By ALEXANDRIA

BOURNONVILLE

Journal Staff Writer

MARQUETTE — The Marquette County branch of the League of Women Voters held a candidate forum for voters in the Marquette Area Public Schools district on Thursday.

All eight candidates running for the three MAPS seats gave their answers to community-submitted questions at the forum, which was moderated by nonpartisan LWV representatives. The candidates were Glenn Sarka (incumbent trustee), Sarah Mills-Gervais, Ashley Mattson, Cassidy Thomas, Nathan Joyal, Kristen Cambensy (incumbent president), Jim Rankin and Jenn Tousignant.

The following are brief summaries or quotes that represent each candidate’s views. Full answers are not provided due to space constraints. Only the opening statements and answers to the first question will be provided below.

To watch the entire candidate forum, go to the League of Women Voters Marquette County YouTube page on your computer or phone — or a computer at the Peter White Public Library — and watch the “Marquette Area Public Schools MAPS Board Candidate Forum 10/10/24” under the “past live streams” section.

OPENING

STATEMENTS

SARKA thanked the LWV for hosting the forum and acknowledged the death of Ethel Kennedy.

“Certainly reminded me of something her husband (Robert) said when he was running for office in 1968. He was giving a presentation, or giving a speech, at a school in South Africa and he made reference to what he said was an ancient Chinese curse that said, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Certainly, as a board member, the last few years have been interesting times. We had lead in the water, had the nickname controversy, we had COVID and, you know, it takes a toll on members.”

MILLS-GERVAIS is a fourth-generation Yooper born and raised in Marquette, attended MAPS where she played three sports and participated in orchestra and student council. She has a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University in biology and chemistry that she used to work at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute teaching kids of all ages. She returned to Marquette as the assistant girls’ track coach at Marquette Senior High School before pursuing a career as an environmental biologist.

“I’ve been raising my boys in our community where they attend MAPS. I’ve been actively involved in their school, volunteering for activities and sporting events. My diverse life experience has equipped me for this role. I’m a mom, I strongly believe education is a priority for our students. Our teachers and staff are wonderful and our continued support of their efforts towards our students’ success is imperative. Funding for infrastructure, class size and support staff are a few items that I think are going to be critical in the years to come.”

MATTSON was born and raised in Marquette, attended MAPS, is an MSHS alumna, received a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and moved back to Marquette with her husband to start a family.

“I have three children that all currently attend MAPS. Not only have I been involved as a parent of a MAPS student since 2017 but I also worked as a paraprofessional at Sandy Knoll Elementary for three years. I’m also an active and dedicated member of the parent groups of both the schools my children attend. As you can see, I’m invested in this district. A natural next step for me was to run for a seat on the school board. I want to help find ways to keep our district moving forward and to enhance and enrich our students’ school experiences. I love Marquette for the small-town feel and the tight-knit community and would love the opportunity to give back as a member of your school board.”

THOMAS is from Marquette and attended MAPS.

“I moved home and knew that I wanted to give back to the community who made me who I am today, which is why I’m running for school board … I would dedicate myself to increasing our test scores and improving our children’s literacy and math scores as they have been improving over the last few years. I would commit to investing in our infrastructure, commit to teacher contracts and staff support contracts — which were thankfully just passed — and continue our history of excellent education here at MAPS. I hope you consider passing your vote for me on Nov. 5.”

JOYAL is a father of seven children in Marquette who have attended MAPS, with one a freshman at Northern Michigan University.

“I have experience with most of the schools in the district. I’ve had a great many opportunities to meet the fine educators that we have serving here. I have a strong educational background. I have a bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering from Michigan Tech and a degree in computer science from Northern Michigan University as well as professional training as a paralegal legal investigator and courtroom mediator. I have work experience administering small business and corporate accounting as well as teaching in the college classroom. I think as a district we do a lot of things really well and if you like me, I would be excited to contribute to that continued record of success.”

CAMBENSY “This is my 10th year serving on the MAPS board. I am the current board president. One of the reasons that I decided to run again is that we have had some tough years, we’ve went through the nickname change, so many things, a lot of turnover and I just feel there’s still more things we can accomplish and so I’m hoping to continue that forward progression so I would hope that you would vote for me. I have had a lot of experience on the board and I think that’s very valuable. We have a young board — the majority of the board has served less than four years.”

RANKIN was born and raised in Marquette.

