Community Interacts with District Superintendent Candidates; School Board narrows the field [Updated]

Posted on: May 23, 2025

**Samuel Karns hears a question from an audience member**.

**Samuel Karns was the first candidate to be introduced.**

**Kurt Schneider was the second candidate to address the community members and parents.**

**John William Nelson asking a question**

**Laurie Fiorenza was the third and final candidate.** Photos courtesy of Tom Ganser

Updated 5/23/25 @ 10:23 p.m. to recognize photos by Tom Ganser. Apologies for the omission.

By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com

Editor’s note: The school board’s announcement regarding their choice of finalists may be found below the “Meet & Greet” article.

Thirty-one community members and parents attended the “Meet & Greet” for the three finalists for superintendent of the Whitewater Unified School District at the high school auditorium on Thursday evening. Most in the audience stayed for the entire two-and-a-half-hour session. Bios for the candidates were provided in this previous Banner article. The candidates appeared in the order shown above. Each was allotted a forty-five minute period to introduce themselves and answer questions.

Some of the participants had done their homework, bringing prepared questions or even referencing matters that they had found in doing media research. Fiorenza, at the conclusion of her question/answer period, brought up something she thought might be an elephant in the room: why she resigned from her recent employment without landing another job. She stated that she left that district on very good terms but recently having achieved empty nest status, she was ready to take on a superintendency and knew that if she took the plunge she would land such a position.

All of the candidates had a number of positive comments to make about what they had seen and heard in their tours of the buildings earlier in the day. They remarked on the recently passed capital referendum, the increasing focus on tech ed as well as the plan to hire a Career and Technical Education Coordinator, and the 18 pathways that are being developed at the high school. They were also impressed with the ability of students to earn credits through Gateway Technical and UW-Whitewater.

This writer cannot reference who asked many of the questions, but Kelly Davis consistently stated that she has three children in the district and asked each candidate if they would live in the district. While insisting that they would be visible in the community regardless of their residency, neither of the men made a commitment. Fiorenza stated without reservation that she would be living here.

Other comments/questions referenced such subjects as:
– Concerns from students/parents that so much focus is placed on serving students with special needs that others don’t feel that they get the focus that they deserve.
– Would the candidates be open to teachers or parents bringing concerns to them?
– What would they do to stem the tide of open enrollments out of the district?
– Their role with the school board.
– How to reduce bullying, for example on social media.
– Improving teacher retention
– What learnings do they take from the COVID-19 experience? How do they feel about e-learning?

Parents and other community members who attended were given the opportunity to respond to an online survey regarding what they felt each candidate would have to offer to the district together with any questions they were left with about them. As Fiorenza left the auditorium, the representative of the search firm asked for a show of hands for each candidate to indicate if audience members felt that they were a good fit for the position. It seemed clear that Karns received the most affirmation. The representative opined that the other two candidates received a rather similar number of votes. He also expressed appreciation for the good turnout, which he said was about twice as large as the average such audience, though university towns usually do turn out better. He seemed satisfied that he could tell the board that all the candidates received more than a token number of votes. Geoff Hale, however, asked how many people didn’t vote for any of the candidates, so a new raise of hands was requested. Four hands were observed.