Two candidates continue to campaign for the title of ISD 200 School Board Director: Elaine Mikel-Mulder and Simone Rendon. We caught up with both candidates for a brief discussion on the role, the issues they see within the district, and what their vision is for the school board.
The election will be held Nov. 4. Mikel-Mulder was appointed to the board last spring following the death of Director Jenny Wiederholt-Pine.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and explain why you would like to be elected to the school board?

Rendon: My name is Simone Rendon. I am Ojibwe and Lakota, a mother, an artist, and a proud Hastings community member. It would be an honor to serve as a director on the Hastings School Board because I think it is important for the district to have a diversity of voices in their leadership. My aim is to bring ideas and perspectives of someone who may not have lived the typical Hastings experience. Someone who can look at the district with a unique set of eyes, who encourages thinking, wonder and encourages our students to be lifelong learners.

Mikel-Mulder: I am a wife, a mother, an attorney, an alumni of Hastings, and a lifelong learner. I have made exploring cultures and educational approaches an essential pursuit of my life. I have lived all over the world and still can honestly say that I love Hastings and I am proud to call it home. My family and this community have done so much to cultivate me as a person, and I believe acting as a school board member is one way that I can give back to this community. I believe serving into the education of our students is the best service a person can offer their community. We are privileged to live in a country where our community can truly affect the direction of the schools therein.

What changes would you like to see if elected?

Mikel-Mulder: I would like to continue to build collaboration between the board, the teachers and staff, the community, and the city. Change and growth are directly correspondent to the relationship and support of those surrounding the board; therefore, I would like to continue to build this relationship.

Rendon: We need to make sure we are doing all we can to retain our incredible staff, have healthy communication on where staff can improve, and work in ways that would encourage new talent to our district. The students are the heart of this district, but it is the teachers and staff that ensures their success.
Declining enrollment is a huge issue in many districts. We need to regain, retain and attract students to our district, to ensure we have funding and resources to continue the great opportunities we have and want to add to ISD 200.
We offer many opportunities for kids to be challenged. College coursework, PSEO, career readiness and hands-on learning etc. I would like to work with district staff to see if there are other resources we can provide to bring up the kids who are falling behind or do not think they can access these opportunities. Kids who aren't at reading level for their grade. Kids who are dealing with truancy or excessive absences. Kids who need extra support to finish high school and be ready to launch into adulthood. What can we do as a district to close the achievement gap and help more students succeed! The more students that succeed the better our community can become.

What do you see as the biggest problem facing the district?

Rendon: I am deeply concerned with the attack on our professional teachers by community members and parents in the past few years. Parents are ultimately the primary caregiver to their children. They will always maintain control over their children's learning. However, there is a distinct and necessary separation of roles when it comes to students entering a public school classroom. Trust has to be given to teachers, in that they have the educational training, state mandated resources, teaching experience and the passion for making sure our students all learn to the very best of their ability. We need to back our teachers and show them the respect that they deserve. Our teachers are with our children for more waking/learning hours than they get at home. It is paramount that we trust, that we talk with and have good communication with our children’s teachers and school if we are to help our children’s brains grow.
Parent involvement in a children's education is KEY to success. In fully understanding the necessary skills the students must have to be successful, and encouraging the kids to take the time and the resources made available to them to flourish in their education, it should be a "partnership" between the parents and teachers. When both can show a child that teachers are to be respected, more learning can happen. I would love to encourage more community in these relationships, to help improve our student's experiences overall.

Mikel-Mulder: I think our district is struggling in the same manner that other districts have been struggling, with budget cuts and lack of funding make our public schools an unattractive place for people to work. Retaining good teachers and staff is something that I know that the board feels is extremely important and it seems we are constantly working through how to make every effort, with the budget we have, to make this possible. When teachers are strapped, it affects the classroom. When the classroom is affected, parents pull students to go to different schooling options to ensure their children get the best education possible. Our district is amazing and we need to work with the teachers, staff, and community to find creative solutions to ensure that our school experience for our children is top notch and effective.
Further, it has become apparent that we are still healing from the effects of COVID on our students. Again, creative solutions are necessary to redeem the time that was lost and regain the confidence in our schools from our community. We must aid our students (with patience) back to a place where they can progress academically by capturing their attention through experiential learning and opening their minds to what they can do with their lives if they put forth the effort. We need to do whatever we can to make sure our students have an education where they can graduate with confidence, competence, and the ability to engage in rigorous academics through reading, writing, speaking, and critical thinking.

What are some strengths and weaknesses you see in our district?

