VASD Board of Education Special Meeting - October 25, 2021

001okay guys all right okay i'm going to call this meeting to order i'd like to first establish that we have a quorum um if we could do a roll call vote starting uh with jen here and i'm here here christina here john here and nicole here we have a quorum uh jenna's clerk can you um confirm that this meeting has been properly noticed it has okay um i want a our in-person attendees we're all brand new to this venue that master required to be worn at all times so i appreciate your cooperation and adhering to the requirements and to help ensure that we're centering our board work around our shared values and serving our students we begin each of our board meetings by reading our district's equity statement and results um which can be found

002at the top of the agenda jana i think you are up tonight i am our vasd equity statement each student has access to the resources and educational rigor they need at the right moment in their education regardless of race gender ethnicity ability language family background or family income we are also reading our vasd mission statement from our one results policy each student will acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve their personal goals thrive in a diverse global society and lead a healthy self-fulfilling life thank you you're welcome are there any questions or comments about the remainder of the agenda hearing none are there any emotions to adopt tonight's agenda so moved i have a motion from yana is there a second second a second from jen all in favor signify with i i all

003opposed the agenda has been adopted all right i'm going to turn it over now to dr clardy good evening everyone uh welcome to tonight's board meeting and thank you for opening us up with our our equity statement i truly appreciate it um we have a very brief superintendent's update today and it'll be twofold one will be the update on our copa numbers as we do on a weekly bi-weekly basis and in our board setting as you can see on this slide behind me we continue to trend down in the number of positive cases in over a seven day span reminder to the board and to our public that we do continue to update this uh practically every five minutes so we our website has the most up-to-date so this was as as a printing but

004as a printing these are the these are the totals that we that we have when printing occurred today we notice at the secondary level that we do not have any positive cases reported and at the elementary level we have a total of four again a great appreciation to our community for strong mitigation efforts and we will continue to maintain a status of a pro-vaccination district as well as a masking district there are no questions about our cobit numbers i want to transition us to our continuation of our of our budget and to present the budget update i'm glad to have two members of our business department uh chad wheezy and pete grinder am i coming through all right now we're live good evening board members it's good to see everyone again we are borderline frequent

005flyer miles here at this point but i think we're going to get things across the finish line tonight so we do have a brief update and then we will have a board vote tonight to finalize the budget after a long road that you guys have been on uh all the way back to last winter and uh we are finally here this evening to uh get to the point that we will have a vote to finalize the budget uh we have a few additional uh really just more detail again to present to the board in the community tonight on our final budget did want to make sure the board and the public knew that we attached a rewritten finalized budget to board docs for transparency we obviously can't go through that entire document this evening but

006that is on board docs if and when the budget were to pass tonight is our plan with transparency again in mind to post that finalized budget to our website as quickly as we can just so the public has access to that we will go through a little more detail on fonten27 tonight we'll present a more detailed budget by object and just go through that rather quickly we'll give the board in the community a little history lesson on mill rate with a little different graphic and then we'll have a recommendation to the board just before that vote so i did want to just break down fun 10 fun 27 for the board and the community in a little bit more detail tonight as a reminder to the board fund 10 is really where most of the

007work is done in terms of uh in terms of board action this is really uh where the board gets to vote on setting a final mill rate uh and levy and really is the kind of spendable quote on quote uh money that that school boards have a chance to really weigh in on in terms of where things end up on the budget line i did want to point out to the board on that far right hand column and these are things we've been talking about for the last few months this is just another way for us to portray this uh where you can see that we are actually uh you know that we'll have about five percent less in terms of expenditures from our local revenue stream and that comes in the form of that

008reduced mill rate we've been talking about um and did have an increase uh both in state and federal sources that will feed into that fund and i i wanted to point out to the board that that fund uh that that uh line in terms of 13 from the state is actually um another piece of those one-time aide that we've been we've been discussing with the board that we believe will end up in a spot where we'll get a one-time splash of money of about 120 per pupil uh that came out of governor evers budget uh and we do plan on spending that down this year that's where the state increase comes from uh and the federal increase is just those escrow funds and that's fairly typical statewide school districts are spending those moneys down as

009a reminder to the board we're holding on to sr3 to really make sure we have all the pieces put in place for what looks to be a rather difficult budget next year but we believe by holding on to that three million dollars plus will put us in a decent position to be able to make some make some decisions for the for the following year and this is just a you know kind of a rolled up uh version of what you will see in the final budget book that will be that all of you had a chance to take a look at prior to the meeting will be posted to our website didn't want to break down fontaine if on 27 this is just another way to organize all the things that will be summarized in

010our budget book uh and i think it's just uh you know this is about average statewide some districts are a little below this some are a little bit above it that we are a um we're a people rich and a people-heavy organization that's just how school districts run and this is this pie chart uh when you take uh salary and you take benefits and then you take that red box that says transfers about 80 percent of our overall budget goes to paying for the people that serve our students and many times community members ask for us to take a hard look at what's going on in our budget and i think this is just one way to portray the fact that this is a people-heavy budget all school budgets are many times when you get

011and we'll have difficult conversations moving forward you get to a spot where boards and communities are you know are asking folks to peck away at the edges to make difficult budget decisions lots of times those difficult decisions come in the form of salary benefits and how many people a school district employs and i think this this chart kind of shows that 80 percent of our overall budget does go towards paying the people that do the good work with our students we just kind of wanted to break that down for the board tonight next we did a little uh nine or ten year history here in terms of uh where the mill rate has ended up uh as a reminder to the board the mill rate is simply uh you know a percentage of of how

012much you pay in tax in terms of your property value so we'll go through that a little bit more this evening but you can kind of see here pre-referendum we were in the neighborhood of 1225 down to about 12 in terms of our mill rate the middle rate went up to 12 27 at 12 77 but again uh pre-referendum there were numbers being thrown around in the neighborhood of 13 25 13 30 for a potential mill rate following that referendum the mill rate we're recommending tonight is 1264 and that is the amount you pay on a thousand dollars in property value 12.64 cents next the board saw this last week and we had a good discussion regarding this overall summary sheet i did want to point to the very bottom right hand corner of this

013summary where we're actually levying less this year than we had projected in that preliminary budget and that is down to 64 million uh 600 thousand dollars and change did manage to keep that no rate stable again uh that was from a slight infusion of state and federal funds uh and the fact that we've decided to pay down a little bit extra in terms of prepayment on debt but did manage to keep the mill rate to what we presented at the annual meeting in the budget hearing and when we just moved some numbers around to do some prepayment on debt we can certainly go back to any of these board members do have questions tonight i do in the way of a packed agenda so uh before we uh actually turn this back over uh to

014dr clarity and eventually a vote i did want to again point out because i just really think it's critical for our community to understand and keeping that mill rate stable and actually a little bit lower from where it was last year we've still put the pieces in place to prepay on debt relative to that capital referendum again long-term savings on principal interest there in excess of three million dollars and we've gone through that a number of times and super pleased that the board is supportive of this strategy moving forward i believe it will give us some some flexibility and some options in our in our growing district as we continue to compete for the very best teachers and have to make sure we have facilities for students when they come to the verona area school

015district so i did want to talk through next steps as far as what would happen tonight following a board vote so you will approve a levy hopefully tonight after that and pete's already been doing a bunch of this paperwork um our board clerk in the business office will have to report our budget and the levy to dpi by november 1st that's why this meeting's happening this evening and pete will also file paperwork with our municipalities did want to take the opportunity to remind the board and we'll actually post this on our website that we tax in total seven different municipalities that all have their own process for assessing property value so i do want to make sure that folks understand that the board can control the mill rate the board can control the lobby we're

016doing that tonight now something we don't have control over is your assessed property value and i think that's important for uh folks in the community to understand that you if you you know you redid a kitchen you put on a bathroom and you have a screen and porch that landed in your backyard now over the last couple years and your property hasn't been reassessed even though we kept our mill rate down if your property value goes up uh more so than your neighbors there's a chance you see an increase in your taxes because we're just taxing versus that that assess property value um and uh we will see it looks like on average uh fitchburg homes went up in terms of assessed value greater with a greater percentage than the other municipalities that uh that

017feed into the verona area school district and there is a chance depending on the assessed value that that could be all over the board but it does look like fitchburg this year was hit a little harder on assessed value than the other municipalities that feed into the school districts i did want to make sure i called that out and we will as i said we'll at least get that summary up on our website from a past budget this evening i don't think i have anything else until we get to the superintendent closing this out and calling for a board vote i'm certainly here so is pete do you answer any questions you might have any questions from the board before we [Music] move on to a board vote are there any additional comments that you

