School Board Trustee Candidate Forum on October 12, 2021

001good evening and welcome to the cypress fairbanks isd's board of trustee candidate forum my name is jason culpepper and i have the honor of serving as tonight's moderator i'm the houston metro publisher for community impact newspapers i'm also a proud graduate of jersey village high school and currently serve as a trustee for the cypher educational foundation tonight's forum will be two hours in length and will provide each candidate an opportunity to introduce themselves and filled questions submitted from the community it is our hope that this forum allows each candidate time to voice their positions and reasons for pursuing a place on the school board while giving the public a chance to hear the candidates respond to questions tonight's forum is currently being broadcast live over comcast channel 16 and the district website at www.cfisd.net tonight's

002process will be conducted as follows the candidates will be given one minute to introduce themselves and share information they feel the community should know about their candidacy during the question and answer portion of the forum each candidate will have one minute to answer each question at the end of the evening candidates may provide a closing statement again one minute time will be kept by holly reichert secretary to the superintendent and the board of trustees you will notice a timer in front of the tables this timer will be programmed to warn you when you have 15 seconds remaining in your introduction response and closing when the timer buzzes please wrap up your statement within the next few seconds i will alternate who answers first from question to question i want to remind the audience that questions

003were submitted in advance and consolidated by topic questions will be randomly drawn time permitting and not all questions will be asked before i introduce the candidates this is a reminder to please silence your cell phones also feel free to acknowledge your candidate their responses through applause but please keep it to a minimum we have a lot to cover tonight and obviously a lot of candidates that we want to make sure has the time at this time i would like to introduce the candidates as they will appear on the ballot when i call your name you will have one minute to make your opening remarks are there any questions from the candidates seeing none let's get started running for position five courtney spradley on this event so that you can get to know us a little

004bit better as candidates you will observe tonight that i am not a politician i am clearly not very polished but i have lots of heart and a lot of passion for education in this community that hopefully will shine through tonight as he said my name is courtney spradley i am a sci-fare mom running for position five i am running against mr ogletree who has been on the board for 17 years i want the values that align with the majority of the community in cyprus to be represented on the board i also feel that we the board need term limits i chose to run for the school board because i've spent many hours visiting with family and friends about current frustrations that we're facing in public education when countless parents are choosing to leave public ed

005for homeschool or private school options there clearly is a problem i decided to take a stand in hopes of making a difference and i'm already up that went by really fast next candidate natalie blossom game good evening thank you so much for being here today it's great to see a big crowd i stand before you as a mother in the system of a thriving 10th grader at langham creek high school who really enjoys school i also am a community volunteer i've spent countless hours in the schools and in church and other places the swim team in the neighborhood volunteering and i'm also 29 year educator having spent time as a teacher and assistant principal principal assistant superintendent in several districts around the area give me a background in education that i can bring to this

006board position i hope to represent your voice on this board the voice of parents and the community are critical our values have to be represented there and so i would seek to have us get to a communication improved i also want to represent choices for families um it's a strongest system around in scifire however i do think there are ways that we can continue to offer choices to families that will meet the needs of their individual children and the what they prefer in their family and finally values thank you [Applause] grace horner good evening you should be you're on there you go sorry about that good evening it's a pleasure to be here tonight um i'm dr grace horner and running for position five on the board i am a wife and mommy of six

007wonderful sci-fi isd students two of whom have graduated and four still in the system two of my children are also special needs of being autistic and non-verbal i have 26 years of combined experience within a medical profession business management as well as healthcare administration i'm also a u.s navy combat veteran having served on the uss carl vinson answered the call on 9 911 who was first shipped to respond to afghanistan i've served for over five years within cypher isd on pto in elementary as well as in booster cup for the uh for bridgeland high school i'm a cypher isd resource psychologist with a phd in christian counseling marriage and family therapy masters and also a bachelor in healthcare administration i treat trauma interventions and personality disorders and i work with many wonderful families within the

008district i will continue to be an advocate and a champion for all students parents and educators alike and i hope to help to be able to reach that goal thank you miss warner john ogletree good evening i'm dr john ogletree and i've had four children go through this district and now have five grandchildren in the district i've been honored to serve on this board for five terms and during my terms i've helped lead this district through challenging times the students we received from katrina our harvey flood the pandemic and this february's freeze i've done this all while focusing upon the academic achievement of each student opportunity for all and i want to continue working towards this end i'm dr john ogletree position five sci fare isd [Applause] thank you todd lecomps hello my name is

009todd lecompte i'm a husband father of two boys that are in the school district i got a ninth i've got a ninth grader that attends bridgeland high school i've got a sixth grader that attends smith middle school i'm an entrepreneur i've built six companies uh five successfully uh i bring a fresh set of ideas and uh and a fresh perspective to this community or to to to the board um i have no ties to any school teachers i have no ties to any administration like i said i'm i'm i'm bringing fresh ideas and fresh perspectives to the to this uh to this race i believe that the board should be more representative of the community not just people that are in administrators and teachers and uh i i again my name is todd lecompte i'm

010running for position five trustee position five i'm position five on the ballot perfect thank you and the last candidate running in position five xavier leo is not in attendance this evening the next position position six our first candidate up is ryan irving jr good evening scott fair my name is ryan c irving jr and i'm a current candidate for cypress fairbanks board of trustees position six for this upcoming november second election i am a product of this district i was raised by not only my by my single mother but also by my former teachers and staff who helped not only nurture my mind but also shaped my character i was a during my sophomore and uh senior year of high school i almost faced homelessness and um during my senior year of high school i

011almost did not graduate um i had to attend lone star sci fair during uh my first years of undergrad for my college uh and now i am a honor and senior student at the university of houston um i have interned for mayor sylvester turner in 2017. um in 2019 i'm a former school board candidate for the cypher board of trustees position 3. um in 2020 i became a member of the clc or the sci fair leadership committee whose sole purpose is to lobby on behalf of public education i am willing and ready to serve not only for our district and for you but also most importantly for our children thank you thank you just a quick note on the audio if you can give yourself some space that should help um with the feedback that

012we're getting our next candidate don ryan good evening my name is don ryan and i'm running for re-election in position six on the scifire isd board i grew up in this community and graduated from sci fair high school and all three of our children are sci fair graduates i'm passionate about our district and our community and i can tell you exactly why i'm running again and that's because i believe in opportunity for all regardless of your zip code i believe every student should have access to the same programs and opportunities that allow them to pursue their passion i have a proven track record of focusing on the main thing and that is student achievement experience and leadership has never been more important than it has these past two years while our district navigated through a

013pandemic i feel like i'm the best candidate in position six to face the challenges on the horizon and i hope after tonight i can earn your vote and support thank you thank you chris harrison good evening everyone my name is chris harrison yeah scoot back a little bit here you are good evening everyone i'm chris harrison i'm running for sophia isd position six number three i'm a father of two students in the sci fair district one in anthony and one two year old he's going to be entering in the district soon i'm coming here to represent the students the faculty the parents i've been here for three years and has some concerns about where this district is moving forward a great foundation but i'm here for the people it's not about me it's about the

014people of community thank you scott henry good evening my name is scott henry i am running for this position for various reasons i am a father of three wonderful kids one of them is 14 years old and she's in middle school right now and she's the reason i'm running i i really believe that we should not focus on politics but we should rather really focus on academics and that's one of the reasons i'm running first and foremost i believe we should have servantly attitude when we look at our our students and we should really put that as a first and foremost thing we need to bring accountability back to our back to our board where we have transparency and all accountability back to our board we should also empower our teachers to be able to

015teach again our teachers really have felt a very a vacant spot within that atmosphere also too we should we should also look at bringing in back respecting our family boundaries i think our parents have felt like left out in a cold especially if you look at our last board meeting you can look at all the different aspects of that what happened there i'm running out of time but i've been in business business industry for 29 years and i hope to gain your support thank you [Applause] thank you our candidates for position seven our first two were not able to attend this evening but those are michael v perez and craig a jacobs so our next is bob covey thank you my name is bob covey i'm married to my wonderful wife of 48 years who

016is a retired teacher we moved into scifire in 1975 raised our three sons who have graduated from texas state married and have three wonderful wives i have seven grand gifts five of which attend scifire schools these are my investments in scifire today my sons were prior these are today my bachelor of science is in my in math my bachelor of science in music education i taught for three years then i joined my father-in-law in american alloy steel where i served as vice president for 40 years i've been on the school board since 2005 and served on the gulf coast area association of school boards and i was founding and president of the go public gulf coast promoting public education with me this is what you get focused on student success and achievement no matter the

