001this is a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education welcome everybody and thank you for joining us this evening for the ptsa sponsored meet the candidate tonight uh this evening for those of you that don't know me my name is sangeetha patel and i am the current ptsa president tonight we have five candidates that are running for two open board of education positions i'd like to introduce sherry johnson the president of the monroe county board of education association she is our moderator for this evening sheri will introduce the candidates in the order that they will appear on the voting ballots and review the rules of the evening for the candidates and for the audience thank you sherry for being with us this evening we always appreciate your time and thank you
002candidates for joining us this evening as well um and allowing us this opportunity to get to know you sheri i'll let you take over good evening i'd also like to welcome everyone to the brighton to meet the candidate night um i do want to thank the brighton ptsa for their work to set this up and also the brighton central school district for supporting efforts and bringing this out to the community as was stated we do have five candidates for running for board of education seats in the in the brighton central school district and i'm going to introduce them now and then we will get started so we have mr robert bonfilio mr chris ross miss christina lee miss esther winter and mr avram berman to the community thank you for your thoughtful questions while we
003probably won't get to every single question as i've done before i have combined several questions and i will present these out by topic and hopefully we'll get to as many as possible to our candidates thank you for participating providing community residents the opportunity to listen to the viewpoints of those that are asking to serve as elected board trustees is key to participating in our democratic process as an informed voter as was sent to you by the ptsa you will be provided three minutes for an opening introductory statement and two minutes for a closing statement both of those will be done in order that you are placed on the ballot the community questions however will be rotated in order so that every candidate gets the opportunity to answer a question first you will have two minutes
004to answer each of those as well i would ask that you please watch the the timekeeper singita um for a yellow card which will indicate you have 20 seconds left so that's the time to start wrapping up your last statement and for a red card to know when time is up for the sake of time and in fairness to each of you and the viewing audience we will be adhering strictly to this rule and i'm also happy to repeat any question so let's begin and we will start with opening statements and mr uh robert filio i'm sorry i'm gonna keep messing up on filio um opening statements you have three minutes thank you thank you um if we had a whiteboard then i would do what i do with my students and spell it out
005phonetically but um yeah bonafilio is great so thanks for putting this together my motivation mainly for running for brighton school board is just to represent teachers so i've taught mathematics for the past five years and i moved back up to brighton three years ago and i taught at mcquaid and now i teach at nativity preparatory academy it's a small low-income population school in the south wedge of rochester and it's a college prep model but that's the bulk of my motivation is that i think a lot of parents have a lot at stake and that those voices are important and i'm a prospective parent of brighton um but i do think that a lot of times teachers voices go unheard or overlooked and so my goal is to help keep the board and the superintendent and
006really the community accountable for how the decisions and the policies affect teachers work my background also includes education policy and then i have done a lot of advocacy work for underrepresented groups but specifically students and adults who are part of the lgbtq community um so i have a lot of experience with dei diversity equity inclusion work and i hope to bring that perspective so i'm not going to take the full three minutes but thanks for again organizing this and having me thank you so we'll move on to mr christopher ross opening statement three minutes um thank you i am christopher ross and i don't want to thank sangita and sherry and the bryan ptsd for organizing this event tonight i'm running for school board because i want to help brighton take its long-standing commitment to
007educational excellence to the next level uh to be successful in some endeavor however we need to include to start the apps and voices and perspectives in the process it's a little about me i'm a personal thinker listener and collaborator who operates with a high sense of integrity and accountability i'm a fierce advocate for justice fairness and equity i believe that we can challenge each other's ideas find ways to disagree with with respect and compassion keeping the development and success of the students central to our efforts i grew up in suburban los angeles and also lived in berkeley durham and austin i have a bachelor's in history and a master's in history bachelors from berkeley and masters from duke university when my wife and i decided we were going to stay in the area we knew
008that brighton would be the community where we wanted to raise our daughter she's currently a second grader at council rock we knew we wanted her to be challenged academically and welcomed socially thus far she's thrived even with the uncertainty created by the pandemic that's a function of steady leadership of the administrators in the district and the intended instruction of her teachers we're thankful for that but also know based on conversations with other parents of color about their often painful experiences with racism in the district there will be obstacles and incidents that will make parts of her journey less pleasant since moving here i've been active in the community i'm a member of the town's inclusion diversity and equity advisory board founding member of the brighton families of color group a member of the brighton democratic
009committee and most recently participated as a panelist for black history month at fred's in my professional life i'm a registered nurse educated u of r at u of r school of nursing i have clinical experience in multiple critical care areas at highland unity and art and rgh i currently work at excellus as a pandemic continues to unfold it'll be useful to have another board member in addition to dr gasparina with clinical experience to help interpret health department guidelines and make policy decisions about how to best keep students and staff safe and healthy my professional experience prior to becoming a nurse reflects my passion for challenging assumptions about creating opportunities for underserved communities i've worked as a substitute teacher and and taught high school teacher and i'm sorry i taught high school history in the urban
010districts of the san francisco bay area i worked as curriculum and recruitment director for a start-up non-profit pre-college leadership program for filipino high school students in the bay area and i was a research program manager for the rainbow push coalition silicon valley project connecting minority owned businesses with technology companies supplier networks and also was a researcher and writer for uh sr entertainment international's center for education policy in silicon valley evaluated efficacy of state and federal teacher development initiatives i observe classroom inspection interview teachers and administrators and co-authored multiple reports i look forward to listening to what my fellow residents have to say about the best way to move our district forward to support our children to individual and collective development thank you thank you next christina miss christina lee freeman hi uh thank you sengita
011and sherry and the ptsa for hosting this tonight i'm just going to put it out there and say i'm nervous so now that it's said i think i can move on um again my name is christina hey only actually i'm using my korean middle name which i didn't do three years ago because you know right now with the increase in um asian pacific um islander uh violence against aapi communities i think it's important for me to use my middle name and uh i'm very proud of it actually i have a contingent of korean uh rochesterians who call me by my middle name han so um if you ever hear me called that you'll know that those people have known me for a very very long time um i am running for my uh second term
