Students' welfare paramount in any decisions, Kaneland candidates say

Candidates for the Kaneland school board are eager to implement the "Kaneland 2020" strategic plan.

All say each decision the board makes should be run through a students-first filter.

"I'm excited the people who are running are all very interested in putting kids first, so I think we will have a good, solid school board," incumbent Shana Sparber said. Sparber was appointed to the board in October.

The other candidates are Pedro Rivas, who was elected in 2013, and Aaron Lawler and Noah Little.

Lawler said communication could be better between the board, teachers and the community. He suggests televising meetings, perhaps using Facebook Live, with a way for people to ask questions during meetings. He also called on board members and administrators to participate more in social media.

Lawler said it's not right for board members to have their own agenda for board business. He plans to be a voice for students' parents, teachers and residents, being pro-teacher and pro-community at the same time.

"I believe happy parents and happy teachers make for happy children," he said. And the board can balance the budget without cutting programs, if it thinks creatively, he added.

Little said as a member of the financial advisory committee, he preferred to see things as opportunities, not "pressing challenges." For example, supplying buses for a district that is more than 140 square miles was challenging, "but we never made it an issue we can't solve," he said.

Rivas, who said money is needed to repair and maintain buildings, voted against increasing the district's property taxes for operations the first three years he was on the board, but approved it this last time. "It's the first time I voted for taxes (increase), because I saw what was coming," he said, acknowledging pay raises promised to teachers.

Sparber said meeting the district's motto of getting students "college-, career- and community-ready" is the most important priority. "We need to offer a variety of experiences to students to pursue their passions," she said. Sparber said she is especially interested in the "Kaneland 2020" goal of making learning more personalized for each student.

Residents have asked how high a priority it is to attract and retain teachers. Little said the No. 1 factor in how well a child performs is the adults who work with the children - their parents and their teachers. So if the district is losing teachers, he said, he wants to know why, and if its human resources administrators are looking into the reasons.

"We can value people in ways that aren't money-related," Lawler said, such as asking teachers to sit on the district's advisory committees. They could also lend their specific expertise to problems, such as having science teachers work on environmental sustainability projects.

Sparber, who lives in Maple Park, is a certified public accountant and auditor. Rivas, a quality assurance analyst, lives in Sugar Grove. Little is an elementary school principal in East Aurora District 131, and lives in Sugar Grove. Lawler, of Montgomery, teaches humanities at Waubonsee Community College.