May 9th School Board Special Meeting - Board Interviews

001six o'clock so we're gonna go ahead and get started here um let's see do we wanna pledge and everything for this one yeah so uh welcome everybody to a special session of the ontario school board we'll go ahead and start with the pledge for allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all so just want to do a quick explanation of of what the plan is here tonight how things are going to go the people that are out there sure that would be fine if there's anybody out there let's go ahead and have them [Music] there you go the story i picked up on the side of the road had nine puppies

002saturday oh no that's why it was a stranger so we're just going to run through kind of what the plan is here tonight so everybody's aware so what we'll do is we're going to bring each interviewee in uh they've you've got each person has a 20 minute time slot for their interview we ask that the candidates that are not that have not been interviewed yet to please wait outside of the room so that they don't have a heads up on what the questions are going to be once once a a candidate has been interviewed they are welcome to stay in the room you're welcome to stay throughout the entire process and once the interviews are done then the board will deliberate on our appointment of the new member uh of our board i want to

003recognize matt stringer is here he's uh kind enough to join us from vacation so he is on zoom and he can hear us and give us a wave and say hi matt so everybody knows you're there hello everyone so matt's kind enough to join us on his vacation for this process which we we greatly appreciate so that's that's the process that we anticipate tonight do any of the other board members have any comments that they'd like to make before we get things rolling i guess we can give you guys kind of know when your time is um so abby will be first i just think you guys might want to know the process and just thank you for coming in being part of the process abby if you'd like to have a seat right up

004here okay uh abby welcome thank you for coming in thank you for your interest so the way we're going to do this is we're going to rotate who's asking you the question because you don't want to just listen to me the whole time it's not very exciting and uh just we'll work through the questions and if we have any follow-ups or anything at the end we'll let you know so flanka is going to get us started first okay and we want to know what motivates you to want to become a school board member and what goals do you hope to achieve if you are appointed yeah so um my mom was an educator for over 20 years abby is your microphone is it green around it no there you go sorry to interrupt you you

005want to make sure matt can hear you yeah that's okay so my mom was an educator for 20-plus years um not necessarily in ontario school district but we have spent time with private schools and in idaho school districts and so i have been heavily involved in education throughout my life um serving as her right hand person for a lot of the life as many of you know teachers spend a lot of time outside of school hours and i got to be involved in that um i also spent much of time in high school ia for teachers throughout um during my time at work study at the high school ontario high school so i did that and truly believed that i was going to end up as a teacher my life path changed a little bit

006and i ended up at the credit union um and so i stayed with that for quite some time however my bachelor's degree has a minor in education as i was prepared to go into my master's program for education so it's been a huge passion of my heart and that's why i've changed my roles now at the credit union as a trainer and a teacher and there is because truly my passion is education and and educating the future and people and watching them succeed so that's why i feel driven to be a board member of the ontario school district board and goals that i hope to achieve is supporting not only the the district but also looking for ways to make it improved and looking for ways to make this a place that people want to

007stay i know that ontario sometimes gets a bad rep because of just some of the things that happened but i'm invested here i live here i'm raising children here i have them in the school um obviously i was here i think a week or two ago now time has passed and i was volunteer of the year for aiken so i truly do feel like there's an investment in ontario school district to make it the best that it can be not just for my children but for the children in the future thank you you're welcome thank you uh what is or has been your personal involvement with education in our community school district now i think that you probably answer that but if you would like to uh improve or add to that answer feel free

008yeah so i'll just say that i try to support teachers as i know that the job is is challenged so not only am i volunteer of the year for aiken but i also because i moved from saint peter's catholic school where my mother-in-law taught to the ontario school district this last year um i have given financial investments to each as a classroom because i was used to doing that and i know it's not a lot but it was 25 dollars per classroom per teacher of my student or my children's teachers and they have found that to be beneficial it's bought books and some of those things and so i find that not only as a time investment but it's also the monetary investment in this in this district as much as possible i want to

009support as much as i can without actually being in the in the classroom thank you uh what makes you stand out among other candidates what skills or traits will you will allow you to contribute to effective operations of the board as a whole so again my educational background and then i work for the credit union and um went through the merger with that so prior to that i was used to working with a board of directors and understand um the opportunities that a board can a volunteer board can um have on an organization um and also some of the challenges that can be faced of a volunteer board of volunteer board right there uh when you're being paid for a job there's um investment in that sense right you're getting a paycheck every day and

010so you're realizing like i'm here because it brings liveliness to my family right but serving as a volunteer board is a completely different mindset because you're not getting that monetary um investment back and so there is that ability to understand that there's challenges and that although we are a board we still have to um listen to the superintendent or the leader who's of the the paid leader of the of the district or of the organization and realize that we are guiding them but not necessarily understand all the intricate details of how it actually effectively runs on a day-to-day basis and so i think that there's um some benefit of me understanding the challenges and the opportunities that can happen with the board of directors that's a volunteer board while still serving as the as a

011guidance for the overall leadership of the paid organization and what do you see is the primary work of the school board and what do you see is the board's roles and responsibilities so i i don't know all the intricate details of how a board of directors works with the a school district but from my understanding it's a lot of guidance and possibly governance right it's it's not the day-to-day operations necessarily because that's what we have superintendents and principles for is to really manage those day-to-day operational pieces and so the board really should be listening to the community and listening to the school and really working together to try to make a resolution that works for both parties however we know that's not always going to work perfectly and so it's making sure that we're doing

012what's best for both parties as much as we possibly can um i think the four-day school week is a perfect example of that of saying like the communities we're watching as other communities around us are going to four-day school weeks right and so ontario's gonna be left as possibly the only school district in our area is a five-day school week so that's a drain on staff right because they could go to another school and have the four day work week but we also have to realize it's a drain on the community because there's day care and some of those issues as well but i think that with listening to both sides and trying to really come to a resolution of realizing that we have to take the best interest of both parties and so that's

013what i believe the board's responsibility is to listen and really make informed decisions that's best for the community and best for the school district what excuse me what are two to three strengths of which our district can be proud why do you see these as strengths yeah i think we i have been reading our graduation rates are up so that's fabulous right that's something hugely to be proud of um the diversity of the high school i have a stepson in high school and i think that there's huge opportunity there um with the ability of having bridges which my son is actually attending and so that's been a great opportunity to give him some different options outside of a traditional classroom um so i think that the diversity again is another huge piece that we can

014be proud of and as a graduate of ontario high school i was hugely proud of the fact that um i was able to have college credits and i think that that's something that the district should be very proud of and that we have students that are graduating that way um so yeah i think there's a lot to be proud of in the school district and i think that our strengths are being diverse and having other options for students across all different levels of um their their expertise in education right we're serving the students who are gifted and talented and we're serving those students that may be struggling a little bit and i think that is huge for such a large diverse school in one of the poorest counties in oregon okay so kind of the

015other side of the coin what are two to three needs that must be priorities for our district to address why do you see these as needs yeah i think that um family involvement is a huge piece that we really can continue to push forward with um i know that i'm hugely involved in my students classroom but i also think that we can involve more families involved because it really is a partnership i've obviously i've been around education my whole life and it's not just the teacher and it's not just the board but it's the family coming together as a unit and so the family nights that we've been doing has been huge but i think there's we can continue to grow that as a family unit of realizing we're educating everybody in the unit not

016just the student um and then i think just making sure that we continue to stay diverse and and i think with the hiring of the principal at the high school with his hispanic background i think that continues to honor the diversity throughout our organization but we realize that i and i think these are the last numbers i saw it's like 60 percent of our our school is hispanic or latino based and so i think that that's something we need to continue to empower and and be excited about because that's become of the future and i know that because as businesses as working at rogue credit union in the training department we our new focus is dei which is diversity equity inclusion and that is the new wave of of the future for including individuals and

017so we just need to make sure that as a school district we're we're maintaining that and not turning a blind eye to that and what do you feel is the number one challenge facing education in oregon today um technology is changing so quickly and as a poorer school district it's hard to continue to maintain and keep up with the same levels as other organizations um spending time at a private school we had private donors and we had some access to things because the funds were easily available and there was um chromebooks from everybody in the school that we were able to do that and so i think we need to understand that technology is changing the way that children are learning is changing their attention spans are changing and so we really have to maintain

018and stay with that while still educating them for the future um again i work in uh the organization where i see 19 year old 20 year olds coming out of high school or college they don't have all the socialization abilities um and they're not really up to speed on that and so how do we not only educate our students with the technology that's going to be desired and necessary but also teach them how to have those social skills so when they do enter into and want to be on a board like this someday they have the ability to have an interview experience and they have the ability to stand up and be able to have that conversation uh what are your thoughts about how the district and school sites can encourage involvement and participation i

019think that we have done a great job with the family nights and some of those things and i as covet now is starting to lift right we have more opportunity to have that um i have seen the school district be involved in almost all of the community events and so continuing to be involved in those cultural center events and the family nights and you know any opportunity we can have our face out there um i know that i've seen many of you in the aitkin um student of the month pictures and so more of that just continuing to be out there and keeping us in the forefront of people's minds and keeping that positivity going that's how you get involvement in participation i mean we've all probably been on things where we're like we need

