The Republic conducted on-camera interviews with candidates in each of the three races on the ballot for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board this November.
Voters are able to vote for candidates in all three districts. Early voting gets under way today. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Below are the interviews with District 3 candidates Whittney Loyd and David Theile, along with a transcription of their answers, slightly edited for clarity.
Loyd
Click here to watch the interview with Whittney Loyd
Name: Whittney Loyd
Age: 37
Occupation: President, Turning Point Domestic Violence Services
City of residence: Columbus
Educational background: Columbus East High School; BS in Public Management, Indiana University
Volunteer experience: Fundraising chair, First Presbyterian Preschool Policy Board; CRH Volunteers in Medicine Event Committee; Women’s PEO Service Sorority; BCSC Book Buddies; BCSC senior project mentorship (two seniors in 2024); BCSC senior project judging, Columbus East; Dance Marathon adult mentor
Previous elected office held: None
Thiele
Click here to watch the interview with David Theile
Name: David Theile
Age: 54
Occupation: Certified Public Accountant/Certified Management Accountant
City of residence: Columbus
Educational background: Columbus North High School, graduate with honors; Bachelor of Science, Accounting Degree; Two Professional Certifications: Certified Public Accountant/Certified Management Accountant
Volunteer experience: Coaching Girls Volleyball: Columbus East Volleyball Club, Trinity Cougars Volleyball Club, and White Creek Lutheran School; Mentored for Senior Projects: Columbus East High School and Columbus North High School, Atterbury Job Corp Advisory Board, Hoosier Hikers Council, served as Treasurer, Republican Party of Bartholomew County, Republican Ladies League, Housing Partnerships of Columbus, Better Man Ministries, and a volunteer for various Christian Churches.
Previous elected office held: None
Loyd
Q: A large focus of BCSC and school districts across the state is on the foundational reading skills for 2nd and 3rd graders. How do you think BCSC is doing in helping those students along and how might you contribute in ensuring students have the best shot at passing IREAD-3?
Loyd: IREAD is so important to the success of our students and literacy is the cornerstone of our education system. And so I have been impressed with the work that BCSC had done post-COVID. Scores certainly plummeted throughout the pandemic and we have a lot of work to do. With that said, this year’s scores were phenomenal compared to the year prior. I do think BCSC has a lot of positive programs already in place to help strengthen that. Book Buddies is a wonderful program. It’s something that I’ve been involved with previously. 98% of all students who had a book buddy last year passed IREAD. I think that’s a program that we could see continuing to grow and strengthen if community volunteerism is there. I also think Family School Partners is a way that we can strengthen IREAD scores and educational scores in BCSC overall. It’s a phenomenal program. I think it’s a hidden gem. We have staff from Family School Partners going into homes, working with families, parents, working on that connectivity from school to home. Focusing on literacy skills, encouraging child and parent interaction, enhancing growth, fundamentals and well-being. I think that is a wonderful way to enhance IREAD scores as well. But most importantly, I was really happy and excited to see that the Indiana Department of Education is now offering the Indiana literacy endorsement for free, so our teachers here locally can go through that program, earn some great credits, and also get some tools focused on evidence-based instruction for literacy. And I think that’s going to be a wonderful resource for students here in Bartholomew County.
Q: What are your thoughts on Envision 2030, BCSC’s facilities plan?
