BELCHERTOWN — Three people are vying for two, three-year seats on the School Committee at the annual town election Monday.
Two candidates, Michael Knapp and Jeffrey Charron, currently serve on the board but only Knapp is running as an incumbent. Heidi Gutekenst is the third candidate.
Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Belchertown High School Gymnasium.
A father of four children, Charron, 43, was appointed to the School Committee last July. Instead of running for the remaining one year left in the term, Charron said he chose to run for a vacant three-year seat.
“I think for me, my ego is not attached to this position,” he said. “Really at its foundation, I feel like I have a skill that adds value to the complexity of the School Committee and the school system.”
Retired after 22 years in the Air Force, Charron now works as an executive coach and is employed by Yankee Candle. He moved his family to Belchertown while still in the Air Force in 2010 and lived in town for three years before being reassigned to another location. After his retirement, the family moved back to Belchertown in 2014.
“It wasn’t until 2010 that we really understood what community is. Every place we’ve lived has been temporary. We feel in love with the community of Belchertown and the school district is part of that,” Charron said. “I’ve been around the country and had kids in schools all over the place and they (Belchertown schools) are some of the best. That is why we wanted to come back.”
Money, Charron said, is the biggest issue facing the committee and the district.
“That is something that is not going to go way,” he said.
Another issue facing the district is the ongoing contract negotiations with teachers.
“We’ve been in contract negotiations before I started and we’re not done,” Charron said.
He said the reason for the delay is a “culture of low trust” and that low trust causes a slow speed resulting in high costs.
He said he sees the district as a “very delicate and interdependent ecosystem.”
“I believe that I am for the whole ecosystem and that is what is going to inform my whole decision and thinking,” he said.
Watching the School Committee struggle with its budget last year, Gutekenst said she felt she had some skills that could have alleviated or avoided some of the problems.
“I’ve dealt with things like that in my job,” she said. “In Obama’s last speech he said if you are unhappy with things you need to get involved. So I decided I needed to get involved.”
Gutekenst, 39, is the school age program director at the Belchertown Day School. Without any children, Gutekenst said she is able to look at the whole picture.
“Without children, I don’t have any loyalties to a particular grade or particular sport or musical instrument,” she said.
She holds a master’s degree in nonprofit management and a bachelor’s degree in recreation management and has been working with children for more than two decades.
“I think my experience working with nonprofits has made me work with a board of directors. I understand how that relationship works,” Gutekenst said. “I think I understand budgets, I understand, working with a nonprofit our budget is always what we live by … we’re used to sticking to it and making it work.”
Like Charron, Gutekenst sees budgets as a key issue.
“Last year, there was a huge problem. This year is still tough. They’ve had to cut some positions,” she said.
Gutekenst said the committee’s relationship with the town has been struggling as well as with the teachers and is something she wants to work on.
“I really care about our students and our town,” she said. “I don’t have any other kind of agenda or things I’m looking to do. I just want to help our students succeed.”
A chemistry professor at University of Massachusetts Amherst, Knapp moved to Belchertown in 2003.
“My wife and I wanted a safe place to raise our kids and Belchertown had that,” Knapp said. “It certainly helped that Belchertown had good schools 14 years ago and they still do.”
The father of two has been on the board for four years, having first been appointed to complete a term for someone who resigned.
“There is a lot of work that still needs to be done,” he said. “I thought I knew a lot after one year. I know so much more after four years.”
Constant churn on the committee, Knapp said, is not good when trying to form a healthy relationship between the board members and the superintendent. Knapp said it was “too easy” for elected officials to respond to something everybody is mad about today.
“You can come in and address that but by addressing that issue you are creating other problems and not keeping a long-term vision for the district,” he said.
Like both other candidates, Knapp agrees that the budget is an important issue.
“Resources are getting tighter. The state support for (kindergarten) to 12 education is not keeping up with expenses,” he said. “There will be some challenging decisions over the next five years.”
Also on Knapp’s mind is a focus on student outcome and how to integrate “all this great technology” into the educational system.
“To figure out how to use technology to improve and change what we do, that requires some innovation and the security from the teachers to take some risks,” he said. “It requires some resources … I think it’s well worth it.”
Emily Cutts can be reached at ecutts@gazettenet.com.