001[Music] thanks for coming my name is lisa carowana and i'll be your mc this evening i want to tell you a little bit about how we're going to run the evening tonight we've had many many questions submitted on our online form that we'll be running through tonight each candidate will have two minutes for an opening statement each candidate will have two minutes to answer each question please watch tammy in the center she's our time keeper she'll alert you when you have one minute remaining and then she will also alert you when your time is up so try to pay attention to her up there you will then have three minutes each for a closing statement and that will hopefully take us right up till nine o'clock um so with that i think we can get
002started um so the sorry each of you will have two minutes for opening and um scott we'll start with you okay good evening everybody my name is scott robertson i've been a resident of west seneca for 18 years originally born and raised in orchard park new york graduate of orchard park high school i'm a field construction supervisor for a road bridge and highway program on a local level i i have two children in the district at this point uh a sophomore at west senior and an eighth grader at west middle both are dual sport athletes playing women's lacrosse and basketball i'm interested in running for this position because at this point in my life i actually have skin in the game with uh you know two girls attending uh the district i feel it's an
003opportune time based on everything that we've just gone through uh in in the world and in society uh the door has uh opened and presented itself for me to be a part of this uh board if in fact uh i'm lucky enough to do so and uh i'm looking forward to making uh tough decisions uh looking forward to making a commitment to the community the taxpayers um the kids in this district the administration the staff i think it's imperative that uh we elect people that uh you know make good tough sound decisions and with that being said i'm super excited about uh it being a volunteer position and elected for that reason there's really no one uh dangling the carrot or holding anything over my head at this point i'm committed to the cause for
004the taxpayers uh the students in this district uh and therefore we're just looking forward to uh making a good run and uh hopefully uh getting this district back on track i mean i understand it's ranked 15th in the state but uh for being one of the largest districts uh not only in the area but in the state as a whole um i think we can do better than that so uh i'd appreciate your vote on the 17th of may and uh we're looking forward to uh making a difference and uh tightening things up and making west seneca school district a better place so i appreciate that thank you okay francis you can go ahead hi i'm francis hildebrand i'm a mom in the district i have two daughters charlotte is nine she attends winchester potter's
005elementary amelia is four and she's looking forward to kindergarten orientation this summer i have been a part of this area pretty much my entire life my husband's in the audience he graduated from east so he was able to walk into his old alma mater today i managed wegmans for 17 years so i have a lot of leadership ability behind me a management ability behind me i am dale carnegie trained and certified in public speaking you'd be surprised at how many adults are actually quite nervous about getting up and talking in front of other adults i represent pretty much everybody my family is full of teachers my family is full of chief engineers my grandmother was a lunch lady at lorraine academy so i don't only represent the taxpayers i think the teachers deserve a voice
006the students deserve a voice everybody deserves a voice i think we have a great group of candidates i think we have an amazing board already our district is moving in a positive direction i'd like to see it continue to do so in a positive direction i am super excited to be here i really want to be a part of this this board and this community and i am running for children with exceptional educational needs as my daughter was formally evaluated this uh last fall and it took me two and a half years to get her the help that she needed and it's been a very tough journey for for me as a mom to watch that and i've made a connection with other moms and dads and guardians along the way and if i can
007do something to support our exceptional educational children then i'm here thank you ed all right i thank everyone for coming tonight um thank you district parent council for putting this on um just want to thank my wife for allowing me to do this stuff i'm a father of five um been on the board for six years now and you would not believe how nervous i still am sitting here i agree with you how how crazy that is um i i'm looking i'm looking to run um for another term i put six years in so far i've been part of many organizations in west seneca um uh everything going back from the pta district parent council to rotary the um the biggest thing that i've really enjoyed well the last 10 years or so is being
008involved in the district i was uh very proud to have co-chaired the 21st century committee um and after that came to a close i then ran for the school board a couple of times second time i got on um term later i got on and i really feel like i've learned learned a lot in six years and i've worked on a lot of projects and programs that i'd like to see continue on the uh the the biggest i the biggest thing about i don't know the biggest thing about volunteering your time like like you said we don't get a paycheck but the best thing about it is we're able to give our own opinions and and we don't have um skin in the game as far as getting paid to do our job but the
009way i look at it is i have five kids in the district and this is a great way to give back um i i i just i really enjoy my time on the board and i think the projects that we've started the um the bond that we're finishing up 75.5 million dollar bond project with all the work we've done on the roofs and the stadiums we've done a lot of additions to the middle school we've had a learning labs we've added social work to psychologists i'd like to see that continue and i'd like to be part of it for the next three years so again i do appreciate everyone's time for coming out tonight and i appreciate your consideration thank you thanks ed um go ahead jen hi my name is jennifer koss i am
010a parent of a sixth grade middle school student and i have been a wasatica resident for all my life and i got involved in the school um last april i've been to every single board meeting i've spoken to the board about numerous things that i've seen um from parents on facebook from what my daughter has experienced in the middle school the inconsistencies between um west versus east and i want to make sure that parents have a voice students have their voice because this is their school this is their time and i want to support all the employees i want to make these tough decisions tough decisions that i've seen every single month that the board members have done and i think that there is a change for um the school district to be aiming at
011better um opportunities to make this great what i grew up to be when i was in west senior graduated in 2003 and i want to go back to how the school district was back then but make it better for our students and our families in the community thanks jen okay go ahead fins yes thank you very much uh i appreciate us having this tonight i appreciate folks coming here to be in person this is the type of two-way communication we need to have more of in this district so my name is vincent i've been resident of west seneca for the past 21 years my wife colleen and i built a home in west seneca when our oldest child was just one year old she celebrated her first birthday there and we we picked our location
012based on its proximity to west elementary school we are our educators and we wanted uh we wanted school to be a natural part of our children's everyday life and you know we've been very fortunate now to have raised four children who are amazing kids and have all gone through the west seneca school district and i attribute much of their success to the amazing people that have been around them for the number of years that they've been in the school district i myself have i began my career as an educator working as a personal care aide in uh well the infancy home working with profoundly handicapped individuals and you know there's everyone has that moment in their life when they realize that this is what they were supposed to do um and i could recall at
013that that point time in my life that i was supposed to work with kids and uh i uh i actually my wife and i worked briefly together as uh as a substitute when i was a substitute teacher in a catholic school i went on from there to uh the stanley g fog school which had a profound impact on on me as a person and as an educator i worked there for seven years working with students who are diagnosed as being emotionally disturbed and i'll say this to the day that i died that i learned more from those kids than i ever taught them i learned more about myself and learned more about the educational system what was worked about it what doesn't um and i was able to harness some of that that experience and
014that knowledge and take that into my next venture which was uh as a teacher at sw in the sweet home school district uh where i worked for a year and then became was named dean of students okay i went over to two minutes as dean of students i again you know you start to follow the breadcrumbs like this is what you're supposed to do so i was hired as an assistant principal at niagara wheatfield worked there for four years was tenured and felt that i was ready to move into a principleship i did that at springville griffith institute i was there for seven years um and that uh i'm seeing that the time's up yep time is up okay sorry about that that's all right um at this point in the evening we're going to
015start the questions um again each of you will have two minutes per question keep your eye on tammy she'll let you know when you're getting close and when your time is up question number one scott we're going to start with you for the first answer and here is your first question what is one thing that you feel the district is doing well and one thing that needs to change so i feel the district is doing well with upgrading uh their current infrastructure portfolio um i'm i'm mildly impressed with the two stadiums that were built but as far as not doing so well i'll be brutally honest with you i think they missed uh i missed they missed the mark uh in regards to actually building those facilities uh i'm on big pro sports i'm a
016big athletic program i think it's important for all the kids to uh you know be involved if they want to be and if they are they should have top of the line facilities equipment gear coaching staff and and resources to do so so um i i like the the direction they're going with the upgrade athletic facilities but i kind of disappointed in the fact that uh neither one of the stadiums have uh like a legitimate concession uh stand and and uh restroom facilities if you will i think that should have been incorporating that with the kind of money that they doled out i spent quite a bit of time there with my two kids and uh i don't know to be brutally honest with you guys because that's what i am is i'm brutally honest
