Superintendent candidate Peggy Aune answered questions about K-12 students in the Ames school district at an open forum Tuesday.

Aune has been working in education for over 17 years and wants to continue working her way up so she is able to help more students become successful.

Aune focused heavily on being a large part of the community and personalized learning. She said she’s excited to be a part of a school district that’s large enough to be noticed and have plenty of opportunities and services but still small enough to be able to pay attention to individual needs.

“I want to give students choice and voice in their learning,” said Aune.

She wants to be able to hear each students’ problems and what they think would help them succeed.

Aune also talked about closing the achievement gap through personalized learning. Students need different things to succeed and only providing a handful of services only allows a handful of students to be successful. She wants to focus on individual needs, engagement in the classrooms and attendance.

“We want to focus on being on time all day, every day,” Aune said.

A student not being part of the community for even a day out of the month, for every month out of the school year, impacts their performance, and Aune wants to limit how many days a student misses.  

Aune wants the school and community to be a team and goal oriented. She wants to be a visible and present part of the community as well.

Aune also wants to collaborate with Iowa State University and be able to have all students visit the campus so they have a shared experience and possibly bring dual enrollment to the high school and University.