TUPPER LAKE — There are three board seats open for election this year, and three candidates — two incumbents, one returning after a hiatus — are running to fill them.

Wayne Davison and board Vice President Jason Rolley are running for reelection. Dawn Hughes, who has sat on the board before, is running again after Shaleen Price resigned last week.

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Running again

Hughes spent seven years as a board member, from 2007 to 2014, when Price took her seat. But earlier this month Price announced she would resign from the board, as she plans on moving away soon.

Hughes said she is running for her old seat again because she knows that not many people run for school board seats. She said people don’t often have the time or desire to sit on the board, but that it is an important position.

“You can have your ideas and thoughts. I think that you need to be able to express them, to be able to talk about them as a board and to come up with the best possible answer,” she said.

She said her goal is to support the kids, families and school by being available.

“People would stop me in the grocery store or on the street … or call on the phone … to discuss issues,” she said.

She said her four sons went through the district and that two of her four grandchildren are currently in school here.

She said she’s worked with almost all the other board members before and hopes to bring the board some unity as the district comes under new leadership. Superintendent Seth McGowan is retiring this summer, and high school Principal Russ Bartlett is taking on the role.

Hughes said she sat on the board during some of the district’s tough financial years and that with the fallout of COVID-19 she is ready to do that again.

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Not moving backward

Wayne Davidson is wrapping up his second three-year term on the board and decided to run for election again, although he said he was not sure if he would at first.

“If you’re on a school board, you’re thinking of not running every day,” Davidson said.

However, he said he wants to keep stability on the board and said he wants to be able to keep programming available for the kids during the upcoming difficult financial time.

“I don’t want to lose any programs for the kids,” Davidson said. “We want to make sure to keep staying under the 2% tax cap, and we want to make sure we’re serving all the district’s students.”

He said the district has “clawed” its way back from its last difficult financial period, getting several programs back, and he doesn’t want to go “backwards” and lose them again.

One of his children is graduating this month, and he said it has been a difficult senior year, with many changes, cancellations and struggles due to COVID-19.

“He rolls with the punches,” Davidson said of his son.

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More than academics

Rolley is running for a third term on the school board, and he said he believes the same thing he did six years ago: that the school district is about more than just educating kids.

He said he initially ran because he had attended a few board meetings and did not agree with one board member’s philosophy. He said the member wanted to cancel sports, and he wanted to keep them “in check.”

“I think athletics are a big part of a child’s development, and it’s proven a child does better with sports and academics,” Rolley said.

That member is not longer on the board, but Rolley said he still wants to represent the idea that schools should be molding children and providing them with more than an education.

A good example of this, he said, is the meal program the district developed for students while they learned from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

Rolley said he has three kids in district schools, including one graduating this year, and he wants the best for them as well as for his neighbors’ kids.

“The teachers, they’re molding our future,” Rolley said. “I just want to make sure I make it as good as I can for the next round of people shuffling through everywhere in the world.”

Rolley said the board’s biggest struggle is balancing its budget with its wants. He said he wants to keep the district moving forward while being able to afford it. The virus has hit state aid hard, and he said that goal of moving forward has stalled temporarily, as the goal now is just to maintain what schools have.