Voters in the Fairbanks School District are being asked to vote for three school board members. Incumbents Angie Bouic, Derek Nicol and Brian Phelps are each completing their first term on the Fairbanks Local Schools Board and hoping to be elected for a second term. Eric Hall is hoping he is elected to fill one of their seats.
Angie Bouic
Angie Bouic said she has enjoyed her first term on the Fairbanks School Board.
“I’ve enjoyed the learning process in getting to know how our school operates and I have a better understanding of the day to day in our school system,” Bouic said.
Bouic served in the U.S. Army for 7 as a parachute rigger. In 2006, she earned a bachelor’s degree in business technical management from DeVry University. She also has an MBA in finance.
Bouic currently works at Scotts-Miracle Gro in the orders to cash area.
“As a business minded individual, I’ve learned to look at how these processes work in a school,” Bouic said.
She said that like many districts, the past four years have been difficult for Fairbanks.
“We’ve also had our share of tough times as well, but we navigated through them the best we could, and we continue to look for new ways to improve ourselves,” she said.
Even so, Bouic said the district has “made good progress the last four years building our school standards by implementing a mission and vision statement.”
She said district officials have “remained transparent with our community and given them a voice to help drive how we will proceed with future operations.”
She said she hopes to be part of the continuing the process if re-elected to the board.
Eric Hall
While Eric Hall is a businessman, that’s not what makes him most qualified to sit on the Fairbanks School Board.
“What qualifies me more than any of that is I’m a father,” Hall said. “I’m active in my children’s education and we need people on the board that understand the job of the school and school board is to help parents educate.”
Hall said he strongly believes that schools are not co-parents.
“Parents are responsible for the education of their children and have chosen the Fairbanks local schools to help in the process,” Hall said.
He added that “the district should never get in the way of a parent when dealing with medical decisions for their children.”
Hall said he is opposed to “any mandate forcing staff and/or students to wear masks or be vaccinated.”
“That should always be a choice,” said the father of three.
He said there is another threat to students in the district.
“We will soon have radical ideas being pushed on our kids and we must stand up to protect them,” Hall said. “Now is the time to put policies in place to stop radical ideas such as CRT and the 1619 project from being used in our classrooms.”
Hall has lived in the district for 12 years and while the board makes decisions that affect students, parents and staff, Hall realizes the school board will also need to make decisions that impact the community at large. He said the board needs to look at district tax dollars to make certain they are “being used in the most effective way and stretched as much as possible to help our children the most.”
Hall owns an IT company with his wife. He said he creates and manages budgets, sets IT direction for multiple companies and communicates with business owners and employees.
“I also need to justify every dollar I spend regarding IT budgets and show how that betters the organization,” Hall said.
He said those qualities make him “a good candidate.”
The candidate said the district is growing each year and is running out of room in the “outdated” middle and high school buildings. Hall said he believes the district will soon need to raise revenue to update existing facilities or build new buildings.
“We need to find a way to do this without placing most of the burden on our farming community,” Hall said.
Derek Nicol
Derek Nicol believes that his work and life experiences make him a good choice for Fairbanks School Board.
A Fairbanks High School graduate, Nicol has more than 20 years of experience in public service for the City of Marysville and operating and managing an agriculture business.
He is finishing his first term on the Fairbanks Local Schools District Board of Education and has served on the Union Township Zoning Board.
He said he believes in hard work and honesty and thinks he has grown personally through his experiences.
Nicol said that being born and raised in the district has given him “a vast knowledge of history,” adding that he understands the issues it has faced.
He called growth in the district “a current concern and future concern.”
“The master facility plan that has just been initiated will provide a guide to the board as to how to navigate the growth and current facilities and grounds,” Nicol said.
He said that regardless of the issues facing Fairbanks, “educating our students is still top priority.”
“I know our community is dedicated to providing our kids with the best opportunity to succeed,” the board member said.
He said he will make the best decisions for district students and staff, as well as the community.
“I believe in the need to support our district employees, to give our students the best opportunity to succeed in life after they graduate,” Nicol said.
Brian Phelps
Brian Phelps said his time on the Fairbanks School Board has been busy.
“These past four years have included hiring an interim superintendent then with the help of the community through an open process we as a board were able to offer the full time position to our current superintendent,” Phelps said. “The district has also passed two renewal levies that fund our operations and permanent improvements.”
Phelps has served as board vice president and been involved on the finance and the building and grounds committees. He said the board of education recently approved a firm to help organize a Master Facility Plan for Fairbanks Local Schools.
“This is a great opportunity for our community to again come together and develop a road map for the entire Fairbanks campus,” Phelps said.
A 1996 Fairbanks High School graduate, Phelps has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Morehead State University. He works for his family farm and trucking company and is a partner in a local propane company. He has been an officer in the Fairbanks Touchdown Club for more than two decades and has been on the Union County Junior Fair Livestock Committee for 12 years.
He stressed that he is grateful to those that elected him and to “our great staff and administration for supporting our students and preparing our kids to be successful adults.”
Phelps said pandemic is the biggest issue that schools are facing now.
“COVID-19 continues to bring challenges around student learning and student attendance,” Phelps said. “I believe we must continue to work with our local and state leaders to maximize classroom instruction and student well-being.”