Meet the two Shorewood School Board candidates running April 2

Two candidates are running for one seat on the Shorewood School Board after the February primary eliminated a third candidate.

Incumbent Ellen Eckman is running against challenger Andrew Frey. Heather Cook Elliott was eliminated in the primary election.

The winner will receive a three-year term on the board. Here's what to know about the candidates.

Ellen Eckman (incumbent)

Background: Eckman, 77, has been a member of the Shorewood School Board since 2021. She also served as a village of Shorewood trustee for 12 years. Eckman is an adjunct professor in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Education. She has two adult children who attended school in the Shorewood School District and two grandchildren who are current Shorewood School District students. Eckman was also a teacher herself in the Shorewood School District for 16 years and was also an assistant principal at Nicolet High School. She holds a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; a master's degree in teaching from Indiana University and a bachelor's degree in economics from Tufts University.

Websites: www.facebook.com/EllenEckmanShorewoodSchoolBoard; www.ellenforshorewoodschoolboard.org

Supporters: She has not received an endorsement from any political parties, but received an in-kind donation from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin for the use of their voter files. She has also received support from current and former Shorewood School Board members, as well as other individual donations.

Eckman is proud of: communication between the Shorewood School District and the village of Shorewood; how well the high school and district are performing; passing the referendum

Eckman said she was proud the school district has started sending a letter explaining to residents what the school tax portion of their property tax bill was going to. That letter was sent with the village tax bill and its own letter explaining what the village's money paid for. She also said she advocated for the school district's accomplishments to be shared in a village email bulletin, as well as reinstatement of the village's Bi-Board Committee, a joint committee between the Village Board and Shorewood School Board that discusses common issues affecting both governing bodies.

She noted that Shorewood High School is ranked the second best high school in Wisconsin by the rankings website Niche, and said the district is exceeding expectations on its state report card.

She said she is also proud that the district's voters passed a $5.5 million per year operating referendum in April 2023.

"70% of the voters supported the referendum because they understood the consequences if we didn't have more money coming into the schools the next five years. I'm proud that we were able to do that," Eckman said.

Eckman supported the 2023 operating referendum

Eckman supported the 2023 operating referendum because making cuts to courses and programming would have been detrimental to what the district and board want to accomplish.

"The choice was 'OK, let's go out to the community and ask' because otherwise, we have to make so many substantial cuts in the next five years that it's frightening and sad — maybe sad's the better word," Eckman said.

"For our parents, it was a concrete thing. You start cutting into your teaching staff and your teachers and your staff, you start talking about making adjustments to class sizes. (It) usually means larger class sizes," she added.

Eckman said the board wants to address low state testing scores at Shorewood Intermediate School; wants to also focus on successes of the school

In response to concerns raised about Shorewood Intermediate School's state testing scores, Eckman said middle school students across the state tend to score lower than other students. "There's just something about the age" she said, adding that their scores "go right back up" when they enter high school.

"That doesn't mean we're ignoring it and saying 'oh, poo poo, it just has to do with the ages of students,'" she said. "We have looked at the scores, and we have a new superintendent who is very much on data on reading and understanding what data is saying. On the same token, there's a new principal at the intermediate school who's laser-focused on the data and making changes to reflect that."

Eckman said that the board is looking at the results of recent winter FastBridge math and reading testing for Shorewood Intermediate School students, which she said showed 82% scoring in the advanced/low-risk category in math by seventh-graders and 78% scoring in the advanced/low-risk category in math by eighth-graders. The seventh-grade reading advanced/low-risk category score was 88%, while the eighth-grade reading advanced/low-risk category was 78%.

FastBridge is a tool the district uses to track student academic progress and is given to students in grades K-8 in the fall, winter and spring in reading and math, according to the school district. Data from the testing shows the district "how students are progressing toward grade-level standards."

"We continue to watch the trends on that test and then see how that begins to affect the intermediate scores next year on the state test. So we're seeing things improving," Eckman said.

The board is seeing changes at the school, including students being calmer after being prohibited from using cell phones during the school day, Eckman said.

She also wanted to remind the community about the good things happening at the school. Examples she gave include seventh-grade students being invited to display their projects on the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee, as well as three of the school's eighth-grade students winning awards from the U.S. Courts' Bill of Rights Day contest.

