Four vie for three Havre school board seats: Erin Pulse

Erin Pulse, a potential newcomer to the Havre Public School Board is running for one of three seats along with incumbents Tim Scheele, Curtis Smeby and Cindy Erickson.

Pulse said she is running for the School Board in order to become a voice for teachers.

"I think the teachers need more of a voice. I worked at the schools for a while, I was also a paraprofessional, and seeing the teachers, seeing how their days went, I think they need more - more help," she said.

Pulse said being on the board will allow her to address the concerns of teachers and make their jobs easier.

"I want to be a voice for the teachers. If they need anything, they can come to me and I will listen," she said.

Pulse is the only candidate who is not currently on the board, and she said that being on the board would require her to learn a great deal about how the organization operates, but she thinks by reaching out to potential fellow board members she can gain a robust understanding of what she can do in the position.

"I want to know their thoughts I want to know what they're passionate about, I want to know how things work, and I think by me getting to know them, that's going to help bridge the gap," Pulse said.

Though she may not have the same experience of other members Pulse said having children of her own in the school system does provide her with some knowledge of how things work.

"It's good to have kids in school, because then you kind of get a grasp of what's going on on a day-to-day basis," she said.

Pulse also said her experience working in the system has also given her some relevant perspective.

"I've been in the school, I've seen how things are run, and we need someone on the board that has been in the school to say, 'Oh, hey, this might work,' or 'No, this is not working,' because we've been there, we've been in the classroom, we've seen things," she said.

Pulse said she would need some time on the board to grasp the full scope of the Havre Public Schools issues and what to do about them, but believes that by listening to teachers she, and the board, will have a good idea of where to start.

"I have to do more research, I have to do the listening, I need to know how things go before I find out my reason to be there," she said, "I think if we know what teachers need in their classrooms we can go from there."

Pulse said she's concerned about national trends when it comes to teacher retention and that Havre Public Schools should be paying attention. She said she hopes she can contribute to this by being on the board.

"If you look at the rate of how we are losing teachers nationally, something is going on that we need to get to the bottom of," she said.

Pulse said so far she is impressed by the district's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and said that they have done everything that needed to be done.

"It's unfortunate that this happened, but we had to do what was safe for our kids," she said, "We had to do what we had to do, and I think the school handled it perfectly."

Pulse also thinks remote learning at the schools has been a success, though she said she knows some students are still struggling.

"Distanced learning is a struggle for some kids and some parents, but it's something they had to do, and I think they went about it in just the right way," she said.

Pulse said she thinks re-opening Havre Public Schools on May 7, the earliest day allowed by Gov. Bullock's directives, would be a bad idea, and potentially dangerous.

"As much as I wish for it, ... there is no way to do the social distancing when you've got 25, 26 kids in the classroom. There's no way to do it," she said.

Editor's note: This story was completed before the board voted Tuesday on re-opening classrooms.

Husband, Josh; son, Parker Johnston, 18; daughter, Kimber 12; son, Gage 10.