Where and How to Vote on Sept 8th

Are you wondering where your polling place is? Would you like to see a sample ballot for information on how you would vote? Check out the side bar on this page under Where and How to Vote. There's a couple links for you.


Your Polling Place......courtesy of the auditor.co.polk.ia.us website

PRECINCT POLLING PLACE ADDRESS
Des Moines-12
Zion Lutheran Church
(Includes part of Des Moines-98 in the Johnston School
District)
4300 Beaver Ave.

Johnston-1 Johnston City Hall 6221 Merle Hay Rd.

Johnston-2 Crown Point Center 6300 Pioneer Pkwy.

Johnston-3
Johnston Evangelical Free Church
(Includes parts of Grimes-2, Jefferson-1, Urbandale-8,
and Urbandale-11 in the Johnston School District)
9901 NW 62nd Ave.

Webster-1
Meredith Drive Reformed Church
(Includes parts of Urbandale-1, Urbandale-2, Urbandale-
4, Urbandale-6 in the Johnston School District)
5128 NW Meredith Dr.

Board Intentions? It's About Issues, Not Personal Agendas

Since I’m running with somewhat late notice as a write in candidate, I didn’t get the chance to partake in the public forum that the Johnston Education Association (JEA) hosted a couple weeks back. Since I feel it’s important that all voters see all opinions, I thought I would take the next few days to answer some of the questions that the JEA asked to the 3 ballot nominees.

JEA Question #4 – It is our expectation that school board member’s intentions be based on isues, not personal agendas. Given that statement, what type of working relationship should board members have with each other and how does this relationship affect the Board’s abilty to operate effectively?

My Response:
This is great, because this falls in line with one of my top 3 goals. I want to be a catalyst for effective and efficient teamwork by the board. Effective teamwork involves a number of things, but most importantly it involves active listening, open and effective debate, and consensus. Everyone is going to have different opinions and views on different policies, curriculum, what have you. We all have different personalities and a different set of values. We won’t agree on everything, but it’s the board’s duty to debate everything and come to a consensus on what they feel will better our school district.

The goal of the board should be to embrace the issues presented and be willing to openly debate those issues, knowing to stay away from personal attacks. True teams can do this. They can have an intense debate, come to a decision, and walk out of the board room as friends or colleagues, knowing that their decision is going to better our school district.

The working relationship of the board members should be built on respect: respect for each other, respect for the students, staff, and parents, respect for the community, and respect for the issues. Human nature is that of selfishness. We are designed to be somewhat selfish by nature and therefore some people will come with personal agendas. With that said, though, a board built on respect realizes this and works hard to keep it out of the agenda. Pushing personal agendas does not show respect for the rest of the team. The school board is voted on by the community members, and therefore needs to respect the ideas of the community members by listening and acting on the issues at hand and not getting caught up in personal agendas. This “true teamwork” approach will make an effective board.

Sarah Brown Wessling - Iowa's Teacher of the Year

Congratulations to Johnston School District's very own Sarah Brown Wessling. The Johnston High School language arts teacher and chair of the english department was awarded by the Iowa Department of Education as the state's Teacher of the Year.

Congratulations Ms. Wessling. Your school district and community members are proud of you!!


note: information gathered from http://www.kcci.com/news/20532710/detail.html

Why I'm Running as a Write In Candidate

I thought I should take the time to explain why I'm running as a write in candidate.

I was giving serious consideration to running for the Johnston School Board this year. During my contemplation, the nomination period lapsed and I wasn’t able to file nomination papers. Due to this, I am now writing you asking that you give serious consideration for voting for me on September 8th as a “write-in” vote for the Johnston School Board. As a lifelong Johnston School District citizen, I feel I can bring an energy and passion to a school district that I so greatly love.

Why I'm Running for Johnston School Board

1) I’m energetic and passionate about the Johnston school district. I think this is obvious as I have lived my entire life within the school district limits, have positioned my family to attend the school district, and have coached high school soccer within the school district. I’m entrenched in the school district and plan on being so for many, many years to come.

2) My oldest daughter will be entering the school district in one year. I want to make sure that our school district is making the necessary investments to not only provide her with the best education possible, but to provide all students with the best education possible. I feel these investments, whether monetary, time, etc. need to be made in several areas:

• Facilities – We need to provide our students with first class facilities that will maximize technology, in order to enhance the learning experience for them. Our students need an environment conducive to learning, and they need to be able to have access to the technology needed to maximize their learning potential.
• Educators – We need to provide our students with first class educators: knowledgeable, certified, passionate, and sincere teachers that will focus all their efforts into developing not only the young minds of our students, but also the character and discipline of our students. We need educators that will take a vested interest into every young person’s development. These educators will quite possibly spend more waking hours with our kids than we do as parents. For this reason, it’s imperative that we view our teachers as having an important role in the development of our children. They are the ones that will help us raise our children, by giving them knowledge, empowering their minds, honing their social skills, and developing their character. For the reasons listed above, we need to compensate our educators accordingly. We need to make it a priority to attract and retain the best educators in the state, by not only being competitive in teacher salaries, but by being the market leader. We also need to continue to be critical in our hiring practices to continue to ensure the best teachers available are hired to help develop our students. We need to continually review and critique our curriculum. We need to ensure that our curriculum covers a wide array of subjects and ideas, to help ensure that we are preparing our students for life after “Johnston,” whether that be higher education or the workforce.
• Extra-Curriculars – We need to make sure our students have more than enough opportunities to get involved in things outside of the normal school day. Involvement in activities (whether sports, drama, music, mock trial, social clubs, etc) helps develop our young people socially, emotionally, and physically
• Faculty, Staff, and Support Staff – We need to ensure that we are taking care of those responsible for creating our leaders of the future, by reviewing and discussing salaries, benefits, and work-life balance, to ensure that they are inline with our mission. Our schools could not be where they are at now, or where they are going to go in the future, without these people pushing us in the right direction.

3) The School Board needs to be an efficient and well functioning team, ensuring policies are set to protect our students, staff, parents, and community. Efficient and well functioning teams respect each other by not pushing personal agendas. Efficient and well functioning teams are able to actively listen to each other, and openly and intensely debate with each other, sticking to the issues at hand and staying away from personal attacks. Efficient and well functioning teams do not merely compromise on issues, but rather respectively deliberate until a consensus is reached. I will help be a catalyst for effective teamwork for the Board.

4) The political process should be one of choice. That is, the community should have their voice in determining who is elected to the school board. I do not feel that it’s due process to have three candidates running unopposed for three seats. No one should be guaranteed a seat because they happen to be the only one running. We need to make sure that the community can have a say into who is elected to the Johnston Community School Board.

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share my "platform" with you. Please let me know if I can answer any further questions.