001That's very >> That's right. That's That's >> guidelines. >> I'm not sure. Okay, I think we're ready. Okay, if we could start getting into our seats. I think we'll start momentarily. >> All right. Now, do we have our interpreters ready? Do we have our everything ready to go? Okay. We'll we'll take another 30 seconds to get everybody settled. So So take your time. We're good. Thank you. >> Of course. Okay. All right. Let me know when the headsets are ready and then we'll start. and to the candidates. We're just we're just waiting for the headsets to be ready for the interpretation. So, just another another moment or two. >> Okay. Thank you. Yes. >> So this one is on my And Angie is Okay. Are we almost set to go? >> All right. Give it
002another few Give it another 30 seconds or so and then we'll we'll we'll begin. >> Okay. Good evening everyone. Thank you all so much for being here for our school committee forum. Uh some of you were here uh earlier this week for our city council forum. Want to thank you all for coming out once again. Uh thank you to all the candidates for being here for making time in your busy schedules during a always busy campaign. I want to make sure we thank our organizers for the evening, our our hosts, the Asian Community Development Corporation, the Greater Molden Asian-American Community Coalition, Chinese Progressive Association, AsianPacific Islanders Civic Action Network, Mystic River Watershed Association, the Mass Senior Action Council and Urban Media Arts for their resources in in making us uh available on YouTube. So, we
003are also streaming on YouTube right now and we will put that up for uh viewing a little bit later. And of course, the city of Malden for offering us this wonderful facility and for tonight allowing us to have food in the in the in the hallway which we could not have on Monday. So, that is called that is called progress ladies and gentlemen. So, there that that's right. [laughter] So, uh my name is Leverett Wing. Uh I am your moderator for this evening. I I was I've been privileged to asked be asked for a second time. I was uh I was able to be moderator for again the city council forum earlier and I was the moderator for the mayoral forum a couple of years ago. Uh so thank you for the honor once again
004of of being able to be here. Uh want to point out that we do have uh translators uh doing translation for some of the folks in the audience. So if you do hear talking uh that is our translators who are doing the a wonderful job. It is being translated into Cantonese, Mandarin and Vietnamese this evening which is a wonderful wonderful step forward for for the AAPI community particularly here in Malden. So thank you to the translators. Thank you to Karen. Karen is going to be our timer for the evening. Uh so Karen, show the signs that you have so that they are aware of of the time. Keep your eye on on Karen. You'll have 30 seconds. You will have times up. And then are you going to have a a little chimer as they
005had last time or or are you just going to yell? >> Okay. Now, just so you know, uh Karen is is the head of the Chinese Progressive Association, and I have been yelled at her many times. You do not want that. So, so thank you all so much. And just to go over the format, uh all the candidates have received the format for the evening. Correct? Okay. So for the for the attendees and for those at home, um each candidate will have an opening statement of one minute each. We will have the always fun lightning round of of questions. Does everybody have their yes no little placards with them? Wonderful. So for uh for whoever's taking a photo, that is called the photo op for the evening. So please be ready for that. Um then
006we will have candidate questions. Two questions uh for uh two questions for each candidate going. We'll go back and forth. Uh each candidate will have two minutes to answer that. Then we will have a a a question for all of you um which is the top priority or top two priorities uh on your agenda. You'll have two minutes to talk about your top priorities and then one minute to uh to ask answer how you'll you'll handle those priorities. And then we'll have a a question uh uh a Q&A session from the audience and the audience is submitting questions to uh to our organizers who will curate those questions and then we'll we'll go forward with those. So then we'll have the candidate closing statements. So yes, >> okay. So, if you didn't hear Angie, you
007can you can uh you can submit your questions and put it in the bowl outside uh before the before the uh question and answer segment. So, thank you for that reminder, Angie. So, what we will do is we will go this way and then that way and then I'll spice it up a little in the middle and then we'll start probably with Peter or or Keith and then we'll go in those directions. That way, it's a little even though I just predicted it, it's a little more unpredictable. So, thank you all so much for being here. I think we will start with opening statements. Uh if you'd like if you'd like to proceed. Thank >> Hello. Hello and thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight. My name is Kimberly Gillette and I am
008running to be your voice on school committee in Ward One. I am fully invested in Malden as a small business owner, resident, and mom. I want to make changes that benefit our community for generations to come. And I have been volunteering with some of Maldin's most impactful organizations for decades. I believe in giving our kids the best, especially when it comes to access to books and the librarians who help our children access them. I promise to hold our city and state accountable for the funding issues that have been consistently on the docket for a very long time. And I want to bring more social emotional awareness um and opportunities um for our city to grow in those areas um which I think benefit education the most. Thank you. >> I'm on. Okay. Uh good evening
009everyone and uh thank you to the Asian Community Development Corporation for organizing this forum this evening. Um and thank you to all of you out here in the audience for joining us. Uh my name is Don Mlin and I'm running for reelection to the Malden School Committee because I refuse to let decisions about our students um and our schools not be made without the voices of those who are most affected. and that would be our students, our caretakers, and of course our educators as well. Um, I don't believe in quiet leadership when our kids deserve bold action. And I didn't step into this role quietly uh to sit quietly quietly or to play politics or to rubber stamp decisions. I came to challenge the same old approach to demand equity and resources and to make
010sure that our students need everything, you know, have everything they need to thrive and not to just get by. So, I appreciate you being here this evening and um thank you. >> Good evening. My name is Elizabeth Hordy. Thank you all for um to the Asian Community Development Corporation, UMA, and all the others who are putting on this forum tonight. I am currently the W five representative for the Malden School Committee. As a parent with young children, or I'm sorry, they're not young anymore. As a parent with children in the public school system, I'm incredibly committed committed to this community and I know what it takes to make sure that everyone has equal opportunity and the and the opportunity also to thrive. Um over the past my past term I've been working with the committee
011as well as my subcommittees which is finance and I'm also the representative to one of our collaborative schools to work towards improving the experience the learning opportunities um and hoping to improve all of those for every student in the district. I think my time is up. I'm not sure. Thanks. That's very quick. [laughter] >> Hello everyone and thanks to the organizers for hosting this forum. My name is Peter Piaza, candidate for school committee in Ward 6. I'm running for two reasons. The first and most important is that I'm a parent of two children in Malden public schools, kindergartener and a third grader at Salemwood. The second reason is that I've spent my entire career in education research and education policy. I currently work for the UMass Center for Education Policy and I do research on
012issues like curriculum diversity and student emotional safety issues that have had particular resonance for the AAPI community in recent years. I want to put my values and my experience to work for students and families in W 6 and in Malden in general. So, I'm running unopposed in November, but I've been out there knocking on doors for months because I love making connections with voters and hearing about what folks care about. I hope to earn as many votes as possible uh as I can and I hope to earn yours in particular in no on November 4th. You can learn more about my campaign at piaza4the4maldin.com and at my uh newly created Facebook page. Look forward to the conversation tonight. >> Thank you. Uh my name is Keith Bernard and I'm running for reelection to uh the
013school committee representing Ward 7. I want to thank uh uh Mr. Wing for moderating this. I want to go and thank the organizers for uh putting this together. I know it's very hard to go and get all of us cats into into one little space. Um you know, I originally I originally ran because my mother was a teacher. Um, and I think that it is, uh, education is really just crucial for all of our children. We need to go and give them those opportunities. We need to give them the space to excel. Um, I've been doing this for the last four years. Uh, I have been on budget. I have been on I'm currently on policy and procedure. Uh, I was on negotiations because I thought it was important to go and be uh, in
014the room with the union to go and hear what they needed and to try to go and advocate for them. in a fair manner. Um that being said, thank you for your time and uh I look forward to the discussions. Is it on? Hi everyone. My name is Nicole Msalum and I've been living here in Malden for a little over a decade now. I can't believe it's been that long. Uh but in addition to you know over a decade of executive leadership in the nonprofit community especially in community service and organizing. I am a mother of four Malden public school students uh two of whom are in the high school, two of whom are in the elementary schools. And we've got a long way to go. While very well-intentioned, we lack a lot of representation,
015especially linguistically for our very diverse population. In fact, it's been identified as an area of weakness by our new superintendent. And then also we need to be more in a collaborative relationship with parents and making sure that students are not being shamed in school due to lack of resources such as electricity at home because their parents couldn't afford to keep the lights on. So hope to address these issues with you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, I'm Sharon Roseberg and I represent W 8. Thank you to the organizers for putting this event together. I'm running for reelection for a third term. I've lived in Malden for 35 years and raised three children here who all went through Malden public schools. My career has largely been in education and I have over a decade of classroom experience.
