Education is more important than test scores. Some kids are super smart, just don't test well. We need to educate our kids. What needs to happen, and and I've talked about this a couple times, we have to have the extra time. We need to use the co money and if we have to bring in people that do this for a living so the teachers can still teach. We need to have the hour before and the hour after class where kids can volunteer to go and learn where they can catch up on their homework, get their assignments done, catch up from what they lost last year. Look, CO took a toll on our kids. We need to use the money wisely. We need to use our resources wisely. We need to get the kids closer to five on-one, one-on-one with the teachers, which we know is dang near impossible, so that they can have that opportunity to catch up.
I've been a student and the worst thing in the world is showing up to class thinking that you don't know what's going on. It's a terrible feeling. We need to get them to where they can go to class with confidence, knowing that they know the material, and knowing that they're not going to walking out of there as I'm not the smartest kid. I'm Thank you, Miss Moore. Same question. Thank you. We want every single one of our students to have access to the greatest education. And every kid deserves to reach their maximum education potential and English, math, reading, and science. And our children have had so many roadblocks put in their way in the last 18 months. How can they succeed when you put a mask on their face, distract them with a computer, quarantines, DEI, sex ed, and many unnecessary things? Our students will succeed when you remove these roadblocks.
When I get elected, it is my mission that I will remove these things so our kids can have the best ability to succeed and give them the time to reach their maximum potential. Miss Leash. So, some things we can do to help improve our test scores would be multi-tiered supports in the classroom, having resource teachers push in, um, trying our best to lower the class sizes as much as we feasibly can, bringing in tutors, which we actually have. A lot of schools do have before and after school tutoring sessions. Pine Creek also offers them on Saturdays with peer tutors. We've also done a great job using our ESSER funds over the last summer to do jumpstart programs and we really tailored it to those students. Like these programs were only by um invitation only to those students who we said they really could use that extra help.
We did also lower the amount of money it costs for summer school from $250 to $40 a credit using those as her funds. and we've already used those funds and they will be in place from now until summer of 2024 for our students to use these to help with that summer slide. These are just some of the few things that we can do to help improve those scores. Mr. Lavali, thank you. This past summer, I think the district did an excellent job of of doing what we can to remediate um I'll say the CO loss and and it was a legitimate loss. Um, low test scores are are always a continual challenge. Um, it is uh there's no easy answers. I'll I'll say this. Uh, the the secret sauce is parental involvement. Yes, we need great teachers and I think we have excellent teachers, but that's I don't know if you I was going to have have you raise your hand if you're over 60, but I I'm not going to do that.
But but we passed at the last board meeting and it has been it's been on the books, but I don't think people realize it. If you're over age 60, you can go into our elementary schools or or high schools for that matter and help out and get tax credit up to was it $600 or $800 off your taxes. I don't most people don't know that. I would love to see 20 to 30 over age 60. Those aren't old people by the way. They're I think they're they're fairly young, but go into the schools, read the third graders, read the second graders, help out in the classrooms. What a wonderful benefit. I would love to get that get that to be commonplace to where hey if you're over age 60 in district 20 it's just sort of what you do to help out. That's just one little piece that we can do.
We need to continue to strive and and again I I think we have done an excellent job in our district. Oh and my time's up. I better stop. Thank you. Miss K. I am a person always open to learning and new ideas. So for all the teachers in the room I do invite you to please email me more on this question. But for now, these are some of my ideas. We must actively seek and use parent and community volunteers for one-on-one help in the classrooms. We must remove CRT type staff trainings and instead replace trainings with only teaching skills and techniques to optimize academic success. We need to explore reworking the budget for more intervention specialists and smaller class sizes and be creative in allocating time for before and after school tutoring and support. Parental involvement must be sought constantly and the district must revere and expect the parents support at every level, every grade.
It starts with every parent attending conferences and continues with parents being invited into classrooms and into participation with homework and projects. Setting this standard and holding parents responsible helps the teachers and most importantly will increase the students grades and proficiency. Mr. Johnson, I think low test scores are a huge issue. Um, I think there's a handful of ways you could start addressing them. One is to give the teachers more resources and usually that comes in with more pair of professionals or just resource teachers coming in and helping because teachers can't give that individual attention to every student who needs help. They need assistance with that. So, I think that's one big part that'll come to it. And I think the Pine Creek pure tutor program is a great program and that could be utilized on Saturdays as was mentioned or perhaps if they're able to get a study hall in the middle of the school day that could be used as well in that way.
