WF Tea Party hosts school board candidate forum

WICHITA FALLS, Texas (KAUZ) - Voters in Wichita County were given the chance to hear from school board candidates on Thursday.

The Wichita Falls Tea Party invited trustee candidates from the Wichita Falls ISD and City View ISD, and only two out of the 10 showed up. The two candidates there were Jim Johnson and Sandy Camp. Both are running for different positions as a Wichita Falls ISD trustee.

While organizers were hoping for a bigger turnout, those in attendance were able to ask questions to get to know more about the candidates and their reasons for running. Each candidate was given up to 10 minutes to speak before answering questions from the public.

Johnson is running for WFISD trustee place 5 against Tom Bursey, and he was the first speaker at the forum. He talked about his background in finance and believes he can help the district bounce back from what’s now a $4 million deficit.

“School district financing is different from company finances, I understand that. There’s a learning curve that I will have, but debits and credits work the same way. You can only spend what you bring in,” Johnson said.

Camp is running for trustee at large against Mark Hood, and she spoke about how to make student achievement a top priority if elected.

“What we need to do is give them support with behavior in that classroom. We also need to give them a curriculum to teach by and I think that’s a place where we’re slipping,” Camp said.

Both Camp and Johnson believe with new faces coming into the school board, there can be a positive change in the way things are run.

“A lesson that was learned over the last several years is no one was asking questions. I take that back, there were people that were asking questions. The majority wasn’t and the majority shut down the minority,” Johnson said.

This was an interactive forum for the public to be able to ask questions and really get to know the candidates, but the main focus on voter’s minds was the deficit the WFISD is facing and how the candidates plan on fixing it if elected.

Camp believes they need to completely stop spending from the general fund and Johnson has a background in finance he thinks can help. However, they both agree it will take take time to come back from that issue.

Copyright 2022 KAUZ. All rights reserved.