017zip code or any other definition i will always be supportive of teachers administrators and support staff thank you [Music] lucas scanlan thank you very much my name is lucas scanlon i am here today because i have a first grader in grinnell elementary in cypher isd i've been married to my wife my beautiful wife for 20 years and we've been in the area since 2009. i want to see change in our school district and i want to see a good future for my daughter i am here today to focus on restoring excellence in academics athletics and the arts and getting politics out of our schools i want to empower our teachers i've been a teacher i want to empower them focus on classroom culture and enable them to connect with our kids so they can reach

018the ones that need help i want to restore trust of our community back into our school board and enable a communication loop that is successful and vibrant i have attended many universities in my education i started as a music educator where i taught band at made creek isd i went to university houston there then i went to rice university twice two masters and then i ended at harvard my time in education has taught me a core lesson in that it takes the ability for a teacher to be able to connect with the students to inspire excellence in them thank you at this time we will begin the question and answer section of the program we will start with position five back at the beginning candidates if i need to restate the question at any point

019please ask me what autonomy so this question starts with you courtney what autonomy do you feel teachers should have in the classroom do you trust that teachers are teaching the curriculum as mandated by the state all right um so as a former teacher i taught public education at a title one school just a title one campus for 15 years i feel teachers do have quite a bit of autonomy i know from my own experience um you know you're given the teak set forth by the state and you have a specific criteria that you need to address to make sure your kids are mastering the the concepts so i would say that most teachers do have quite a bit of autonomy and they do have quite a bit of area to make sure that they're putting

020in their own teaching style putting in their own kinds of examples and their lessons um so yes i do feel that teachers have pretty good autonomy mrs blossom game uh one teaching is a noble self professions and they are the front lines the most important employees in our entire district and autonomy is is one goal but bringing the joy back to our profession is the greater goal i think that teach we need the work needs to be done to take our curriculum scrub it down make sure it represents the values of our community and give the curriculum bounds to the teachers to say here are the materials you can use then from there allow the teachers some creativity teachers struggle to keep the pace uh of the students that are sitting before them versus the

021pace of a test at the end of the year our teachers should have more autonomy to be able to adjust to the needs of the students sitting before them in the classroom to make sure they they know which what curriculum needs to be taught by when but allow them some flexibility to make sure it's actually about the individuals in front of them and not about a state test or a benchmark that's coming up so i would say that teachers within those bounds we should give teachers autonomy so that they can enjoy their profession and meet the needs of their students [Applause] ms horner so i can speak from a different perspective and i'm going to try to stay away from this i'm going to i can speak from a different perspective as a psychologist and

022as uh somebody who has seen a lot of this from the parents perspective i believe that teachers do have a lot of autonomy when it comes to you know the the policies and implementations within their classrooms some of that can obviously be hindered by a lot of the different policies of different things that have been taking place especially with the pandemic and all the different issues that have taken place since then however i do believe that there should be more of a collaborative effort between parents and teachers um feels that nowadays a lot of the teachers that i have spoken to are kind of you know coming forward with a lot of different issues um kind of concerns that they have and that's where i come in with advocacy for that uh the the autonomy

023that exists within the teaching needs to be focused within the individuals and not as in one ideal kind of kind of a perspective and teachers should be able to to implement certain things but not take it overboard and allow parents to actually make those choices as well mr goldtree yes thank you teachers are professionals they've been trained and they should be given uh autonomy to bring forth the lessons and instructions for our students in the classroom they should be given the autonomy to create to challenge to contrast and to collaborate all with a goal that the students will learn and they will become the best student that they can be mr lecompte i believe teachers should have more autonomy to um actually just be themselves bring bring their own personality to the classroom uh give

024them the materials and let them go do their do their thing the reason why i say that is because each student learns differently you have some kids that are audio audio kids that are listeners you have some that are visual you have to give the teachers the opportunity to do their job and do their job effectively um i've spoken with several several teachers that have voiced their frustration where they kind of feel like robots at times i think that if you if you if you remember the teachers that we had in the pa in the past when we went to school it was the teachers that had the ability to make the subjects fun even when they weren't so fun you know but uh i i believe that uh you know giving giving teachers an

025opportunity to to put their put their own personality into the lesson plan will benefit all the kids thank you mr irving i believe that any teacher should have the full autonomy but i want to be specifically specifically clear within the texas education code our educators are some of the best if not the best across the state but also at the same time i think it's important that our educators make sure that they have full autonomy but also within the texas education code me being a former student i have witnessed my teacher say after school until seven eight o'clock i have witnessed our teachers stay after school and mentor and tutor our children i have witnessed our teachers create creative and fun fantastic lesson plans to be able to not only engage students but also to

026include students no matter what type of learner you are so thank you mr ryan hey jason what was the second part of the question it was just re-read it sure let me read the full question what autonomy do you feel teachers should have in the classroom do you trust that teachers are teaching the curriculum as mandated by the state thank you very much uh during my time on the board i've had multiple campus visits all across the district and and i can see the efforts and the work that our that our teachers put in i think if you were walking in tonight you probably saw a group of teachers leaving training and it was 6 30 at night but when you look around our district and even the teachers that my kids had i do

027believe they have full autonomy in the classroom i think they do a wonderful job and as far as staying on the curriculum that's probably what they do best of all you know we have our state mandated curriculum and they follow that and they're making a positive impact on our students and we see it every day you look at our college academy that we started and that's a whole set of students that are they're getting college teaching as well as high school teaching and those teachers have the flexibility to do that and that i'm really pleased with that program what we're doing there thank you mr harrison so the question autonomy and teachers so first you have to look at it from a business perspective and that's we're going to start with when you hire talent

028and we're talking about the teachers you don't hire to micromanage you hire the best talent that the district looks for so when you're assessed and you hire great talent you don't micromanage you allow them to have the autonomy again like one of my constituents said to bring out and flesh those ideas but we want to be within the guidelines and the key performance indicators that the district provides for us so again when you hire great talent you allow them to flourish and allow them to bring great ideas to the table to increase the student achievement thank you thank you mr henry i think you have to look at this holistically you ask the question very broadly and i think overall you can't say that very broadly overall we have elementary we have high school middle

029school and i think you have to look at it individually because they all teach very differently so if you ask that question of high school teachers it's going to be a very different answer from elementary teachers especially with covid where we had to do all everything virtually it brought out a lot of different questions because especially when i saw the teachers having to react very differently especially when they had to you know do science experiments a very different way i had to videotape for five different lessons all day long it's very challenging and i admire teachers what they do now go back to your questions do they have autonomy i think yes they have the autonomy my biggest problem with the curriculum we have right now and i see that from all three of my

030kids inside fair is we have a lot of issues with how the curriculum is being created and that's one thing i would like to fix with inside fair when i become a trustee is the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing when the quiz is created over here the test is created over here they don't match and that's what we got to fix very quickly and i hear that from teachers all day long with insightfair thank you mr covey mr covey would you repeat it just one more time of course what autonomy do you feel teachers should have in the classroom and do you trust that teachers are teaching the curriculum as mandated by the state well in my many visits just like mr ryan had expressed across these all of the

031schools that we've had what i see is the autonomy in the classroom i see the teacher is in charge but they're not acting as the teacher that i had when i was growing up they're more more focused on being a facilitator and working with the kids to achieve what they're asking them to do i truly believe that we see a lot of great creativity in the classrooms and just the fact that you've got a curriculum that is there set for you can take that and you can elaborate on it however you want that's where i see the creativity and that's where i see the amazing things that our teachers are doing for our students thank you thank you mr scanlon thank you and my time in teaching at made creek in the last year and

032a half when i taught fintech at rice university and then in the last six months at northwestern university and in the survey of all the parents and teachers that i've met with during this process i know from experience that it comes down in the classroom to the ability of a teacher to connect with the children in order to inspire them it's not about delivering a rote curriculum and none of our teachers i believe are doing that so to your question should we empower them to be able to deliver the curriculum the answer is yes do i trust that they're doing it well part of the trust component requires that there's a there's a partnership with the parents and i have my own teacher my my daughter's teacher she's done wonderfully well she's doing a great

