PULASKI (NBC 26) — Three candidates are running for one Pulaski Community School Board member-at-large seat in Tuesday's Primary election. NBC 26 sat down with each of the candidates and spoke with them about why they decided to run.
All three candidates Steve Liegl, Cory Juelich and Jenny Rybicki say being a parent is a part of why they decided to join the race.
"As an active community member I work for the local utility, so I have a vested interest in the safety of our schools, ultimately the education of our schools," Liegl said.
"I've been coming to the school meetings for over four years. When virtual learning was going on I was a parent there advocating for children to go back to school," Juelich said. "I felt it was important to stay engaged."
"Being involved in the community has always been very important to me," Rybicki said. "So, the opportunity to get involved now that my kids are a little bit older and I can be part of their school decision-making process is really what motivated me."
We also asked the candidates what they think are the most important issue or issues facing the school district right now. Here's what they had to say:
"Honestly I'm an outsider at this point and what I've been hearing from the teachers and from the parents and from community members that I've met with has changed a little bit of my focus [on] what the needs are," Rybicki said. "For me, our number one has to be those kids and getting them the best education we can."
"I think the most important thing right now is our school safety, right? Safety of our students, safety of our teachers. And I'm going to piggyback on with something second of all and that's really the support of our teachers within all of our schools. Make them feel appreciated and wanting to be there," Liegl said. "As a citizen, I understand what it is to want to see information and to request information. And I really believe it's important that the school board as well as the administration finds a way to make information readily available to the citizens."
"As a district, we've lost a lot of staff in recent years," Juelich said. "There's a lot of concern. They don't feel that they have a voice or are able to freely teach the way they would like... the next big issue is safety ... we recently did just add additional security resource officers to our district and we need to fully utilize their resources."
According to the Village of Pulaski's website, polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 8 p.m. on election day.
