"I am running for School Board because I believe in accountability, transparency, and always putting students first," says Decatur School Board candidate Will Wetzel.
"I believe in the power of public education. I believe that we can do better for our students, and everything has to start with student learning and student outcomes."
He tells the small crowd at Door 4 Brewing Co. that his daughter Ava is "one of the chief reasons I'm running" before getting into his concerns about transparency, accountability, and proper governance.
"Every decision the School Board makes must first answer the question 'What does this do for the students? How does this improve their lives?' That's where we have to start."
Will says we need to ensure buildings are safe, that we have the proper materials, and that we build an inclusive, open, and respectful school district for everyone.
Watch his interview & campaign speech.
Accountability
If Will has his way, the first 18 School Board meetings of his tenure would be at each of the 18 different school buildings in the district, in an effort to reach more community members and families. He says he wants to hear all voices, not just the loudest ones.
"We have to start out with accountability. Who are we accountable to?" He says the students, taxpayers, teachers, school staff, and the organizations and people who make up the community at large.
He talks about "stay[ing] within the bounds of the law," which has "been a consistent issue with the Decatur School Board," by conducting "non-emergency School Board business at only regularly scheduled meetings," and understanding the Open Meetings Act and Freedom of Information Act, but then building up greater transparency and accountability than the law requires.
To this effect, Will values public participation. He wants School Board members to be "consistently accessible" via all means of personal and electronic communication, as well as defend public comments & take the School Board on the road.
"There's a lot of people that will never come to school board meetings, but their opinions are just as valid."
Will shared his contact information, which you can see on his candidate profile.
Budget & Planning
Will talks about the Board's responsibility to govern & plan for the long-term, which he says requires giving the Superintendent realistic goals as well as the tools to accomplish those goals.
He says a big concern is that the CARES Act funding is going away and Decatur's population is shrinking, so tax revenue is shrinking too. He says "We have high property taxes in the City of Decatur" and "need to strike a good balance there" to ensure schools are funded.
As far as managing the budget, he says "There's a lot that I don't know," but that the School District has a Chief Operations Officer and Chief Financial Officer who "we will, yaknow trust but verify the information that they give to us." He adds that some of that information is not currently available to the public.
Sam Yeagle supports Will
Sam Yeagle came to support Will. They said the school board needs change and transparency. They said there are systemic issues, and specifically noted problems with transparency and communications.
Sam has 2 kids in Montessori and recently received a notification they'd have to re-apply, which Sam says you typically don't have to do if your children were already enrolled in a Magnet program. The following day, they received another notification that there had been a mistake and they wouldn't actually need to re-apply.
Sam said the School Board received many complaints from parents as a result of these notifications, and worse - that the School Board didn't know about these notifications. Sam doesn't think the School Board needs to know all the details of day-to-day operations, but that the Board should know about significant policy issues like applications for Montessori.
Sam is an involved community member and parent, and they're concerned other parents may not be as informed about things such as the application process for magnet schools, and sees this as a communication shortcoming of the district and Board.
Sam met Will in-person for the first time at this event, but says they see him engaged in the community and school and that it is "encouraging to me".
Sam wants School Board candidates to answer the question "How are you going to make the change you're proposing?", noting that it's not only important for candidates to know what they want to accomplish, but also to have an actual plan for accomplishing those goals.
Mark Peters supports Will
Mark Peters came to support Will because "[Will]'s got a lot of passion" and converts that passion and activism into leadership. Mark says Will "knows the ins and outs of politics," and will be able to work with a wide variety of people and get others to see his viewpoint. He thinks Will will make a good leader and make well thought out decisions.
Mark is a Lincoln Park Advocate, and Will was involved in that.
Mark says there is "not a lot of pride shown when you walk into" Decatur School Buildings, referring to the district's attitude toward the structures themselves.
Mark says open meetings are important & that Will knows about the Open Meeting Act.
Mark is also concerned about school boundaries and classroom sizes. Mark writes that "School boundaries influence the overall building space issues more than class size. Class size usually refers to students per teacher. Dennis and French in particular seem to have facilities issues that stem from increasing the boundaries as well as the grade levels served. For some reason revisiting those decisions isn’t being explored as a solution."
Erin Rockafellow supports Will
Erin Rockafellow came to support Will. She says he believes in transparency, the greater good, and does not have his own personal agenda. She says to him, it's about the kids & the community.
Erin says budgeting and grants processes need to be more community-oriented, in that there should be more support from the community for how grant money is spent.
She says the leadership doesn't have good communication.
She says committees should make recommendations - for example a finance committee should prepare a recommendation and present it to the School Board, rather than have the School Board come up with their own finance resolutions.
She says the board needs to be more transparent & follow their procedures, bylaws, and the law.
She is concerned that the district offloads old properties onto unsuspecting buyers for low rates, and then the buyer ends up over burdened with a derelict property they can't manage. She says Woodrow Wilson needs dealt with, but didn't give specifics on how.
She said the School Board needs to do fundraisers.
She said the issues are "not necessarily about the individuals on the board," but more about how the diverse board members work together, saying some decisions get made by a portion of the board without much consideration for other board members' perspectives.
She says "Let's leverage the diversity of the Board for decision making."
Lastly
Will started his campaign speech by giving thanks to Connie Ogden for organizing the event, Alida Graham who's been helping with the campaign, Jenell Hironimus, his mom & dad, his wife Tiffany, and his daughter.
And Will endorses Datrice Weathers for School Board, saying other candidates are welcome to reach out to him to discuss their platforms.
Disclaimers
- Will Wetzel & interviewed attendees are the sources for all claims in this article.
- While I never learned enough about the Lincoln Park situtation to hold a strong position on it today, I am in the Facebook Group for the Lincoln Park advocates, and did post publicly in support of the Lincoln Park Advocates.
- I have participated in political action with Will Wetzel in the past, though probably not since COVID.
- I asked Will to sponsor Decatur Vote, and he said he may make a contribution in the future. My coverage of him is no way dependent upon his financial support.