Morning Edition; Jason Wood Mansee

It's morning edition on KRPS. I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. This month, I'm covering municipal elections taking place in Missouri on Tuesday, April 6th. Today, we meet Web City Native, Jason Woodmancy, who is seeking to earn a fifth three-year term on the Web City School Board. Jason and his family's roots run deep in Web City is wife, a fourth-grade teacher at Eugene Field Elementary School. Also, their two sons currently enrolled in Web City Schools. Jason believes that he has helped guide the district in the right direction during his 12-year tenure. We stand for the right things as a district, you know, preparing today's youth to meet all the challenges that they're going to see in our world. So, you know, it's a global economy. I work for a global company. I support about 20 locations all across the US for occupational safety, health security, and environmental. So, I deal with governmental agencies like EPA, OSHA, Missouri DNR, looking at where kids are going to go, whether they go on to college or whether they go on to a career path. Our goal is to give them the proper development and education for them to be successful. As we always say, we want our cardinals to fly

and let them know that they can go anywhere from here. Jason views the work of a school board to recommend ideas and discuss them with district administration and assess if they're a good fit to implement in Web City Schools. He views the work on the school board as a way to give back to a community that has given him so much. From an individual perspective, as a board member, you know, I don't look to accomplish anything other than serve the community, serve all students in our district the best I can. But obviously, the key is that we rely on the people that we put in the right positions in our district to our educators to come to us as a board with recommendations on directions. We need to go programs. We need to implement. We trust them. And if we've got the right people in the right seat to grab the bus, the bus is going to go down the road. We're going to move the right direction. Jason's professional background working in occupational safety, he says has helped guide improvements at the school district to ensure that students, staff and faculty are safer. Improvements such as at the high school where visitors enter through a separate set of

doors that do not give them access to the rest of the building until they are verified. That's an addition to upgrading the baseball fields. Also, the construction of tornado safe rooms at every school district wide. Over the past year, Mike's school district's worldwide, Web City has turned its attention to COVID-19. Right now, the most successful thing that we've been able to do is have school. A lot of with us being a global company, the company I work for is in over 43 countries. You look at across North America, particularly, there's a lot of schools that are not having in classes in person school. I hear it all the time when I'm on conference calls with different individuals that I work with that they ask what we're doing and I'm like, we're in school. We offered a hybrid program. If people felt uncomfortable, they can do virtual school. We've offered that option for them to do in class in person school. I think that that's been one of the biggest successes we've had at least over the last year and a half. But if you

look back at the 12-year time that I've been on the board, I think just the continuing collaboration in our district and ensuring that our students, our graduation rates are up. We've had schools that have been recognized on our national level for their educational excellence and our class sizes remain good. Most importantly, we provide a safe building for those kids to come to to get a good education. Community involvement, the church and parents are the three pillars to help support a school district and help make it successful according to Jason. He says during his time serving on the Web City School Board, the district has made continuous improvements. We're not going to sit back and just wait on the status quo. We're going to continue to get better each and every day in every program that we teach, every program that we offer, whether kids are going on to college or going to career paths. If somebody was to elect me, I'm going to continue down that path. I don't see a lot of change that is needed. It's just what changes necessary needs to be an

improvement. Jason Woodman Z is running for one of two seats on the Web City School Board. The field also includes incumbent Lisa Robinson-Harman and newcomers Gretchen Skoll and Grant Collings. Each of the two seats holds a three-year term. Invites to come also speak with candidate Skretchen Skoll and Grant Collings and have profiles of their Kennedy Seas next week. Municipal elections throughout Missouri are being held on Tuesday, April 6. For KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro in Web City.