As a reporter with the Fargo school beat for 22 years, and as a parent with three children who attended Fargo schools, I have had a front row seat to see the excellence in the Fargo School District. I observed a district with dedicated and talented teachers, administrators and school board members. School board meetings were civil. Now, there’s appalling hostility between board members and parents.
Things would get much worse if the wrong people are elected to the school board. There are five chaos candidates running for the board who are unfit to serve. They are Allie Ollenburger, Alexis Scott, Kristin Sharbono, Deven Styczynski and incumbent David Paulson. They are angry disrupters. They have the potential to ruin a high-quality school district and turn the board meetings into a dysfunctional circus.
If they’re elected, the school board would likely become home base for culture wars. Nonexistent problems such as critical race theory, gay rights, bathrooms, sports participation for transgender students and sex education could become the focus for some board members. Textbooks could be scrutinized or banned to make sure there isn’t a hint of promoting critical race theory or the gay “lifestyle.” Science and the health and safety of students and staff could be discarded in the name of “personal freedom.” These absurd fights have happened elsewhere. They could happen here.
Some of these people have already acted like childish brats at Fargo School Board meetings. Ollenburger and Scott rudely refused to wear masks during board meetings when they were required. Ollenburger said she and others were going to show the Board, “how many people are fed up and done with you guys not listening.”
Scott told board members they are “condescending.”
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At a board meeting, Sharbono compared mask requirements to Nazi Germany. Auschwitz and mask wearing are hardly the same thing. She’s also alarmingly called for the curriculum to be reevaluated, calling some learning materials sexually graphic and historically distorted.
Styczynski has spoken of “revisionist Marxist nonsense” in the schools.
Paulson is anti-science and shamefully voted against mask requirements during the height of the pandemic when the vaccine was unavailable to students. He also voted against censuring fellow board member Jennifer Benson, even though she violated school district rules.
Ollenburger and Scott were two of the leaders of the failed school board recall effort. That bumbling group submitted more than 6,000 invalid signatures. Those signatures were invalid because addresses didn’t have city names or zip codes, there were no dates, and because many of the signers lived in places such as West Fargo, Moorhead and even Bismarck. Anyone associated with that inept recall effort demonstrated they are not fit to be on the school board.
Fortunately, there are 15 candidates running, and seven of them look really good. Sorry, I don’t endorse candidates. You can vote for up to five candidates, and I highly recommend that Fargo residents vote for five to try to make sure that the qualified candidates get elected.
The stakes have never been higher in a Fargo School Board election.
Shaw is a former WDAY TV reporter and former KVRR TV news director.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Forum’s editorial board nor Forum ownership.
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