Jamestown school board race draws six candidates for three city seats

Jamestown voters will choose three city seats on the Jamestown Public School Board on June 9, a vote that will shape district budgets, staffing and the next phase of leadership at Jamestown Public Schools. The race is drawing six candidates for those three seats, while the two rural positions are uncontested.

Current board members Heidi Larson and Jason Rohr are seeking reelection. They are joined on the ballot by Chris Kramlich, Jennifer Kross, Max Post van der Burg and Mindy Skunberg. Melissa Gleason and Steve Veldkamp are running unopposed for the two rural seats. Board members are paid $5,000 a year, and the president receives $6,000, making the contest a direct decision about both policy direction and taxpayer oversight.

The clearest divide for voters is between incumbency and fresh perspective. Larson already serves as associate vice president of career center and employer relations at the University of Jamestown, and she has also been active on boards and committees tied to education, health and philanthropy. Rohr is also asking voters to keep him in office. Their challenger slate brings a different mix of professional backgrounds into the race, including Kramlich, a licensed marriage and family therapy associate with degrees from the University of Jamestown and National University, and Skunberg, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey’s Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center.

Kross adds another outside perspective. She works in education biology with Ducks Unlimited and has graduate training in wildlife conservation and management, along with involvement in environmental and community groups. Max Post van der Burg is also seeking one of the three city seats. The field gives voters a choice not just among names, but among different kinds of experience that could influence how the board approaches student needs, staff recruitment and long-range planning.

Those questions matter now because the board is already dealing with active district business. Jamestown Public School Board recently approved an offer for an interim superintendent position, so the next board will step into leadership decisions as well as routine governance. The race has also drawn public attention beyond the newspaper Q&A, with the Jamestown Area Chamber of Commerce hosting a candidate forum May 5 at North Dakota Farmers Union for school board and city council candidates.

The candidate questionnaires, built around seven written questions with 175-word limits, offered voters a direct comparison of how each person described priorities and experience. In the 2024 school board race, all candidates said recruiting and retaining teachers and support staff was the top priority, a reminder that staffing has been central before and is likely to stay at the top of the agenda when the new board takes over.