Six candidates vying for three open school board seats

First contested GWSD election in 34 years

By Kendra Walker

As students go back to school later this month, the November election is just around the corner and three Gunnison Watershed School Board of Director seats will be opening up. Currently, there are six candidates who have registered with the secretary of state to run for the three school board seats.  

The seats that are up this fall are those held by vice president LeeAnn Mick, secretary Anne Brookhart and treasurer Dave Taylor. Mick is term-limited and Brookhart is running for reelection. The rest of the candidates vying for the four-year term positions include Dr. Jody Coleman, Cori Dobson, Lisa Henry, Bonnie Thompson and Mark VanderVeer. To date, Taylor has not filed a nomination petition, and told the Crested Butte News that he will share his decision at the school board meeting on August 14.

The last year a local school board election was contested was in 1989. Since then, board members have been appointed because the number of candidates running did not exceed the number of available spots. “This is historic,” said GWSD superintendent Leslie Nichols. “This is the first time that school board vacancies will appear on a ballot in 34 years and that’s exciting.”

Among the projects the newly elected board will oversee are managing the $95 million bond project passed by voters in 2022 that will fund district-wide facility expansion and improvements, with construction slated to begin next spring. The current board has also discussed developing a strategic plan this upcoming school year once a new board is in place. 

Three community members have joined together to run on the same “Student Success” slate: Brookhart, Coleman and VanderVeer. Brookhart holds a master’s degree in library and information science and has served on the school board since 2019.

Brookhart shared with the News that she has learned a lot from her time on the board and hopes to continue applying her understanding of school finance, policy and understanding of the board’s role. 

“This is a really important time for our school district. I believe students deserve a stable learning environment and it’s vital to our success as a district. I do not believe our community will stand for efforts to control and limit educators and students. Improving student academic achievement remains a top priority, and that includes recruiting and retaining dedicated staff.”

Brookhart continued, “While our slate is made up of three individual people who will make three individual decisions, our collective focus is academic success, freedom of knowledge and equal access to public education.”

VanderVeer is the chief financial officer Gunnison County Electric Association and formerly served as Gunnison Valley Health chief financial officer.

“The school is a key component of the community’s ecosystem,” he shared with the News. “I think education should be the priority, not politician rhetoric. It’s important that we make good decisions without getting in the way of what’s best for the students, and that’s to thrive academically, socially and emotionally. We’ve also got a large bond, and I want to help make sure we as a board and the school system spends that most effectively. This is an opportunity to prove to the community that the school manages those funds effectively.”

Coleman is a retired Gunnison Watershed School District and Western Colorado University teacher and researcher. 

“I have first-hand experience appreciating the differences between public and private schooling, and my passion lies with the great responsibility to educate every child in our country with a fair and equal access to high quality public education,” she told the News. “The ‘most important’ issue revolves around who’s answering that question: Perhaps for taxpayers, the most important issue is fiscal responsibility regarding the recently passed bond to improve safety for all schools in our district. For teachers, it may be needing more time to teach… the past three years, teachers have been asked to do an incredible amount of extra duties: nursing, sanitizing, cleaning, counseling, comforting, and then trying to teach. We cannot find bus drivers or food service people to help in our schools. Curricular and book choices are being severely challenged by parents who tend to feel ostracized. I can understand and organize paths to a better lived school life for our community.”

Among the other candidates running, Dobson has been a paralegal for 20 years and is the second vice chair of the Gunnison County Republicans. The Crested Butte News reached out to Dobson for more information, and she replied that she has been very busy meeting with community members and working and would do her best to get back. After multiple attempts to follow up, the News did not hear back from her. In a recent letter to the editor, Dobson did say her top concerns for our schools are education, safety and students’ success. “It would be a goal of mine to get all our schools to excel high above state and national averages,” she wrote. “This is a nonpartisan race and position and my job as a board member is to best represent the people and what is best for the schools and not bring politics into the schools.”   

Thompson is the client services director at Lighthouse Pregnancy & Family Resource Center in Gunnison. The News reached out to Thompson to learn more about her and her platform, and she replied that she has a lot going on right now and wasn’t able to respond to our questions.

The News could not find any information on Lisa Henry and reached out to the email listed on the secretary of state website but never recieved a response back from Henry. 

Official petitions for those interested in running for the school board became available on August 9, and any other potential candidates have until September 1 to file a nomination petition with the school district.