016Currently I work for Melrose public schools as an afterchool instructor for first graders where I have 27 students. Being on school committee is a job and it's a job that I love. During my two terms I was on the honors program working group to create a district-wide honors program. I helped plan the updating of the ELC playground to make it accessible. Served on two negotiation teams and served on the superintendent search committee. Currently, I chair policy and procedures where we've been updating, reviewing policies, and I'm on the tech and student services subcommittee where we're looking at the role of AI in our schools. My favorite part of this job, though, will always be getting to work with parents and caregivers when they have an issue, and they can give me a call and I can
017help them reach a solution. I humbly ask for your continued support, and I look forward to tonight's event. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thanks so much. Uh, two things I was remissed to do. uh one is um it my habit is to refer to all the candidates by their first names. If you prefer that I do it uh in another manner, please let me know. Uh also I was remiss in in not acknowledging we have many youth and youth organizers here this evening. So I want to thank the youth for being here in particular. So thank you all for for for that. So uh up next is the lightning round. if you could all grab your placards, which I have as well. I will not hold mine up because I am not a candidate. So, so
018if you could, I'm going to ask four questions and you can please hold up your placard uh with your answer to all of them, yes or no. Uh, lightning round question number one. Will you advocate to enhance language access both for students in class and for family engagement in school decisionmaking? Wonderful. Thank you. Question number two. Will you ensure that students have leadership opportunities to engage in community dialogue and decision-making processes related to schools? Wonderful. [laughter] >> The higher the better, I suppose. Yes. [laughter] >> Great. Thank you, Angie. Question number three, will you support including place place-based environmental education in Malden schools? And final question, will you support diversifying Malden public schools foreign language program offerings to reflect the community's cultural and linguistic diversity? Wonderful. Thank you all so much for that. So now
019we will proceed to the next portion of our agenda which is the questions and we will start over at the end with Sharon. Um if you're if you're ready. Uh question number one and please if uh as we proceed down the line if you need me or if you'd like me to repeat the question please let me know. Happy to do it. Uh question number one each each candidate will have two minutes to to answer the question as we proceed down. So question number one, what would you do to ensure working parents are engaged in their children's schools? There we go. Right now, the way that we have things set up, I mean, we're always accessible um basically 247, as my family can attest. Um, I do think that we can do a lot more
020work to get um, communication going out to our school groups and I'm proud that we have actually done a lot of work in the school committee to have translation services available for people. I know that we have recently done we started this year actually with a Facebook post trying to get more information out so people know what we're doing um, so that they can come and make their voices heard. We've been reaching out a lot with community people for different working groups. I know that tying into the questions you asked, we've made a lot of efforts to try to actually bring a lot of different people in to working with us. When I worked on the superintendent um search subcommittee, we made sure that we had a widespread of people and looked for a lot
021of we had different categories and wanted somebody from every school, somebody who represented all these different areas to make sure that we were getting parents who were involved, to make sure we had teachers who were getting involved, who represented the wide scope of what Malden is so that we weren't getting one perspective because that's not how we should be looking at things. Um I do so again I do think we do need to do more on communication as far as what we do as a school committee. um a lot um you find out once you start actually getting on the school committee what you can and can't do that I think we can do um more work with that and I do think that some of the forums and things that we've been having lately
022it's been nice I went to the AI one that was the other night to try to reach out to parents um that's also then going to be done we're making sure that we do things virtual as well so that we can bring people in and um incorporate them that way it's tricky to work with everybody's schedules um so we're trying to do virtual as well to bring that in so that people who can't come in person also have that opportunity. Um there's obviously know we post minutes we post a lot of different ways to get involved and plus and through the our school systems with the different programs that we have in place with parent square there's always efforts going on to increase that parent participation. >> Hi Right. So, it's wonderful that our district
023is beginning to head in the correct direction in reaching out to parents, but we still have a large gap to follow. Uh, so what we need to be doing is more frequent check-ins with parents. Right now, we have parent teacher conferences um maybe once per term. And I think we need to be having at minimum monthly check-ins with parents. We need to make sure that we're offering a variety of times. A lot of workingclass parents can't come first thing in the morning when they're trying to chase after children to get them ready for school. And then also they have to work in the afternoons. So I think we need to be having a little bit uh you know later in the afternoon offerings maybe sometimes into the evenings. We need to make sure that we
024have different levels of access. So, I am very impressed by what the superintendent has been doing, reaching out more to parents. I'm one of them. Uh, I would also like to see all of our school committee members go out more into the community and have regular office hours so that they can sit down with their constituents and listen to the needs of not just parents, but students as well. And we need to make sure that we're offering um full spectrum of communication services. So when we're asking families to come in so that we can have communications with parents, we should also be having listening sessions with the youth that they're bringing in, whatever that age group is, and getting feedback from those children. What support services can we be offering to families that are struggling?
025And then most importantly, we cannot expect them always to come to us. We need to be willing to go out, especially right now with certain populations feeling especially vulnerable and targeted. We need to go to them and give them remote options. Thank you. >> Thank you very much, Keith. >> Thank you. I think this is a great question. Um, it's always difficult to go and work out how you go and engage the public. Um, and I give credit to the city of Malden. We've done a lot. We've done a lot to go and provide translation. We've done a lot to go and provide time. Um, we've gone and done a lot uh in terms of trying to go and and make sure that parents and caregivers are aware of what's going on in the school.