020more people we need more participation right and the only way that people start to do that is to gain excitement and so i think that adding people on the board that are diverse in the community helps gain that participation involvement because you're getting different touch points in the community throughout um the diverse areas in our community how would you write how would you react to a parent or community member who came to you with a complaint yeah complaints are not new to me i was the avp of um member service at mount here federal credit union and so i handled all escalations that went beyond a branch manager for complaints so thankfully they're not a new item for me but i would take the facts down right try to just listen attentively and um one

021of the things that we have at real credit union is um it's called a heart model and i think that it i've tried to use this outside of it and it stands for h is here so i'm first here and then e is empathize so i empathize with the individual me and that sounds like it was a really rough time tell me more about that and then as apologize you apologize i i'm sorry that you felt that way um and then r is resolved and resolve although it doesn't mean that we have to fix the problem right but it may just be coming back to them with the resolution of saying hey i took this to the board and i took this to the superintendent we can't make that change now but we'll keep that

022in in the future for possible planning right and then the tease thing and so when you're listening to a complaint if you can work through those five pieces it really does leave the person left with like i was heard and they tried to take care of it and they thanked me for my feedback and so that as a board of directors or a member of the board would be just listening and realizing that it's not my responsibility to solve that but it's my responsibility to bring that to the group for a conversation or a discussion and then if if it is appropriate me to follow up with the individual saying hey we have this conversation this is how it happened and i just wanted to make sure that i followed up with you on that

023okay and then this is the last question it's an easy one is do you have questions for us i don't think that i do is it for board number five there's three here tonight and then we have matt stringer who's out of town but joining us via zoom uh i do want to ask matt did you have anything that you wanted to ask or any other did you want to say anything can you hear me yep we hear you yeah no i really appreciated that i thought your answers were really well thought through and do you have the best of intentions thank you thank you does anybody have any follow-up questions that they have passed nope thank you so much for coming in we appreciate it like we said you're welcome to hang out stay

024and listen or whatever whatever you want to do okay all right all right thank you thank you hey you have a question are we uh did the candidates did we give them the questions prior to no no we i couldn't remember how that process worked oh all right well welcome christine thank you thank you for your interest and being willing to come in and go through this process um certainly i understand this can be a stressful process a little bit so the way we're gonna do this is there's four of us here matt is joining us on line so he's here and listening um and then the three of us in the room will just rotate asking questions so you're gonna hear from blanca first then we'll just go in circles and until we're through

025all the questions you have a copy of them there in front of you so okay if you need to refer to them after we ask them that's fine okay so i'll start we want to know what motivates you to want to become a school board member and what goals do you hope to achieve if you are appointed so what has motivated me i graduated here in 1997. i know what my school was like i know the love and the passion even the students had i mean i sat side by side with craig and mr showers class and we had fun and there was excitement in schools and i walk in there now you know when my son was going to school and walk there now with my daughter something is wrong something is very wrong

026that passion that that light that energy is gone and i want to understand why and i want to be a part of the solution and bring back that light i don't know what happened i think it was a very gradual progression and now we're looking at the wall that all of a sudden got built and we didn't notice was being built so my passion is to try and help bring that wall back down bring in another point of view bring in part of what used to be but integrate into the future as well and i think i can help do that this is my home and i am passionate about making my home the best place it can be so that was my motivation i want my children it's too late for my son he's

027good he's gone um he's already graduated my daughter i want her to have the same beautiful experience going with her school years as i did here so that's what brought me here so what is or has been your personal involvement with education our community and school district so i've been a registered volunteer with the ontario school district since um well my daughter my daughter joined kindergarten here at pioneer elementary i was a volunteer here for many years so i volunteer in the classrooms volunteer at various field trips my sister was a librarian at pioneer for great denia a great deal of years it's going to help her out with like the school book fair that sort of thing i just i had a blast and you know when students see their teachers they're just the

028teachers it never occurs to them the teachers have lives and so when i'd walk into the school and you know i stand three inches above my big sister and so it would throw the kids for such a loot that my big sister was there like what teachers have family it's you know so it was a lot of fun um since taking over my my current small business i haven't been able to volunteer quite as much which is which is sad um but also my kids turn into teenagers and their mom at school uh no way um that's part of growth but i still i still watch and i i go to the games with my kids and we still have a good time even though i don't volunteer in a capacity as much as i

029used to i did as my kids were younger uh what makes you stand out among the other candidates what skills or traits will allow you to contribute to the effective operations of the board as a whole um standing out against the other candidates i don't know jamie jamie's looking of course to be contended with there um she's an amazing lady i think what makes me stand out um you know i really don't know i just i just know that i have the love the passion and the compassion to get this done and so i have to rely i'm able to convey that adequately that that's what makes me stand out um what traits allow me to do this is um i'm an energizer bunny i i go go go go go [Music] and i i'm

030a i'm a thinker i'm a creative thinker so i will you know i'll be sitting there doing my makeup and go oh i've got an idea and i've got to go write it down because that's just kind of the way that my my brain works i'm a thinker um creative thinker and i think that's part of what the education is to come back to the students we used to teach them how to think now we're trying to teach them what to think and i would love to be part of that movement to bring them back to how to think it through um i've been a volunteer uh most of my adult life i was a army wife for the better part of 20 years uh volunteered with the us army on various committees various events

031very various opportunities um volunteering and leading events catering 500 plus families 1200 1200 family members um so i the size doesn't intimidate me um so i i just have to depend that i am trying to convey that this doesn't scare me i'm ready to go let's go let's see what we can do to fix this and bring bring the love back from the district um what do you see is the primary work of the school board and what do you see as the board's roles and responsibilities so i know one of the biggest things that the the board is to carry on right now are the contracts especially for nikki care i know that that's that's been approved for the one year and i know that that's gonna have to be continued to be debated

032um which is part of the reason that you're such the rush to get the member back onto the board so negotiating those contracts out making sure that we have quality staff and administrators that are all here for the right reasons and with the right energy not here to put click to pay check not here to punch out a state number not here because there is no other option i want to be a part of the solution to make sure we have the right people here for the right reasons and for the right length if they've lost their passion they've lost their place it might be time to think of other avenues that might be able to replace that so that is a pivotal and unfortunate role that the district has in you guys sometimes you

033get to be the deliverer of those sad facts and i'm not afraid to deliver those setbacks the board's role and responsibilities i would hope that each and every board member's primary responsibility to each and every kid that sits those desks that's where the responsibility is not to friendships not to alliances or preconceived notions your responsibility is to the children making sure they get the most out of the 12 years that they have here and they walk away as amazing young adults ready to take our place after that our responsibility is to the community keeping our community behind us is the only way that this district is going to succeed and right now i definitely see a little bit of a war going on we need to pull the district and the community back together working

034hand in hand more of the responsibilities include you know um adoptions of changes of rules and policies such as the critical race theory or gender identifications you know this is important things don't have to debate it throughout the board and throughout the community um so it's gonna be an important role and i hope that you know i would love to fill that position but if i i don't i really hope that you get the right person in that seat that's going to be able to deliver those hard questions and find the right answers what are two to three strengths of which our district would be proud and why do you see see these as strings two to three strengths of which our district can be proud i love the fact that you are behind the

035teachers 100 you do everything in your power to make sure that those teachers have that breath of fresh air that they need that they have the support they need and that is one thing i can absolutely commend you for you've done a very good job making sure those teachers needs are met another thing that is a developing pride put it that way is understanding the fiscal responsibility this district has to its community to the state and to the federal agencies i think there's a bigger understanding in developing and i am very proud that that understanding is developing um these are all important traits in order to be able to have a successful board move forward and build that bridge back okay and what are two to three needs that must be priorities for our district

036to address why do you see these as needs uh first one that needs to be addressed is nikki's contract here we need to make sure that all of the goals are met by our view as parents the board view as what you'd expect from her as an employee of the district and what her expectations are out of the board it's going to be a delicate dance and it could be a difficult one at times but that is going to be number one thing you're going to have to address in the coming weeks the next thing that's going to have to be addressed and by the way nikki you did a beautiful job on that compressed schedule but there are a few little holes to fill in and making sure that we exploit those fridays as

037best as we can so that we continue to focus on an education although it might not be in a classroom we can focus in on an education and utilize that friday that we have teachers that are using those time slots appropriately it's not about three day weekends to jackpot there's a reason that that day is being afforded got to make sure that those are being used appropriately and we need to continue to study this compressed schedule as the year goes through it's going to be a continual study of how are the grades doing how is the attendance doing how are the teachers attitudes doing students attitudes doing but we also need to understand the crime rate that might go with having extra time on their hands so that is going to be a major major

038job in the next 12 24 months that's going to need to be continually addressed within this district [Music] what do you feel is the number one challenge facing education in oregon today um that one's going to be a coin toss between the critical race theory and the gender issues that are facing not just oregon but the entire nation those are some very critical points that the nation is going to be watching the challenge to the board and whomever you choose to fill the seat is going to be able to study each of those points from every view from the stu view of the community the view of the students the view of the parents and the view of the educators it's going to be a heck of a job but you have to try i

