School Board Candidate Janice Weiner

Caption: 1. Janice Weiner, Iowa City Community School District board candidate. Election day is Tuesday, July 19, 2016. Don't forget to vote! If you don't know where you're supposed to vote, call 319-356-6004, the Johnson County Auditor's Office.

When I met Iowa City Community School District board candidate Janice Weiner, she immediately clarified two things for me before either had occurred to me as possible issues to clarify.

“It’s Weiner [WHY-nuhr], not Weiner [wee-nuhr, as in hotdog], and I’m not related to Anthony Weiner.”

So let’s not go there, shall we?

Janice Weiner got her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, then went to Stanford Law School, and speaks six languages. She is a career diplomat and served most recently in Ankara, Turkey, where she did a good job of relating to the Turkish staff who worked for the American embassy there, judging by her own description of her performance there. Her actions to deescalate a bad situation certainly sounded plausible to me.

As for her diplomacy here in Iowa City with respect to her board candidacy, she began by addressing fellow board candidate J.P. Claussen as “J.D.” He smiled and shrugged gracefully.

In my opinion, she took a cavalier approach to closing “smaller elementary schools” and repurposing them. She didn’t even seem aware that doing so is a contentious issue in this election.

Weiner and Paul Roesler are fine with closing Hoover Elementary School to expand City High’s parking lots and/or athletic fields.

J.P. Claussen prefers neighborhood schools, like board member Phil Hemingway, and wants to save Hoover Elementary School, which is right next door to City High and lives within walkable distance of neighborhood children in the area.

Janice Weiner is obviously very intelligent, well educated, and capable. She needs, however, to learn the names of her opponents and be nuanced and thoughtful on controversial issues. I think she has a bright future in the school district if she takes the time to talk to others, does her homework, and consider all of the issues involved in busing children from one school district to another.

People of means don’t think about the difficulties of transporting sick children from school to home during a work day. They don’t think about the fact that employers don’t necessarily hold your job open for you if you make a habit of getting your kids home from school or staying home with a sick child. People of means don’t ask themselves, “What if the parent doesn’t own a car? What if the city bus only travels to North Liberty twice a day?”

It’s possible to be so privileged that those questions don’t occur to you, and if you are one of those people, you’re not going to be an asset to those students and parents who are the most vulnerable in our district.