026There's a brand new app called Parent Square which allows people to go and um switch it to their preferred language and it does the translation automatically. And I think this is a wonderful thing that we've invested in. Um is it the end all beall? No, of course not. Is there more we can do? Yes. And you know a lot of the times it's limited by thing factors such as time and energy. Um, personally, I always do go and make it sure that it's a priority for me. When a parent or a caregiver reaches out to me, I return that call. I build a trust between the people in the ward and they know that they can go and they can call me if they need a hand with something, if their kid is being bullied,
027if they feel that their IEP is not being met, if they go and they feel that there's an issue going on in the school that I should be aware of, or some of the calls, which I wish I got more of, that a teacher's doing a wonderful job. Um, and I do think that yes, we do need to do a little bit more community outreach than we've been doing, but we really need to go and uh make sure that we're establishing the trust with these communities that are out there um to say, "Hey, I don't just want to walk into your space. I can be a big imposing uh presence sometimes, and I don't want you to feel like I'm in there threatening you. I'm in here to go and try and go and make
028sure that you know who I am, >> build the trust, and then you know who to go and talk to. Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you, Keith. Peter, >> uh, as a parent of uh, children in Malden public schools, parent engagement is central, absolutely central to the the to my motivation for running in the first place. I love hearing from parents about schools and um as I'm knocking on doors, I hear so many thoughtful uh so many thoughtful comments about students experiences in schools. Now to the question about what I would do if elected a few things. One is that I would love to host office hours in the schools that are most common in W six like Salemwood, Forestdale and the Lyndon. Second thing is I work uh in the organization that I
029work for uh the center for education policy we implement parent surveys in K12 districts districts that we partner with throughout the state. Malden is not one of our district partners, but we have survey materials that we can use. And I think that uh whether it's whether it's um uh the whe regardless of who provides the survey, I think reaching out to parents and getting more data on parent experiences is really important. Um I'd also like to do more community building with parents. I'm an active member of the Salemwood family teacher organization and in meetings in the fall fest. We have the trunk or treat coming up on Friday. These types of events build bonds across the community and they're so important for communication and getting the um information out. Now, all of those examples that
030I just provided are sort of like one-way examples, right? getting information out to parents. But I strongly believe that there should be a two-way form of communication with parents that parents are assets uh for educators to help us understand how their students learn. Parents know their students really well and by learning uh about students strengths and areas of growth from parents, we can better meet student needs in the classroom. So that two-way communication is extremely important. >> Great. Thank you, Peter Elizabeth. Thank you. >> I think I want to start by saying first and foremost that the school is only as strong as its relationship with the students and its relationship with the families. One of the things that I know like Peter mentioned as a parent is things like the parent square app that
031have come out most recently I think have increased my communication with the district I would say tenfold. Not only am I receiving communication that I would have loved to have had sooner, um, but I'm also more engaged. I'm looking for these emails. I'm I'm wondering about what's happening. Um, that has been a great asset, but I think that there's even more that we can do within that. Um, I I love the idea of surveying people. As someone who also works in a different school district, I would like to not speak into the void. Um, I would like to find out from people where they're at, what they need from us or what they want from their school district. I think community events are very important. We just had one that Ari Taylor, the W five
032city councelor, and I just had one this weekend that we were at. Um, and we'll be at two coming up this weekend for Halloween. Um, there are a lot of different things, ways that I'd like to engage with people in that way. I've also connected with a lot of my constituents through email and individualized meetings and I think encouraging people to access us in whatever way they feel most comfortable is the best way to go about this. >> Thanks. >> Great. Thank you, Elizabeth. Don, >> thank you for the question. So over my two terms on the school committee, I think that we've made um some real strides with moving um communication efforts forward. Um folks know that I'm always available uh via email as well as cell phone. This is my real cell phone
033number is posted on the city page as well as my campaign literature. And our superintendent has held many forums on different various dates. He's even, you know, for those who are unable to attend, he's held forums remotely. Um, and all in the evenings to to give caretakers an opportunity to participate. Um, I think social media is a good tool. There are many Facebook pages out there where the parents are communicating. Um, we all respond, um, many of us on the school committee with with any parent or caretaker questions. Um I too attended the AI forum that the superintendent had on Tuesday. There'll be another one remotely on Monday for um anyone who's interested in learning about uh where the district is going with AI um and just engaging with the caretakers because um it was
034very interesting um to even speak with the teacher. Miss Rose Zyberg and I um were seated right in front of one of the teachers at the BB. So, um there are meetings that you know again that are always held in the the evenings and I think by continuing to update folks um via email and on parent square um are also very good tools as well. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Kimberly, >> can you repeat the question for me? >> Sure. It is what would you do to ensure working uh working parents are engaged in their children's schools? So working parents um have it especially hard because of their workers obviously and I think everyone did a fantastic job of addressing the the steps Maldon has taken. Um I think technology and social media are great tools.
035The varied times in which we have parent teacher conferences are very helpful. I think the pandemic pushed um social media to or engagement in a on a whole new level because now you can do your parent teacher conference um from the from your living room. Um and I think that was very helpful for people. Um but working parents don't just want stats. I think they want to actually be involved and that's really hard. So, I think community engagement um on deeper levels with events are are really important. And now that we have neighborhood schools, I think it really can bring a community together. I think food and culture and Malden has plenty of that. And um I don't I don't think we do a terrible job at it to begin with. I think everything can
036be funded better and I that's kind of the crux of my campaign is making sure that we have the funding because there's there's no lack there isn't a lack of generosity or help in Malden. Um and I think the the desire to do good is there and I think it's the funding and the time and energy that we're we're missing and working parents feel that the most. Um, I know there's volunteer opportunities. Um, but I think the social media engagement and having, you know, socially significant, culturally significant events in our school can really bridge that home to student that um that I think we're all looking for. >> Wonderful. Thank you for your thoughtful answers to that question. Uh, the second question, and once again, you'll each have two minutes to address this. Uh, we
037will start with, as I mentioned, Peter. We will work our way down this way and then loop around. Isn't that exciting? We're going that way. So, we'll then for the next question, we'll start with you, Keith, and we'll loop around this way. Just so that everybody's uh everybody's aware. Uh, the next question again [snorts] for two minutes to respond. The recent enrollment report shows that several hundred new students have joined Malden Schools. How do you think the public schools welcome center could be improved to ensure new students and their parents, including immigrant families, feel welcome and have access to the information and resources they need? And once again, as we work our way around, please let me know if you need me to repeat that. Uh, I appreciate this question because I think a welcome
038center is an under uh appreciated aspect of uh of a of a district's kind of like parent outreach system, right? And along these lines, I have to give credit to the current superintendent because one of the things that he's done uh immediately upon taking over was renovate the welcome center space. And if you go there now, there are board books and uh toys for kids to play with so that parents can come in and meet with um [clears throat] meet with district personnel to do the boring adult stuff while kids can be um while kids can uh can uh can be entertained and I think that that's important. I think creating a space that leverages uh you know uh advances in technology in order to communicate across languages. Of course, the diversity of Malden is
039something that is so uh valuable to all of us and you know uh things like you know the sort of like earbuds that you can put in and they automatically translate um in real time. These are innovations that allow us to communicate um across across linguistic diff differences that are amazing and I so I think like bringing these sorts of resources into the welcome center and also just um getting the word out there in the community. This sort of connects to the my answer from the previous question. Community building events like uh the fall fest and the winter fest and etc that they have at the schools. these things kind of like break that ice, you know, and by breaking that ice, I think people will feel more comfortable to come in to the welcome