039have to put trust trust in the board even if i'm not selected that you are going to do right in examining all views and weighing them because at the end of the day it's it's up to to you guys and you've got to be able to deal with that and live with that and manage to bridge that angst that's there between both views there's got to be a happy medium there and it's going to be a heck of a dance tonight to find it okay so what are your thoughts about how the district and school sites can encourage involvement and participation you know that's that's one of the things i'm getting excited about with this friday thing there is an ample opportunity for the schools to open up educational opportunities that don't involve a classroom

040or a textbook i'm really excited to see what kind of creative thinking can can solve those those time slots is it do we put on a school age triathlon do we put on a marathon a relay race do we let the students shadow teachers do we let students shadow administrators there there are opportunities there to be had the question is if you're able to take it outside the box to get it done how would you react to a parent or human or community member who came to you with a complaint i would very much like to sit down and have an adult conversation um understand exactly how they feel i don't want to come with their solution or their complaint with a preconceived idea about this is how it's going to be you just need

041to suck it up and deal with it i want to understand i want to be able to convey those complaints to fellow board members administrators staff so that maybe there might be a solution that they can live with um i also want to be able to address it immediately if there's a safety issue a privacy issue i want to be able to address it immediately and i want to make sure that they have at that moment in time my 100 attention and i want them to [Music] feel safe with me i guess for lack of a better word they can come to me in an anonymity's sake and know that it's going to stay that way or i will be their their fighter for them however they prefer this the last question and the easiest

042one is do you have any questions for us um yeah actually so as i said early on there's been the slow development of mistrust in the board and the district and i remember what it was like going to school with you what do you think caused this slow brick by brick build i i don't know i'm not sure what caused it i'm not sure where that happened like you said i think it probably happened over time and i think it's i don't think it's the whole community i think there's definitely people in and i think it is getting better in just the last little while i agree um i can say is with my kids i don't feel that so much but i know members of the community do feel that so what are your

043goals over the next 12 months what do you want to see the board accomplish and tackle sure i don't want to be the only one here talking that i'll answer this one um certainly uh the big thing right now is is the compressed schedule and how we go forward that making sure that we do it right uh and i think there's a very good plan in place and it's just a matter now of monitoring making sure that grades stay testing scores all that stuff all that stuff that's been going up and doing very well in ontario continues to to do that is eric or blanca do you have any comments that you want to add to that i'm good okay matt did you want to add to that at all i'm sorry can you hear

044me yeah um no i'm i'm good thank you okay did you have any other questions um i'm sure i will think of a million when i walk out the door thank you so much i want to thank you for your your time and i really do hope that you find the right candidate that's going to be able to fill the big shoes that they come into the seat yep thank you for your time we we really appreciate it thank you [Music] yep hi wyatt hey wyatt how are you today excellent how is everyone in ontario we're doing good we didn't get any well some places around here got snow but ontario didn't today lucky you did you get some of the grand we got a little bit this morning nothing like snow in may mountain

045was covered in snow we're just taking a real short break and then we'll get going again perfect so sure okay [Laughter] a rundown of how this process is going out yes that's nice well jamie welcome i know this is kind of a stressful experience i've been through it i understand so uh we'll go ahead and get started the way we're going to do it is just go around the table asking questions so blank i'll start and we'll just go around and kind of rapid fire at you you've got questions there in front of you so don't be afraid to glance down at them if you need a refresher on what we asked sounds good okay what motivates you to want to become a school board member and what goals do you hope to achieve if

046you are appointed first and foremost is my son he has gone through the ontario school district for his entire school and career i guess you could say he's currently a freshman at the high school um i've been asked multiple times when the board has had open spots to you know go for the board you'd be a great person on the school board because you you know your parents were teachers you've been in ontario your entire life other than going to school um for nursing school and you know you you really do care about the district and the kids and i never felt like the time was right for me um and for whatever reason when i heard that tom resigned i thought this is it i feel very confident and i even told my husband

047when i wrote the letter to you guys this last week to explain why we're so interested i said i didn't have to like figure out what i was going to say it all just flowed so to me that means it's right um and you have great candidates i'm very excited that we have so many people interested um because normally it's like uh who are we gonna put in here i was looking at our ballot and there's like open spots for things in oregon like seriously i mean people need to write their names in there but i don't want that either i want people who really want to be engaged and my engagement comes from my son and from uh going to school here and graduated from here and from um you know i saw what

048the school could be when i graduated um i was in the schools a lot because my parents were teachers in the middle school and the grade schools because i'd always go there after school right and do stuff and i just know i know um we're great and that we can but we can be even better just like any school district can be and i want to be part of that that cycle of getting better okay what is or has been your personal involvement with education in our community and school district so and you can expand you kind of talk a little bit about a little bit about it but okay um so the first thing i think i remember doing was um going in with um sarah lee oh she's still lee anymore um but

049i worked in there with her um as brady's first or second grade teacher and just went into the classroom to learn more about what was going on to make sure my kid wasn't being the only brat there and that he was on task i'm a little bit obsessive compulsive as a mother um and just getting to know the school and know what it's going to be like we moved him from payette christian school over here and i was kind of nervous about putting him into regular school because i'd heard a lot of stuff and so i'm like you know be involved you can't just go by what you hear so that was my first experience and then i just got to know the teachers and worked through the pto and aiken trying to raise money

050for them um i the fifth grade i did wagons hoe i went on some different field trips sent my husband on some which i'm still paying him back for i think and then um went into i guess may roberts was next um and got to know the staff there and really you know i really questions and brady roberts too um because i'd heard a lot of stuff but i tell you what they're a great school we have great teachers we have very involved um advocates and staff in that school and i felt so comfortable with him being there i was kind of nervous because people have made a big deal about the safety of the school and the area it's in and yes we did have some lockdowns while i was there but they were

051so wonderful getting hold of us i didn't ever feel nervous about if brady was taken care of there um and uh seeing the school come together when one of their teachers passed away um was tough it was really tough and uh trying to explain to your kids that that teacher you just had just passed away and that that's a big deal at sixth grade so anyway sorry i'm very not going to other tangents then um from may roberts went up to the middle school um had a really great experience there uh mrs longoria and um chad hartley uh kept me in the loop on stuff brady wasn't the perfect child so um that kept me involved in the middle school um needless to say but um it was good um i was able to help

052make change help guide him as a young young man with hormones doing whatever he's doing um and they were very supportive of that and i appreciated that helped with fundraising and coaching in middle school and now in high school i'm more trying to help with fundraising and clubs and and helping rebuild our sports programs some of them are not what they used to be and it's tough to see i came from a class that won a lot of championships and band went to state and i mean everybody went to state and did great and and i you know i've told my son that the whole time when you get to high school this is what's going to happen it's going to be so cool and and it's a rebuilding right now at the high school

053i feel like and um i want to be part of that not just because he's there but because a lot of his friends are there because i know it can be the ontario that i saw and it doesn't have to be the 1997 ontario just in ontario that can can grow and thrive and everybody can can work together for that future what makes you stand out among the other candidates what skills or traits will allow you to contribute to effective operations of the board as a whole this one's um tough i always hate this question because like i said i think we have a lot of great applicants i don't know um the gentleman out in hallway but i'm sure he's fabulous as well um what i'd say is the part of me that has

054gone through all of my nursing training and my management training i manage the operating room with surgeons and anesthesia and other people who uh they can i mean you have to be type a when you're a surgeon and you have to get stuff done and you don't tolerate anything that doesn't make sure that patient safety is there so there was a lot of back and forth and um [Music] so i took some classes on what's called crucial conversations and how to check your tip and try to educate my staff on that and educate our surgeons and um i've used that throughout a lot of my nursing career and i feel like a lot of that can be utilized here in our school district um and we may already use it i just don't know because

055i'm not in the meetings but there are a lot of things that we're taught in healthcare as well as as a district that i think we can kind of combine and and work through any kind of issues we might that might arise um because it's going to be heated it's going to be tense and that's this is not an easy job in fact when i applied for it i got sent an article um from somebody in the district saying um uh being on a school board is the worst job that you can have right now and it like was an article for the new new york statesman or new york whatever and i'm like oh wow okay well mm-hmm that's okay i'm ready for this so but it is i mean it's a tough job

056you're trying to make decisions for thousands of parents and children and doing the right thing and we all come with different opinions and it's going to be heated because we're passionate about it so now i don't remember what i was saying i was gonna be better than these guys i don't think i'm better than you i just think i come with different skills thank you um what do you see as the primary work of the school board and what do you see as the board's roles and responsibilities so i like to look back at what do we set as the goals for us as a as a school district and i was looking out at the board up there and i i had thought about this but this really kind of brings it to light

057so um primary work of the school board is the commitment to resources to safety educating that whole child uh commitment to achievement and then excellence and accountability what do i think we've done well i think we've done well as far as resource management and making sure that resources are there for underserved populations for kids that are hungry um for kids that are in foster care um or children that come to us from foreign countries that are not used to our culture and trying to help engage them safety i think that we are doing a good job with safety we could do a little bit better in some aspects in my opinion but i do think that we have taken the bull by the horns as far as with school i don't know what a better