017is uh it's it's it's sad you go there and you're using a porta potty at a you know multi-million dollar facility at west senior um it just kind of rubs me the wrong way so uh moving forward uh clearly we won't let that stuff happen anymore so we'll uh we'll put forth good effort and good sound choices and decisions and speak up for uh everybody involved and that's not to knock any other um you know resource that the district provides everything should be top of the line for the for the volume and the size of this uh district and the money that we paid taxes uh these kids and the children and the teachers and the staff and everybody else involved in this district shouldn't be slighted so uh we're looking to make good change
018and uh build on you know what's been done and and we'll improve it so that's kind of where we're at right now thank you um okay francis yeah did you want me to repeat it nope okay i got it um i think our district does a lot of things really really well i'm impressed with our pps teams our literacy program social emotional learning is a very big thing for me i have a degree in psychology mental awareness mental health those are all focuses of mine i know the pandemic was not expected the fallout from the pandemic is something that i think we need to focus on we still have isolation rooms in our schools we still have parents are afraid to send their child to school they have a sniff sneasel anything like that because
019they're afraid that they're going to be labeled as having coveted i've dealt with that myself wondering if i should send my daughter to school or not i have to disagree a little bit about where our funding is being spent right now we're just starting to look at phase three of the covid relief fund which is seventy point seventy five point five million dollars phase three focuses on science labs phase four focuses on elementary school improvements me personally i'm more focused on education children the students i'm not that's not to say that i'm not a big sports fan or that my daughter doesn't want to play soccer this summer or anything like that but if i'm gonna see the money spent somewhere i'd like to have it go back to the students and stay with the
020teachers and work on academic programs personally thank you okay ed um so the the first question is what is the district doing well second question is what could we do better um it's what what is one thing that you feel the district is doing well and one thing that you feel needs to change you need to change you got it probably a better way to phrase that um the the thing that i'm actually really proud of is what we're doing right now is applying the cove to relief money properly we've added a lot of psychologists and social workers we've created some learning labs learning labs at the middle school we've had some enrichment programs brought in a lot of a lot of teachers new to the district to help the kids that have fallen behind
021because of having to stay home during covent we're looking to rectify that and improve upon those kids and i'm really really impressed with the way the money's the money's being spent but i also like the long-term goals of that as we have teacher retirements and staff that is leaving we can then reach into this bullpen of people that have just been added to the district to take their spots long term as the cover relief money goes away um the the other thing is we're looking at reducing we've already begun this process but we're looking at reducing class sizes we've worked with kindergarten in first grade and we're going to follow it up through that'll help and the literacy program is something else that i believe the district is doing really well right now if you
022think about it if i say um one more time jen can slap me if you uh if you think about it the the reading everything you do in school is has to do with reading there's no like you take a math problem you're in social studies you're you're every class you have reading is involved so the fact that we can focus on that and not let the kids fall behind in reading early can improve can help with that so i'm impressed with what we're doing with that um what we need to improve or we need to change uh and i'll use the r word we need to get this district redistricted we need to get the entire place right sized it's something i fought for with a great team uh probably almost eight nine years
023ago uh and we have not made much progress on that so i'd like to redistrict and not do it in a short-term way i'd like to put together a 5-10 20-year plan um one thing i did we are working on is bringing an organization time's up sorry thank you talk to me later if you're interested in that answer thank you um one thing that the school is doing well is i feel that like i'd said the learning labs and what francis said is that the social emotional i feel that um with um what is going on um pre um postcovid is um getting these kids try i'm getting back on track in regards to that and the learning labs has helped um significantly with my my daughter's friends um in the middle school that i
024have seen and that get them back onto the pace of where they should be at um and the extracurricular activities um the musicals are amazing they put on these kids put all their effort into this um the productions them the orchestra um the the sports the these things are critical to our students not just because it um it is something to get them to do something it gets them to be team building and get them to work with others in a group setting the one thing that um the school needs to change is the inconsistencies between all the schools it's pretty sad that one school has amazing communication and one school does not have communication to the parents and um the activities that the kids have when parents see that why isn't it happening to
025my kids why isn't it not um why is my kid not having this particular activity at the school but that school is having it so i want to make sure that there's a fair playing field throughout the district for every single school in the district thank you okay go ahead so what we do well um i can say from with great experience that we prepare literate civically aware young people i think that uh at our high school our academies uh have been at the forefront and the edge of really solid education um i feel very good about sending my my children to school every day they're the safest schools in western new york our our school resource officers are the best in the business it is a model to be followed and i think we're
026really good at one-way communication and student recognition now what i think we need to get better at is immediately is two-way communication like doing this here tonight our board meetings are places where you go to fall asleep you do not get the opportunity to have interface with with board members or ask the questions and get the answers that we deserve i think that we are fiscally irresponsible in a lot of ways i think that you know in in this last year we've seen a lot of big hires and a lot of band-aids we have a we had a contract that was renewed with for a curriculum director for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year at the same time paying over a hundred thousand dollars to cricket cabinet a lot of uh a lot
027of overlap and a lot of uh a lot of mismanagement there i think our what it needs to come down to is vision and decision making we can talk about the things that we need to do we need to have a vision and make decisions that are well thought out and well planned out we have two identical football field tracks out there we have no baseball field nothing was addressed there we basically went to orville we bought two washing machines and didn't buy a dryer for what reason why and what and what was the outcome for kids who benefited from that and how many kids i've lost out on that and those are things that need to be addressed in a more open forum thank you we'll move on to our second question francis it
028will be your turn to answer first what specifically would you do differently than the current board to improve education in the district i think we need to be more involved with the curriculum planning the curriculum building the curriculum ela and maps we need to take a big ownership and responsibility in that so many times when you go to a board meeting you hear the words well we're better than such-and-such district or we're better than this district and it's tiring as a parent to hear that you just want to go in and you want to say you know what west seneca is a great school district it's been a great school district we need to get it back up there again and we have to stop comparing ourselves to other districts we need to stop comparing
029ourselves and and really start putting ourselves out there being that forefront again being that that's that district that everyone compares themselves to and i feel like we've slapped on that a little bit especially academically at this point so i would change being a little bit more aggressive where it comes to building curriculum thank you ed could you repeat the question sure what specifically would you do differently than the current board to improve education in the district yeah um so that's a i am the i am i am the current board um there's i'm one of seven on the board now so what would i do differently i'll answer it this way um what would i what would i like to see the board improve upon and this is something we were actually doing pre-pandemic to
030use that term i know people are sick of that we were beginning to implement community forums and forums for parents and events where people can come and just like mr van dijk wants more communication with the community itself we had we had one schedule on curriculum we had one in building safety we had some some pretty good ones scheduled and i'd like to see us kind of get back to more of that whether it's uh like what we had in i believe early winter where we had the board sit down and um just have a great conversation with the community there was no set agenda it was just some great back and forth we we learned a lot of things um so i like if if if i continue on the board i would like
031to see that improved um if i don't continue on the board guys remember i'd like to see that improved thank you can you repeat the question sure what specifically would you do differently than the current board to improve education in the district me personally um what i would change is our curriculum like francis said but aim it towards our reading it's just statistically proven that readings levels are well below the national average all across so i'm putting emphasis on the reading programs from k to 12 math skills aiming that's to get the kids at a higher level than where it should be nationally that's where i think that we should do the learning labs are amazing so having that emphasized and putting into different buildings elementary and high school would benefit this um the students
032that's what i feel um i would change occasionally in the schools thank you vince you can go ahead yeah i'll start just with communication we need to communicate more with our stakeholder groups boards are making really impactful decisions on very little information they are we are we are the head of the district the superintendent works for us we need to hold our superintendent more accountable for the decisions being made i see decisions but i see votes going up and we're hiring people and it's going through 7-0-6-1 and it just seems to be there's very little conversation at board meetings about these decisions and i know there's not this the conversation with constituents we are trustees for you i have two two groups that i'm here to work for students and taxpayers that's it and our
