OASD school board navigates Covid challenges to plan for educational horizon of of hope

 The past two years have not been easy ones, at the federal, state, or local level. Covid consequences continue to ripple throughout the Oshkosh Area School District. Despite a return to normalcy in the classroom, students still struggle academically and socially while the taxpayers struggle to balance the needs of students with pocketbooks drained by the crisis. Into this breach steps the newly elected OASD school board. Charged with setting a course through incredibly choppy waters, they will need to navigate an uncertain future.

Bob Poeschl was nominated and voted to be the school board president by the other board members, a position that comes with a lot of extra responsibilities.

“I serve in the capacity of several different community committees. For instance, I serve on the Oshkosh Public Museum Board, and I am a member of the joint review board which is made up of the taxing entities,” he said. “I end up going to a lot of community meetings and representing the school board. I provide direction to our committees as well.”

Chris Wright originally ran because he wanted to ensure students had the best educational experience possible in the district.

“The job of board members is to create policy, oversee the superintendent, and put together broad-based goals for the district to accomplish,” he said. “We have a voice given to us, and we’re supposed to speak on behalf of community members and citizens to implement procedures and make sure the school district is a great one.”

Bryan Davis was appointed as the new superintendent in July of 2021 works closely with the board in building vision.

“My duties are to lead and help make sure the operations of the district are carried out. I make sure we’re hiring high-quality principals and teachers and support staff. I also make sure we’re putting resources in place so we can provide opportunities for students,” he said. “All of the operational pieces of the district fall under my responsibility. I report directly to the school board. Collectively, they do my evaluation, so I report to them on the results of how our operations are going.”

Being new to the district, Davis made an effort over the past year to get to know the people of Oshkosh.

“Becoming acclimated with the community is one of my biggest accomplishments so far. I feel good about the relationships I’ve been able to establish with a lot of our staff members, principals, and central office personnel,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time networking in the community, and I feel like I have a good start. My approach from a leadership standpoint is to come in, look and listen, and then make priorities about how we need to be able to move forward and establish some of my leadership initiatives.” 

One thing school board treasurer Liz Szilagyi learned after joining the school board was that board members cannot talk about anything they will vote on except at a public meeting.

“With our response to COVID, some of our meetings were really long, and we got negative comments about them. But those meetings were the only time as a school board that we can sit down and talk about our COVID response,” she said. “It looks messy to people, but we know what we’re talking about- it’s just the first time we’re able to talk about it with the other school board members.”

Besides overseeing the superintendent, one of the duties assigned to board members that greatly affects the district is deciding where to focus resources. Mental health services have recently been a priority, especially because of COVID.

“Every year, we go over a budget, and we have to make decisions on what that budget can provide,” Poeschl said. “Last year’s budget was to make sure there was mental health support in every single school, including counselors and therapists. We’ve been very successful in getting to that point.”

Unfortunately, decreased communication has been a consequence of the ongoing pandemic.

“Getting communication back to a pre-COVID level is hard. COVID really increased some of the mental health issues, and we want to get learning back up to where it was,” school board clerk Beth Wyman said. “Taking the time off from in-person learning affected students greatly, and we need to get everyone back up to speed and get them back to the learning level they should be at.”

Many topics brought up at school board meetings originate in committee discussions. There are four different committees, each comprised of three board members. 

“There’s the policy committee which I am the chair of, the education committee, the legislative committee, and the facilities and finance committee,” Szilagyi said. “A lot of the things we vote on at the school board meetings come through a committee first. Once a committee goes through all the information, they make a recommendation to the board and then the full board has to vote to approve the committee’s recommendation.”

Improving literacy rates is at the forefront of Davis’s mind looking ahead to the future.

“The areas we need to grow in as a district is looking at our early literacy work, which has really been emphasized especially coming out of COVID,” he said. “There are a lot of students who haven’t received formal, in-person instruction, and many of our kids struggled online. We want to make sure kids have a core base of their educational experience”

Maintaining a high-quality staff can often be difficult, especially navigating a world and economy still recovering from COVID.

“Attraction and retention of staff is a challenge and it’s something we have to continue to work toward,” school board vice president Barbara Herzog said. “We are in a tight labor market and students are aware of news media reporting that we have a teacher shortage. Attracting quality staff and retaining the ones we have is an ongoing responsibility of the district.”

Despite the shortage, school board member Kristopher Karns is very proud of the educators and staff members throughout the district and believes they are a true strength of the schools.

