During Monday’s Juneau School Board candidate forum, moderators asked the candidates a series of questions meant to be answered with a simple “yes,” “no” or with a single-word response during the “lightning round.” For the most part, candidates followed the rules. The results are as follows:
Q: Do you think the Juneau School District should have a Tlingit language-only optional program?
Kevin Allen: Yes.
Dan DeBartolo: Yes.
Jason Hart: Yes
Steve Whitney: If possible, yes.
Q: Does Juneau need two high schools?
Allen: Yes.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: “There’s a study out and we need to wait for the results.” (Moderator Lisa Phu asked again for a direct answer.) We need to wait ‘till we get that $300,000 study out. We need to wait for the results. We can’t make decisions ahead of time. (When pressed again by Phu for his personal opinion:) I’m on the fence on that one; there’s arguments both ways.
Q: Should Juneau-Douglas High School and Thunder Mountain High School have neighborhood boundaries, like the other schools do, to determine which school a student should go to?
Allen: No.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: No.
Whitney: No.
Q: Would you support the closure of any school or schools as a cost-saving measure?
Allen: No.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: No.
Whitney: If it was between class sizes and…I’d rather not though. There are other priorities.
Q: What would be your goal, percentage wise, of students who graduate high school in four years? Please be realistic.
(For reference, 77.3 percent of the 2014-2015 seniors graduated in four years, according to the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development. The five-year graduation rate for the same period was 87 percent.)
Allen: 80 percent.
DeBartolo: 88 percent.
Hart: 92 percent.
Whitney: 90 percent.
Q: Do you support Planned Parenthood teaching sex education in Juneau classrooms?
Allen: Yes.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: Yes.
Q: Do you think the student representative on the Juneau School Board should have real voting rights?
Allen: Yes. There’s no bias, it’s important.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: No.
Whitney: No.
Q: Should the district reinstate middle school sports travel?
Allen: Yes.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: Yes.
Q: Would you try to get enough votes to try to bring that up as an agenda item?
Allen: Eventually.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Not at the first meeting I attend. I think it’d be something down the road, after I got an understanding of the (school board). Down the road when we get parents and students involved, yes.
Whitney: I oppose a blanket ban, so yes.
Q: Should transgender students be able to use the bathroom of the gender that they identify with?
Allen: Yes.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: Yes.
Q: Do you think class sizes are too big?
Allen: Yes.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: Yes.
Q: Should there be more or less standardized testing?
Allen: Less.
DeBartolo: Less.
Hart: Less.
Whitney: Less.
Q: Should parents be able to use public education funding to send their kids to private schools?
Allen: No.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: No.
Whitney: No.
Q: Do you think the district offers enough STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics focused learning) opportunities to students?
Allen: No.
DeBartolo: No.
Hart: No.
Whitney: No.
Q: Do you think Juneau School District Superintendent Mark Miller is doing a good job?
Allen: Absolutely.
DeBartolo: Yes.
Hart: Yes.
Whitney: Yes.