033job collaborating with my wife and i and when we have a question she's there to answer it and so i believe the delivery of the curriculum through our teachers they need to have the space and the culture in the classroom to be able to do it they should be empowered to deliver that and they should have a good partnership with the home to enable that all around thank you our next question will begin with position six uh mr ryan what does educational equity mean to you and what responsibility does the board have to ensure educational equity for all students well me being no reason excuse me mr we'll start with don since you went first we'll go in order all the way back yeah no problem mr ryan okay that's a great question and i

034think if you if you look at our district motto it answers it pretty clearly and that is i believe in opportunity for all i believe that if if your child's attending cypress lakes or scifire or bridgeline like like todd's children that every child will have the same opportunity on that campus as the other children on the other campus have and i think it's fair and i think that our district really thrives because we offer that and i touched on a little bit earlier about our college academy because i'm i'm very fond of the program but we started that out at cypress lakes and it blew up to where it was amazing we had 85 students this year graduate with their associate's degree and their high school diploma and now it's on every campus in our

035district and to me that is equity when you look at our career and technology programs district-wide they're available to everyone and we're having a positive impact on 116 000 students every day mr harrison so the first question about equity my stance on that is every student in the district will be equipped with the tools and the skills necessary to come out of the district with to become to compete uh going back to the district's mission uh competing globally uh part of what you know the districts is gonna thrive and continue to do is is we are able to compete so regardless of if it's you know a jersey village or cypress ranch they are able to compete and that's across the board thank you mr henry to me it's about giving the opportunity for every

036single kid in our district with the ability to perform their barrier stability that's what the american dream is all about you know when i was in school we had kids of all all races all creeds all kinds and there was a big experiment going on where we we would we put kids in different groups based upon their ability and the big experiment was well let's go put them over here just because they're not as smart and that didn't work out so well if you if you give kids the ability and say you performed this level and guess what you put the put the kids that aren't doing so well in that level they will form the level you expect them to form for that's what we have to do is we have to put every

037kid we can and say you can do whatever you want to because guess what you can achieve whatever you want to in life we give the american dream we can let them perform what they want to and not every kid's going to go to college either there's great jobs in electricity there's great jobs in plumbing there's great jobs and everything in this world we can give them and that's what we should give to every kidness in this in our sci fair graduation is a great thing but there's a lot of things in this world they can do the american dream is out there thank you mr irving [Music] [Applause] [Music] opportunity for all means to me um that every student can be themselves no matter your race religion ethnic background or economic status me being

038a recent former student i have not only witnessed this but i was raised that way within our classrooms when it comes to our school board i think the school board's position on this is to make sure that every single child has the same equal opportunity at an education i was fortunate enough during my hard economic times to be treated equal to be able to receive the same equal opportunity at education as my counterparts in my former classmates and that's why i'm sitting up here today because of the job that our school district did in making sure in ensuring that every single student has the same opportunity no matter where you may come from in our community thank you [Music] mr scanlon same question thank you today i'm the director for business transformation and strategy for

039my consulting firm i hire people based upon the value that they bring to the opportunity i am responsible for defining an opportunity within my client and showing them how to create greater equity of their investments so when i look at the term equity that means you have ownership and you've created value for our kids they need to be able to take responsibility of an opportunity that challenges them we're not going to slot them into a position that dumbs them down in any scenario but rather inspires them to excellence and fosters the grit and fosters the uh the overcoming spirit required when you're presented with an actual challenge so when we look at our kids my goal and over my years of education the number one area that i made change was when i connected with

040a kid i gave them a problem that was a little bit bigger than where they were and i drew them forward our teachers need to be empowered to do the same thank you [Applause] mr kobe equity basically starts in the home because in raising three sons and i'm quite sure everyone has raised multiple children each child requires something different and that's what equity means for me is that we're offering them the opportunity to improve their best person their best success they are the ones that are going to go out and it may not be college it may be career and technology our career and technology departments are busting at the seams we have got something like 130 different certified certificate i can't even say it certificate certifications thank you uh i just i truly feel

041like it's once again it is a combination of the teacher and the parent working together and finding the best that they can do to give those kids the foundation that they need i believe in that and i will always support that as what equity means to me thank you miss blossom game [Music] [Applause] the goal is not equity equity has become synonymous with this idea of bringing the top down and the bottom up to some middle line the goal is equality of opportunity for every student to achieve their full potential every student in our district should have access to an individually rigorous and personally relevant curriculum they should every one of them grow from the place they started to the place they end in a year through choices that meet their needs our goal is

042to prepare them for a two-year a four-year a technical certificate or the military so that they can come out of our schools and be good citizens keep a safe community get a good job and have a family of their own and continue to the cycle in our community so our goal should be that equality of opportunity many of us know how to fight for our students to make sure they have that some families don't have that same uh ability or understanding we're here to fight for all kids to have equality of opportunity so each reaches their full potential mrs horner so basically when we look at you know equity equity kind of comes along the lines of every child ends up the same way no matter what struggles no matter what and the outcome is

043going to be similar or the same opportunity for all equals equality you know children like my daughter my son who are disabled and don't have that opportunity all the time you know they should be given that equality every child must be treated the same children are unique every single child in cypher rsd and you know throughout the nation in the world really we all have unique challenges unique skills and talents and everything and they must be cultivated within the process especially within education you know it's something that assured equality for somebody like me who came into this country not even speaking english i was just a little one but i grew up with that kind of of choice i was given the opportunity to make those changes in my life and ultimately become successful and

044that's exactly what we need to do with children give all children the same success story thank you mr overtree thank you educational equity is what our district uh is on uh the way to to doing and i'm glad that our board supports that it is understanding that every child is not the same it is meeting the educational needs of every student regardless of race ethnicity gender language religion sexual orientation family background or family income it is not just giving everybody an equal opportunity it is making sure that once the opportunity is given that we meet the needs of every student and with that that's how we give opportunity for all mr lecompte [Applause] i'm a product of public schools i graduated from alden high school i i wish uh we would have had something like

045this this discussion when i was growing up uh educational equity opportunity for all there was there was there was programs and there were teachers and that we didn't have access to when i was growing up uh aldine high school didn't have the same type of uh faculty that kingwood high school had and i've been on i've been on that side of the fence and i understand the struggles that uh that that kids are going through i think that giving everybody an opportunity in sci fair whether they're whether they these kids are growing up and they have their own bedrooms in their at their houses or if they're um sleeping on the floor and covering themselves up with newspaper which we have that as well i think being able to given give the kids an opportunity

046to to be successful and to gain the gain the knowledge that everyone else has i think that's uh that's i again i i i support everything about obviously educational equity in this in the school district thank you mr bradley i misunderstood the previous question so i apologize for that uh as far as equity and uh equality they're not the same thing equity means you have the same outcome and not every child that goes through scifire is going to wind up in the same place in life so but they do have opportunity for all they do have all equal opportunity it's just like my two boys i have two boys they're not both gonna probably wind up at the same school or have the same outcome in the same career one might go to trade school

047one might go to college our role as a public school district is to give them all the same opportunity and whatever they decide to do we have to prepare them to do that to be a productive uh citizen whether that's military whether that's entering the workforce whether that's going to college whatever that is they're all provided the same equal opportunity which goes along with our motto opportunity for all but they're not all going to have equity so thank you i just point of order please be respectful for the comments that uh our candidates are prepared to answer tonight so i appreciate that our next question will uh we will shift to position seven we'll begin with mr covey what are some of the current challenges facing public education and school boards well it's always going

048to be financial and it's always going to have to do with that even though scifire has done quite well but i think one of the most sad thing that we see is the recruitment of new teachers into the into the education system and i go to texas state where they they do have a large college education program and i speak to them and you know i find that students there are not even aware of what school boards do nor are they too much aware of what goes on in a school system so i try to encourage them to check it out right now i i truly am concerned about the retention that we have because i hear about the the concern from teachers and i know it's been a difficult two years so that's probably

049the most uh that i'm most concerned about but i'm also very concerned about misinformation and outright stories that just aren't true without checking the facts and if you don't check the facts then how can you possibly know thank you mr scanlon [Applause] echoing one point that mr covey made regarding financial yes we've got a significant challenge in front of us because our teachers are bright people they've got the opportunity to go into industry and in most cases will make more money than they make as a teacher so the people that we will retain are people that truly want to teach people that truly find that as a calling it is their mission that means we need to focus on finding those people and connecting with those teachers and as we connect with those new teachers

