HERMANN — It was back to school last week for the five candidates seeking one of four seats on the Gasconade County R-1 School District board as Superintendent Geoff Neill kicked off the Backstage Pass program, aimed at helping new board members become familiar with public education governance before they become a district policymaker.

This year, R-1 has three seats regularly scheduled to be filled and one seat with a partial term to be filled. There are four candidates running for the three three-year-term seats and one candidate seeking to serve the remaining two years of the term of former Director Tim Schulte. Schulte began his second term on the R-1 board after winning re-election last April, but left the board after winning the post of Gasconade County presiding commissioner.

The three regularly scheduled seats to be filled now are held by Jeff Englert, Mike Pratte and Becky Whithaus. Whithaus is not seeking re-election. Pratte is vacating his seat and seeking the seat that was held by Schulte; the board appointed former Director Craig Shannuth to the position and he decided not to run for the post. Englert is seeking re-election.

Seeking to join the board are Amy Grannemann, Ashley Kopp and Cicely Borzillo.

Pratte’s decision to seek the shorter term of Schulte’s seat might indicate a desire to close out a long career in public education, both in the classroom and the board room. “I think I can handle two more years,” Pratte said after the Backstage Pass session.

During the Jan. 31 presentation, which was open to anyone in the general public wishing to learn more about the operations of the local school district, the candidates — and sitting members of the R-1 board — received what might be characterized as an “Intro to Public Education” that touched on items ranging from the various funds that contain district money to the difficulty all public schools across the state are having in hiring teachers. On that front, Neill said, R-1 is more fortunate than other districts in the region.

“We were lucky,” he said, noting that R-1 began the school year fully staffed, perhaps the only area district able to make that claim. Overall, he added, school district “are in a crisis, as far as teacher recruitment.”

As a member of the school board, the winners in the April 4 General Municipal Elections balloting will be confronting perhaps the largest hurdle in finding and retaining classroom teachers — the level of salary the district can offer.

Neill explained that R-1 recently raised the base salary for classroom teachers to $35,000. That will go to $38,000 with additional money from state government; but district administrators have cautioned that the $3,000 extra could be short lived, depending on state government’s willingness to continue providing support to the local district.

Still, the superintendent noted, even higher pay needs to be considered in order for R-1 to compete with other districts for the best prospective classroom teachers and to bring up the pay of those who have been with the district for many years.

“I think we really need to look at going to $40,000,” he said.

Neill explained the process for officially communicating with each other and the administration and staff, pointing out the possibility that communications could be sought through a Sunshine Law request. He and Director Mark Brooks cautioned the prospective board members from using personal email accounts to communicate regarding board business. Rather, they said, a separate email account dedicated only to district business is preferable.

Board President Dot Schoening offered a word of encouragement after the initial session, which Neill kept to under an hour.

“Don’t feel overwhelmed,” Schoening said. “You just have to ask questions.”

The remaining Backstage Pass sessions are set for Tuesday, Feb. 21, at Hermann High School with the focus of the session on the high school and Hermann Middle School and on Thursday, March 9, at Hermann Elementary School. Both sessions are set for 5 p.m.

The March 9 board meeting will take place at HES at 6 p.m.