Cyndi Loza

Retired educators Ken Grein and Byllie Andrews seek to replace Jonnie Pullman on the Washoe County school board representing southeast and old southwest Reno.

“What makes me different than my opponent and what would be important to the school board is my experience in the Washoe County School District,” said Grein, 59, who worked in various capacities in 32 years, including elementary school principal and superintendent of operations. “It’s critical that you have that experience on the board to make those tough decisions in the coming years.”

Andrews, 65, said her experience has made her a better candidate for the District D seat because she’s “seen education for more than just the classroom and administration.”

In her 36 years of working as an educator in Washoe County, she has been the founding administrator of Rainshadow Community Charter High School, supervised student teachers at the University of Nevada, Reno and Sierra Nevada College and helped K-12 teachers obtain their master’s as professors at Sierra Nevada College.

Grein said his priorities are school improvements, alternatives for students, tools and training for teachers and accountability and transparency from all departments.

“The bottom line to me is that the most important thing we do happens in the classroom and that funding for the classroom is my priority,” Grein said.

Andrews said she wants to advocate for secondary education, especially for alternatives for students at risk of dropping out.

“Every kid isn’t going on to college, and every kid needs to stay in school, so they can get the skills they need to get a decent job,” Andrews said. “We spend a lot more of our money on prisoners than we do with students, and if we spent more money on our students, we’d have fewer prisoners. If we just invested a little bit in the beginning we don’t have to spend as much in the end.”

In December, Gov. Jim Gibbons ordered a 4.5 percent statewide cut that reduced funding to school districts by $95 million over the next two years. In May, Gibbons asked agencies and school districts to present “what-if” budgets with 14 percent cuts to operating costs.

Both candidates said they are concerned about cuts to K-12 education.

Choosing areas to cut is “hard to say without knowing what the cuts would be,” Andrews said. “(But) first priority is maintaining anything that has to do with classroom instruction.”

Grein said the district needs to examine how some services can be shared with the city and county.

“We need to really examine and see if we can make it work by sharing some of those services,” Grein said.