Candidates were evaluated on their agreement and responses to the following statements:

Parents as Primary Educators

Parents are the best and primary educators of their children. All K–12 education policy should support and facilitate the rights, duties, and involvement of every parent to be actively engaged in decisions related to the education and well-being of their child. Parents should be empowered and have meaningful opportunities to choose the educational setting and options that best meet their child’s needs, including but not limited to open enrollment options within and outside their geographically assigned district school.

Parents’ Right to Information and Authority

Parents should have access to all information about their child’s school experience, including instructional materials, curriculum, participation in extracurricular and other activities and clubs, as well as academic, health and discipline/conduct records. Absent a compelling legal requirement or immediate threat to a child’s safety, school policies should not intentionally place school personnel between parents and their children when making decisions concerning a child’s education or well-being.

Transparency and Public Accountability

Taxpayer-funded schools in Minnesota have a responsibility to be transparent with parents and the public about curriculum, instruction, student performance, student conduct, district finances, decision-making, outcomes, shortcomings, and challenges. School boards should facilitate and simplify access to open meetings and public information, encourage attendance, viewing, and participation, and provide frequent communication to district residents about district business and performance.

School Board Oversight and Accountability

Oversight and accountability for the performance and outcomes of taxpayer-funded school districts in Minnesota rests solely with the school board. The board may choose to delegate its statutorily defined duties to the superintendent or other district staff, but the board is ultimately responsible for all results from its employees. The board should establish measurable academic goals and hold the superintendent and administration accountable for achieving them while avoiding inappropriate micromanagement of day-to-day school operations.

Objective Truth, Facts and Intellectual Independence

Education in Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded schools must be grounded in objective truth and should effectively communicate to students that objective truth exists, is knowable, and should be pursued through evidence, reason, and honest inquiry. Our public schools should prioritize factual knowledge, established academic disciplines, and proven scholarship rather than ideological fads, and students should not be pressured to adopt political or ideological viewpoints.

Competing Ideas and Intellectual Heritage

Students should be exposed to significant competing viewpoints on genuinely contested questions and taught how to evaluate arguments rather than simply being told which conclusions to accept. The purpose of education includes transmitting humanity’s accumulated knowledge and wisdom, as well as the traditions, history, culture, values, and intellectual heritage of previous generations.

American History, Founding Principles and Heritage

Students should receive a thorough education in American history that includes bothAmerica’s accomplishments and its failures. Students should understand the principles underlying America’s founding documents, including natural rights, equality before the law, representative government, limited government, individual liberty, and the rule of law. Students should also study significant works and ideas from the Western intellectual tradition and the historical influence of Christianity and the broader Judeo-Christian tradition on American and Western civilization.

Character, Responsibility and Self-Governance

Education must equip children for the challenges and responsibilities of adulthood, beyond merely preparing students for a career. Minnesota’s taxpayer funded schools should cultivate virtues such as responsibility, honesty, perseverance, self-discipline, respect, and personal responsibility, and should teach students that their choices have consequences and that they are responsible for their conduct and academic effort.

Student Discipline and Classroom Order

Students should be held accountable for misconduct, and disciplinary policies should establish meaningful consequences for behavior that disrupts learning or harms others. Maintaining an orderly classroom environment is essential to effective learning, and teachers should have the authority and support necessary to maintain that environment. Cell phones are a distraction to learning and can contribute to social conflict and less connection among students and therefore should not be permitted during school hours.

Civic Education and Patriotism

Our American republic depends upon an educated and patriotic citizenry. Taxpayer funded schools have a responsibility to prepare students to participate knowledgeably and responsibly in our constitutional republic by teaching the civic knowledge and virtues necessary for self-government, including respect for the rule of law, civil disagreement, individual liberty, and participation in civic life. Minnesota’s public schools should foster a healthy appreciation for and attachment to the United States and appropriately recognize civic traditions such as the Pledge of Allegiance and national anthem.

Rigorous, Content-Rich Curriculum

Minnesota’s taxpayer-funded public schools should foster academic excellence by prioritizing a rigorous and content-rich curriculum rooted in foundational subjects such as reading, writing, mathematics, literature, science, history, civics, and the arts. The primary mission of Minnesota’s K-12 system is education, and district resources, staff time, student learning hours, funding, and facilities should be focused primarily on that mission. Schools should be cautious about expanding into social safety-net programs, health care services, and other non-education-related services or community partnerships when doing so creates role confusion, conflict, or a loss of accountability for the district’s educational responsibilities. Students should be challenged with substantial knowledge and high academic expectations rather than having academic standards lowered to improve reported graduation rates, pass rates, or other performance measures.

Evidence-Based Instruction and Academic Achievement

Minnesota’s taxpayer funded public schools should prioritize teaching methods supported by strong evidence of effectiveness rather than adopting educational practices primarily because they are new, fashionable, or ideologically popular. Screen-based learning through Chromebooks, iPads, and other devices should not be used as a substitute for effective instruction, particularly in younger grades, where such technology can be suboptimal or detrimental to learning, and should be used only sparingly in upper grades. School boards should regularly review objective measures of student achievement and take corrective action when students or groups of students are consistently failing to meet established academic standards. Students who demonstrate exceptional academic ability should be given opportunities to advance and pursue more challenging coursework.

Biological Sex and Sports and Facilities

Biological sex should be the sole criterion used to determine and enforce access to male and female sports and sex-specific spaces and facilities in taxpayer-funded schools.

Equal Treatment Without Race-Based Educational Policies

Students do not learn differently based on immutable characteristics. Accordingly, school policy, practices, instruction, and funding should not be determined based on race, color, or national origin. Minnesota’s taxpayer funded public schools should maintain high academic expectations for all students and should focus on individual student needs and achievement rather than treating students differently based on immutable characteristics.

Board Governance and Community Representation

School board members should represent the interests and values of the community they were elected to serve while protecting the rights of all students and families. Major policy decisions should be discussed and decided through the public governance process rather than being effectively predetermined through private discussions between board members and administrators.

Board Responsibility for Results

School boards should establish clear expectations for district performance, regularly evaluate objective measures of student achievement and other outcomes, and hold the superintendent and administration accountable when results fall short. Board members should exercise their oversight responsibilities rather than simply deferring to administrators on major policy or performance questions.

Standing with Parents

If elected, will you support policies consistent with the principles outlined in this questionnaire, even when doing so creates disagreement with district administrators, employee groups, or other influential stakeholders?

Responding to Parent Concerns

If a substantial number of parents raise concerns about a district policy, will you commit to seriously reviewing those concerns and seeking public discussion of the issue?

Curriculum and Instructional Materials

If elected, will you support reviewing curriculum and instructional materials when credible concerns are raised about academic quality, factual accuracy, ideological advocacy, or age appropriateness?

Addressing Academic Underperformance

If district academic outcomes remain persistently below expectations, will you support changing policies, programs, curriculum, or leadership practices when the evidence indicates that change is necessary?