012on the board of education i um i have had three years of um really enjoyed my time on the board um i initially re initially ran for the board because i am a brighton grad i grew up here i went to school here um i felt that my education was solid i left with a really good educational foundation and it's really the reason i came back to the district too i have three children one who graduated last year and two in the district right now and i wanted you know a competitive strong holistic education for them and when we moved back here i really wanted to serve the community in this capacity um i have been happy to do so these last three years it's been a great experience for me i've learned a lot
013i feel so strongly that i'm running again since i have enjoyed my time in my professional life and part of the reason that i wanted to join the board is that i'm also in education um i teach as an adjunct to anthropology and i have taught sociology currently i'm the global education coordinator at mcc so my work revolves around um global education curricular development i do a lot of work at the college in terms of diversity equity and inclusion around teaching and learning um where we just started a new work group there and as a board member i have had the privilege to serve on several hiring committees i've also served on different academic review committees here in brighton and most currently i am serving as the area 2 representative for the new york state
014school board association's new committee on diversity equity and inclusion and this new committee with the new york state school board association is hoping to be able to provide guidance to all school boards in new york state in terms of dei efforts and the holistic inclusion of professional development and programming around dei thank you sangita thank you and next we have miss esther winter hello everyone i'm esther winter i'd like to thank uh sheri and sagitta and for moderating and the ptsa um for allowing me to introduce myself uh this evening a little bit about myself um i grew up in los angeles i received a bfa in musical theater from syracuse university i moved to new york city and was a working actor for 11 years my husband john and i have been married for
01527 years and we have four children two have graduated through the district john and madeline and my son harrison is a current senior at brighton high school and my daughter julia is an 8th grader at 12 quarters we moved to brighton in 2003 and in that same year i started my own business called canal side music together which is an early childhood music education program for young children and their parents and i'm also an early music education teacher i've been involved in many aspects of the school district over the years such as the council rock principal selection committee a panelist for college and career night and volunteer for visual and performing arts events and teacher appreciation lunches outside of bcsd i am a teacher trainer for music together worldwide i'm an actor director and choreographer
016at various local theaters including jcc and black friars theater i'm also an artist educator creative producer and artistic council member at jiva theater center i truly i was truly fortunate to grow up in a thriving upper middle black neighborhood in california filled with endless possibility my friends and teachers were a melting pot of all cultures and i was exposed to the arts at a young age starting my path towards becoming a professional actor for many years one of the reasons my family and i moved to rochester was because of its thriving arts community i was excited to share my love of the arts with my children and pleased that three of my four kids are pursuing a creative career with the fourth heading in that direction as well maintaining a strong arts program in our
017district is as important as sports stem or any other programming for our children the arts connect our community they connect our students to the community and they foster empathy you can have great stem but if you do not have empathy for each other you cannot move your community forward these two disciplines are stronger when they work in tandem i'm also running for the board of education because i feel my life experience as a black woman and a black music educator would be a valuable contribution to the voices that make decisions about our district and the future of our children it is essential that our board reflect the families in this district representation is important not only for the bypass students of our district for but also for the white students as well unconscious bias begins
018where represent representation ends thank you and appreciate your time thank you and next avram mr alvin berman if you could please give us your three-minute opening statement good evening i'm running for a seat on the brighton board of education because the board has lost impartiality because i believe the policies of the district should be shaped by our entire community the school district as it stands today operates without any meaningful check and balances as it insulates itself from the public's input and engagement acting more like a private school if elected i will greatly build upon and improve the strength of the briton school district i will include transparency uh ensure fair representation and implement and implement stringent checks and balances i will also set a yearly goal not to exceed two million in budget increases if
019elected i will promote unprecedented input and access to our board in the school district the community's voice will be heard with input from every parent every student every teacher staff and faculty members and from the 60 percent of our district voters without any children in attendance as many of you know i'm a staunch critic of the mixed messaging that envelops our yearly budget process because it lacks transparency it's middle with propaganda it's misleading and overly complicated unfortunately it's intentional i know this because i've spent about 100 hours researching and compiling district financial data from the past 20 years and analyzing the budgets address these concerns regarding our past budgets as well as the runaway 21 22 budget and our an extended statement at brightonspeaks.com which will be available at 9 30 pm did you know
020that every year the district has a surplus budget that is used to pay down our tax levy for the following school year a tax levy is simply that portion of the school budget which is paid by our community and is also used to fund various reserve accounts for things like computers and renovations and as of june last year it had 22.8 million equal to about 25 percent of our million dollar school district budget well i'm not saying we shouldn't have reserves keep in mind that for every million in reserves is a million that wasn't used to reduce the tax levy resulting in higher taxes paid by our community recently i learned that a reserve fund was created in 2020 with 1.3 million to settle and address sexual assault lawsuits against the brighton central school district
021in two separate cases known as the insurance cva you weren't told about it because board of education led by marco kanovich and superintendent kevin mcgowan didn't want you to know when it comes to our reputation truth is expendable which is how we arrived here in the first place just recently student matt burns started to change that our petition which he stated which has received over 6 000 signatures which stated and i quote for far too long brighton has refused to take action against abusers and rapists and has covered up instances of sexual assault and rape they refuse to protect the well-being of our victims and their classmates we would like to see the district held accountable for their negligence clearly we have a transparency issue which is far-reaching with implications that affect not only our
