001hi I'd like to welcome uh our three candidates tonight um and I'd like to welcome our audience behind us um my name is Daniel honig I am the second vice president and chief negotiator for local number 710 Columbia Heights Federation of teachers Education Minnesota we are also part of both the Nea and the AF nationally um it has been the proud tradition for the teachers union to sponsor um at the in the 23 and a quarter years that I've been here sponsoring all of the board candidate forums uh and I'm proud for us to continue that uh in our audience uh helping to vet some of the audience questions which I'll talk about in just a second is our president Peg Nelson Peg you can wave to everybody okay as well uh our superintendent is
002here Zena stenvik and uh and Stephanie Alvarez the executive assistant to the superintendent and the school board did I get that right the whole time good all right and um Stephanie will be coming around to the audience to collect uh the questions so we will be soliciting questions from the audience I have six prepared questions for our three candidates and we'll be alternating who starts and then I will let you know the direction that we're going as we go through those uh and then we'll continue that if we have audience questions which I saw people scribbling so I know that we have some we are scheduled to be here from 7 to 8:30 uh if we exhaust it depends on how fast we go and how we get through the questions we should get to
003some we may not be able to get to all of the audience's questions um in the event that we exha exhaust all the audien's questions will end early so we are not on a bell for those teachers that are in the room okay uh and then my announcement yes the Minnesota Twins uh ended a 18 game losing streak a 19-year drought and they won in at Target Field for the very first time in a playoff game so those of you behind me will see Jorge palanos Jersey hanging from there I came from the game to come here uh and and I will be there tomorrow so go twins okay so we'll start with Miss extran uh then we'll go to miss pway and then to Mr Westerberg uh on our first question so um and
004we will take three minutes each on the questions Stephanie over there will uh be timing you and she will let you know when you get close to your time okay so uh on the first question Miss exen uh introduce yourself and share why you are applying to be a candidate for the school board also uh before we start you uh if anybody would like me later on down the line to repeat the question just ask that and I'll repeat the question again introduce yourself and share why you are applying to be a candidate for the Columbia highight School Board all right my name is Cheryl extran and my friends and family know me by Sherry I am married to my husband Larry and I've been living in the district for 16 years we have two
005adult children one graduated from Columbia Heights in 2007 and the other is a registered nurse and living in Sparks Nevada and we have two grandchildren I am an active volunteer in the children's ministry at my church and professionally I am an a small business owner of a cleaning business and so I know how to build trust and caring relationships and I have a hard work ethic and I always give my best effort because uh they say Well done is no they say well said is better no they say Well done is better than well said excuse me okay um I'm semi-retired so if I'm elected I will have the time to spend on the school board and I am running for school board because I want to see um the public school in Minnesota become
006a Hallmark again and I also have a love for children and community and I'm deeply concerned about the future of our children thank you thank you for your response Miss pway hi um first off thank you um for hosting this forum for us and thank you to all of our Educators and staff for all the hard work that you put in for our students every day um my name is Michelle pway I have one daugh daughter she attends North Park um school for Innovation I'll say the whole name um and we started our academic career kind of at a crazy time uh Co took half of kindergarten all of first grade and part of second grade um so there was a lot of adjusting and um and just uh getting used to teaching from home
007and things like that I definitely if not now more than ever have an appreciation for in-person Learning and what it takes for our students staff and parents to all collaborate in order to make um the best learning space for our children um I feel like uh my journey to school board started back um when my daughter was in kindergarten North Park was rebranding and um I was asked to participate in the task force and um then I got to get a small glimpse of uh decision making and funding issues and things that were of question and concern for um our community members families and staff um I then went on to uh be the first uh leader of our um previously named um families of color affinity group but now we have changed it to
008the bipo family advisory uh committee um so I'm the first parent of that group and I just learned to advocate for others and bring voices out that may not be there and it kind of led me to my role and position uh on the school board I applied for the open seat and I am currently Seated on the school board I am liaison Valley View Elementary um previously North Park and um the liaison to the city of Columbia Heights as well as um I serve on the committee uh the subcommittee for Community engagement um My ultimate goal and why I'm running is because um I feel like our district is great and diverse and I feel like I want to help keep that momentum going there hasn't been a voice like mine at the table
009before and um I appreciate that my voice matters I want my daughter to see that her voice matters and that people who look like her K can be in positions of leadership and I think that uh yeah that could all the voices I hear um from the community and our schools um are integral in us moving forward in a positive direction thank you thank you for your response miss pway Mr Westerberg evening my name is Greg Westerberg I'm here tonight with my wife we have been Comm community members for 32 years here we've seen our four children go through the school system we've seen two grandchildren go through part of the school system we now have three more CH grandchildren in the school system I'm recently retired fully now so I just happen to always
