With less than a week until Election Day, the race for Menomonee Falls School Board is heating up. There are six candidates vying for three seats.
In recent weeks the race has, at times, drawn protests.
A few weeks ago, a downtown gun store and the conservative political action group, Turning Point, hosted two school board candidates Chris Stueland and Adam Sachs.
On March 13, the League of Women Voters hosted a non-partisan candidate forum at the library.
Three of the candidates, Stueland, Sachs and Nina Christensen declined to participate saying, “The level of bias present on their website makes it difficult to accept that this event will be conducted fairly…”
Stueland, Sachs and Christensen are being supported by the Republican Party of Waukesha County and by the WisRed initiative.
The other three candidate, Derek Blemberg, Jesse Cramer and Hallie Newman Schmeling say they are independents.
Those three agreed to do an on-camera interview. Stueland and Christensen offered statements. Sachs declined both.
“Was there an incident or something that sparked you wanting to run for school board?” asked reporter Rebecca Klopf.
“This run is inspired by the book bans in October 2023. As an English teacher I was really concerned about that. I tried to engage with the board about that issue particularly, and they would not speak to me,” said Derek Blemberg.
“They banned any teaching from the brand new million dollar curriculum of 21st century history. So no Iraq War, no Bush, no Obama, No first Trump, no September 11th, all of that cut from the curriculum,” said Jesse Cramer.
“Honestly, I felt a lot of fear and a lot of pain as both an educator and as a parent, to see that a lot of the things that we prize—Menominee Falls schools to be about being that, you know, it's got great courses and great educators and students walk out and graduate being such great citizens, and I was noticing that a lot of things were changing,” said Hallie Newman Schmeling.
Watch: 6 candidates for 3 spots in Menomonee Falls
Adam Sachs posted on his Waukesha Freeman candidate questionnaire on Facebook saying, “As a pragmatist, I believe education should focus on core skills — reading, math and science — not on ideological agendas.”
Nina Christensen and Chris Stueland are the incumbents. They addressed their plan if re-elected.
“I will advocate for a real-time increase in SPED (special education) funding with state legislators. Our district is committed to serving all students, but we cannot do so effectively if the state allocation does not match the percentage initially approved,” said Nina Christensen.
Chris Stueland directed TMJ4 News to her website, writing, “my focus has been to improve the quality of our students’ education by being a voice for parents, reviewing school board business with a critical lens and offering ideas and solutions that would best serve the students, parents and teachers of our district.”
Election Day is April 1.
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