018would like to make dr cody yes uh first thank you and again tremendous appreciation for behind the scenes and presenting a balanced budget and a fiscally responsible budget on behalf of our community and the board of education so thank you thank you for that uh before i close the superintendent's report just wanted to give quick updates on the next uh two board meets worth of superintendent reports so the board knew the direction uh that we would give him present in the form of presentations uh the new on the november first board meeting which will be from today uh you know we will have a presentation on our continuous improvement plan and planning process remember that is our number one strategy one of the two strategies for um for our work as a district this year

019that will be from an academic services team under the leadership of dr hawkins on november 15th uh the board of education and the community will receive the update on the state report card and and status um it will be very transparent that due to the release dates of the information we are going to have communication ready for our public prior prior to that um but also uh we'll make you aware that that communication before it goes out that will november 15th will also be our first student recognition so we're very excited to bring a student group here to be recognized by the board of education and talk about some of the great things we're doing in schools and we'll also have a quick update on act 43 which is the course our annual report on

020school safety so with that i would like to close the superintendent's report and turn it over to uh our board president for board business okay so any questions from the board before we ask promotions hearing none do i have is there a motion for to approve the 2021-22 budget as presented i move that we approve the 2021-2022 budget as presented we have a motion from yana is there a second a second and a second from nicole all in favor signify with i all opposed this motion passes thank you we have a second motion to approve the certification of the 2021-2022 tax levy at 64 million thousand nine hundred 615 seventy three dollars do i have a motion i move that we approve the certification of the 2021-2022 tax levy at 64 million with a mill

021rate of 12.64 thank you do i have a second to yana's motion second is that jen down there that was me down here we have a second from jen okay all in favor signify with i i all opposed the second motion passes as well thank you everybody thank you thank you guys thanks so much for your work we appreciate it thank you thank you okay um we are getting close to our interview section so i'm gonna but i am gonna ask just in case um if there's any members of the public who wish to address the board on any topic related to board work or policy they are welcome to do so at this time if you filled out and turned in a public comment form please form a line over on the right hand

022side of the stage and um your name will be called as a reminder mass must remain on while speaking speaker users are requested to limit their remarks to not more than three minutes to appoint a spokesperson if the concern is a group concern and speakers must refrain from referencing specific staff members or students during their comments are there any public comments okay so hearing that there are none um we are a few minutes early of our start time for interviews so i want to wait till 6 30 to start on those and i'll hold on doing um the kind of the intro to what we're doing with that but we can go ahead and if you don't mind we can move to um a little further down to our agenda and we can go through

023our consent agenda so the board's consent agenda we are skipping down to number seven and if we have has everyone had a chance to review the consent agenda are there any concerns here and move to approve the consent agenda with the october 18th uh meeting minutes and the october 18th workshop minutes if we have a minute i'd like to take a look at our future agenda items one of the things that was also mentioned up in the um board business is discussed future meeting dates and if we have some time now i'd like to take a look at those historically um our december meeting date have been a little bit tricky to get forums because of the closer they get to winter break um kind of runs into a fairly hectic time so i'd like

024to at least check in with the board now and see if there are any concerns with possibly moving the 20th december 20th meeting date a week earlier earlier to december 13th i have young children and therefore no life so i am fine with that which is good to know okay yep any other any other thoughts are there is there anyone where that would not work you're a very quiet board tonight i don't even know that works for me meredith thank you jana okay um i don't think we need to take a formal vote but if i could just get a general consensus if you are okay with this say aye okay if anyone's opposed again this is an informal vote let me know now and if uh hearing no concerns let's go ahead and we

025will move our october meeting dates so they are december 6th and december 13th okay and let's see it looks like we are filling in with our applicants so i'm excited to get started with our candidate interviews but we are running about we're about five minutes early if we want to take it just adjourn for a quick three-minute break and then we can meet back here and we can start right in with our um with our interviews chair you may i just good quick quick update uh board based off the uh moving of the date from december 20 to december 13th um and timing of the completion of our audit i would like to make the board aware that we would then move the audit presentation to the board of education to that december 13th date

026that was just recently approved that sounds great right thank you thank you would that in any way affect anything in january i don't know if you thought about that but would that not be the first january the first january was supposed to be the third i think are you still thinking that or not sure um i hadn't looked past the december nights since those are the ones on the calendar but we can um we could take a look and see how dates fall january is another tricky one since we also have the um wasbee state convention yep so we will continue to evaluate our calendar as we go okay but let's we'll keep that on on the horizon okay i will not be here on the third day oh well yeah that's good okay good

027to know okay let's see let's take just a couple minutes uh for a break we'll be back here in um four minutes okay [Music] okay thank you everybody for the quick adjournment and it looks like we have all of our candidates here so i'm excited to get started first i just want to say that i truly believe it is a privilege to serve our community students and families in this capacity as a board member and i'm inspired to see so many people willing to dedicate their time and their energy and their talents to uh serving in this in this uh this way that i really feel is such a worthy cause for our kids and for our community so thank you first of all um to everybody who has put the time in to to

028apply and shown up tonight and we're excited to hear from everybody um with the number of applicants that we're interviewing we want to be respectful of everybody's time while still having a sufficient amount of time to get to know everybody the first round of interviews tonight will be fairly straightforward we will randomly select the order of interviews each candidate will join us on the stage right over here at the microphone um you'll have the opportunity to give a brief introduction to tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're interested in being appointed to the board and then we'll ask a few questions there'll be a copy of the questions that's up at the microphone for you each candidate will have seven minutes total with intro questions and if there's a you know a

029time for a closing statement that'd be great i'll have a timer going so you can see how much time you have it'll show green and it'll show a time countdown at a minute and a half left or a minute and 15 seconds left it'll flip to orange so if you don't see the numbers and you just see it flip to orange you know that you've got about a minute and 15 seconds for kind of closing thoughts um let's see after all of the interviews the board is going to select no less than two and no more than five candidates to bring back for final interviews next week on the first so if any candidate isn't able to stay until the end of the interviews um i'll send an email to all candidates just letting everyone

030know who will be coming back for a second round and for the next steps um for the board i want to just point out what you guys have at your table you've got just a list of applicants in alphaorder if you have anything you want to take notes or anything second page with the one that says board member name at the top this will be your ballot you'll just mark your three candidates that you want to bring back and i have a feeling it will be a very hard decision and the final is you also have a list of the questions okay so our order tonight um will be and i'm going to pick them as we go we have carissa huntington will be first rick arts will be second younley rush will be third

031joe haines will be fourth i feel like i'm doing lottery corby white will be fifth chelsea belinski will be sixth paul schaller will be seventh chris hinchey will be eighth leota stanley will be ninth jennifer kosich will be 10th and megan finch will be 11th so if we could pass those down to jen and meredith quick question do we need to submit our notes or anything no those are just if you need them for you they are personal notes um jen would you do me a favor and would you read out the order one more time for us our first interviewee will be carissa huntington second will be rick arts third yonley rush for joe haines five corby white six chelsea belinsky seven paul schaller eight chris henshu nine leota stanley ten jennifer kotech and

032sorry if i'm mispronouncing i tried to listen everything you said meredith and eleven is megan finch thank you so much for repeating that course okay um if we are ready if carissa could come on up and again we'll have questions up at the microphone so you don't have to memorize everything that's being asked but we will have jana start off with questioning and carissa you're going to be the first person to tell me if this is visible and if this is something that you can see from over at the microphone from here okay well that's a good sign nothing like this glaring countdown right in your face okay all right so let me know when you're ready and thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you thanks for having me um so if

033you would like to start by giving us an introduction to who you are and why you're interested in the board sure hi i'm carissa huntington obviously um i have three kids who attend the pre-program or the tweet program at sugar creek my husband is latino and a bilingual education was the number one criteria for us when looking at a school in terms of my interest in the board i think um so my husband and i both graduated from verona and we felt like we had a world-class education and so when we came back from washington dc to the madison area we were only looking at madison and verona because of the bilingual program and we were really disappointed in some of the great school stats that we saw as we were deciding between schools um

034and so especially those around equity right um and so as a parent of three latino children i had to pause about is this really the best school district that i where i want to send my kids um and eventually obviously i ended up here in verona and i'm very happy with that choice um i was very impressed with your decision to hire dr clarity for superintendent and i do really like what i see in the strategic plan and the goals that are set out there and i would like to be a part of helping the school district achieve those goals so i believe that i have very valuable experience that i can bring to the board um i have degrees in business and education i have 20 years of experience in non-profit business administration i've

035served on five uh the board of directors for five organizations for the past 10 years i've been managing federal grants that support students as they explore careers and apply to university in the united states and my experience annually i manage about 100 projects worth 6 million dollars so i specialize in financial and people management as well as monitoring and evaluation and i really am committed to data-driven monitoring and evaluation and feel like that is probably my greatest strength that i would bring to the board as you look to achieve your strategic plan perfect thank you so i will ask all of the questions and there are four so the first one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent

036or administration so i think the role of the school board member is to represent the community and the best interest of the children the administration obviously does that as well but they are in the day-to-day weeds of like getting it done and i think that we are the check and balance as the board member so that would be sort of the basic answer there um it's more governance it's more looking at the big picture perfect thank you question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision i really want every child to get the world class education that i received and i think that that is really important that we are really looking at the needs of

037every single kid and making sure that there is not disparities between what some kids are getting and what other kids are getting in the school district um and again i am i do have a lot of experience in sort of tracking and making sure that we have achievable objectives that we are really looking at um in terms of like gathering data and making sure that we're digging down to make sure that we understand what the issues are so that we can set that direction really clearly perfect thank you what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues um you know growth right i mean i think that's kind of perpetual in verona i think that growth

038is a really making sure that as we grow that that's a balanced district that represents everybody that we are able to incorporate um all the students and figure out how to make space for them i mean i know we just built a brand new high school and that's lovely and beautiful and i love it but i know that we will continue to have that as a challenge thank you and final question if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring of 2022 election yeah i'll admit that i submitted my application to the board and then realized that i was running like becoming a politician not really but like you know like it was like an afterthought but yes i have uh i am prepared to do that

039yes perfect and i'm not sure how much time you have left but those are two all of my questions so closing statement is yours oh i did not come prepared with a closing statement i really um want to thank everybody here for the work that you guys do and um for the time that you're taking in in um finding somebody for the board i love that there's so much competition honestly um and i hope that you guys select the correct candidate that that matches what your needs are thank you so much carissa we appreciate it and we appreciate you being willing to be the first to break that i have a choice right [Laughter] we appreciate it thank you so much um for for being here tonight and for putting your name in the in

040the hat our next interview is rick arts and i've got to figure out how to get my timer back to zero here hello looks like you might have brought your own cheering squad tonight excellent decision okay so thank you so much for being here tonight um as you heard we are going to have time for an intro and then jana will ask some questions so i am going to turn it over to you if you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what motivated you to run for the board sounds good i'm rick arts i'm a wisconsin native i've lived in the dane county area for about 20 years since i moved here for school essentially and um my motivation is very simple i really just want to help um i was

041inspired touring the new high school and reflecting back on you know my experience in in public school education in green bay compared to what is evidently available here for our kids is just really incredible and you know thinking about my professional career which is admittedly very scientific very technical i've spent a lot of time in in the chemical industries and pharmaceutical industries um but also a lot of time managing people projects processes that are you know very very expensive very time consuming and uh but also very important right we're working on developing medicines for for diseases that have yet to be able to be treated so i feel like those skills would translate very well i have a lot of experience managing people directly as well as larger programs and initiatives and i just want

042all the kids to have the same types of opportunities that i've had perfect thank you question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration yeah so at the risk of copying it it is it is being the voice of the community and also a role of oversight and ensuring accountability um that we're living up to the mission and living up to the values that are set forth by the board and and not being afraid to raise your hand and say you know i don't think uh this is something that's that's being done correctly or how can we improve this or whatever the case may be so it's it's a it's an accountability check on um on

043the taxpayers uh wishes and and uh and desires question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this mission vision not mentioned sorry about that no problem um yeah i mean i think there's there's just so much opportunity when i was walking through that new school you know there was there was more opportunity in the wood shop than i had in my entire high school um when i was a kid and so i think we we take that we build on that we extend it into you know what are all the different possibilities and potential futures for our children that they might want to do and how do we set up our education system to be able to

044support that because the world is substantially more complicated than it was uh when when we were in in school and i can i can see the day when you know they're going to be significantly smarter than me and be able to do whatever it is that they want and so we just have to be prepared to to support that great question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues so it's i mean growth is the obvious it's it's that is the major problem i mean we're dealing with it on the private side professionally we're you know building all these plants in verona and i'm hiring hundreds of people and i don't know where i'm

045going to find all of them similarly like we've got all these students coming through where you're going to put them how you're going to educate them feed them the sports teams like all the different pieces and parts that go into that um it's really complicated um secondly i think you know the role of the role of technology and the role of of sort of you know automation and and the different things that that our kids are into and quite frankly just much much better at us than we are um you know embracing that and being on the leading edge of it rather than catching up i think would be a second challenge perfect and i can't write fast enough all right question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run

046for office in the spring 2022 election yes absolutely it i had kind of a similar epiphany like oh yeah i would have to do that pretty quickly uh but yeah i you know i made a job change in the beginning of this year i've freed up a lot of time um for for extra things i guess so i'd be prepared to do that perfect those are all of my questions feel free to finish with a closing statement absolutely wow i managed two whole minutes also do not have a closing statement like i said i i really just want to help um i've been through a lot of successful programs um you know new drug approvals new commercial launches it's very rewarding it's a ton of work um but that's what it takes that's what it

047takes to really do something great um and so i'm prepared to lend you know the skills that i've acquired over the last you know 20 years or so to to also help our our kids in our district thank you so much i appreciate you coming in tonight and we really appreciate again your willingness to put your time and energy uh out for for the board this is very very we all feel this is such a worthy time and we really appreciate anyone who's willing to to join us up here so thank you so much thank you thanks thank you okay our third candidate is ms yanley rush i'm getting the hang of the timer okay i need to get the hang of asking questions and writing at the same time i'm doing a good job

048thanks it's harder hi how are you good how are you good thank you so much for joining us tonight thank you it's so nice to be able to meet everybody in person after i've been able to read so much about everyone so we are appreciative of your time tonight so i'm gonna let you start off by introducing yourself and letting us know what motivated you to um apply for the board position sure so my name is yan li i did my master degree and my phd degree at uw medicine in the department of curriculum and instruction my focus is global education and language education so before i go into grad school i was a elementary school teacher and middle school teacher for nine years in both china and the us and five of those years

049i was a vice principal in the school have 2 000 students so that's my education background so i have a kid here at sixth grade and i just came from the conference that here and i'm very happy one of the things motivated me to run this uh seat is as i say like my kids are studying here and he has some social emotional issues i always struggling should i move him to the private school and i keep him in verona and he is an amazing student now and um just like uh the conference with the teacher today everything is exceed expectation so that is one of my motivation i want to advocate for the school uh and also like as a first generation immigrant i came here when i was 29 so barely speak english

050so um it's hard to think about a place as your second home but i definitely think luna is my second home because the people are so nice here i did my uh phd dissertation in the verona community i interviewed like 40 different families across different socio-economic and laser background and i found like uh there are some families certainly need more resources to help their kid to succeed in school so that is another motivation for me to run perfect question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does this role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration uh i think the law as a school board is like a representative community represent the parents uh so and like make sure their voice can hurt so that is

051my main thinking question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision um my vision is like i help every kid like i succeed in this like diverse like a globalization era so um i really want because like my background is like a global education with the experience in different countries about education so i really want to use my skills and knowledge to help our kid to succeed to see the have more like an intercultural competence and become like a new generation of global citizens question three what do you see as the major issue facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues i think the first on

052the strategic plan is like our personalized learning for every student i think the plan like is great but i know the implementation could be very difficult so as the school board i would really like to advocate for teachers like a professional development and also how to improve like uh families especially those like a minority minority low-income families resources and how can help them to assess like a more educational resources and also increase the diversity about the workforce and also um attract more like a diverse population into velona perfect and last question if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election uh i would put them maybe so far because if i uh get selected i will see like how the work here can support my

053vision of education perfect thank you and with whatever time is left on there you can give us your closing statement okay so i really love education that's why i like my career and my education is all about education i also have a personal staff and i name it at tokyo as like a education utopia uh in this staff i send like a teachers from the us and to different countries they're helping the kids leaving a poverty to learn english so that is part of my dream and i will continue to do it and also there's also very personal reason because my husband worked in epic and he developed a team like a hosting team started from five people to 400 so lots of people moving to verona and also me as and negan working i

054also because my personal work i am a teaching faculty at uw madison i also work with like a different school district to have a partnership to build my program as well so lots of people come to me and ask oh should i chose the verona school district or middleton school district and i always say absolutely vlona however i see the doubt from the eyes and i usually not happy for that so i want to change that i want to people coming to verona to settle in here just like me and i know i was one of those lucky immigrants here because i got all this love from my neighborhood i living in a wonderful neighborhood in verona and my plan was i finished school and then i will leave to wisconsin because to call right