022budget but more importantly the safety and well-being of our kids he who controls the narrative controls perception controls vote and retains power that's not democracy and it's not brighton thank you thank you um before we get to the questions and i will go back to the top of the ballot order to do that um you are free to speak about your platform ideas and viewpoints how they differ from the current board of the district where i'm asking you not to call out or criticize a specific individual thank you so back to the top and i have permission from the candidates to call them by their first name therefore i won't mess up their last name um so robert you get the first question um from the community again two minutes and please keep watching for
023the time and this question is regarding the brighton blueprint and the question and i can repeat a question for anybody who would like are there any initiatives on the brighton blueprint that you feel should be amended clarified or removed and if not what would you and then instead highlight so amended clarified or removed from the brighton blueprint if not what would you highlight robert first thank you so when i was looking at the brighton blueprint it seemed like especially in the last year that i'm going to use dei for diversity equity inclusion that that was really the focus for where the district wanted to put their energy towards and i think that's great i also think that's a really hard thing to focus on because it steps into every sector of education it's child care
024it's transportation it's everything that you have to consider so for that to be the priority or the focus i think is too broad um one thing that i think that wasn't emphasized as much as i would think it would be within the dei spectrum was mental health concerns especially during the pandemic and especially students are hopefully being transitioned back into more social interactions as the schools resume five days or at least elementary schools i i really think that the mental health of our students and our families and our teachers is going to need more attention so whether that means more resources devoted to it or more space to have those conversations i think that's going to be necessary to get us through this pandemic as it lingers on um yeah that that's where i put
025my focus is is on mental health thank you chris same question two minutes thank you um i would agree with uh robert on the mental health aspect as the students are returning to school i think we definitely need more investment in those resources i would actually recommend using a fund from the american recovery act that we received from the federal government to put resources toward that also i would look towards expanding the um uh the district's di efforts as well um beyond the classroom um looking at opportunities to help grow uh minority women-owned businesses in brighton in and greater monroe county so for example we do book fairs of each of the schools um perhaps we could partner with independent book sellers in monroe county to help grow their businesses as opposed to partnering with
026fall at a large you know national corporation um to help grow our community also we're doing a lot of construction in the district i'd be interested to see to what extent any of the contractors are using subcontractors for minority or women-owned businesses as well if we're going to uh really embrace dei throughout the district i think we need to look at in every level not just in the classroom but where we're spending our money and to the extent that we can leverage our spending power to um expand minority and women-owned businesses we would do a great service for our community towards that towards that end thank you thank you christina same question please so um yeah i think i've seen a lot of you know the blueprint is a great um tool that we've um
027implemented in the district in terms of keeping us accountable and keeping us on track in terms of what our goals and visions are for the district and um what i have liked about it is that i think and i think it's imperative in all institutions at this point to infuse the dei work in every aspect of um what we're doing and you know i think that we have been you know this is a learning curve for everybody so i think we have taken time to examine our dei efforts in terms of hiring practices and family engagement and um curricular development and um you know responsive curriculum materials that we're using in the district i also think in terms of mental health concerns that that is another conversation around dei and mental health this year in
028particular around covid i think has shown um really disparate um outcomes for different communities um in terms of education mental health and you know those are things that we talk about as a board um i know that they're talking about you know dr mcgowan with the in the district sorry we're not supposed to say specific people but um we are talking about it as a district and um we continue to talk about it and i think it's important for us as a board to continually like this is an evolution and evolving document right these are not static and so um you know we do this blueprint process every year and we hopefully make it better every year and i think if there are things that um we need to improve on you know i i
029love the input of the community we have community members our staff our administrators all part of that process and i hope that we can continue that so that's my answer for now thank you esther same question two minutes thank you i agree uh with robert uh chris and christina everything they've said uh regarding this topic um i would like to um see the uh the staff continue to grow as far as reflecting the cultural diversity of the community um i know that that is uh something that takes time to implement but seeing that that is one of the points on the blueprint in the blueprint rather i was very encouraging i would encourage the continuation of the curriculum and instruction to foster an appreciation for the diversity of people and their beliefs and to instruct
030all of our our children at appropriate skill levels um to continue to do that and to continue these um the commitment to diversify our staff so that it reflects our district um is uh something that i look i hope that will continue to stay in the forefront um on the blueprint thank you thank you in album same question two minutes can you repeat the question again please sure are there any initiatives on the brighton blueprint that you feel should be amended clarified or removed and if not what would you highlight well you know i i would have to agree that um you know dealing with um mental health issues is certainly uh a paramount issue and i think also discussing about what are the underlying reasons why children are having you know these difficulties and
031certainly addressing issues of diversity and making sure that we have you know a platform in place um you know that talks with students you know about the hardships you know and having those difficult conversations um you know to to really give you a fair answer i i really feel compelled that i would have to you know having an all-engaging conversation with the community to get their input and to make sure that and to get a consensus and find out because really the the blueprint is the district's blueprint um but in the grand scheme of things it's really what the community wants and the the blueprint within the school district should reflect that and so if i'm elected to the board of education you know part of what i will do is i will make sure
032that you know sort of the will of the community is reflected in that blueprint and that's really the best answer i can provide you with this time thank you so on to question two and this time chris you get the question first there were several questions on learning loss so the question i picked is what is your plan for helping students recover academically from the disruption of the pandemic and where possible differentiate differentiate by grade level so they have down k2 3 5 6 8 and 9 12. but the general question is how do you want to help students recover from that um yeah um so i think again this would go back to the american uh recovery uh funds from the federal government um that were released i my plan or my idea would
033be to partner with organizations um companies individuals who already do academic support services with our students in brighton that way the district doesn't have to ramp up hiring people um and when the funds are exhausted we're not having to lay people off these companies should be able to scale up fairly quickly for this work as well most importantly we need to identify which students need assistance as quickly as possible get them up to speed as quickly as possible and focus on the the core areas the larger group areas that are going to need be needed to allow the students to keep pace with their peers at the same grade level so assessing as quickly as possible partnering with existing organizations and brands very fortunate we have a significant infrastructure those in our community and then
