Four candidates for three school board races, top left to bottom right: Shepherd Janeway, Nichelle Nichols, Laura Simkin and Ali Muldrow.
The spring election on April 5 includes three seats for Madison school board. Newcomers Laura Simkin and Shepherd Janeway (who will appear on the ballot as Shepherd Joyner) are competing to replace outgoing board member Cris Carusi. Former district administrator Nichelle Nichols faces no opponent to replace one-term board member Ananda Mirilli. And school board president Ali Muldrow is running unopposed for a second three-year term.
Our cover story in the print edition of Isthmus this month — A ‘perfect storm’ — focuses on a perceived lack of leadership by the current school board that has contributed to a shortage of teachers, safety issues, and little progress in closing disparity gaps between white students and their peers. Isthmus asked the candidates to address these issues during interviews conducted in January. Their responses (edited for clarity) are below and listed by seat number.
Nichelle Nichols
Running unopposed for Seat One
- System leader in residence for the National Equity Project
- Former administrator in the Madison school district, including as executive director of equity, partnerships and engagement
- Parent to four sons who attended and graduated from Madison schools
What should the board be doing to retain teachers and how would you address the staffing shortage?
I do come into the board seat with a genuine concern about staff morale. Teachers are working through exhaustion and that’s making an impact on overall retention. My first priority is to address what the board and the district are currently doing to take care of our staff. I know the board approved a couple of extra mental health days this year and approved some COVID-related sick days. I support those efforts and believe those policies will have a positive effect. I'd also want to hear what staff feel can be done either at the district level or at a school level to really support them. We also need to think creatively in terms of our hiring strategy so we can stay competitive.
I think the board deserves a comprehensive update on the effort to hire more teachers of color, too. I think it will take a multiprong approach. We should be investing more in grow-our-own opportunities that keep teachers of color in the district through their whole career. I also think it will take innovative partnerships with schools of education, some of which may be outside of our area. I’d like to see partnerships with historically Black colleges and universities that would accelerate the hiring process for those graduates.
What will you do as a board member to ensure we have safe schools?
I think the board needs to prioritize making sure that we have safe classrooms and our schools are places where students can learn. Because of my time with the district, I know that we have comprehensive safety plans so that’s where I would start. What is the current status of policies made around behavior, overall safety, and creating a culture of safety in our schools? Are those plans working and were staff given the training, resources and tools needed to create a climate of safety in our schools? How can new technology aid in this effort?
As a board member, I believe I have the experience to see what’s working, what may need improvement, or whether a new approach is needed. I’ve seen it firsthand, change can be slow and it’s the responsibility of the school board to identify what is working in one school and see how to expand that success to the rest of the district.
What will you do as a board member to address racial disparities in our schools?
The district has invested in several kinds of equity strategies. For instance, expanding 4-year-old kindergarten to full day and investing in our early college STEM academy; those kinds of efforts need to continue. For many of our students of color, they need easier access into opportunities that really can help them experience achievement and success.
I also believe reading is fundamental and the key to later learning. The science of reading that is emerging I think is phenomenal and I hope we can bring the best, most innovative approaches into the classroom. We have to be deliberate and mindful not to overwhelm teachers who may already be stretched thin. But I believe there is a way to do this right if we can invest in professional learning of our staff and promote a literacy strategy that works for all students. The payoff is huge.
Shepherd Janeway
Running against Laura Simkin for Seat Three
- Will appear on the ballot under the name Shepherd Joyner
- Teaching artist with Whoopensocker, a UW-Madison arts program that works in Madison schools
- Trans and non-binary activist who was active in the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests
What should the board be doing to retain teachers and how would you address the staffing shortage?
Staff retention is something that I’ve been hearing a lot about especially while watching as many board meetings as I can fit into my head. There are a lot of concerns about how we can better support our school staff. Listening and acting on those concerns is something that's vitally important. I’m a strong advocate for unions and if elected I would work to create a healthier relationship with teachers and support staff.
When the board tackles any problem, the process matters and I believe it can be improved upon. We need more voices, more diversity, more folks listening really closely to what the community is telling us and actively advocating for those needs. I'm hopeful that I can help shift the district towards a culture and policies which reflect how we value our school staff while ensuring our students have equal access to all educational opportunities.
What will you do as a board member to ensure we have safe schools?
