001three good how are you good morning thank you for doing this guys yeah but I mean it is it is yeah hey ladies thank you pleasure to meet you hello ladies so it's okay awesome great Summers great nice to meet you Grace thank y'all so much times every week I'll be in Newport and it's Brent when we start you're gonna be up there and then I'll be right here because I asked the next question so she starts it right it's me you her so when you're done just like come around and hurt and then we literally just keep the rotation going how are you I'm doing great thank you for being here yeah thank you for being here one way or the other right yeah yeah I'll take it eats on us tonight all right
002we'll try our best all right you're Cooper's dad right we're co-workers at Camp Cherokee okay oh no hey Cooper's a good guy that as far as I know they can see his shoulders why are you looking at me like that Coach B I'm on your neck look nice at large or one District can I turn over to you foreign good evening candidates and those watching from home I am so thankful that you tuned in and that you came here in person as well there's nothing more important than who we elect so I'm encouraging all of us to use our voices on November 8th or sooner if if you so choose but it is important that you get out and vote the format of this is completely student-led and I think that's what makes it even
003more important all the questions were created by students crafted and will be read by students Grace Niger and Ashley they're the brains behind this operation I'm holding the dummy end of the stick to start off and then I'll turn it over to the true people and why we're here to serve students so thank you for your help with this already what I would like is each candidate will start right here to introduce who you are and what you are running for so we have some at large and we have some districted so just a brief introduction to who you are and what you're running for good evening I'm Dr Kawana Brackett and I'm a candidate for seat four hello I'm Brent faulkenberry I'm currently one of the at-large board members and running for re-election for
004the one of the at large seats hey I'm Stephanie Gatherings hassle rig and I am running for seat two I'm Helena Miller and I am an incumbent for seat two good evening I'm Pete nosal I'm running for seat four hello I'm Robin Owens I'm currently the vice chair and C4 representative and I'm running for re-election to C4 good evening I'm Natasha Witherspoon and I am currently running for the at-large seat okay thank you candidates again this is a learning opportunity for all of us especially the students so I'm just going to talk about some of the expectations it's going to be decorum here we're all professionals and we'll conduct ourselves that way but this is an opportunity to hear different opinions and I think diversity of thought is crucial to success so without further Ado
005I will turn it over to the students thank you guys good evening candidates and guests I'm Grace Summers from Northwestern High School and I'm joined by student leaders from South Point and Rock Hill High School as well on behalf of our schools we'd like to say thank you for taking the time to be here with us and thank you for this opportunity tonight's form will include six questions we will pose a question and each of you will have 90 seconds to respond the first respond will be Miss Brackett and we will pass the microphone down to Mr falkenberry and so on the second question will be asked and then Mr falkenberry you will respond first and Etc down the line through all six questions our timer is here and we'll be running for each response
006as a reminder we are streaming this on the Rock Hill schools website and YouTube thank you Ashley will begin with the first question hello my name is Ashley Hinson I'm the student body president of South Point High School your first question is in regard to safety what measures or precautions do you feel are necessary to keep staff and students safe from harmful behaviors and items such as guns weapons and or drugs hello all right so safety is definitely a huge concern for us all I think the first thing that we must do to ensure that our students and our faculty are safe is one recognize where the potential threats are a large part of our threats are internal and we can begin to address those threats by one recognizing what they are and utilizing the
007resources in our community to kind of help mitigate those threats one in particular that I'm extremely concerned and aware about as a parent is really understanding the mental health and wellness of our students I think that creates a lot of the challenges that we face with violence and we have to begin recognizing where those threats are providing the supports and resources that we need for those students to ensure that it does not manifest itself in violence I know the district has done a tremendous amount of work around mental health by building the department looking at ways to collaborate in the community and engage with Community Partners and as a board member I would love to be a part of continuing to expand that effort so that we can meet the needs of our students in
008that way thank you um so first I'd like to start off by just acknowledging that you know our school district does a great job keeping our students and our staff safe we've enacted a lot of new measures and are currently or excuse me constantly doing things behind the scenes to keep everyone safe I will elaborate more on what we're currently doing if time permits but getting to know our students and developing strong relationships with them is still one of the best ways for us to prevent dangerous situations from Horizon in our schools some other areas that I think we need to focus on are continuing to perform ongoing threat assessments so that's not something we do you know periodically it should be something we're doing consistently and continually continuing to review and update our security
009protocols I know that we do some debriefs from that when we have issues so you know by implementing those best in practices and those things that we're learning from each of those instances will help us get better one of the things I've asked as well is about benchmarking other districts not necessarily just in South Carolina we probably have a good idea of what we're doing locally but benchmarking marking some districts that are maybe Best in Class in the United States prioritizing and strengthening our online and digital safety I think is important to try to prevent you know online bullying and things like that also giving our students and staff a voice to ensure an effective two-way Communication System It's always important to get feedback from the people that are most affected so that we're making
010sure we address their needs some of the things in the last couple seconds we're doing yes currently are give you some of my time maybe good evening so um that's a very good question and I think the important thing that we should note here is that we all I think everyone on this panel can agree that we all want our schools to be safe there is not a parent or even a Community member out there that wants to have to worry about guns in schools so when we all heard the headlines daily in the news and on the and in the newspaper about guns being found in schools I thought to myself this is absolutely something we can all agree on regardless to your politics one of the things that I think is imperative that