034making sure that the right people are getting there at the right time i think it's gonna it's gonna vary by gate grade level after school level obviously um the upper level kids may be at more of a disadvantage having um a longer period um away from full-time school than the the younger children again the younger children are gonna um there's more core um uh skills and knowledge that need to be developed at those young ages in order for them to advance so it's it's really difficult but we want to make sure that we're giving resources to any of the kids whichever school level uh whichever grade level whatever subject that they need as fast as possible and i think the best way to do that would be to partner with our existing community organizations thanks
035thank you christina you get this one next um so thinking about each school i think what i would like to do is make sure that each school is supported in terms of the supports that they need for additional help for each grade level or each um each school this you know this is an interesting conversation because um on on a global level you know this is an issue for um uh you know not only us but for probably every school district every country in this world and you know i i hope and i have seen particularly this year in my experience both as a mom um and as a board member that our teachers are already actually providing the supports that many of our kids need one of the things that we've learned this this
03612 months is that kids are learning this material differently right some kids are really succeeding in this hybrid or virtual model some kids are really suffering or are not able to keep up and our teachers are already doing the work they're already supporting the students that need the extra support as a team in each school i know that they're making sure that the the students that are not able to um that are having trouble are you know getting the attention that they need so there are things in place already so i don't see it really as an entire year lost i think there will certainly be things that we need to um build in but um i think we've we're already doing the work is what i've seen thank you and esther same question i
037believe that uh it really has to do with the individual of the of the student and the individual needs of that particular student um having two children here at home doing in in hybrid um for this year i can see that they are both uh fortunately they are thriving um in this hybrid model but i also know that they have friends who are not so if uh once um you know once every school is assessed and once all the needs are um addressed as far as what child needs what particular service to help them um come up to uh to speed uh if you will um i believe that uh it's it's something that that should be addressed individually per school and then per per child and hopefully with uh with funding we'd be able
038to provide that particular child with whatever they need um in order to um in order to succeed thank you and abram same question you know i i'd have to see assessment data as to where you know various kids are within the school district they haven't been privy to that um but obviously you know i think it goes without saying that everybody need you know we have to make sure the teachers have the proper resources to make sure that they can facilitate um you know what other needs you know that are required you know obviously we're we want to be equitable right so we want to make sure that just in general that teachers always have the resources to make sure that different students from different backgrounds or you know and we can even look at
039you know the pandemic obviously as being a causality to um to the idea of being equitable to make sure those resources are are in place um one of the things i think about is i think about you know the single parent who is you know has a job and um and before this whole thing went down you know the kids were you know at school and now they're at home and then they're you know they're they're operating fully in a in a remote training um what do you do in that situation so i think that you know one of the things that i would like to do if i get elected would be to sit down again and talk with you know all the parents and find out exactly you know get it get an
040assessment even from them as to where they think their kids are at and obviously um you know get have some sort of evaluation that's presented by the school district so we can sort of have a metric so we can figure out how to move forward and uh and try to offset the amount of time you know that we've lost but the bottom line is we've lost a lot a lot of time sometimes you just can't get it back and you just gotta move forward and continue uh march on thank you and robert same question so i would want to echo what christina was saying about maybe reframing it so it's not thinking about a year that's been lost and i i don't want to minimize the fear that people are feeling about oh what are
041we gonna do next year or two years or three years from now since we've had this year that's kind of imploded around us um i do think that the way to tackle learning loss fears or to have done what brain has done to some extent which is think about what to do now and not wait until the summer and say oh how do we correct everything so which brighton did to some extent with thinking about technological resources thinking about how students need books to have at home trying to tackle those inequities i think that when kids return to school whenever that can be full time that they will rally and will kind of get back into school mode and they will figure it out i also think there will be students that won't do that
042and that is where i think the emphasis on mental health needs to be really attuned into those concerns so that those supports can be ready to deal with students that are going to come back into a full-time academic stress mode and they're going to break down and there needs to be supports ready for those students i also think that teachers need to be prepped accordingly so that their expectations don't change so that you still have the high standard brighton education but so that they're going to have more room for patients and more room for being able to work with students that are going to need the extra time to make up for whatever time has been lost for each individual student my last comment is also christina mentioned how this is a global issue it
043is a global issue and it's a rochester issue and i think it would be really great to see brighton come together with other districts and figure out how to deal with this and not think of it as a brighton issue i think that's really important to work with our neighbors thank you thank you so christina the next question is yours and it first your ears first everyone answers but yours first um this question is one of several on start times for students how do you envision the path toward making a start time change for our older kids health christina yep good question um yeah i know that um you know several probably several of us on the board who have high schoolers um thinking about going back to school five days a week i think
044all of our kids sort of panicked what i don't get to sleep in on those days that i'm not in school i mean you know personally i do feel that teenagers do need a lot of sleep um and every teenager is different right i mean i have three children who work on different timelines their seat sleep schedule is different their eating schedule is different and um the way that they uh tackle homework and work is different so there's not a one size fits all i think this year if anything it's taught us that that we have some flexibility in terms of how we learn um you know but i'm also aware that there are budget constraints and uh constraints in terms of how we organize our academic day for everyone including for our um teachers