010want to be involved but because of requirements through my different careers I didn't have the time but now that I do and now that my grandchildren are back into the school system I want to take a more active role in what's going on in their schools and so I when I saw the notice I figured this is possibly one way so I that's what reason why I applied thank you for your response Mr Westberg and now question number uh before we get to question number two if there is anybody who has a question you can go over to Stephanie you might get up and come around uh and grab your uh questions from you um so continue to get your questions ready question number two we'll start with Miss pway then go to Mr Westerberg
011and then to miss extrand addressing equity in our schools is one of the board's goals how would you support that goal um I'll start by saying that I think um words and definitions are powerful so knowing the definition of equity first off and setting that definition for everyone and everybody agreeing on what that definition is is a big part of it um um and I feel like uh it it kind of gets limited to certain areas um like race or culture and things like that but there are so many other things that go into an equitable educational space for our children um and that could be um students with disabilities um the appropriate you know age appropriate curriculum um students who deal with uh different sexual orientation or gender identity and mental health uh physical
012health uh concerns and soci economic status I could go on right because we're all different and everyone learns different um I think that um setting that stage opens it up to create the dialogue needed in order to move forward um having said that I think that funding is a huge um part in that and I think that we need to have um staff in our students who identify with our students and they can identify with them to have um a safe space in the school somebody to go to who can talk to them about the things that they're concerned about um and it doesn't have to stop at education it can be anything and they just feel like they want to be there um I think that the money is a huge part because we
013can't have anything that we need the resources our our staff needs um the buildings and everything else um to take care of our students if we don't have that so feel like that's kind of the umbrella and then everything else Falls underneath it thank you for your response miss pway Mr Westerberg okay how do I support Equity correct is that the first one addressing equity in our schools is one of the board's goals how would you support that goal Equity is always an important aspect of our culture no matter whether it's this local community our community at large statewise National wise the definition of how we're defining Equity is always in flux one of the problems the school board would always have is to how do we identify what Equity looks like within our community
014therefore we must work with the school board the school board works with the schools through the superintendent they also have to work through the committee because our school is not only within our community but as I've seen through my grandchildren go the valley few is that there is a large diversity that is from with outside our community so how do we also invest in them so not only are there languages issues we have um racial issues and that so one of the things the school board always will have to be flexible is how we will stay consistent within the our Changing Times to every child has the opportunity to achieve success basically what the school board has already done is how then would I support that okay next question or do you have more no
015okay thank you for your response Mr Westerberg and Miss extran okay I pretty much agree with both what Greg and Michelle said and I would support the equity statement by making sure all students teachers faculty and community members are treated fairly and feel equally valued I believe the Strate strategic work map road map that the Columbia height school district has implemented has been a very good road map and I also believe that Equity involves cultivating the communication between students parent and teacher teachers inspire educate and maintain discipline parents are being informed and actively engaged and supportive and students need to Value learning and understand the effort they have to put in in order to get the most out of their education this will all help to maximize student educational achievement while building respect and love
016for one another thank you thank you for your response was exan and now for question number three um and we will go Mr Westberg Miss extran and then miss pway at the end how would you be an advocate for the needs of the district on a legislative level again how would you be an advocate for the needs of the school district on a legislative level Mr Westerberg for that I would have to admit my ignorance um I have not work even though I have worked at the state that's been a long long time ago so I would have to really depend on my fellow board members and also the school board not not school board but the district and the superintendent because they're the ones that get more involved in the day-to-day issues and so
017for me it would be a learning experience so I can't really say how I would Advocate there short of going down there and attending some of the meetings or something thank you for your response Mr Westerberg Miss extr I believe it is very important to keep communication going with our local and state representatives I make visits to the capital every week to keep informed with issues and bills being discussed and have frequently sat in sessions in the Senate and the house I found myself watching to see if they actually do what they say say they're going to do I do know for a fact that there are Representatives that know the issues and the challenges the school district face and I'm certain they would meet with school board members teachers and the community to talk