“We have amazing teachers, and that’s one of the things we’ve invested in- our staff. We have an outstanding group of teachers, and it’s an area that I’m focused on making sure we keep,” he said. “Our city is built on education, when it comes to UWO and connections to teachers there, and training the next generation of teachers. It’s an area that’s a very big strength we can tap into to grow and be even better.”

Poeschl prioritizes improving facilities so the OASD will be more attractive for possible new students.

“I’d like us to enhance our existing facilities plan to have up-to-date fine arts facilities as well as sporting facilities. These are all things that make our district a destination district,” he said. “We want people to come to Oshkosh because we have great facilities and we support the fine arts and athletics and students and academics.”

A major victory for school board member Stephanie Carlin, while she has been on the board, is the naming of the new middle school.

“I was part of the board that approved the long term facilities plan, which included building a new middle school. It’s currently named the Vel Phillips Middle School, which we were also part of,” she said. “I am very proud of the name of the school; it is the first school named after a person of color in Oshkosh, and I think that is really important to promote inclusivity and diversity in our community.”

Davis hopes the new middle school will provide a learning opportunity for the entire community.

“Vel Phillips Middle School was named after a civil rights leader from Wisconsin. She broke all kinds of barriers in her way and her talented skills shined through,” he said. “If we can provide an opportunity for students who may be underrepresented by race in Oshkosh to be able to have a place they can go to be seen and have a school named after a person they can identify with, those students can see that there are big dreams they can dream.”

From Carlin’s perspective, the capacity for growth could be fulfilled by showcasing student successes. 

“There is always room for improvement, and I am all about engaging students,” she said. “At a school board meeting, we had Anika Larson talking about a bill that she and Simone Labillois-Steffens put forth making it a requirement for students to have one hour of instruction regarding voting rights. That was just extraordinary, and that's the kind of stuff we need to do more of.”

Although there can be negative connotations that come along with governing bodies, Poeschl wants the public to know that the school board makes decisions based on what they feel is best for the children of the community.

“Many times, people view political bodies as having to have their side, and they’re not on the same side at all times. But as a school board, our main objective is students and putting students first,” he said. “Being adversarial towards each other as school board members isn’t the best for students, so we work really hard to find that common ground to be on the same page with each other.”

Parents have brought their opinions forward when they disagree with decisions the board makes, but Wright welcomes the differing viewpoints.

“I think it’s good to have dialogue, and it’s good to have engaged parents and engaged students. We talk about some differences we may have on different issues and generally, after we talk, we find common ground so it ends up being a good thing,” he said. “There are a lot of differing opinions in Oshkosh, but there are also lots of common things that bind us together. I think everyone in Oshkosh truly wants to have a great school district. When you start discussing what are the things that will make that happen, you find a ton of common ground.”

For Wyman, the road to finding common ground with community members was paved with thorough conversations that led to mutual understanding.

“When I was campaigning last year for the school board, I had many people call me because in the interviews I gave, maybe they didn’t agree with something I said,” she said. “But when we could have a conversation and I could explain why I said what I did, most of the time we were closer than we thought in our beliefs. I think that happens many times.”

A focus for Karns moving forward is further improving dialogue between the board and Oshkosh citizens.

“Being better at communication and making sure we’re able to communicate better with our community is important,” he said. “Sometimes, assumptions are made when not all the information is out or the story isn’t being told from our side of it. It’s also about listening- not only telling the story and recapping what we’re doing at the board level but listening to our community as well.”

Herzog hopes to see improvements academically throughout the district, yet she acknowledges that there is more to the story than numbers.

“I hope we will move forward with our reading and literacy programs, and that we will see improvements in student learning in that area because behind every test score is a student,” she said. “And behind every student is a family who supports that student, ideally, and is hoping for success for that child.”

Davis recognizes the importance of public schools and the impact they have on students, which is why the school board is essential.

“The public school system is the foundation of our democracy primarily by creating literate citizens,” he said. “Public schools provide an opportunity for any student and people in any life circumstances have a right to public education. It’s their opportunity to find themselves, become active citizens, and contribute to democracy that needs active participation.”

Wyman encourages citizens to run for school board because of the importance of education in a community.

“Anybody can get involved,” she said. “People can run for school board, and it does take time and it’s a commitment, but it’s one of the best commitments you can make in your lifetime because it changes the lives of students.”

By Abby Furcy

Oshkosh West Index Volume 118 Issue VII

April 25th, 2022