033decisions need to be made based on what's best for them and how do i know what's best for them if i'm not talking to you and that's just not happening right now in our board and we need to take that communication up a level and find more ways to get more direct input um we need more awareness of the process how how people how people are hired what what what contracts uh when do they expire what's the what's involved in that contract um i would love to we will when i'm on the board and get a more full audit of all the money that's being spent and where it's spent and how closely is that to kids because the money takes getting further and further away from having an impact on children this district is
034not going in the right direction i have news for you it's not going in the right direction we have good people but we do not have the leadership that we need right now to take us where we should be thank you scott all right going last is tough a lot of good ideas out there um i'll keep it short and sweet uh i believe we need to find continuity and cohesion within the board that's first and foremost they maybe need to take a little bit more time discussing things uh thinking things through not be so apropos to jump the gun and just uh push it through uh with that being said uh it's it's all about direction what direction are we heading you know we've heard vince miss cuss ed uh francis all touch on
035some sort of direction that we're gonna go uh so i think that's imperative uh training training whether it be for the staff or for any of the seven members on the board um i can't stress that enough training is key uh so anything that we can get our hands on to train us to be uh better board members better decision makers uh that would be ideal uh the core values of the district i mean what are they you know where did they come from what do they stand for now i think that would be something to kind of regroup and uh you know go back to the drawing board and find those core values and and move forward in a positive direction you'll hear me say this quite a bit common sense prevails uh unfortunately
036i think the district and the board right now lacks a lot of common sense so i'd like to bring that back into play and i'd like to go back to normal you know might hurt a couple feelings here right now but i'm really not interested in that we need to get back to normal whatever it takes the board needs to stand up they can't be pushed around they need to to have whoever's back is making these critical decisions and just get back to normal not just for us and the parents and the taxpayers but for the children they're they're beat up and they're banged up they need to get back to normal they need normalcy more than you can imagine and uh you know we need to set us apart in the district by just
037being being us being with seneca a large town uh with uh you know small town values so at this point it's just about uh you know brainstorming and mind mapping with people on the board and people associate with this district and and uh making good decisions going forward thank you uh question three ed this will be your chance to answer first the question is our district has a lot of money that goes towards teacher stipends what are your thoughts on that a lot of money um well basically if they're referring to teacher stipends to do other work other than teaching in the classroom i believe that's stuff like coaching or running clubs and i know it's probably not the the best answer for taxpayers sitting in the room or at home but i'm okay with
038the stipends for the teachers doing the extra stuff i'm a firm believer in the kids kids wanting to be at school and wanting to be in the buildings and if we don't run the sports programs or the clubs the even the intramural stuff and the my son's in a running club right now who's nine and he begged to do it and this kid we we had to drag him on the bus every day um he got on the bus today for the first time in a long time easily because runners club was today so as long as the stipends are being spent wisely and they're um they're going towards things like keeping the kids active in school i'm okay with it thank you jen can you i'm sorry sure our district has a lot of
039money that goes towards teacher stipends what are your thoughts on that thank you um i think that teachers are are building blocks in regards to the school however i think that um like i said it needs to be monitored and it has to be to a certain extent without going over um a certain amount my teachers do extracurricular activities for our students that need these extracurricular activities in their lives so having certain teachers and get certain stipends but not getting them not overspending um to those stipends is something that i'm okay with but it needs to be monitored very closely thank you as a building principal i've always had the responsibility of signing off on stipends and if they're being paid out and one of the things that most important is holding folks accountable to
040so first of all if you're the if you are the advisor of a club you need to have a set of dates that you're meeting a set of goals outcomes i need a roster i need to know when you're meeting and what have you produced if you go on our website right now you're going to find clubs that are dormant you're going to find clubs that didn't do not do not live up to the stipend you're also going on the other side of that you're going to see people that probably make three dollars an hour because they work day and night with their clubs so i think there needs to be equity there i think there needs to be again these are folks that are working directly with students these people should earn their money
041and i guarantee that most of them do but i also know that they're from my experience that there are those that if they go unchecked they will not do their job so again it's about accountability it's about communication what is this club's what is this club's purpose do we need to have that club do we can we consolidate clubs um as far as the coaching stipends go i think they're competitive i think that you look across the uh the region you're gonna see that our coaches are in line with with other coaches i think that there are things within this district that need to be combined i don't think that we necessarily need an east and west um let's say they'll get in trouble for this one girls basketball team when you have they won
042one game east beat west you know we need to look at those things do we have enough athletes that support having two teams there needs to be conversation about consolidation and using our money more wisely thank you okay teacher stipends unique uh because everyone up here at this uh these three tables is gonna be participating in this activity for free now i'm not saying nobody shouldn't be compensated for doing good work but at the same time maybe there's got to be discussions brought up about uh you know some volunteer work in the community through the district and the teachers i don't know if necessarily all clubs require a ridiculous amount of money to be put forth and paid to those people you know good core values uh you know the old expression let's pay it
043forward now i'm not asking teachers to work for free by any means but let's not kid ourselves the teachers in this district are the most well paid in western new york if not almost all of new york state again compassion kicks in wanting to do it for the kids kicks in i'm not opposed to stipends but with that being said i am opposed to these and i'm gonna go to bed for the teachers here because it kind of falls into play they're they're getting stipends for participating in extra career activities but they're probably spending some of those stipends if you will uh on school supplies and stuff again it hits home huge district big tax dollars no teacher should be coming to work in either one of these school districts and having to put money
044out of their pocket to pay for school supplies nor should any of the parents sit in this room or live streaming on this camera right now listening have to go and spend a hundred dollars or 150 on school supplies for their kids to go to school this is all stuff that this board needs to talk about make sound decisions and good choices moving forward and and set these kids up for success and not uh you know diminish you know bank accounts and and different things you know in the teacher's checkbook or the parent's checkbook and you know again it all ties into accountability communication and doing what's right but the stipend thing so there's a value in it for certain circumstances but at the same time you know maybe some of these lower level clubs
045just can't afford it but if they want to continue they have to start approaching you know a volunteer basis or something of that nature thank you thank you i agree with vince vanderlip that there needs to be accountability when it comes to teacher stipends they need to be reviewed we need to communicate we need to look at the extracurriculars i know that we had mentioned kind of east versus west in a sport well maybe cohesion is the answer maybe instead of having that east versus west mentality that seems to be out there in the district we can start combining and combining groups saving money look really looking at where we're spending the money what what are we doing where are we hiring what area needs it the most what schools need it the most what
046activities should we be focused on the most for me my my daughter's teacher is like a second mom so there's really nothing i probably wouldn't do for them they've been amazing for my kids winchester potters has been amazing and they're amazing teachers but it is something that we have to take a look at it is something that needs to be talked through it needs to be talked to by the current board by by the candidates um and there needs to be some accountability thank you question four jen this will be your turn to answer first what are your views on current events in our schools for example covid and classroom curriculums in regards to current events kobet has shown up not just wasanica but the whole world and i feel that right now post covered
047we are getting back to normal so hopefully we don't have to go through that ever again um that was the worst two years of our lives um in regards to a curriculum i feel that parents need to become more aware of what we are teaching and what i would like to do is get to have our parents know what our students are are learning in our classrooms and that is one thing that i'm aiming to do when i am on the board is to try to get parents to see what their their teacher is going to teach them that year um what they're going to be reading what are they going to be learning about that is the current um as of right now in regards to the curriculum i want to make sure that
048these parents have a voice for what their child is going to learn in that classroom and what they don't want to for instance real quick it is not mandatory for students to do the biology with cutting up the frog pig or anything like that so if a parent doesn't want their child to learn something i feel that they should be able to say hey i don't want my child to get that information i want to do it on my own time thank you i would just ask that you repeat the question sure of course what are your views on current events in our schools for example covid and classroom curriculums okay um i'm against copenhagen [Laughter] um no look at them we learned we learned incredibly valuable lessons and and i think there was a