050because i came through the department at university of houston i was one of those student teachers and i went on purpose to very specific schools to understand what the job was like and understand a day in the life of a teacher we have to do a good job of recruiting new talent and focus on teachers that want to be there because they want to connect with kids from the point of retention we've got to enable teachers to have a good classroom culture so that they enjoy their job and they want to stay thank you [Music] move to position five we'll begin with miss horner repeat the question again please absolutely what are some of the current challenges facing public education and school boards okay so one of the you know we've been dealt a very

051unprecedented hand when it came down to this uh pandemic and you know obviously there's been a lot of different issues that come about that uh whether we look at the financial aspect or whether we look at the at the differences and and the inabilities for some of these children to actually become reach you know catch up to where they should be one of the biggest challenges within that is to be able to have a retention you know with their attention within the within the teachers and having that merit-based staffing that needs to take place within within the whole prospect i mean everybody pretty much suffered from all this from you know staff for the students and parents alike this is something that that needs to be dealt with it needs to be tackled from a

052very very core academic kind of perspective we would also look at the current climate of the nation and the politics that is constantly seeping into the schools our schools have no room whatsoever for politics you know this is the kind of stuff that should not be in the system at all and this is something that we need to really reinstate educationally for our children and put them first not cause division thank you mr ogletree [Applause] yes thank you there are a number of challenges that we face presently first is the financial recovery from the pandemic the next is the learning gap that we faced with our students who had to go on virtual and and also not been in the classroom then there's the false narrative of critical race theory which is a misinformation disinformation

053[Music] and then there's this onslaught of partisan politics our students 000 students should not be looked at as democrats or republican or conservative or moderate or liberal they're students and that's what this board and that's what this district must fight this partisan onslaught thank you mr lecompte the challenges that we're facing that public education faces i think it starts at home uh we don't have enough two-parent households in this community uh i think that men in general need to step up um and and be that male role model that the kids need whether they be whether you have a daughter or a son um i don't know what i would have done without having that i i don't believe in white privilege i believe in privilege i believe that if we have people that are

054that have two parents that's a privilege if we live in this country that's a privilege okay um the thing that i really that really bothers me on the from the board side is the political bias that's basically been put in and you can actually witness that from by listening last night there was a comment that was made by our superintendent about of vaccines for kids that were young younger age group 5 11. and your job is not to worry about my kids vaccination status your job is to focus on the education of my kids mrs bradley okay um so going along with what's already been said unfortunately um always financial um that goes along into recruiting teachers and uh retaining them and i think that goes along with um supporting our teachers and letting them

055know that they can voice their concerns they can talk to administrators or what have you without fear of their job or retaliation i think that causes a lot of frustration for current educators if you have never been a teacher you have no idea what it's like to teach in this day and age if you have not been in the classroom in the last i would say 10 years it's totally different from probably when you went to school teachers wear several hats and they need to feel supported and that goes along with discipline as well that is a huge issue in our schools right now and if the kids are not being held accountable and the teachers are not being supported that's why you're losing teachers [Music] this blossom game i watched or attended the board

056meeting uh not sure hour and a half two the foundational issue is not the budget the foundational issues the learning of our students we are a school district we're here to make sure our children are learning reading writing math and have a stem preparation i watched a lot of political theater last night but i heard one question raised that probably wasn't anticipated about hey do we know how our kids came back from learning loss which is the first issue we should be discussing up here learning loss next our profession of teaching is under attack we are the first time in the state less than half of kids want to be teachers or less of half of parents want their kids to be teachers we have to do what it takes to make the profession look

057attractive we do need to pay which is budget but there are other ways that that can be achieved we do need to protect our teaching profession and our teachers so that they will be here for our students and finally values are under attack in our schools uh freedom is under attack in our schools and that is a critical issue thank you mr harrison [Applause] yes so a couple of things that need to be addressed as a father we haven't we've seen a lot of again parenting in the classroom and we need to allow parents to be the parents i have two boys outside sitting right here today and i'm not asking teachers to come home and put them to bed i'm asking them to prepare them academically maths and sciences that's what i'm here for

058that's the reason why i'm running a lot of distraction about crt all this other stuff i'm really not concerned about all that the reason why i sit up here is because i want my son to compete by the mission globally not just on a local level i saw an article just recently dealing and talking about top 15 middle schools and i didn't see scifire in there i moved here three years ago i want to see us on that list thank you mr henry i was just scribbling down a bunch of things i thought as challenges and i probably ran out of room here but i think keeping attracting teachers is probably the top thing we have to look at there the teacher's sentiment and morale is pretty low right now i think coming out of

059covid there's a lot of morale issues we have with our teachers they feel kind of sacked by that issue and i think we have to get them back to where they need to be yeah we gave them a pay raise but their benefits went up that's that's they feel kind of down below that our budget's in the red we've been in the red for many many years we've got to fix that we've got to figure out what's wrong with that the growing size of sci fare we're getting bigger the sprawl of sci fare what are we going to do about that and also the the change of dynamic aside fair is changing as well do we maybe split up side fair that's a possibility been asked about as well do we look at that i

060don't know it's different issues then also too which we haven't really talked about which is what about the kids that don't go to college and don't go to work but maybe you're on the street what about those kids do we even think about those kids what are the kids that don't do anything in life or even think about those kids what do we do with those kids thank you mr irving oh let me answer the question um the first issue is funding we have a state that has continuously defunded public education not only that but that has withhold all of our one two and three esser fundings another and another challenge is school safety nowadays we have intruders that come into our buildings that want to do harm to our teachers and educators but not

061not only not only safety in terms of of actual harm but in terms of making sure that every child can be themselves and i think that's important as well another one is the educator drought we have educators that are leaving the education industry because they're not being treated correctly they're not being included there's actually a house there's actually a senate bill that just got passed that's called sb 1444. what that allows us to do is allow us to get all of this terrible terrible education system called trs care and to find another better health insurance option for our educators so that we can continue to not only retain our good educators but also recruit good ones as well thank you thank you mr ryan [Music] thank you uh funding has as long as i've been

062on the board has always been an issue what it hasn't been in cypher isd is an excuse we do more with less than any district in the state and we will continue to do that because we're extremely efficient in what we do on a day-to-day basis issues facing boards right now are going to be more along the lines of transparency sharing with the public what you're doing uh you know having just getting the word out more as to what we're doing the biggest issue facing the district as a whole is definitely going to be learning loss from virtual learning that's why we've had free summer school the last two summers we have algebra camps our teachers and our employees are going above and beyond to help kids catch up and then lastly is going to

063be well definitely not lastly but recruiting and retaining our employees we we need people right now so if you're out here and you need a job go to the district we're hiring thank you all right our next question we will begin at position five with mr ogletree what is your role as a school board member to ensure the safety and well-being of all students and staff in scifire isd thank you that is one of the main roles of a board member without safety education cannot take place that's why i have voted for our bonds which will give us increased and enhanced security i was on the board when we decided to have our own police force so that they could be relational on our campuses and present that's why i have also supported the initiatives

064for safety that would stop bullying why we are trying to make sure that our students respect each other and appreciate the dignity and worth of each other and work cohesively with others and that all adds to the safety on our campuses thank you mr lecomp [Applause] i i believe that as far as as a school board member uh school board member um concerning the safety of our students it no kid should should be bullied or or be afraid to go to school all right speaking from personal experience i haven't had a child that was in elementary school last year and he got to a point where it wasn't fun for him anymore um [Music] for various reasons i think we need to understand that our these kids are half our size as adults and even

065though we're we're teaching kids not to bully other kids i think the teachers sometimes need to remind themselves at how large of a figure they are compared to some of the elementary school kids that we have and just a simple correction at times can can be i think detrimental from from a mental standpoint to some of our children thank you miss bradley all right so how safety and well-being so first of all we have an amazing police department so thank you back there officer i actually went and visited the police department a couple weeks ago and they showed me all of their awards they're one of the top school police departments in texas so maybe even the country so i think we're doing a great job with that i think it's very important to have