Andrew Frey

Background: Frey, 49, is a managing partner for the Tour of America's Dairyland multiday cycling race. He holds a bachelor's degree in sports recreational organization from Miami University of Ohio. His three children attend school in the Shorewood School District.

Websites: www.facebook.com/AndrewFreyforShorewoodSchools

Supporters: Frey said the Shorewood Education Association has endorsed him. He also said the Democratic Party of Wisconsin donated $190 for access to its voter registration system.

Frey first ran for the Shorewood School Board in 2022

This spring marks Frey's second attempt at running for the Shorewood School Board.

The first time he ran, in 2022, Frey said, was because of his children. Going to board meetings, he said it was hard to communicate with the school board and district.

"It was one of those things of either put up or shut up, so I decided to put up. I felt like I could contribute in a positive way to the board. I felt like I had a different view than the current board members at that time," Frey said.

Frey also said there needed to be more discussion before board votes, most of which were unanimous, without much discussion.

"I know the community members are offering up points of view, and I feel like the board is there to represent the community. The community should be represented in those discussions, and that wasn't happening," Frey said.

Frey ultimately lost that election to current board members Emily Berry and Becky Freer.

This year, Frey said he still sees the same issues.

"I couldn't listen to the board discounting things about academics anymore or to make excuses for poor academics. We have what I feel to be a strong superintendent now that I don't want her to be discouraged by or maybe even not do her best because the expectations aren't what they should be for her, higher expectations for her," Frey said.

Frey opposed the 2023 referendum

Frey said that, after going to referendum information sessions and asking questions, he realized there weren't any answers given to questions he asked.

"A question would be 'what cuts are going to be made if this referendum doesn't pass? We don't know, and we'll have to set the budget after that.' And to me, that didn't sound like 'Hey, we know what we're doing with this money if we don't get it,'" Frey said.

In addition, Frey said Shorewood's referendum information page at the time was vague compared to other districts' referendum pages. Frey supported the district's $65.9 million facilities referendum in 2019, saying there was more detailed information provided, compared to last year's.

Frey wants to improve district's academic performance

Frey wants data-driven decisions made based on academics and not discounting state scores, as he believes has been done in the past.

He also wants to see a state standards-based curriculum in the district. That lack of such a curriculum shows up in the district's state testing scores, he said.

Frey would also like to see the School Board implement a plan for improvement in areas where expectations weren't met. In the recent past, he said, the board has lowered its goals instead of trying to reach a higher goal.

"It's OK to not reach your goals, but if you're not reaching your goals, what's the plan to reach those goals?" he said. "It's asking the district to show us a detailed program that they're going to do to combat where we're missing out on the goals."

Frey said the board's governance model of things being presented once a year hasn't helped.

"If we're missing the mark, I feel like it needs to be presented more often and keep people on their toes, keep the priority," Frey said.

Frey especially wants to see scores at the intermediate school improve, saying that the proficiency rates and school report card scores are significantly lower than the district's other schools. He said he didn't like hearing board members' comments about the issue that said that intermediate school students would recover in high school.

"Not all of our students are getting back to where they were prior to going to intermediate school. Or the test is a joke. Nobody takes it serious. Just to hear those kind of comments, I did not like hearing that from the board," Frey said.

Frey wants to prioritize budgeting and says the district has a spending, not a funding, problem

Frey said the district doesn't have a funding issue, but a spending problem. The district needs to go line-by-line in its budget to see whether the money being spent is worth it, including reprioritizing staffing to meet deficiencies.

"That starts with working with the teachers and saying 'Hey, what do you need in your classrooms?' They need a curriculum, and they need the support. It's prioritizing where the spending is going, and that's evidence-based," Frey said.

Frey said the district should only use curriculums and programs that have proven to be successful in the past.

"As a district, we buy into these programs, and we spend a lot of money on them, but then when they're not successful, they don't go away," he said. "We don't stop and find a new program to replace it. We need to prioritize things that are actually working and not buy programming before it's actually successful."

He also wanted to see the district not have to go to referendum every five years.

"I would like to see us be more financially sound and responsible," Frey said.

Contact Alec Johnson at (262) 875-9469 or [email protected]. Follow him on X (Twitter) at @AlecJohnson12.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Shorewood School Board candidates in April 2, 2024, election