For parents of Mesa County Valley School District 51 students and others who have concerns but feel that school board meetings don’t provide enough of an in-depth opportunity to voice those concerns, a more relaxed alternative has returned.
Last month saw the return of the District 51 Board Coffee, an event in which school board members meet with residents in a casual setting with coffee and breakfast treats available. The district launched the initiative several years ago but had to pause it once the COVID-19 pandemic began.
On Saturday morning, District B board member Kari Sholtes — with less than a month on the board — was the lone member in attendance at the Colorado Mesa University Center, with others out of town and three newly elected members 17 days away from taking office.
“It’s great to have the opportunity to document and listen to these concerns,” Sholtes said. “I’m still in a learning curve. There’s a lot to learn and a lot to listen to.”
Over the course of three hours on Saturday, she fielded questions and concerns about a range of topics from school masking policies to Critical Race Theory to mental health surveys that have been distributed to students throughout the state that contain questions about sexual orientation.
Approximately 15 residents attended the Board Coffee, including real estate agent Cindy Ficklin, who is running to be a House District 55 state representative.
Ficklin said she’s been in education for 25 years and sometimes steps in to be a substitute teacher in the district because there are so few substitute teachers available.
Ficklin said she wants teachers to have more options in negotiating their own contracts and handling their employment plans.
She referenced having to leave education for real estate because being a teacher didn’t provide enough financial support for her as a single mother.
“New teachers are being paid even less than Walmart workers right now,” Ficklin claimed. “We’re going to lose teachers like this.”
Sholtes believes that parents and educators prefer Board Coffee meetings to school board meetings because of the environment and the depth of conversations, even if they lead to moments of parents briefly bickering with each other.
“I think it allows parents to feel more heard,” Sholtes said.
“At the school board meeting, they make a comment and then we can’t respond to them, and they have a lot of questions of us. Here, at least they can ask a question, and we have the time to respond and they have the time to respond to that. It allows for more of an actual conversation rather than just listening, which is also important.”
The current school board appointed Sholtes on Oct. 18 to replace Paul Pitton, who resigned.
In a Daily Sentinel article last month, Ficklin said she decided to run for the District 55 seat in part because the school board didn’t pick her as a finalist to replace Pitton.
The next Board Coffee event is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 18.
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