066our own police department and not contract those services out um i think it's also great that at the board meeting last night they did discuss uh internally uh having their own program uh to replace no place for hate so that we as a school district will be in charge of what that looks like what those lessons are and we have the control over that program instead of one that's put out by the adl also i know that uh schools now have the vsoft program which is great for visitors and every elementary kid every every elementary campus that i know of has the you have to be buzzed in so i think we're doing a great job as far as safety this blossom game there are two aspects to this that you asked about safety and

067well-being for safety after the santa fe shooting there was a committee formed a school safety and security committee it authors a multi-hazard emergency operations plan i led that work in the last district i worked in it is very detailed and it lays out and cypher did a good job very early labeling doors and setting up the infrastructure for safety and that is an audited process so i will engage with that audit and that information to make sure that we are on top of all the aspects the other is the well-being aspect and i think that bullying is prevalent and a concern i'm hearing on the campaign trail often many parents hurts who tell me about that fact that there's and so i think that we need to address our discipline procedures and processes we need

068to look at the student code of conduct we need to look at our counseling offices which are really schedule makers versus counseling offices we need to get community input into the values that we want them to be propagated through those offices and then we need to make sure kids feel emotionally safe at school and physically safe at school [Music] miss horner so improve school safety um of course we need to give a lot of accolades who are to our officers our isd police absolutely essential we need to improve them and we need to expand and be there for give them more more resources given that that backing that they need schools right now you know it's it's a give and take situation really when you look at all the bullying and everything that takes place

069within the schools where is the accountability for the student where's the accountability that needs to take place i can't tell you how many stories i've heard back and forth including my own children who have been bullied and so these are things that really need to get tackled and when we bring them up to something nothing gets answered and that is something that i need answered i want to get in there and actually have those resources available for each student and the parents to be able to to understand and correlate back and forth you know with the board members it's essential to look at the accountability also for the mental health the the psychological health as well as the well-being in the medical side you know there's a lot of different things that we don't understand

070that is going on in human trafficking is is a big thing here in houston and which is something that we really need to tackle that's why emerg expanded emergency preparedness and readiness training must be essential for parents students and staff alike thank you [Music] position six mr henry it's a very important issue safety i think is one of the critical parts of a board member because we're fos i mean it's it's a quite frankly we can go to jail if we don't report this these kind of information especially around child trafficking which as we know houston's the number two in child trafficking in america it's a huge it's a huge problem right down 1960 if you're not aware of that uh it's it's a very sad part of our of our history here in houston

071uh it's just also a very uh unfortunately a bad part of our history too because my family when my son was in school he actually experienced bullying and uh sci-fi unfortunately does not do a great job of handling how we do in bullying and i'm not gonna have enough time to talk about that but instead of dealing with the situation at hand we understand we deal with the kid and we evacuate the room we got to we got to fix the policy and how we handle kids appropriately within within the school district and i think that policy has to be changed but we have a big responsibility and i think the lead program handles that amount of time but thank you thank you mr irving [Music] um first when it comes to school safety um

072like i mentioned before i think it's extremely important to number one salute our officers for the good work that they do but also to make sure that every child can come to school safe and be who they are without any fear from any child or retaliation in the form of bullying but also when it comes to the well-being of a good for for a student that also means closing the achievement gap that has been significantly increased during coven um some of a good portion of our school district has been virtual and i think even before that you know it's extremely important that especially for our children who are less or less privileged to be able to sometimes go to school every day or participate in extracurricular activities and different things of that nature that we

073continue to also strive in and do everything that we can when it comes to a mental health mental health standpoint i actually stand by the district's uh current uh investment in in mental health as well and i also believe to ensure a good quality uh equity education for all of our tea for all of our students thank you mr ryan [Applause] during my tenure on the board student safety and and let's not forget employee safety we want our employees to feel safe in the workplace as well but it's it's been paramount the students are our product and doctor overtree touched on a little bit i was on the board that had the vision to actually start our own police department in the district and it's one of the best decisions we've ever made if you

074talk to campus leaders principals assistant assistant principals they will tell you that having our own police department they're they're making they have relationships with these students that we didn't have when we contracted out with the sheriff's department so that was a great thing that we did the other thing that we've done with our bond funds is we have increased security on every campus to where you can't just walk in the door you have to be buzzed in i think courtney you know touched on that a little bit and then if you if you ever get a chance to be a bus buddy you'll see that our students check in every time with their id tag and so we we can keep counting them make sure they're safe even transported transported to school and from and

075from school sorry i went over no worries thank you mr harrison yes when we talk about safety we talk about accountability so reports have to be done in those instances and incidents but performance reviews and audits have to take place without knowing what's happening we can't have improvement so we have to understand what the root causes and that's when the parents get involved in order to alleviate and stop the bullying and the assaults on teacher and vandalism we have to get those parents involved so it's not just a part of the board but also the parents involvement so once we have that communication and that's dialogue going to and from then it brings that those instances and and those uh reduction down thank you mr scanlon three points one is at the school level second

076is a classroom level and then lastly at the teacher level so at the school level our officers in the back i applaud you i was a teacher and in 2001 on 9 11 i remember looking at our officers and being grateful that they were around and they were present so it's important that our officers are available thank you very much for your service at the classroom level our students too many times they own the classroom because they realize that the teacher has no real authority to enforce discipline why is that it should not be that way and so if we're trying to create a good classroom culture where teachers want to be there then there needs to be the ability to manage a disruptive child to a successful outcome we don't know what they went

077through we don't know what's going on at home but it is our job to enable our teachers to deliver the curriculum and if there's an interruption to have the support from their principals and from their supporting staff to manage a child to a successful outcome we need to do better there thank you [Applause] mr covey [Music] well i served on the board whenever we developed the board monitoring system the system that gives us the ability to take a look at the academic achievements that we have our safety and security issues our finance our recruitment and our retention all of that is reported to this board on a regular basis and it is something that helps us in making decisions the safety and security actually came about on the police force because i believe it was

078region four decided they were going to start charging us for their policemen and so we decided to be better to go ahead and hire our own and have our own police force so it's been a ongoing project but i will let you know that it's highly important to the board and to the district to make sure we are safe and secure my kids went into the open concept the open concept is basically gone there's a whole lot of changes but it was an interesting concept at one time we've outgrown it thank you [Applause] all right our next question we will move to position six mr irving you will begin how have you advocated for public education with our elected officials especially in regards to funding well that's all i've done since i've graduated i've continued

079continuously advocated on behalf of public education going to every single school board meeting i've been at more meetings than anyone currently in my position including the incumbent i also have advocated for public education more funding especially working with the scifir leadership committee or coc in working with our state representatives and making sure that we have friendly education bills that are passed during our legislative sessions try to reduce the amount of funding that is going on in this state when it comes to public education trying to make sure that our school districts are equitably funded to be able to to be able to provide our students with the necessary materials that they need in the classroom to give our teachers the best pay to be able to stay in the classroom so that we can continue

080to not only to retain but recruit highly well educated educators that represent um our constituency and our students and i like i said i've been doing this since i've graduated high school and i will never stop no matter what the outcome of our election is thank you mr ryan yes i've had a really good relationship with our elected officials the one thing that we've been able to do or that i've been able to do is is reach across the aisle we have some uh democratic representation some republican representation but the tag that they have is irrelevant to me i want the funding that the district needs and it's important that as a board member you spend time to get to know your elected officials i can tell you the ones that we've had have been

081amazing when we had patricia harlis she was a big advocate for the district and now sam harlis is and representative rosenthal he's been a great advocate for the district as well so having that relationship and then also going to austin and then having the vision as a board member to actually start clc where we could bring in community members and say hey we need your help as well it's not just the board it's the entire community that needs to get behind the funding issues that we have in austin mr harrison uh currently i have no advocation for the with the elected officials but this process has started so thank you thank you mr henry you know understanding how schools are funded is a very complicated process to be honest with you it has changed over

082the years i mean um just trying to understand how they're funded is is a moral in math itself if you look at common core i think you probably understand that myself um probably is more how you all get paid in in schools quite frankly i've not done the job that our school board members have done i admire them especially in the big fight they had i think was it four years ago uh when you're trying to get the money that they're due i've have talked to paul benton court i have talked to mr oliverson who goes to bible class with me about the school funding but i have not done the job they have done and just be quite candid with you as well thank you mr kobe well i've had the uh i've had

