From standardized tests to race in the classroom, PHM school board candidates made their stances clear at Tuesday's forum

 

MISHAWAKA, Ind.-- ABC57 hosted a candidate forum Tuesday night for those running for the Penn-Madison-Harris (PHM) School Board.

The school board consists of seven seats: two members from each township in the district and one at-large member.

Four seats are up for reelection next week with only one running unopposed.

At Tuesday's debate, candidates discussed test scores, COVID learning loss, teaching race in the classroom, and more.

The questions were formed in consultation with the League of Women Voters of the South Bend Area and the American Democracy Project at IU South Bend.

For the at-large seat, the two candidates running, George Bashura and Andy Rutten, shared their views on the district's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There needs to be one standard that the district uses to determine whether masks were needed or not," Bashura said. "It is the choice of the parent whether or not they get vaccinated."

"These kinds of measures inherently infringe upon liberty, freedom, and one's comfort," Rutten said. "And when we want kids to be in-school, behaving on their best behavior, listening, why are we going to burden them with these kinds of measures and then we cant even prove conclusively that they were helpful or effective."

Another contested race is the Harris Township board seat, currently occupied by the board president, Chris Riley. The issue of name and pronoun changes caused a slight back-and-forth with both candidates.

"I do empathize with people that are struggling with their identity," said Bryan Jones, the candidate running against Riley. "I also want to recognize, at the same time, that some of the discussions that have happened in school buildings are inappropriate for the level of the age of the kid, I mean, like, adults in this room will wrestle with this issue as well. There is no chance that a middle-schooler can possibly be well-equipped enough to be able to deal with that without their parent involved."

"Parents are involved in this issue with working with the student and working with the school," said Riley." Let's just be clear. We've been dealing with this issue for many, many years. We've already got a system in place… We're not just talking about pronouns, we're talking about people."

The full debate can be found here.