Loyd: I am a supporter of Envision 2030. I have dove deeply into the budgets and the plans. I’ve attended every school board meeting where the presentations have been done. I think there’s a lot of controversy over population growth. And if you look at our population as a community, it’s really the same, right? We move a little bit, but not much. But our population is shifting to the west side. I mean that is very easy to see. We have a lot of neighborhoods popping up. We see growth in our businesses out there. We have corporations investing. We know CRH is looking at making plans for the west side. So the need is there. Southside is near capacity, if not already at capacity, nearing 1,000 students. And we have families in Shadow Creek Farms that are living in the same neighborhood and have a divide. You have some students who can see Southside from their home, but riding 40 minutes plus on a bus to Mt. Healthy when their next door neighbor goes to Southside. I think there’s a lot of issues around the west side growth. I do believe the new elementary school is much needed. I think it will not only help straighten out the districting, but also allow for potentially smaller class size, which is going to positively impact our students and our teachers greatly. Our other buildings, if you’ve gone through them, they’re very old. Some of them are decades, decades old since they’ve had any type of renovation. And when you have teachers having to pause class to put trash cans over the rain leaks coming through the roof, that’s an issue. Our students deserve to have safe, most importantly, safe, warm, welcoming environments where they can do their best work. And fortunately, because of the bonds that we’re able to use, this is going to be a tax rate neutral project, and I think that is just incredible for our community and, most importantly, our kids.
Q: Do you think that teachers are being compensated adequately? What can BCSC do to improve teacher retention and recruitment?
Loyd: Being a daughter of a teacher, this is close to my heart. That was one of the reasons I wanted to run. I do not believe that our teachers get the respect or the appreciation or the compensation that they truly deserve. It is an extrememly difficult profression and I think our teachers are asked to do far more than they should be, so compensation is certainly something I’m very passionate about. I do think the 2020 referendum certainly helped with that. It got us to a level that we are competitive in terms of recruitment across south central Indiana. Now the question is, can we retain it? And so there’s going to be an opportunity for that referendum coming up in 27-28 to be put back on the ballot. And I hope our community chooses to do that, and that our teacher pay can stay at the rate that it’s been increased to. I do believe that it’s a very challenging position, but because of the referendum, we’re competitive. And going to the board meetings, I’ve heard Dr. Staulbaum say that we had 60-65 positions to fill this school year, but in years past, it had been over 100 positions. And I think that speaks volumes about the impact that the increase in teacher pay has had on Bartholomew County. We’re competitive, and we are attracting some of the best teachers across our area, and we’re keeping them, which is so important to long-term success for our kids.
Q: The board has devoted a sizable amount of time in school board meetings during the past 10 months to the accessibility of certain library materials. Do you think BCSC has the correct policy in place for addressing these concerns and would you like to see anything additional be done?
Loyd: The book topic has certainly been a hot issue. There’s no challenging. I believe that our board has done a great job keeping up following state standards and policy practices. I also think that there are policies in place to protect the rights of parents and children, whether you are for or opposed (to) a particular book. I appreciate the policy now that allows parents or community members to challenge books. I think everyone’s voice should be heard if they have a concern. And I appreciate the professionals, the doctors and the teachers and community members that are serving on these panels to have these important conversations. I will say, I have been disappointed that, you know, the policy that was created 30 plus years ago, isn’t being utilized. I believe it’s 9130 and so that does allow parents the opportunity, the right to restrict reading materials for their children, which I believe. So they do have a voice. I just wish that policy was marketed better, and I think that that may be an opportunity for BCSC. There’s definitely a way to opt out of reading materials, and so I think BCSC has done a great job in allowing the librarians to do their work. They’re the most qualified. They are trained, highly certified professionals. They should be empowered to make these decisions around books. And if a parent has an issue for their particular child, by all means utilize that policy and restrict that book.
Q: In recent years, school board races and school board meetings themselves have become increasingly charged at times. How would you work with others that may not agree with you on a specific subject?
Loyd: Respectfully and professionally. I think as a school board member and as a community member in general, we should be setting a positive example for our students, for the young people watching us and be leaders in this community. That is an important, important role. It’s a privilege to serve, and it’s important to be able to work with all stakeholders and respect all stakeholders, regardless of our views. We can certainly disagree. That’s what makes our community so great. We’re very different. We’re from all walks of life, but we need to be able to meet at common ground respectfully, and that is something that I’m very passionate about. I entered this race wanting to set a positive example for my children and my family and the community that I serve, and I hope that I’ve done that. And that is exactly what I would bring to the board of directors.