018about our concerns if elected I will continue to be involved by phone emailing connecting with them personally or however it takes because I know it makes a difference when we let our voices be heard on issues that we care about thank you thank you for your response with Section Miss pway um so to kind of second the um Stayin formed part I think that that is a huge part of um helping our district um legislatively I think that if you don't know what the concerns are of the community or what the rules and uh new governances are in legislative ways then you won't know how to address the concerns um so I think um that is a good job to to to a good idea to stay informed um also to stay engaged um a
019lot of people may think that they cannot contact their legislators but uh you can your legislators um they want to be contacted they want to know what the concerns are I think it's important to let them know what our ideas are of our school district and what we want it to look like and what we need to make that happen um if we don't tell them what we need they won't know and they won't advocate for us um so that means having more engagement in the schools in the community as well because um the schools are part of the community and we also want to make sure that we have our parents our staff um all contribute to that that idea so that we can go um as a unified you know school district and
020tell them what we need thank you for your response Miss pway uh again I'm going to encourage our audience to have questions we're going to begin going through them uh to organize and vet them and everything here when we probably get to about question number five we have six questions that are pre-formed so letting our audience behind me know about this uh and let me also encourage our audience uh that we do have uh Refreshments behind us so please do uh take this moment uh to get up and get yourself something I'll even wait a good 30 seconds if you'd like to get a drink or a cookie this is a hard crowd well then I'm going to move on uh question number four and we'll start with Miss extran go to miss pway and
021then back to Mr Westerberg how does the role of a Schoolboard member differ from that of a parent or Community member again how does the role of a Schoolboard member differ from that of a parent or Community member is extrand um my this school board member um they're involved with the community they're at advocates for the community and advocates for students and teachers and faculty and they need to be involved with the community and know their concerns um they I know they have a role for um uh here I go um I know they have they keep in cont contact with um the staff and the teachers and the superintendent um I know they um are they I'm freezing up um I'm going to stop there so I don't make a fool of myself so
022yeah thank you thank you for your response as extion Miss pway um having recently gone from p parent and Community member to school board member um it's kind of fresh on my mind I guess so uh I'd say that there's more responsibility to the role uh people look to us to lead them guide them um answer questions um address concerns and things like that and when you are responsible for that you have to take it seriously and you're responsible for more than just your household or you know con conversing with people about what they think and just you you know yeah understanding you have to actually put it into action and I think that the community and um our schools our families they need to see us put that into action um and create that
023Equitable space that we're all you know trying to get to so I think um it's our job to build uh community and and connections um Bridge those gaps that are there between our school district and the community and I don't think that the average Community member will take on that role because it's nothing uh to be taken lightly and I think that we really uh owe it to our city when we take that role on to deal with things in the way that they are asking for um so if I was just a mom I wouldn't be uh attending everything that I do probably or um being as involved but it makes me want to know more about what's going on know what's going on um in the government and things like that I'm not
024super political in that way so I've learned learned a lot and it definitely helps to to be on the inside and seeing what it takes to to run a school board and um school district and things like that thanks thank you for your response miss pway Mr Westerberg how does the role being a member of the school board differ from that being a parent ex there's a big difference the difference being between if I was a member of the board versus just a grandparent going to valy view and come my only concern would be I don't like the way they do the pickup that's always the pain and the hassle the traffic so I'm very as a parents we usually tend to be very single issue orientated are my taxes going to go up because
025of the levy stuff like that at a school board you have to see a much bigger picture sometimes it's not a pleasant picture just as the board here must make a decision whether to encourage a new Levy that that type of things and it's not popular with the parents and but sometimes you have to take take Theon popular Road my experience in life I've seen where people sometimes want to shove that off to the side and let become somebody else's responsibility I've always felt that you should take it head on may not make friends but that's not my purpose as a school board my purpose to the school board is that the school board does what's best for the overall Community even if it might tick off some parents thank you for your response Mr
026Westerberg let me take one uh about 30 seconds here okay we are going to start going through some of the questions please audience feel free to uh submit more questions we'll continue to categorize and take a look at them okay uh question question number five we will start with Miss pway go to Mr Westerberg and then finding Miss extran what are the challenges and opportunities facing public schools during the coid 19 pandemic that's what you gave me that was from last time hold on I can still answer I believe that we have more than likely switch this question out let's let's take a a 30 second no 60c break here all right that's good I just want to make everybody aware that I'm a math teacher so my uh my my literacy skills I am