011we do is to involve mental health agencies there's no doubt that some of the stuff that's going on that involves gun guns has more to do with than just violence gangs or those other things there's definitely a mental health crisis in the United States so I think partnering with mental health agencies is Paramount I would also say that considering group counseling at school would be something that we should consider looking into and then also I just think that we have to remove the stigma that goes along with therapy and the final thing I would say that we don't want to do is putting metal detectors in school but I think that is absolutely something that has to be considered in the environment that we are currently living in so I'm Gonna Give You nine seconds
012thank you so I want to start off with saying that I send my own two daughters into our schools every single day so I'm going to answer this question both as a mother and as a board member um just like others have said the safety issues that we see in our schools are issues that we see in our community that's spilling into our buildings um we've done a lot to address these issues such as Implement Safety and Security officers as well as police officers at all schools rebuild campuses with single point to entry access points install cameras and doing the texting hotline that has been very effective um and the most important thing that we have done is establish amazing relationships with our law enforcement agencies the board recently asked Dr schmaltze and his team
013to provide a report based on information of experts as to what an implementation of metal detectors and possibly a clear bag policy would look like in our district and I will be prepared to support that if that's what the experts recommend basically we need to continue to work together with parents and Community leaders in law enforcement to address all these issues and I also support the vision of our district to stricter enforcing the consequences for students who are breaking policy thank you I think there are two parts to this question the first is that we need to make sure that we have strong ethical leaders in all of our schools so that they will support our teachers efforts to effectively manage their classrooms a well-run school with well-managed classrooms with strong ethical leaders means that
014the leaders will have a a pulse on what's going on in the school so that will help prevent violence or Contraband being brought in the school the the second thing that we need to do is we need to further develop our Partnerships with law enforcement agencies that respond to our schools we have a great relationship with Rock Hill city with York County Sheriff's Department we and I assume South Carolina Highway Patrol these are all the agencies are going to respond if there's ever an incident in our school an issue that that I would certainly support would be um a program that allowed um you know the first time a police officer comes to the school should not be a call for service they should be familiar with the school before they get there so that
015if there is an incident they can officially respond to it additionally we also need to maintain our good relationship with Kevin with the 16th circuit solicitor's office I agree with some of the other comments that we need to make sure that if there is bad behavior that is if you know effectively followed through and disciplined thank you foreign schools should be places where students and Staff feel safe it's the only way that learning can take place if people feel safe and during my time on Rock Hill schools in the last few years we've added SRO school resource offices and school resource officers and school security officers so that we have an armed officer in every school now and in addition in our high schools now we have campus security Associates to add an extra layer
016of security on our high school campuses which are larger and have larger student populations and several years ago the board also approved random security searches in our schools and we have ramped those up this year in response to some security concerns random searches are a great way to send the message that you can be searched anytime anywhere in one of our schools and to give pause to someone who might think of bringing a weapon or something they shouldn't have in our schools um moving forward we're also considering some other options some of the other board members have mentioned those like clear backpacks but one of the most powerful tools that we have in our toolbox for security is community specifically students and families need to feel comfortable support um reporting concerns that they have about
017suspected violence or possible violence in our schools and it's important for us to continue to build trust within our schools so families our students feel like they can report anything they suspect this is a great question as you could hear there are several systems that are in place however I do question with our latest most recent incidents that we saw across the media within our schools why the response wasn't necessarily that these are the systems that we have in place but it was a finger-pointing game where we blamed the community and said it starts at home so what I'd like to say is in response to this question I believe that there needs to be a culture of safety first created from the top down what that looks like is having board members that sit
018and govern our district that don't align with organizations like moms for Liberty that actually supported DeSantis the governor governor DeSantis with a don't say gay initiative what that tells me is that this organization actually stands for not inclusive practices within the lgbtq community of students that bothers me because that aligns with bullying and not accepting our students our administrators and our teachers for who they are so it starts at the top down so any any person that is running for school board that aligns with that I question I also would love good evening I'm Najee Bush I'm student body president at Rock Hill High and my first question for today would be how will you as a board member prioritize students Mental Health thank you so students mental health is currently a priority for our
019board our current board as well as the district in addition to the services that we're already offering or providing I would like to see a district-wide initiative to ensure that IEPs are being more closely followed and completed on time we have a lot of students who need those additional accommodations for their learning and whose families don't feel like they're currently you know getting those so some ways that we could achieve that would be through staff professional development on IEPs the importance of them the process how they how we develop them and then the accountability piece to make sure that we are actually following those and closing those those out on a timely fashion um you know additionally I think keeping schools open for instruction is important we certainly have learned that in the last couple
020years strengthening our school cultures recognizing signs of trauma and behavior changes and then being able to take action when we see things that just don't look right or don't feel right promoting social and emotional competency and building resilience in our students I think building them up with that positive image positive self-image is important we can also help ensure a positive safe School environment where we can teach and reinforce positive behaviors and decision making and then finally we can encourage you know each of our students to help others and to be a good student thank you so I would go back to what I said before that we we are not the mental health professionals we're not the experts in mental health we're here to teach um and for students to learn I think that we