049lot that was revealed during covet about um about leadership and about uh and how to deal with crisis and um i i'm not i'm not um i was not impressed by the way that covid was handled in our district um i feel that there were were great opportunities to you know we talked about the re-envisioning of of education i haven't seen it i haven't seen the changes i haven't seen any sweeping changes that make the things that we're doing any different i think that we we needed leadership during that time and we needed a we needed a sergeant and we didn't have it i think we had weak leadership and we had weekly communication and we did not have parent enough parent input uh during that time so now as far as curriculum that's what
050i do for for a living um so if you talk to me about what belongs in the curriculum well we have a set of state standards and i think that we need to get big corporations out of the educational game we need to stop changing programs every two years when we have a different curriculum coordinator i've watched different programs come and different programs go we have teachers that now feel like they don't know what they're doing they have highly skilled gifted teachers that need to have a little bit more freedom and have leadership that will hold them accountable in the building to make sure that their students are meeting the standards and we use data to make sure that our kids are measuring up against every other kid in every other district thank you right
051turn yup your turn um coveting curriculum two awkward topics for most people to talk about but let's hit it uh colbin as far as i'm concerned it's in the past the board unfortunately didn't do a very good job policing the decisions of the superintendent that's first and foremost again it's a volunteer job elected by the taxpayers to do the best logical reasoning common sense decision making for the students in this district that we can unfortunately they drop the ball it is what it is as far as i'm concerned it's in the past so let's move on to curriculum because that's key that's what makes our children better uh one thing in curriculum let's not cheat the kids right let's give them exactly what they need and move forward with good core values again you know
052simple learning tools give them all the tools necessary to move forward outside the district when they graduate go on and be successful where they decide to move on an educational career and go into college or get into trades trades is key right now college i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings but it could be overrated and a waste of money at this point skilled trade is absolutely necessary i can't emphasize it enough i would love to see the boces program if you will uh you know get more integrated in the district and in the buildings as a whole and not have to ship the kids to somewhere else to learn that skilled trade or at least have the conversation in the classrooms because it revolves around everything whether it's math science social studies anything skilled
053trades can always come back to be a fundamental core value in the curriculum um let's let the kids live right let's let them be kids while they're in school um i'm not a fan of homework i'm not saying it's not necessary but at the same time these kids are here for x-men hours of days uh they should be able to accomplish as far as teaching the curriculum in those hours that they're here in these buildings and they should be able to get out of the school at two o'clock or three o'clock or whatever time it is and be a kid thank you well i have to agree with vince i'm not a fan of kovad not at all but it is in the past and um what we really need to focus on now is
054social emotional learning getting that back so many kids miss out on so many key milestone events in their lives things that they'll never get back again and with just having the children back in the school system back socializing being there my daughter is so excited just to go to school she didn't care if she had to wear a mask for a little while i cared as a mom but she didn't care she just wants to be in school she wants to be with her friends and she wants to learn um as far as what the district how the district held up during coven i actually think we did pretty well i was happy with the chromebooks i was happy with the free lunch programs that were provided by the schools they actually were willing to
055provide for siblings as well if you filled out the form so there's some positives that came out of our district with that and our current board as far as curriculum goes um literacy is the key if you can't read you can't do anything in life you can you can't read you can't do math you can't do science he can't do any any other subject so really focusing on literacy getting back to the basics letting kids just be kids and giving teachers a little bit more freedom i know there's a state standard of what they have to teach but let's open it up a little bit they are some of the best teachers that we have so let's give them a little bit more freedom to to to do and teach what they want to teach
056what they feel is important for our children to learn thank you great did you repeat the question one more time of course what are your views on current events in our schools for example covet and classroom curriculum okay um so my views on current events in our schools are i'm very happy that west seneca is west seneca um then i can say that one as a board we're not necessarily super far down any craziness on one side or the other uh really impressed with our board members and how we want to work together and actually it sounds great talking the rest of you guys too there isn't there's going to be anything like way far off to the left or to the right or up or down um nothing that we need to stress out
057about we're basically west seneca seems to be a nice island away from a lot of the craziness and i do appreciate that board members support just doing what we're doing and it seems that the you know seems like the teachers the teachers actually ironically this is the only good thing that maybe has has come of covid this year it seems the teachers are being allotted a lot more flexibility with what they're doing and what they're teaching to their we want to work to getting the kids caught back up so there's not as much emphasis on the testing and they're working with the kids on a lot of things to get the ones that fell behind back up i kind of would like to see that continue i am not someone who should be making decisions
058on curriculum itself that's people that do that job and they know what's great i do ask for consistency i think our board and i think our district will want consistency i believe our science or our math curriculum is changing soon again um next year it's yeah so um we just had a presentation on it and it's all changing again so it seems that it goes through these four or five year cycles where it just they completely oh you're teaching it wrong let's do it this way how about we just focus on teaching it and then we will continuously get better with it so as far as current events i think i think west seneca is a very middle of the road group of families and the community and we're not dealing with the crazy political
059stuff that goes on nationwide thank you thank you question five vince this will be your question to answer first are you pro taxpayer or pro union am i pro taxpayer or pro union taxpayer that is the question ready um i'm a taxpayer i want to see a return on my investment i want to see that our our money is going to the best interest of our kids i want to see my house my property value go up and i know that when the schools thrive that my property value will go up um that's that's basically my life my life's investment is in my home and uh like i said earlier i picked it to be right next to west elementary so if west elementary is the best school on the planet well her universe like
060the wonderful rachel badger used to say that i'm my first sales sign won't be up long when it's time for me to move out of new york state which is not going to be too long thank you scott um i too am pro tax payer seems pretty much a common sense answer at this point um you know the the unions need to do a better job of holding people accountable at the end of the day um it seems to sometimes funnel into you know they protect the people that don't put forth the most effort and therefore there's a false sense of security and a blanket that sometimes is convoluted because of a a do or anything of that nature so as far as this question is concerned uh i would like to just focus on
061on the taxes itself and vince touched on it but we're all paying good money to live in this town it's massive tons of funds coming in are they mismanaged most certainly are they mismanaged on a couple different levels sometimes um but for that reason alone i think you know as the board is concerned and with the income being generated with uh the taxpayer revenues i think it's absolutely critical that uh you know as a seven member board which is which is a lot um that they they take time again i'm going to emphasize time and common sense and making sound decisions but with with the revenue coming in for this district there needs to just be a little bit more of a you know let's pause for a minute let's digest this let's make sure
062we're absolutely putting all the funds in the proper places and in the proper hands to to make sound decisions moving forward and maximize the potential of the revenue that this district uh has at this point so for that i am pro tax payer and i too would like to get a return on my investment through this district so that the uh the kids attending all these nine schools um have the best opportunity to get the most sound and uh you know the best education that they can get at this point thank you thank you francis this is probably one of the hardest questions of the night and i know i should just immediately say i'm pro-tax payer my husband and i are considered a low-income family i have left frontal lobe epilepsy so i don't
063work and my husband works so we live on one income and it is tough so i am pro tax payer um i don't know how many people know this but of the winchester student population are from low-income families and that was pre-coped pre-coped i'd have to guess that that's only gotten worse and we closed winchester right during the middle of the pandemic so um yes i am i'm pro-tax payer and i don't take that lightly when i say that it's not just that i want to return on my investment it's just it's hard to just put food on the table these days let's be realistic it's hard gas prices everything the price of everything's gone up so it's be nice to know that my kid's going to school and she's getting a quality education and
064she's getting the education that she deserves and be nice to know when amelia starts school she'll be getting the quality education that she rightfully deserves thank you ed yeah um so it probably probably the most politically sounding answer i don't know that i'm pro one or the other pro taxpayer we're elected by the community um i could definitely tell you around 75ish percent of the people that live in this school district do not have kids in the district so clearly pro-tax payer would be something that we need to do i do not make any decisions on this board that i do not consider spending the taxpayers money wisely um that being said uh the union a lot of the members live in our communities i believe the csea i think two-thirds if not more of