027putting to the test here um so uh let me rephrase it uh so we asked the same question before when we were still in the midst of Co 19 uh now officially uh we have I guess the federal government declared we are out of Co 19 we're out of the pandemic uh but we have a lot of challenges uh in the post coid world the post pandemic world so I will rephrase what are the challenges and opportunities facing Public Schools considering the now postco post pandemic world and we will start with Miss pway awesome um so firstly I feel like it's an obvious answer but but maybe not but funding I think that uh our Co dollars are now gone and where we had a little bit of room to get the things we need
028we actually won't have that extra money now which helped us I mean there's no such thing as extra money sorry but it definitely helped a lot and without that we uh we do uh feel like we will struggle a little bit I think also coming along with that post-pandemic um thought process health is still a challenge for us um there's new Strength there's new vaccines and different concerns for parents flareups and things like that uh it's definitely still a concern even though technically we're post pandemic uh I also think that keeping staff which is not uh just a funding issue uh but just having the right staff that we need um which usually comes along with funding uh for our mental health concerns and things like that for our students I think that uh mental
029health awareness is a big deal and although we address it I I do feel that uh you know the learning does come first but this is also a part of our students learning process and they need to be um aware of self and safe in their environment and I feel like that comes along with it and and I feel like post pandemic there are more Health U mental health concerns and challenges thank you thank you for your response miss pway Mr Westerberg can you repeat the question absolutely what are the challenges and opportunities facing public schools now that we are in a postco 19 post pandemic world oh okay one of the challenges facing Us in the postco is it's still here we recently received notification from valy view that there are still a lot
030of people suffering from Co I myself suffered from Co for the second time just a few weeks back and it hit our family so it's not going to go away so we may say we live in a postco but it will somehow affect the way we operate as for a lot of opportunities we have I've seen through the 30 some years the challenges they change but yet they also stay the same I have been here before when they were trying to save money and the one opportunity they thought was to eliminate a school principle so i' I've said there I've gone to those meetings and you know what those issues are still here we're still trying to fight how do we pay provide the proper amount of teachers the proper amount of schools so those
031challenges are still there we still have the challenges how we want to operate is you know right now how do we bust people and those type of things so those challenges have always been there and until there's changes at the state level which determines a lot of what the school district can and cannot do we're going to continue to fight those and and you brought up the question earlier about how do we get involved with the state and that that's where the school board has to get involved in the state I've known people throughout the years that worked in different school districts that have taken different approaches I've heard from the school board in some of the meetings how they're involved with like the Minnesota School Board Association I'm sure I'm don't have the Acron
032acronym right but there are different things and so for me every challenge is an opportunity um I there's some things I don't like the way we do things but those are personal um philosophies of things like that and my concern again is for the community they might have a different interest in what I have and so then how do we work with that how do we maintain quality teachers when the budget gets limited and the state will only allow us to do so much we want to raise have create a levy but now we're in the political consideration how do we determine what's enough money that people actually vote for it but then it's still not adequate to provide what we think is the proper resources for the school district so that hasn't changed in
033the last 30 years and that's been a common concern since I've been in this community so one things that what I would see is is if the challenges are are there we can learn from our history we can go forward from there but until we can make some changes at state level I see us going over and over all the time some of these challenges thank you for your response Mr Westerberg Miss exan well I would just add to that that we do learn from our lessons from you know what our mistakes we learn from them um with the possible variance coming back um from of coid I believe that you know maintaining inperson learning will be a challenge in this during this year and students who um remain severely behind academically at their grade
034level will be will have to reinforce the strategies that will help the students learn at their potential um school funding like they both said is will be a problem um and of course staff and teacher shortage shortage due to burnout um and that's and also the trauma with families from jobs lot from jobs losing to student behavior and emotional development and because of the rising number of suicides and teenagers too that's those are all challenges that we'll have to face but you know one uh one thing at a time and you know hopefully we'll learn from the mistakes and the challenges that we've been through already to you know help us move forward so that's all I can add from what they said thank you thank you thank you for your response was exellent okay
035and then our final uh question that we have uh prepared and then we'll get to some of the audience questions um and just so that the audience knows when we get to your questions some of them were uh similar and so we're kind of combining them uh you know to get a whole theme and so it may not be your exact question but it should come your question um so our last question uh the Columbia Heights Public School Board unanimously voted for two referenda uh questions uh how do you align with the referendum question or questions the two um and so we will start with Mr Westerberg then we'll go to miss Exon and finally back to miss pway for for me I've never had an issue with levies uh makes me somewhat unpopular maybe
