment financing, or TIF, districts, he said. If re-elected, Daniels would hope to continue planning for future growth without significant property tax increases, he said.

Flores said she is concerned about a growing number of students leaving Center Grove and how that will impact the education fund, which is the source of teacher salaries. She is also concerned about new facilities being built, alongside the dollars being transferred out of the education fund into the operations fund. There is not a clear path to pay down the debt the school carries, she said.

Flores is concerned about pay negotiations between teachers and administrators. The district should also engage with representatives at the Statehouse as they approach a budget session to “ensure our concerns with current funding formulas are known,” she said.

Kemp would prioritize teacher pay and competitive teacher retention when it comes to shaping the district budget, she said. She is concerned that teacher pension does “not even come close” to administrator pension and with the pay gap between the groups.

To Kemp, Johnson County and the district’s low tax rate is an “illusion” because of bonds and “constantly borrowing money.” Officials need to become proactive and more realistically address the district’s growth, she said. Kemp also said the district should avoid taking money from the education fund to budget for new projects and find a way to balance school growth without “depriving teachers of the salaries they deserve.”

Williams said shaping the budget requires looking at needs and prioritizing them by importance. He would evaluate what is in the best interest of teachers and students and what will last in the district long-term. He would also evaluate where budget cuts can be made to “help in other spots of the budget.”

Teacher retention

Each candidate agrees that teacher retention is an issue across the state. How they hope to help with teacher retention varies.

Teachers should feel safe when telling the school board and administration what their issues are, Counts said. The district needs to focus on starting salaries to help with teacher retention, she said.

With many new and mid-level teachers leaving the profession, Daniels said the district needs to “provide teachers with the resources necessary to be successful.” An important part of teacher retention is compensation, he said. The district strives to utilize available funds to “fairly and competitively” compensate teachers and provide teachers a raise when funds allowed, he said. Last year, the board set a precedent with a flat raise to teachers and administrators to increase the base salary for lower-paid teachers. The goal is to “provide resources to the teachers and staff to be able to provide all students with the best opportunity to succeed,” Daniels said.

The district needs to be competitive in offerings, in terms of salaries and resources, to help with teacher retention, Flores said. The concern should be highlighted with state legislators to be sure that the challenges are known and can be mitigated during the upcoming budget session, she said. There is a disconnect in the offerings between administrator and educator contracts that Flores believes should have greater alignment.

Teacher retention is a “significant problem,” Kemp said. The primary concern when it comes to teacher retention is funding and pay and many teachers she’s talked to don’t feel like their voices are heard, Kemp said.

Kemp would strive to make educators feel heard and communicate effectively with parents, she said. The district should provide more support for teachers and create better learning environments for students by managing classroom sizes, she said.

Williams said the district needs to make sure they understand the reasons why teachers are leaving. The district should complete exit interviews with departing teachers and use the information to help better retain teachers. The district should also compare salaries and benefits of districts that are luring away teachers to see what Center Grove is missing. The district should additionally work on paying teachers more, even if this is through stair-stepped increases over time, he said.

School growth

The district has planned for an increase in enrollment of up to 10,000 students. The Daily Journal asked candidates how they would balance school growth and what they would consider when evaluating whether to spend taxpayer money on new projects.

Center Grove has maintained a low tax rate for the community, Counts said. If elected, she would prioritize growth based on needs and look at growth projections annually. She believes Center Grove has done an excellent job maintaining school buildings while planning for growth. Building projects are analyzed on an annual basis and prioritized based on the school’s needs, she said.

Daniels would take the same conservative approach when it comes to new school buildings as he would with the budget, he said. He would consider the current and future needs when it comes to spending taxpayer money on a new project. Several recent projects have focused on safety and security, he said. The board “attempts to build new facilities simultaneously with satisfying bonds from prior facilities to maintain a steady property tax rate,” Daniels said. If re-elected, he plans to continue the path of staying ahead of building needs without a significant increase in the property tax rate.