065the csu members are part of this community so i'm not necessarily anti-union my father was in the union um they do they do their side of things i think the board can work with the unions to do what's best for the kids and that's where i can support both sides of it um i don't i don't believe that we should necessarily just be fighting back and forth work on what needs to do to make sure the kids are taken care of and um both sides with the negotiations both sides walk away either unhappy or happy and we're good so i know it sounds like a horrible political thing to say but i'm not pro one or the other but i will i will fight with every decision i make for the taxpayers that being said
066if we're doing well um with our money with our budgets that benefits the unions also so that's where i am thank you jen so um i just purchased the home so i'm new to the taxpayer um situation um i don't want to see my tax go up because that means my mortgage goes up because that's how it works with my my monthly payment i don't want to see our anybody's taxes increase so i am pro tax payer however i want to make sure that we work with our budget accordingly to help and make sure that everything is well managed in regards to how our kids are in how our kids learn we the teachers are the focal point in regards to how our teacher our students are are taught so i want to make sure
067that we work all together like i said to make sure that we have come together and not fight between each other because it's this is the about the kids and that's the point right now but i don't want anybody's taxes to go up um including mine so thank you question six scott we're going to come back to you to answer this one first what will you do as a school board member to ensure that parent voice is heard in the district and how will you hold the district accountable for student success just repeat that one more time sure what will you do as a school board member to ensure that parent voice is heard in the district and how will you hold the district accountable for student success okay um parent voices obviously they're key
068ultimately they're the ones that raise their children the districts are to educate educate the kids uh teachers are not raising children per se that's the job of the parents um both need to gel and jive and and have uh cohesion and continuity for that matter i think it's absolutely critical that us as a board here the parents but also obviously the teachers uh hear the parents communication again everybody's been touching on it it's huge uh there's a huge lack of communication uh just in society as a whole right now so you know as a board member um yeah i'm gonna put myself out there phone numbers emails um want to hear from everybody there's a lot of time spent uh you know browsing social media and doing things probably that i could spend uh better
069time sorting emails and texts and and trying to communicate you know with people in the district as far as holding the district accountable um well that's the job it's it's tough to do uh you know as as one member uh that would be the key component of actually having six other members on the board um to unite uh to divide our efforts and to really again make sure that uh the board and the district the superintendent everybody's making sound decisions that ultimately benefit uh the children of this district but at the same time uh you know the district and the and the parents are huge and if they can all be on the same page or try to get them on the the best uh you know pages possible moving forward i think that ultimately
070is going to make you know a better student a better child a better environment in which they live and learn so that would be the way i would hold him accountable is to get everybody on board and almost force it to to happen thank you francis the question was parent voice and student success yes what would you do as a school board member to ensure that parent voice is heard and how will you hold a district accountable for student success um well for those of you who don't know me in this room and there's probably not a lot that don't know me um i'm on facebook constantly communicating with board members communicating with other parents i probably shouldn't be because i'm not a board member yet but i do anyways i think parent voice is
071huge we had ed had a listening meeting back in november and i remember going to that listening meeting and talking about um quarantine i wanted to know what the standards of quarantining were and we had a pretty good conversation and it was after that meeting that i decided you know what i'm going to run for the board i'm not getting the answers that i that i necessarily wanted i wasn't getting the communication or the feedback that i necessarily wanted but i love the fact that we were all in the same room we were all engaged and what a turnout that was it was a huge turnout it was a huge success so i think parents voices are absolutely 100 percent what this district needs um student success as far as being on the board it
072is really working together as one as one member um making morally responsible choices for myself but also making sure that the other board members are holding themselves responsible i'm not intimidated by anybody i'm i'm able to speak up on my own and if i think something's wrong or if i have a question about something i'm not afraid to ask it but i think really being successful means being part of a team thank you ed thank you um this is uh this is something i'm very very actually proud of his parents voice is heard when i got elected six six years ago and this is no reason to vote for me again because it already happened but i'd like to continue doing stuff like this i worked on with the board i worked on implementing videotaping
073of board meetings i worked on adding a second session for community input during the board meetings i worked on creating and maintaining social media like facebook pages um in involving where you could also email the board questions i worked really hard on getting a new community relations coordinator into our district to coordinate other ways that parents can communicate and community members not just parents um very proud even my work with district parent council before i was on the board this is one of the things that we implemented was live streaming and meet the candidate tonight and i'm also getting them put online to where you could go back and watch it if you wanted to same with the board meetings very proud of working with the board on not only recording the board meetings but
074live streaming them but you can go back and watch i would think almost all the board meetings probably four or five years of board meetings that i've been involved in because they're um they're recorded 21st century committee one thing we did was we recorded all of our meetings and put them online you could still go back to the state and watch them so as far as parents voices being heard i i've worked on ways to get the district to hear them and now it's working on continue working on ways to get the district to listen and react to what the parents in the community has to say and that's that's why i'd like to continue because i think that's the next step that we have to take whether it's through surveys and responding or creating
075more forums where we can just sit and talk with the community and it's not necessarily the board but if we get the entire district involved in it that'll that'll hold it'll i lost my gun it'll all be held accountable that way because uh the way i measure it is when i walk out of my door do i have people angry with me do i have people yelling me about the board when i'm in wegmans or top shopping do i have people complaining to me or do i have people giving me good ideas do i have francis calling me every day jen vinnie do we talk that way if they're angry about stuff we're not communicating well and if they're not angry then then we're at least communicating well so thank you sorry i went over
076[Music] um so i like i said um earlier i have been involved with the school just going to the board meeting since april i have spoken every single time at the board meetings in regards to what i've seen on facebook and what i've seen and one thing that has been consistent is that the board does not answer so what i want to do is make sure that this if a parent comes to a board meeting and they have a question that answer is going to be um that question is going to be answered that day not in an email not on a phone call in that specific time i also have um been uh very active on facebook i have um created a facebook group for my my sixth graders my sixth grade daughter um
077and her parents the parents that are in the sixth grade and i share anything that comes through me um that is important through the school district because that is um one main way that parents are involved is this facebook so i am going to stay active on facebook people are going to be parents are able to reach out to me at any time email phone or anything like that in regards to ensuring success as a board board member if something is not working if we see a decline in grades i want to make sure that we aim to correct and find out what is the issue to correct that and make sure that students are going to be well educated in that issue in regards to that subject that is going to be declining because
078of an issue so i want to make sure that we look at all the issues that um a subject may have in regards to declining grades and make sure that the students are going to be academically ahead or at points thank you vince i'm going to answer that question by asking a couple questions how many parents do we have here tonight how many people filled out surveys this past school year how many people have seen the results of those surveys exactly so parent input is actually just it has to be two-way so it's coming in but it's not going out so first of all if we're going to have parent input it needs to know people need to know that their inputs being respected and utilized so that parent there should be processes for parent
079input to go into uh the goal setting first of all goal setting for the district how do we how are we going to hold people hold the district accountable well first of all we have to have goals that are measurable and that are specific by district by department by building and parents have to have input so we know what your goals are so what are your goals for your children that should be part of the goal making the goal setting and then our board should be progress monitoring how are we moving towards those goals we've had we've had board meeting after board meeting this year where you've had presentations from different departments and there wasn't a lick of data for with the exception of the academies there was no data to be found so everybody's
080saying everything's great but there's nothing there to indicate specifically how students are doing where they're achieving what does the data tell us other than this opinion so we have subjective or object we need objective data that says our kids are making progress thank you next question francis this will be your turn to answer first and the question is do you have any financial experience i worked for wegmans and managed wegmans for over 17 years i worked at every wegmans there is in in the area i've done hiring i've worked in every department mostly on the front end so i do have quite a bit of financial experience it's really not it's not that difficult it's like balancing a checkbook at home yeah 17 years so thank you ed do i have any financial experience is