021should rely on our partner agencies who are mental health experts to come in and train us uh and and provide opportunities for us to learn how to deal with students and mental health issues bullying is real you know you you hear the saying see something say something well someone who's being bullied is not going to say something so I just absolutely think we have got to do a better job of thinking outside the box finding some non-traditional ways and partnering with agencies outside of our school district that are Community agents who are experts on Mental Health and that would be all I'd have to say about that thank you as a parent of teenagers in our schools and one recent graduate I have a pretty good idea of what our students are facing through my
022interaction with them and their friends and volunteering in schools it's heartbreaking it's personal I think it's a lot harder growing up today than it was when I was a teenager and that's the reason why I became an ambassador for the number one question is it good for the children initiative and work really hard on building those bridges with our partner agencies in the community such as Nami Catawba Mental Health make a real concise effort of attending every function that I can think of in this community to build those bridges because we have a lot of agencies in town that are here to help children from a budget standpoint I have supported and will continue to support initiatives such as our youth Treatment Center pay races for our Mental Health Counselors and support staff mental health
023like we've said earlier is very much part of our Safety and Security initiative and I am in full support of Dr schmalsey's vision of enforcing stricter discipline and specifically anti-bullying practices in our schools so that the learning environment is safe and welcoming to all children I'm also in favor of continuing uh the mental hotline for staff as well as the wellness efforts that we're doing thank you as a parent with three teenagers as well I I recognize that any decision that the board makes impacts our kids and we have to be aware of all unintended consequences to our students Mental Health on on all of our decisions and so that being said I think the most important thing that we can prioritize is that we give our students a continuous access to a thorough and
024rigorous education in safe schools that are well run with strong ethical leaders at the top who support our teachers that are able to manage their classrooms and encourage our kids to participate in a wide range of extra and co-curricular activities thank you as a board member I have placed a high priority on mental health and I continue to place a high priority on supporting good mental health within our schools we've added mental health professionals and have mental health professionals now in every one of our schools we have nurses now and every one of our schools who support physical health as well as mental health and we provide these supports because there's such a great need for mental health supports among our student population now and it's the right thing to do but we also have
025to provide them because we need our students to do well academically that's in the end the goal of our schools and students can't perform well academically if they're suffering from a mental health challenge so if we can support them and help them through those challenges we will also help them perform better academically we need to be in a mindset of continuous Improvement in the mental health supports that we provide and I think that we are in that mindset as we have grown and improved our Mental Health Department um moving forward I would really like to see an increased focus on anti-bullying I would like us to have a district-wide anti-bullying program to promote anti-bullying policies and anti-bullying opportunity or anti-bullying in general to our to our school populations also as funding allows I'd like it
026to see us provide mental health supports to families whenever children are dealing with mental health issues thank you shared language is very important and understanding the difference between a mental health crisis and a behavioral crisis is very very important how you deal with those two things are vastly different I tend to shy away from using the word enforcement when you're talking about a mental health crisis with students with teachers with administrators I do see that we have systems that are in place wouldn't necessarily call them great there's always room for improvement however we do know that teachers are not mental health professionals so what ways can we further equip them to make sure that they are equipped to serve our students and administrators and staff whenever they are facing crises it's not just the students
027teachers deal with a lot of pressure as well right so what I did discover is that one counselor per 1300 students was discovered in an audit that Governor McMaster conducted and requested every year for the next two years there's hope that we could break that down in half and tap into programs like the John H McGill South Carolina Behavioral Health Academy which is a grant that goes to public schools throughout South Carolina I believe my mic went out no it didn't so this will help when there's 20 times it's likelier for students to actually access mental health in the schools all right so several things have been mentioned that I believe are valuable but I'll I'll leave it off with saying I think to address and prioritize mental health and wellness for all students we
028must first identify how we can kind of build a culture of community within our schools we have done tremendous work in identifying the resources in our community helping to educate our our teachers to be able to recognize those signs when a kid is struggling having difficulty because we know if you're not mentally fit it's going to be difficult for you to learn one of the things I would like to do if given the opportunity to serve on the board is to look at ways where we can offer additional support to our faculty and staff within the schools because it's also difficult for them to prioritize kids with mental health issues or mental Wellness if they too themselves are struggling so enhancing the support for all within the school I think can definitely help benefit the
029kids in addition some of the Partnerships that we've already mentioned that the district has already established extending those Partnerships past just the mental health professionals within our area to not just our kids not just our students but also our parents so I know we've offered webinars on Facebook we've tried to have sessions for our parents as well and I think that's needed to good evening again I'm Grace Summers the student body vice president at Northwestern High School What policies do you feel can be implemented by the board to help bridge the gap between students who are thriving academically and those who may be struggling academically especially in reading and math thank you so again I think that we are definitely going to have to do some non-traditional things explore some other school districts that have