055now i love here so that's why i want to um contribute build like what i know my skill my vision to this area to these people thank you thank you so much for your time we really appreciate you coming in tonight it's nice to meet you our next interview is mr joe haynes all right i jinxed myself when i said i figured out how to set this better but okay there hello hi joe how are you good just like as we've kind of been doing we're going to give you some time to introduce yourself and explain who you are and what was your motivation for applying for the board and then i'll turn it over to janna for some questions so perfect you're ready i'll start the timer you bet it's really nice to meet

056you all my name is joe haynes i'm a parent of five different district students uh in three schools we have a middle schooler two elementary schoolers and twin boys in the pre-k program the district pre-k program so have uh i i bring a perspective as a parent to students at multiple different levels across the district which i think is is one of the things that initially interested me in pursuing this but uh more broad than that my wife and i have just loved living here we've lived in verona for i think nine years and we have been looking for different ways to try and give back to our community because we do love it here so much and what i think initially attracted me was this would have been back in late summer of 2020

057we had attended virtually several of the board meetings as i think a lot of parents did as we were trying to figure out how we were going to navigate this environment and i was just so impressed with the way that the board handled that in some sometimes some tense situations and i thought this is within my skill set i'm an attorney for uw health and one of the things that i have a lot of experience with in that role is managing uh difficult situations or providing rational analysis in the face of sometimes emotional or tense situations and seeing what's been going on nationally thankfully not so much locally right now but in terms of uh schools and school boards in particular becoming a new battleground for certain cultural wars that that have been going on

058i see that as a problem that we could potentially face here in our community and and i think that my professional skills uh align with being able to handle that um and in addition to that like i said the perspective of having kids of lots of different ages in the school district i i think would give me a perspective to be able to help out question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration sure uh in addition to the great answers everybody else is given i'd say that the main role of the school board is is in governance it's oversight making sure that the resources are stewarded appropriately and in setting the strategic vision as opposed

059to the administration which is involved in how to execute that strategic vision so taking that feedback from the community helping that inform the strategic vision and then allowing your and empowering your administrators and your staff to be able to execute that question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision sure when my wife and i were looking around the greater madison area for where we wanted to settle our family uh the thing we primarily looked at was the quality of the schools and compared them and we chose verona because at the time it really was the what we felt the the best schools district in the greater madison area and since then it's only developed more

060we have this beautiful new high school so i'd like to see uh verona continue to foster that and improve upon their really excellent reputation in the community is having great schools both because that will bring people in and benefit the community and from a broader standpoint and also it'll help the kids who are already here i really did like the part of the strategic plan that the goal is to really help every student achieve their individual goals and to fit in in a broader community thank you question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues sure i'd say too number one would be balancing the role of technology in education i think we've seen

061technologies growing exponentially and the ability to leverage that to improve more efficient delivery of education is really is really positive but at the same time the risks that come with digital life have grown exponentially too i did see reference in the strategic plan which i really appreciated to fostering digital safety which as a as a parent of a preteen that's like foremost on our minds is how do we balance that how do we let them get the benefits of technology without getting all the burdens that come with it so that's one and in terms of what the board can do to foster that is determine how to balance those interests and how to incorporate them into a strategic plan what value do we place on technology and what value do we place on protection against

062the risks that come with technology that's really should be a reflection of the community standards for how what level of risk we're willing to tolerate the second um um is to i think would be staffing i mean i think that comes with growth is as there's growth in the community you're going to need more staffing but also how do we continue to meet our current staffing needs and and provide the support that we need to for our existing staff and and attract new staff to come in great and question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election sure yeah i mean i think like everybody else it's not the the thing that we would seek out and and love to do but yeah

063i think so great and with the time remaining please give us your closing statement i i just really appreciate having the opportunity to come here and meet you all and and to talk about the board like i said i was very proud of our community as i as i attended the board meetings that i attended to see how well we handled a very challenging situation and continue to handle and i just want to give back however i can and be of help so i really appreciate it well thank you so much for tonight for coming in it's been wonderful to meet you and we really appreciate you taking the time to come and speak with us tonight thanks so much thank you okay our next interview is uh corby white so come on up and

064everyone's doing excellently on time good evening hello thank you for joining us tonight we uh we're dealing with a little bit of a wasp issue so just don't mind us you know just as one does in you know the middle of board meetings no big deal this is other duties as assigned in my contract so thank you for joining us thank you for having me so as you've heard we're going to give you some time to introduce yourself tell us what motivated you to apply for the board jana is going to ask you some questions okay and we look forward to hearing from you and about you so i'm going to start the timer all right well i'm corby white can you hear me okay i feel like the mask is covered um i'm the

065state of wisconsin's health program manager so i manage all of the health insurance plans that offer uh insurance for state and local governments for the entire state so it's my busy time of the year open enrollment as you probably know i'm also a proud verona resident since 2004 bought my house right around the corner from here a poplar way i'm a member of the hundred black men of madison where our strategic goal is pretty similar to verona's where uh we strive to offer and improve the quality of life for all students through the areas of education i'm the vice captain of the black men run madison chapter and lastly uh most important and what relates most to this i'm a member of the dane county restorative justice program and that was my number one driving

066force for me wanting to apply to be a member of the school board i noticed when i was dealing with especially these young black and brown men in the program that when i would talk to them and when they would respond that in a lot of cases they had trouble even constructing cohesive sentences or coherent sentences i should say and then when we would have them write letters of apology as part of their repair harm agreement there was obviously a disconnect there with the writing the even the math you can see it in some cases where they had to construct uh invoices to pay back to repair harm so i started to do analytical uh learning with myself and with members of the madison metro school district and i said you know show me what's

067happening with these students of color and the lbgtq students and students with disabilities show me statistics of what's going on with their learning since the pandemic and it was disgusting when i saw the reading levels the writing levels and what was going on and i said okay let me get involved with my district and see what's going on so i started to reach out to teachers in my neighborhood a lot of teachers live on my block and i asked them what's going on and they solidified what i found out analytically that there's a huge problem here and how do we address it by fostering those authentic relationships with these families with these students it's not going to be done by simply telling them or teaching them these students need somebody that they can relate to

068that they have trust in to be able to let themselves be vulnerable and know what's needed so that's why i'm here thank you perfect question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration sure to me what the school board member is is the foot soldier so to speak for the superintendent they are the per people who go out to the community to check the posts and find out what's going on to gather that information or the even the analytical information bring that back to the superintendent and figure out how to share that information and come up with policies to implement and address what's going on perfect question two what is your vision for education in this

069community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision sure what i would like to see is verona become even more diverse when i first moved here in 2004 i'm originally from watts california and also from uh parts of milwaukee and came here because of uw i'm a uw graduate and when i moved to verona i noticed my block was more diverse than it is now and that that struck me as odd so what i'd like to see is a more diverse community diverse educational system and i think making it all inclusive i have those skills to do that because i was part of what was called the chapter 220 program don't know if everyone's familiar with that in milwaukee it was a program where they would

070bus kids like me from the inner city to better school districts the one that i went to in exchange those students from the better school districts would go to milwaukee some of those would it failed for obvious reasons but i know what it's like to be those kids coming in from fitchburg being bus to verona and having that dichotomy of a different cultural experience when they get here and then when they go back home and having to deal with that so i think i have those skills to to be able to relate to them to foster that again authentic relationship with them their families their guardian whoever the case may be to let me in and see what those educational inequities are so that we can get to those resources that they need to make

071sure that these kids are successful great question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues i think the major issue is educational equity finding out what those resources and getting access to those resources that these students need in order to be successful first we have to learn what they need in order to then go out and get those resources for them i think diversity and inclusion is a huge issue i was talking to a teacher last week that teaches at stoner prairie and she told me every monday they have a diversity training i said that's great what's the problem she said we're the only school in the district that does it i said are

072you serious she said yeah we're the most diverse school in the district so i said okay so what i'm hearing is by the time these kids get to high school now we have cultural shock because they're now they're in a system where a situation where they see this diversity the the teachers may not know how to deal with it at the high school level they weren't the teachers that started on a prairie going through these trainings so i think that's that's a major issue that needs to be addressed if we're going to do it at one school it has to be done or should be done correctly at all schools in the district question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election absolutely

073thank you and with the time that you have left please give us your closing statement i have 15 seconds i think relatability fosters and creates accountability um these students and their families need someone that they can relate to that they let their guards down that they're able to talk to and then figure out how to address this educational inequity situation talk about timing excellent work thank you so much for joining us tonight it's been fantastic to hear from you and to meet you and we really appreciate you coming to join us thank you for having me thank you [Music] okay our next interview is um chelsea balinsky yes we can i have to we are moving through these wow [Music] well welcome thank you for joining us tonight we really appreciate you taking the time