058word is but shootings and stuff like that and just being aware and what do we look for and making the students feel comfortable about approaching teachers or the principal or whoever if they hear or see a threat i've noticed more kids are standing up and saying something so that's a really big deal um educating a whole child that's one thing that i i really if i get on the school board i want to know more about because i had some conversations with brady's high school teachers and they said you know brady's a really smart kid he could get straight a's if he wants but he you know he's a boy and he does what he wants and a's and b's are good for me because i don't want to push him if he doesn't want

059to be pushed right but they also said that we don't really do a lot with him because he does fine so there's not anything we really need to engage him with um because he gets his homework done and he does what he needs to do and we have a lot of kids in class that need extra help and that's one of the things brady complains about he's like mom i want to answer questions or i want to do this but they always call on the kids that you know don't do too well or are struggling to make them feel better well i want to too and so that's something that i i thought you know our kids that are doing really well are just doing are they just doing really well and this is my

060this is only my son that i've i've listened to and kind of talked to his teachers and kind of gotten that opinion so i want to know more what do we do for those kids that are doing just fine um and that they have good parent support or whatever i mean what are we doing for those kids because we're trying to really help a lot of the like i said underserved population so those are some of the things i think we're doing good and some things that i think we could work on okay so yeah so this is going to be kind of same thing sort of the same thing so what are two to three strengths of which our district can be proud and why do you see these as strengths i think the

061drive for o positive um i think we can be proud that people are getting behind that they're starting to stand behind it um the kids are proud to wear the t-shirts they talk about it you know what are we we're all positive you know building pride in that um because i think you got to start from somewhere and that was a good um good building block um i think we have really passionate teachers and again this can be heated conversations but if you don't have a teacher with passion then your kid isn't learning and um so i would rather have a teacher that comes to me um telling me all my kids problems than a teacher that just lets them go by the wayside and then they become a little deviant of society so um

062so i think we have a great group of passionate teachers um let's see that's two i gotta go that's fine so the next one is two to three needs that must be priorities for our district to address why do you see these as needs um i i think continuing on engagement of students in the avenue of extracurricular activities maybe um would be a big one like the sports we are losing so many families um i can count them and their and their kids and a lot of it's because of sports programs or other extracurricular programs and it's just disappointing because they're great people in our community they're great families and we're losing because they're they're not happy about something here which you're gonna lose families i get that but um we're losing some that could

063be really big people to build this community um [Music] priorities for the district to address retaining teachers and i think that you guys are working on addressing that right now with the four versus five-day school week um i think our teachers were very like i said very passionate about how they feel about where things are going and what they need to see so they can feel like they can better educate our students and have the time to educate them so they're not just running around chasing a great book and chasing a kid and hoping they complete these papers that they can really be like hey you did a good job on this let's talk about this or we need to work more in this avenue and having now we'll have that uh four day week

064so the fridays can be i didn't get to see the plan that you guys had agreed upon or haven't looked at it yet but um i believe that there's a lot of opportunity in that fifth day um and then i think you know and this might just be something with me because i'm so sports oriented for our district but coaching and engagement with um with sports i know that uh there's a lot of kids that have lost respect for coaches and refs and stuff like that and then just quit a team and aren't engaged and how do we engage kids to the point where even if their coach is hard on them which is usually means that they're trying to help them improve that they stay engaged and so trying to keep them i mean

065our sports teams are so small right now like i said we're in a rebuilding phase and how do we how do we help our coaches our refs our umps um my son's in a drumming class right now and we were surprised that he had like a concert and stuff like that but just to keep parents engaged too so that they know um what opportunities there are and doing more just doing more out there i guess um from that sports arena would be a big deal for me and a lot of the people that i've talked about what do you feel is the number one challenge facing education in oregon today uh staffing staffing and um compensating your employees at a reasonable level doesn't have to be a high level but not minimum wage uh making

066them feel valued and then retaining that staff um and like i said i have brady's experience and other kids that are close to him that will say oh we have this teacher but she's leaving to go somewhere else um because she said she doesn't like this or she doesn't pay enough or whatever it may be that they've heard and um it's hard because we know that these teachers make a difference in these kids lives and they want to see him and even if he goes to be a sophomore he still wants to see that freshman teacher that he really likes and be able to converse with them and be like hey and they can keep cheering them on for all those grade levels so i think retaining teachers is is the biggest thing i think

067right now we need to do and that's the whole world is an issue with staffing but our schools are a big deal if we lose that then we lose the building blocks of how we create this society uh what are your thoughts about how the district school sites can encourage involvement and participation um i like tiger tales i thought that was a lot of fun i think thinking outside the box with these little things because um i'll hear the kids comment hey i saw you on the tv there you graduated from here like when i go there i'm like yeah i did i feel like i just graduated do i look like i didn't just graduate a couple days ago um but getting them engaged in different ways to see oh so-and-so's mom went here

068oh look what they're doing right now you know they can they can make something of themselves it's not just going to ontario a high poverty community that they're not going to make any things of them anything of themselves or even stay in the community right so that's been really neat to see there was a couple other things um all the different activities that the schools have like wagons hoe and the field trips getting more parents involved at a younger level i also believe we've got to figure out something with the grade level schools so i know it was really hard for brady to meet his peers from alameda when he went to may roberts for the first time on that uh ocean field trip that we went on um coast trip and it was there

069was some in the beginning it seemed like there's a little bit of headbutting and stuff like that so that's my girl and that's so don't mess with him and that kind of stuff and then they got along by the end of it but one week isn't long enough they need to be engaging well before sixth and seventh grade um so that they can learn to get along they can build a better community something like that and i don't know if grade level schools is the answer i'd have to do more research but we've got to do something to engage them sooner okay thank you how would you react to it parent or community member who came to you with a complaint um i've already heard them because somehow they think i'm already on the board

070and i'm not yet but but what i do is i just tell them that um that's you know what are your thoughts on that i mean let's make it clear and you tell me where you're at on that side of the conversation i've um been told that i kind of review all sides of the picture pretty well a holistic approach of what are my thoughts what are their thoughts what are our thoughts so that we can come to the best conclusion um i do think like i said in my nursing career i've been yelled at stead on hit kicked i mean i've had a lot of stuff happen that shouldn't happen and threats i mean death threats to my home letters um for things that maybe not even were something that i could have controlled

071right um but i believe that you learn in your experiences to handle those situations with obviously somebody's under a huge amount of stress to come to you with this or feeling the pressure from some angle so what is that and what is truly i guess the bottom line is what's their biggest concern because if you can handle their biggest concern that one day or try and address that then you can help resolve some of that conflict and and then go from there and it's it's not going to be easy i know that you guys go through a tremendous amount of stress with everything you hear everybody has opinions and they want it done now but you know talk the talk and walk the walk right um and that's i think that's what we're all here

072trying to do so we have opinions and we want to we want to be heard and voice them so okay and then our last question is just do you have any questions for us um [Music] oh i did and it's probably a more simple question but what do you guys think this board needs to fill this seat to make it the best board possible for our district i mean for me i'm i'm looking for somebody who is willing to put in the time effort and thought to be able to be a good productive board member the decisions some decisions come to us and they're simple um but the big ones aren't and it takes time and effort and engagement and thought to to come to those to the decisions that we need to make and

073that's what i'm looking for somebody that can bring a really thoughtful approach to the board and somebody that's willing to look from all sides of issues and be thoughtful yeah i mean same i mean it's all about being invested in in the district and not you know sticking around for a couple months and leaving actually being invested in this district and for me that i mean having kids in the district really means something because you're already here for a reason so and that sees that understands ontario uh and uh you know uh what he's done but uh you know maybe where our weaknesses are i would like to see um our school board being able to represent the whole community did you have anything you wanted to add uh no i'm good thank you i'm

074sorry it keeps on moody um it keeps muting me yeah that does that automatically sorry i never tried to look back at you man hello enjoy your videos by the way i guess we didn't tell anybody but matt is up there so no i guess many games let's get it done i'm sure nobody minds faster okay actually thank you that's two minutes i could be sleeping where are you matt um yeah anymore now that i'm 30 i don't stay out much past three it's very nice [Music] we're just waiting so as you see there's three of us in the room here today we matt our fourth board member is out of town but he's joining us via zoo so he's listening and engaged there um thank you for your time we appreciate your interest and

075appreciate you coming in uh so the way we're going to do this is just go around the table asking questions we'll rotate so you don't have to listen to the same person the entire time so blanca is going to go ahead and get us started and what motivates you to want to become a school board member and what goals do you hope to achieve if you are appointed i think what motivates me is uh to serve the youth in ontario you know i have many years working with youth at risk youth especially with through the juvenile department and uh boxing club and the migrant program but i would say representation matters and i believe that um for me to be on the board it'll be great for the youth to see as well that somebody

076looks like them is on the board and making leadership decisions and that they could be that person one day as well and then what goals do i hope to achieve is just to keep continuing the ontario school district is doing already with the old positive uh vision and uh kind of keep that going and and make it make the whole uh community proud to live in ontario and be be part of the schools in ontario and just to be here you know that's what i want to do continue what you're already doing thank you uh what is or has been your personal involvement with education our community and school district i think since i uh started working with the juvenile department working with at-risk youth you know a lot of them were majority of the