040center if they have a question. Um, so language access and and um and uh community outreach to let them know uh that the welcome center exists and it's there for their support. That those are my kind of key priorities there. >> Thank you, Peter. Elizabeth, >> thank you, Peter. I I was going to mention the same thing you were, which I think the rest of us are. So, I just want to put that out there that the renovation to the welcome center is phenomenal. Um, on my monthly visit with the superintendent, we were down there most recently and I was so pleased. Such a welcoming space with opportunity and space like you said for children toys, opportunity for them to sit on on the floor on the like a rugged space obviously, but like things
041like that. So, it's not like going to the bank. Previously, it felt like you were going to the bank, which when I want to register my child, I want it to feel more like an environment welcome and they're geared towards children. So, that I think has been a huge huge change. Um, I do think and I don't I'll be honest, I don't know enough about the folks that are at the welcome center to know what level of like language acquisition they have or things like that, but that is obviously incredibly important when I'm going to register my child. I want to make sure that I'm understanding everything that I need to do. So, I think kind of digging down a little bit and making sure that we're covering some of that areas with various different
042options of ways for translation um and making sure people understand what they need to do. There are a lot of little pieces when it comes to registering your child that might seem unusual if you've never done it before. So, I think we can kind of focus on that. Something else that I think is important is not only the welcome center itself, but also the school. Um, when you're going to the K to8 school, I think kindergarteners have a wonderful opportunity. They have a slow start. They're introduced to a lot of folks. But I think when you're coming in at a different grade, I I think we might want to reconsider how we're partnering with like PTO's and things like that to make a more welcoming entrance at later grades. >> Thank you, Elizabeth. >> Oh,
043it's already on. Um so yeah, the welcome center has seen uh great improvements um since we registered my eldest grandson probably about 10 years ago. It was called the parent information center at that time and I got to say that it really wasn't so welcoming. um as you know some of my colleagues have mentioned um it was just very very straightforward and strict and I think some of the requirements um can be overwhelming when you're going to to register your child and it kind of felt like it was an impediment to enroll your child rather than someone helping you and engaging you in that space. So I I'm happy to see that that has changed over time. Um, but what concerns me is some of those requirements or most of them are still in place
044and that could be very difficult for some of our parents to navigate, particularly those um who are immigrants um and those with language access. So, um, language access is essential in this case. Um, and I'm certain that Malden is is doing that. We, you know, certainly do it with the school committee meetings. um and most of the meetings. So, um you know, I just I just hope we're really engaging and making the process easier. I know with um our eldest grandson, Jeremiah, because we were new to Malden, it required a home visit, which delayed his enrollment. So, you know, there are things that that are necessary, of course, to prove your residency. Um but we shouldn't make it difficult to get our children enrolled. Thank you. Great. Thank you, Kimberly. >> Um I'm at a
045little bit of um a loss because I don't know it as well as some of the incumbents. Um and I haven't enrolled a student in the Malden public schools in quite some time. Um but when I did it was also the parent information center. Um I think the welcoming center is like much of Maldin has made huge strides. Um there's always the chance for improvement and I think we're here tonight to discuss you know the language barriers and we have enough languages in Malden that a welcoming center um that's going to be a really big job. So um every department in Malden, especially the school systems and especially the welcoming center should be really well equipped with the latest technology. Um I've I've seen the earbuds in the in the audience at these meetings for
046a very long time. Um I would love to see funding for those available to whoever needs them whenever they need them. Um you know, we should have more of them. they should be rentable at the library. Um, and I think something like the welcoming center uh deserves that kind of attention and funding. But, um, it sounds like the rug and the play space. I mean, that's what you want for kids in a welcoming center. Um, but for the adults, I think it's ease. I think, um, I'm a I lean more towards less restrictive. And with technology these days, it should be easier. It should just be easier and we should provide easier pathways for parents um to enroll students in the you know least restrictive way possible. >> Great. Thank you, Kimberly Sharon. >> Thank
047you. And yes, I too love the changes that are over there physically. Um it it really was offputting to walk in and see families not having a place to really sit, not having any space. It just was not very welcoming. And I can even remember back to other years. I know that things have streamlined. There used to be literally lines out the door for people to get in. So I like seeing that that has changed, which is is the direction we should be going into. Some of the things here just have have um that others have brought up. One of the things that if there are problems at the welcome center, please get in touch. I have not really heard any feedback that there people are having problems. We're always here to help. One of
048the things that we actually even look at talking about with how you can sign up, we actually have had this talk a few times in policy and we take another look at what are we requiring people to present. Should we be changing this? Is this making it too hard for people to get their kid in school? When people show up, if they don't have a piece of paper, it can mean a kid doesn't get in right away. That's not okay. Kids need to be in school. So, we need to make sure that we are welcoming and actually getting kids into their classroom as quickly as possible. So, I like the fact that we do frequently look at policy to see, okay, are we hitting the target? Is there something that we should be changing? And
049I always welcome people to call and let us know if it's not working. We can always take a look at what we need to do. Another thing, I don't know how much they give at the welcome center. I will say that as far as resources for getting in touch with us, like do you get a list? Okay. Okay. here's if you have this issue, here's your person. Um, as well as within the greater school community, I know I struggle a lot with I get lots of phone calls, well, other people struggle. They don't know where to go. I have a child who needs X and they don't know where to go. >> We should be handing that out at the welcome center so that every person who comes into the school knows, okay, if this
050is an issue I'm having, this is the name of the person I can call. And then we need to be responsive to that. Thank you. Great. >> Thank you, Sharon. Nicole. >> Right. So, Malden's come a long way. Uh, I remember way back when when it was the parent information center and it was so difficult to get a hold of everybody. It was very bureaucratically oriented. It was just not easy at all. Uh, and now we have the welcoming center. We still have some ways to go. I'm very happy to hear that we have we're moving towards a more welcoming space now. Um, and I've everybody up here has been wonderful about language access. We have wonderful technology to help with that nowadays, but we need to start taking it to the next level. It's
051not just surface lip service. We're going to make sure that you have access to language. Now, it's time to up it to cultural competency. I don't know how many times I have heard from our especially our high school educators, how proud they are about how diverse Malden is. And it's even identified as one of our strengths and our weaknesses in the superintendent report about how diverse we are and that we are literally a mini UN with over 57 languages now in counting at our high school. I would love to see some artistic welcome at our welcoming center. maybe get some of our students who are artistically inclined to, you know, design and make some murals in the space, but also some other things to consider. We have a lot of refugees who come to Malden
052and we have a lot of students who come here for medical care as well. I'm involved with the chapency programs at um quite a few of our local hospitals for children who come here for complex health issues and they are completely overwhelmed. We need to make that process a little more manageable for them. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Nicole. And if I could uh and something I should have done at the very beginning, if I could ask uh folks in the audience to please silence your phones, uh that would be very helpful. Uh, and my apologies to you for that. Uh, a little bit earlier. I should have done that earlier. So, uh, if folks could take a moment to silence your phones, that'd be very helpful. Thank you, Keith. >> Thank you. Um, you know,
053I'm going to go and echo the the thoughts from many of our people. Dr. Sipple has done a wonderful job in uh going and opening up uh the welcome center and making it a very accessible place. um and to try and go and put a little bit more of a human touch to it. Um, of course there is room for improvement and I agree that, you know, there are times that we need to go and and look at trying to be a little bit more culturally competent in terms of understanding where our parents are coming from, where our caregivers are coming from and what their expectations are of the education system and to go and make sure they understand how the Malden education system works so that there's clear communication. We don't start that initially.