Mikel-Mulder: “Our district is big enough to offer great opportunities and small enough to care” (credit: Mark Zuzek). After working the past couple months with the board, I can confidently say that it is a board that cares GREATLY about our students, ensuring the students obtain a quality education and leave their time here with the tools they need to succeed in life. I think a weakness may be that our district hasn’t thought big enough about creative ways to capture students and lead them with a passion for the subjects that they are privileged to learn about. I know it takes constant effort and growth mindset to consider change within our teaching approaches, but I truly believe our teachers are one of a kind and that they can do anything with the right support and leadership. Our board and our amazing new superintendent will stop at nothing as we aim for excellence in our district’s education offerings.

Rendon: Our teaching staff is routinely ranked high by parents and our community. This is a huge strength that we need to ensure remains a strong element of our district.
I think one of our weaknesses is the routine turnover of key positions in our district. These leadership positions take a long time to understand and become effective in their role. We need to hire right and then support and encourage great staff to stay in our district.

How do you define the role of a school board member in supporting students, staff, and the community?

Rendon: As an elected school board member, it is my priority to support the students, staff and community. Before every vote, I will fully understand the effect it is making and ensure that it is making a POSITIVE impact.
Supporting students – How can we better support students? Not just academically, but is something happening in their life that is making learning achievable? Mental health supports. Social support. Home life support. We, as a community, need to do what we can, to make sure students are in a place to be able to learn. This may mean partnering with additional community resources.
Supporting staff – I would ask them what the school board could do to help them be more successful. Let's be creative and think outside the box. Do they need specific training, additional support staff, educational resources? How can we show our teachers that we will support their role? Let's partner with them and listen to their ideas on what we can do as a district to help kids succeed.
Supporting community - Our district IS our community. We need a supportive community in order for the students and staff to feel supported. I would love to work on ways to help integrate activities that encourage the district to collaborate with the community. If we want to raise lifelong learners, we need to reach out to our community members who are interested in learning too!

Mikel-Mulder: A school board member’s role is to hear the voices and concerns of the students, staff and community, constructively engage, and assist in implanting vision and direction for the district accordingly (aka- the Strategic Plan). We are to support the staff and teachers as they map out the “plan” to attend to the ultimate vision.

Declining enrollment has been a key issue within the district for years. What do you see as solutions to long-term declining enrollment?

Mikel-Mulder: I think we need to focus on doing our absolute best for the students. Steward the spaces and students we have and continuously look for ways to provide innovated opportunities so our students can live their lives with confidence in their abilities to think well for themselves, make decisions based on knowledge, and communicate with the world at large. I think everyone has the right to enroll their students where they see is the best fit based on their values and other factors. Our goal is that nobody leaves our district due to a lacking academic experience.

Rendon: Ensure that ALL students and families feel welcomed into our schools. Ensure that every person who enters our schools feels like they belong here.
Take a poll on every student who leaves this district and find out why. Is there anything we can do differently to keep those families? Are there resources or opportunities that we are struggling to meet, to keep families in ISD 200?
Doing what we can to continue to offer the diversity of opportunities to our students attracts more kids. Sports, clubs, college coursework - these all attract new families to our district.

A school board director is a nonpartisan elected official. What does that mean to you?

Rendon: I will absolutely leave politics at the door. As a board member, I plan to look at policy, not politics, to make decisions that will positively impact students, teachers, and the community. I will make my votes knowing that it will impact ALL students. I only want to help students, not hurt or negatively impact our district. This position is non-political because you are serving the entirety of the community, not just people who match up with you politically.
I would love to see our school board members stay out of the media. As a director, you would never see my name endorsed by a political group, sign my name to a lobbying site, or remove books or policies that bring negative attention to our district. These acts not only hurt the relationships that are so critical to have with staff and parents, but they ultimately hurt students. These "political" actions bring negative attention and feelings toward our district, and that truly does negatively impact our student enrollment and our student success!

Mikel-Mulder: A school board member represents the community at large. Be that there is and will always be differing perspectives in the community, a school board member is to understand all inputs, constructively engage, and to ultimately work with the other directors to determine what will ultimately breed the best result for the students based on measured experiences.
It is important that the community also has trust in the board members. The community must understand that the board is wrestling through all the perspectives that are offered to us. The board and the district will ultimately thrive when the community decides to engage and offer constructive input with the aim of unity. Saying this, each director has a personal life too and I believe it’s important for the community to respect the personal beliefs and convictions of the directors to lead their lives in a manner that supports their conscience. Operating in a space of bipartisan collaboration is an art, not a science, and I think “people respecting people” ought to be at the heart of all we do. Respect breeds respect. Kindness breeds kindness. Treat people as you’d like to be treated.