030maybe been successful in improving academic progress especially in reading and math which we know those are absolutely core requirements we have seen a decline in Rock Hill schools in over the last several years in those areas and I'm really saddened to see where we are especially in mathematics which is sort of my favorite thing how we have declined to where you know a vast majority of our students are not meeting requirements so I definitely think that we need to look into some additional programs study some other school systems that are similar to ours in terms of demographics to find some new ways to improve academics and math and reading as well as I think we absolutely have to turn to the budget and start investing more in programs and in instruction for tutoring maybe one-on-one
031time with students and some small groups tutoring as opposed to you know sort of just just passing everyone along to to meet standards so those would be the things that I would recommend us doing thank you so our superintendent and his team is actually going to roll out and present their plan which I fully support at the next board meeting but to quickly give you an overview there's really two factors the first one is to increase our mentorship programs in our schools the board has already paved The Ground by enabling all policies for these mentorship programs to take place I have been working with a variety of community groups over the past couple of months to line up organizations that are willing and happy to come in and share their resources with our students the
032second part is that um instructional help really needs to be driven by effective use of data it's not enough just to collect data you actually have to have targeted support and professional development that's why I've fully supported hiring two data Specialists recently whose sole Focus will be to honing in on those specific areas and how we target that um and I think overall the focus has to be on making sure that our teachers have an opportunity to do their job without distractions with full support from both parents community members and everybody within an organization thank you Grace that was an excellent question I think we can all agree that there has been a tremendous loss of learning with our children being out of school for so long so time is a resource that we cannot
033get back and so we have to act quickly and this is a little bit of the broken record technique but we have a fantastic superintendent right now who is willing to implement cultural change in our schools who understands the culture of Rock Hill and understands that we used to be a top 10 district and we can be we have the potential to be but he needs to work quickly to put strong leaders in all of our schools who support our teachers to allow them to manage their classrooms so they have time to teach and when they teach the more you read the better reader you become the more math you practice the better at math you become it is repetition but you need time to do it an additional strategy that that I learned when
034I was a teacher is that I would partner High achieving students with lower achieving students and allow them to work together because it just gives the kids a different perspective than coming straight right from another adult or a teacher thank you ratings raising student achievement and closing the achievement Gap is critical to me as a board member and when interviewing candidates for district superintendent last fall I placed a high priority on hiring a superintendent with a track record of success and a strategy for increasing achievement at Rock Hill schools District administration under the leadership of our new superintendent is implementing several initiatives to increase student achievement at Rock Hill School District those initiatives include more data informed better data informed instruction better better opportunities for peer-to-peer collaboration between our teachers and better coaching and more
035teacher support from our school level administrators we also know that early intervention is critically important in helping students achieve and enclosing the achievement Gap and I fully support making 4K available to more students within our school district so that they have an opportunity to have a more formal education earlier on before kindergarten we know excellent teachers are critical and so I support further increases to teacher compensation but especially on teachers that are experienced those teachers with five or more years experience we want to make sure they stay in teaching we want to make sure they stay with Rock Hill schools and we want to recruit them from other school districts and finally we know teacher student ratios are important so I support keeping our class sizes as small as possible so as a single mom
036and my kids are bussed to school and bust home due to overcrowding I'm unable to make sure that I'm there to pick them up on time so they get home a little later than other students and it does just from my reality make it very challenging for me to figure out what my schedule looks like after teaching all day after making sure that they make it home safe and so I'm not too sure how overcrowding in schools can really really help the student to teach a ratio and that to me poses a problem in question regarding reading and math and being academically ready to compete in a global Arena it starts there with the decisions that were made and the decisions that are going to be made moving forward I'd like to say that 33.8
037percent of e of ela readers in an English literature here in the state of South Carolina are behind academically where we measure up against that is very very concerning however Banning books is not the answer I like to take the approach of seeing ourselves through mirrors windows and sliding glass doors I'd also love to see us identify not academically but also gifted in arts and talented initiatives in our schools in response to academics I definitely will say first it is something that's near and dear to my heart because I am to an educator and a lifelong learner working in higher ed I see the struggles that students have when they transition when they don't have that Foundation that they need in K-12 to really prepare them so one of the things that I would like
038to see if given an opportunity to serve on the board is to evaluate some of the current policies that we have around academic support such as content recovery and dual enrollment credits and looking at making sure that we remove any barriers that could create those challenges for students to perform well academically I know that we have received some great data from our new instructional Department with the district that has allowed us to kind of see where the gaps are in our student performance to give us the ability to be able to Target and provide resources and measures for that so in addition to not only looking at the current policies that are in place making adjustments where needed to remove any potential barriers but also providing the needed support for all students in areas where
039we've identified with that data there is a need and I know that we've also begun some training for our faculty and staff to be able to equip them with the tools that they need to be able to assist students in the classroom I know professional learning communities is something that's big and is also needed thank you um so when we're talking about policies and bridging this Gap through policy I'm not sure that policies are necessarily the right way to bridge this learning Gap I think it may be more of a focus or application issue than it is necessarily a policy issue but certainly it is a major issue today post coveted you know in our most recent results from our Statewide testing and things show that you know it demonstrates the the learning loss and
