Three seats are up for grabs on the Tucson Unified School District’s Governing Board this November.
Five candidates for the open seats answered questions at a forum at the YWCA on the Westside of Tucson hosted by the League of Women Voters of Southern Ariz.
Questions for the forum were submitted by members of the Tucson community either online ahead of time or on an index card in the room. They ranged from enrollment numbers to academic achievement to electives to safety in schools.
The biggest focus was the district’s budget for the candidates and for those in the audience like third-grade teacher Wes Oswald.
“It’s very hard to work with the budget we got,” he said.
He’s been with TUSD for about 16 years and currently teaches at Manzo Elemenraty School. He’s facing both budget and enrollment issues in his classroom this year.
“I think one of the biggest challenges get we have is lack of funding from the state as well as declining enrollment,” he said.”We had over-hired teachers, so we had a cut a position just last week. As a result, I took on extra students into my classroom from a classroom being collapsed and a teacher leaving due to budget and lower enrollment than expected.”