From my own experience at [Verona] high school, having a [school resource officer] never made me feel safer and it never made my peers feel safer. Seeing someone in a uniform like that wandering the hallways made us more on guard. And I know that sentiment is echoed by a lot of people.
I can acknowledge that some people believe an SRO does make them feel safer in school. But I also can't ignore my belief that SROs often do more harm than good in schools. And I believe, with my whole heart, in investing in alternative methods. I also believe that we're looking for very specific solutions for problems caused by systemic issues. Our time and energy could be more efficiently employed if we focus on addressing systemic issues instead of just reacting to problems.
What will you do as a board member to address racial disparities in our schools?
I think the board should focus on ensuring that our scholars [students] feel safe, feel supported, and feel empowered to engage in more challenging educational topics and intellectual topics. I think that if that's the core goal that we keep in mind, it will lead us toward a really healthy future for our scholars at all levels. If we're focusing on an educational future where there isn't scarcity of resources, where everyone truly does get to excel, then no one needs to worry about students losing opportunities to succeed.
I also think arts education is just vital, especially arts integrated education. It creates opportunities where students can engage in ways that they may not have been able to engage otherwise. Arts education allows educators to meet students’ social and emotional learning goals that keep them engaged in all academic pursuits. What I do is arts education and community building inside of classrooms. It's theater education, it's creative problem solving, it’s script writing, personal narrative writing. I think that’s magical and my work with Whoopensocker has shown me how effective this kind of education approach can be. It’s the most sacred work I've ever done.
Laura Simkin
Running against Shepherd Janeway for Seat Three
- Satellite Family Child Care System manager at Reach Dane, an agency that provides early childcare services to underserved children
- 30 years working in early childhood education
- Parent of son attending a Madison high school
What should the board be doing to retain teachers and how would you address the staffing shortage?
I will listen often and very deeply to teachers when making decisions as part of the school board. I support educational professionals in my work with Reach Dane. We need to be responsive. When teachers are saying something's not going well, the board needs to act on that feedback to make positive changes. Widening inequalities make it less desirable for teachers of color to work in the district, and we need more teachers of color in the classroom. So closing the achievement gap needs to be part of this conversation, too.
As a board member, I will advocate for teacher involvement in every kind of decision-making. It's essential that our teachers are supported because they're the foundation of our education system. The staffing storage is very concerning to me and I will work to create the kind of district that has a reputation for caring for teachers and providing them the resources to teach effectively.
What will you do as a board member to ensure we have safe schools?
I think school safety is a critical issue. I believe school resource officers were a part of school safety and that we should return SROs to the high schools. Police are having a presence in our schools, whether it's in the form of SROs or emergency calls to the school. So ultimately, I believe that it is better and safer for children, if there's a safety issue, for it to be responded to by somebody who they already know.
I know the board voted unanimously to remove SROs and realistically, their position is unlikely to change. However, the district hasn't added all the additional staff that were supposed to be in place once the SROs were removed. We need to do that. SROs are also only a part of a comprehensive safety plan. I think the board needs to take a really good hard look at the Behavior Education Plan and see what elements in it are working and where we need to improve.
What will you do as a board member to address racial disparities in our schools?
I think we should focus on adding staff of color, adding early childhood educators and home visitors, and also increasing access to educational support opportunities for children most in need. I believe, long term, that our early childhood education system needs to be incredibly robust. I am an early childhood professional. I know that the brain develops most quickly during the early years. So I will always be considering quality early childhood education extraordinarily important. Because it sets up children to be successful later in life and have the skills they need to participate in advanced learning.
In addition, as a member of the LGBTQ community who's raising a child who attends Madison public schools, I want to make sure our schools are welcoming places where all children are respected and can learn. Closing the achievement gap, safe and productive classrooms, and supporting our staff are all intertwined.
David Blaska
Running as a write-in candidate against Ali Muldrow for Seat Four
- A supervisor on the Dane County Board from 1994 to 2006
- Pens the blog “Blaska Policy Werks, which he describes as “your booster shot of conservatism”
- In 2019, ran unsuccessfully against Muldrow for a school board seat in a race where he received 31 percent of the vote
What should the board be doing to retain teachers and how would you address the staffing shortage?