Flores said the biggest challenge of school growth is that Center Grove is using “short-term strategies to offset large-scale issues such as leveraging the education fund to offset the operations fund.” If more students attended Center Grove, it may lessen the amount of money transferred between the two funds, she said. One cause of growth and spending imbalance is the number of students who live in the district, but do not attend Center Grove schools, she said. When it comes to school growth and taxpayer dollars, the first question she would ask is “related to the need and the evidence that the need truly exists.” New facilities should be planned for and should come with a clear need, Flores said.

New school buildings are inevitable with growth, but Kemp believes the district is struggling to have an adequate amount of teachers for additional classrooms. Classroom sizes and adequate teacher staffing should be addressed over spending money on aesthetics and new buildings, she said. Spending money on new buildings before addressing those needs seems “counterproductive and wasteful” to her. For new buildings, the educational impact, sustainability, community input and impact on existing schools, funding and alternative solutions should be taken into consideration, Kemp said.

Balancing school growth and keeping taxes low requires the district to look at needs versus wants, Williams said. What is needed and going to benefit the district in the long run should take priority over wants, he said. When it comes to adding additional buildings, a major consideration for Williams would be whether it is truly needed and if new construction is the best option, he said.

Williams would weigh maintenance costs and “the ability to supply and maintain the building to the highest standards into the future.” He would also weigh supply and maintenance without continuing to increase taxpayer expenses, he said. Williams would ask questions about the teacher/student ratio, what the goals are and what reasoning is before making decisions on spending taxpayer dollars for new projects, he said.

Career readiness

The district needs to stay on top of what the final version of the GPS diploma will look like, Counts said. Her first child was not a college-bound student and was ready to join the workforce after high school, she said. Counts wishes she could have noticed that in her child before he completed two years in college, she said. She supports “helping each child find a path” in their lives after high school, whatever that may be, she said.

Center Grove works to prepare students for life after Center Grove and strives to “educate the entire student inside and outside of the classroom,” Daniels said. High school athletics, C9, and other co-circular and extra-circular activities provide “valuable opportunities for students to become involved with peers and mentors outside of the classroom to learn important leadership, team building, and socialization skills,” he said. If the proposed Indiana GPS diploma becomes law, the district will evolve the course offerings to satisfy the new requirements. The administration is already taking steps in anticipation of the proposed diploma and has adapted to legislative changes in the past, he said.

Flores said the shift to college and career readiness began in 2010. There should be an analysis that examines the current offerings and the potential changes with the new proposed diploma, she said. Some special education students and English Language Learners are “slipping through the cracks in terms of overall performance,” Flores said. That issue needs to be resolved with interventions and support, quickly before it becomes impossible for those students to find success in new course offerings, she said.

There are already many worthwhile programs at Center Grove that encourage career and technical education, or CTE, Kemp said. The district needs a CTE director to oversee a career and technical education program, she said. CTE directors understand grants and available funding for those programs. The district should also work on promoting available programs and make sure students are aware of post-high school options, she said.

Center Grove needs to make sure that students are ready for entrance into major universities, Williams said. Some universities have publicly said that the previous version of the Indiana GPS Diploma may not satisfy admission requirements. The district should make sure students are being challenged to keep their interest, he said. Honors programs, or advanced classes, should be offered starting in elementary school to help prepare students for future endeavors, he said.

Williams said the district should continue to offer opportunities and look into other opportunities for students to develop college and career readiness.

ABOUT THE JOB

What: Center Grove School Board at-large

Term: 4 years

Pay: $2,000 a year and a per diem

Duties: Reviews superintendent, approves school district budget, reviews and approves new school/district policies

Represents: The entire school district

The Williams File

Robert “Robbie” Williams

Age: 49

Family: Wife; three children, five step-children.

Occupation: Paramedic preceptor/vascular access team for IU Health Methodist

Education: Graduate of Southport High School, 1992; advanced education in pre-medicine majoring in biology at IUPUI; emergency medical training and paramedic science at Franciscan Health; firefighter I/II, fire investigator; National Fire Academy Leadership I/II/III; business management and certificate in criminal justice at Indiana Wesleyan University; currently working on bachelor’s degree in nursing.

Past offices held: Ran unsuccessfully for Johnson County Coroner in May