To help candidates reach people and allow the community to directly compare candidates, there is a school board candidate forum every year before the election. During the forum, candidates answer questions in 90 second responses about themselves, their future policies and some questions from the audience at the end. 

Of the six candidates that were invited to the event, Lauren Greenwood, David Jaworski and Jane Puszkar decided not to attend while Jason Adams, Sara Dillard and Kevin McGuire opted to participate.

One of the questions asked was “Do you support the book challenges made by the district, and what is your reaction to the current board’s change to the book challenge protocol?”

In the opinion of Adams, he did not agree with the amount of challenges made because “one person made 50 challenges, and I believe only 37 of those books existed in our libraries.” If parents don’t want their child reading something, then they should contact a teacher or librarian, but there should still be a well written policy for times when a book is too inappropriate. 

Dillard thinks students benefit from a variety of materials if they’re age appropriate.

“Librarians, you’re the expert in what belongs in your library,” Dillard said. 

Even though the policy was rewritten, it still has problems, so Dillard would like to revisit it.

“The policy is an unnecessary burden on the district,” Dillard said.

According to McGuire, he will always support community involvement, but a few individuals “mass attacked books that have been in our libraries for years.” The intent of book challenges is to review incoming books that slipped into libraries, but that’s not what happened. When the policy was written, it seemed good for the community, but there weren’t enough volunteers and it cost the district thousands. He believes it was a waste and is glad to see it shortened. 

Another question asked was “What are your top budgetary priorities, and what would you cut if funding fell short?”

“The vast majority of the budget is people,” Adams said, “You can’t have good schools without great teachers and great support staff.” 

If funding falls short, then extracurricular activities are going to be cut. Everything that the district likes but doesn’t need will be cut because the curriculum and education come first.

Dillard believes staff retention is a priority. Teachers should want to stay in the district because that’s what it was like when she was a student. Her child has benefited from having teachers who chose to stay in Howell. There hasn’t been a tax levy since 2004 so if need be, there will be lots of cuts, in Dillard’s opinion.

According to McGuire, having properly staffed classrooms is the priority. Any losses in staff can lead to higher workload for teachers, causing less time for teachers to teach. But even then, if things need to be cut, McGuire says the board should not decide. He will go to parents, teachers, families and students to figure out what they can live without, but McGuire acknowledges that hard decisions may have to be made.

For the full responses and all of the questions, watch this video of the forum: youtube.com/watch?v=YJ70lttJpPE