077kids were coming from the ac school district so mentoring encouraging them to listen to their teachers you know to go to school stay out of trouble and then you know to to go to college and to finish school you know the other thing would be a lot of mentoring a lot of mentoring you know with all the different youth through the juvenile department through community and actions runaway and homeless youth program always at the school all the time i was at uh you know always visiting with youth and mentoring them giving them guidance on you know to stay in school don't run away listen to your parents and then one of the biggest ones was the boxing club i ran for three years the nonprofit well it started with through community in action first the

078ones that give me they give me the great uh boost to start that club and then working with those youth through there and then just continuing to encourage them to stay in school to go to college to get a job do all the good things to to make ontario better but i think that's and then volunteering as well through the migrant program i think i took a couple of groups to uh different college trips i can't remember them all now but and then not too long ago i came back and spoke to the migrant youth i think the middle school about um you know about careers and what they want to do and you know being part of the community that was with um erica that was with her group so that was really nice

079so it's really good just to be back in the school and anytime i can give back and let those youth ufc uh see uh see somebody looks like them in all youth right but especially that migrant youth program is that you know they could be that person as well thank you what makes you stand out among the other candidates what skills or traits will allow you to contribute to effective operation of the board as a whole i think what makes me stand out is that i feel like i'm one of those youth you know especially at risk youth and then now i'm here in a in a position of like leadership and making decisions and just that i'm i've pretty much dedicated my whole life just to give it back to the community and to

080use you know when i grew up in california i i lived in vale oregon until i was about six and then i moved away to california but over there that's when i first got my experience first experience giving back to the youth through a boxing program and when i came over here in 2006 i just went right back went right back to doing that helping use coaching and then that led me to the job with juvenile department but i think that i think my my record of like just giving back you know and just um to this community and especially to the youth i think that i think it by far sets me apart from a lot of you know a lot of any you know a lot of residents here in ontario um i

081think the uh what skills do i have in trades that i'm just determined discipline i think the one number one trait is that i just that i'm passionate about my community and i care and i think just that i'm dedicated you know that once i get on this board i'm gonna stick with it you know so i think uh my experience on city council has given me the strength to do things like this because it's been pretty tough on city council many times that i wanted to quit and uh you know i don't try to tell a lot of people that but many times that it was challenging and then but then in those challenging moments something would always let me know like to stick with it you know either it was uh most of

082the time as a youth like it was it was another youth that i know a lot of them from the ac school district that i'll run into you know and they would uh you know when when i wanted to step down or whatever they would tell me no eddie you got to stick with it you got to keep going man you got to keep going you know so the funny thing was what i tell people is that the same lessons i was telling those kids you know to stick with it and stay in school and not give up you know 15 years later they're giving me the same lessons to stick with it just to you can't stop you know so anyway that's what led me to come here today you know just to be

083that person for them that role model because the only way i know how to do it is is to lead by example what do you see as the primary work of the school board and what do you see as the board's roles and responsibilities i think uh really important ones like the covet maybe covet policies right i think the other one is like maybe i i see some of it in the newspaper as far as like contracts between uh superintendent i think uh some of their stuff is um like the icing recently to the four to five day uh work uh school schedule you know week important decisions like that you know and then what skills sorry i think the number one thing for a board to roll is just to is to give the

084you know the the kids the the the citizens of ontario like somebody that they that makes them proud you know like that can just work together with the school the staff you know number one thing is and right close to number one no number one thing for me would be like the students and the teaching staff you know make sure that they feel supported but i feel like that's part of my role is to make sure that that the staff students parents all feel like they're supported so and that they can have a board that they could be proud of and and you know and be thankful for so what are two to three strengths of which our district can be proud and why do you see these as strengths i think the one i

085saw not too long ago was that that ontario has one of the highest like populations for mexican-american youth and then they say hispanic but uh and then we have the highest but we also have the highest one of the highest graduation rates or the highest i saw in the newspaper the other day so that's really great to be proud of right it's one of the highest or we're like getting up there pretty high graduation rates that's really proud to to hear about when i heard that and then just the whole positive thing that i've been you know i see everywhere now you know so that's what i'll be part of as well and while i see those strengths is just i mean if you got more kids graduating then we got more kids out of

086trouble we got more kids getting jobs we got more kids going to college that's that's one of the best strengths you know and then the best best outcomes from you know the work that they're doing that here at the the uh school district so so those are the strengths those are what strengths i see for the school that they're doing great things you know thank you what are two to three needs that must be priorities for our district to address why do you see these as needs uh the number one thing would be poverty and there's a lot more but poverty would be one and then there would be mental health substance abuse and then i think those kind of entail a lot of other things right but i think that so this is something

087homelessness and that comes with poverty right but i think that those are some of the main issues that we can kind of maybe start working on and the other big one is that you know my time would be that i saw that we could probably need more work on would be life skills um you know career to you know like school to career uh pathways like more like visible and then school to college you know and then to path to a career you know more visible i think that you know one of the other things i heard on city council was that big companies look to come here and then there's always like three things that they look to and they that they look for when they come to ontario like if they're say a

088big company like amazon's gonna come they look for the they look for the resources they look for like we have the the uh the infrastructure and then they look if we have the employees and that's one of the big ones i think that they don't come here for us because they don't have we don't have the employees we have the the uh you know the work the work um the work source available to them because i think they look they i mean these guys are really smart people uh guys and gals are really smart people they look to the employment numbers um you know can the current um companies fill the roles now so anyway things like that that i see like you know just like a career like a student uh high school to

089career pathways you know get these kids more ready for the future what do you feel is the number one challenge facing education in oregon today i would say back to poverty and then with that a lot of other things you know generational poverty generational trauma but poverty and then i think that the kids can't if they're not focusing on their school because their their lights are out or they don't have enough to eat you know i don't think they're going to be 100 here 100 present what are your thoughts about how the district at school sites can encourage involvement and participation the number one way that i've always known is just to do it myself um lead by example right so to get out there and be seen in the community involved with many community

090events you know represent the school make the school make the school proud and the people was the it was the kids the parents the students will see you out there doing it and then i think it just it's infectious you know they see you doing it and that's only why i know how to lead that's why i get so many you might use you know uh to get involved with volunteer activities like serve day i'm the i'm the first one to sign up i don't just tell them to show up you know hey do this i'm the one that said i'm gonna be there i need help you know so uh i just believe by example how would you act how would you react to a parent or community member who came to you with

091a complaint first of all listen to them to their complaint and let them uh vent to me and just under be understanding even if i don't know what the whole situation is right and never like you know so never promise them anything or uh say you know put somebody else in a bad spot you know but i would just listen to them and really understand really try to understand what they're going through and then bring that concern to um thinking staff or um you know that's why i'll take the to the next person up you know i think with pretty much staff like let them know what happened and then try to figure out the root cause of that issue and then try to find a solution to that you know to what they're going

092through you know i think that'd be crazy just listen and then pass it right on thank you and then the last question is just if you have any questions for us uh what do you see that you're looking for in a board member yeah so we had a similar question with one of the other candidates and my my thought is is we want some i'll speak personally for myself the board members can speak for themselves um somebody that comes at this with a very thoughtful approach uh that's willing to put in the time it takes to learn the issues uh understand the issues and and make thoughtful thoughtful decisions when it comes to what you know the big decisions that have to be made for the district yeah i actually last time i just kind

093of added on to that too somebody that's that's invested in the district somehow or another right i mean i for me it's it's about having kids in the district and being invested in that part of that and uh and and everything else greg said too right it's it's a huge time commitment we all know that right i think we're all kind of shocked with how much time it takes but uh it's just it's alone so um yeah well it's great because that's all i got is time to give and then i think that you know that all my time on council the last little over a year you know i've heard have had to learn to listen to both sides and then be able to change my mind at times you know so it's like

094i don't get stuck in one mindset i'm able to hear both sides and weigh both sides right and then come to a decision you know and there's been plenty of hard decisions to make in my time on council but it's given me the experience and the you know the the grace to learn from others and you know and and to uh to vote the best way i know how wonka did you have anything you wanted to add matt did you have any questions or anything you wanted to add no i'm good thank you thank you eddie but uh you know the uh i'm just glad to be here today and uh you know i think since my time has since i've lived in the area in 2006 i am i do see myself as one

095of those kids especially at-risk kids you know i came here with really no experience and didn't really know what i wanted to do other than give back to this community and i was blessed to get picked by the oregon human development corporation to learn uh welding technology at the tvcc so that you know cause i was doing migrant work at the mushroom plant before they closed down so i you know from that program i went to tcc learned a little bit got a welding job that gave me the experience to get the juvenile department the juvenile probably gave me the much the uh the much needed experience with networking and working in the community volunteering meeting all the youth in the community then from there i went to community in action and it just seemed

