This Nov. 3, local voters face ballot choices ranging from the choice of next county executive, how the state collects taxes and who will represent you on your local city council.

This week, The Reporter casts a spotlight on each candidate in the race for Issaquah School Board District 2 Director, which represents parts of Newcastle, Coalfield and May Valley.

They are Newcastle PTA Co-President Marnie Maraldo, left, and Issaquah attorney Wright Noel, right.

With the announcement this August of Connie Fletcher departing for the State Board of Education, a number of important issues are facing the school district at a time lean budgets and education reform.

Should the new board member place an emphasis on Olympia’s purse-strings, or rally more local volunteers? Are students well-served by school programs and curriculum or do they need help? And do either of the candidates support teaching “Intelligent Design” in science classes?

Read below to find out.

Maraldo pledges to advocate for school district in Olympia

The success of Basic Education Reform in Olympia earlier this year took years of work and persistence by legislators and thousands of volunteers.

Running for the position of Issaquah School Board District 2 Director, Newcastle PTSA co-president Marnie Maraldo said she found her voice then, lobbying for the Issaquah School District along with ISD representatives Leigh Stokes and Marianne Kersten as part of grassroots coalition of local education stakeholders. But in her view, this year’s success in the legislature is just the first step and will need years of advocacy until the state meets its obligation to support schools.

“It’s a good first step,” Maraldo said. “It’s like framing a house, putting the frame work around it, and now we’re just trying to work on the specifics.”

Maraldo believes her experience in the state capitol and relationships with legislators are key to improving ISD’s ability to provide quality education for all the district’s students.

“I am passionate that we are doing the best we can for all children,” she said.

With Olympia holding the purse strings to the majority of public school funding, Maraldo said the relationship between ISD and the state capitol requires putting in the extra hours to advocate for the district’s needs. Issaquah ranks near the bottom of all school districts in terms of state funding per student. The rest of the funding comes from levies and bonding that requires voter approval — several such levies are on next year’s ballot in February.

Originally from Idaho, Maraldo, 41, grew up in California and moved to the Puget Sound in 1998, settling down in Newcastle a few years ago with her husband Tony.

A full-time mother to Andrew, 10, and six-year-old Madeleine, her involvement in the local PTA and Cub Scout Pack 738 tells the story of an involved parent. But for the Issaquah School Board, Maraldo says she would draw on her previous leadership experience as a project manager at Cisco Systems to solve problems and work collaboratively with other board members.

Advocating for raising standards

In Maraldo’s view, many of the district’s problems today can be attributed to funding shortfalls. One of the primary goals that she’s targeted, if elected, would be to work with the State Board of Education and state legislators to fund 24 credits of high school instruction required to graduate. The funding would basically expand the school day from five to six periods.

Maraldo and the State Board agree that students can be unprepared for college or the workplace because of the low standard.

“They need the best education that will prepare them” for that, she said.

The district is also trying to cope with a $2.1 million gap in special education funding for one-on-one tutoring, life-learning and after-school programs. Maraldo said the PTA has tried to help by raising $12,000 for educational assistance programs, but there’s only so much they and the Issaquah Schools Foundation can do.

Helping “all” kids a priority

Another issue in the school district race that has emerged is the perception that District 2’s south end schools are getting short shrift by the ISD.

“There’s an inferred ‘all’ there (in the ISD mission statement), but not a stated ‘all’,” she said. “In the south end of the district, we can see how it’s not ‘all’ students getting reached.”

She pointed to lower WASL scores, particularly in science, that raised concerns with her and parents there. During the ‘07-’08 school year, less than half of District 2’s Liberty High School tenth-graders passed the science WASL assessment. Maraldo said the south end needed more support from the school district. The end result would be better scores, she said, benefitting the entire school district.

“We’re demographically different in the South End,” she said.

“There are places that can’t afford to do that. We should be asking, ‘How do we supplement them to do that?’”

Dust-up over her degree a ‘red herring’

As the campaign for the school board seat wore on, questions were raised over Maraldo’s own bachelor’s degree in applied mathmatics from Liberty University, an evangelical Christain school in Lynchburg, Va. A recent letter to The Reporter challenged Maraldo’s views on science education and wondered aloud if she had inclinations of altering the district’s science curriculum to include information concerning “Intelligent Design”, which uses theology to explain the origins of life, challenging the widely accepted theory of evolution. Nothing could be further from the truth, she said.

“For the record, I am not a ‘young-earth’ creationist. I have no desire to have that taught in school and there is no scientific basis for it,” she said.

Her understanding of school board responsibility, she said, is not to define the curriculum, but only approve or deny changes recommended by committee.

She said attended Liberty U. because aid and scholarship money from the church her family belonged to made it affordable for her. Maraldo maintains she’s a free-thinking individual.

“I’ve got no hidden agenda,” she said. “I really think it’s a red herring.”

While she stated that students should question what they learn, and that the understanding of science is always evolving, she said her concern was that students learn the scientific process, what science is, and how to do the experiments.

“Scientific progress comes from exploration. I want our students to be taught and always ask questions,” she said. “There’s still holes that they need to go to define — that’s science. Evolution still can’t tell you where life first came from.”