040where we're at you know we need to identify obviously the students that are struggling where why they're struggling and then divert more resources towards giving that you know getting them up to speed to where they need to be whether that's time money you know or human capital you know to me if it's a priority for the district and it should be then it needs to be reflected that way in the budget so we need to again divert more resources towards solving this problem you know every student doesn't have the same needs just like every school doesn't have the same needs you know with our new data Specialists you know we're going to be able to develop a targeted Focus plan for each student in the district obviously that sounds like something that you know you
041would think we should have been able to do for many years but we just never had that capability at the district level to you know to drill down into each individual student that way so that out you know the output of that data analysis should give our teachers and the district support staff the information they need to optimize each student's potential by building you know an individual individualized learning plan for every student how do you feel Rock Hill schools can improve its communication to parents students and staff especially in critical situations that's an excellent question and I think I should start off with saying that communication is a two-way street we need our community and our parents to partner with the district to make sure that they're signed up to receive all the communications uh
042Ms May check actually shared with the board that we have thousands of folks that have blocked our calls and text messages from the district and that makes it harder secondly we need everybody to stay off social media and not engage in rumors and make sure that they follow the proper channels and listen to those because that's where the true information will come from but beyond that the reality is that our communication department is severely understaffed we'll have two individuals who are both in the room today with us that are responsible for all the communication for our district and we just had the opportunity to approve a third position we're very excited they're interviewing right now and we're looking forward to that person bringing some extra man or woman power to that department and what that's
043going to allow us to do is broaden the way we communicate in our community one size does not fit all we've been in a situation where Manpower is really the Restriction why we have not been able to be as Broad in our communication patterns so that we reach every single facet of our community thank you um three uh responses of this question first is that we need to make sure that there is efficient and effective parent-teacher communication parents need to be comfortable knowing that they can reach out via email or or a phone call if necessary and that the the teacher will respond and that the the teachers feel comfortable communicating with the parents about what is going on at the school um secondly we need to make sure that all communication that is coming
044out of the district is clear concise accurate and thorough in that it expresses exactly what is happening and and or what happened in the schools and third we need to give Dr schmulsey the tools that he needs to make sure that he can reach this goal of clear concise communication from the district thank you um in today's time we have more communication tools available to us than we have ever had before but every organization including Rock Hill schools struggles to maintain connection with its customers or its stakeholders or in the case of Rock Hill schools it's parents um I think people are so bombarded with communication these days that they've learned to ignore a lot of what a lot of the communication that comes at them um and we we struggle like any organization to
045get through that noise and to and to get the attention of parents so that they actually hear information that we know that they need um but it's hard but we can't stop working hard at getting through and we don't we have a very talented communication team and I know that they work on this model of continuous Improvement in trying to communicate with our um with our with our stakeholders but I believe we kind of need to lean into an old-fashioned strategy when it comes to communication and that's building relationships people listen to people that they know personally and they have a relationship with so if you're a parent you're going to pay more attention to a message coming from your school than from the district office and if you're a parent you're going to pay
046more attention from a message coming from your your student's teacher than from the principal so I believe that we can leverage that personal relationship building relationships to help communicate better meeting the community and students and families where they are is of utmost importance and priority I'm reminded with my advertising and marketing background that Communications it flows into that industry and the only two mediums that are projected to grow over the next five years is digital marketing and outdoor so those Billboards that you see along 77 and inner city roadways but communication is nothing without transparency you can communicate all day but what you say is of utmost importance so I do believe that although we we have this construct of making sure that we communicate you know parents to teachers teachers to parents District to
047community we have to make sure that we hold ourselves accountable as board members and make sure that what we're saying and putting out there is of high importance I'd also love to see us having updated apps that are not bias non-bias such as the class dojo app I believe that's an app that we could look into a little bit more and possibly adopt another that's a great communication Channel applications are but I look out into this room today and I wonder how many more people would be here if we actually up the ENT with our communication social media is very very important this probably doesn't even represent 10 percent of Rock Hill and the families that we serve so we absolutely need social media and to meet those streamers right where they are I Echo
048the sentiments of those that have already spoken communication is definitely critical and when sensitive information or critical information we have to ensure that we use all potential avenues that we have available to us to deliver the message um transparency I agree is important as well but timely communication um and providing parents with a way to access the information without any potential hurdles I know we have apps our website has constantly being enhanced but identifying ways to be able to keep that update and current because I know as a parent for me I'm not going to call the school I'm going to first go to the website or go to go to the apps that you provided to look for the information so ensuring that the information that's needed by parents is readily available at their
049fingertips I'm also understanding our parent population and the challenges that they may struggle with I know we want them to communicate with us but we have to understand who they are and how we can best reach them so sometimes we don't necessarily need to um to kind of go to ask them to come to us to be able to identify that but share information with them to kind of help them for example I know we've done some surveys over the years to kind of learn from our community about what's needed what supports and resources are shared I filled out several as a parent but I don't always get the feedback or see the results of those surveys to understand how that information is being used so I think that's another way to improve communication so