083the opportunity to advocate at the state level and visiting with a number of our representatives senators and legislators being able to bring them back here into the school district offering some events where they could come in actually see the teaching that was going on generally what we would see as a surprise look on their face and didn't realize everything that was happening especially in our extracurricular and our our ce classes which they didn't realize we had so many but one of the things i've enjoyed doing is going to washington dc prior to the dc that happened back in january but uh going there and being able to talk to our senators and our representatives up there who are not as close to our district as they have been but they love hearing about it and

084finding a lot of our graduates up there working with these red legislators being being their go-to people and i truly you almost feel like the government's being run by 24 year olds they're the ones running up and down the halls mr scanlon so echoing one of the sentiments earlier i've not had the opportunity to do the job what i of the school board members and our trustees today what i have done is i've exercised my vote i've been an informed citizen and i've worked in my community to understand the concerns and questions of our current educators and our past educators so what i can say is that based on my experience i understand very well how to negotiate understand to listen and to be able to interact with state representatives whom [Music] are on both

085sides of the aisles to enable them to understand our vision and partner with our school district thank you mr lecombe absolutely how have you advocated for public education with our elected officials especially in regards to funding have not advocated to any public official this is this is this is the first time i've run for board one thing i can tell you is this if i were to be lucky enough to to be chosen by the voters is that i have access to people that are a lot smarter than i am and i would i wouldn't be afraid to ask for help and ask for the wisdom that those those folks have gained from their experiences thank you mr bradley i neither have i have not advocated at the state legislature level i have had the

086opportunity to meet representative harless and representative oliverson and we have begun a relationship so that's already set so if i do have the fortune of sitting on this board i do know that i'll have the privilege of you know dealing with them and helping them as far as fighting for public education funding this boston game i've had the opportunity to advocate with a group of principals in austin around funding meeting in offices with legislators up in austin to make sure they understand the role and the challenges of public education i've had an opportunity to advocate in dc around funding for after-school programming to extend time on task for students who are below level but i'll make a statement here about governance versus day-to-day operations i do believe we as the volunteer school board members as

087a role of governance should have some advocacy at the with our legislators to make sure we represent the needs of our school district i think that should be informed by the administration but uh lobbying and the form of the people that are paid employees of the district is not a preferred practice so we as the elected officials with the community i think the clc structure is clever i think we could be more inclusive and expand that a bit for input but i feel like we the community we the citizens we the elected officials should be those who will advocate and it's not just for funding it's for the programs to close the gaps of achievement to make sure every student achieves and it's their full potential for programming miss horner open communication is what needs

088to be at the forefront with this um being able to go down excuse me being able to go down to the to the senate and being able to advocate on different things not on funding but on being able to open that communication with the different legislatures uh legislative action within the local the state you know the federal aspects of things just having having the ability to understand what the community needs what the parents are asking for and what exactly is more pertinent to within the the district is is essential with all with all these things um that being said you know when we look at at listening and reaching out to to the community and everything um you have to have the ability to speak to the board as well and i've taken the opportunity

089to speak to the board members the current board members when we can and just being able to have that that you know one-on-one communication is essential uh we have to look at the the whole process as what is actually needed versus what is expanding uh what is what is over overdone and you know just learning to understand exactly where we lay with all within the the district as a whole and within the state thank you mr ogletree thank you it is imperative that a board member be an advocate with our state legislators for funding and the other needs of public education i have done that and since i've been on the board during our legislative sessions i make two to three trips to austin during our sessions i have also spoken at the american federation

090of teachers rallies rallies held by other pro public education uh organizations i've spoken at those rallies on the capitol grounds as well as had zooms and visits from our great state representative john rosenthal who really has a heart for public education thank you all right our next question we will begin position seven with mr scanlon state law mandates character education how do you believe the district should implement this mandate that's an interesting question should an adult be required by the state to understand what is going through the mind of a child and coach them on how they feel about the problem that's an interesting question and as a parent i find challenges with that if we're thinking about character the traditional sense of character means i've been given an opportunity and i've risen to take

091advantage of that opportunity and i've gone through the hard work necessary to accomplish the end goal taking responsibility for my own actions and so when we define what it means to teach character i think really at the end of the day that should only mean that a teacher is equipping a student with a framework for how to solve a problem give them a challenging problem and then coach them along the way while they accomplish that problem it should not mean that an adult in a classroom is coaching a child on how they should feel who they are their identity in any scenario mr kobe well as you stated it is a law that is required of us what i do feel is that technology today has allowed especially in social media for people to post

092things that shows that they do not have character and i'm a very concerned about that especially when i was talking with some of the technology teachers a couple of years ago before it really became rampant they were very concerned about the citizenship that people were having on technology itself so i don't have a problem with us having classes with character and education what i do like is what our our superintendent has said and that is he's going to pull in his seniors that are his superintendent advisory councils i think there's four or five from each high school and they're going to talk about what is important to them then he's going to bring in the parents to look at what they've talked about and then share it with the community this is what you've asked

093for this is what we want to offer and i think that's what we need to go with forward on the character in education thank you miss bradley [Applause] so obviously we have to teach character education because it's a law i am all for the committee having a committee together because i think that's what we need in this district i think we need to be listening to all stakeholders i think it's great that we're listening to some high school students but we want to back that up with of course teachers uh parents obviously business owners because ultimately they are going to be the recipient of the products that we give them when these children enter the work field so i think they need to be involved in what some of those values are that they feel

094are important for character education as well i will back up what mr scanlon said as far as it doesn't need to involve telling kids how to feel it needs to be more along the lines of teaching respect kindness traits that a good person with character has so um i'm all for having our own character education program that we the community have had uh support in making this blossom game [Applause] character clearly to have productive citizens their character is part of that we're here first for academics um but definitely we do impact their minds and therefore i do agree with the comment made that we need to not teach aberrant theories and things that take kids off that however we should create our own program i think there should be a community community input into the

095values that we determine are those which are uh represent scifier families we should then and some of those could be there are common values that are held across faiths and those are things like love compassion the golden rule hope integrity respect justice charity and humility those are things that every faith can agree upon but i think uh that also goes along the idea of freedom of religion in schools the fact is that people should be able to bring these values to their schooling and they should be able to have discourse across differences around those things so we have create our own curriculum based on what we the community feels and we empower teachers to teach within those bounds ms horner it's interesting last night at the board i know that this is something that was

096brought up and um character education it kind of goes in line with autonomy with teachers as well because yes it is it is something that is mandated right now um but the level to which it is allowed to impose the educators should not be imposing what they feel and you know uh imposing their own values and characters and onto the students it must remain within the educational core values core values and really we need to get back to that core value the core education that has that has seeped away from the from the educational system as a whole um you know it's it's it's light in line with understanding that yes there are certain things that should be taught there are certain things that should continue to move forward as far as character goes but

097it isn't an imposition over the children that lays on the parent alone [Music] mr ogletree if we only teach academics and do not attempt to shape the character of students we have failed it's important that we as education as educators try to shape good citizens good citizens who respect and love and have compassion and appreciate the human dignity and worth of others and who are willing to fight for justice being a good neighbor will always always improve our community and make for good students this is something we have to continue to strive for [Applause] mr lecompte i think the faculty should reinforce what the parents are should be teaching at home that should be first and foremost uh it's very simple don't i i teach my kids don't lie don't cheat don't steal and obviously

098don't kill treat others with the way that you would want to be treated it's a golden rule very very simple let's go back to it goes back to my faith um the other thing that i think is is lost in this that i've seen it over the last few years with this country is the respect the lack of respect for authority figures and and one of the things that that i think i think a lot of a lot of issues that you've seen even on a national level i think if we just respected authority figures a little bit more i think i i really truly believe that things wouldn't escalate sometimes to to the way that to the to the extent that they escalate and i think again that really it's it's on the faculty

099but more more importantly it's on the parents at home doing their jobs thank you mr ryan yes we uh we have amazing people on staff that write curriculum in our district we can write our own curriculum for uh character education what we need to do when we do that though is is as others have said is involve all the stakeholders that's parents teachers students and then you also want to make sure that's critical is that as you do this that all of your material is also age appropriate there's you can start at an elementary level and then build upon the that program as you as you go along but we have the people on staff we know the values this community has had for years and you focus on what the community expects out of

