CSISD board president Kim Ege faces longtime teacher Michelle Gallagher for Place 6 trustee seat

College Station ISD's board president is asking voters for another term, and a longtime classroom teacher is asking them to make a change.

Incumbent Kim Ege and challenger Michelle Gallagher are running for Place 6 on the district's Board of Trustees, one of two school board seats on the Nov. 3 ballot. KBTX profiled both candidates in a story published Thursday night.

The candidates

Gallagher has taught for 18 years. She told KBTX that the board too often hears only one side of an issue and that she would bring the view of someone who works in a classroom every day.

Ege, the current board president, is a former teacher whose background includes accounting. She has spent about 12 years involved with the district, more recently as a school volunteer, and has served on the board for the past three years. She told the station that experience gives her a working knowledge of what the district is doing.

Where they differ

Gallagher named teacher retention as the biggest problem schools face and said the job has only gotten harder. She wants teacher pay raised to at least the average and then beyond it. She also said the board has struggled with how it handles its business, pointing to disputes over agenda policies, and said she would work to make meetings run more smoothly.

Ege pointed to two pressures the board has been working through. Families are increasingly choosing homeschooling, charter schools and other options, a statewide trend she said public schools will have to adapt to by sticking with what they do well. The district also faces a funding squeeze, she said, which will require working with state lawmakers for more money.

Ege cited the district's Texas Education Agency accountability score, which she said rose from 81 to 86 over three years, and said students and teachers are now using new and renovated spaces built with bond money. She said she was not sure she could take credit for the gains.

On the ballot

The race follows an Oct. 20 board meeting at which a longtime teacher described working long days and holding other jobs to stay in the classroom, and at which trustees discussed pay and staffing items. Ege had laid out new rules in September for how trustees raise concerns.

Place 6 and Place 7 are both on the ballot. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.

Sources

KBTX