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.

Indebted to education, Noel seeks chair on School Board

It doesn’t take much prompting for Issaquah School Board District 2 Director candidate Wright Noel to admit he wasn’t the world’s greatest student in high school. Far from it.

“I was very interested in athletics,” he said. “Didn’t do so well in the classroom.”

But Noel, whose father once worked as a high school teacher in Oregon, turned things around on a wrestling scholarship at Brigham Young University and eventually earned a law degree from the University of Washington. Now a founding partner at a local law firm, the 42-year-old business law attorney said he recognizes the debt he owes to public schools and wants to give back.

“My dad was always trying to help a young man or woman become a productive citizen,” he said.

“That instilled in me importance of public education.”

Volunteerism, expertise a driving force for candidacy

The spirit of volunteerism isn’t something lost on Noel, 42, who served as a missionary in Nashville, Tenn. for 18 months and bishop for his local LDS church ward. But now he says he’s ready to enter the public realm and to serve on the Issaquah School Board.

Like Maraldo, Noel isn’t interested in bringing personal religious convictions into the classroom. His top goals, if elected, are to bring his business experience to the board, attract more local volunteers, establish a strategic plan to achieve ambitious goals, and devise better ways to measure their success.

He believes his experience as a budget-balancing small business owner and practicing lawyer who understands transparency in representing voters would give the ISD the best value for money.

ISD funding: A key difference in perspective

But Noel feels the school board’s primary function is to help ISD be the best it can with the assets it controls, in contrast to his opponent Marnie Maraldo.

Noel said stoking hopes of increased state funding over the next several years was not the best answer to the district’s perennial resource gap.

“The answer is not in Olympia, it’s in Issaquah,” he said.

Asked for his approach to the district’s largest funding source, Noel conceded that there are funding challenges at the state level, but viewed Maraldo’s lobbying experience at the State Capitol with some disdain.

“We would be petitioning the legislators,” he said. “But if we have to rely on the legislators to fix this, we’re in trouble.”

If changes at the ISD are needed, he said, the district and the school board should figure out what needs to be done no matter what happens in Olympia.

Getting the community involved

Like Noel’s own personal story of achievement, he believes part of the solution to the ISD’s funding woes rests primarily with individuals in the local community.

He hopes to inspire others to follow his lead and bolster the number of volunteers in schools, PTAs and the Issaquah Schools Foundation.

“We’ve got just immense talent within our community,” he said.

Noel said he interviewed all four district high school principals and asked them what could be done better. Suggestions included locally recruiting a new Issaquah High School AP computer science teacher. Or a suggestion that Liberty High School could create a database of parents to canvass, hoping to find “day lecturers” who can give vocational or academic expertise related to their vocational or academic expertise related to their real-world careers.

“These tweaks could make (these programs) of greater benefit,” he said.

Perceptions in the south end

Living in the May Valley area for the past 10 years, Noel said his five children are south end school students, which naturally gives him an insider’s perspective on how the schools in District 2 operate. According to Noel, a majority of students and parents there still feel, as they traditionally have, that they’re getting the short end of the stick.

Careful not to criticize departing District 2 Director Connie Fletcher, he said the former school board member reflected the south end perspective, fought to ensure fairness, and emphasized transparency in how decisions on the board were made — all goals he seeks to emulate.

“It’s important that these issues are discussed up-front,” Noel said.

“I haven’t done a huge analysis, but all I can say is many still feel they’re treated that way. It’s important that (the ISB) understand that.”

One of the issues that raises some concern is Liberty High School’s block schedule of classes, allowing students to take more credits than at Issaquah or Skyline per year.

“It’s a real asset to some,” he said. “But there’s downsides to that schedule, too.”

Noel pointed out that students who struggle with subjects such as math fall behind because of the amount of material covered in 90 minute classes.

“The district is looking at the optimal high school experience,” he said.

Overall, Noel feels the district is performing very well, and points out that the ISD has some of the highest college prep ACT and SAT test score averages in the country. He hopes to bring ideas that will continue the progress the district’s made over the years, rather than wholesale changes in direction.

“We’re one of the top school districts in the state,” he said.

“The parents expect it to be top tier. It should be and it can be. And I hope to contribute to that, to make it better.”