081the question that's the question yeah yes um so well one i'm uh again filing here five so i'm very cognizant of our budgets i'm lucky enough that my wife and i both work um the bad news is my wife and i both spent a lot of time doing stuff like volunteering for the school board and district parent council and that so we we have to watch our money tightly i just completed a remodel on the house came in under budget very proud of that luckily i got it done before the pandemic and the prices went crazy i own two businesses one i've owned for 20 years and i uh basically uh 2008 lost 90 percent of my contracts um with the the market the way it was going and i've been able to recover that
082business um to the point where again i've been in business over 20 years on that one and about three or so years ago i purchased another cleaning company and we're doing um doing pretty well we've got about 25 employees and we're uh we're looking to grow if we you know if we can actually hire some more labor but with those two businesses uh labor's a huge expense and i have to be very careful with purchasing and what we invest in as far as materials and supplies um so i'm experienced in that manner and uh over the the six years of being on the board i've learned a lot about the hundred and now i think around 135 million dollar budget i learned a lot about um the budget process um in the district also so
083i'd like to think i'm pretty experienced with it am i um you know i'm not a an accountant or anything but i do understand in theory about spending less than you bring in thank you jen so um i don't have corporate financial experience however um my father um owns a a business so i got to grow up with uh learning that um the behind the scenes of the business um in my career i have been a debt collector so i get to see the behind the scenes of when people fall behind um i have worked at a bank so i got to manage and help customers out in regards to managing their money and personally i am a very secular um stickler in regards to what um what we spend or what cannot spend every
084month i always make sure that i'm above budget every single month in regards to our monthly expenses even though i don't have corporate experience i know that where and how we need to spend our money in regards to making sure that we grow as a community um and not have um the fiscal irresponsibility that i have seen at the board meetings that i've gone to every single month thank you thank you first thing i want to say is to jen don't put down the fact that you balance your household budget i have a school based budget of 7.5 million dollars that i have to to um balance every year but my wife still won't let me take care of the paying the bills at home handling that is a lot of experience and you know
085what budget budget sometimes comes down to the simplicity of that school budget what do we need what can we do without so um yes i've had i've had a uh a wealth of experience with the school budget process uh i've lived through the the lean years the scary years the uh the flush years when we were uh what were we doing in the budget we were priming the pump and giving money to people and that seemed to work real well um but yes i have i do have extensive uh school budget experience and we take it it's look at your budget your school budget should be the blue map there should be a bit of blue map should be the blueprint or the map uh of what you really believe in and what you care
086about in your schools how are you spending your money tells you dictate indicates it illustrates what you care about most where do you put your money do you put it in kids do you put it in administration you put it in buildings do you put it in how do you spend your money um at my school building in in buffalo as a school-based budget we start with a shared decision-making team and we talk about what are our priorities what do we care about most and parents have a huge say in that and we use our data to look and see how did we did we paid for a support math teacher last year how do our math scores do oh they stagnated all right well then either we got the wrong person we got the
087wrong position those are the types of decisions that need to be made every year based on data how are we doing and what are our goals so thank you scott uh so my financial experience is uh not real vast but uh i can honestly say that i run the books in the household and my wife is totally cool with it uh i have to believe i've done a pretty good job or she probably would have left me by now um i owned my own business for several years uh in the landscaping and snow plowing industry which uh was successful but just uh it hit a point in my life where i had to switch gears and find a job that was a little bit more stable when i was building a family with good benefits
088so i moved into my uh current career which involves a ton of uh project budget requests or pbrs if you will uh dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars with infrastructure upgrades um in communities when it uh comes to roads and bridges and and different sorts of uh field construction projects so uh you know i know how to break down the nuts and bolts um i know how to throw things out add things add subtract multiply divide and and make things work because at the end of the day it's all about coming in under budget so uh with that being said uh again we'll touch on common sense prevailing making sound choices and uh uh taking a reasonable amount of time to digest a budget obviously as significant of what ed you said upwards of
089135 million bucks or something yeah give it give or take give or take so i mean you're talking about big dollars and cents there but at the end of the day um you know seven collective minds and and sound choices should be able to uh you know dissect that budget and appropriate the uh the funds to uh you know where they need to be allocated most and and and make uh good decisions moving forward so i'm i'm pretty confident in my uh financial background thank you our next question ed this will go to you to answer first are you for critical race theory being taught in west seneca schools uh no yeah you know i'll i'll i'll i'll advise on that a little bit more i don't know if critical race theory um is state
090mandated per se but anything related to that i'm definitely against i'd like to hear um i i believe we haven't come across much of that in west seneca school so i don't believe it's a state mandated program um if i'm incorrect in that throw something at me yell right now but i'm really proud of the fact that we don't see again the community here seems to be pretty middle of the road with a lot of that stuff so i'm proud we haven't had to stress out too much about that thank you jennifer no that's all i have to say about that doesn't need to belong in our classroom thank you um i'm going to say a little bit more about that um critical race theory is not something new it's been around for about 40
091years i think that our curriculum should be inclusive but this critical this idea of critical race theory and anything necessarily if it's a state mandate or not doesn't mean we have to accept it we are a local board with local authority and we do not have to accept everything that gets jammed down our throat from albany we need to stand up to some of these things and we look at to look at our values what do we value as a community and that's what should be in our curriculum not because new york state well it's mandated we're gonna i'm not gonna stand in front of people and say well geez you know new york state's how we had to do it i want to do i'm not running for the board to do that i'm
092running for the board to make decisions for our kids and for our community so critical race theory no does not have a part does not does not need to be part of what we do do we need to have a and look at our our constituency and look at our kids and make sure that our curriculum is inclusive of of those faces and those those uh cultures yes absolutely absolutely but to have this idea of critical race theory jammed down our throats by some downstate uh lawmakers no not for that thank you scott uh i'm happy to hear that most of the board and we haven't heard from francis yet but i'm assuming she's probably on on pace with everybody else but uh i really have no place for critical race theory i think it's
093probably one of the most ridiculous things that i've ever heard and if you want to teach your kid critical race theory then do it under the confines of your roof and within the establishments of the four walls in which you live and i don't have a problem with that but there is no time or energy to be wasted in the classroom on critical race theory we have way and i mean way more important things to worry about in getting these kids educated and moving in a positive direction when they exit this district then critical race theory has to provide for anybody at this point it's obsolete as far as i'm concerned it's absolutely ridiculous i'll stand by that and again i i think it's something that if if you feel it's necessary for your child
094to learn about crt then then you do it on your own time and i think that's okay but as far as the district's concerned and um i would like to be honest with you right now it will never be state mandated state mandated if i am on the west seneca school district board i can guarantee you that it just won't happen so with that i yield the rest of my time back thank you thank you francis i agree with everybody else up here no and i really don't have too much to say about the topic if it's something that you feel is important for your child to know then i agree with everybody up here do it in your own home that's fine but absolutely not thank you our next question jennifer it will be
095your question to answer first how are you going to assist or advocate for students with learning disabilities for example those struggling in school who do not need to be in a special education class but are not having their meet needs met by general education i want to advocate for all students special needs they need the most especially if they don't are able to be in a normal class setting we need to make sure that they have the necessary accommodations that make that are on their iep or 504 we need to make sure that the teachers are following all the their accommodations to make sure that we make sure that they succeed just like their fellow classmates but i also want to emphasize that kids students that have not just special education but kids that are
096smart that are bored in classrooms we want to advocate for them too how are we going to accommodate them to bring out this their gifted talents um we always emphasize on the special needs which is great i do appreciate i want to work with them but we also have to look at the kids that are um are highly in their education but they're always going to be fooling around in the classroom because they're bored we want to make i want to make sure that i'm all kids whether they're they're smart or if they need that extra help i'm going to advocate for every student that needs the assistance that they need thank you vince yes i have a great deal of personal and professional experience here um you know i've been a special special education