One thing that would go a long way is putting teachers back in control of the classroom. Teachers are getting worn out and are tired of being disrespected. The administration does not have their back — at least they didn't under [former superintendent] Jennifer Cheatham. I’ll give you an example. I think a lot of this started with what happened with Mr. Rob [Mueller-Owens] at Whitehorse Middle School in 2019. Folks can look up what happened there, but after that episode what reverberated throughout the school district was an educator could lose their career if they try to discipline the wrong kid, at the wrong time. Before any kind of investigation was complete, [Mueller-Owens] was forced to resign and called all sorts of nasty names. The school district didn’t even bother to investigate. But the police and the district attorney both did and Mueller-Owens did nothing wrong. The district owes him an apology.
What will you do as a board member to ensure we have safe schools?
The first thing is returning School Resource Officers to the high schools. That was a terrible decision by the board. The second thing is to abolish the Behavior Education Plan that nobody understands and isn’t working. It hasn’t improved academic performance and if you dig deep in the Department of Public Instruction stats — the district doesn’t want the public to know about this stuff but they are required to report it — you’ll find a spreadsheet from hell. If you look at weapons-related incidents, there were 18 in 2016. In 2019, there were 43. By any measure, the Behavior Education Plan has failed.
Third thing I’d do is to put teachers back in control of their class so when a kid goofs off, it doesn’t distract all the other students from learning.
What will you do as a board member to address racial disparities in our schools?
Unfortunately, there are kids who aren’t learning discipline at home — it doesn't matter what race the kid is. Now, the schools aren’t teaching discipline either. I hear other candidates say we need more Black and Hispanic teachers. I don’t disagree with that whatsoever but there aren’t enough of those folks out there, nationwide. Our teachers are more than willing to put in the extra effort to help kids learn but they need to be given the opportunity to do so.
And that gets me back to discipline. Mathematics is a discipline. Any language is a discipline. It has rules. Basketball is a discipline that has rules and if you violate those rules there are penalties. We are avoiding teaching that basic, critical skill. Instead, we are teaching blame instead of personal responsibility. I’m the only school board candidate who is against the district’s woke pedagogy that treats Black children as victims — not students.
Ali Muldrow
Running for re-election, only candidate on the ballot for Seat Four
- First elected in 2019, elected president of the board in 2021
- Co-executive director of GSAFE, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin
- Parent to three daughters, two are in Madison schools
What should the board be doing to retain teachers and how would you address the staffing shortage?
Supporting our students means supporting our staff. During the pandemic in particular, I’ve seen the dedication teachers have for their profession and how they’ve sacrificed in order to go above and beyond for kids. The board approved two additional mental health days for our staff recently and that’s just step one. Creating a culture where our staff feels respected and heard needs to be part of every conversation. We as a board need to restore the integrity of the relationship between our faculty and our administration.
We also need to focus on recruiting and retaining high-quality educators. That means really honing in on what it means to support our workforce and create the conditions for educators where they can be successful so that their students are successful.
What will you do as a board member to ensure we have safe schools?
I want the board to focus on making sure staff have the resources they need to foster a positive learning environment and address what may be missing. The pandemic has had an impact on the mental health of our students so we are dealing with a different scenario than two years ago. We can’t ignore the effect COVID’s had on our students and staff. I’m encouraged as a board member that we have an ad hoc safety committee that can identify what our young people need to learn and provide guidance on what needs improvement.
What I’m doing personally as a board member is making myself available to young people and staff in a way that I might not have been confident enough to do in my first year. I’ve learned to use my influence to guide real change on the ground level. Creating positive relationships and building trust between our students and staff is how we make progress.
What will you do as a board member to address racial disparities in our schools?
I will continue to support best practices in combating racial disparities: We need to be recruiting teachers of color, designing inclusive curriculum, and providing holistic education. We also need to acknowledge why these disparities were present when I was in Madison schools and continue to this day. It’s no coincidence that the juvenile detention center is mostly Black boys and the only kids we were suspending in 4K are also Black boys.
Closing the achievement gap and ending racism within education, that’s a long-term commitment. I never intended to run for just one term because I know that work takes time. I’ll know I did a good job as a school board member when young people from around this community say “my school asked me what my dreams were and made sure that I had the support, tools, and skills to achieve what I wanted to do in my life.”
Editor's note: This article was update to include answers from write-in candidate David Blaska.