096like the catapult but all the programs that you know all the programs that help people in this community i've kind of uh gotten help from or helped others through so i like i think that it's given me the you know the overall like uh grasp of this community and what it needs and how to give back and that's like what i love to do so thank you thank you right thank you thank you so you so you're more than welcome to hang out we're gonna have a discussion okay sometimes i think i could i'll leave if i can leave that'll be good yeah no yeah thank you so much turn around for a minute because i want to talk to everybody without my back to you i like that thank you so much for coming

097in all of you and eddie too you guys are amazing honestly um this is not going to be an easy decision um any one of the four of you i think would make excellent board numbers so um i want you guys all all of you to realize that as we go through this process um having sat in your seat before and went through this process uh it it's stressful and uh we'll try to make this as least stressful as possible but we do have to make a decision um and it's unlike any other job interview usually you don't interview and then get to set and hear the people that interviewed you debate one thing i do want to say so when i didn't i didn't want it they were taking pictures of me while i'm

098answering the price it was the weirdest uh like job interviews the picture that they took was like over somebody's shoulder of me and that like my face big face in the front page i'm like yeah it was the most it's so awkward right for a volunteer job so though you guys are more than one yeah you're more than welcome to stay and i don't want to discourage you from saying um but the one thing i do want to say is we have to choose somebody we're going to choose somebody the rest of whoever doesn't get chosen please stay involved there's lots of opportunities to do different things in the district so please stay involved stay here keep contributing there's ways you can contribute even if you're not the candidate that gets picked today so please

099continue to do that we want you to be involved we need you to be involved and all of you are leaders in the community in one way or another bring in those that you lead keep keep pushing no matter what the decision is here tonight with that i'm going to turn my back to you now because it'll be easier with my back to you from here all right um let's just make sure matt's unmuted if we can so he can just chime in whenever um matt are you still there yeah i'm sorry guys okay that's okay we just didn't see your your video so um all right so discussion any thoughts that want to be offered up no i i'll i'll reiterate the the fact that this is you guys made it tough on us

100to be honest there's uh poor quality people who uh that really want to put the time and effort into this and that's it's a it's a it's a it's a tough gig so um definitely appreciate it honestly yeah honestly yeah there's a lot of passion in this room and a lot of caring and it's it's great to see i think there are can you hear me if we hear you i think there are you know nuances of specialness and specificity to each of the candidates there are criteria that i often think should be considered a culturally diverse board allows the collective board uh to better think through any concerns and perspectives of some of our key constituencies within the committee i'm sorry within the community and and i think uh when possible or when there

101are candidates that would prove to meet those criteria that the racial makeup of the board should match the student population demographics of the district we don't we don't presently do that i think it you know provides an organic kind of equity lens to decision making bodies like ours thank you matt wonka do you have anything you um any thoughts i just think that it's important that children from different backgrounds see themselves reflected in leadership positions and we need to show them that these positions are open to them as well they need to see that okay thank you eric do you have any um no i i i think there's you know a lot to be said about uh what matt and blanca uh talked about um just now i think there's a lot to be

102said about you know me personally i'm really looking for somebody that has children in the district um i really think that brings an investment into this that uh you know keeps people around that uh really wants them to put them um to keep going and to not uh run away uh [Music] i think that yeah that's what that's my thoughts right now sorry i could ramble for longer i understand there's a lot of thoughts um and certainly the diversity and on the board is an important thing um matt wonka talked about and um having somebody that's been very involved in schools i think is important too that understands what our schools are like at all levels of the schools and communities schools and community and and frank all these everybody has these qualities and so

103it's tough um so yeah i like i said i have a lot of thoughts but i'm just trying to process all the people we have and all their strengths and different strengths and um we've got a tough decision ahead of us i think um if you guys are okay i want to take a minute and look at questions if somebody else wants to talk to phil time i mean if we want we can take i mean do you want to take kind of a quick break um i i would like to say um you guys are fine you're not making oh you're fine just stay here you're good no you're fine it's part of the it's part of the deal honestly don't make it yeah i mean we're not reserved in any way because you

104guys are in the room i mean it's not public meeting i mean it's it's just yep it's just part of the part of the part of the deal so matt you were saying in response to something eric said i don't think where uh a child goes to school uh really demonstrates or doesn't demonstrate demonstrates or demonstrates support or a lack of support uh for a district so i don't i don't think that that uh this but then i'm in the minority in that i don't think it matters where the teacher or the administrator the aid is from what town they live in because i've been trained for 40 years as a senior executive to hire the best person not to constrain my decision-making based on things that could be seen as ancillary or not as

105critical so i mean my point matt isn't necessarily about where the kid's going i mean i don't think it really matters that it's really about the investment that somebody makes into a district so if i for instance send my kids to nissa or to bell yes i'm not going to be here to support ontario to its fullest extent i'm going to be going to the games at nissa or bell and i'm right here so it creates where your kids go to school creates uh this vestedness oh no for sure yeah but uh but you know and that that's what i'm saying is is i i think somebody that's gonna support and be part of the positive movement be part of uh you know this board going to different events and and whatnot i think i

106think we're so i think it does matter where kids are going to school yeah guys i'm i'm really hung up on uh well you know the primary thing that we all know that has to be the core problem not just for the school but for the community is the really severe really dramatic poverty we all just kind of throw the word around at this point because we all live it um and and obviously that's something that miss alba sue and all of the superintendents are really preoccupied with and that's feeding children you know engaging with their families having insights into what their lives are like beyond somebody my age's mild wild imagination of what a teacher would either become responsible for recognize the need to step up for i just feel a minority member will

107better understand and increase the practical investment in a really high minority which in way too many ways translates into high poverty um school um and i i think there's research that says you know the gaps between uh white minority students in terms of their results and their success at school tends to be largest in districts where the electorate the board looks most unlike the student population and we only have one hispanic board member of us or we only had one hispanic board member of five um i may be kind of good no that's okay no no finish it matt sorry sometimes when you have a pause it's hard to read if you're uh continuing but please continue um i i think i have a tendency to over prize and um actually just get really excited

108when i see um developing minority leaders we're in a culture or we've been in a culture for 80 years where um that's not really welcome it's not necessary we can take care of that for you and i think if you're stepping into 2022 then we all want and need to understand the dramatic diversification that we are that we don't all think alike we don't all live alike we don't all understand each other intimately we understand those who i think are most like us and i know as a board and as administration under nikki's leadership that we are really in since we are really sensitive to diversity equity inclusion for two hours four days a week i worked with the children from the high school who were differently abled uh matt you froze up maybe you're

109back do you hear me talking about working with the differently abled children yeah that's about where you cut off okay um and um just the value that brought to me in my understanding and ability to be sensitive and conscious which then makes you you know strive to fight for these people you recognize and you register what they're about um so i i think um i think we need to be sensitive to that also i keep thinking um what do we want versus what do we need so what what's your two what do you want and what do you need one i think we need to select the person that we need what are we needing we already know what we have so what do you think we need i i think we need someone to

110represent our hispanic community um i i i'm happy to make a motion guys i don't want to expedite dates i don't want to try to expedite things i'm so wired at this point it doesn't really matter if i go to you'll make a bed not necessarily a motion yeah if you want to nominate that yeah i yeah make a nomination okay okay go ahead uh i would nominate eddie melindrez um based on um what i know of his history and and what he speaks about and the life he lives both the life he lived as an underserved poor uh underprivileged child and the desperation with which he strives to to change that i i actually know eddie right he was a co-worker for a while um i like eddie i support eddie on the city

111council i i'm actually concerned the city council and the board is the law honestly i know he would make a great board member i i think it's a lot i also know that eddie's kids do go to support rivers um which is basically in direct competition with ontario school district um in a lot of ways for kids and and funding so i mean i i appreciate that and i see where you're coming from but uh i i would actually want to nominate jamie taylor bloomer as well okay so we have two people nominated i certainly understand the need for diversity on the board i understand that need um but i also want to make sure we're giving a fair shot based on merit of all of our candidates and and making sure yep and qualified

112and and certainly eddie is a qualified candidate but i think we need to give some attention to the qualifications of some of our other candidates uh since jamie's name is already out there and being nominated let's look at some of the things that she's done she's been involved with the school district for well she said since her son was in kindergarten or first grade and he's now a freshman so that's a long time uh and she's been involved at all levels of the schools um jamie grew up in a household that was focused on education with parents that were teachers she's i know this she didn't talk about this but i know she served on the on a or actually headed the bond committee that we had um she's just been very very very involved

113in things and all throughout the community you know yeah not just with the school she was the woman of the year for the ontario chamber of commerce i mean she's been on matt's board with the cultural center she's very involved she's always pushing out things and pushing out messaging uh just super involved hard worker dedicated to what she's doing and i think she'd be a phenomenal person to sit by us on the board but i'm also sure that she can handle all that so does eddie i might eddie's definitely shown he's he's committed to the community yeah but i don't see the same commitment to the school district and eddie as i do with jamie right and i mean there's that's two different things i mean it's and when you work to the uh honestly