050I believe that you know effective communication and increasing communication is an issue that pretty much any organization faces you know I will say that as The Rock Hill School District we're doing more now than we ever have to reach parents students and staff you know including the Investments that we're making in the marketing Communications staff you know are evolving and it needs to be evolving ever evolving communication strategy does and it needs to include a multi-tiered approach to include in-person Communications which are oftentimes you know the most effective technology driven or assisted Communications written Communications the all calls that we use but with a much broader inclusion list to include maybe community members not just parents and staff I've heard it said before that you know Rock Hill schools does a good job reaching those
051within the district or that are engaged currently with the district but does need to do more to reach out to community stakeholders this certainly is some something that I feel like we need to address as soon as possible it's certainly an issue that we have heard before I know that the new superintendent Dr schmoldy shares my desire to keep increasing the transparency and community community access to our cabinet level staff including the town halls and Q a opportunities that he's currently doing with various groups in various locations across Rock Hill a few of the things more specifically that we could do discussing contact methods with each parent at the beginning of the school year to determine what's the most effective for them and their family thank you so we with today we have so many
052means for communicating with individuals from everything you've heard named here but I I'm a product of this community I started at mcfeet Nursery School at Winthrop way back in the day and I graduated from Northwestern High School in 1985. and there was not a thing that happened at school that my mother didn't know about before I got home so it's just amazing to me with all the types of communication that we have available today that we still aren't we aren't making it work but I would say that we still have to look within the the fact that we have the population here that we have tonight is proof that we need to do a better job on communication we cannot be satisfied when we get less than one percent of surveys back from parents and
053decide to go ahead and move and make sweeping decisions with such few response and feedback from the community I would also say that I heard someone mention that parents might have us blocked Rock Hill School District block well the question is what are we doing Rock Hill School District to find out why are we blocked I think that we have got to continue having those forms and I want to thank Dr smallsey I attended one that he had recently attendance was very low but he said to me we're gonna we're gonna move on with the few that we have whether it's four or seven hundred and I applaud that I think we have to have very non-traditional means of communicating with the masses having those forums having things outside of the school walls in the
054community in churches churches are a phenomenal place to reach out to our parents so I think we just have got to get out the box as a board member how will you address overcrowding in our schools thank you first of all I'd like to say that we need to be aware that any rezoning or closing of schools will have unintended consequences so we need to make sure that as we move forward and make changes that our teachers and staff have the resources available to make sure that they can deal with these unintended consequences and that teachers feel free to speak up to the administration to ask for help when they need it secondly we need to make sure that we have a strategic plan going forward with our infrastructure for the next 5 10 15
05520 years we need to be smart we need to be targeted we need to understand that that Rock Hill is growing and that we need to understand that that we need to you know build new schools and and we need to make sure that we're being a good Steward of our financial resources so that we are not spending too much money in schools that that just are are not going to get a good return on our investment thank you the problem of overcrowding is most prominent in our elementary schools and we have at least two elementary schools that are critically overcrowded and several that um are are serious um and and it relates to a decision that the board made in February 2021 at that time our board was presented some options to closed schools
056and the board voted to close three elementary schools that decision was made on a 4-2 vote and I was one of the two board members who voted against the proposal I felt like it was a very aggressive solution and a more moderate solution was was really called for at that time um the result of closing three elementary schools has been pockets of overcrowding within the district over the last two years and some of our overcrowded schools have solved that problem by repurposing rooms that aren't supposed to be classrooms and making them classrooms and and in some cases we've had to cap enrollment at least in certain grades and have those students attend another school within the district that has room I believe we should go back and reconsider at least opening one of our elementary
057schools for a short-term solution to overcrowding long term we're obviously going to need um to to look at potentially building more schools in the future but short term I think we can alleviate some of the overcrowding by looking at opening on one of the schools we closed first I'd like to say kudos to the teachers and staff that were on the other side of the decision to close down the schools you are the real MVP for navigating the overcrowding of the schools that's taken place right now I can't imagine I remember sitting in a school board meeting over the summer and talking about the importance of transparency and how there was a student excuse me a teacher that was teaching in the hallways and that was very very concerning for me so kudos to those
058teachers that are navigating and pivoting within this school year I'd like to say that strategy transparency communication and accountability are the four things that we need to adopt as District trustees knowing that our decisions don't just affect the teachers and the staff it's a domino effect I look at transportation and how that was affected my student did my kids that are within the school district as well coming home on a bus taking a shuttle bus to their bus and then coming home on that bus that's that's very stressful on a family and so the decisions that we make sitting in this chair are very very important so I'd love to see us come up with a strategy to address the decision that was made and to figure out a brighter future that will make it