100our character education program and then have our staff staff write the curriculum and then implement the curriculum thank you mr harrison so character starts at home um and the district supports or needs to reinforce that but again we want children to be a contribution to society and we want them to feel good about themselves we want them to know who they are the anxieties and the mental health and issues that children face we want them to be able to withstand and endure and be able to go out into the world when it's unfair but understand that just because it's unfair it doesn't make me ugly to the next person sitting next to me it makes me stronger but it doesn't make me bitter and that's what part of the character that we need to instill

101in the district and make sure that we are reinforcing that on a district level and a parental level thank you mr mr henry it's very sad we have to teach character when i grew up we had that you know and if we didn't have that my butt got beat you know [Applause] if we are going to have to teach it because state law says that i want to see it first as a parent what it is and i want to check off on that i'm sorry uh because i want to respect the parent boundaries that i have as a parent that's first and foremost and quite frankly uh i want to be able to opt out of that if i can if i don't like that what i see there's a lot of great books

102out there stephen covey has a fantastic book on on those values out there we can look at but there's different it's a better one i call the bible well look let's look at that there's a very good verse called love thy neighbor as i sell we just focus on that one verse if we love other people as we love ourselves we just start there that's what teachers do every day they love the kid as themselves that's how they teach that would start the world a better place every single day mr irving [Applause] so there's a difference between implementing good character in our kids but also making sure that our educators are not parenting our kids um i actually want to echo what natalie had said i think it's extremely important that we do this by

103creating a committee having all stakeholders included parents teachers staff of both the board different people in the administration all come together and really define what exactly does that mean implementing respect good decency strong strong minds good work ethic being humble and also good patriotism i think that's extremely important as well uh making sure that our kids are voting we don't implement i do like how we are starting to have our kids vote as seniors but that needs to be taught earlier having our kids go into the military go into our police force go and serve as firefighters you know it's just not necessarily about right from wrong but also how to conduct yourself as a citizen i think is extremely important as well and we can do that if we all come together thank you

104all right candidates it's our final question all right we will start with uh position five um and uh miss blossom game will be our first how will you balance differing opinions when dealing with controversial issues this blossom game that's uh i've had a lot of practice doing that i've run schools um as a principal for many years and that is uh part of the job is to listen to all sides of an issue have the compassion we've talked today about parents have the right to make decisions for their own child and so the first thing is to make sure that the opinions of the parent for their child are put first the bureaucracy the system the board the administration is not the authority in the first decision maker for a parent so to the point

105of voice choice and values the voice of the parent is executed for them to talk about the choices they want that match their values for their child so that will be the when it's a controversial issue the parent's voice will trump all miss horner so as a psychologist obviously one of the things that i have to learn and i've mastered is the ability to reach out and listen to others listening is so imperative you know a lot of times as human beings what we do is we listen to answer instead of to listen to understand understanding what is taking place within the other side is imperative you know our children are the ones that are at risk here yeah children are the ones that are on the line and it's not about deferring here deferring

106opinions here in the other yeah you can understand you can listen to the other side whatever the questions are but have the compassion to understand what is going on and beneath the surface now that being said you cannot impose you know your character upon others and kind of in line with what we were talking about before with character um it takes more than just teaching it's exhuming it it's actually putting your character out there and showing them what it is based on who you are based on what you're doing based on your values and yes it is imperative to be able to reach out to the parents and the the board and the schools alike be able to have that connection thank you mr ogletree [Applause] this is what i've done all my life and

107that is to work in a cohesive manner i've listened dialogued and had thought about the discussion and then made a sound decision as board members we come from all different backgrounds and what we have to do is value each other and try to make sure that we work civilly as well as cohesively with each other as well as with the superintendent we are models for our students and our students are watching us whenever we act in an uncivil manner so we have to raise that bar and work cohesively and respect each other mr little columns i just think that dialogue is super important i think that uh having an actual conversation with a person that has a deferring a viewpoint keeping things civil not getting heated uh not getting to the point where we where

108we're shouting over each other um and and just and again it goes back to basically treating every everyone with with respect i think sometimes it's difficult for for people if they if they have such a strong opinion on something it's very difficult for people to be convinced otherwise so sometimes the best the best thing to do is just agree to disagree and i think we need to get back to that is sometimes just agree to disagree we're gonna have we're gonna we're not always gonna get along with everybody we're not always going to share the same opinion but uh just to have dialogue and um and to be able to conversate and treat each other as human beings first i think that's is is is just important moving forward ms bradley [Applause] all right well

109apparently i'm good at uh listening and listening to other people's opinions i've been happily married for 15 years so i still have my husband waiting for me at home so so uh i think the important thing to do is listen to understand and as it's already been mentioned you know realize that people come from different different places they have different values they have different opinions different ideologies even and just making sure that you are listening to understand and at the forefront of all of our decisions as a board member it's what's best for the child and so making sure you're keeping that at a forefront so mr harrison [Music] so listening and having constructive dialogue is always healthy again everybody is different we no longer nobody comes from the same background and understanding that our

110deepest thoughts that force difference of opinion forces us to break the monotony uh myself being up here sitting next to a gentleman that's been here for 20 years on the board is that correct and understanding that he has has done some great things but part of the next phase is going to be new ideas new perspective and that's not a bad thing uh part of going back to the character strong is understanding that we're building new ideas but on the foundation that's already been built so we can have a difference of opinion but we can agree where there's agreeance and we can have agree to disagree when we need to thank you mr henry i don't know if you've ever worked on the hoa board for eight years like i have no one ever agrees

111on that and i worked on that for eight years and i actually did that for eight years and actually kept the dudes at eight for eight years the same amount of money also being on a deacon for a long time being on a church board with lots of committees you never make anyone happy there either i also run a multi multi-billion dollar business with 300 people and across the world i do matrix management especially when dealing with people all across the world and especially people in tokyo japan who don't even speak your own language and trying to get them to agree to you it's hard but to end the day we're dealing with kids it's for the kids kids first we have to create win-win situations for the kids and if you create a situation

112that's for the kids for their situation we're doing it for the right reasons and everyone has the same purpose in mind we can make it work mr irving can you please repeat the question how will you balance differing opinions when dealing with controversial issues okay so let me answer the question um what i plan to do is and to implement with my other fellow trustee board members if i'm blessed enough to get elected is i want to take parents stakeholders state representatives students and teachers and i want to have a town hall once a month i think it's important that we actually are about equity and inclusion inclusion of all not everyone can afford to go to school board meetings the parent the single mother that has three children at home can afford to have

113her voice heard the the individual who is a police officer who works late night hours can afford to have his voice heard to miss to to go to school board meetings and miss out on work i think it's important that we try to create a process that we get everyone's voice included i think a town hall would be actually fantastic because it allows more individuals in our community who can't afford to go to school board meetings to be able on a weekend to be able to come together bounce ideas off of each other and actually balance what is important so that we can move forward as a community together mr ryan well i'm i'm sure this won't shock any of you out in the audience but i've had a little experience dealing with this lately

114uh in my role as a as a board member uh but i think what's there's nothing wrong and i think chris touched on a little bit there's nothing wrong with different opinions some of the best programs and ideas that we've had in the district have been bounced around because people had different opinions i think what is wrong is is not respecting the person that has the different opinion i think that's i don't think that's a uh i just don't think it's a very christian thing to do and other people have talked about it up here you treat others the way you want to be treated you don't necessarily have to give someone respect if they have a completely different opinion than you but you can listen and try to understand where they're coming from and

115still stay strong with your own personal beliefs and values mr kobe [Applause] you know actually we have lived through a dysfunctional board a number of years ago and it was not a happy time and it was a situation where there was disrespect and there was people that were serving that had a one agenda item and that's what they strive to do and we agreed as a board that we needed to be setting ourselves a little bit higher than that because we felt like that our students and this is who it's for it is for the students our students were looking us and they were emulating who we were and what we were doing we were their models i have always believed that there's three sides to every story there's a left there's a right and

116somewhere in between you'll find a commonality and that's what i try to try to do so when i'm dealing with situations that are difficult i try to remember that and i try to listen as my dad would say you only got one mouth and you have two ears so listening is twice as good thank you mr scanlon thank you people have to be heard there has to be a feedback mechanism that is relevant to the community there has to be a way for the stakeholders of our community our parents our teachers staff members and taxpayers to come together and be able to understand what is being presented the policies that we're recommending and absorb that feedback in a meaningful way i deal with change all the time i lead change for fortune 500 fortune 100