054um there's going to be a lot of conflict along the way because if you come from um uh a lot of the uh Latino nations there's a very high expectation of what the education process is and sometimes there's some miscommunication there and luckily Dr. is is, you know, he's quite fluent in Spanish and I believe that he's learning Portuguese that he goes and he's actually going and and trying to go and make sure we're reaching people where they're at and we should go and absolutely go and have someone there, no matter where you're from, to try and go and say, "Hey, we are here. We understand this is traumatic. You're handing us your kid. you're giving us your kid to go and educate them to care for them from when they turn from their kindergarten
055to 18 or you know you've just come from you know another country maybe English is you don't have a grasp of English we need to work with you we need to go and let you know hey you are welcome here we're going to do the best we can to go and educate your kid and we want you to know that your kid's going to be safe in the schools and make sure that we go and we have very clear processes about going and saying, "Okay, just need to go and see, can you get us these documents? How do we work with you to get these documents?" Um, we've done a wonderful job in trying to go and do that. Of course, we have to improve it. >> Um, but that being said, uh, thank you
056for the question. >> Great. Thank you very much, Keith. >> All right. Um, for our next segment, we will go to the uh we'll have two segments of this question. Uh, the first segment will be what do you see as the top pressing issue in Malden public schools? and you will have two minutes to to address that and then after that you will have one minute to address uh what will you do to address that top pressing issue. So what we'll do is we'll start with Keith. We'll work our way around this way and with Peter and then for the response the one minute we will start once again with Keith and work our way back around. So Keith if you could uh address that first part of the question. What do you see as
057the top pressing issue in Malden public schools? You have two minutes for this segment. uh you know, you're going to hear it uh time and time again. You're going to actually go and hear it quite often in the next few months. It's going to be money. You know, it's not inexpensive to raise a child. Uh it's not inexpensive to care for a child and and it is not cheap to go in, teach a child, and give them the education that they deserve. Um, and we need to go in and make sure that everybody from the school committee to the administration to the mayor's office to the to the city committee and to the other and to the population in general to know how we're going and spending their money, where our where our priorities are
058to make sure that they understand that, hey, there's lots of places where we're actually going and underfunding where we should have gone and going and being and spent some more money. And you're going to if you're going and paying attention to any of the discussions that are going on uh with the current uh uh discussion around an override, a lot of it is, hey, we're not spending enough on our students and that's hurting them. And it's very easy to go and say, "Hey, we're asking everyone to go and take a little bit of a hit so that we can go and and meet our requirements." Also, the first place people often want to go and cut is the school systems because they'll say, "I don't have kids in the schools." And I'm sorry, I don't
059have kids in the schools, but I've got two grandchildren that are going in that that live in Worcester. And if some of my tax dollars happen to go out to them or if I spend a little bit more tax dollars here and we can maybe go and say to the the state commission say, "Hey, give them that extra dollar to them. I'm helping them out in general. It just helps us as a society here." Um, honestly, we just need to go and actually take a look, audit, and and and make sure that we're putting the money where it's going to do the best for the kids. >> Great. Thank you, Keith. Nicole, >> uh, honestly, hands down for me, the top issue would be the mental health crisis that we have going on with our
060students. Um, you know, it's saying a lot that I have four children in Mald public schools. I think to further explain how involved I am and how much of a crisis this is, I'm also the neighborhood mother. And I swear I'm mom to like over half the school [laughter] at both the high school and the elementary school, the Lynden, that my children go to. And towards the end of last year, the police were being called almost every single day for violent fights that were breaking out at the high school. My children, my teenagers were learning more about fist fights and how to protect themselves in the hallways than they were in actual education, English, math, grammar, everything. Now, it's a spiraling crisis. Um, and I got to say, in the past two months, I've had
061at least three teenagers that I have had to help. Unfortunately, suicide one. I had to talk down from a bridge not even a month ago. friends of my teenagers and one of the teenagers that I have I I'm um I have an additional set I have two 17 years old and one of them actually she was an emergency placement with us through DCF and her mental health getting access for her has been like pulling teeth the we do not have enough social workers at our schools we don't have enough resources I know the system And as as knowledgeable of the system as I am, I am at a loss for how to help my children and their friends get through some crippling adult issues that they should never have to face as children. And we
062are failing them on that count. We can do better. >> Thank you, Nicole. Uh Sharon, >> thank you. Thank you. I'm going with sort of an umbrella um thing of what our top pressing issue is. I think it should always be what our top pressing issue is, which is how are we best serving our kids? How are we best serving our kids? That is literally what we are supposed to be doing is educating our kids and giving them the support that they need. And that's for every single kid who is under our care. And I look at that and I'm I'm not okay with seeing the recent scores that came out. And I want to know where are we failing the kids? What can we do? We have to take a look at that. Um,
063we know that there are inequities between the schools with what we offer between programs. We hear that all of the time. People come in and they advocate and I recently been talking to the superintendent because I don't want it to become that a school who has a parent who understands to come and do a public comment and reach out to us. We take care of that, but then we don't look at the other schools. It's on us to make sure that that those inequities are being addressed so that kids are all getting the same um same opportunities. I look I said the scores are one thing and we are making some efforts towards that. I also would love to see I I greatly support the arts and I would like to see that coming into
064um greater greater um a greater place into into our schools. It does come down to under this whole thing is also the the issue with funding. um we know we're going to be struggling and I know that we've already started um looking at you know where are we going to go and we're looking at this as a city. I do hope that people get involved with the chapter 70 funding formula um discussions that are going on. There are different efforts being made to bring that to more awareness and in this um levels of the state because it does impact us and all of these changes that we all want to do everything that we want to do it does require money. uh the city will be struggling with trying to make up the mandated amount
065that for the local contribution. So we have to take that but we can't lose sight of the fact that all of it comes down to we still have to take care of our students every single one and we have to find ways to be able to do that. So that would be my top pressing issue forever. >> Right. Thank you Sharon. Uh Kimberly >> may I hear the question again? >> Sure. Uh so the first segment of the question for you'll have two minutes is what do you see as the top pressing issue in Malden public schools and then we'll go back around and we'll we'll ask you what will you do to address that particular issue. So the first question is what do you see as the top pressing issue in Malden public schools.
066>> Um I will echo the sentiment I think everyone is it's funding money. Um we do we cannot operate without a budget and Malden has not built its budget and has not planned for its school's growth. I think we are being outpaced by the charter school um hands down. Um I am a huge proponent of educational choice. Um where people send their children is their business. I think it's our job as cities and communities to provide as many educational avenues as possible. And I think it's critically important to fund public schools and hold our city officials accountable that have been here for a very long time who have allowed these things to come to fruition. Um I think there's an accountability mechanism that we're I think is our our biggest problem in the Malden school
067committee uh school public schools right now is accountability of our funding. um because we should not be in the position we are in and I think that the social emotional needs that we should be focusing on and should be meeting um can't happen. I want to see individual bathroom stalls in all our schools. I want to see renovations like that that are happening in all the other cities um around us because they secured funding for it because they prioritize those social emotional needs. So funding for social emotional things, but more importantly holding people accountable for the funding that we currently don't have. >> Great. >> Thank you very much, Don. >> Thank you. Um, so everyone's mentioned funding. Um, we all know that Malden's um, education funding is a very pressing issue. Um despite our
068city's commitment to education, our chapter 70 aid lags behind our neighboring districts. Um cities like Everett and Rivier, they have comparable student numbers um and yet they get so much more aid. So um that's certainly a pressing issue moving forward um just to be able to support the school system. But, you know, additionally, and I've said since I first ran in 2019, um, representation matters and I think that Malden Public Schools does not, our faculty does not reflect our student body. Um, and you know, it just doesn't entail students of color. It's, you know, students of different intersectional identities and experiences need to see themselves reflected in the classrooms, um, in the offices, in in positions. And it's a proven fact that when students see themselves mirrored, they do better. They're more engaged. And so
069that's always been a pressing issue for me. Um, additionally, thank you. Additionally, um, as my colleague, Miss Rose Zyberg has, uh, said, our MCCAST test scores, um, was frightening. The fact that our Malden High School is in need of intervention, um, is very concerning to me. Um, why are we not engaging with our students? Uh, the current chronic absenteeism, why aren't our students wanting to come to school? Um these are pressing issues. Uh you you can't learn if you're not there. So um thank you. >> Thanks very much, Elizabeth. >> Thank you. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but money. Um [laughter] I really don't know what else to say other than money. Having sat at an emergency um subcommittee budget meeting earlier this week, um I really strongly encourage all of you
070to look at the chapter 70 funding formula. Uh when we compared our data, as Don had mentioned, Chelsea, Everett, um and River are comparative districts. Some of them receive double, literally double the amount of money that Malden does. We cannot do any of these marvelous things that everyone else sitting up here has mentioned that we would like to do or at least take into consideration without money. On top of that, um I I do think that there are a lot of growth opportunities for students. there are things that we know that are there that teachers teachers have communicated to us that they would love to try love to do things differently um love to have access to different materials different curriculums and things like that again everything is always going to come back to money
071the one thing that I will say it doesn't directly come back to money if you watched the last school committee meeting um you got the information that everyone else had mentioned with some of the lower test scores and things like that I think that's a multi multi-level problem also with The fact that MCCAST was not counting this past year, I think changed the engagement level of our students. Aside from that, um, at that meeting, I mentioned very specifically that our focus seemed to draw away from the math instruction and curriculum and that is something that I was very outspoken about the fact that I was not pleased with and I would like to for it to be different. So, those at this time are the most important things for me. >> Great. Thank you, Elizabeth.