074to come and meet with us today and so as you heard we'll give some time for you to introduce yourself explain your motivations for applying for the school board position and then answer some questions from yana and we'll start the timer so are you ready okay okay i am probably the least intuitive candidate out of everybody who's come here you've talked to some really incredible people tonight who have had some really deep thoughts on a lot of great things i am the stay-at-home mother of seven children we homeschool [Laughter] so i think that it is very fair for all of you to ask yourselves why i would care to be on this stage tonight i do have children that take some classes at the high school from time to time and we're really grateful for

075that resource because you just can't do marching band at home in your living room it doesn't work um but i toured the new high school and i also you know how there are a whole bunch of little things that coalesce into a decision that you make so i could bore you with all the details but i'll just i'll just give you two i toured the new high school and it was beautiful it was amazing it could have been a community college it was so well appointed but there were messages all over the place that made me feel like i did not belong there because i am not liberal i'm not a liberal and there are a lot of liberal messages there and i felt like those messages belonged there but i noticed the lack of

076a counter message if that makes any sense and i don't feel like education should ever be politicized i feel like if people aren't given all perspectives on an issue they're not being educated they're being indoctrinated people should not be taught what to think they should be taught how to think and as i watched the library and looked at the books being offered i was grateful to see a lot of those books there that were books that i personally don't agree with because i feel like those books have to be read people have to tackle these issues but some of the books that i would like to see people read were not there and i felt like i want to see both i want to see it all i want to see everything represented short of

077indecency in pornography i think it should be in a high school library i really do believe it belongs there and so i didn't see myself reflected in the school at all um and then the other thing is as i was looking at the things that were being asked of me to apply for this school board i felt like i was being told what to think in order to apply and i felt like there was almost a dog whistle going on if you do not think this way please do not apply for the school board and i don't agree with everything that is being done on the school board although i have to say that nobody applies for a school board if they don't care people apply for a school board because they want to give

078back to their community they really want to invest this is not a high paying job you know so i really respect everyone who's here but i wanted to give a counter-balancing voice i wanted people who think like me to at least have somebody on the stage who thinks like me do i feel like i'm the best representative for people who think like me probably not i'm not very glib generally i know what i wanted to say in a conversation two days after it happened but i really want the opportunity to present my side of the story i want to be here because i feel like my people who think like me need a voice too i feel like the most important diversity that you can have is not the immutable characteristic kind of diversity which

079really matters but the intellectual diversity where people can think and share their thoughts freely and speak their voices and be heard and where there is respect and kindness and a striving to understand the other person's perspective even if deep down you know you will never ever agree with them so that's why i'm here great thank you question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration i think that everybody who has spoken so far has done such an excellent job of covering this that there's very little that i can add and considering that i'm speaking to the school board i don't think i can elucidate it for you but i do believe that we are there to

080speak for the community and um again that's why i want to be here so great question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision so my vision for education in this community would just be that people would have access to a broad range of education i feel like the education that's being offered here is excellent but i feel like it's skewed and i want everything that's being presented but i want everything presented and that would be my vision that people would feel like they could speak out and not be afraid of censure so walking through the high school i saw this beautiful mural with the labor fest up in a whole bunch of different colors and

081i saw a whole bunch of people of color who had accomplished amazing things in their lives but i don't think you would see clarence thomas in that lineup because i don't feel like the person who put that mural up would really like clarence thomas but i wanted to be able to see somewhere on the hall somewhere in some window something that said look conservative black people do amazing things too i wanted that i wanted people to feel like in order to succeed it doesn't mean you succeed only in one way it means that you give back at the highest level of which you are capable of giving back regardless of where you are at on the spectrum and anyway there you go perfect thank you question three what do you see as the major issue

082or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues diversity of thought and opinion is one i don't know if you can narrow it down to one i mean there really is the growth issue isn't there staffing issues are huge um what's going on with school boards all over the country that is just incredible i cannot believe how out of control that has gotten to be there are a lot of issues and they all really matter and i think the hardest part is juggling all of those needs and getting it right like what what do we need to focus on now what balls can we not afford to drop that's a tricky one and question four if appointed to the board are you willing and

083prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election i am with the caveat that i would want your permission to do so first if you've worked with me for a little while and you've decided it's insufferable i would rather know that before i went to all the effort of running great and with the time that you have remaining please offer us your closing statement um i just want to thank you for the graciousness in which my application has been handled and i just wanted to say how fun it is to see the way you interact with each other up here i you are all very different people and yet i can see that you have fun together and i really like thank you so much for joining us tonight it's been fantastic to meet

084you and we really appreciate the time that you've spent to come in and and talk to us and introduce yourself so thank you take care and good luck you guys there really are a lot of amazing people out in the audience tonight thank you um i've had a request if we could take a five-minute intermission that would be i appreciate everybody's patience um is that okay five minutes that'd be great okay let me guess you asked for the intermission i did nothing i'm just saying if you had a request um when we get back five minutes um if we can return at 7 25 um scholler will be up on deck thank you okay thanks everybody for your patience we appreciate it so very much um our next interview will be with mr paul schaller

085so come on down hi welcome we appreciate you coming tonight nice to meet all of you nice to meet you as well so as we'll go through as we with other candidates we'll have you give your introduction to yourself and then tell us what's motivated you to apply for the board and then jana will ask some questions so if you are ready well i'm ready we'll get started i grew up in the district i dairy farm so i actually last year i was able to purchase the farm that i was born on actively dairy farm so it's fairly intensive work but i guess through my neighbors and in the community i've always been i guess the idea of serving your community has been instilled in me um my neighbors are the durst brothers and one

086was always on the school board for a long time for the better part of two decades and the other one has been on a town board pardon me i'm a little nervous here this is a little involved in my wheelhouse for being a dairy farmer um but at a younger age after college i had already come to the conclusion that i wanted to to serve and i always had an interest in governance um through college that had kind of shifted more towards psychology sociology people i guess um which i truly believe kind of stemmed from trying to understand cattle so i don't intend to make any more of a connection than that but um yeah i just i find people very interesting um i have found a great deal of interest in learning about other

087people's opinions um and understanding opinions that i don't necessarily agree with um currently i've got two children in the district which is why i have more of an interest now than in the past to serve i think it's important to to have as many perspectives to um to to be the voice of the community i guess um to make sure that everyone is being heard and i guess that's that's about it for for an introduction perfect thank you question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that differ from the role of the superintendent or administration the role of a school board member i guess there's a few bigger things um governance is one um to oversee to make sure that i guess to double check that

088everyone in the district are doing their job and that children are succeeding um number two would be truly a voice of the community um yeah reaching out and making sure that you're not only sharing your own opinion but opinions of those around you and finally um be kind of a long-range planning um would be more of the big picture items rather than the actual operating or operation of the schools great question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision my vision for the for the education of this community um i guess the biggest thing that that i had gained from high school in college was experiencing different things my animal science degree didn't have much to

089do with sociology didn't have much to do with psychology didn't have much to do with law it's precisely zero but by having those courses available i was able to find interest that i never knew i had so i think that is one of the most important things that the district can do is have the widest array whether it is trips overseas whether it's i mean it's trades um art it's it's everything and it's it's you can't simply focus only on stem because you lose part of yourself if if you don't have the exploration i guess is the best word for it to truly understand yourself great thank you question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in

090addressing those issues i guess the the current major issue is kind of balancing the education or the in-person education versus um protecting pardon me the idea of colvid i guess right now i mean that that's this very short-term issue that is facing us it is making sure that we can maximize the amount of in-person education with me having very young children i can totally tell you that it's very important to have as much time as possible though we need to make sure that we're not going to be a burden on the society or in the community as a whole by putting ourselves at risks our children at risk when we don't need to um longer term it might may the economic um or how our economy is actually shifting and changing over time in farming

091i've seen a number of difficulties that i just had never foreseen in the last 12 to 18 months and i think we are starting to see today issues that we were expecting a year ago and it i think it's coming to a surprise to a lot of us so i think economic changes will be a huge issue in the future and adapting and making sure that we have adequate plans to adequately fund our schools great and last question if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election yes i am i'm ready to are prepared to run for office in the spring uh as i've said before i've i've had an interest in in boards and governance in these types of things and i yeah i

092would definitely be interested great and with whatever is left on the timer please offer us your closing statement i guess a few things i just would like to share um i have what i think makes me different i really have a passion for learning i really am interested in in the operation of the board i'm not as up-to-date as many of these people i believe but i'm really passionate i want to learn um and another thing is i not that anyone else doesn't but i do have a very um significant interest in understanding the opinions of those that disagree with me because our world as a whole right now is a little bit too you disagree with me i don't want to yeah it's just your opinions don't matter and that is kind of to

