Speaking Personally: Why The News isn’t hosting a school board forum

Regular readers will know, and all other readers can check out THIS LINK for details, but Willow Springs Schools is hosting a candidate forum for school board candidates on March 10. Because this publication has hosted such a forum for the last three school board elections, I feel I owe you, my readers, an explanation. 

 

Briefly? I hesitated. 

 

The goal of any candidate forum should be to educate the voters, particularly undecided voters, and as I imagined the kind of questions we might get in this particular school board election season, I paused. I wondered whether an in-person event would be a helpful tool for voters…or if it would be the town hall meeting so many taxpayers wanted and never got. 

 

After all, two incumbents, Adam Webb and Matt Hobson, are running for re-election, and I’m sure there will be questions about their performance over the last term. 

 

So I hesitated.  

 

Then, while I was in the process of polling the readers about what would be most helpful, I received an email from Superintendent Marty Spence informing me that the district had scheduled a forum. 

With Bear Media Production involved, I have no doubt this will be a crisp, clear, professionally produced event. I will attend it, and I will cover it in this publication. 

 

If the questions – being gathered, grouped, and screened by Missouri School Board Association (MSBA)—don’t address the concerns my readers have brought, and continue to bring, to the news office about the school board, I will ask those questions. 

 

The worst the candidates can reply is, “no comment.”

 

And candidates?  I really don’t recommend that response in election time. 

 

Though I do have certain reservations about an election event hosted by the agency the successful candidates will govern, I sincerely believe whoever came up with this idea truly does want what is best for the school. 

 

Believe it or not, so do I. You don’t put the kind of work that I have put into my many articles about WS-R4 if you’re hoping the institution fails. 

 

Readers, I urge you to attend the forum. Submit many, many questions. Keep a record of the questions you submit, and if any reasonable questions are suppressed, send them to me. 

 

Ultimately, I’m grateful to be free from the fetters of event planning and sound checks so I can focus on producing the most informative news product I can. That coverage will appear in the March 18 edition of The News. In the meantime, if you have thoughts or questions about this school board race, stop by the news office. Call us at 417-252-2123, or email editor@howellcountynews.com.