072Peter, >> it's hard to pick one thing, right? I mean, money, of course. Yeah, I can. Um, I'm going to talk about money because I can't not. But at the same time, I also want to highlight a few issues that are particularly important for me. Uh, but let's start with the money issue because this is one of the main reasons that I'm running for school committee. I want to be a responsible steward of taxpay taxpayer money and there are going to be difficult conversations and I want to be at the table ensuring that my my students and their peers are getting uh the best educational experience possible with the money that we have and I'm excited actually it's going to be tough but I'm excited for a robust public debate about money. There's the Prop
0732 and a half override that is headed our way but there's other things as well. the the state department of elementary and secondary ed has public hearings right now about the chapter 70 funding formula uh specifically about the formula used to calculate local contributions which has gone way up in in Malden and so we should be contributing to this conversation also in the most recent state budget the governor vetoed a portion of the charter reimbursement money don't know this but public schools get reimbursed when they lose students to charter schools and a portion of that was vetoed by in the most recent state budget. We need that money back in Maldin and we need to advocate to let the governor know we need that money back. So, and then money fuels everything. I I fully
074support the comments about student mental health. I see it in the districts that I work in. And if we have more money, we have more guidance support. Um we need accountability in finance about how we're spending that money. We need to hire more diverse teachers. Um all of these things are possible. But we can even out the inequities in K8 schools when we have more money. I want to highlight two things also that are super important to me. Safe routes to school and curriculum diversity. And I think my time is about to be up soon. So I have a few more seconds. [laughter] Malden does not have school buses. We don't have school buses in Malden, which means that um now my time's up. I'll I'll I'll circle back around to it in a minute.
075>> Thank you, Peter. Thank you very very much. So, um, and as I mentioned, we'll start going around with we'll go Keith and we'll follow the same route and Keith, you're I I think you echo or you started what everybody ended up echoing, which was which was which was money. So, how would you address that? You have everybody has one minute. How would you address the uh the primary issue that uh you have all identified? Um well I mean uh when I was when I first came on to the school committee when I was first elected uh one of my personal priorities was to make sure that we got the million t millionaire's tax passed because we needed those funds and knowing that there were people out there they could afford going and paying an
076extra dollar on the on a million dollars plus annually of interest of of income to go and help our schools, to help our students. Um, honestly, it's really going to go and take uh, and you're going to hate me saying this, it's going to take a village. It's going to take all of us working together to go and call our state representatives and saying, "What are you doing to help us? What are you doing to go and find us grants? What are you doing to go and and work towards this?" And we've had a very education centric uh legisl representatives. Jason Lewis is on is on the education panel. Uh >> thank you. >> And really it's going impressing them. >> Great. Thank you very much, Keith. Thank you so much. Nicole, you identified the
077in particular the mental health crisis that was the a point of your emphasis. Um if you could address that, please. So with the mental health crisis, as I stated, um it's at epic proportions. We do not have enough social workers in our schools, counseling staff. We don't have resources for parents uh who are left struggling uh behemoth of a system. And when parents are actively reaching out uh and I have helped them, you know, to reach out and the answer has been that in some cases they're turned to DCF and DCF is coming back and saying that they don't even have enough funding right now to care for the children they're mandated to care for. So you hear all of us up here going money, money, money. And that's true, but it's two-pronged. The next
078person who sits in this seat, in all of these seats, they need to be an activist. We can't just sit back and be passive and accept the money that we're handed. We need to be out there driving more, but also we need to have good stewardship of those funds and find out areas where we're going to get more bang for our buck. Thank you. >> Wonderful. Thank you, Nicole. Thank you very much, Sharon. you identified uh a few um in terms of test scores, how to uh uh in ter how to best serve our kids, inequities also at the arts and of course the the funding um how do you solve world peace essentially. So >> we solve it with money [laughter] uh um for some of the stuff working I I actually enjoy working
079with the superintendent. So, we'll continue doing that and advocating for areas where I think that we need to improve all of the student services. Ultimately, that is our job to advise him, guide him, we we supervise him. So, I'll be working continue working with him. Um, when it comes to the money, I have been advocating. I've frequently talked to our state delegation about the chapter 70 situation. I do want to thank um, Vice Chair Jen Spataphor, who is actually speaking tonight to um, put forth our case for why there needs to be changes. that's why she's not here. I thank her for um being able to go out and do that and we need to do more of that. I also think that part of what we need to do to address some of the
080issues I have with with serving our students. We have to get creative. While these solutions are going to be coming, they're not going to be immediate, but we still need to serve our kids. So, I like there's different things the superintendent had started doing with different ways to approach after school opportunities. I want to see if there's ways we can do that for before and after as well as other looking for grants and things like that. >> Great. Thank you very much. Uh Kimberly, you identified uh once again money, but one of the your points of emphasis was accountability of funding. Um would you like to address that in in a minute? >> Uh I absolutely would. Um so accountability of funding is incredibly important, especially in times when it is being cut everywhere you
081look. Uh federally, statewide, we are in a crisis. Um and citywide, we have found ourselves again in a crisis. Um, and there are certain individuals and bodies that have allowed a crisis to happen and they need to be held accountable, but it's it's holding them accountable to find the solutions. Um, it's calling them out. It's bringing community engagement to it. Um, I think being at the state house, I think organizing within the community and most importantly transparency. A lot of people don't understand that the push and the pull between the public and the charter and the private schools. Um it's a lot of hearsay and it's a lot of uh opinion. Um and we're all actually looking for the same things which is quality education and the money is there and it's it's how we
082share it and how we um spend it and and and what it provides for our community that's really important. >> Thank you Kim Don. You spoke uh about money but you also and you and you also spoke about uh representation and how our uh students are not our faculty is not reflected uh with the with the students. >> Um yes I did. And so you know we all know that Malden is the most diverse uh public school system in Massachusetts. Um and so yes the faculty needs to better reflect our students. Um, you know, a couple of years ago I served on the steering committee um that was charged with um finding culturally culturally responsive curriculum uh for our students. Um but we need to go a step further. We need to be intentional with
083our hiring practices. I think that um you know what I would love to have um is a college fair here that in Malden that also um invites H.B.CU CUS to to the table. Um there we're just not using all of our resources to to better serve our our children and our students. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. >> Thank you, >> Elizabeth. You also referenced money and you also emphasized chapter 70 and the discrepancies with that. Would how would you like to address it? >> Thank you. I I want to jump off what Sharon was saying and thank um Vice Chair Spataphor for going to this statewide meeting tonight to bring up the issues with the chapter 70 funding. I know we all have been speaking in in different subcommittee meetings and with the
084superintendent in our meeting. I've been speaking with um city councilors as well about really doing a deep dive into the budget to see if there's places that we are not collecting what we should be collecting. Um there I think there are certain areas here that we need to look at more closely both on a Malden level but I think it's really important for us to consider partnering with families in the community even the students uh the high school students are very actively involved in their education and I think it's important for people at the leg at the state house to hear what is happening when this funding formula doesn't properly address them. >> Great. >> Thank you. Thank you. And Peter, you spoke about being a responsible steward of of funding as well as the
085charter school reimbursement a veto and safe safe routes to school and curriculum diversity. Pick pick one or two that you think you >> I threw a lot out there. >> Uh I'm gonna I'm gonna focus on safe routes to school and curriculum diversity. We've heard a lot of great comments about funding. Um, so, uh, as, uh, as as a parent at Salemwood School, I am, uh, I'm involved with the PTO. We're partnering with Malden Safe Streets to create a walk bus program, which is exactly like it sounds, a uh, a group of students who walk to school together. And I'm the walk bus captain for Malden. This is a a way of getting school students to school on time and safely and to build community. And just yesterday, a WBZ radio reporter, James Rojos, came
