Ron Rosales, candidate for 259 school board District 6 in Wichita, KS

Note: Anyone who lives in the Wichita school district can vote in this race.

Name: Ron Rosales

Age: 56

Occupation: public school teacher in Haysville

Previous government service: 1st term as the BOE representative in district 6

Have you run for office before? (Please list any previous offices sought)

yes

What is the top issue in your race, and how would you address it?

The top issue in my race is how to address the teacher shortage problem we have. We are currently addressing it by having job fairs, 259 website news, and social media information for potential employees.

The board’s actions have been dominated this past year and a half by the response to the COVID-19 issue and the policies surrounding it. Please outline what you feel needs to be done to protect our children at this point, and specifically address whether you think a mask mandate for staff and/or students is necessary now. Why or why not?

What needs to be done at this point is to assess the overall infection rate for the district, followed by an analysis that will give us information on specific buildings and see if masking will be required throughout the year. There are some buildings that have higher infection rates than others, so it would make sense to maintain masking, whereas buildings that have a lower infection rate would have a “mask optional” policy. Also, if there is a shortage of teachers because of the virus, then again, I think the mandate will be the most effective thing we can do right now in in the future.

The district has invested millions of dollars during the pandemic to create the capability of equipping students for remote learning. Now, the state Legislature has prohibited school districts from offering that option to parents on an ongoing basis. Do you agree or disagree with that decision by the Legislature? Why or why not and what, if anything, do you intend to do about it?

I do not agree with the Kansas Legislature’s decision to limit remote learning. Although we did not have great success overall with this method, there were some parents, students, and teachers that found it helpful, convenient, and effective. So taking away a choice for educating our students was an unfortunate decision by the Legislature and those advising them to make this decision. Currently there is not much that can be done about this since a large part of our funding comes from the State. As of now we can only teach up to the 40 hour limit.

Campaign website:

n/a

Facebook page and/or Twitter handle:

FB - @futurokids259 Twitter - @rrosales555