114i'm gonna tell you i i love eddie i'm i'm a band i i'm a fan of eddie for sure i uh you know it concerns me his kids don't go to school here he he made that choice right uh he you know it just concerns me we all know how much time this takes uh and you know i look at things like hey look he he contacted the district on friday the very last day of this didn't submit a letter and i realized that there's maybe a communication thing there but i mean it's kind of a last second last almost after almost and that concerns me a little bit but it's not a prerequisite in in the email that's what it says to us right i don't know andrea and i have to respect parents

115choices if he wants his children to attend a bilingual program parents can choose it's not that's fine that's right that's his choice but i don't have any children in the school district and i'm 100 committed i think it i think it gives you a different level of commitment i mean honestly that's my personal opinion and uh i think that uh for me it's definitely very high on my list of what i'm looking for well if that's a critical issue then i'm probably not very deserving of being on the school board i have no children i have no young nieces and nephews to speak up okay so we've got two nominees on the table um i mean if we want to close it let's close it for nominations and we can have more than or yeah

116or vote or do a vote um [Music] why don't we uh do we have to have a motion to close for nominations or just yeah let's go ahead and close for nominations and then uh yeah i don't think you need emotion you didn't need a motion to accept the nominations i think you can just move through okay well um i guess let's see where we all stand let's go ahead and have a vote so um first let's have a vote on uh matt's motion to well i mean just just go one by one and ask him yeah so matt who who do you vote for i would uh vote for eddie melendrez eric uh jamie and i vote for jamie so i guess we need to have more discussion [Music] so so what qualities uh

117blanca do you believe that that eddie is brings to the table um mainly what i want to say is that our role is to elevate the different voices within the community as well especially the populations that are underrepresented and i think that eddie could help with that i mean don't you do you agree also that uh our teachers and administrators also don't represent the community as well well there's something that maybe eddie will push us into working for us so he's gonna tell us who to hire or not well not food too but maybe consider it helps when you have other other diff different differences are good i agree my efforts are great i don't disagree if everybody here brings something different it's also not a board member's role to determine who we hire other

118than superintendent no he's [Music] i mean honestly uh yeah i i i don't i don't question his desire eddie's desire to serve i i just question his ability to give the time to what he's got going on first of all and and i mean and that the kids don't go to school here um you know he's done a lot of great stuff i don't i mean his boxing program was fantastic uh i mean through that and other things mentoring uh especially that is his time at the juvenile department entering you know the at-risk youth yeah i agree um i i think i'm looking as the board as a whole i know that these ladies are excellent but you guys are already here we you guys are excellent right well right now we don't i mean

119not that we he's not excellent but we need someone that represents our children if we're talking about uh diversity if that's the only thing that we're talking about is right now we have 60 percent of our board is male well right now 75 percent of our board is male 1 25 is female so i mean if we're talking diversity then we talk about you know gender as well and if we have eddie then we're at 80 male and 20 females so i mean i that's that's why you get into you can get in such weeds when we're just basing only on diversity alone uh you can get into the weeds of that and so so what about all the prominent young ladies that are in our school district that are looking up for for those

120leaders as well i mean there's so many things that we can look into with that so i mean i'm not basing my decision simply on diversity but i went into that huge spiel about how identifying the reality of what your community is is certainly something to think about i've worked with eddie too i i like teddy for me reasons more than being a mexican i like it that he stepped up and was willing to be on the city council jamie was woman of the year i was man of the year eddie was mad at the year before i was he's dedicated his life to children he leads by example that was a big point of his i think i like the safety and comfort of knowing people that think that way i don't think anybody

121else in the room really knows anything about runaway youth i don't know that any of us have engaged enough with children that we've talked into staying into school or have kept a roof over their head he spoke of grace nobody ever talks about grace so i think if people speak about grace they understand grace i think he's very graceful it's not just about him being brown skinned yeah no i i agree and i i think there's a lot of like humbling type of answers to some of the stuff i know uh you know uh one of the things jamie answered it was you know how do you stand out is i don't stand out i mean it's and i really like those humble um opinions no absolutely that was a great question uh you know

122i i've said this before on this board is you know i realize sports aren't a big thing when it comes to education in our kids but it is a big thing for our community and it's something that really brings pride into our schools when we have something to come in and cheer and and and bring that pride so i do appreciate the fact that you know there there is that aspect with jamie's answer about sports programs i mean i really think that that's an important part an important part for us to get to those events and see the kids and and and be out there uh it's and it's important for them and you know i think one of the things that we've been doing to dive in on the board is trying to get

123a bond pass at some point in time we're going to go look for another bond and if our in our communities not doesn't find pride in our schools and sorry sports plays into that uh so i i definitely appreciate that aspect it's not the full aspect of what she's saying but uh i mean honestly i think that uh her training as as a nurse and a manager she's had a lot of crucial conversations she has a lot of connections in the uh the district i just i honestly think that we'd have a hard time finding anybody that's going to be more involved and passionate about this i was very impressed with eric's response to number six the priorities of our district and he mentioned the mental health mentioned what mental health oh yes because especially

124right now and also the way he responded to the to number nine when a community member came to you with a complaint he said you know and you'll understood but don't promise and bring the concern back to find the solution i think i think a lot of these candidates had similar answers to number nine right is is listening i mean people are looking for somebody to listen to them i mean jamie talked about having a holistic approach and being in nursing she's had tough conversations and i think she said she was hit yelled kicked spit on those types of things uh trying to get down to what the biggest concern is and you know i like the idea not taking it off on yourself right right and then you know what are your thoughts about

125how the district and school sites can encourage involvement and participation you should have tire tails i think that's great uh you know the outside thoughts uh i mean really parental involvement i mean she talked quite a bit about that [Music] and [Music] um well i mean i i would say that uh they i mean this doesn't change i guess i mean we can just because you're not a nominee in this round it could potentially come back right right okay um one thing i did appreciate with jamie is on number four when we were talking about primary work in the school board you know eddie had some good answers you talked about some of the things that are going on right now with with the district um answers made me feel like she's been paying attention

126longer than just right now that she's been following what's going on with the school um you know talking about education safety educating the whole child kind of that bigger picture um which is what the board is is his big picture and and looking at that eddie had good answers but they were all things that like you could read in the paper this last two months and she wants to learn about the aspect i mean that desire to learn and to figure those things out uh i was impressed with as well none of us had an idea of what we were doing on the board when we first got here i mean and it's really about us learning how to do it so why i have a question for you if we come to an impasse

127today and can't come up with a candidate when would the election be to appoint for the community to vote for a new board member oh i think so traditionally the you know the vacancy is to be filled until the expiration of the individual who left the board's turn so you would think that that would be within whenever tom would be tom c wanted to come come up for election again which i don't know off the top of my head how far into his was he only a year in he wasn't even a year and he was only months in so if you're unable to fill that vacancy through consensus on the board then the next step would either be i mean looking into i guess the potential of the special election or waiting until the

128actual election comes up for his vacancy for his position which would be like three years yeah it's been a long time he's uh he's voted as four years right so three and a half years from now i mean but the next election would be a year from right now may right at the earliest if we did a special election [Music] i mean that's the way yeah well that's not a good option what's not a good option uh leaving it as a four-member board until the election which would be three and a half years from now well next year one year from now yeah it'd be one year at the earliest they would have to put in in january i think oh um and the other option will also be to revisit this at the next

129board meeting that's kind of all we do is revisit stuff you you work for the private you work for the private sector too long this is the way government runs it seems like boy no kidding and i tell you there's a lot of times that i miss those private folks hey we pushed you right through man we got you through planning commission right and we are very helpful absolutely absolutely and i just reference that in general i know i'm totally right my background i didn't even know what a board was until i took that job at four rivers cultural center right i i some other things that i also like about jamie and actually abby fits right into this as well um you know having uh parents that were teachers i mean being kind of

130born and raised really really helps uh me a lot being that uh i don't know i just believe that it invokes this more of this pride in you and you know like like jamie i've left cardinal and corn for a long long long long time so uh i know how passionate she is about that and i see that and uh for instance you know we uh i mean she worked she worked tail off getting some baskets donated and made and she donated some herself for the basketball program i think i wanted help as a matter of fact so i'd sneak out while i was wrapping a basketball game people buy some make sure nobody saw me uh you know anyways um she was the selective woman of the year right i'm telling you i i

131just think that her drive and her compassion towards this uh i just and and i me saying that doesn't i hope people understand you guys understand it's not detracting from uh the amazingness that's also in here it's just uh yeah i mean it's just my opinion it helps to have family that is somehow working with education you know my daughter has a doctor degree in education right and she tells me mother there are studies that demonstrate that it's very beneficial to have minority members of the board because it benefits everyone do you want me to send you all the the studies and i said no i think we're we know what we need block away your thoughts where do you sit eddie if because like i said it's what we need yeah i don't think

132i've made really any movement towards eddie okay not yet not at this point not no i haven't made any movement so we're at an impasse this isn't going to go anywhere i mean the the you know some of the things these candidates have talked about that is important that they've read in the newspaper lately and one of the things eddie mentioned wait wasn't that i have to look at it um is the superintendent's contract and if you guys remember we voted to revisit that once we get a fifth member so i mean well well no that i don't think that's exactly that's what the motion in the vote was understood so i mean without yeah i mean i think that's kind of part of the reason that we're wanting to push this and to get

