Meet the 4 candidates running for Carmel Clay School Board

Four candidates are vying for two at-large seats on the Carmel Clay School Board. There are a total of five seats on the Hamilton County school board, and the two current at-large members, Katie Browning and Louise Jackson, are not running for reelection this year.

The candidates who win this election will help determine the priorities for the district moving forward and possibly the board’s ideological view. School boards are nonpartisan elections in Indiana, which means candidates don’t have party labels next to their names on the ballot.

But during the 2022 race, a slate of three openly conservative candidates ran in a bid to gain a majority of seats on the school board and were supported by GOP officials. Only one of those candidates won.

In this election, two of the four candidates running for the board this year  — Dina Ferchmin and Robin Clark — describe themselves as conservatives. They’re backed by the Carmel Excellence political action committee, which states that it supports “common-sense conservative school board leaders.”

Their opponents — Jon Shapiro and Kris Wheeler — are not campaigning on their political affiliation. Shapiro and Wheeler are backed by the Support CCS political action committee, which states that it is a nonpartisan group that supports school board candidates who “fulfill the mission and guiding principles” of the district.

School boards have four core duties: adopting policies, such as creation of the student handbook and integration of state and federal regulations; hiring and evaluating the superintendent; approval of the annual budget and overall fiscal oversight; and strategic goals for the district.

Carmel Clay Schools serves about 16,000 students, and last year the district had a graduate rate of nearly 99 percent.

The election is Nov. 5. The deadline to register to vote is Oct. 7. Early voting begins Oct. 8.

These interview transcripts were edited for length and clarity.
 

Robin Clark

Age: 53
Campaign site
Occupation: Project manager at Allegion
Education: B.S. in chemical engineering, Purdue University; M.B.A, Indiana University Kokomo
Connection to CCS: Clark’s three children currently attend the district.
Political affiliation: “I vote Republican normally.”

Q: What are the greatest strengths of Carmel Clay Schools? 

Clark: One of the things is just the wide variety of academic and extracurricular offerings that we have and just the level of excellence that all of those are. When we were in Kokomo, we had a child who required speech therapy. And at our small school, we didn't have a speech therapist on staff, so someone from the local public elementary school would come in once a week to provide those services for our child. And I will never forget what it felt like when we first moved to Carmel and we went in for quarterly evaluations or check ins, and we walked in and it was literally a team of experts sitting around a large conference room table just for our child, just each of them telling us what they were doing to support our child, and there was no frustration in their voice, like they were professionals. This is just what they came to work to do, and they weren't overwhelmed. They had solutions, and it literally, as a parent, brought tears to my eyes. 

Our teachers are incredible. I mean, I'm sure that every district loves their teachers, but I am just floored all the time with the dedication and just the professionalism of our teaching staff there.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing Carmel Clay Schools?  

Clark: One of the frustrations that I hear the most from people at the door is, ‘are we lowering our standards too much? Are we not challenging our children anymore?’ And I do see it with my children…  there's often no deadlines on when you can turn in your homework, or you can retake exams. And, you know, I can see some good sides to that, but I wonder about the values that we're teaching, the work ethic that we're teaching our children and the extra burden that that puts on teachers who have to keep regrading work.

One of the things that we hear from teachers a lot is that they sometimes don't feel very respected by the administration, because they are trained professionals at what they do, but a lot of the work that is put on their table is almost clerical in nature.”

Another thing that I do hear at the doors a lot, and it’s heartbreaking when you hear people say, ‘please get the DEI out of the schools,’ because I know… they don’t mean let’s not be acceptive or inclusive… But what we've done is in certain areas, we've twisted it, and we're denigrating one population in the attempt to bring up another and the result is that everybody suffers.

Q: Why run for Carmel Clay School Board:

Clark: I have that previous experience as a school board member… and I have three kids in the schools, and with that youngest one being in fourth grade, we have a lot more years of being directly affected by the schools and having that direct vested interest.

