Our Voice: Our final pick — Kintzley for Kennewick schools

Over the past five weeks our Opinion page has been devoted to our election recommendations. Today we run our last one.

Meeting the candidates has been inspiring, enlightening and at times surprising. As of this writing, we will have weighed in on 26 local candidate races and two ballot measures.

For those readers wishing to see a comprehensive list of all our suggestions, the wrap-up will appear Sunday in our print edition and later today online.

For our part, the process has been wearing but worth it. Interviewing candidates and providing the edit board perspective is a long tradition in the newspaper industry.

It isn’t done to help a particular candidate get elected. Rather, the purpose is to provide voters with an insight that can’t be found anywhere else.

Ballots have been mailed in Benton and Franklin counties, and we hope voters do their own research. The Voters’ Pamphlet, candidate websites and Facebook pages are good places for more information.

To all those candidates who took time off work, re-arranged their schedules and summoned the nerve to meet with a panel of journalists and reader representatives, we thank you. Your involvement in local politics makes our community stronger.

Here is our recommendation in the lone contested Kennewick School Board race:

Heather Kintzley and Mike Massey

Challenger Mike Massey was inspired to run for the Kennewick School Board last May after the board decided to expand its free meal program offered through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

He is not opposed to helping feed students who qualify for free meals, but the new program covers an entire school if the percentage of low-income students is high enough. This means there are students who are getting free breakfasts and lunches even if their parents can afford to feed them.

That’s not OK with Massey. Now there are 10 Kennewick schools in the program feeding 6,000 students on “Uncle Sam’s credit card” and contributing to the national debt, he said.

Kintzley said the money for the federal program was already set aside and couldn’t be parsed out. If Kennewick didn’t take advantage of it, then another school district would.

“The money was going to be spent whether we took it or not,” Kintzley said, adding that feeding “hungry bellies” is critical for student success.

Massey is a general manager for an agri-business in the Hermiston area and is involved in the Benton County Republican Party.

He is concerned that test scores in Kennewick — as reported by the Superintendent of Public Instruction’s Office — have slipped in third- through eighth-grades over the past eight years.

He said that a successful education program requires effective teachers, concerned parents and disciplined students, and if elected he would find out what is getting in the way.

Kintzley acknowledged the school district is working to improve standardized test scores, but that they are only one measurement of success. She notes in the Voters’ Pamphlet that 85-90 percent of third-grade students are meeting reading goals and over 90 percent of eighth-graders are enrolled in some level of algebra.

Kintzley is an attorney and believes her legal expertise has been beneficial to the school board. When she was first elected, she didn’t have children. Now she has two, and that is giving her a new perspective.

We recommend voters re-elect her. She is sharp, knowledgeable and dedicated, and she sees the big picture.

On the issue of free school meals, Massey’s concerns should be targeted at Congress rather than the local school board. He has a good mind for numbers, but spreadsheets only tell part of the story.

On a side note, Massey points out in the Voters’ Pamphlet that Kintzley is a relative of another school board member and that “nepotism can cause issues.”

Kintzley is the niece of Dawn Adams, who is running unopposed for another term. In our interview, Massey backed away from his initial concerns with the two relatives serving on the board together.

Kintzley adamantly defended herself against the criticism, saying she and her aunt are equal members voted in by the public, and there is no way one of them is benefiting from the other.

Massey has children in the school district and it is obvious he cares about education. He should continue asking questions and continue his involvement in the school district.

But as for the school board post, it should go to Kintzley.

The Herald recommends Heather Kintzley for the Kennewick School Board.

This story was originally published October 20, 2017 at 10:36 AM with the headline "Our Voice: Our final pick — Kintzley for Kennewick schools."