045who also have families um which has also been i think you know as a teacher working at home and also trying to manage our own children's schedules that is that can be a challenge as well so um i think that it's something that we should continue to talk about we should think about have some flexibility around it um myself personally you know i i if if my family had a choice then they would all be in schools at different times of the day but it is an important discussion and i do see the benefit of having um for our teenagers to get enough rest um so that they can tackle the uh you know the academic rigors of our district thank you esther this is yours for the second thank you um it's it's a
046very interesting topic uh i now that i've had um all of my my children my youngest is 14 so they're all teenage or older and i have seen the the difference as far as um when they're able to rise when later in the day or later in the morning uh to get their day started um their productivity um seems to be more productive as opposed to having to get up very early to get to school i understand that it is is not a one-size-fits-all as christina said and it but it is definitely something that um should be um continued um to be discussed and um it would be interesting to see if it was uh if if it's possible to um experiment to see what would happen if we had later start times um if
047that is possible to explore that i think it should be explored thank you aubry same question well as i currently have no children in the school district i have a three-year-old and a two-year-old without a lot of extra free time you know if they were in the school district i guess my response would be that you know first um i'd have to listen to a consensus of the parents to get their input as to what they felt um you know what their thoughts were about a start time you know but for the last year despite you know the the stresses and the rigors of the pandemic um it's we're we're getting ready to get back to work and it's it's time to get back to work you know the kids have been home uh for
048the most part and now it's we're ready to get to go back to school so that's my final answer thank you um that most is up to robert same question two minutes can you repeat it please sorry i'm muted absolutely um how do you envision a path toward making a start time change for our older kids health thanks so i love this question um i i think that rethinking something that we have just kind of done every year just start at the same time without like this is something that we've done forever so to break that tradition i think that's a great great question and great conversation to start i think that i believe it was webster right initiated to start a later start time either was either this past year it would have been
049two years ago so i think talking to them is really an integral to figuring this out and i also think that figuring out how transportation would play into this is a key point for focus and i know brighton has a lot of walkers but i that it always seems to be the hurdle with later start times because parents have to get to work and the students are starting at different times and the transportation is going to be where the effort has to be placed thank you and chris so uh i would agree with what everyone said thus far i mean these that the early start time is um something i only learned about in the past few years from now working with some other parents in the district my daughter's probably not old enough but
050i do remember when i taught high school and those first two periods were like a waste no one was awake including me so i do agree that you know there is some benefit and based on the research there's shown to be a benefit to a later start time again as robert mentioned the logistical hurdles of coordinating parents work time the buses that would have to be studied but i think we learned a lot in this year about policy ideas that have been kind of bandied about in research and policy circles that we had to try out overnight whether or not that was you know later start time a four day um school week you know uh some part remote some part in person teaching you know we had to try overnight and i think there
051are some successes that we need to kind of tease out by talking to the parents and the students about perhaps what we can integrate into our existing traditional structure to help reach more students i'm sure some of the students who um who learn things more quickly enjoyed having that wednesday day to explore some things in more depth maybe we can look at a four-day work week for uh traditional instructional week for those students and give them a fifth day of more of the independent learning um with a teacher mentor or you know for the students who are a little more shy about asking questions they could type in the zoom chat and not have to risk the social embarrassment of raising their hand and asking a question so i think there are a lot of
052things we learned in this year that we could investigate further to see how they would affect us as we return to the radio school year thanks thank you esther you get this question first but i want to give you all a little setup for it there are several questions around advocating for excellence in education around specific areas like gifted and talented special education stem in the arts but there were also several questions related to keeping academics strong in brighton so the question that i'm going to ask you is what will you do as a board member to make sure that academic standards are high for all students and then feel free if you want to use one of those specific areas to example thank you um as i'm sure all the parents uh in our
053district um believe and and want to continue to have his excellence in our academics um i am a strong advocate for keeping our academics as a high priority in addition to maintaining and keeping the arts uh first and foremost as well music learning supports all learning and um one absolutely serves the other so as far as um what uh programs um should be um at the forefront um it's uh you know our ap classes and our stem classes and all and and all of that is definitely something that should continue to be maintained um but in addition to that i believe a well-rounded student um is essential for a well-rounded human um that that that focuses on that's that bleeds into mental health um and everything that goes with that as well so um i
054believe that um our academics uh should stay um at the forefront and be uh prominent and um we should continue to strive to be to maintain our excellence thank you avraham you get this question second can you repeat the question again please sure can what will you do as a board member to make sure that academic standards are are high for all students well i think the most important thing is to understand that you know equality does not equal equity and that in order to make sure that students that come from all different various backgrounds we're on an even playing field we have to make sure the teachers obviously have the adequate resources um you know again to level the playing field and as i've said with all of my other responses having not been
055a board member and again currently having a three and a two-year-old um is that you know my purpose on being on the board of education is to reflect the will of the community so i hope that i'll have an opportunity to talk with every parent and every teacher um in order to formulate you know better responses you know to these questions so that they're reflected in the policies that the board of education um you know ultimately uh implements on behalf of the community and the constituents you know which uh voted to uh put them into this uh important decision-making role thank you thank you robert you get this question next thank you i think that there's a lot to think about with this question i i believe that there's a lot of stress around academics
056um and you pointed out stem right and i i'm a math teacher but i always try to incorporate interdisciplinary focuses within my classroom to try to bring the stress out of it because people come in students come into math and they're already high strung and we haven't even started our first definition or our first equation um so i i really appreciate esther's focus on the arts and i think it's really important to figure out ways to blend disciplines together math science arts so that it doesn't seem like these subjects are siloed off and that they're um just stress stress inducers for everyone that needs to go into them i also think that there's been a discussion about trying to figure out how to make aps more accessible for all students and i think that's really