086out and did a story about our walk bus um at Salem Wood. So, I encourage you to go check that out. That's the safe routes to school. And then, you know, we talked about the diversity of Malden. It's the reason that my wife and I moved here. Um and so, our diversity is rich and yet our curriculum has not kept up with it. Malden is ripe for a dual language program, for example. There are numbers of way there are a number of ways that we can leverage our diversity in curriculum. Bringing in diverse books into libraries is another one. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you very much. Thank you for your answers and and the points that you all brought up. Uh now I am this is my the part that I've been looking forward
087to the most because we have questions from the audience and in particular we have questions from our young leaders and our youth leaders and I'm really looking forward to hearing from them. Uh, Angie, I know you were going to put them on the spot. Would you like to have them come up and and ask the question or would you like to ask the question yourself? Whatever they're comfortable doing. And I I their stunned silence is very reassuring. So [laughter] again, you you are our next generation of leaders. So thank you for it. [applause] I always get excited when I see the young leaders come up. It is really really uplifting. Thank you for making time to be here and if you could introduce yourselves and and yeah. >> Hi. Okay. Hi guys. My name is
088Mang and I'm a senior from Malden High School. And um I'm I'm not going to ask the question, but I just wanted to let everyone know that um outside we have a um me and my other youth member um wrote a 10-page report about why modern high school should um introduce more languages into the curriculum, especially like um Asian languages because yeah, we want to um improve inclusivity. Yeah. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you. >> My name is Nam and I'm here to ask this question. Um, how do you plan like what what your specific plan to help bring more inclusive languages like Creole or like Chinese or Mandarin, anything like that to modern high school? Because we have had meetings with uh the superintendent and he says there's a lot of trouble. So like
089how do you think you can change that? how I think you can help like the whole diverse modern high school. Yeah. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you for your question. Thank you for coming up and thank you for being here this evening. Um we will start I guess with Kimberly work our way down and then for the second question audience session we'll start with Sharon and work our way back down. So Kimberly if you'd like to begin. >> Sure. Uh and thank you that was very brave. Um language language options in Malden um seem like a no-brainer. Um I I have I can't believe that we don't have this already because as a graduate of Malden High, this was this was the trend that many years ago. Um so if I were to be elected,
090I would do anything I could policy-wise to implement that. Um my dad speaks Mandarin and I think a little Cantonese. Um, I've never been able to pick it up that well, but I I did live in Mexico for a little while and and I I I love the idea of having more languages. Um, in Malden, we are known for and represent so many spoken languages. Um, that one that one seems easy to me. So, um, I I would say that I would do whatever was necessary. >> Thank you. Thank you, Nam, for the question. Um, so of course what we previously talked about, everything comes down to funding and and money. Um, we would love to have language access in in different languages that represent our students in particularly in the high school because how
091cool would it be for your friends, American friends or you know um Spanishspeaking friends for you you to be able to communicate in each other's native language that would I think that would be so cool. um you know it's it's just funding and it's money. Um but that's certainly something that I would advocate for if we can change the chapter 70 funding. >> Thank you Luth. >> Thanks for asking N. It's a great question and I actually have a a little bit of a different perspective on this. As someone who works in a school district where there's Mandarin taught, I can tell you a couple things about some of the barriers about actually hiring for this position. Um, not necessarily Mandarin, but I'm just giving you an example. Um, money. Obviously, we don't I'm not
092going to go there with you guys. You you know you know that at this point. One of the biggest issues with finding a teacher or foreign language is that it is one of the most difficult positions to fill in a school. Period. So, I think the best way to go about finding that teacher is by growing your own. I I'm can stand corrected here, but I believe there's a program at Malden High called Grow Your Own where uh I know of at least one senior that's in it, and it is where you learn about the education field and the second part of your senior year, you are and you know, helping out in classrooms and learning what it means to be a teacher's assistant. I think if we really want to do this, that's going
093to be the best way to go about that. Thank you very much, >> Peter. >> Really appreciate this question and I'm really excited to check out the paper May that you mentioned um in the hallway there. Um I was going to mention grow your own programs. I think that this is a really smart way of bringing language diversity uh into the schools. Students like in so many ways we have everything we need here, right? students speak those languages and if they if they're in a grow your own program and they become teachers then then then that kind of like builds the stock for teaching these languages. I think that's really important. Money is always a problem of course but I think that we can we can think about creative ways to get around that maybe.
094So for example there are so many community- based organizations in Malden that represent folks from different backgrounds like like the great groups that are that are hosting this event. Maybe Malden Public Schools can partner with them to at least hire folks in an ed in an ESP role, an education support professional, so that that person can bring some of this language diversity into the school. That's different than hiring a certified teacher, of course, but the resources are there in our community and we can harness that. >> Wonderful. >> Thank you, Keith. >> Thank you. And it's a it's a question that's kind of near and dear to my heart. Um, you know, my wife goes and speaks fluent Spanish. Her family uh is from Mexico and uh m espanol esre and which means my Spanish
095is horrible. Uh that being said, uh I'll echo the sentiments of everyone here. It's hard to get teachers that that are qualified to go and speak. It's a hard position to go and fill. Of course, we need to go and have the funding to go and do this stuff. I think we do need to go and come at this from uh sometimes different angle angles getting community involvement. Chinese Cultural Connection does a wonderful program about going and cheat teaching Mandarin. Um there are certainly other groups out there that we can reach out to. I'm sure the moss might go and have people that would be willing to go and teach Arabic. Um I would also like just go and see us go and do maybe a little bit more cultural inclusion classes. uh things that
096I've gone and championed the the CARES Act for instance to go and show that there's diverse histories. If you get people interested in the culture surrounding these languages, they'll want to go and learn the language so that they can understand the culture better. >> Thank you, Keith Nicole. >> So, what's so beautiful about language is it's not just about the words that we're saying. It represents the culture that we come from, the shared traditions of those who came before us, and even how we think. And some of the greatest inventions of all time come from different looking at the problem from a different point of view, which is what wires our brains on how to have those different viewpoints. And so, yes, I think we've made it very clear funding is an issue, but we
097can get creative about it. Why can't we have World Languages Month to celebrate districtwide and reach out with community partnerships and allow students themselves to give presentations about their language and how it's evolved and the heritage that represents sharing cultural phrases or expressions that are beyond just direct translation as well as maybe having we're going to speak Mandarin for a day. We're going to speak Arabic for a day. do it with us and I think that is a great interimm step. >> Thank you Nicole. Thanks very much Sharon. >> Thank you again. This is something we can obviously advocate with the superintendent to work on on getting this um established within our school system. I actually was having a conversation I absolutely this is true was talking about this yesterday to a um a parent
098in the um city as we were talking about what languages and how they've changed over time what we offer in the schools and we literally said this needs to happen. Um so I hear you and I agree with you. Um other things now knowing with the budget I also know it is hard to do that. I actually love what you had said, Peter, about maybe there's ways, and it ties in with what Don has said about representation with getting people into our school systems who already are speaking these languages. It's not the same by any ways of actually teaching people, but at least exposes people to to it in a different way, which I would be interested in seeing if we can work on something like that. So, well done. Um, did also wonder again
099the whole part with getting creative. So, if we can't get it into the classroom, maybe there are ways that we can pull in and offer more of these after school opportunities to at least get those out there in our younger grades um and then work towards getting it into high school as well. Thank you. >> Thank you, Sharon. Thank you all so much for your answer to that. And thank you once again to the youth leaders for your question. That was wonderful. Thanks so much. Um do we have a second question? Uh I know the there are two questions usually, I think. Okay, we we had the youth question. So, I think that's that's fine. We'll go straight into the uh the candidates closing statements. And we started with Kim. So, we will start with
