A handful of candidates jumped in the school board race before Tuesday marked the close of the filing period for the four school board positions to be filled in the November elections.

Brian Anderson, Dennis Dieser and Ehsannah Paw filed to run for a spot on Albert Lea Area School’s school board.

Dieser, who served on the school board close to 20 years ago, said he was first elected to the school board as a write-in candidate. Since then, he filled in after another candidate left and eventually ran for election. He said he stepped away from the board because he had a lot of commitments in his personal and professional life, but now he is at a good place to rejoin the board.

“My whole goal is just to serve the community and help kids,” Dieser said.

Dieser is the executive director of Albert Lea Family Y. He said he works with children in his job, has been a basketball coach for the school district, has worked with the Model UN and taught Youth in Government.

He said he would like to see the district add more middle school activities and athletics as funding allows. He also said it is important to continue to keep an eye on aging facilities in the community.

Dieser called joining the school board an opportunity to give back.

“Anything we do to help our kids helps our community,” he said.

Anderson is the owner-operator of Digital Dream Sound Inc., owns rental properties in town and works part-time as finance manager for Theilen Auto Sales in Clear Lake.

“I’m a little bit of a numbers guy,” he said. “I’d really love to look at the budget and kind of see what that is — get involved in that more,” he said.

He said he is running for the school board to get more involved in the community, to better understand its process and to create more transparency. He would like to see more community involvement in the schools.

“The schools are a pretty big part of the community and not a lot of people seem to pay much attention to what’s going on at the meetings,” Anderson said.

Ehsannah Paw could not be reached as of press time.

 

Who filed?

Brian Anderson

Mark Ciota (incumbent)

Dennis Dieser

Dave Klatt (incumbent)

Jill Marin (incumbent)

Kim Nelson

Ehsannah Paw

Kalli Rittenhouse