036but I have always had the opinion that one of the most important resources we have in this Society is our teachers and the levies you know I've always been willing to pay a little extra but I also know that there are people who do not have the resources to pay for that again some of it goes back to the way we're funded through the state and there and until the state comes up with a more Equitable way that we do that you know I remember again unfortunately having this conversation 20 years ago whenever it was that they wanted to eliminate School principles and I asked in that question why you know why not just you know I'll pay $20 more a month in taxes and he said no you can't because the state restrictions through
037the levy system and everything like that so you know I support it I understand why this um School Board picked that dollar amount personally I would not mind paying more but then I know for other people that it is a struggle and that's the thing that school board must decide is what they can achieve that um personally I would say I don't think it's enough I don't think again I talked before where the challenges is okay I can give you the money but if I'm only going to fund you instead at 75% we'll raise it and we'll fund you 90% we still have to make a 10% cut somewhere so I'm not for taxes per se but because I believe in the importance of Education that's a place where I will you know I will
038make the sacrifice if that's what you want to call and pay more but again it may be easier for me to say that because my income level may be different than other people's thank you for your response Mr Westerberg Miss extran thank you um I've learned that levies are for Learning and bonds are for building okay so and I'm okay with taxes too just as long as we don't continue to get over taxed and with the 19 billion dollar budget that the um state government just went through um there's going to we we need to find new ways to come up with funding for our schools because with that $19 billion dollar um Surplus gone um the people are going to get taxed over the next four years so um even though I do believe
039that levies um the tax levies are good I'm I'm not sure how long we can continue to do that because there's just uh people are getting tired of being taxed all the time and with everything going else going on you know it's going to be hard for people to stay afloat some families I mean we're in the medium uh family income around this area so it's going to be hard but you know I do support the levies so thank you thank you for your response Miss ex Miss Petway um so I am for the the referendum um we passed that as a unified board um all of us decided that we need this our students having seen an increase in about 18 years and as of right now um there's about $39 per pupil that
040we are spending and the cap is 2,000 um that's a long time and that's a very little amount of money per student when there are surrounding districts getting way more than that um I feel like we've done a lot with a little as a district but um um that creativeness can only go so far uh there are grants that we have been using and things like that that have come into play to where we don't always need um the government funding or um the the levies but as of right now we're kind of in that moment um where this is going to be detrimental to our students future and by our students being our future we need to definitely uh surround them with the support that they need and I think that our community will
041understand that and think that they will pull through um I kind of have two different perspectives on this because um being a new board member I you know I'm on that other side looking at you know the taxes going up and with the inflationary part to it how much will it get to but at the same time I have a child who needs to know that she can do whatever it is she needs in order to succeed in this world so um I'm going to back that more than the dollar you know I throw my whole wallet out the window to make sure my daughter is okay okay physically mentally and get the best education she can thanks thank you for your response Miss pway okay we are going to move on to a question
042well uh before I get there msba Minnesota School Board Association yes you got it right oh you were perfect on that I had a little note here to come back to you and tell you yep that is exactly what it is okay so um in your opening statements and a little bit in some of the other answers to questions uh you talked about your children or your grandchildren or other things uh which gave us an idea of some of your connection to um to the community at large as well as to the school district itself and of course uh we know that the Colombia Heights Community is not the Columbia Heights School District we obviously represent uh Hilltop as well as the southern part of Fridley and as Mr Westberg had noted we also pull
043in from other communities especially uh Robinsdale as well as uh Minneapolis we get a lot of students plus some students from St Paul and other communities so what I'd like you to do is can you expand on your connection you gave us some idea can you expand on your connection to the Columbia height School District uh such as uh things that you've volunteered for or been a member of committees or commissions or other things and and of course to the Columbia Heights Hilltop and Southern Fridley communities and so we will start with M extrand um well I like I said I lived here uh for 16 years and I moved in from California because I'm a native Californian uh and I have been uh volunteering at my church in the children's ministry for a good
044eight years um other than that I've been busy you know keeping my small business going and so that keeps pretty much my time with those two things and my husband so that's about it thank you for your response Miss exan uh Miss pway um I mean biggest answer is that I'm a Schoolboard member um so being in that realm I'm able to uh like be a part of a lot of the decision-making and things like that that go into um us running our district uh I volunteer at the schools when I can I love North Park I will shout them out every time I can um because people don't know that they're hidden back there but they are technically in Fr um but still a huge part of Columbia High School District and um I