097teacher for a number of years of a master's degree in special ed and have a son with an iep so i've had this this is a part of my daily life i believe that you know all students as general i agree with john i wrote i wrote it i wrote a paper in my master's program about an iep for all students all students have incredible strengths and some have have areas where they need support and you know we've got to get away from a deficit model that only looks at what they can't do we should be looking at what students can do and building upon their strengths the things i've seen my son overcome and what he's able to do regardless of of you know his speech speech issues kid's going to u of r
098he's going to be you know he's going to be celebrated tomorrow night he had the very best of care here in washington through speech pathologist and just a shining example of what can be done and should be done for students with special needs i think that we need to make sure that our kids are getting what they need but should not be buoyed down by more than they need either they should be inspired to overcome look at what their deficits are overcome those things and go on and do do great things i have a you know a great passion for that subject thank you scott uh so this really boils down to i believe we touched on it a couple questions back but uh parent and teacher communication uh that is huge in relation to
099this uh this question and advocating for students with disabilities um you know that we need to lose if there's any and again i'm not in school so i really don't know and and my kids are pretty uh with it as far as you know what's happening in the district but uh you know there can't be any discrimination with these kids they need to be you know they may need to be made to feel comfortable uh they need to be included um you know they can't be left out they can't be left behind i think it would be key if there's not programs already um instituted within the district to kind of incorporate these kids with you know everybody at some point during the day to get them a little bit of normalcy and a little
100bit of a a different flair if it's possible because i do believe the question reference not a need for a special classroom right correct right so they're not at a point where they have to be uh you know completely isolated if you will um so again i think it's going to boil down to the parents and the teachers being you know strong lines of communication where their student or child is as far as um you know in the learning curve if you will but just not discriminating against them not making them feel left out including them and everything and trying to make uh you know their daily routine as positive and and focused uh for them to to be the best student and child that they can be throughout the day and the year while
101they're in school thank you francis the topic's very personal for me as well my daughter has an iep i think i stated earlier it took me over two and a half years to get her the help that she needed i started fighting for her to get help before the pandemic so the pandemic really just added to the stress a little bit more so i i fully support children with exceptional educational needs that does include children with a high iq that label that label itself exceptional educational needs and includes all students on every level of the spectrum my daughter is integrated fully integrated with her class she's never meant to feel isolated the goal is obviously to get her to not need occupational therapy therapy to not need extra reading to not need extra time on
102math so it has a special place in my heart obviously that is why i'm why i am running i am advocating for children with exceptional educational needs um and again the goal is to get them to not to not have that the need anymore to get them at the correct level i think every child is at a little bit of a disadvantage overall because of the pandemic and because they were so isolated and they were learning over a computer and every single child learns differently every single child is unique and we need to realize that and it's just something that we need to accept and fight for thank you ted would you repeat the question one more time of course how are you going to assist or advocate for students with learning disabilities for example
103those struggling who do not need to be in a special education class but aren't getting their needs met by general education okay so um one thing i do as a board member to support that is we have a great assistant superintendent of you know education um they bring recommendations to us um definitely listen to what they have to say and whether certain hiring positions i know stuff is state mandated but um when when she comes to us and presents reasons why she wants to do what she does certain things definitely listen and try to fulfill her requests as best as possible and i can tell you as a non-board member when there's issues i try to find parents with a lot more experience at it than me um i've had a kid with an iep
104i've had a few issues but not not major not major road bumps so i'm lucky enough to have a huge a huge knowledge of the community itself where people can reach out i have a few good friends that have been through the process lots of times and they're very knowledgeable and i try to connect those parents with that parent to kind of lead them down the right path so they're getting the help they need the advice they need from a professional and a parent who's also been through it so then they can work with the district to properly take care of their kid and again all the kids need it we have the enrichment programs that we've added we have added them the middle school learning labs we're trying to find ways to get the
105kids who maybe are struggling a little bit but not enough to fall to the point where they need major major help and trying to find those ways and one of the ways we're doing it is using the cove to relief money right now so i'm happy we're doing that thank you our next question um vince this will be your question to answer first issues that affect our school district trickle down from the state and national level being educated on these sometimes political issues is invaluable to a school board member are you a registered voter and when was the last time you voted in a school board election i heard the second half of that i'm definitely a registered voter and i voted in every school board election but i'm going to need i'm also i
106have two hearing aids that i didn't pick up on the first one sure you did answer both pieces but i'll repeat the question for you issues that affect our school district trickle down from the state and national level being educated on these sometimes political issues is invaluable to a school board member are you a registered voter and when was the last time you voted in a school board election yeah i i'm a registered voter and i voted every school board election i'll vote in every election that will be held it's one of my uh one of our great rights and i take advantage of it and exercise it regularly thank you scott um i too am a registered voter and i too uh voted in the most recent school board election and budget vote last
107year thank you francis i am a registered voter and i did take place i did participate in the last school board election but i would like to add that as a maybe a future board member i don't believe politics should really play a role in the in the boardroom or in a classroom thank you ed right um i'm a registered voter and i can't remember how far back it was i did not vote in a school board race we were actually talking before back when chris and dequino and then were running dpc and all that and her husband ran frank cleary but probably back when my son was first in kindergarten so i would think i don't know how long ago that was it feels like 20 years ago but it's probably like 12 he's
108a senior so right around when we purchased our home and moved and started uh you know voting i will can i just throw something out here since i haven't had a card yet you only have to live in the west seneca school district to vote in the election for the budget you do not have to be a registered voter you can be but you do not have to be anyone 18 or older i want to make that clear just so everyone can get everyone to come out and vote please thank you jennifer i am a registered voter and a registered voter since i was able to register to vote and i have been um in i did vote um the last um forward election um i want to also real fast bounce off ed um
109that any um it does not have to be a taxpayer it can you can live in wasanica rent in washington live with their parents as long as you're over the age of 18 you can vote so i want to make sure that everybody gets to know that you can live in an apartment and you can vote as long as you're 18. you know live in the west summit school district in the school district anywhere in the school district thank you uh let's see her next question scott this will come back to you to answer first please tell us about your involvement in the west seneca community up to this point volunteer organizations positions held etc how does your previous community involvement translate to a seat on the school board please include any involvement with disability
110groups uh so my involvement with the west senate community is it's it's pretty simple i've been a resident for 18 years i've been a taxpayer i have two children in the district that i'm very engaged in i was at a lacrosse game tonight before the meeting freezing like everybody else that was there i am engaged in i'm more engaged with the district than i am with anything else in the community i'm very active in their lives uh while they've been going to school in west seneca parent-teacher conferences obviously the sports programs and anything else that directly relates to uh raising the two of them so as far as uh you know anything else active in this community outside of uh just you know being a dad and a parent and you know bouncing around town
111and networking with people that's that's pretty much the extent uh on my end thank you francis i'm involved with a group it's called friends of children with special needs special educational needs i volunteer for the spca the united way feed more program i've been a member of the national pta since 2017 i believe 2017 2018 um i'm also very active within several church communities thank you ed um so as my school board years have gone on i've actually backed away from doing a few other things but some things i'm really proud of um with the district i'm involved in deca i'm involved in the i volunteer a lot with sports boosters i'm not necessarily the marching band they're great people but i've been past president i'm on the board of pta's district parent council former
112member of rotary they'll have me back someday hopefully member of the chamber of commerce i served on the board for several years i coached girls softball very poorly but they're they're five so they don't really know that i'm telling them the wrong stuff i've done a lot of boy scout as far as being a leader with the boy scouts um so but what i tend to do is i tend to find things that my kids are interested in i've got five of them again and i get involved and then i get involved to the next level and i won't lie to you the more you get involved the less you have to just sit there and watch and that's kind of the fun part you get to do a lot of things with them um