093the detriment of everyone because there's something to learn from every person i've ever talked to so thank you very much thank you so much for coming here and speaking with us tonight it's been fantastic to get to know you so you really appreciate it thank you thank you thank you and just if anyone out there sees us all kind of like dodging there's another wasp floating around so we um we're gonna get it we already saw you ready with your legal pad yes always ready with the legal pad that's a good sign okay um our next interview will be with chris henshew i think i have the questions that arise at this point right i don't i wouldn't i would never guess and now that i've probably frightened off any of the applicants from coming

094up here knowing that we're dodging wasps um we appreciate that you're willing to come sit with us i'm not allergic forewarned okay wonderful thank you for coming to talk with us tonight as you've noticed we're going to do the same yep introduce yourself let us know what motivated you to apply for the board then jana will ask some questions and we'll have some time for a closing statement perfect so if you are ready i am get started thank you chris sent you i have some notes i might reference here a couple times but uh born in madison um lived most of my life here in madison um went to madison memorial high school and i'll come back to that but then i also attended uw madison civil engineering degree and my wife and i moved

095to verona specifically for the school district um as i've seen the decline of a memorial for example which at the time of my graduation was the top one of the top three in the state um it was concerning to me that the madison school district had declined and so that's kind of the specific driver why we came to verona we live in a new neighborhood out here i have two young boys in a first grader and a pre-k my younger sister lives two blocks from in the same neighborhood my older sister lives two blocks same neighborhood next door to my parents so we're all my brother's in germantown i don't know what's wrong with him but um so i have a lot of nieces one nephew in the district as well so making sure they're

096scholastically achieving is very important to me personally i'm an entrepreneur i have written and published in the tune of 14 and counting patents i also do cell tower work so over the covet duration i do work in rural communities in wisconsin to build broadband internet so i've gone to probably a hundred tom board meetings to learn about their needs and accesses and so i've empathized with a lot of those folks who had little to no internet access as they were homeschooling and working remotely so i know the challenges that they're faces and and it comes back to um you know how we are so lucky and prepared here in verona and again then finally what really drove me to want to become part of the board is i've always been a very active parent um

097my my parents were very active coached every sport i ever played in i now have have coached my both my boys and every sport they played in and as i saw this opening coming along i said okay i'm there athletically what can i do scholastically i want to get involved and help them to be the best successes that they can be as well as their peers as well as their their family members in the community so that's kind of my intro and why i'm here tonight great question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that role differ from the role of the superintendent or administration i i foresee or i see the board um looking to help reinforce and establish a culture a culture of administrators

098and educators set expectations and with those expectations measure results um i would be the first one after doing a remote learning last year i'm not an educator i have no education in doing that i have no desire to do that they're very very well only trained and um people who like to really to be honest with you so i i foresee them um you know helping to reinforce the ideas and roles that they are trying to implement to teach all these little learners what to do and be an oversight and results committee great question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision so my vision is to continue the great work that you guys are doing

099now i think diversity is whether it's social economic geographic scholastic i think the diversity that has been established and is being implemented throughout the the district right now is excellent i think with my background traveling the state of wisconsin seeing a lot of things being an entrepreneur being a constant learner i can help bring in new ideas and help support and implement those as well question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues one issue that i am quite concerned about i would just label is complacency i think that whether in being a coach of children and seeing you know how much the children know from a scholastic they're all into it but they

100don't know how to do much of any of it part of that is hey that's what you're there to do but i also see parents being complacent the parents not taking the ball out to the with the kid or sitting down with them and doing their school work um so i think i don't want to see us be a society of complacency you know how many job openings are open right now and how many people are at home i think is a problem um so i want to make sure that um we are helping to support whether kid wants to go to college let's set them up the best to be in college if they want to be um working in the minds let's let them work in the minds but let's set them up

101for what they want to do college isn't always the answer there are other opportunities that are great fits question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election yeah very simply i wouldn't be here if i wasn't so yes great and with the time that you have remaining please offer us your closing statement yeah um so again appreciate the opportunity um had never really frankly even thought about doing this until i saw the email come out and and then being involved in the sports side of things wanting to get in scholastically um but i i am concerned i'm concerned with the the world that we the environment that we live in for our children um i don't think there's a parent or an educator

102out there that can say technology can be a a blessing and a crotch i have concerns that children can't necessarily independently play as well as they could when i grew up or probably any of us um so i think that they're they're dealing with a lot whether it's covid whether it's critical race theory stuff that everyone wants to talk about or school boards you know those are all big big problems but the children see it the children see us reacting to it and and i'm concerned about how that is impacting them um socially emotionally so i want to be there to to help support them in any way that i can well thank you so much for your time tonight thank you for coming and letting us get a chance to get to know you

103and we really appreciate that yep thank you thank you thank you everybody's doing a great job on time time i know i'm very impressed um our next interview will be with mr lee of the stanley all right hello hello nice to see you tonight thank you as well thank you for joining us we've already warned everyone about the wasps so now you know i have my pen just in case no epidural as we've done with other candidates we'd like to hear you introduce yourself and let us know what motivated you to apply for the board and then jana will ask you some questions so if you're ready we'll just jump right in leota stanley i'm a long long long time madisonian and verona taxpayer so i live in madison but i vote in geronia's verona

104school district i came to school here from milwaukee been in madison since 74. oh my god and um been around the block a few times served as a firefighter and a paramedic for the city um i was an athlete at the university i sold insurance i drove uber i worked currently at the urban league of greater madison and i work there as an employment and training specialist i work with fathers as well i work with men some as young as 20 and some as old as 64. and when i work with them i find out that a lot of them took a wrong turn and the wrong turn in their lives caused them to come see me and a lot of them don't have jobs a lot of them have been incarcerated a lot of

105them have no driver's license and a lot of them live potentially those that are with me those men that i see live with women where they're not on a lease and so i asked myself the question what happened and a lot of it happens from this start in school at an early age and part of my reason for being here is to how can we nip some of that in the bud how can we change mindsets how can we change attitudes how can they have direction in their lives where they can see a future so that a lot of people look out a window instead of in a mirror and just only see themselves so my reason for being here is to be a part of a board that can help make decisions to change

106the lives of those that might be able to be productive in a democratic society great thank you question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that world differ from the role of the superintendent or administration um i think the role of the board is to provide education and resources and do it in an equitable fashion to anybody regardless of gender income creed race to to be a member of that board is to help facilitate bring to the table ideas thoughts diverse opinions so that you can reach that end i think the board also should work as a unit and uh just think about what the expectation of the students are and not necessarily the strategic moves that the choices that the staff and superintendent might make

107thank you question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help the asd achieve this vision um i think that there's a lot of untapped potential in students and there's seeds within that um teachers staff everybody needs to just water those seeds there has to be options choices clubs sports arts whatever can be used to help a child come to know who they are and give them education on top of that um if we uh plant if we water those seeds then we can help those students remember us as teachers and i was a teacher as well um you can ask the question who is the vice president of the united states from most years and nobody could tell you but

108you talk about a teacher that helped you when you were growing up you can remember those names just like that miss van braun robert verbig i can remember those teachers and so teachers make a difference in in students lives and and i think that's what we ought to do question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues i i would say diversity my daughter was a teacher he is a teacher she's in nashville tennessee i went to visit her it was predominantly black school i walked down the halls and everybody was engaged listening to the teachers they were doing projects uh silence and i said to myself after being in a lot of different

109schools over 30 years in the madison school districts and surrounding areas i said what is the difference even working here at verona schools i would see students overtaking classes and i wanted to know why that was and a lot of it because it was african-american students i must say a lot of them just didn't respect teachers they didn't respect authority because a lot of them didn't see themselves in the staff and i think that that's a big issue uh with edi that students need to see themselves no matter where they go and the more that the board is diverse the arctic of it the more that the staff is diverse the optic of it it gives a warmer environment and then you can have that mutual respect that authentic relationship with the community and you

110can have critical conversations without any uh pushback because you just get to talk as a family and so i think that's it okay cool thank you question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election yes yes i am great and with the time that you have left please offer us your closing statement well one thing is that the talent that was just here that you interviewed we got to find some strategic way to use all of that i believe that students need to have inspiration to have aspiration to get a good education so that they can participate in a democratic diverse society and so i just think that we can contribute to that thank you so much for coming and joining us tonight

111we really appreciate getting the chance to get to know you and to hear from you and and we thank you for your time and i wasn't very nervous thank you thank you okay um let's see how are we we are doing excellent on time oops i'm not doing excellent with my timer but that's an issue i'll figure out um our next interview is with uh jennifer caustic and jennifer you'll have to correct me if i am mispronouncing your name and if so i apologize okay coming yeah from a steer christensen i'm half the time steyer i'm half time you never know okay it is thank you for joining us tonight we appreciate you taking the time to come out and meet with us um as with everyone else we're going to have you introduce yourself

