Citing her deep background of “institutional knowledge,” the Valparaiso City Council unanimously appointed Kaye Frataccia-Seibert to a four-year term on the board of Valparaiso Community Schools at a special meeting Monday night.
Frataccia-Seibert, a retired Spanish teacher with 20 years of service at Ben Franklin Middle School, is finishing her second year on the VCS board now, completing the term for Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas, who had to vacate the seat when he took over as mayor in January 2024.
She is also the widow of the late Ric Frataccia, a former long-serving superintendent of VCS. “Education was pretty much our life,” she said in the hall following her public interview with the city council.
Frataccia-Seibert was one of four candidates who each answered 19 questions from the council within 25 minutes and were given two minutes for closing statements. Raymond Asbell, an accountant, Abigail Sturm, a director of operations with a for-profit preschool company, and Amy Nondorf, a former kindergarten teacher and manager of a dental office, were the other Valparaiso residents seeking the position.
An initial interview was held during another special City Council meeting on May 4, when members of the public were asking the interview questions. The VCS Board is one of only three school boards in the state with appointed, rather than elected members, according to City Council Vice President Emilie Hunt, D-At-Large.
It’s made up of five members, four appointed by the City Council and one appointed by the Center Township Board of Trustees. Each is appointed for a four-year term.
When asked their stance on whether Valparaiso should continue appointing its school board or move to an elected board, only Sturm wholeheartedly stood behind elected positions. Frataccia-Seibert said she opposed elected board members because party backing leads to expectations and the member may feel beholden to certain interests.
The council praised the quality of all the candidates and their preparedness. While they were not bound to voting on an appointment Monday, a clear theme of support for Frataccia-Seibert emerged during the council’s discussion following the interviews.
Council Members Peter Anderson, R-5th, and Jack Pupillo, R-4th, voiced strong support for Sturm, but Pupillo said he also appreciated Frataccia-Seibert’s institutional knowledge at such a significant time as the search for a new superintendent, a stance echoed by nearly all his colleagues.
Anderson said Sturm was “head and shoulders above” the other candidates. “She gave answers that I feel were refreshing,” he said.
Council Member Robert Cotton, D-2nd, agreed about Sturm’s answers being refreshing and particularly liked that she brought the perspective of the millennial generation, but said if a vote had to be taken Monday, he would go with Frataccia-Seibert.
Cotton asked the candidates to demonstrate their understanding of the case against school choice vouchers.
Council Member Diana Reed, D-1st, wanted to know how the candidates felt about concerns voiced at the city’s May 5 Plan Commission public hearing regarding 27 “attainably-priced” homes proposed by non-profit Paradise Community Homes.
“I would validate their concerns,” Nondorf said. “Frankly, I’m appalled that there was nobody from the school board at that meeting.”
Other questions included what candidates found to be the most significant challenge facing the school district, how board members should balance the high standards the district is known for with responsible spending of taxpayer dollars, effective student to teacher ratios, thoughts on school resource officers and relationships with other law enforcement, the new Senate Enrolled Act 78 that calls for the complete ban of cellphones during the school day, and what qualities they would seek in a new superintendent as the search gets underway following the resignation of Jim McCall.
Most of the candidates are currently parents of school-age children, and they had several suggestions to improve the work of the board. Asbell said the board should be doing walk-throughs of every school with facilities managers and principals.
Sturm said the district needs to engage with parents utilizing vouchers to understand why they are choosing a private school, and that curricula should be posted. She said while most aren’t going to slog through 100 pages of curriculum, “if we were more transparent with our parents, they would be less protective.”
In that vein, Nondorf said the board needs to start having discussions at its meetings. “Communication seems to be something where people feel that is not being met. You guys discuss,” she said of the conversations and debates that happen on the City Council dais. “They don’t do that. They pass everything 100%.”
To Pupillo’s question of what’s being done to balance frequent referendums with transparency, Frataccia-Seibert said the board needs to not only ask what’s being done to reduce the need for another referendum, but also educate the residents that if the state keeps cutting school funding with the likes of Senate Bill 1, the reliance on referendums may only increase.
On the question of keeping politics and its inherent tensions out of schools, she said, “I think all programs that are to be offered to students need to be fully researched.” She said parents should have opt-out options through waivers.
She also said it will be very difficult to enforce a cell phone ban, with some parents mad if they can’t communicate with their children, and that a board that includes members with an educational background offers balance in the best interest of the children.
“Without that, kids can be seen as a product and they’re not that,” she said. “Kids are not a new car.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