So I think the best way to improve that is to give teachers more resources and give students more opportunities to utilize those resources because after school won't work for every student, before school won't work for every student. For the ones it does, that's great. We have to make it accessible to every student. Mr. Cororum. So to start this off, I I've said this before, but if you think about this in a different context, if you think about what every classroom is going through right now, it's like kindergarten all over again. You've got students who are coming in who are ready to go. You have students that are not at all concerned about anything. You have students that are panicked because they didn't eat breakfast that morning. You have students that are doing everything they can just to not cry because they just need some support.
The first thing we have to do to get our students back on track is to make sure they're ready to learn. We have to prepare them adequately and that's going to take more resources as all of us have said, maybe adjusting the budget so that we can hire more counselors, hire more pair of professionals, but it's going to be critical to get our students ready to learn before we start teaching them to learn. It's going to be really difficult to do that. if they're not prepared, it won't it won't be as effective. After that, we've talked about some of the very other same things, smaller class sizes, using the esser funds to really devote time to pair professionals and others and making sure that we're hitting the needs of all of our students. Miss Clark. So the first thing um wanted to point out regarding some of the test scores is that the last year 2019 where we did have results back of a a more full testing year, academy district 20 is still accredited with distinction which is the highest rating that we can receive.
So we really need to look at when we are saying the scores are low what is that actual definition. Last year we did have limited testing and in general we did uh perform above state the rest of the state. So that would be one point. I would also like to look at too that we need to back away a little bit from just looking at the scores. Standardized testing is not necessarily for every child. I have a son with dyslexia and it impacts about one in five students and um I'm up on that. Hopefully I can continue on that later. Mr. Silva, we improve the environment in the classrooms. Um test scores are indicative of the process that's occurring in the classrooms. We need to promote more critical thinking. Uh we need to pro promote more problem solving within the classrooms and with the kids.
Um that's on to add on that we need to have more parental involvement with the classrooms, volunteering within the classrooms. U and we need to um support more of a process rather than a specific outcome which will hopefully improve the environment the classrooms these kids are have in the classrooms. And that's to come with confidence. As more confidence is built with the with the children, you're going to see uh test scores rise. And maybe at some point we have to take a look and see what kind of tests uh reevaluate the tests that are the kids are taking, you know, and come up with a better process to meet the better outcomes. Mr. Salt, the number one predictor of academic success is parental involvement. Aside from that, when we when everything is a priority, nothing's a priority. So we need to be very intentional about how we target the the skills that we're training students on and helping to boost those scores.
Uh literacy first is the best approach we can have. Once you boost someone's uh learn reading comprehension levels, everything else will rise. And so that's where we need to be targeted on this. Aside from that, uh I I I was a merit badge counselor at Boy Scout camp. And one of the things that I used to do there is we would have kids of all varying levels within the class. And so the kids that were doing really really well and and got it the first time, we would actually help them lead small groups within the class to help teach the kids who were doing a little lower on the skill level to be able to teach that because not only does that help the lower end raise up, but it helps solidify those concepts for the kids that are already doing well. The best way to teach uh the best way to learn something is to teach it.
Thank you. Thank you. Some of again reminder some of the positions expressed here should be considered opinions not facts agreed to by experts and we encourage the voters to learn more and do their own research to get factual information. Um so I was kind of combining a couple of questions here. Um so I'm going to kind of put this one off but this is a pretty easy one. At least I think it should be. Um I'm hoping you also have one minute to answer. And I believe Miss Moore, you are first to answer on this one. Um, what are your priorities in terms of maintenance? Can you clarify as in maintenance of schools, maintenance of I'm going to say I would assume facilities. If they talk, if you're talking maintenance, I would assume that's facilities. Our number one need right now is for every child to be able to get to school and in the classroom.
Our kids are so important and when they are in person and they are in front of a teacher, they can succeed. And right now we have a shortage of bus drivers. So Mr. Lavelli was saying, "Folks over 60, we need you. Folks over 60, let's get a CDL. Let's drive a bus. We need you guys. We need you to get our kids in the classroom." Thank you, Miss Leash. So we do currently have a shortage when it comes to maintenance. Um we actually are behind on groundskeepers, custodians, also paras, bus drivers, crossing guards, teachers. We have a lot of shortages in our district. And it's not just us. It's everywhere. We have um my own child's school. I talked to a custodian recently and they normally have three that work the evening night shift and they only have two right now. and she said how hard it is for her to try to get all this extra work done, especially with COVID right now.