057important to think about how we want to ensure educational excellence for the whole community and i also believe especially now that has shaken things up that standardized testing is going to have to be a focus that the board deals with at some point so the opt-out movement of teachers and parents encouraging students to make their own decision for what's right for them whether or not to take these standardized tests i think that is going to come to brighton and it could really open up opportunity if teachers want more time to put toward their instruction and if students want more time not to freak out about these standardized tests i i think i think there's a lot to do with this question a big curriculum evaluation i love it thank you thank you and chris same
058question so it's really sort of an equity question um i think somewhere hidden in there um the issue is i think traditionally and prep and in brighton historically not all groups have been encouraged um by uh teachers administrators to pursue rigorous academic courses for a variety of reasons so i think that's part of it i think we need to encourage as many kids as possible to challenge themselves in the classroom and to give them the supports and the resources to do that you know some kids may be stronger in math you know some may be stronger in english but does that mean they should not you know take a risk a responsible risk to um challenge themselves one year and take say hey i may not get an a in this class i may get
059a b or a c but i took the risk and that's part of learning and that's part of life so i would encourage that um i think also what robert said about kids being uh you know mentally prepared to take these classes important i know the district is rolling out the social emotional learning curriculum and i think that's very important um kids need to be able to set positive goals and know why they're setting those goals for themselves is it because mom and dad want me to go to harvard or is it because i actually enjoy doing math and that's what i want to do so we need to encourage some agency within the kids within the students to make these decisions for themselves and give them the resources and supports to say hey give
060it a shot if you make a mistake i'm here to support you we can we can figure this out together um but i think that's how we um keep our academic excellence there encouraging more kids to take more risks and being there to support them as they do so thank you and christina you get this one left okay um i really like what everybody shared on this question i i think it is important for our kids to know that they can take risks and be supported that's a really that's uh i'm just thinking about my own kids um but i also am thinking that you know how are we really defining academic standards i'm assuming that the question is really coming from a place of um in terms of um uh numerical i'm trying to
061think of what they mean by academic standards in this question because you know are are the standards to be taking um all you know i think we offer a variety of classes and courses at the district for all students to excel in something right so whatever their strength is whatever their interest might be that they have an opportunity to excel whether it's in the arts whether it's in stem um you know whether it's in um in writing um i think it's important to understand what we mean by academic standards and i always feel like are we successful if we have scored the highest as a district for our students or are we successful if we turn out students who are really strong critical thinkers who can make decisions um in terms of taking risks in
062terms of challenging themselves in terms of having having opportunities in brighton we're lucky that we have a strong arts and music program and a strong um you know the traditional academic programs as well and i just want all of our kids to find where they can excel and work up to their above their potential you know so that they feel successful and that they move on to the next place um and also find that success thank you all right the next question abram you get this question first do you support expanding civics education in our district um of course i uh of course i support uh expanding civics um in in our district that's my answer thank you robert same question yeah that's a it's an on-point question and you get an on-point answer of
063yes but i i think the way to do it you have to be pretty intentional and real smart right so picking up where we just left off with that last question civic should be in every course that every student takes it should be a discussion that you have in writing in arts in math it shouldn't be like this thing that has been forgotten no we don't talk about civics anymore and i think teachers do a good job to some extent right now of incorporating those types of discussions i think that the ideas around cultural responsive learning that is civics engagement i think that brighton also has a unique opportunity right now given the climate of the city of rochester to figure out what can we do as a community and what can we do within
064our school building within our courses if you think about service learning to help out the rochester community that is dealing with a lot of hate and a lot of violence and a lot of discrimination and just a lot of loss of faith but yes absolutely civics thank you chris then question yeah oh definitely um i think the last four years have been an excellent case study in what happens when we don't you know know civics enough um whether it's the police brutality um in minneapolis and across the country really um sadly um or you know what happened with the most recent presidential election um i think these kids are almost fortunate to um the kids are going to be in high school you know when typically civics i guess at least when i was in
065high school was taught 11th of 12th grade that they're going to have excellent materials to study and there's going to be excellent debate around how things unfolded kids need to be able to look at information critically you know not know that just because it's on someone's blog or it's on x and y news site that you can accept it as just empirical fact that people write for different reasons for different political persuasions you need to be able to tease that out and be able to um understand what's opinion and what's actual journalism and i think we need to get back to a sense where we can all agree upon a common set of facts and in the last four years i feel like that's gone out the window it's always been a bit tenuous but
066i think it really got chucked in the last four years and to be able to help students build a common set of facts again amongst themselves and then for the larger community would be a great room for our community and for our nation as a whole as we try to heal together thanks thank you christina same question please um yes i would definitely support um teaching civics in our district i think you know that's actually one of the things i feel that i received coming out of this district many many years ago and i also feel that my kids are able to have engagement and discussions with their teachers and classmates about the role that they have in this society that we live in and what kind of agency they have as young people as
067students who don't yet vote even what kind of voice they have um you know this is you know we are a school community and we're also a brighton town community and so much i think of civics is to remember that we um we are uh you know we need to work together we need to um be able to be engaged with the people that we live with and that we go to school with and um and continue that engagement as they leave us and be strong advocates of what they want to um fight for as they leave for leave brighton so yes i would support it and i i really do think it should be part of all aspects of our education thank you and esther uh absolutely yes i believe um civics is essential
068in every um in every aspect of our education as everyone has stated before me um not just talking about the la the past four years but even the eight years before that and the evolution uh that has happened on our country um with uh having a president um that you know uh black president that made people of color see themselves differently and and and and in turn um have other people see people of color differently because of that president and then the aftermath of that with the past four years i think it's very important to um to have independent thinkers and people who are able to um to separate uh um you know fake news uh from what really is happening and to be able to make up their own minds and to be critical
