Jamestown school board candidates debate budgets, planning at forum

Six people running for three Jamestown Public School Board seats spent a May 5 forum making a local case that reaches far beyond the board table: how to keep class sizes manageable, staff classrooms and programs, and still avoid a tax increase for Stutsman County homeowners.

The forum, sponsored by the Jamestown Area Chamber of Commerce at North Dakota Farmers Union headquarters in Jamestown, put the school race in front of a civic audience that has a direct stake in the district’s budget decisions. The Chamber’s candidate forums were part of a broader spring slate that also included a May 7 event for Jamestown Parks and Recreation District Board and mayoral candidates, underscoring how closely voters are watching local spending and planning across city government.

At the center of the school board discussion was Jamestown Public Schools’ strategic plan, which the district says is meant to align its operational plan with broader goals and measure progress with metrics. The district’s annual review treats the plan as a living document, monitored against student performance, stakeholder feedback and changes in capacity. In practical terms, that means board members are not just deciding what gets funded this year, but how Jamestown Public Schools will steer a district that includes four elementary schools, Jamestown Middle School, Jamestown High School, an alternative learning center and a transitional living program for students with disabilities.

Enrollment is one reason those decisions matter. Jamestown Public Schools reported 2,033 students at the start of the 2024-25 school year, down from 2,080 the year before, a modest decline that still affects staffing, programming and how many resources are spread across the district. North Dakota’s Insights platform tracks those kinds of figures publicly, along with graduation rates, assessment data, attendance and per-pupil spending, giving voters a clearer window into the tradeoffs board members face.

The budget numbers are just as concrete. The school board approved a $115.8 million budget for 2025-26 with no increase in the tax levy, and voters later approved that budget along with a $10 million capital reserve fund and a $1.5 million maintenance repair reserve fund. In April 2026, the board approved a proposed 2026-27 budget of $120,898,274 that again carried no tax levy increase and called for hiring 15 new teachers. Local reporting described it as the twelfth straight year the district had not raised taxes.

That history explains why staffing keeps surfacing in Jamestown school board campaigns. In 2024, candidates said recruiting and retaining teachers and support staff was a top priority, and the same pressure still defines the race now. For Jamestown families, the next board will decide whether the district can keep adding people to classrooms without shifting more of the cost onto taxpayers.