Cascade School Board Race

Many candidates are running for school board for 2021 as there are three positions open in Districts 1, 3, and 5. Cindy Puckett is the current school board member for District 1, which covers the Icicle Road and East Leavenworth Areas. Zachary Miller is the current school board member for District 3 which covers Chumstick area, Lake Wenatchee, and Plain. 

 

Trey Ising is the current school board member for District 5, which covers the Dryden and Blewett pass area. All of the incumbents are running for re-election. Additionally, Misha Whitefield and Mike Worden are running for District 1. Cody Burgess-Bench is running for District 3. Marty Young is running for District 5.

 

Marty Young, Cindy Puckett, and Misha Whitefield were not available for comment by press time but their answers will be included in a future edition. 

 

Mike Worden said that he is running for District 1 school board because he loves children. He is retired and feels there is no higher calling than to invest time in our children. He is married to a retired school teacher which he says taught him a lot. 

 

Worden feels that his experience living in many foriegn countries and different states lends him a diverse experience that is different from most. Worden has experience in education, including teaching. He has business executive experience as well as overseas experience. 

 

“My kids went to schools all throughout the world, public and private, depending upon where we were when I was in the military, and then when I was in business,” he said.

 

If elected, Worden wants to really understand what is going on in schools by dropping in on classes and extracurricular activities. He also wants to get parents more involved in their kids' education and make sure they are informed about what is going on with the board. 

 

Transparency is also important to Worden. He wants to make sure that the schools are accountable for showing how they spend every dollar they receive. He thinks schools should be able to defend their priorities and explain their actions.

 

Worden wants to be available for parents in the district. If allowed by district policy, he wants to have weekly availability for parents in his region to talk through a platform like Zoom. He also wants to create a parental advisory committee that is organized to share school board information.

 

Meanwhile in District 3, Zachary Miller has been on the school board for the past two years and thinks that he has a good voice for the community and the Upper Valley. Miller has a daughter in the school. He runs a small business, Miller Stoneworks and is the director at Tall Timber. 

 

Miller wants to be a part of the school board moving forward with in person classes. He was a lead rep for the school and was able to go over to Olympia and understand the process of how to advocate for schools. He says that his experience working with various non-profits also gives him experience for the job.

 

During the pandemic, Miller said that he saw local partnerships with groups like Upper Valley Mend work to reduce inequality by offering Wi-fi to houses that needed it. He said that it takes a community to tackle inequality and we need to make sure that every student in the valley has access to education no matter what. 

 

Miller says that the district does a good job with financial transparency. He said that state audits come back great every year and there have never been any issues. He said that he is supportive of groups like the Cascade Educational Foundation which work to fundraise for extracurricular events. 

 

Overall, what matters most to Miller is that he can support those people and that he can support the community well and serve them.

 

Cody Burgess-Bench is Miller’s opponent. She wants to use her skillset to serve the community and serve the schools. She has a diverse background working with young people for the last 15 years as a collegiate basketball coach. Most recently she served as an assistant coach at Eastern Washington University in Cheney. 

 

Burgess-Bench feels that her experience coaching has given her a skill set that helps her to work together and makes her qualified for all the struggles and disagreements that come with being a part of the school board.

 

“I feel like those experiences have really opened my eyes to different groups of people. And what drives people, and what commits them to teamwork, to prosper, and what motivates them,” said Burgess.

 

 

She wants to make sure that any policies that are created respect parents rights, the communities resources and focus on academic success. If she was on the board, she would focus on continuing programs that alleviate struggles that children face in order to reduce inequality. She said it would take a team effort to figure out what the best programs to spend money on are. 

 

Over in District 5, Incumbent Trey Ising is running again for re-election to keep things moving forward and improve the district. He wants to push forward and see what the District can achieve without COVID.

 

Ising owns Cascade Quality Water. He said that running a business helps with leadership experience, teaches you to see things differently, and solve problems. Ising has ten kids and six kids in the district. As a parent in the district, he has dealt with the struggles of the last year and half like every other parent. 

 

Ising said that he is the best candidate because he has been a member of the community for so long and has prior experience on the school board. He said that his school board position is especially important after the pandemic. 

 

Ising said that he wants to continue the strategic plan that the District has been working on since before COVID hit. He wants to help resume the programs and training that were slowed down and put on hold during the pandemic. One thing that the plan emphasizes is that all the schools are part of one single entity. 

 

“That's what I'm excited to see as we go forward is kind of taking the stress of the last 18 months, and trying our best to move forward and to continue to build better programs and better opportunities for our students,” said Ising.