Weld RE-4 school board candidates share their views at community forum

WINDSOR — Jennifer Hansen and Helen “Kathy” Ulrich both spoke of the uniqueness of the Weld RE-4 school district and the importance of maintaining its small-town feel despite rapid population growth.

Mark Leach spoke of the importance of regaining trust in a community that was fractured during the COVID-19 pandemic and his goal of increasing the amount of instruction in physical education, healthy living and nutrition students receive.

Patrick Miller simply asked the community to let him continue the work he’s done over the past 18 months as an appointed member of the Weld RE-4 School District Board of Education by electing him to a four-year term.

Another incumbent, Raymond Ruth, and former Weld RE-4 superintendent Karen Trusler — who are both running unopposed — also shared their concerns, thoughts and views during a “Meet the Candidates Night” Tuesday at Windsor High School.

About 70 people gathered inside the high school’s Innovation Center to listen to the six candidates for the four Weld RE-4 school board seats up for election on Nov. 7. Others tuned in for a livestream broadcast to hear how the candidates responded to six questions posed by Kevin Copher, the district’s director of instruction.

Hansen, a longtime resident and parent of two Weld RE-4 graduates and another child who is in high school, and Ulrich, a retired foreign language teacher with two grandchildren attending district schools, are running against each other for the District E seat that is being vacated by board president Russell Smart.

Leach and Miller are vying for the District D seat.

2023 Fort Collins voter guide: What to know about Fort Collins, PSD, statewide races

Candidates can only represent the districts in which they live, but they are elected by all voters in the district serving Windsor and Severance.

The questions didn’t provide a lot of opportunity for candidates to offer opposing views but did give them each a chance to discuss their priorities.

Hansen said she wants to preserve the positive culture she has seen in classrooms while serving as both a parent volunteer and substitute teacher in the district’s schools over the past 16 years. Growth will continue to be a challenge for the district, she said, and she hopes that won’t destroy its “small-town culture.”

Continuing to build strong community relationships and “encouraging their value” can help maintain that culture, she said.

Weld RE-4 had 3,152 students in 2004-05, according to the Colorado Department of Education, and now serves 8,228 students in Windsor, Severance and west Greeley. The district is opening two new elementary schools next fall and adding another middle school in 2025-26.

“Homes are going to continue to be built, and families are going to continue to move here, and we’re going to continue to need schools,” she said.

Ulrich fears Weld RE-4 will be negatively influenced by policies and practices in neighboring districts that she believes threaten its success.

“I have two little granddaughters, and I want to make sure that their future is as good as mine was, the one that we grew up on,” she said when asked why she chose to run. “I’ve researched surrounding districts, I’ve researched statewide, nationwide, and I’m very, very concerned about what is happening. But I don’t see that here. In this district, we’re like a little island here surrounded by these other districts that have all these problems. It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect, but I think we’re really on the right track, and I want to make sure we stay that way.”

Ulrich favors the district’s “opt-in” rather than “opt-out” policy on books students are reading in class and the parental notification they receive about what books their children check out from school libraries. She appreciates the district’s “straightforward” communications with parents.

“They do not omit to say things like some districts do,” she said, most likely referring to gender-identity polices in Poudre, Thompson and many other school districts that instruct teachers to call students by their preferred names and pronouns in school while using their legal names and associated pronouns in communications with parents.

She went on to express concerns about the emotional health of students and their fears of not fitting in.

“They’re looking for a group to identify with, and so a lot of kids go into the transgenderism and really, basically, they’re hurting inside from something else. They want somebody they can identify with. They want kids they can sit with at lunchtime.”

Leach, a U.S. Army veteran who worked with NASA on physical fitness programs for astronauts, said his more recent work in cardiology included research for UCHealth. In that role, he discovered that Weld RE-4 students had an obesity rate of more than 31%. And yet his son, a third grader, only has physical education class in school once every three weeks on a rotating schedule of “specials” that also include art and music.

If the goal of public education is preparing students for the future, making sure they have a future should be part of that process, he said, advocating for more instruction on the importance of exercise and eating healthy.

“Cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer in America, and it has been for decades,” he said. “Sedentary lifestyle, obesity, things like that are some of the top contributors to that. It kills more people than the top three cancers combined. So, what I would like to do is make sure our kids are getting more physical activity and getting a good quality health education that they can take with them.”

Miller, a finance director for Hach, a Loveland-based company focused on water quality, said he wants to continue the work he has been involved in “to continue moving our district forward” since being appointed to fill a vacancy 18 months ago. That includes the hiring of a new superintendent, Michelle Scallon, “that brought our community together," and passage of a 2022 bond measure and mill levy to build new schools, he said.

Providing apprenticeships, internships and other options besides college for students who graduate was mentioned as a priority by just about every candidate.

So, too, was the need to attract and retain quality teachers.

The number of applicants for teaching jobs in the district is far lower than it was 10 to 15 years ago, said Trusler, who was Weld RE-4’s superintendent from 2006-2015 and interim superintendent of the Weld RE-5J (Johnstown-Milliken) School District in 2021-22 and 2022-23.

“Teaching’s a tough job, and I think around how we’re going to recruit and retain the best teachers for our students,” she said. “... Yes, the budget is restrictive, so what else can we do to entice and empower and get a strong teaching pool here, so that they not only want to come here, they want to stay here and they want to retire here.”

Trusler is running unopposed for the District B seat being vacated by Regan Price, who is term-limited and cannot run for reelection. Trusler was a teacher at Tozer Primary and Skyview Elementary schools and principal at Grandview Elementary before becoming superintendent.

“RE-4 is my home; it has been for decades,” she said. “… I feel I have a lot of skill sets that I think will help support our community.”

Ruth is running for the District A seat that he was appointed to in January to fill a vacancy created when Aaron Smith resigned for personal reasons. Ruth will have to run for reelection again in two years.

“I think we have a very special community here, and I feel like the school board is a great way to make sure it stays that way,” he said.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Weld RE-4 school board candidates share their views at Windsor forum