Theile
Q: A large focus of BCSC and school districts across the state is on the foundational reading skills for 2nd and 3rd graders. How do you think BCSC is doing in helping those students along and how might you contribute in ensuring students have the best shot at passing IREAD-3?
Theile: Yes, a very good question. I mean, there’s three things that come to mind on what I believe the school corporation is doing well, definitely closing the gap. The scores have improved here recently. One of which would be the mandatory summer school program for the students. That’s been a good thing. Another one has been the community outreach with the Book Buddies program has been a fantastic thing, bringing in volunteers to read with students, that’s been a good thing. And I think the biggest thing to me is constantly monitoring and watching the performance of the students. The teacher engagement on that, that’s been a really good success. Those three things, there’s other things, but they’re the three that come to mind, are probably the most powerful ones that I can think of. Now for me, what I think would be a good thing to enhance that, would be looking at the teacher side of it, really focusing on that. Some of the things that we could do on a teacher side is continuing to consider reducing the class sizes. If we can get more more of a lower teacher to student ratio, that would be a helpful thing. Smaller class size can be a helpful thing. It doesn’t always happen, (but) making sure that we have teacher aides in the class, help with the burden on that. That’s another thing we could do. The other one that comes to mind that I think is important that a lot of people aren’t talking about, is look at lessening the burden on the teacher. I know there’s a lot of things that have been piling up on what we’re asking them to do, so let’s reduce that. Let’s get rid of the stuff that’s not essential to education, the best that we can, and trim that back so they can focus on education. Those are the three things that come to mind that would help, especially in the learning and academic excellence that we’re trying to achieve as a school corporation.
Q: What are your thoughts on Envision 2030, BCSC’s facilities plan?
Theile: It is such a big number. When you look at the finance cost of that over the years, we’re talking about a half-a-billion dollars for this community. It’s a huge number. So it’s very concerning. We want to make sure that the investments we make in the community are appropriate. It’s a historically large number and that’s going to be a burden on us, taxpayers and other people, so we’re going to make sure that we want to be good stewards of that money. So i just question at that number, is that really appropriate for the community? So we really need to ask, does it feel, as a gut-check, that it was appropriate? And I’ve got some points that I want to talk about, but there’s a lot of people that I talk to that are very concerned about how big of a number that is and are we going to be good custodians of those funds? One of the things that come to mind is, if you look at the investments and the infrastructure, like glass, for example, the glass and aesthetics and the building infrastructure, it’s not bulletproof glass. If we’re going to spend a half-a-billion dollars, we can’t sit there and put a little bit more money on bulletproof glass? There’s a lot of concern by parents and so forth, maybe of an active shooter-type situation or otherwise— we failed to put bulletproof glass in our structure. The other one is glass in general, and just the overall academic environment for the students. We want to make sure that the environment’s not distracting, but having glass, these other avenues, when you talk to people, it’s a distracting environment. If we’re here trying to focus on academic excellence, then why would we want to have an environment that’s distracting to our students? So that’s a big concern. And my final point I would make about the 2030 piece of this is, if you go back and look at the school board discussion about it, the minutes and so forth, you would think spending a half-a-billion dollars, we would have some kind of accountability on what this is going to do to our academic scores. It’s like it’s almost completely missed. So how do we make the investment at half-a-billion dollars, and not say, how is it going to improve academic scores?
Q: Do you think that teachers are being compensated adequately? What can BCSC do to improve teacher retention and recruitment?
