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Four vying for seats on Frontier Local Board of Education

NEW MATAMORAS — Four candidates are vying for three spots on the Frontier Local Schools Board of Education in this November election.

Two names will appear on the ballot, Jeffery Knowlton, 53, of Newport, and Jennifer Ramsey, of Newport, but also residents have the option of two additional write-in candidates, Gale DePuy, 38, of Dart, and Joani Reese, of Newport.

Depuy is running for a second term after having served the last four years on the board. Knowlton has served previously on the board and said now that his job is keeping him closer to home he would like to return.

Reese and Ramsey could not be reached for comment Thursday or Friday.

For a district spanning six townships along the eastern side of the county the geographic area covered by the school system’s buses is one of the ever-present challenges for the board. The challenges include finding funding to maintain the buses and finding substitute staffing to keep routes on time.

“We have a lot of children to bus on mainly secondary roads,” explained Knowlton. “That takes its toll on the equipment and costs in diesel on top of finding substitute drivers when we need them.”

Another challenge that both Knowlton and Depuy focused on is the shrinking funding coming from the state to support the district.

“With a loss of headcount comes the loss of funding,” explained Knowlton. “I think the board has done well to manage that and it can continue as we provide quality education to our students to make them career and college ready.”

Depuy said despite the lack of resources and property tax he has worked with the board to maintain a rotation of the district’s textbooks and to look at ways to reduce energy costs like the current heating, venting and cooling upgrades currently underway.

“The goal is to maintain what we have and cut costs on lights and heat so we can stretch the dollar further,” he said.

But both Knowlton and Depuy said the best course of action for the district is to maintain the buildings and assets they have, so that large capital outlay in replacements can be avoided.

They each said their backgrounds in business and industry can help with making those decisions and that their goals for the district are centered on what would benefit all students.

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