Community advocate Misty Kieschnick will run for the second time for a place on the school board tomorrow against candidates Trent Hill and T. Craig Morgan.
One of Kieschnick’s main goals for the district is to improve the special education programs in order to include all kids in education.
“We have a lot of room to grow there. But what I do know is we are understaffed and under supported in our special programs department,” said Kieschnick. “I have multiple friends that have left the district to seek other education for their kiddos that needed services, so I think that inclusion is very important, but you know, I think the IE, which is the individual education, is very crucial to have. Again, it’s another added thing for the teachers to work on, but when it’s right, it helps. It helps the teachers. It helps the kids.”
As a person who is involved in her community, like going to school board meetings and community events and a person who sees the ever-growing diversity range in the district, Kieschnick plans to build a better communication system for families.
“I think that we need to do a better job engaging our families for multiple reasons. There’s a lot more language diversity than there used to be and when you’re a volunteer, you don’t think about it, but a lot of times people don’t volunteer because they don’t feel welcome or they don’t know about programs,” said Kieschnick. “I plan to, board or not, go back to having a list of community resources on my Facebook page-my personal and election page. I think we’ve got a lot more struggling families than we realize, so engaging those families and helping them engage with their community, just feels like that would be so valuable.”
Dealing with the $10 million dollar deficit in the ISD and the ever-growing inflation, Kieschnick plans on using her background and learning more about the economic world and how it can correlate with the district.
“In my executive career, I dealt a lot with budgeting. I went through one of the financial crises that we had to get very creative for. Right now, I know going in that this is going to be a hard job because we haven’t received any additional funding since 2019. And cost of living has gone way up,” said Kieschnick. “Teachers are leaving, so we’re competing for good teachers. My biggest thing is to jump on board and learn more about all the things that I learned about being on committees like Deepak and things like that. I think we’re just going to have to be really creative until we get additional funding.”
Throughout it all, Kieschnick’s two biggest intentions for the future of the district is to be a voice for all families, especially those in need of special education resources and lower economic backgrounds.
“My two largest advocates are for special education and lower economics,” said Kieschnick. “My slogan is to be a voice for all students.”