Cynthia Mickelson

Sioux Falls School Board Candidate Mickelson wants to use public education to push ‘Workforce Development’

l3wis May 27, 2017 5Comments

While at first glance, this sounds like good idea, I’m not sure many voters are buying it. The school board candidates just finished their 3rd and probably final candidate forum. In each of them, one candidate’s idea stood out that got quite a bit of push back from the other candidates. Voters have also expressed to me that they found Mickelson’s comments troubling.

On Friday during the last forum at Dem Forum, Mickelson pushed for her idea again, even after saying she supports teacher unions and talked about her endorsement fromÂ the SFEA. She said the crowd is probably surprised but stressed she was an independent voice from her husband.

Not so fast.

Like I said, preparing kids for jobs outside of HS isn’t such a bad idea within itself, but the other candidates pointed out why promoting this one-legged stool is not such a good idea. The other candidates pointed to a public education being ‘equal to all’ and ‘well-rounded’. In other words the focus is to prepare ALL students for whatever they want to do after HS. If that means forgoing college to join the workforce right away, so be it, but they think we should prepare all students to strive for the best not just the easiest route.

Just because someone in the public school system may have poor working class parents, it shouldn’t mean they automatically should be prepped to work those same, low-paying jobs when they get out. The school district should be doing everything in their power to prepare ALL students for higher education.

This is why Mickelson’s statements are counter productive and reveal her true feelings on organized labor. She wants our schools to focus more on producing low wage worker bees for theÂ states industries because some kids just are not cut out for college.

School board members should never under estimate their student body. They should also not be concerned about whether or not our state can attract and produce enough low-wage blue collar jobs. Our schools already struggle with enough problems, the last thing on their agenda should be worrying about rich business owners bottom lines.

Cynthia Mickelson SF School District Sioux Falls Unions

Sioux Falls Education Association is rumored to endorse Mickelson

l3wis May 17, 2017 3Comments

In one of the most bizarre moves I have ever seen a teacher union association pull, they are rumored to haveÂ endorsed a well known Republican for school board. It’s not like she is just some regular old house wife Republican, she is married to a staunch Republican lawmaker who is anti-union and anti-organized labor.

When teachers stand around with their fingers in their butts wondering why they can’t get raises, all they need to do is look at the 50 year chokehold Cynthia and Mark’s party has had on Pierre and their anti-public education stances on funding. It’s almost an insult to teachers that this person is running, than they endorse her? Baffling! The half-penny sales tax only passed because the chicken-shit Democrats voted for it also.

I’m sure this stems from the higher ups in the organization making this perplexing decision based on who they think will win, and who Cynthia sleeps with. But don’t expect Mark to wake up the day after the school board election and suddenly become PRO-UNION, the party would burn him at the stake.

Also, I think the SFEA should have stayed neutral in the race to begin with, voter turnout will probably be a record low, and it could only take a couple of votes for any of the 4 candidates to prevail, even though it seems Mickelson is spending several thousand on her campaign (rumor has it that Mark is donating his legislative campaign funds to Cynthia’s, which is totally legal) I guess we will find out after May 30 when financial reports are due. It’s your typical Republican strategy, outspend your opponent 5-10 fold instead of actually running on your credentials.

As a person who has worked in printing and the sign business, if I had to make an educated guess, Mickelson has probably spent well over $10K on signs alone. I also saw a bumper sticker today, and would expect billboards closer to the election.

Pretty sad really when you are only trying to getÂ a majority of the predicted 2,000 votes that will be cast.

UPDATE: Also, teachers typically are not big on voting, and take into account that a large percentage of them can’t vote because they live outside district.

Cynthia Mickelson SF School District Sioux Falls

Signs, Signs, everywhere there are signs

l3wis May 11, 2017 4Comments

Most of Cynthia’s signs are in business lots or rental property. She even had a couple signs on private university property (that kind of made me chuckle) Still waiting to see her signs along O’Gorman’s property.

To be fair, Mrs. Mickelson’s signs do appear in many home yards also.

The sign wars always are interesting, as if someone is going to vote for someone based on a cute sign. What surprises me is that Cynthia’s signs are appearing on so many commercial properties (even a liquor store). This is something you usually see in legislative or council races, but rarely in school board elections.

Of course people would say it shouldn’t surprise us, Cynthia’s husband runs the chokehold called the Republican party in Pierre, of course his comrades would help out. People have argued that Cynthia is her own person and parents have asked her to run, which I believe, but when you have commercial businesses getting involved with a school board election, it worries me. It’s a new precedent that is troubling. Is anything sacred anymore?

Just look at the school board itself, in an effort to leave voters out of the school start date, they sent out a survey to parents and teachers, not property tax payers, and certainly not commercial businesses.

If Cynthia wants to be on the school board to help children, which I believe she does, she would show some integrity and pull her signs from all commercial properties.

I encourage Cynthia to run on her qualifications instead of her husband’s connections.

There are four fantastic candidates running for school board (including Cynthia) let them battle it out the old fashion way, at the ballot box.

Sioux Falls School Board Candidate Mickelson wants to use public education to push ‘Workforce Development’

Sioux Falls Education Association is rumored to endorse Mickelson

Signs, Signs, everywhere there are signs

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