Theile: Looking at that about being fairly compensated, you really need to invest in all the stakeholders. You really need to engage those discussions, try to get the right answer, and teachers would be a part of that. Another suggestion would is benchmarking our compensation structure and our teachers and what they do for duties, responsibilities, performance and things like that and compare that to another school corporation, similarly sized or similarly in nature. There’s a lot of dynamics at play, it’s not always size, but that’s usually a good starting point. So looking at that and benchmarking that to kind of gauge that. That’s how I would start with that, is looking at benchmarking and just asking questions, surveying the teachers, and kind of getting a feel for what that might look like. That’s the starting point for that. Some of the suggestions that I would have that would help with the teachers, some of the stuff it really is quality-of-life matters. Compensation is a part of it, but also quality of life. But there’s a lot of teachers that say, ‘If this would happen, I’d be more happy in what I’m doing, I do a better job with these students.’ Quality of life things would be, such as I mentioned a bit earlier, looking at perhaps smaller class sizes, looking at making sure we got teacher aides with each classroom, making sure that discipline’s appropriate. Obviously we don’t want to have any harm towards teachers, make sure that we’re administering discipline in the classrooms. And finally, back to looking at duties and responsibilities, like look, something that really isn’t absolutely essential, can we eliminate some of those things and get back to education? Help with the qualitative aspects of the teacher? The final thing I’ll say, I do have one more point about that that I’d like to make. When you look at teacher pay, one of the concerns that I have, and I’m hearing about this more and more, is that the administration and perhaps the board have been transferring funding out of the educational fund to the operational fund over the years. If we’re that concerned, and I am very concerned about teacher pay, why are we robbing funding out of the education fund and moving it to the operational funds? I ask anybody that. Why are we doing it? If we’re trying to support teachers, why are we taking funds out of that teacher pay fund and moving it to operations?
Q: The board has devoted a sizable amount of time in school board meetings during the past 10 months to the accessibility of certain library materials. Do you think BCSC has the correct policy in place for addressing these concerns and would you like to see anything additional be done?
Theile: It’s been a huge topic, very controversial on both sides of the aisle, on what we should do in that department. I believe what’s created part of the controversy is a poorly written policy. And I would say a lot of this has to do, not necessarily with the school corporation has written, but what the state law says. The state law makes it difficult to administer this, due to this vagueness and ambiguity, it makes it difficult to administer a good policy. It makes a controversy for all of us. We want to make it work, but because the policy is written in the manner it is, it makes it difficult. One of the suggestions that I have that we can have a discussion about, would be let’s look at setting an age-appropriate policy in the library, for example. Things are sectioned off (by) age appropriate material and that would be done by a panel. Bring your experts in, like your librarians, you bring a collection of teachers in, and you bring the other stakeholders, which are the parents. And they would build consensus and build the structure, so we have age-appropriate material in the library. That seems like that’s a common sense thing to do, to maybe perhaps satisfy everybody that’s interested in what’s going on in our library. Then, let’s say she’s 14 years-old. So then, at that point, since it’s in the category, you look it up and it’s in that position, then it’d be up to the parental consent for that person to have that access. That’s how I would perhaps eliminate some of this controversy. Not everybody’s going to be happy with what the suggestions are, but someone’s got to put some solutions out there, right? You’ve got to try. Then the final thing I’ll say is, from a librarian standpoint, is if you put a policy such as that in place, that almost virtually eliminates their risk as being a steward of the resources. He or she, the risk would be reduced to almost zero on their liability.
Q: In recent years, school board races and school board meetings themselves have become increasingly charged at times. How would you work with others that may not agree with you on a specific subject?
Theile: I love that question. I am a strong believer in the First Amendment, freedom of speech. I believe everybody should have the right to voice their opinion. Absolutely, that’s perfectly fine. I think healthy debate is good. With that said, the rhetoric and the threats and the violence and stuff that may or may not happen at the school board meeting, or potentially happen on social media, is just making sure that the rhetoric isn’t threatening verbally or physically. To me, that’s where it ends. We cannot accept as a culture, as a community, as law enforcement, we shouldn’t be condoning threats. No side should be threatening anybody verbally or physically. I should end it with that. So in general, this is something that I think is missed, like in our dialog there’s been a lot of rhetoric, lot of labeling one side or another. Let’s get rid of the labels, and let’s get back to having healthy debate. Be respectful and civil to one another, even if you disagree with them.