And probably the biggest reason is when I look at the school board, especially in the last several years, there's a lot of divisiveness, and there's a lot of people saying, ‘This is how I believe. And if you don't completely agree with me, we're not discussing it, you're a bad person.’ And we're just having very surface level conversations... And on the school board, we're there for what is best for the students and the school district. And I think a lot of people are claiming to behave in that way, but still catering to personal beliefs. And I just think it's an approach that's really missing, and I can bring that to the table.

Daniela ‘Dina’ Ferchmin

Age: 54
Campaign site
Occupation: Co-founder and managing consultant at Ferchmin Rowe Consulting
Education: B.S. in political science and government, United States Military Academy West Point
Connection to CCS: All three of her children attended Carmel Clay Schools; one graduated from the district in 2018 and another in 2023.
Political affiliation: “I am a conservative Republican.”

Q: What are the greatest strengths of Carmel Clay Schools? 

Ferchmin: We have been consistently in the top three schools [for state standardized test scores] in Indiana forever. So that is outstanding. And we have tremendous resources that my sons enjoyed while they were there. Also, one of the things that I love the most about our schools is that they have such a robust program for our children with disabilities.

I also think that we have an incredible SRO program —  the school resource officer program. They are wonderful individuals, wonderful officers. I have met with many of them, and you know, they keep the kids safe, but they also provide comfort to parents, because we know that, okay, we have police officers at this school.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing Carmel Clay Schools?  

Ferchmin: I found that not all of the schools at CCS perform equally [on state standardized tests]… The inconsistency is concerning, because all of our kids deserve access to the best education, regardless of what school they are attending.

What I think that we need to do is that we need to work with the experts, and that's our teachers and our parents, to determine what are the variables that cause some of our schools to be successful, and as well as the variables that cause challenges to our other schools. And then we analyze those variables, and together, we come up with solutions, and that's how we address it.

Q: Why run for Carmel Clay School Board?

Ferchmin: I noticed that there was a big decline in academic rigor from 2014 when my oldest was there to nine years later — 2023 — when my youngest was there… There's no deadline for homework. Tests can be retaken multiple times. The lowest score a student can receive is 50% so even if the student turns in an exam with just their name on it, they still receive 50%. That all concerns me, because this is not real life… The number one role of schools is to prepare our kids academically with an education. So that's why I consider that to be, you know, the most important thing that we need to look at, that we need to address.

The second thing is that I noticed an uptick in the promotion of some ideas at the schools that conflict with my family values. So here's the thing, in Carmel, we are a very diverse community, which is excellent, and we have children from more than 100 different countries in our schools. So therefore, it's imperative that we have a politically and ideologically neutral environment so that the students can just focus on academics.

Jon Shapiro

Age: 49
Campaign site
Occupation: Director of development at Hope Academy
Education: B.S. in human services management, Empire State College
Connection to CCS: Shapiro’s only child attends school in the district.
Political affiliation: “We've had, and continue to have candidates that are using their political affiliation and injecting that into the race. To me, it's irrelevant…because, really, I'm of the party of supporting students and teachers and families.”

Q: What are the greatest strengths of Carmel Clay Schools? 

Shapiro: There's tremendous community support for our schools. You know, we have a very well educated community and a community that values education. And if you speak to families as I have, as I've been out meeting people in the community, I hear stories that are very similar to mine; families that had young children that relocated to the greater Indianapolis area and specifically chose Carmel because of the success of the schools. The schools are well-valued, well-funded, and have diverse experiences that are available to our children regardless of their interests… And I think that is really remarkable, that no matter your interest or your passion, there's an avenue for you as a young person, and there are educators and staff that are there to support you.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing Carmel Clay Schools?

