When one considers all of the challenges that the Minot School Board will face in the coming years, it’s almost a wonder that four candidates want one of the two seats up for election. Yet they do; kudos to them.

Just to recap some of what the school district is up against …

– The teachers and administration are currently at impasse in their contract negotiations.

– Minot is facing potentially building a new high school and then deciding which grades should go there, including whether to make them independent (ie competing) high schools.

– Future budgets are unlikely to look any better to taxpayers because many of them aren’t getting or haven’t seen substantial raises in some time.

– There is open talk already about another bond issue; the last one failed.

Despite the dark forecast, three of the four candidates who responded to written questions from the Minot Daily News – Michael Carswell did not – displayed confidence and compassion and a good command of the issues.

“We will continue to manage expenses through attrition, consolidation and monitoring expenses in all areas and do the best we can to balance the budget, while remaining focused on quality of education.” – Steve Velk

“At a time when many residents in Minot are generally not seeing increases in their personal income and are feeling the weight of the recent property tax increases, it’s exceedingly challenging to approve increases in pay. The board has a duty to work with all sides to stay within budget and likely, both sides need to make compromises to come to a resolution.” – Miranda Schuler

“If given the opportunity to continue serving as a board member, I will continue being a fiscally responsible steward of our taxpayers’ dollars, supporting safe and quality educational and work environments for our students and staff, and supporting the vision of MPS to ‘Empower all learners to succeed in a changing world.'” – Laura Mihalick

The new school board, without a doubt, faces huge challenges these next few years.

Things could be worse though. We could have a slate of candidates much less committed to education and much less informed than these three who shared some of their views with our readers.