As a Carmel resident for nearly two decades, Kristina Wheeler has witnessed a “groundswell of support” for local public schools that she hasn’t seen elsewhere. But she recognizes there are always ways to strengthen ties between the school district and community.
That’s why one of her top priorities in her campaign for one of two at-large seats on the Carmel Clay Schools board of trustees includes simplifying the process for busy parents to ask education-related questions and get answers.
“I’m really interested in talking to folks about what ideas might help us get parents and the broader community engaged and involved in knowing what’s going on in our schools and how wonderful they are,” Wheeler said.
One idea embraced by Wheeler, an attorney who comes from a family of educators, is to create a parent liaison office to serve as a central resource hub. As the mother of a Carmel High School student and graduate, Wheeler said it can feel “overwhelming” for parents to navigate a large school district, especially if they have children at more than one campus.
“How I envision (the hub) beginning is it would have one email address and one phone number where you could reach a main contact person who would then funnel any questions they couldn’t answer to the right place in the district,” she said.
Another priority for Wheeler is fiscal responsibility. She said she supports CCS looking into using a zero-based budgeting approach, which requires every dollar in the budget to be justified rather than relying on previous budgets as a baseline. The City of Carmel is using a zero-based approach to build its 2025 budget.
“Perhaps the best fiscal policy is not to just assume that we build upon whatever we did in the previous year and go from there,” Wheeler said. “I think you find that you look at your funding more critically.”
Wheeler’s campaign also focuses on ensuring measures enacted through the 2019 school safety referendum don’t roll back when the referendum expires in 2027. She said she supports renewing the referendum if the measures it supports – including certain mental health services and some of the district’s school resource officer positions – are not funded another way.
The referendum also funded the district’s first diversity, equity and inclusion officer position. Wheeler said she supports the district’s DEI efforts and believes the role needs to be “better defined and understood by parents and the community.”
Wheeler is a member of the seventh cohort of Hoosier Women Forward, a political and civic leadership training program designed to empower Democratic women to become more active participants in their communities. However, she has not campaigned for school board – a nonpartisan office on the ballot – as a Democrat and said she has experience putting aside her personal beliefs.
“I know I can do that, because I’ve been doing it my entire career,” she said. “It doesn’t serve me as an attorney to insert my own political beliefs into the legal advice that I give my clients, and so I would use that same tactic. Working together to find solutions to problems isn’t the polar opposite of having a personal opinion. We can get there together if we’re willing to talk to everyone and respect their concerns and hear them.”
Wheeler is vice president of the Carmel Education Foundation board, a position she said she would relinquish if elected to the school board. She has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and is certified in public policy mediation. She is also a volunteer with Habitat for Humanity.
Other candidates running in the Nov. 5 election for the two at-large school board seats are Jon Shapiro, Dina Ferchmin and Robin Clark. Wheeler and Shapiro have been endorsed by the Carmel Teachers’ Association and Support CCS PAC. Ferchmin and Clark have been endorsed by the Carmel Excellence PAC.
Learn more about Wheeler’s campaign at WheelerForCCS.com.