059less stressful so that our students can actually focus on education I agree that overcrowding does impact our ability to be able to focus academically on providing the environment that students need to be conducive to learning as as a board member if given the opportunity to serve I would like to be a part of the process to evaluate the capacity in each of the schools using data research using the resources that we have available to us in our faculty and staff and understanding are we using the right size classrooms to accommodate the needs of individual classes looking at ways to be able to make adjustments where needed so that space can be utilized to kind of support those needs where the students might be in an overclouded classroom I know that we're also looking at ways
060to offer support to teachers to be able to give additional resources to them in the classroom when they have a larger ratio of students than what they can manage themselves so to be able to kind of offer additional support in those ways to help to ensure that that works I know the district has a master plan in regards to looking at the potential of new facilities in the future and definitely being a part of those conversations to Think Through how we can strategically restructure and replace students that might be in overcrowded situations now so you know I think that we need to have schools that are designed with the modern learning environment and modern learning needs you know in mind and in the Forefront when you have limited access to resources you you oftentimes have
061to make choices on the best way to provide for all of our students within the financial constraints that we're given eventually yes Rock Hill does need some new larger elementary schools we need to take a case-by-case look at what's the best option for each school or scenario that we're evaluating to make sure that it makes the most sense for every student you know the needs of our students today are very different than they were when most of our schools were built or especially with some of our older schools that might be 80 years old or more were built you know when those schools were built they were designed to keep students separated certainly that's evidenced by the the cinder block walls that separate each each classroom you know today's learning environment is very different it's
062more collaborative oftentimes bringing the goal is to bring students together instead of keeping them apart and you know many times it much more costly to try to update those older schools than it is to bring them you know to bring them up to today's standards anyway than it is to Simply build new ones we're working on a strategic plan as a district to address the short and long-term facility needs the implementation of that plan will certainly as one of its primary goals solve the overcrowding issues in the schools there's always the debate on whether or not you know you continue trying to modernize update upgrade old schools versus building new ones the impact on the students and the taxpayers should certainly be considered when deciding which option is the best for any given facility so
063as a board member how would I address overcrowding in the schools well I'd have to say the first thing is that I would not close three elementary schools in the midst of a pandemic I just think we cannot ignore that that is the cause of where we are with overcrowding right now and the question is how are we going to fix it if enrollment continues to decline in Rock Hill schools we may not have to worry about overcrowding so there's another thing that we've got to fix as it relates to overcrowding and I just think we have we have to do better planning it's it's just mandatory in terms of for a master plan for moving forward as we continue to hopefully increase enrollment and absolutely we need newer schools but I think that we've
064got to have a much better planned approach not a ripping of a Band-Aid ripping the Band-Aid off it has to be a much better and more thoughtful plan of how we will manage building new schools and then lastly I would say the one thing that probably no board member wants to hear is rezoning rezoning can help solve overcrowding and it's not fun and the community is going to hate you because you will not satisfy everyone but it may be needed thank you thank you so every district has its challenges and one of our largest ones is our aging buildings like a couple of folks up here have already said they were built in a time where educational needs are very very different the majority of the buildings are older than I am quite a few
065of them are older than my parents um so the next step in the plan that we do have in place is to focus on revitalizing our schools you utilize the money from property sales and the Capital Savings that we now have to rebuild work completely overhaul some of our old campuses and in that process we do have the opportunity and should to increase capacity on those campuses and we can do that without adding operating costs with added Administration the one part of this process though is that it is vital that we engage our community our parents our teachers and our students in the process so that when we do make these investments in the schools we do that with input from everyone in our community for the final question of the night what goals do
066you want to achieve by being part of the Rock Hill Board of Trustees and how will these goals better the lives of students Educators and support staff within the schools my vision for Rock Hill schools is that every student regardless of their personal circumstances and regardless of what school they attend is able to achieve at their highest level and to graduate and go on to a future that they choose with the knowledge that they need in order to succeed to do this we've got to focus on raising achievement but this isn't just about raising state test scores it's about making sure that students have the knowledge and experiences that they need when they graduate to be able to be successful adults um to do this we've got to Target gaps in learning early as early
067as possible talking with some teachers the other night we were talking about in kindergarten students learning number sense and if they don't develop that sense of numbers then when they start talking about adding and subtracting adding and subtracting never clicks and then summer comes and they come back from Summer and then a year later they're learning multiplication but they never really clicked with adding and subtraction because they never really got a good sense of numbers a few years later they're in an algebra class and they're at that point they're starting to feel like they're just not a good student but that's not true we're just trying to build this house of knowledge on this house of the knowledge with gaps in the in the foundation so we've got to have early interventions and we've got
068to continue to intervene with our students that aren't on grade level until we get them on grade level it's cliche but there's no I in team and as a former cheerleader I remember screaming loud and clear when I was our County Seat a York comprehensive high school cheerleader cheering go team go so I'd say that any goal that I would like to be included and a part of is a shared Vision a shared Vision that includes students staff and Bridging the Gap between the schools and the homes I'd love to serve as the at large chair seat here with The Rock Hill School District and serve and advocate for us to have a global positioning and education where our students can compete on a global Arena and to share through transparent and clear communication channels