112let us get to know you a little bit tell us what motivated you to apply for the board and then jana will ask you some questions okay okay um i know this is an introduction about myself but man the talent that just interviewed is just amazing and i felt like running out like before this because wow they are just rock solid um but anyways here goes nothing so i'm here and i was concerned because there was an open position and i know it's not a popular thing to do is apply for the board and um [Music] i care about my kid and i care about the community and the kids that are in the community so um i threw my name in the hat and i guess to give you a little background about myself

113i've been in basically healthcare data for the last if you add it all up about 20 years so um and i from scrubbing data to making reports to um analyzing data and so that's kind of my that's kind of my thing if you want to call it and i uh yeah and i have been attending the different meetings so i have heard the different metrics that are coming up down you know the line and so that kind of interested me i thought well if you need somebody to help with that i think i could be that person to help with data analysis because that is something i enjoy a lot and um and it's what i do and um what else um oh i guess to give you a little context tonight and i did

114speak a couple times before at a board meeting um my daughter just started coming back to the school she's a junior now but we've done a i feel like both of my children have been very much guinea pigs over the course of their lives because we've done um we were at stoner prairie for a number of years and then we did um traditional homeschooling in fact that was a hard step because they had their best teachers their last years out of store no career so second and fifth grade they had phenomenal teachers and then um then we pulled them to homeschool because our schedules allowed it and we felt called to do it we did that for about three years and then we did virtual school mainly bridges up in merrell and um but my

115daughter said she wanted to go back and she wanted to be in a classroom and the last time she had been in a classroom was second grade and uh so she's back in the classroom and she's enjoying herself a lot and she's got um art class you know the things that are kind of limited sometimes with um virtual experiences she did have art classes but there's nothing like going into a classroom and actually doing art with an art teacher so um and then mandarin goodness gracious she chose mandarin so anyway so she's really enjoying herself and i am here to support her and other students thank you question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that world differ from the role of the superintendent or administration

116okay i feel like everybody's answered this correctly and i don't know if i can add much to it but um i think we're the voice of the parent in the community we're here to we're the sounding board if you want to say um for administration um kind of the and somebody once said it was the checks and balances of of it all so i guess that's how i see school boards in general thank you question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision okay i was pondering this being number 10 gives you a little chance to ponder so given the fact we are not getting all different um questions um i guess i do you know

117there's a lot of talk of diversity and i have to say i wasn't raised in a diverse background at all it wasn't until i actually got to college that i was you know in a diverse environment so um and now that i'm in the workforce i mean i'm at anthem blue cross blue shield i work with people all around the nation and of all different um i if a wasp comes up here i may just run so i'm just telling you okay so um but i work with everybody around the nation of all different types of people and um and that's the kind of that's the kind of society that we need to be comfortable working in so um in fact some i mean not just even the nation even some international um that we

118have you know work with so uh so i'd like to see that increase and then um the other thing is my son actually never he decided not to go their traditional route of college and i think that was one thing that the bridges kind of have was really exploring other avenues for kids that were really not going to be college bound he was way more hands-on kind of kid you know mechanically inclined fixing things and i see that like when you mention your uh what is it the our strategic objectives there's number three it says empower every student to be college career or community ready that's something that really resonated with me because i think we have a variety of skills and we should offer that to students so i guess what i offer i

119don't know i just in support of that i'm not sure exactly other than if there's a way to measure it in data i would be all for measuring data so thank you question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues um i you know i have to say and i know it's maybe the the easy answer but right now i still think kovitz is like a real issue and it's going to be for a while and i think it's really hard to balance education and you know safety so i think that's going to be a delicate role just balancing it but i think just communicating with people i think that's what kind of dampens

120down the frustrations is just communication i know that i feel so much better when i see something versus when i get a surprise so i can see the school board facilitating good communication and i realize i am running behind here yeah and we're doing great on time so go ahead do you have time to yeah i'm good question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election okay i'm gonna have to say a definite maybe because i actually actually do not know okay this is my naivety i don't really know that much about what it means to be a board member like to actually the day in day out of it all so i do have a full-time job i'm assuming you guys do

121too so um it would be just understanding the commitment which i would hope that we would go over that at the next interview if that would be the case so it's a definite maybe so that's where i stand great no that's great and um we'll allow you time to give your closing statement i mean go ahead just thank you so much for your time you know um i any number one of these people here are just phenomenal i mean i think we just all care we were just talking i think we just all care about a community and making sure that everybody's getting like a solid education and down the path that they need to go in life so to be successful so that's all thank you so much for your time tonight for coming

122up and talking and sharing with us we really appreciate you doing that so thank you thank you okay our last interview of the night is megan megan finch is here come on down hi megan how are you good how are you good so what we're doing tonight um we are going to give you a time to give an intro tell us a little bit about yourself what motivated you to apply for the school board then jana is going to ask some questions you might have missed there's a wasp flying around so we're just going to give you a heads up um exciting yeah there it is all right good keep an eye on it it's always a good thing if you can talk and keep an eye on the wall that's good multitasking um and

123so we are going to we have seven minutes and we look forward to getting to know you if you're ready to start great my name is megan finch uh i've been in education for the last decade of my life so i studied education in undergrad and i went right into teaching i've taught for 10 years now in usually k through 12 and i was passionate about education and i really have seen a lot of inequality and um just things that i felt could do better and be approved upon and so i left k-12 a couple years ago hoping that i could find a way to do something more at a bigger scale and so i've been thinking about running for school board for quite for quite a few years um it's intimidating and so when

124i saw this opportunity i was like what a great way to get my foot in the door and then run so that's kind of what led me to want to apply right now great question one in your opinion what is the role of a school board member and how does that world differ from the role of the superintendent or administration i see the school board members representing the community um you're the liaison you're listening to the people around the parents and and what they want and what they hope to see and i see administration superintendents more for better for worse more set apart they're more involved with the school the day-to-day how things are going to get implemented and and more the minutia and i feel the school board kind of driving the vision and

125the rest carrying it out great question two what is your vision for education in this community and what experiences or skills do you feel you have that can help vasd achieve this vision good um i think my vision for all education in communities is i know it's one of your your pillars is the equity pace um and just making sure that everybody has what they need um that everybody has resources and is getting it so that we don't have eighth graders learning to read you know when they're getting it in the timely manner um so that's that's a big thing i also feel like having it as a community right and not just like my kid goes to the school but have everyone feel like they belong to it and they have a place in

126it um is really important for me as well um yeah and the experiences and skills i have most of it probably comes from my teaching background my ten years i've been in various different schools um with different demographics and different issues and i feel like i have seen what works well um and i've seen what doesn't work well and so i feel like i can lean on those experiences to kind of help guide any kind of vision setting question three what do you see as the major issue or issues facing our school district and what role do you believe the school board has in addressing those issues um well i mean one of the biggest issues that comes to mind is the coped issue that has happened over the last year um i think the

127school board listened to the the parents as i understand it as an outsider not on the inside um i saw a lot of parents asking to go back to school and i feel that verona school area went back to school first and i feel like they were listening to the parents and listening to everybody commenting but they were also listening to health administrators and so i think they were very proactive and they were listening to community and what they wanted and they're able to implement that in a safe way so i think it was really great good job y'all [Laughter] question four if appointed to the board are you willing and prepared to run for office in the spring 2022 election i am um i had mentioned in my opening i have not run before

128because it's very intimidating i don't know if any of you felt that way but as an outsider i had known nothing about running for office so assuming that if i weren't pointed to board now i would hopefully be making friends who had done it before and could help me learn what to do so yes i would be great and with the time that you have remaining please offer us your closing statement oh uh my closing statement is i think you will all do a great job i was not here for all of them um but the woman before me mentioned that everyone is very passionate and i think that's one of the most important things so good luck thank you so much for your time tonight i want to just preface you're changing hats pretty

129quickly yes i just finished my class i appreciate you going from teacher role to interviewee role on the turn of the dimes we really appreciate you coming out tonight and introducing yourself and letting us get the chance to get to know you great thank you so much well thank you thank you thank you oh my goodness i just want to say that this has been really amazing to get to know everybody and get to hear all of the different perspectives um truly the the talent and the care and the the concern for our kids and our community that's come from the interviewees tonight has just been incredibly um encouraging i feel like i've gotten a preview of everybody by reading everyone's materials tonight but really truly hearing this from um you articulate the care that

