MONROE — At a time of renewed attention on school boards nationally — and on Monroe locally with a referendum challenge — four people are vying for three seats on the School District of Monroe Board of Education in the April 4 election.

Terms on the board are staggered and Nikki Austin and Tim Wolff are the incumbents facing the voters this time around. Cheryl McGuire is not running for re-election. 

The remaining candidates are Terri Montgomery, a retired district employee and educator, and Michael Froseth Jr., a director of construction for Blain’s Inc., Farm & Fleet retail.

Austin said that even though the referendum was approved, much needs to be done to re-center the district on some kind of consensus going forward. 

The $88 million referendum to build a new high school was approved by voters but citizen electors have given a no vote to two different prospective building locations. Meanwhile, the entire issue remains on hold as a lawsuit was filed on behalf of district residents who question the way the referendum numbers were presented to voters in the first place — amid one of the largest increases in year-over-year assessed valuation in recent history.

“I don’t know where that leads us,” said Austin. “My hope is that someone would buy land and donate it to the school.”

At the moment, money and time are being wasted, she said, as kids need proper facilities. The schools are also the public face of Monroe to many prospective businesses, employers, and employees, she added.

Wolff, vice president of human relations at Colony Brands, said he wants the district to continue its measured approach to issues like the building project, along with making progress on academic performance standards.

“I want the district to be the best district in the region,” said Wolff, the father of two district students. “These students are going to be our next leaders and our next employers.”

Froseth Jr. said he decided to run specifically to add his expertise in construction management to the mix of talents on the board at a time when the district is looking at such a huge building project. He also has two children in middle school and one in grade school.

The district should use the time while the lawsuit over the project plays out to “pause and re-engage the community” on what it really wants from its school district, according to Froseth Jr. He said the district also could do a better job of “telling our story” to the community to justify big-ticket asks like a new high school. Still, he said, the old high school “is in rough shape, and we need to do something.”

All of Terri Montgomery’s grandkids attend Monroe schools. The former teacher and administrator has attended over 200 school board meetings and said that she’s running to give back to the institution to which she dedicated most of her career.

“The School District of Monroe granted me the opportunities to volunteer when we first moved here and to have a 21-year career…” she said. “This is a time when we need to volunteer more than ever as the pandemic wreaked havoc on many school districts and many people are afraid to run and volunteer their time.”

Notably none of the candidates seemed focused on the culture war issues that have thrown other districts across the nation into turmoil over such issues as sexuality education and the content of library books. And all of the Monroe candidates agreed that a positive impact of the post-referendum controversy has been a renewed interest by a public citizenry and taxpayers that have always valued their local schools.

Said Froseth Jr.: “I think everyone on the board needs to listen to the public, and then we can go from there.”