Wenatchee School District is on the cusp of receiving new school board members. On Nov. 5, voters in the Wenatchee area will select their top choices for district wide leaders.

Local attorney Robert Sealby is running against the incumbent seat holder Gary Callison. Kevin Gilbert, a current member, will not run again. His position is being sought by community volunteer Jennifer Talbot and a design firm owner Ryan Kelso.

“The school board members represent our community in education,” said Talbot. “I really see that as our school board members are that voice – that third party – to oversee what happens at our schools and just kind of make sure that things are being done.”

Sealby, Talbot, and Kelso all have students in the school district. Sealby’s daughter Alissa is a junior at Wenatchee High School.

Alissa is proud of her dad’s efforts to immerse himself in the school system. “He wants to be more in charge and instead of being on the sidelines, he wants to be like the coach making the decisions,” Alissa said.

Each candidate was supportive of the current board, but ready to bring in their own fresh perspective.

“I think our school system as a whole is one of the top in the state, and I think that’s due to a lot of factors including the current school board,” said Robert. “I think we’ve got a good board; I just want to be a part of that. I think we’ve got great administrators and teachers, and I think we have students who are very dedicated and want to continue to learn and educate themselves.”

Kelso has plans to work on improving the emotional well being portion of students within the district.

“I would like to help to motivate and encourage students to feel a part of the school system itself,” said Kelso, “so that they have a better opportunity or a better ability to feel like they mean something to the school system as well as being able to generate a better education for themselves to perpetuate them as members within our community.”

While all of the potential board members have extensive education, none of them come from a teaching or school district background.

“I’m not an educator by trade, so I think I bring a little different perspective to it. I come in as a parent and someone who’s kind of from the outside looking in,” said Robert. “I think difference of opinions are healthy.”

Talbot spent most of the last school year working with the school district to have a behavior management program different than the well known Make Your Day system, which included “steps” – an equivalency to a timeout.

“I’ve been involved with the PTA for many years in various different PTAs,” said Talbot. “I most recently did some work as a volunteer at the district level, and I served on the school’s behavior management committee.”

Kelso worked for 13 years as a track coach in the school district. Along with managing a business and several employees, Kelso said that he has learned many skills to encourage growth and development for successful individuals.

Superintendent Brian Flones’ Wenatchee Learns vision is becoming more of a reality with the hiring of program coordinator Diana Haglund.

“I think that I want to continue the work of the Wenatchee Learns process that we started and more collaboration and listening to what our community wants to help and support in education,” said Talbot.  “I think I’d like to make sure we are listening to our students and our teachers and our parents and gathering as much feedback as we can get and involving as many people as we can in what’s happening.”

One of the hopes for Wenatchee Learns is hands-on experience based learning.

“I probably would say I’m a little bit more of a hands on than just actual reading of everything. I do like to have interaction occur whenever possible,” said Kelso.

Both of the other candidates agreed with Kelso to some capacity, indicating that textbook learning is important, but hands on and “experiential” learning is necessary as well.

Coming from a legal background, Robert has a good knowledge of what it’s like to make decisions and stand by them, which is a large portion of the job done by board members.

“I don’t think there should be any secrets; I don’t think there should be any hidden agendas,” said Robert. “I think transparency is the key, and when there’s tough decisions, you have to be able to be willing to make the tough decisions and not back away from them, with the understanding that you’re not going to make everybody happy.”

The new members of the board will be elected on Nov. 5 and officially take over on Nov. 26 at a school board meeting. Current board vice president Laura Jaecks will take over as board president Dec. 10 and a new VP will be elected at that time.

Regardless of the outcome, all of the candidates are prepared to work with the students they would serve. “The success of our students reflects on us as a community,” said Talbot.

This story aired on KOHO 101.1 FM as part of The Apple Leaf’s partnership with KOHO. Click here to listen. http://www.kohoradio.com/?q=news/wenatchee-school-board-elections-underway