117fortune 100 companies and what i all the time see is that we have to be able to incorporate key opinions and then through healthy dialogue attain a reasonable answer our children have very diverse needs we have children who are coming from very prosperous homes and we have children that are in non-prosperous homes their needs are vastly different and we've got to be very nimble to be able to meet the needs of all of those kids we must be able to form those committees and understand those special interests to be able to incorporate all that feedback successfully thank you [Music] all right at this time each candidate will have one minute to provide a closing statement and we will go in reverse order from how we started starting with position 7 mr scanlon thank you very

118much thank you as a community for coming out tonight and listening to us and those that are going to view online we appreciate you and this board is elected by the community and should represent the community period my goal for my run and what i hope to do for us is to be able to properly represent all the views and all the opinions it's not when elected it's not my seat it's a seat in which i serve and it's a process i put in place to listen to the community members and actually establish those feedback loops and mechanisms so that we can all raise our children it is for our kids we have to be able to find common ground and serve the needs of our kids so they're competitive today and tomorrow so i

119appreciate everyone's support i appreciate the vibrancy of our community thank you mr covey well as everyone knows i've served on this board for 16 years and i'm very proud of the things that we've accomplished in those 16 years the homeowner tax rate decrease the preserved optional homestead exemption even though we were fought by the legislature our increase in teacher pay from 45 to 58 000 over a 10-year period of time erg ranking us number one two three and four for our financial effectiveness any efficiency so many things that we've done this board was a 2015 board of the year by is chosen by the texas association school administrators in my time on this board i have seen this group grow from seventy nine thousand students to a hundred and sixteen thousand five one of the

120things that's the biggest deal is we've grown from twenty eight percent economic disadvantage to 57 economically disadvantaged if you want to change just for change go ahead and do that but if you want somebody that's going to take this further and what we've done to it to bring it to this point i would be your choice thank you mr henry a little over 24 hours ago i was in the hospital with my daughter and i didn't know if i was going to be here because she was fighting for a life and she told me that she'd know if she's gonna leave the hospital but she did thankfully and prayerfully she'll be okay that's the reason why i'm running that's the reason why i think all of us are up here is for the kids we

121are fighting for the kids because we want a better education for their for their life we want a better tomorrow for them we want them to do what is the very best for them we want a better transparency of this board want a better accountability of this board we want term limits for this board we want them not to be up here forever we want them to be accountable to the public we want them to be answerable to the public we want them to be available to the public not just the two minutes they give us that the board needs they have done a great job for us and they've served us very well and we admire from what they've done and we appreciate what they've done we're the best teachers in the world we

122want to give them the best support they can i hope you'll vote for me and thank you very much mr harrison [Applause] again my reason for for being here is for the students my 11 year old and my two-year-old starting with them but again district wide i want our students to be able to compete not just on local level not on a state level but a global level background in sciences so not too many for words but we want to be able to compete and we'll continue to do that but we need to shake up things a little bit and if my role just to get that started then i've done my job mr ryan i want to thank everyone for attending tonight and jason thank you for hosting him for community impact uh i've

123told you this every year you y'all are such an asset to the community and we so appreciate you so thank you for that i've never looked at myself as a politician even though we're seeking a political office i've looked at myself as a volunteer that's that's what i've done during my tenure on the board as i volunteer my personal philosophy is that politicians get paid and volunteers get results during my tenure on the board i've gotten results i would appreciate your continued support i still have a passion for serving and i want to continue to serve whether or not win or lose this election i'm still going to be a global volunteer in scifire because i believe in our district i believe in our community i believe in our employees and our students and i

124look forward to your support in the upcoming election thank you very much mr irving [Applause] um i first want to start out by thanking all the stakeholders in our community for either tuning in at home or coming here and watching and being in tuned with what's going on with your child's education i want to build on progress already made i think it's time to turn the page i don't think anyone should be in office for a quarter of a century i think it's important that if we want to continue our success we have got to evolve to evolve we need change i'm not talking about going backwards i'm talking about moving forward our community doesn't care about red or blue they don't care about what faith you are all they care about and this is

125how i know this because i've been in the classroom with some of your children all they care about is making sure that they have a good equity equitable quality education for their children and that their children have the same opportunity that every other child has at a quality education [Music] this november election is pivotal we have a chance to move forward and to evolve and to grow together but we also have an opportunity and a chance to move backward my name is ryan c irving jr and i hope to have your support on this november 2nd election thank you and make up mr lecompte i'd like to talk about transparency of curriculum and lesson plans mit puts all of their information online for everyone to see i think if we start doing something like that

126i think we can end divisive curriculum that's being pushed to indoctrinate our children and push political agendas i believe that a three-term limit is quite enough thank you very much you raised you helped raise a generation of children that doesn't mean that you still can't serve the community it just means another person gets an opportunity to serve um i bring it i bring a logical common sense approach to decision making okay i'm a business owner it doesn't make dollars it doesn't make sense that's that's what that's what i like to talk about i can think of a thousand reasons why term limits are beneficial i can't think of many reasons why we shouldn't all right the direction this country is headed in because of lack of term limits it's the reason why we're in the

127condition we're in right now [Applause] [Music] i appreciate everybody that was watching at home the people that are in the audience thank you very much my name is todd lecompte and i i hope i've earned your support november 2nd thank you mr oltree thanks again for coming and for viewing tonight i'm dr john old tree and i believe my experience and training are an asset to this district my leadership and advocacy for public education is proven i want to continue to work as a consensus builder working civilly and cohesively with my fellow board members the superintendent and with the citizens of this community i believe that we need to move forward and not backwards and we're at a crossroads where we have to avoid policing partisan politics i've been endorsed by the largest teacher union

128that represents teachers counselors bus drivers custodians food service workers and i value our teachers and want to continue working for them i'm john ogletree position five number four on the valid your opportunity for all candidates [Music] thank you now as a marriage and family therapist i have very intimate knowledge as to what is hurting our families the most in this district it's unbelievable the things that have that have taken place but i've also had the joys of walking with my families and my patients and it's absolutely outstanding to see their growth within the district as well you know i am the american dream and i've sworn an oath to this nation three different times one as as a naturalized citizen secondly as a medical provider and third as a u.s navy sailor i took that

129oath seriously and i expect to take that off within the service that i will be providing for your families and your children that being said i face every challenge head on i am not afraid to answer the call and i'm not afraid to take on all the different critiques and challenges that come to come my way we know that being a board member can be exhausting we know that we understand all the different challenges that might come in place my passion is in helping children and families achieve that success and i specifically work with at-risk children and with abused children that's why my platform is very specifically summarized into something i call grace's aces american values checks and balances enrichment of excellence safety and security i'm dr grace horner for position five please vote for

130me on november 2nd thank you very much for your time thank you mr blossom game um dr natalie blasting game i want to represent you on this board in position five i'm number two on the ballot we have fifty two thousand students in our district who are hispanic or forty five percent will you indulge me a moment to address them in spanish their families allos paris families represent [Music] and now to translate i want to represent the voice the choice and the values of all the students in our district to make sure that every student has an option of a brilliant future i would appreciate your support natalie blasting game position two voice choice and values thank you miss bradley [Music] hello thank you again for uh tuning in or being in the audience uh

131just want you to know i will be an advocate for teacher staff and students as a mom i also know how important the school day is our kids spend eight hours a day at school us as parents we trust the teachers and the district to teach our kids and to take care of them and keep them safe as a public school board member i will make sure we value all of the varied beliefs in school and have and have to be extremely careful and purposeful not to divide our students based on religion race gender or any other factor we are here to serve all kids and make sure all kids get a quality education we need to protect our students make school a safe place to be where they can grow learn and become productive

132citizens as we so proudly state in scifire we learn our students learn empower achieve and dream courtney spradley position five number one on the ballot thank you [Music] candidates and incumbents on behalf of cypress fairbanks isd and the residents within this community thank you so much for your willingness to step forward and volunteer for a position on the board the election as a reminder will be held jointly with this year's general election election day is tuesday november 2nd and the polls will be open from 7 a.m to 7 p.m early voting takes place from october 18th to october 29th the most up-to-date information on early voting and election day times and locations may be obtained by visiting harrisvotes.com for those in attendance this evening please remind your friends and neighbors about the importance of casting

133their vote i wish each of you best of luck in the remainder of your campaign have a safe trip and a great night thank you