'My concern is mental health'

NORWALK — Four candidates spoke at the Christ In Action (C.I.A.) school board candidate forum on Wednesday in front of about 50 people. Alison Crawford, Jeremy Norris and Shannon Mason were the three originally slated to speak at the forum. Jim Lawrence, a former Norwalk City Schools Board member, participated in the forum as well. All four participants cited uncertainty about the current board members as the reason for running for the seats this November. The forum consisted of a couple of opening speeches from the C.I.A. talking about upcoming house bills, and a speech from current board member Lisa Wick about Critical Race Theory and why she thinks the board needs to fight against allowing it in schools. "Critical race theory is nothing more than ideology posing as history and we should not confuse the two," Wick said. C.I.A. then welcomed the four board member candidates in attendance to sit at the front of the crowd. After a brief history about themselves and why they decided to run for the board, the candidates were asked questions submitted via email from city residents. The questions covered things related to their motives to run for the board seats and what their general plans are while on the board. Most of those plans centered around hot-button items of the day that mainly surrounded fears that COVID-19 mandates are not going away after hearing the Huron County Public Health warn of a new COVID strain. "My concern is mental health," Norris said of kids being forced to wear masks. "Putting it (a mask) on someone takes their identity away. That is what we are doing to our children, we are stealing their identities. You can't see their smiles." The questions were then opened up to the people who were in attendance at the meeting. Those questions dealt with more specific things like, critical race theory, keeping cursive writing in schools, cameras in classrooms, teachers being able to open carry in the classroom, the curriculum and having the freedom to make decisions about their own children. "Does anybody here want the government telling you what to do? A school board is a form of government. As a board, they should not be telling anybody that their children need to wear a mask. It should be a choice," Mason said. All of the candidates said that their main priority while on the board would be keeping children first. "We need to make sure that the kids are first. Foremost above everything else," Lawrence said. And despite the candidate's concerns with many of the current board members, Crawford said teachers and principals at Norwalk already have a jump on keeping the kids first. "We are blessed with our teachers, I have personally seen many, intelligent, outside the box thinking, caring about our kid's teachers and principals," she said. C.I.A. announced at the end of the forum that it is trying to put together a similar forum with the incumbent board members running to keep their seats at the event as well. No date has been announced for that potential event. There are three board seats up for grabs this November with seven candidates looking to take them. Steve Linder, Beth Schnellinger and Ralph Ritzenthaler are the incumbents running to keep their seats. To see a full video of the meeting visit Shannon Mason's Facebook page.