069thinkers and the only way to do that is to learn that around in school and to have the opportunity to see others um in in different ways than perhaps they may not have seen them at um initially and that's what happens when you learn when you are studying civics so absolutely yes thank you that moves us back to the top of the order and the question i'm going to be asking you now was the most submitted question by the community each having a little bit of a different tenor or tone to it um so i've combined these into an overall question for you to respond to and this is the question in robert you're first as a board of education member how will you ensure that our schools are places where diversity of thought is
070valued and that teachers staff and students can listen and respect differing opinions in a nurturing environment thank you i i really think that if brighton wants to uphold these standards of empathy and trust and inclusion that it needs to be part of the evaluation process of the courses of the teachers of students own learning i know that in as far as hiring practices when when people are calling for advocating for figuring out how to hire and recruit and retain a more diverse staff to contribute to that larger pool of thought and perspective to enrich learning um i i know that during that process that there's encouragement or i believe it's a mandate that applicants have a diversity statement or some written understanding of how they conceive of what that means equity and inclusion but if
071if there's a problem in the school i don't think brighton should be reactive to it i think that there should be very proactive steps in figuring out how to ensure that the classrooms are spaces where thought can be freely given and also respected and criticized and argued over and figured out so what i conceived that of looking like is as teachers are being evaluated for their overall performance there should be evaluation of how well that they are executing these practices of equity and inclusion it should be something that they are scored on or however the evaluation system works in brighton i also think that if the lower school kids are with they just got this the new the socio emotional learning has been incorporated into the curriculum that is something that they can be assessed
072on and it doesn't have to be a grade but it should be something that we are looking at proactively thanks thank you chris this is for you for a second so yeah i'm all for a diversity of thought in the classroom i think a healthy debate rigorous debate based in um based on facts and opinion are are healthy for any um in any school classroom should be you know less of a teacher preaching or teaching at the students and more the teacher facilitating a discussion amongst the students about about ideas and but the important thing is we need to be able we have to ensure that the students have the critical thinking skills and the discussion skills to able to be able to have those discussions so if that means investing more in uh professional
073development for the teachers to ensure that they feel comfortable having those discussions then so be it i'm all for it and i think most teachers would encourage getting more professional development to make them more effective teachers in the classroom and so forth i do sometimes when people bring up the diversity of thought ideas i think people are thinking it's we don't want to hear ideas that are liberal or conservative or vice versa the the issue is i would have with that is that when we're thinking of diversity of thought i don't want the thoughts that are expressed to dehumanize any people um in the classroom to make an uncomfortable space to be having this discussion so if the teachers don't feel comfortable doing that i think they need to be careful about the content that
074they're presenting because in a district that is still predominantly white it can become a threatening environment for students of color in those spaces so i would be just ask people to be mindful of the repercussions of these discussions if you cannot facilitate them in a healthy and safe way for all students thank you christina you have this one next um yeah i was also just um thinking about um how this question might be you know what what the question what's behind the question i guess i think it is important for all of us to you know our children our adults to be able to have difficult and important and courageous conversations with one another i think one of the things that we have seen in our society is that it becomes personalized in a way
075that can be dehumanizing that can attack people at their core and i think you know as we teach our kids to be critical thinkers that we also have to teach them to pull the lens back in terms of how how these issues are framed and um and that you know that's a difficult thing to do as an adult it is also difficult to do um as as a kid and so you know it's important for us as a board as administrators you know for all of us to be well equipped in um in the kind of guidance we need to be able to facilitate this and um and to do it in a respectful and um i like that empathetic and uh fact-based so that that's what i was thinking thank you esther you i
076think it's really important for any um in in terms of any discussion that is difficult to have um whether it's between a student and um the teacher or teachers with other teachers is to create a safe space a space that is um uh able to um allow these difficult discussions to happen um to um understand that you know these risks are uncomfortable but are definitely necessary in order to move forward in any way um asking questions of their peers about issues about diversity all of these topics are very hard to discuss but we need to acknowledge that everyone is in a different place and to honor one another's thoughts and ideas and that is the only way for any any progress to be made is out of respect and creating a safe space for everyone
077involved can't hear you sherry i'm sorry it's your turn can you repeat the question again please yes absolutely as a board of education member how will you ensure that our schools are are places where diversity of thought is valued and that teachers staff and students can listen and respect differing opinions in a nurturing environment well i think the first thing is that we have to make sure that our teaching staff is diversified in fact out of the roughly 3 500 students within the bryan central school district 70 are white i think it's also important that we have a diversified board of education um and not only culturally but also in terms of their skill sets um you know i think the other i think the other component too is to make sure that if we're
078going to promote diversity and inclusion within the school district then the administration has to also make sure that diversity inclusion is uh is practiced with the community that funds it um you know just to get on a little bit of a tangent here um you know because the question really doesn't seem to have been asked tonight which was sort of surprising but i want to touch upon um just diversity in general with um things you know that are going on prevalent now and that is just to sort of talk about that i think that you know as some other members had mentioned we have to learn how to have difficult conversations you know with the students um i think we have to also work with the students on engaging sort of in cultural humility to
079understand the paths that other people have taken i think that um it would also be um not a bad idea to take people who are in the majority and put them uh in a place where they're in the minority to help them gain perspective about things that are going on um uh you know and obviously we have issues of equity making sure again the teachers have the resources to properly work with different individuals with different backgrounds um and you know i think this is interesting i was reading a little stat that said you know if you blow the whole world population down to about 100 people um and i think the stat was um you know 82 out of those 100 people would be people of color 72 the remaining would be out of the