113one thing one thing that again the more i do the more my kids do and the more my kids are involved in the community so it's something i'm very proud of but as my school board years have kind of gone on um especially the last couple i've kind of slowed down on being on boards of everything and i'm really focusing on my time on this right now thank you thank you can you generate the question i don't know about volunteering but i didn't hear the whole question yes of course uh please tell us about your involvement in the west seneca community up until this point volunteer organizations positions held etc how does your previous community involvement translate to a seat on the school board please include any involvement with disability groups um so i have
114been i was a um girl scout leader um for um a girl scout and um in my um career and not just was seneca but i am looking to partner with my work to go through all different organizations to run and volunteer at this i'm very good i love to volunteer my time and i think volunteering my time right now for the board is where i need to be um but i do volunteer um wherever i am i see fit it's not a specific organization um i'm i kind of jump all over the place in regards to volunteering my time to wasatico thank you within the school district i've been uh an active member of the ptas the uh in the sports boosters uh and the community side the majority of my uh experience has
115come through the coaching ranks i started off coaching soccer and i guarantee ed was a better softball coach than i was a soccer coach i've coached basketball softball and baseball baseball has been where the majority of my energy has gone i was co-president of the west seneca youth baseball association for a couple of years i was also co-founder of the west seneca warriors travel baseball program which is still running and doing quite well so very proud of those endeavors and uh you know been a joy and really a joy to see kids come up the ranks and and watch them blossom and grow into young people it's been that's one of my great uh just great it's been a wonderful experience thank you i think at this point in the evening we're going to conclude
116the question portion and we will begin to open your three-minute closing for each of you so we will start with um i think francis it is your turn to start so we'll start with your three-minute closing yeah i know you do vote for me um hey it's good right um i'm really looking forward to and i've enjoyed pretty much every of every part of running for the board and um i'm not going anywhere if i'm not elected this year there are three seats open next year i will be running again i will be in this auditorium next year probably talking to the same amount of people giving the same answers um i think fighting for children with exceptional educational needs is extremely important social emotional learning inclusion diversity equity equality and keeping in mind fiscal
117responsibility those are my goals those are my goals should i become a board member again my my kids are young they're just starting off in the district so i i'm not going anywhere i'm i'm going to be here and even if i'm not elected i'm still going to be at the board meetings i'm still going to be that person that probably calls and bothers ed eight times a day or i love it emails the superintendent and bothers matt constantly but again just i'm just hopeful and i hope everybody comes out and again vote for me thank you ed could you read no i'm just kidding um so so again there's there's two open seats this year one of them is the one i currently hold and i'd love the opportunity to stay in that seat
118i won't be offended if i don't i'll still be involved i do know sometimes people want fresh faces on the board and i am the second longest tenured board member uh that sounds great but it's really just two terms um i'm looking forward to continuing things i'm doing and improving um even tonight working with you guys up here i kind of you know wish we were all on the board together um and i think you guys probably hopefully feel the same way one of the reasons i want to continue is i do work well with the majority of people if you can go back and watch board meetings they're not adversarial i'm not looking to fight with people i want to work with you i want to listen to your ideas one way or another
119i think i do serve well i do do really well on the board so i'd like to continue for three more years i think i'm at the height of my career right now i may not i mean i hit the 30-year mark like some of us in the audience or did she leave um my favorite neighbor down the street jan um 32 years in there i'm hopefully not gonna be that long although she has contributed a lot to this community um i do i do appreciate everyone coming out tonight again i appreciate being up here with you guys and uh said that we missed um dave rogers and i've not met him yet i'm looking forward to meeting him um hopefully there's maybe another night that a few of us can get together and talk
120about that i drank frank's water yeah great well i'm i have to go to the bathroom really bad i've only done about half of these so so again again long night um i am going to stick around afterward once i use the restroom if anyone wants to talk more and everyone knows my cell phone's out there on facebook my email you know where i live i put my address out there even with much of the chagrin of my wife um but you can get a hold of me you could talk to me tell me why you don't want me on the board tell me why you want me on the board but i took extensive notes tonight and if i'm reelected i promise everyone here has already had a voice and if i'm not re-elected
121i promise i'm going to bug the heck out of whoever's here because i want to still be involved so thank you and thank you everyone for coming out thank you um i want to um thank everybody that came out um on your tuesday night i got involved in regards to going to these board meetings in april of last year and i have seen the inconsistencies and the parent frustration and me as a parent i've been trying my hardest to help my fellow parents throughout the year in regards to getting the help that they need i want to make that change in regards to how the board responds that's a major one that i have the inconsistencies between the schools and how the each school is completely different that could be great but i think it's
122unfair to students in the long run and i want to make sure that parents have that voice i want to listen to these parents and get them the answers that they need for these their students and their children and learning through all the i'm going to these board meetings i've learned a lot more than i have anticipated but i'm ready to get on the on the board and make these changes for parents taxpayers our students that who desperately need it especially after the two and a half years with the covid issues that we've had so um if i don't if um like francis said if i'm not voted in i'm going to stay around i'm going to voice my opinions and changes to the board every single month i'm going to help my parents um
123friends and get them the help that they need and i will run next year again if i am not voted in this year i'm not going anywhere thank you for your time thank you yeah i would just say that you know we know that there's nothing more important than the education of our children and um i believe that we as a as a school board and a community we need to build some synergy between the stakeholders and that means parents students that means our town officials to make sure that we have a district that we're just proud of and that we see as a worthwhile investment um we have too many students who are parents that are sending their kids to two private schools and they don't and they're they're spending money on top of
124tax dollars um we're losing a lot of kids and uh for reasons that we need to find out what it is we could do to track the and keep our own i think that a healthy a healthy school district makes for a prosperous community you want businesses to come into our town and you want people to to move in here you bet your school district's the first thing they're looking at and um and they're also looking at your taxes so we need to make sure that we're fiscally responsible and that we're getting the best bang for our buck and return on our investment you know and you know you've heard a lot of the same same statements made up here a lot of i think a lot of agreement on most topics so what it's
125really going to come down to is folks are going to have to decide you know which of us best and can most effectively represent you know your interest and those of your those of your uh your students now the students of this community so i believe that uh i'm a person that can do that and i hope that you'll support my candidacy thank you thank you uh unfortunately this is quite a bit of repetition everyone seems to be on the same page when it comes to uh some of the values here for the kids and the taxpayers but i'd like to thank everybody here for showing up i'd like to thank everybody online if there's anybody watching um do we know 100 there's anybody watching so it's like 1.2 million i like it thank you
126online i'd like to thank my wife my oldest daughter's here right now my dad was here he bailed i got a couple friends up there i appreciate the support um you know i too i'm not going anywhere uh if this doesn't pan out but um i'm looking forward to getting involved with the board making a difference trying to you know engage with good sound decisions common sense continuity effectiveness uh you know spending the taxpayers dollars the appropriate way getting our kids the best value on education that we can provide them um and and really trying to you know push this district this board in in a positive uh energized direction that uh you know hopefully uh you know regardless of of who wins this election and who fills these seats but they can really establish
127a legit footprint um to move forward with and and solidify something for for years and decades to come for the for the future generations uh my kids are a sophomore and eighth grader so um you know my time will be well spent trying to make a difference in those three to six years that uh you know i would like to participate in this endeavor so with that being said you know may 17th is a big day i'd like to see everybody get out and vote the turnout is definitely disturbing for such a large town of over 45 000 people i'd like to see you know a lot more numbers at the polls and you know i would love your vote so uh you know get out there spread the word find the candidate that that
128suits you best and uh and make a smart choice and let's push this district in a uh in a very positive direction moving forward thanks again for everything and uh have a good night oh i don't want to get francis any extra votes here but you have the most adorable two children that i've ever seen them on the third and they're always awesome when they're sleeping yeah well that's exactly the point they're so well they i mean thank you for bringing them i enjoyed watching welcome well thank you everyone thanks to those of you that joined us uh here in person and on the live stream and also thank you to all of the candidates that came out tonight for answering our questions thank you everyone have a great night thanks for doing this and
129thank you jeff pacer for running the cameras [Applause] thank you