” (I) worked for the Department on Corrections for 30 years, returned from there, now working at the hospital. I coached youth football and high school football here in Marquette with (Alex Tiseo) and Bullock, did youth football for over 20 years, was on the board there and was president of the league at one time before things went south. I wanted to get back into working with the kids and working for our future and the place to start is locally and that’s where I want to be.”

TOUSIGNANT grew up in Iron River, graduated from West Iron County High School, received a bachelor’s degree from South Florida University and has been in Marquette for the last 15 years. She is currently a mother to a 10-year-old MAPS student.

“I’m running to ensure that her education continues to be top-tier. Since she’s been attending school in the district, I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with her teachers and staff and want to make sure that trend continues for her and all students throughout their careers at MAPS. With the current state funding cuts, the need for incredibly large infrastructure and expenditures the next couple of years, the MAPS board is going to have their work cut out for them. I believe my background in accounting and taxes and my ability to be objective with fresh perspectives and ideas will help to navigate through these tough issues to come.”

WHAT ISSUES,

RELEVANT TO YOUR

SCHOOL DISTRICT,

ARE YOU

ESPECIALLY

CONCERNED ABOUT?

MILLS-GERVAIS mentioned continued support for teachers and staff, showed concern about the $100 million worth of infrastructure concerns with a sinking fund of $1 million, supported smaller classroom sizes and advocated for more community-board-student transparency.

MATTSON: “I would like to address transparency, I feel like that’s been lacking from our board for the past several years and has created some division. I think we need to build back up the relationship between the board, the schools and our community.”

She also said creative solutions will be needed to figure out the infrastructure issue.

“Because of the division created, I have concerns that the community may be unwilling to pass millages that would help benefit those projects.” She also mentioned proper staffing needed and “enriching our students and offering all the best (to) students.”

THOMAS: “As many of us agree, we need to focus on staffing, keeping our staff well-compensated competitively, both our support staff and our teachers.”

She praised the current board for passing a competitive wage.

“Our infrastructure, of course, our middle school particularly, is aging quickly. All the schools in our district are older than I am. … Focusing on inclusivity and making sure that our school system is a place where all children feel safe and have their needs met is very important and our teachers should feel safe and feel that their needs are met.”

JOYAL said regardless of the community’s opinion on the MAPS rebranding, he thinks it’s important that everyone find ways to rally behind the new mascot and move forward together “as a group.”

He also said doing the day-to-day work on a school’s internal culture is important to “developing a healthy and supporting culture in our school system” that will positively influence students’ mental health and success.

“Besides that, funding is always an issue and I’d like to bring some of my experience applying for grants through my academic career to the school system and I’m really excited about potentially putting some efforts in to find alternative funding sources.”

CAMBENSY: “Our district is actually in a really good place. We have one of the highest fund balances that we’ve had, we passed teacher contracts and support staff contracts that were very competitive — the support staff went up at least $5 an hour.

“We do have something that we need to work on. We need to work on infrastructure for sure, continue security and safety, I just think we’re in a pretty good spot but there is definitely things I would like to continue to work on.”

RANKIN: “Class size is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed and I also would like to work on the infrastructure. I had a middle school child tell me the condition of one of the schools and for a seventh-grader to say that is kind of eye-opening.

“I would also like to see us have the children more prepared for when they’re out on their own in the world and one way to do that is to have communication … between the board and the teachers, administration and the parents.”

TOUSIGNANT: “With my accounting background and finance background, I’m concerned about the financial(s), the state cuts that came down a couple months ago I think are really going to impact the budget here and we’re going to have to get creative in how we’re using those funds and as everyone already said, the infrastructure repairs — I’m not sure how we come up with $100 million when the community is still so divided over what has happened over the course of the last couple years.”

SARKA: “Continuing the progress we’ve made, especially under President Cambensy, I think getting back to kind of stable, regular order is going to be important not only in the community but also fiscally and we have to anticipate some kind of variance coming from Lansing and be prepared to deal with that. I think our fund balance is (in) a good position to deal with that.

“Also, to make up for time we lost during COVID with students and also support their mental health and those needs that students have outside of academics.

“Finally, to continue to attract top-tier teachers and staff and I think we made positive steps towards that. I’m confident that the community is behind us, they’ve been behind us in the last few years but I understand we have to continue to do well in order to earn that trust.”