100Sharon with your closing statement and we'll work our way down this way. Thank you to everyone who put this event together and to everyone watching. I'm dedicated to my work on the school committee and I look forward to continuing my work for a third term. As most of you probably know, I'm not I'm running unopposed. When I ran the first time, I thought of a Lynon principal who told me she wanted her legacy to be she always put the student first over everything when she made her decisions. I'd come to her with a very difficult school situation. And I started to cry when she told me, "Give me three days. It'll be taken care of." She asked me why I was crying. I explained I had no idea which way that discussion was going to
101go and all I wanted was my son to get what he needed. Her words helped my heart that day and I still used those to guide me on the school committee. Our job and my job is to do our best for all students and all students means just that. I remain committed to listening, doing my research, asking questions, working as a team, finding answers and working on solutions. This is an amazing privilege to be on the school committee and to get to do this. I don't take anything for granted and I don't take for granted the trust and support I've been given by voters in Word 8. I humbly ask for your continued support and your vote in November. Thank you. >> Thank you, Sher Nicole. >> These are definitely challenging times uh to be
102a school committee member. Um, and back when I went to go and graduate from high school for myself, I almost didn't graduate because my family didn't have enough money to pay for the fee to grade my senior project because growing up in Utah, they had peacemilled and charged an arm and a leg for every single piece of education that we were to receive. And I was shocked when I went to go and enroll my first child here and there were no fees. It was literally free education. And I was floored. We take so many things for granted. We can't just sit here and complain about the money. We need to have accountability. We need to be proper stewards and find areas where we can invest that will give us more fruit, more cultivation. And so
103that's what I pledge to do. I'll be a partner up here as a working parent to represent your interests and make sure we do the best for our children and their future. Thank you. >> Thank you, Nicole. Keith, you're up next. >> Thank you. Um I want to go and thank the organizers. You've done a great job. Um my name is Keith Bernard. I am asking for your vote uh by November 4th for re-election to W seven school committee. Um, I just want to go and take a moment and share my thoughts here. Um, it's a privilege to go and do a job like this. It's an honor. I take it very seriously. Um it takes certain kind of qualities to go and do it and that is to be to have conviction, be humble
104and to know how to work as a team because it takes a team of us to go and actually go and do these things to do the budget to put the policies together to listen to you and to try and go and find solutions for all of these problems. And it also goes and takes being able to go and work with you, the public. And I look forward to going and hearing you and talking with you and hearing what you want as we go and we move forward. Um, my name is Keith Bernard and I'm looking forward to going and having your vote on November 4th. Thank you. >> Thank you, Keith. Peter, >> thanks again um, Lever for hosting. Thanks to the organizations for putting these together, the students for their thoughtful questions. uh
105we are at an unprecedented time in our nation's history period, but especially for American public education with uh threats to budget cuts and threats to um uh to to uh the kind of curriculum diversity that we have talked about that we value so much here. And as a parent of young children, I know how overwhelming this can be to take in the news on a daily basis. I am asking for your vote in W 6 because I want to be that voice for you to connect to hear about your concerns during these times and to represent your interests and your perspective in the places where decisions are made about students. Uh there are uh there's a lot up for debate. There's a lot at stake in the in in current debates about public education. Um
106and uh and I I I want to work with the community to um to represent your voices. pieta formaldin.com. Thank you. >> Thank you, Peter. Elizabeth, please. >> Thank you so much for hosting this forum tonight. Um, I hope that my answers to the questions gave you a little bit of, [clears throat and cough] excuse me, gave you a little bit of insight into the way that I like to participate in the school committee and within the community. It's really important to me that every student in this district gets exactly what they need to be properly educated and to move into adulthood with opportunities available to them. I think it's really important that we continue to advocate as a group and work together. I think it's incredibly important that parents feel and other people within
107the community feel as though they can communicate with us in various means and get their questions answered as well as receive support from us. Um, I will be the word five committee member yet again because I'm running unopposed. Um, and I look forward to continuing some of the work that I've started during this previous term. Thank you. >> Thank you, uh, Don. >> Thank you. And thanks once again to the organizers, um, to our moderator, to our wonderful Malden students in the back. Um, thank you for hosting and and organizing this. Um, Malden is the most diverse school district in Massachusetts. We've, you know, we we always talk about that and that's not a challenge. That's actually our superpower, you know, but diversity without investment, without representation, without accountability, that's just a statistic, you know,
108if there are things that we need to to build from and and make sure my time is running out. Um, make sure that our issue, these issues are not just abstract issues, right? So, leadership isn't about comfort or maintaining. It's about courage. It's about accountability and and action. And I will continue to stand for our students and folks knew I've they call me from across the wards, not just Ward 4. I'm here for all of the students. Um, thank you once again. I do ask for your support, your continued support, and your vote on November 4th. Thank you. >> Thank you, Don. It does go quickly, doesn't it? >> Too quickly. [laughter] >> Kimberly, please. Um, thank you all for your time tonight. Um, I I am a lifelong resident of Malden and a graduate
109of Malden High. My parents shared a locker at Malden High and my grandfather taught at the old middle school that no longer I think it's the ELC now. Uh, I genuinely value Malden's Asians community's contribution to our culture. Um, it's affected how I live my life, how I serve my community. And I think that the beauty of Malden is its diversity and very specifically um the Asian community's commitment to Malden and making it better is is incredible. Um I want to use my voice to help um the students in our lives get what they need. Um and I will promise if elected to hold elected officials accountable like I've mentioned um city and statewide. Um, Malden deserves leadership that wants to fight for the best interest of students, families, and educators, and I feel like
110I understand the needs of families. Um, I I love Malden. Thank you. >> Wonderful. I I'd love to give everybody up here a wonderful round of applause. Thank you all so much. Uh, this is uh, you know, this the your answers were were thoughtful. They were thorough. They they they showed passion and each of you have such a deep deep uh resonance and and and deep background here in Malden. When some of you said you had grandchildren, I said, "No way." But but I do want to say thank you to all of you for for your commitment. I was talking with Peter who who actually parked behind me uh on the way here and we're talking about what it it it it it it really is a a tougher time to run for office now
111more than ever. um you you already have to take your time, your energy, um your your your you put your family out there and especially now with the rhetoric the way it is, you know, you you put yourselves out there and it does take a a a lot of courage to to put yourself out there. So, thank you all for your sacrifice and your commitment to this. And um I think I mentioned uh earlier that I've I've moderated several forums uh three here in Malden, probably a couple of dozen around the state in different areas. And so what I always do is I I do research into what am I getting myself into? And so I did research and I know all right I know but so I want to thank all of you particularly
112here um for for your thoughtfulness for uh for your cordiality and and and the the uh civiless in this is in this discourse that I think bodess well. I think it also uh is a wonderful example to our students here. I hope to the students here, I hope you saw this is how it can and should be done. The stuff that you see on TV that is sort of the extreme. I want to this is this is a wonderful example of how it can and should be done. And I really hope that this encourages all of you and anybody who is watching on YouTube or who will who will be watching this on YouTube. I hope this encourages you to stay active and stay involved and and be part of this process because particularly for
113the youth, you are the next steps in this generational struggle. So, thank you for being involved. Thank you to our our translators, Ana, Terry Yin. Thank you to our organizers and thank you again to all of you who have been Did I forget you again? And I'm sorry, what is your name again? >> Lynn, thank you again. I I forgot her last time, too, and I'm so mad. So, my apologies. Um, we'll edit that out of the YouTube feed. Uh, so no, I'm just kidding. But thank you to all of you for being here. Thank you to the candidates. And early voting has started. Um, there are there are flyers out front which are once again translated into Mandarin into Chinese and Vietnamese that detailing where you can you can start your early voting. And
114that is once again a wonderful step for this community um in Malden and the Asian-American community. Thank you all so much for being here. Um we we greatly appreciate it and thank you to all of you. We have food I think refreshments out front. And once again, stick around, get to know everybody here. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to get to know your your public officials and the candidates and people who are involved in the community. So please stick around and get to know folks. So have a good evening everybody and uh and election day is very soon. Another [applause] special. [applause] Awesome. Thank you everybody. Thank you all so much. >> Thank you all so much.