There's a lot of extra cleaning, sanitizing, and just extra work for two of them when there should be three. Now, luckily, the school is actually splitting that third person salary and using it as overtime, so they can still get the work done and be paid for it. So, I think a lot of schools are using this time to give those current employees that we have the extra opportunity to make some extra money, but is not a long-term solution. We do need to go reach out, do what we can to find those extra great staff. Mr. Lavali, thank you. So, I'm going to answer the question, maintenance priorities. We have a great maintenance team. Uh we had a $230 million bond issue that was passed in, I believe, December of November of 2016. That has helped a tremendous amount. We have a list that is updated periodically.
I don't know how how long it's been since it's been updated, but frankly, I will take that and use that. Uh the maintenance people know better than I do as a board member what maintenance things need to be fixed. I know I maybe I I'm supposed to be involved in all the maintenance, but I'm not. And that's where we defer and we say, "Hey, maintenance folks, what do you recommend?" And we have to vote on anything uh of a large amount. But I I I defer that to to the maintenance folks. And we have done a tremendous amount with with our fairness formula dollars uh facilities audit. We have we've really done a lot of upgrading to our schools and and if you haven't seen it, you haven't been looking. So I think we're really doing a pretty good job. But again, there is that that list that we're always uh things float to the top and when they float to the top, they get fixed.
Thank you, Miss Cons. I believe that most of us probably our number one priority for facilities is that our kids are safe in our schools. Um, I think of HVAC first, that they have proper heating and cooling while they're in schools for 7 hours a day, proper ventilation. Um, sometimes the portables are a little less than optimal for spacing for the kids, but that's another day and another dollar. Um, bus drivers, as many of us have indicated, uh, that's a complaint I hear time and again from coaches and parents that, um, it's a it's a need that needs to be addressed immediately. Um, maintaining the grounds is kind of secondary, but it gives a lot of joy to our kids and our families and a safe place for them to be healthy in our school system. Um on that note, I have been involved with schools and my education that um the families and the students took part in designing inside and outside of the schools.
I think it's really exciting to think about students decorating, painting, having murals, taking pride in their school um internally in the walls and externally in the in the grounds and building gardens. And I'm sure some of you have heard the success stories when students themselves grow the food in the garden for their own cafeteria. So that's something exciting to look at as well. Mr. Johnson, I think there are a handful of things that could be addressed with maintenance that be high priority. Um, I think security cameras are really important to make sure they're all top working order. Locks on doors because I know you only want one entry point in a school. I think ventilation systems are important especially now and with students in masks it's really important to have the air circulating properly and especially out in the portables when I taught at Pine Creek like was mentioned the portables are either in the summer they're too hot so people bring or too cold so they bring in coats because they're shivering the next time they come in it's not working right so they're hot but that was a handful of years ago but so I think having custodians that are at the school for a long period of time is vital when I taught at Pine Creek I was a PE teacher So we one, we had to be on the custodian's good side because there's so much stuff PE teachers need in that regard, but we were friends with them.
We knew them by name and we treat them with the utmost respect because they have a super important job and they keep the schools running. I just love that we're all talking about Oh, hi. Sorry, I jumped in early. I got excited and just I love that we're all talking about portables because we all have been in portables and they're pretty terrible regardless of the situation. So, that's awesome. But, um I do agree that we have things that we need to work on in the district in terms of maintenance. Everything gets older. Everything needs repair. Everything needs to be fixed up after time. I think the one thing we really need to consider when we're talking about this though is that we do operate on a sitebased model. So, some schools need more resources than other schools. For example, Frontier Elementary had to get their electrical fixed while other elementary schools are completely up and running without that extra maintenance.
So, when we talk about prioritizing maintenance, we need to look at what schools need the most important things so that the kids can have a safe environment to learn in and making sure that they're getting done what they need to get done throughout the day. Miss Clark. So, there is definitely a list of items um for maintenance and one that is kind of near and dear to my heart is safety and updates. I got my start volunteering as a kissandgo. And anybody who knows who that is, that is the person who opens the doors for you as you go through those school lines. uh especially on those cold days. I know we appreciate them. There is safety that needed to be happening around there and we need to be looking at our parking lots and looking at the roadways around it. We need to be pushing for traffic studies.