130you have for your own kids but not just your kids kids that are all the kids in our district it's it's truly heartening so thank you for your time uh you've truly made this an impossible night for my board members i would like to point out this something every single board member here with the exception of one has been through the appointment process every one of us has gone through and either was appointed or ran in the next election and we've all sat where you sat and we know this is hard and again this takes it's an act of courage to put yourself out here to come with such authenticity to truly show yourself and your care for the the community is just something i applaud and i'm truly grateful for um and having been

131in your shoes i really appreciate it and again if you i do encourage everybody to run um because our community would be well served beyond well served by any single individual that came out tonight and i it would be an honor to sit with any of the individuals that interviewed tonight um i'm just very very grateful so thank you and with that said now i am going to ask the impossible from my fellow board members and i mean maybe we just make a motion to expand the board by you know something that we can add in because that seems like the only way to do it um truly this is asking the impossible um and i i think we're gonna have to take a bit of an intermission to give the board a minute to

132like take a take a second um so well done candidates you've made it impossible that's been but i'm going to ask the board to select three candidates that we will then tally and then the top three will bring back four uh second interviews next week this christina had something yeah no i just wanted to say i'm just really impressed with all of you and i think we all know that societally when we look around the nation this is not the easiest time to serve on a school board um oftentimes people will say oh my gosh did you know what you were getting into and i'm like no of course i didn't predict being a board member during a pandemic did i think that would happen um so i just i'm really impressed that you you

133know that and you're coming forward to want to be appointed to the board so thank you for just showing the interest that you have and the passion that you have at a very difficult challenging time so just kudos to all of you for stepping up absolutely and i'll just say to you know one of the i'm struggling because i want half of you somewhere in our schools and and more than half of you but at least half of you to apply to our school district to work for the school um and so i'm like do i do i want them to be board members or do i want them to be our principals and teachers and and support staff and i mean there were just so many opportunities um and so i just asked that

134regardless of how you get involved please get involved this is not the only way that you can get involved our students need the support of their community right now and i know that all of you have mentioned how much you support your children and children really close to you but also your willingness to support those who are not your own children and so if if you're not all appointed which we can't appoint you all unfortunately but i do ask that you find some way to get involved in our school district um because the experiences that you all have are invaluable to us and our children and and they all just represent so many different voices that we don't always get to hear from and we don't always get to engage with but um please please

135please find a way to get involved within our district somewhere our kids can use the support from all of you any other comments from board members um i will say it has been mentioned a couple times that the the um running in a board election is daunting it is daunting and we would all agree that it's daunting until you find somebody that can walk alongside you and spell out the process um signatures start circulating you're able to start circulating signature sheets for um to be on the ballot in april starting december 1st um i would be more than happy to talk with any individual and you all have my email address and walk through the process of how to get on the ballot um what's the timeline but the first the first timeline that comes

136up comes up fairly quickly december 1st is when signature sheets can be circulated they can be circulated between december 1st and then the first tuesday in january is when they need to be turned in along with some paperwork and it's fairly simple once you've gone through the process i would again be thrilled to tell anybody walk anybody through the process and but i do want to put it on the radar because it it comes around pretty quickly from today um and it's it shouldn't be daunting and we can certainly make ways to make it not and to make it less so and i know a great campaign manager that helps it helps a ton i had no idea what i was doing i was in this seat last year this time last year popped up

137on my facebook that i did my meet your new school board member on this day last year so i definitely know what it's like to be appointed really quickly and then turn around and run three months later so if anybody is needing support she is amazing um and she's not that expensive john did you have something i'll add on that because i was i was also in that meeting this day last year and i didn't get picked like like you know oh john [Laughter] john i see you guys yeah we gave our seat to yeah and then then i turned around and ran and it was very scary and very daunting and uh yeah so but it is possible if i can figure it out [Laughter] and now everybody's put their toe in the water

138now we are gonna pull you all in okay so i'm gonna ask the board to take a minute um pick your top three we'll collect ballots christina and jen you'll help me tally and then we'll um it'll take a couple minutes just to make sure we're doing math correctly on the spot and then we're thinking through everything so uh if we could have just maybe five minutes okay sorry five minutes max sorry i'm getting dive bombed here that sounds good yeah okay i feel like there should be music in this intermission period here just not jeopardy music wow that's what's in my head that's um so board members you have the sheet that has your name at the top put your name on it and then rank your choices and then circulate them back this

139way oh mr [Music] that music was seriously [Music] that's exactly what it does that's what i want we have that in the keychain version instead of instead of pepper spray you get it oh no oh my god you're so close man that was hard somebody told me you think so that's that was my logic i know you [Laughter] okay thank you so much for everybody's patience again this has been like an incredibly uh incredibly difficult decision we all struggled um i'm gonna just announce an alphabetical order our top vote getters that will have come back next week to interview um next monday um so next monday uh joe haynes carissa huntington yanley rush and corby white we will be looking forward to getting to know you a little bit better uh next monday six o'clock

140november first i'll send out more information um to let everybody know what the details of the next step will be and i also again want to just send out my heartfelt thank you to everybody who took the time to come tonight it's just been um truly heartening to see in this challenging time that there's people that are so willing to step up and serve our community so thank you so much thank you thank you hello board thank you very much we are going to i'm going to double check and make sure that we've gotten all of the all of our agenda items have been covered we've done well on time so um again thank you all for your time tonight and this was a very difficult decision um we're going to take just a minute

141to a quick adjournment and then we are going to come back and have just a very quick forward debrief it's been a good night so okay quick adjournment then we'll be right back wait we're taking the break research sure whichever whichever modality fits it i'll echo that i think i've continued to be impressed with how our community um has handled some of the general divisiveness around schools really so cordially and respectfully um i can continue to see that so i'll take that as a continued win so i've been through a few of these now appointment kind of things one where i'd not get picked of course because i remember this i was thinking that you hadn't been through so we literally have all been through the process you got picked i got told thanks for

142playing and then and then you got picked but i want to say that every time i see people come forward it makes me so happy that i moved to verona so i moved to verona when pregnant with my third child living in a small two-bedroom house was like there's no room for this kid where am i gonna go you know like there's no room there's literally nowhere and um could have lived anywhere in dane county really and verona just stuck out for me i had a friend who lived here i always i mean i would talk to parents and families and it was always positive what they would say about schools and it was a variety of schools a variety of kid ages but they always like spoke with pride so when we go through

143this process it reminds me of okay there are other things i may not have done so well but man did i pick the right place here because people really care and though they come from all different backgrounds and they may not agree with we've been have very different views on things they really do care about schools and like seeing our high school always reminds me of that how much support we have for schools here so i'm just really proud of our community and inspires me that it's such a difficult time to serve on a school board that so many people would say i'll step up to that you know i'll try that so i'm just really pleased with our community um i'll echo all of that uh i was in this exact seat last year

144things were a little bit rougher but maybe not um and and i was that person that was like yeah sure i'll run and i'll be a board member and this is going to be great and it has been but it's definitely different than what you think and what you expect and to sit up here and talk to the community all the time and represent such unique viewpoints and um for people to watch us go back and forth in different opinions it's a hard job to have and right now it's even harder um and i would say this year watching the things that have happened on school boards and at school board meetings i mean there's like this spotlight that's on us that um i don't know that i was necessarily prepared for but you just

145kind of go into it and you row with the punches and so to see so many people despite all of that to say you know to christina's point let me try it let's see let me put my my name in the hat or even i wasn't sure if people would put their name in the hat so i figured i'd be the one on the chopping block like that's that takes a lot of bravery and commitment and passion to the community um and so i just hope that we find something um for all of them to do somewhere in our district whether it's in our schools or just in our community somewhere i just hope that we can foster some kind of relationship with each of them because they all all offered something special that we

146can use right now mm-hmm um i think i'm just a little awestruck by what things were like in this district when i was hired in 1998 and how things sound now and seeing how this massively growing and changing district is still just moving forward in such a collective shared way even with you know varied opinions varied perspectives it's all kind of still coalescing around wanting the best for the kids that live in this community and i it's just i'm just kind of in awe of all of that right to be a part of this and to see how these conversations have had to change over the years i've been here but that it's still just with this sort of light of we just want the best for kids and what does that look like so

147yeah i'm super impressed by the folks that stepped up to do these interviews tonight so i always want to say um as we're doing the board debrief i want to say how impressed i am with our board and the fact that you all stepped up to do this work and as we are going through this process i am continually appreciative of how much effort you're putting into how much time you're putting into in prep i know everyone came here today having fully vetted all the candidates because this matters and your time and energy and effort showing up each time that matters it matters to our community and the work that you're doing matters so i just want to say thank you and i just really appreciate all of you and all the work that you're

148bringing to this table so with that said do i have a motion to adjourn so moved excellent emotion by nicole do i have a second a second by christina all in favor signify by eye is there anyone opposed no we are adjourned thank you