Michelle Fulhart led the Hamilton Southeastern Schools board during the COVID-19 pandemic. She served two terms, eight years in all, and chose not to run again. Now she wants her seat back, and she says she’s running to give voters a nonpartisan choice in District 3.

Fulhart joins me on the latest LarryInFishers.com podcast, part of my series with HSE School Board candidates before the Nov. 3 election.

She has kept going to board meetings since she left. She said she doesn’t like what she’s seen.

“I’ve watched the board for the last four years, seeing a lot of division on the board, the partisanship, and I don’t think it has served our district well,” Fulhart said.

Fulhart said she is the only nonpartisan candidate in the District 3 race. She is paying for her own campaign so she won’t be “beholden to any one person or one party.”

We talked about her time as board president during the pandemic. She said state law required HSE to follow its local health authority, the Fishers Health Department, at a time when little was known about the virus.

“I could not sleep if I knew that we did not do everything we could to protect our students, our teachers and our families,” she said.

Fulhart supports the HSE operating referendum on the November ballot. She said state funding has not kept up with inflation. She noted that five of the six Hamilton County school districts are running referendums.

If the referendum fails, she said, HSE would still have its 2023 referendum to fall back on. Even so, she warned of “hard decisions,” which could mean bigger classes.

On keeping teachers, Fulhart said pay is only part of the answer. She wants 360-degree evaluations, which would let teachers evaluate their principals. She also wants exit interviews for teachers who leave. She pointed to the district’s old balanced-literacy reading program as a case where teachers raised concerns that went unheard for too long.

The Hamilton Southeastern Education Association, the teachers’ union, has endorsed Fulhart. She said she made no promises to get that endorsement.

She also backs funding student mental health services and said she has confidence in Superintendent Dr. Matt Kegley. Fulhart said she would handle disagreements with other board members privately and respectfully.

“Everybody on that board is duly elected, and their voice should be heard,” she said.

This podcast is sponsored by Citizens State Bank.

Listen to the full conversation at this link or the link below.