Noble vs. Howeiler for school board

Gary Noble and Jon Howeiler will face each other in the Nov. 6 election for Edmonds School Board District No. 3. Some of their views are similar and some are different on issues like district achievement gaps, a balanced education in the face of the WASL demands, centralized curriculum decisions versus site-based ones, and more.

Incumbent Gary Noble has served on the Edmonds School Board for four years, was on the district’s Citizen Planning Committee and has volunteered in schools.

Jon Howeiler is a program officer in the Education Program at the University of Washington Bothell. He has worked as a public high school teacher and administrator and has a master’s in education. He’s also done doctoral work in the field.

One reality the Edmonds School District faces is a range in its schools — from the high-achieving to those that struggle.

The number of students on free and reduced lunch, and the issues families are dealing with, play a role in WASL scores, Howeiler said. The diversity within schools also is growing, and there’s a gap between minority and non-minority students, he said.

“I want to take a look at what we’re doing with the achievement gap,” he said. “There needs to be a vision — a plan. We need someone pushing that agenda.”

Different schools have different needs in terms of staff allocations, and that should be looked at, he said.

Noble said that what the district does and has done is look at individual schools and their needs.

“When we find a discrepancy between needs and allocation, you adjust it,” he said.

For example, Cedar Valley Community School and Scriber Lake High School have more staffing to offer lower class sizes, he said.

Another issue the district, like many others, faces is that because of federal and state requirements, it’s harder to balance meeting those requirements with a well-rounded education in the arts, social studies, music and other areas that aren’t tested.

Howeiler said the WASL doesn’t address the whole student. If elected, he’d push for approaches that do address the whole student, he said.

“If you only want to learn how to read well, (and) took math, English and a few science classes, that’s not going to work for most people,” Howeiler said.

At the same time, he agrees standards are needed and said it’s good to know what students should be learning.

Noble said the district had not cut any programs because of the WASL.

“(There are) the same music programs, sports, the state still requires students to take art, humanities,” he said. “Last year we were looking at cutting the activity bus that goes to middle schools but we didn’t.”

That decision was based on community input, he said.

This year, the district is looking at ways to be more efficient, following on the heels of the budget cuts of last spring. Transportation and consolidating small schools are two things that are being looked at in a preliminary way.

When it comes to any possible future cuts, Howeiler said he’d want to maintain educator pay and professional development days, as well as student achievement initiatives that had shown success. He said community input was important to help determine cuts.

As for where Noble would support cuts if cuts needed to be made in the future, he said the district already has a good ratio of administrators. Because there are less administrators than funded by the state, and more teachers than are funded by the state, pay that would have gone to administrators went to teachers, he said.

In recent years, like other districts, Edmonds has become more centralized in curriculum and educational approaches. Teachers and schools used to have more autonomy.

Noble said he supports both centralized curriculum and individual teacher decisions. The district is faced with stringent state and federal standards, he said.

“We need to provide teachers the materials to meet standards, but need to provide them with the autonomy (to address student needs),” he said.

Howeiler said district-wide curricula give more equality than site-based ones.

“It’s a dance, because I believe there needs to be seamless and consistent materials available,” he said. It’s key that teachers have supplemental materials in addition to basic curricula, he said.