Six candidates are vying for three open seats on the Traverse City Area Public Schools (TCAPS) Board of Education. Two – Josey Ballenger and Scott Newman-Bale – are incumbents seeking their second terms. A third, Ty Schmidt, is a familiar face at TCAPS, having recently led a grant-funded health and wellness initiative for the district. The other three – real estate professional Kurt Hubschneider and retired education veterans Ben and Jenean Layne – are campaigning together in their first bids for the TCAPS board.

The Ticker asked all six candidates to share their qualifications, how they’d grade the current TCAPS board, and what they see as the district's biggest challenges.

Editor’s note: As the Laynes are husband and wife, we asked the pair a bonus question about how they’d navigate potential conflicts of interest or “voting bloc” criticisms were they to serve together on the board.

Josey Ballenger
Profile: Since being elected in 2020, I have served as secretary for the TCAPS board. Prior to that, I volunteered in classrooms for six years, tutoring students to boost their math and reading skills. Professionally, I have served the public for 22 years at a nonpartisan congressional agency that evaluates effectiveness and efficiency of federal programs, identifies taxpayer savings, and makes recommendations for improvement. I am also an active parent of two TCAPS students involved in various academic, sports, robotics, and arts programs.

Letter grade: B. I am proud of my board’s accomplishments, including developing a strategic plan with community input; enhancing security across the district; strengthening policies to improve student learning and culture; increasing mental health services; and rebuilding trust with staff and the community. However, we still have work to do in improving student achievement, enhancing security, and maintaining mental health services.

Biggest challenge: Boosting academic achievement of all students. We need to ensure the students who are struggling continue to receive extra support. But at the same time, the top and middle of the class need to be challenged to reach their potential. As a board member, I will continue to advocate for reasonable classroom sizes, more professional development so that our staff can keep up with the latest research on effective teaching methods, investments that yield the greatest results, and building a larger tutoring/mentoring program to help our kids.

Scott Newman-Bale
Profile: When I originally ran four years ago, the district was facing a lot of challenges. I wanted to be a stabilizing force, as it benefits no one to have problems with a local school system. As a CEO [for Short’s Brewing Company] who tries to work every position in the company, I have a diverse skillset to work with others for common achievement. I am level-headed and believe no one should put their ideals above the mission of educating our next generation.

Letter grade: B+. When I was elected, the district was involved in numerous lawsuits and seemingly had lost a lot of trust from the community. Since then, we settled all those lawsuits, developed and implemented a strategic planning process, and made great strides on getting everyone onto the same team. This was all during a term heavily affected by COVID and its recovery.

Biggest challenge: We have to turn all our attention to student achievement, and as a school board, we do that by setting policy and sustainable budgeting. In 2024, I still hope to complete a large overhaul of the district’s policies, which will make everything easier to reference and more efficient in use. From a fiscal point of view, we also have to be prepared for changing funding from the state and federal governments, which means understanding budget options, maintaining a reserve account, and reducing operating expenses that don’t directly benefit educational outcome. 

Ty Schmidt
Profile: I’m running because I believe in kids. I believe that when our kids are happy, healthy, supported, and loved by their community, they are better learners. And I believe that TCAPS is a better school district when we are doing everything we can to ensure every child has the same opportunities to succeed, no matter their circumstances – including where they live, how much money their parents make, if they have special needs, if English is their first language, or their race or gender or orientation.

Letter grade: A-. We have lots to be proud of: our new cell phone policy, the student health center at West Middle School, workforce housing for teachers near Blair Elementary, school safety, gun storage resolution, bond passage, and a solid fund balance. We also have lots of opportunities to improve: student achievement equity, declining enrollment, recruiting and retaining staff, efficient community partnerships, accessibility to our decision-making process, and sustainable health, wellbeing, and mentorship efforts. Also, selling property! We’re at two-plus years and counting to sell Bertha Vos when it costs us $40,000 per year to maintain.

Biggest challenge: Student achievement equity is a critical issue. Recent district study sessions revealed a significant achievement gap between economically disadvantaged students – 36 percent of TCAPS kids – and their peers. Currently, 42 percent of our 3rd graders are not proficient in reading (per 2023/24 MSTEP scores), and on a state level, the gap between economically-challenged kids and those who are not is around 30 percentage points.

Jenean Layne
Profile: After 17 years of employment, I retired from a public school district where I worked as a classified employee – first as a high school principal’s secretary, and later at the district's central office. During this time, I was involved in developing and adopting district-wide curriculum, planning staff development events, producing board presentations, overseeing state-mandated testing, scheduling and billing for the community's use of district facilities, assisting with creation of bus routes, and processing school maintenance requests. I would like to use this knowledge to serve the TCAPS students and their families as I add a conservative voice to the board.

Letter grade: If elected, I will be working and collaborating with many of the existing board members. As I am unfamiliar with all of their decisions and not privy to their discussions, I do not feel it would be conducive to a future collaborative working environment to assign a letter grade.

Biggest Challenge: From what is reported in the news, it seems education is becoming a breeding ground for indoctrination and anti-American sentiment. It would be my priority that TCAPS students are learning how to use reasoning skills when problem solving, that instruction is not limited to conclusion-leading or one-sided information, and that students are not being told what to think by promoting one way of thought and excluding unbiased representations of contrary thought. One tool to accomplishing this is for the school board members – and parents or guardians? – to personally review instructional material content before adoption and purchase; this is currently not happening.

Bonus Question: As with most married couples, [Ben and I] often have differences of opinions. In elections, we vote according to our personal convictions. If we are both elected to the school board, we will not be serving as a married couple, but as two separate and distinct representatives of the district's stakeholders. I can assure the voters that we will not vote in sync just to be a ‘mini voting bloc.’

Ben Layne
Profile: I am a retired 30-year educator. I knew that there were going to be three seats up for election on the TCAPS board this year, so I thought I would volunteer my services.

Letter grade: Incomplete, through no fault of the current board. I have not witnessed at least half of their meetings during the past 2-4 years. Therefore, I do not think I can assign a letter grade.

Biggest challenge: It appears funding could be a major issue for the district. Therefore, we may have to look at obtaining other sources of revenue through grants or partnerships.

Bonus Question: Jenean's background is from classified employment. My background is in administration and as a credentialed employee. We bring two entirely different perspectives to addressing the needs of a school district. For 42 years, we have had different perspectives and opinions, but have been able to respectfully disagree, agreeably.

Kurt Hubschneider
Profile: I am a native of Traverse City. My entire family, siblings, my three children, and my nieces and nephews have all gone through TCAPS schools. I am a small business owner and am fiscally responsible, which is absolutely core to a strong school board. What has motivated me most to run for school board is to restore prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance to our schools.

Letter grade: The current school board – and past school boards – deserve a F, in my opinion. The reason for this grade is not correcting the decline in TCAPS enrollment and placing strange, new curriculum to support wokeness. But most of all, for doing nothing to allow God back to our schools.

Biggest challenge: Restoring Christian values, teach all our students the Pledge of Allegiance and to ‘trim the fat’ from our administration.