Voters pick McCutcheon, Myers, Cira for school seats

Voters who turned out in large numbers Tuesday to decide three Port Washington-Saukville School Board races chose candidates who characterized themselves as champions of public education and distanced themselves from political agendas, and in the process returned the longest serving member of the board to office and ousted the newest one.

Sara McCutcheon, who with 25 years in office is the board’s senior member, received 3,169 votes (55.6%) to fend off a challenge from Dawn Brooks, who garnered 2,502 votes (43.9%), for a seat representing the Village of Saukville on the School Board, according to preliminary election results from the Ozaukee County Clerk’s Office.

Justin Myers, who by the luck of the draw lost his bid for appointment to the board last year to Melissa Alexander, outpolled her Tuesday by a relatively narrow 83-vote margin to claim a Town of Port Washington seat on the board.

Myers received 2,812 votes (50.46%) to Alexander’s 2,729 (38.97%).

In August, after selecting Alexander and Myers as finalists to fill a vacancy, the board deadlocked and drew Alexander’s name out of a box to put her on the board for what will turn out to be eight months.

Kierstin Cira, a veteran teacher who won the February primary race for a City of Port Washington seat on the board, received 3,031 votes (52.4%) to beat Richard Sternhagen, who with 2,717 votes (47%) lost his second bid in as many years for a school office.

“I’m proud of the people in this district who have the best interests of students in mind and see past the political agendas and those who have axes to grind,” McCutcheon said Tuesday night, comparing the Port-Saukville race to other school contests in the area.

In the lead-up to the election, McCutcheon, 57, said she was seeking a return to the board to help protect it from the politicization that has divided other school districts.

“I’m concerned about the current climate in public education,” she said. “I believe there is an attack on public education. I think some of our neighboring districts are seeking a shift in that direction, and I don’t want to see that happen here.”

That attack has contributed to a shortage of qualified teachers, and if the Port Washington-Saukville School District is to continue to attract and retain the best educators, it needs to foster an atmosphere of respect for the profession, McCutcheon said.

“This needs to be a place where educators feel respected and enjoy teaching and are excited about their jobs because that trickles directly down to our students,” she said.

She defended the board’s decision to name Mel Nettesheim, the district’s current director of business services, interim superintendent to succeed Dave Watkins without conducting an external search for candidates and said Tuesday she’s excited for the future of the district.

“We’re headed in a really good direction and I’m happy to be part of it,” McCutcheon said.

Brooks, 57, said she was running for the board to keep what she called racist policies out of the district. When asked to specify the type of policies she referred to as racist, Brooks said, “The ones that are flat-out racist, like teaching white students they are evil because they are white.”

Myers, 48, who is a vice president at U.S. Bank, said he was running for the board to help bridge what he sees as a divide between the School District and community.

“I feel like there is a disconnect between the district and the community,” he said. “It seems like there’s a lot of parents and others in the community who are asking questions and not getting answers from the district.”

One of the keys to ensuring academic achievement,’ he said, is making sure educators have the academic freedom and time to teach effectively.

“I don’t want them to feel stifled and think they can’t talk about certain things,” he said.

Cira, 54, who teaches third grade in the West Bend School District, said she is deeply concerned by a state public school funding system that has not kept pace with increasing costs, leaving school districts in the difficult position of trying to provide high quality education with increasingly limited resources.

“School districts are being forced to take very hard looks at their budget, then turn to their communities for money when needed,” she said.

“The reality is, education has not been a priority for our state Legislature for a long time and we need to fight for our students.”

Calling grades subjective, Cira said, “There should be more emphasis on what happens when our students leave the district. Do they become productive members of the community? Ultimately the goal is to create learned people who have all the options they want available to them when they graduate and who contribute to our community.”

She said the district should explore programs, for instance one that would allow students to train to become certified nursing assistants, so they have skills they can use after they graduate from high school.

Cira, a 1986 graduate of Port Washington High School, and Myers have children who attend and have graduated from Port High. McCutcheon’s adult children are Port High graduates.

In Tuesday’s election, 54.65% of registered voters cast ballots in the School Board races.