Five candidates for school board are running for four open seats next month. The race is one of the first contested elections for school board in recent memory. Similar to school districts across the country, interest in running is being driven, in part, by masking requirements. Because of the outbreak of cases in early August, the Haines School required masks for students and staff at the start of the year based on Centers for Disease Control and Alaska Department of Health and Human Services recommendations. Administrators and the school board will review the requirement on a monthly basis.

Five candidates, incumbents Michael Wald and Brian Clay, Shannon Dryden, Jonathan Wray and Kevin Shove are running for four open seats.

Incumbent Michael Wald, 48, has served on the school board for five years. He owns a guiding company and takes clients into the Arctic. He has two children in the school system. When it comes to mask policy, he says it’s a decision best left to public health experts, and one that isn’t representative of the bulk of the work the school board does.

“I don’t think the school board should be in the position of making public health decisions, but we should listen to public health experts,” Wald said. “It’s a minor part of what the school board does.”

Wald said his experience on the board makes him a good candidate for reelection. He voted to hire superintendent Roy Getchell after a period of high turnover in the job, maintained a fiscally conservative and solvent budget, and voted to hire several new teachers.

“I’ve played my small part in steering the school toward solvency, a stable superintendentship and a very good staff,” Wald said.

He said he also wants to further the school’s efforts in creating additional outdoor and vocational technology learning opportunities, efforts that have also seen progress during his tenure.

“I think what I bring to the board is I don’t have an ax to grind or a set position,” Wald said. “I’m open to hearing from the community and the board to make the school better.”

Shannon Dryden, 42, has been a stay-at-home mom for seven years. She has children at Haines School and in homeschool. She says her experience in both environments will bring a wider perspective to the board.

Because of the school’s masking requirements, some parents who homeschool their children have withdrawn their students from the district’s homeschool program, she said, which allows them to participate in electives such as art or gym. Dryden said that while she’s not running solely because of masking requirements, it’s an important issue.

“I’m not in any way running on COVID or masks,” Dryden said. “I want to get far away from that, but there have been kids who have been excluded because of the mask situation. Kids have not been allowed to come in for opportunities that other kids with masks have.”

She said having a parent on the school board who is familiar with those issues will help inform the conversation around policy.

“I don’t think the board had enough information about things that were going on with individual families throughout a lot of this,” she said. “We’re losing some relationships with people and losing some funding opportunities. Hopefully we can mend some relationships with the community to bring those people and kids back.”

Dryden said she’d also like to organize volunteer efforts to assist teachers who are stretched thin.

“I feel like they need extra hands and need extra help,” Dryden said. “I’d like to sit down and talk with teachers and ask each teacher what is it that we can do to be helping, anything that will take away from the monotonous easy things, but that have to get done.”

John Wray, 38, has four kids, one that graduated last year and two in homeschool. He works for the U.S. Customs.

Wray also cited tension between some homeschool families and the district because of the masking requirements.

“I see it as an overstep,” Wray said. “I don’t want someone to say you have to wear a mask or you’re not allowed to wear a mask. It’s personal choice, and parental choice.”

Wray also said he wants to ensure the school doesn’t teach critical race theory (CRT). The subject has been controversial in some states and school districts. Some state legislatures have passed or are considering passing legislation that would ban CRT from being taught in schools. The theory, an academic concept that is more than 40 years old, has various strains of thought about how racism manifests in individuals and society. Wray is opposed to ideas in popular culture often associated with CRT that racism is embedded into American society and white people.

“I think they’re trying to make the point that the skin color you’re born with either makes you an oppressor or the oppressed,” Wray said. “I don’t think that’s right.”

Superintendent Roy Getchell said no such concept is included in Alaska education standards, which the Haines Borough School District conforms to.

Incumbent Brian Clay, 56, has been on the school board for nearly 20 years. He works at BigFoot, and has volunteered on the Haines Volunteer Fire Department for 26 years. He said he’s running again because he enjoys contributing to the school board’s work.

“I enjoy it. It’s fun work,” Clay said. “The stuff you do changes.”

Clay said he’s proud of recent work on policy that allowed Haines School to open on time and never close during the pandemic last year.

“We made it through a pandemic being open and with no one being sick. That was a tough one,” Clay said. “It’s going to be tougher moving forward because COVID’s here to stay so we have to make decisions on how to face it and deal with it.”

In terms of masking, he thinks it’s generally a good idea, but doesn’t necessarily have to be a requirement.

“Masks shouldn’t be worn all the time. I wear it out of respect for everybody else. The plan we put out is reviewed by the school board every 30 days. It’s a fluid plan and it (can change.) We had buy-in from students and staff. We have to do whatever is safest for the staff and students coming into the school. That’s the bottom line.”

Kevin Shove, 55, has two children, one who is a student in the school. He’s worked at Howser’s IGA since 1995 and is currently the store manager. Shove recently spoke in opposition to masking requirements at school board meetings. He said he thinks that issue will be resolved by the time he’s elected, but that his local participation in meetings has motivated him to run for the school board, something he said he’s wanted to do for years.

“I’ve always thought I would run for school board when my kids got in school. The last election I thought about doing it, but I was busy,” Shove said. “I figured it’s now or never if I want to be involved.”

He said thinks masking should be a choice.

“If people feel it’s a benefit to protect their children, I’m all for it,” Shove said. “If you feel it’s a detraction, I’m for that. I’m pro-choice.”

Aside from masking, he said he wants to get involved in an effort to serve on a local board and better understand how the process works. He said his business experience managing a budget and working as a supervisor for most of his life will contribute to the board. “I’ve been a decision maker all of my life. I would be excited to learn about the process and the research needed to make the best decisions possible on any given issue to benefit our children.”