045I enjoy talking about them and um I I want people to know that they're there and that they're awesome um so I've also um I've also participated in numerous uh City events and things like that um as a school board we've built a connection and we love to collaborate with our city um and keep that connection strong so when events come up and things like that I try to make sure that I am getting out into the community um there are community members who don't have children in our schools who don't know when we have events and things like that so if I am going out into the community I'm able to share those things with people share with them uh where they can find certain information where they can reach us make ourselves accessible
046instead of always trying to make the community come to us so um I think that that's just kind of a a big part of um being a school board member but I'm also learning that it's it's just fun to be a part of the community and get out there and get to know know everyone we have a very strong and close-knit Community uh we're small but we are Mighty and I just enjoy taking all of that in thank you thank you for your respons to this pway Mr Westerberg my involvement with the community has always been rather limited I worked two careers two jobs for most of my life here in Columbia Heights so my involvement within Community was pretty much limited through my children I started with t-ball started as coach for the t-ball
047here through the rec department so again and then followed him all the way up to middle school then he outgrew my capabilities and get into school same thing with football once he hit middle school then I no longer coached his football team I no longer coached his basketball team once he got old enough so my involvement with the community was pretty much just through the Rex Center because that is something I could pretty much do there would be nights where we'd get done with practice and I say goodbye I drop them off and I headit head off to work or stuff like that so fortunately for me my three daughters they didn't care about sports so I was pretty well able to just concentrate on just one thing so that was my community I met
048a lot of people through the community going to the meat Raffles and stuff like that but within the school district probably not the first time we got involved is when my fourth grade daughter oldest daughter came home and says Dad Dad we got to build castle High you got to get involved so we went down there and pounding nails and everything went there but that's pretty much limited because again it's like okay I work weekends I work nights I work days so it was pretty limited that's why I said I even though I could have been more involved years back because of those constraints now that I am retired and I don't have to worry about that stuff I find I have the time on my hands that I could spend the effort to do
049become more and more involved D thank you for your response Mr Westerberg uh at this time I know that we do not have any further questions I have three more that I'm going to ask here from the audience uh but if there's anybody who still has a question if you can take it over uh here in the next five minutes or so so that we can have that um so our next question and we will start with Miss pway and and then move to Mr Westerberg and then miss extran so the question is how will you represent all families in the district including those who you may not agree with or who may not agree with you um kind of two parts to that um believing in the inclusivity aspect to our Equitable learning statement
050and things like that everyone's opinion matters right everyone's thoughts matter however everything can happen all at once and and everybody's not going to always agree so I feel like I am in spaces where I do hear uh the voices of people who may not have always been heard at the table and um their concerns may not always uh get there uh when they want them to and that may be an issue and I I try to make sure that I I let them know I hear them and that I'm listening I think that um as a school board member you learned pretty quickly that uh everyone is coming from different areas uh different backgrounds cultures everything like that so we're all going to think differently and um you have to kind of learn to hear
051no sometimes and take a little bit of rejection and and keep it moving you can't get caught up in in that so I try to just stay positive um I'll speak my mind say what I need to in a certain space and uh I I just have to understand that it's not always going going to be what I want I mean this is the real world right so we can only make so many things happen at once um but I think that at least addressing people's concerns letting them know that they are heard letting them know that their voice does matter um still goes a long way with people um because sometimes they just hear a flat out no and it shuts them down or makes them feel like they don't have a voice to
052speak so I just think giving them that voice is is a lot too thanks thank you for your response Miss pway Mr Westerberg I have always had the personal philosophy is that disagreement should lead to discussion and not Division and I've carried that through my careers and through my personal life however there will come times where we will have to agree to disagree and the school board will have that issue even whether I'm a member of the school board or not with and the levies again is a perfect issue if you believe in the levy there are going to be those that will not agree with it and as Michelle said it's important to hear them but also if it's something you firmly believe in they'll have to say okay I understand but I agree
053but we must agree to disagree and this is my personal view on it and this is where I'm going to stand and so um I don't know that answers your question but that's kind of how I deal with people where we have differences thank you for your response Mr Westberg and I might say it's not my question well well true somebody somebody in our audience and at this point it is anonymous but thank you uh and finally Miss Exon thank you U My Philosophy has always been to treat uh one another as you expect them to treat you you know we're commanded to love one another you know and part of that is learning to love yourself so you can do that you know we're always come up against people that don't agree with you
