by Evelyn Pyburn
Three candidates vying for positions on the board of trustees for Billings School District 2 were speakers at a “meet and greet” sponsored by Bill and Sabra Stene, last Thursday evening.
Speaking to a group of about 40 people in downtown Billings, were Starr Emery, Andrea Nemitz, and Brooke Wagner, who are among six candidates who have, so far, filed as candidates to fill positions on the School District 2 Board of Trustees. Filing deadline is March 23, 2023.
All three of the candidates said that they are newcomers to the political scene and that they never imagined themselves wanting to be on a school board but have been brought to this point by incidents they experienced in sending their children to SD2 public schools. Said one candidate, she came to realize that the problems parents now face in the public school system are the result of so few people paying attention and not participating in the public education system. Recognizing herself as being one of those inactive parents she decided she was going to change that.
Starr Emery is a candidate to represent Zone 2. She is a very busy person, balancing her family of eight children with community service roles such as being a volunteer fire fighter for the Shepherd Fire district. She and her husband are homeowners who also operate their own business. Their children are a combination of their own, and foster and adopted children, some with special needs, who range in age from a toddler to young adults in their 20s. “I am super woman,” she jokingly declared.
Emery said, “I love this country. This community.” She has aspirations to someday operate a home for homeless children.
Because of the various needs of her children, Emery has had lots of experience dealing with the education system. Most of the problems she has experienced stem from a lack of organization and communication among teachers and administrators. “I want to get them all together and working on the same page… and to get them to hear the parents.”
She recognizes the shortcomings of the systems, she said, and has seen the struggles of teachers and administrators. “Educators are passionate, but they feel limited,” said Emery, “I want to look at the budget. If there is not enough funding then where can we get more? What can we do about it?”
Emery also stated, “I don’t think agendas belong in school. Parents and educators are battling about things that have nothing to do with education. …about things that belong outside schools and in their parents’ house.”
“Education is about education,” said Emery, challenging further, “Why do we have junior high kids who can’t do basic math?”
In answering questions Emery further stated that there are issues of society and family dynamics that are beyond schools to change.
Andrea Nemitz is running as a candidate for Zone 6.
“I believe education is such a big part of keeping kids out of trouble, and giving them a really good life.”
Nemitz is a hair stylist. She comes from a military family in which both her husband and father served. They have two kids, whom they have at various times home schooled, sent to private schools and who attended public schools. A difference Nimitz sees between public and private education, is that parents seem to be more involved in private education. They get to know teachers and other parents better.
The schools have Sheriff Resource Officers, who are needed, she said, but even with them there are still a lot of incidents that occur in which teachers don’t want to get involved. If a teacher simply walks into the bathroom and sees an incident happening, their time becomes consumed with making reports and writing accounts of the incident, all of which takes away from their time teaching.
Nemitz said that she wants to see drug education in the schools for the students and their parents, which a Drug Enforcement Officer reported earlier in the meeting that SD2 does not provide, even though it’s been offered by the DEA. Stacy Zinn, Resident Agent in Charge (RAC) for Montana DEA, spoke to the group, expressing her frustration and concern that even though she has spoken to SD2 officials about what she sees as an urgent need to inform students and parents about the risks that exist because of the sale and use of drugs in Billings, her agency has never been contacted by the school to give presentations.
Nemitz emphasized that parents need to be in the schools.
“I want my kids held accountable for the decisions they make and what they do,” said Nemitz.
“Education should be the Number One goal.”
Brooke Wagner is running to serve on the board for the High School District. She lives south of Billings off Duck Creek Road. She has three children, a 17 –year- old daughter and a 15- year- old son who attends West High, and a 10 year old who attends Billings Christian School.
Wagner is a music therapist, which is a discipline that applies a holistic approach to health for children.
She said that her family has experienced numerous approaches to education– from public schools, home schooling to private Christian schools — and she has come to the conclusion that “there isn’t a perfect solution for education. All of it can be beneficial and challenging.”
It was in struggling with the issues brought about by COVID mandates, that Wagner started pondering the idea of running for the school board. It was then that she realized for the first time that “there are others who want to control my children.”
Wagner said that she went to school board meetings expecting to feel sympathetic for board members and was surprised to see that when the community tried to speak “it wasn’t working.” She said, “people wanted to have a voice and the board wasn’t listening.”
Wagner said she realized that it was only in hearing her children talk about subjects they discussed in school– issues about antisemitism or gender and sexuality – that that was the only time she learned what was being taught. There is no communication from the school to parents about subject matter.
Then the day came when her son called and said he was talking to her while hiding in a cabinet because there was concern that there might be a shooter on campus. That’s when “school safety jumped out as a big issue on my radar,” said Wagner.
Wagner said that through her profession she works with “lots of different kids”… and “the kids are there but I never see a parent.” “I am not naïve not to understand that there are so many challenges. I am aware that there are kids who don’t have an advocate or a voice.”
She noted that the SD2 budget has been cut 40 positions in reading and math. She pondered about what happened to funding, when they started out with a surplus. “It’s gone and no one can say where it has gone.”
“We have buildings that need years and years of maintenance,” Wagner also noted.
“I tried to have consultations with teachers with no response,” said Wagner. At one point she had sent several emails to a teacher requesting a meeting but rather than responding to her, the teacher called her son into his office and said, “Stop having your Mom fight you battles. Come talk to me like a grown up.”
Asked about publically funded charter schools and about a proposed new high school in West Billings, Wagner said, “I am in favor. . .I am a huge proponent of school choice. Parents need to have more control.” She added that competition would make all schools better…”it’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
She said students need to be challenged more with a better curriculum. “Let’s get back to 2 plus equals 4…we aren’t asking a lot of our students.”
Shannon Johnson who ran last year for the school board and lost, also spoke to the group. She thanked the candidates for running. Besides Johnson, several other candidates also challenged the status quo of the school board at that time, and only one of them won. But, even at that, said Johnson, one has made a difference.
Even though their candidates were opposed at every turn with more funding, and the endorsements of powerful groups like the NEA against them, and the “outright lies that were told,” the challenges “shook them up,” said Johnson. Challenging candidates only lost by margins of one vote, or 30 or 60 votes against entrenched candidates who often had never had to run for office or were used to winning by margins of several hundred votes.
The one candidate who did win, she said, has made a difference. “Unanimous votes [on the board] went away. There was such a great turn out of parents! I am very proud of our community.” Other school board members have become braver about speaking what they truly think, she said.
Further, Johnson reported, that the candidates discovered that there were a lot of silent supporters in the community, including many teachers who said that they couldn’t speak out but urged them to continue their challenge of the school board.
Johnson went on to warn, there is much more that must be done. The issues are deeply rooted and system wide. “It is so deep,” she said, “Stuff has been going on in the school system for a long time. Little tiny chips over time can lead to big changes. The problem is schools are so bad it is not just a matter of asking these three women to run for the board. They need support and volunteers. We have to get more people on this board.”
People standing up, and to be willing to run for the school board, netted far greater success than many realize, said Johnson. “People were less afraid to vote how they really feel.”
She urged people to learn more about the school. Look at the agendas, know the topics, bring ideas, understand the finances which are “too deep and too complex” to understand just before the board meeting, especially since the finance committee “only releases the information the Friday before.”
Following the meeting, there was discussion among those present that it would be a good idea to hold a meeting for parents regarding the escalating risks of drugs to kids, to which Zinn said she would be willing to speak.
This article has been edited from its print version to include a correction as to who sponsored the event. The language of some parts of the article were also updated to better reflect the context and/or meaning of what the candidates stated. 3/20/23