133this to go go through so it's just another demonstration of how we can't figure out how to be expeditious um it'll just push things back further and further that have already been pushed back beyond when they should have been resolved and decisions were made i don't want to get in to the contract decisions were made including board members who are still engaged that were part of the negotiations that then voted against them and that's why they're put there to represent us because we don't either all need or to be engaged in making those decisions if we're capable and we're good at what we do we can break into groups trust each other rely on each other to make determinations that we can all live with well i mean they didn't we didn't they didn't vote

134for us they didn't uh and they may have voiced concerns and whatnot but that wasn't i mean i can walk into uh well just like tonight i mean i can sit there and say all the nice things i want about eddie because i consider i mean i like eddie right but that doesn't mean that i have to vote for eddie right so um i mean and trying to i don't know in a way bully somebody because of that is is kind of inappropriate in my fully bully bully who for what i'm just saying bring bringing up bring that up is and kind of trying to shove it and we know whose face is you brought it up you brought it up you're the one that started talking about hey we need to bring somebody on

135because we've got a decision we have to make i don't look at it the same way the decision was already made okay we're getting off track here we need to get back on the rails i'm not sure where we go from here we got two and two why do you have any words nobody is really willing to move yeah i think if nobody's willing to move there's a consensus to be made the decision is either to table for further discussion and put it as a you know an action item in a future meeting um or move toward you know setting up a potential special election come next year for this um i think those are the options on the table with the more proof one being you know revisit it i realize that's not the

136ideal option but it keeps it moving well the option of leaving it to a year is not a good option it definitely gives us the well it's going to put us in a lot of situations just like this uh matt do you uh want to say that we're in an impasse blanca you we're i don't know do you want to do you want to say word an impasse eric uh i mean i feel that way but i was just asking your opinion i would think so i'm a little tired but it seems like that does anybody feel like if we when we do this in private sector or all the time you know multiple interviews we could bring the two back in and come up with some more questions do you think it would change

137anybody's mind do you think it would make any difference if we did another round i hate to put the candidates through it it's stressful but if it makes us get the right person what's your thoughts on that i know matt's thought it's going to be it's just kicking it down the road further again i shouldn't put words in your mouth but i'm guessing that might be your thoughts uh what are your thoughts matt on maybe you want to bring both of them back in for one more interview um i think that's true um it that that may be the only option if if all of us feel that people need to be vetted more we would have to sit down and think directionally what it was we wanted to speak to them about to identify

138those nuances of difference that matter to us so much so one thing i would like to say and it was totally up to eddie how he handled this but he came i mean all three of the people behind us were here at six o'clock waited for their turn and stayed eddie came right at his time which is fine that's when his interview time was had his interview and was gone he didn't i mean that i think staying here shows a level of dedication i don't think what time somebody shows up to a meeting or how they choose to decide whether they want to sit there and listen to people awkwardly talk about them i have no idea why he left that's not a point of evaluation it might not be your point but i mean

139i think it complains he's not he's not there to to do anything so it doesn't matter you could call him up if you wanted him to to to notify him that he didn't get the gig or you could call him and tell him he did and invite him back for okay a party there's a level of dedication to stick around it depends on how we know it isn't based on dedication it has nothing to do with that well i i think if the entire job of the board is a matter of being dedicated to the board you think you would make your decision based on something as simple as if someone chose to stay or leave so so matt that's good that i'm talking about it's not my entire decision that's that's one point that

140i'm talking about and what we're trying to do is a pretty inconsequential one in my opinion i'm sorry too you're so bold and that can be your opinion and that's fair but it can also be my opinion and be fair so the thing is the inconsequential if you're on the on the fence let's say i mean the culmination of inconsequential uh matters add up it just shows what we value oh what's that mean what do you mean but each of us i take a little offense to that blanca i really do i mean i understand we need diversity on the board and i understand it's important but telling me that what i value it i mean what you're saying is i don't value diversity on board or i don't value the the opinions of the

141minorities in our community and i'm sorry but that's wrong and it and it's offensive i didn't mean it like that well that's how it's coming across the the way it's coming across is the only thing that matters is diversity on the board and we're not going to move on anything other than diversity on the board and if we're looking at somebody outside of that diverse community then we're not taking into account what the community needs and that's not what's happening here what's happening here is i see two very very qualified people and we're trying to come to a decision based on their qualifications that's what we're trying to do and eddie is certainly qualified he certainly is i just feel like jamie is more qualified and they're qualified in different ways okay eddie is qualified

142to be diverse and jamie's follow qualified to be a known leader and decision maker and and why wouldn't we want a known leader and decision maker on our board it actually brings diversity as well i mean she's female i read through every answer 20 times at this point i don't know what else to say [Music] matt give me will you give me three qualities that you feel the best three qualities that eddie has to be on the board an innate understanding of and you know i don't have ever even know what's politically correct anymore an innate understanding of quote unquote his community um proven record of proven record of um initiatives to help children whether that's head start juvenile justice his boxing club which is really a child development club that hides under the guise

143of machismo um why are your pointed questions toward me i'm gonna should i ask i'm gonna no i'm gonna ask the other board members that same question i'm trying to make a decision and and i'm trying to get i think gotta let it go i i don't think anybody is going to waiver so we just have produced another problem and we'll have to discuss more times what could be a possible solution okay uh blanca can i ask you that same question repeat the question so so can you give me three points that you think of why you're you're going you are supporting eddie i feel that he is honest when he says that he wants to be a school board member to serve the youth of voluntary it's not because her daughter is motivating him

144you know what what happens when her daughter graduates is he going to be motivated or not i i was starting to look at that service okay sir as service and that he is in tune with the needs of the minority and the poor okay eric you want to give me three or four for three things for why you score jamie [Music] um so i mean i think she's a proven leader i mean throughout all of her uh everything here in the districts whether it's your job uh through community functions through uh in our time on the different boards she uh [Applause] i mean i i too i mean it kind of goes hand in hand with what kind of everybody has right is i think she is in this for the right reason i don't

145think that she has any kind of vested interest to or any agenda um that she's trying to push she's looking at ontario ontario as a whole enter as a community everybody i mean this is where she grew up uh i think that she brings um a lot to the table with her leadership ability that she's gained through her work um and you know through that her network i mean her ability to network and know people in the community i think is huge [Music] so i'll answer the same question for myself and i'll give three or four things as to why my thoughts are on jamie right now it's only fair that i answer the question i'm asking um i think her years of involvement with with our schools at all levels of our schools are

146are very important uh i'll echo the leadership she has a lot of leadership in the community she's she may not know it she's part of the reason i got involved in the school district when she did the board committee uh she reached out to me and asked me to be on that committee and that was my one of my first experiences working with the district which kind of sparked me to continue doing more um she probably doesn't i don't think i've ever told her that she probably doesn't even know that um you know we talked about eddie being connected to to the the community in in a way that makes him very connected to the to the poverty and to our minorities uh i don't think we can discount what jamie does for her job

147at valley family healthcare our federally qualified uh healthcare facility in the county which specifically works with like those communities and and those troubled communities so i don't think jamie's disconnected from that reality in our community i think she's very well connected with that she understands it um so i don't think we should discount that uh that experience and uh so those would be some of the qualities that i'm seeing that really are pushing me toward toward jamie um i think we have yeah i think jamie can you hear me yep we hear you i think jamie is a remarkable person i'm a remarkable human being un amazingly qualified candidate as as do i see eddie i think i wish they both would have run when all of us did and maybe two of us our

148position i want we're not hiring we can only appoint one did he freeze or i don't know if he froze for if he was done i think he was done so um so this is what i wrote down as everybody talked so i asked matt for three and he gave me two he said he understands his community an improvement record of working with kids and then he asked me why i was asking him that question um blanca talked about his service with the youth and working with the youth and uh and his understanding and interface with the minority and the and the poverty poor in the community eric gave me four reasons for jamie a proven leader uh doesn't have an agenda her work experience and her network within the community and then i talked

149about three things her years of commitment to the district for leadership and then also her connection to the community through valley family health i mean i just feel like although we have two very qualified people we have one who is more qualified and that because she's not a minority she's not being chosen or because i didn't know that you were gonna think well you're gonna basically everything well i'm not that's why i asked the question blanca is because i'm trying to make a decision and so i'm trying to get more input on the decision i mean are we at that point in time where we just declare it and pass and if somebody wants to make that motion you can vote on it i'm still voting for eddie i'll make a motion to declare an

150impasse and revisit this uh i guess at our next board meeting okay so we have a motion uh okay so we have a motion and a second to declare an impasse and revisit this at our next board meeting matt how do you vote i can't hear you man i can't hear you i'm sorry what what what way so there's a motion on the table to declare an impasse and revisit this at our next board meeting okay so i'm asking you how do you vote on that motion do i vote an impasse versus selecting someone yes so we can either say you're just asking me to change my vote no no no no so eric made a motion to declare an impasse which would mean we revisit i'll second it i'll second it it's already been

151said it's already been seconded i'm just looking for oh i'm sorry i'm sorry okay so is it supposed to be i yes right all right that's a motion to adjourn matt okay