054so we just have to find common ground you know most of the time and just give it our best effort and listening taking the time to listen to people and just um hearing them and just uh understanding where they're coming from you know everybody is created equal we all have same rights we all just um be a happy world if we all just got along together and lived in peace but you know we're working on it so thank you thank you for your response Miss aan okay and now a question I would say is probably plucked right from some of our headlines out there in the world um do you we'll start with Mr Westerberg with this and then go to miss Extron and finally Miss pway do you support Banning books that the school
055has approved to be on the school shelves either in the classroom or in the media centers Mr Westerberg genetically I or not genetic um I would say I do not support Banning books however the community must have to decide what books are appropriate and there can be different means short of abandoning it because again you run into the issue where what one person may find offensive may not be offensive to another so the school district and I'm sure they have an I not aware a policy of how you determine those books maybe you don't ban the book but you limit access so that you have to be 18 and above or something like that because of the content material but um if you start Banning books regardless of where it stands we run into the
056issue of not on of losing our historical Traditions right or wrong may they might have been rning a time or period where we do not agree with with what their views were but those views are still historical representations what people thought in those days if you ban books just because you don't like a certain content then you've eliminated the possibility from people to be ex to explore different alternative viewpoints if there's only one Viewpoint in the book uh I mean in the school library or something I I guess I would not support that because everybody has a different opinion of things and again what one person might find offensive I may not be find offensive so how do you achieve a common ground so but again it has to be in the case by case
057because when you say Banning books that's very broad so that can include anywhere from porn pornography to uh religious material or and all kinds of things in between so because it's so broad I would have to say know unless there's a very specific reason why it would have to be thank you for your response Mr Westerberg Miss extrand thank you uh I would just add to that um that I well I do support Banning certain ones I believe that uh they all the books should be viewed um according to the age that they're um being viewed at with you know and I actually believe that um the students I mean the parents should be in on that viewing of the books um yeah so it's a hard subject but I do support banning at a
058certain age level and the certain content of the book if it's not appropriate for the age so that's all I want to add to that thank you thank you for your response M EXN Miss pway um so I think that there's um a couple parts to that because there have actually been books that were banned for not having the accurate depiction of you know a country or something like that and they're teaching our students uh the wrong thing right uh there's not always a negative uh reason to Banning a book right so in in that situation I would support Banning that book because we need to have the accurate information that we're teaching to our students students I think it depends on the reason if we're Banning books because we just don't want our students
059to read a certain thing or look at a certain thing then no I don't agree with that I think that we um entrust that to our our teachers and staff our superintendent um to create the curriculum and and choose what's age appropriate for our students and things like that there are certain books that may be at your local library that you will never find in a school um that are inappropriate for students right but there not inappropriate for adult people who want to read certain content so um what what we're going to find in the schools uh is supposed to be there defined by who we've entrusted as a community in a school district to lead our schools um I think that explaining a book to a child is more beneficial than just Banning it
060because there's learning to be had there you know you can tell a student why this book you know was seen as inappropriate or something like that and just help them to understand the world that they're living in because there are going to be people who oppose certain things and think a certain way so I think that um taking the books away don't really benefit um in fact I don't know all the parents out there I'm only in fourth grade here with mine but the more you tell someone not to do something they want to do it even more um so I feel like that's kind of pushing a different agenda there um kind of by mistake uh rather than just letting them have have the freedom uh to to decide themselves on what they want
061to read thank you thank you for your response with pway and then finally we have no no further questions then finally um I guess this kind of is a similar question to the last one uh am probably a little um charged but um here we go do you support age appropriate corre Cula that our lgbtq and bipo students can see themselves and their histories reflected in again do you support age appropriate curricula that our lgbtq and bipo students can see themselves in their histories reflected in and we'll start with Miss extr go to miss pway and end with Mr Westerberg can you read that question one more time yeah I will and if you'd like I can give you 30 seconds to I mean this one's pretty involved so if you want to take uh
062about 30 seconds to a minute to collect your thoughts on it uh and that'll give our other candidates also some time if I could could I quickly Define what bipo means for people who may not understand or know what it means um it means black indigenous or people of color oh okay oh that's right I remember okay and I I believe that everybody knows what lgbtq yes represents okay thank you no problem uh so one more time do you support age appropriate curricula that our lgbtq and bipo students can see themselves and their histories reflected in so let's take about 30 seconds or so to formulate your answers and then whenever you're ready Miss extran uh I don't know um I do I support the what was the first part of the question do I