08082 would be asian and uh and just nine would speak english so i think that it's it's you know you know i'm out of time so okay thank you okay so i am going to allow all of you to begin your closing statements and we again will go back to the top of the order with robert two minutes closing statement so thank you again this i really value this opportunity to have this kind of discussion um even if it's not directed at each other at least with the rest of the community and even if we can't see you so thanks for signing on and watching us uh mess up over zoom um i think we talked about a lot of important things tonight and my goal is to be an active listener and team player
081and all those good things but really figure in figure out and tap into what the priorities of the community are we can focus on so much right there's a lot of need and there's a lot of different areas that we could be paying attention to but in order to actually figure out what we can do we need to effectively set our priorities so my main thought coming out of this conversation is we talk so much about real great things and we have to be ready to take those action steps and go into the schools and go into our community and be ready and visible um and i recognize that i'm i'm young looking um but i listened to joan armour trading so i have a very older perspective i think um but i i'm really
082excited for the the vision that you all have laid out for brighton and i i hope to continue to contribute thank you chris for closing statement please so uh thanks again to uh sangeeta and sheri and the brian pdsa for putting this together and thanks for um all those people out there who are tortured by listening to us glad they're on tonight about our ideas i appreciate that um and i also appreciate um this time that i've had with uh our fellow uh candidates for the board positions uh it's been a pleasure meeting you all and hearing your ideas and hearing the synergies um for some of our perspectives um i approach the board position with humility and the knowledge that the community trusts us with the sake of sacred obligation to care for and
083educate their children no one person or group can have answers for all the questions together i and especially with new perspectives i think we can begin tackling some of the more complex and persistent ones that have troubled brighton for some time our schools should provide all our children with an inclusive rigorous education that prepares them to navigate increasingly complex and diverse world with empathy curiosity and resilience i believe that my background in advocacy education policy analysis and healthcare has uniquely prepared me for this particular moment in our district's history i hope that i can earn your vote thank you for your time this evening thank you christina um thank you again to the ptsa for hosting this and for sheri and sangeeta for being here to moderate tonight i and also thank you for everybody
084watching um on this zoom format it's been a very unusual year and i know that we are getting used to this model but i hope to see all of you in person sometime soon um i i'm really you know i'm running for a second term because i feel like i have learned quite a bit in three years i feel that you know i am my interest is to advocate for our families for our kids um for our staff administrators our superintendent to make sure that everyone has the tools to be successful in this district whatever your strength is um i i hope that i can um be there to be able to um provide the support um the advocacy for you and um you know i i feel like um in my three years um
085i've found my voice on the board um i feel that the board and i have had uh a great three years together um we do a good job of listening to each other of sharing our ideas and differences and similarities we do it respectfully and i hope to continue that so thank you so much thank you esther thank you uh sheri sengita and the ptsa for providing this opportunity this evening to speak to whoever is listening uh i wish we could see each other um but uh thank you so much for tuning in um the opportunity to run for the school board was something i could not pass up i am passionate about moving this school district to a place where students will encounter cultural diversity daily and think nothing of it i am determined
086to keep brighton's visual and performing arts thriving and accessible to all students teachers should be encouraged to develop more interdisciplinary lesson plans where english and stem lessons can dovetail right into music and art projects representation is another concern with 32 percent of our students identifying as persons of color it is time for our school board to reflect the same diversity um seeing such a terrific group of candidates um it's been a pleasure sharing this evening with all of you i'm excited and encouraged for our district and the things we can all do together thank you thank you and avram what i believe i believe the school district serves at the pleasure of the community that all students entering the school district with special educational needs are entitled to an education all presentations should be accessible
087to our deaf and hard of hearing community we should foster a safe environment i'm sorry for a safe and transparent environment where students and teachers can express their concerns without fear or reprisal we should set a yearly budget not to exceed two million in increases the school um teachers are unsung heroes who work hard and who are gifted at educating young minds should be compensated accordingly even if we need to take some from the top to pay for it we should have an online district forum whereby the community can engage about such issues as budget covered safety and racism responded to by school officials and it lives on in perpetuity the board of education should be impartial and represent the entire community information should be presented to the community that is timely and unambiguous the
088school district's policy to delete any postings on their facebook site simply because it contains a website link is an infringement upon our first amendment rights and as an affront to our democratic principles we should attempt to survey every eligible member in our school district to garner their output as a public school our narrative must remain public too and far-reaching you must evaluate a strike a balance between the fiscal capacity of the community with the needs of the school district with an 83 million dollar budget for 3 500 students exceeding the property tax cap which would result in the forfeiture of star credit should never be a consideration not now and not ever board members school administrators and teachers should receive pork report cards as well and the results of those surveys should be made public
089all employees on the bcsd website should include their photo and that any postings or letters by bcsc employees should be identified with their name as well as profile picture when we have a surplus of cash in our budget at the end of the school year we should use that amount to reduce our budget for the following year right now the practice is to reduce the tax levy on the back end or put it into reserves we need to reevaluate our large reserve of 22.8 million and while full-time kindergarten for 175 kids was long overdue at an exorbitant cost of 35 million it was fiscally irresponsible thank you thank you this now concludes my portion of the candidate night but i do want to thank you all of you candidates for your thoughtful responses for your
090willingness to serve in this capacity and i am now going to turn it back over to the brighton ptsa for closing remarks i just want to take a minute to say thank you to all of you thank you sherry johnson for um moderating for us this evening evening it's always a pleasure to have you we appreciate your time and your professionalism and thank you to all five of the uh candidates tonight for board of education we really appreciate you giving the community this time to get to know you a little bit better um so thank you very much and um we just as a reminder that the vote is on may 18 from 7 am to 9 pm at the central office building absentee ballots are available should you need them so thank you everyone
091have a wonderful evening this has been a special presentation from the brighton central school district board of education