069and to support our students and staff what that looks like as a shared Vision that includes the board members that would be elected in this upcoming season I love our community and I do hope that my student students will continue to thrive my little boys your little boys your families will continue to thrive at the decisions that we have the opportunity to make as the board so thank you and I hope that you do potentially vote Natasha it's given the opportunity to serve as a board member some goals that I would have of course first student academic achievement creating a learning environment that allows our students to focus on learning and be successful I think that's the mission and focus of of schools in general so providing the support that's needed to ensure that happens
070also creating an environment where our teachers love and enjoy teaching being in education we're seeing right now a major migration away from education teachers can go in other environments and make more money with a lot less stress but identifying ways to refocus the value and importance on education and being teachers providing the support providing the resources that allow our teachers to stay in this particular Arena and be able to touch lives at least till retirement in order to do that I think as a board and as a district we need to continue championing our efforts and making research based decisions data informed decisions engaging Our Community Partners engaging our internal Partners to ensure that everyone's buy-in and input is being evaluated when making those tough decisions and continuous Improvement there's no one solution that's going
071to fix it permanently hmm so you know as as a current sitting board member I certainly have my own you know Grand Vision for Rock Hill School District as part of that you know there's many things I'd like for us to be able to achieve in the next four years but for this this particular meeting and with the time constraints um you know I really want to focus on the you know the first one which is you know it's a simple goal meet and then ultimately exceed State averages on all measurable criteria you know this is achievable we've been there before we've done it we can do it again you know although a district is much more than just scores it is important to measure and and our performance and then ultimately hold ourselves accountable
072for that achievement uh you know the individualized educational plans that I discussed a little bit earlier you know that we're developing will certainly help us achieve this goal you know it I've always heard it's hard to improve something that you're not measuring so we've got to we've got to use those measures to help drive better performance once we do achieve that goal you know I'd like for us to focus on and getting back into the top ten you know I think there's no doubt we can be a top 10 District again you know potentially a top five district you know we've been there before we can get back there again you know if we're performing better as a district all of our students and staffs lives will be positively impacted because there'll be increased learning
073in the classroom and there'll also be more pride in our district you know this will help us recruit retain the best teachers in the area as well you know I'd also like for us to focus on you know the and prioritize on grade level Literacy By the third grade so as I mentioned I I went through K-12 through Rock Hill School District I have had four children that have graduated from the high schools here and I would have to say my number one goal because I remember when we were in the top 10 schools is addressing declining enrollment I think that if if all of you don't know the enrollment drives the dollars we get paid based upon by the state and federal government based upon the number of students that we have in those
074seats so addressing declining enrollment is a big deal we have lost around 1600 students since 2016 and we absolutely have to address that we have to find out why are parents leaving parents have choices now they don't have to go to public school for Education homeschooling tools are available readily available to everyone we have Charter Schools we're competing with not to mention the private schools so I would say my number one goal would be addressing declining enrollment and find out why we are losing so many students I also think that we have to work on improving the culture in Rock Hill school district and the morale for not only the students but also for the teachers and then finally I would say that this board has really worked hard and I commend them for the
075things that they have done for our community but what I want you to know is that I bring a fresh perspective to the board I am not only of this community raised here and graduated from this school system I brought my children through this school my mother was an educator for over 30 years in this school and finally I actually have worked for Rock Hill School District so I bring a different perspective so the board established three main goals a year and a half or so ago focusing on three areas Safety and Security Recruitment and Retention academic success we have talked a lot about pieces of this tonight but I think the number one goal is to make sure that everybody feels safe and secure in our buildings both mentally and physically and that goes
076for both our staff and our students because learning cannot take place without that um secondly recruitment and retention we are in an amazing situation with the new superintendent that is focusing on organizational culture and making sure that the teachers and staff that we have are valued it's not only by us as board members supporting pay races and uh bonuses and making sure that they're paid what they're worth it it's also feeling like you're actually valued and respected in your profession and I believe that once Dr schmolsey has an opportunity to get that taken care of all the other things that we see Will Follow because great education starts with amazing teachers in collaboration with our parents and community and lastly in my 11 seconds um obviously is the academic success piece like I said I
077think that that will follow once we see the change in recruitment and retention thank you during my four years on the board I would like to lay the foundation for Success so that my children their classmates and every other student in Rock Hill schools has the same opportunities that we all had up here and that starts with leadership at the top we have a fantastic superintendent that is going to put really good strong ethical leaders in our schools that is going to help us recruit and retain the best teachers so that the focus in our classrooms is education all of our graduates need to be well read able to write clearly and concisely able to be able to communicate effectively with themselves and their friends and their colleagues and they can disagree respectfully it is
078very important that every student that graduates is prepared to enter the workforce or enter college and be successful and during our four-year during my four years on the on the board I will make sure that we have a plan to do that this year in five years 10 years and in 15 years thank you that concludes uh The Forum this evening can I get a round of applause for our candidates thank you all we're gonna have meet and greet time in the lobby until 7 30 but can I also get a round of applause for our student leaders thank you all so much [Applause] right can we have you go yep here Pete we're going to have you come in between Robin and Helena ladies we're gonna have the three of you come right in
079the front our three student leaders yep there you go just like that no no you're fine here there you go everybody one two three one two three thank you