063support the what do you support age appropriate curricula that our lgbtq Andor bipo students can see themselves in their histories reflected in so you're talking about the curriculum do I support the curriculum that's talking about right so that may be anything from uh reading book books to okay uh to other you know other things that are in I mean and we have a variety of curricula across the school district so that would be reading so that' be social studies that would be we have all sorts of things and at all different age levels obviously from our elementaries to our Middle School to our high school and that's why we said age appropriate oh sure age sure okay so I I would support it um based on its age appropriate and you know I being I
064would support it it doesn't mean that I would you know agree with it but I would support it because they are part of the community too okay um and they have rights just like everybody else and you know even though they choose to want to lead that life we still have to love them so you know what's fair for them is fair for everybody else so yes I would support it thank you thank you for your response Miss extran Miss pway yes um so I think that I wouldn't put the two groups together for this question I think that there are already things in place that exists for the bipac um families and while there obviously could stand to be more I would I would say yes um as you know the mother of a
065black child I feel like she definitely needs to see herself in her environment her school and her lessons um I think that it is um appropriate for that to happen but I Al you know I also think that there is you know um the other side to it with the lgbtqi plus Community to where um people will look at that a little differently right because that's we're not talking about someone's race their background their culture everybody in their family right that comes with them um so having said that there are students who may have two mothers there are you know students who may not see themselves in the average um family that society would tell them that a family looks like and when we say age appropriate I think that that's key I think that
066you know when most people think of that Community they think just sex and that's not what it's about and I think if we take that part out of it and look at you know the identity of the person that we're talking about the group that we're talking about um it's really just being who you are and nobody wants to go somewhere be told that they can't be who they are or that they don't exist um when it comes to um the history um of the community the lgbtqia plus Community um I'm not sure how I feel about that you know there are certain things that I would like to teach my daughter uh before you know she's in the fourth grade like I said so she's still at that that that age where certain questions
067you really don't want to answer um just yet you know so I think when we say age appropriate we don't really know what the school thinks age appropriate is versus what we think it is um it's in our movies it's in you know a lot of different things that our children see anyway I think it's a part of their world um all of them and you know to to hide it from them it's kind of setting them up for failure um we want them to be able to get together as a community collaborate and do the same things that we all want to do um as a as a school district and and things like that so we kind of need to encourage uh them learning about their fellow classmates their peers their friends the
068people who they're going to graduate with be friends with after graduation um you know I just think it's important to to hone in on that instead of kind of being afraid of it and pushing it away and we can always tailor it to what we feel is appropriate for our students thank you for your response Miss pway and before I go to Mr Westerberg as our our final person um I I would like to comment that I know that it is sometimes difficult to be the first person to answer a question and it's probably a lot easier to be the last person to answer the question unless everybody before you has now said all of your answer which it happen so but that's why we Bu The Starting and the ending so uh I didn't
069mean at any point to make anybody feel uncomfortable I know it's hard sometimes to be the first person to talk about stuff so m Mr Westberg your response this is a difficult question for me to answer and it all Revol revolves around the issue age appropriate because sometimes that is very politically driven who is interpreting what is considered age appropriate for whatever the material is and that's I've seen and read and heard about those arguments is this appropriate at this age some people say yes some people say no so for me just to blatantly say I support age appropriate uh curriculum I would have to say maybe because I would have to understand what the curriculum is who determined why it's age appropriate for that matter and then go from there do I mean is
070easy for me to sit there and go sure age appropriate but again I've seen too many arguments too many different opinions of when something is age appropriate and those are and based upon whatever the specific topic would be it may change from what a 14-year-old may do compared to a seven-year-old and that type of thing so I can't give you I don't want to give you just a blank blessing on that um I would support it but I would have a serious question is who's determining what is the age appropriate is there political motivations behind that or religious motivations or whatever the motivations are before I would make a decision thank you view response Mr Westerberg so at this point uh we are out of questions and I would like to thank our candidates for
071coming tonight um I believe this was another successful uh board candidate Forum uh and we have been very proud as the teachers union to sponsor it I'd like to thank our audience as well as our district Personnel for being here especially our poor Tech person who always hides in the corner uh so uh go watch the Twins game tomorrow can I make a comment sure I would thank my participants here and I firmly believe that no matter what choices made these people would do a well job thank you thank you have a good evening and drive safe everybody