Shapiro: One of the continuing challenges in the public education space is how do we continue to innovate to make sure that our students are best prepared for whatever that they're going to do next. Carmel has always been a community that highly values education and we have a super high graduation rate, and we have a super high rate of students that graduate and then go on to traditional post-secondary. But there's also the recognition that the traditional post-secondary track is not for everyone… And with the evolving landscape in education of changing graduation requirements and graduation pathways that have been put into place recently, that requires the school district to continue to sort of innovate and find new ways to not only meet those requirements as dictated by the State Board of Education, but exceed them.

I think continuing to strengthen the collaborative relationships between families and the school district overall is incredibly important. You know, educators are the education experts. They've gone to school and been trained in pedagogy and developing curriculum and in working with young people. But families are their own child's experts, and they know what their specific children need, and continuing to be able to meet the needs of both pieces of the child is really important.

Q: Why run for Carmel Clay School Board?

Shapiro: We've got a great thing here, and we need to make sure that we continue to not only have that great thing, but continue to innovate and evolve. The education landscape is dynamic, and we need to ensure that the community's voice is heard. And part of the role of the school board is to represent the community writ large.

I also believe that we need people who understand the education landscape, who understand what it means to serve on a board. And so while absolutely there will be details and specifics that I will need to learn as a potential school board member, from a macro level perspective, I understand the education landscape. I understand that as a board member, my role is to support and represent the community's interests and make sure we're making the best decisions for the community writ large, and those decisions are always student-centered and supporting our educators.

Kristina ‘Kris’ Wheeler

Age: 50
Campaign site
Occupation: Partner at Bose McKinney & Evans LLP
Education: B.S. in education, Indiana University; J.D., Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Connection to CCS: Wheeler’s youngest daughter currently attends the district, and her oldest daughter graduated in 2022.
Political affiliation: “School boards are nonpartisan… It's really easy when you start labeling people to get entrenched in ideology, and that's not why I'm here. I'm here for the kids.”

Q: What are the greatest strengths of Carmel Clay Schools?

Wheeler: We have a very high graduation rate. I think our test scores are great. There are others that are running in this race who want to tell a story that scores are bad and we're failing. I don't think that's true, nor do I think it's accurate. I don't think it's apples to apples. Frankly, if you follow education legislation, you know that the rules of the game keep changing, and the test keeps changing, and we keep putting in new curriculum requirements… I think our test scores are amazing. Do we need to do better? Is there work to do? Are there things to fix? Absolutely. But I think Carmel schools are on an amazing track, fundamentally. And my philosophy is, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it. I don't think we need to be dismantling our schools in the way that perhaps we're seeing happen in the Hamilton Southeastern district right now.

Q: What are the biggest challenges facing Carmel Clay Schools?

Wheeler: Some of the challenges that we're facing include how do we deal with continuing pressures around funding decisions… It requires us to do things like have the referendum that we had last year, which I helped a little bit with just getting the word out… I'm so glad that it passed. Those services — among them safety and mental health services and just basic staffing services — we would have had to cut teachers if that referendum hadn't passed. And that's a very scary thing, I think. And so we need to be very cost effective in what we're doing, we need to be very transparent in what we're doing, but it's a hard job to make those funding decisions.

I think school safety is the second big issue facing Carmel schools and all schools. The referendum on schools that funded school safety is up in 2027. That's crucial funding for school resource officers and other services. And you know, at the end of the day, we've got to make sure our schools are safe for everyone, and I want to investigate additional ways we can make sure that that's happening. 

And then the third is making parental involvement even easier than it is… So my idea for that, I've been calling ‘CCS 411.’ And it really would just be one phone number, one email address that you can ask a question to, and then we would have somebody that then filters those questions out to the appropriate person who answers them.

Q: Why run for Carmel Clay School Board?

Wheeler: For me, this is an actual extension of my lifelong passion for public education. Obviously, it's my undergraduate degree and I come from a family of teachers. Even more than that, being a Carmel school parent for as many years as I have, I have had a tremendously wonderful experience with our schools for my own children and I want to help continue that for all children in our community.
 

Contact WFYI investigative education reporter Lee V. Gaines at lgaines@wfyi.org.