001Would you please start? Sure. So, um, we'd like to, uh, welcome you to the Mahor Area School District. Uh, my name is, uh, Michael Hiler, and this is interesting. So, we'll be asking the questions this evening. Uh, so we chose the order that candidates answer the question uh, with a pick of numbers. Each member will get three uh, minutes to answer each question. When the time is up, there will be a signal loop. Do you want me to keep track of that? Sure. Thank you. Just like a board you made. But you'll have us bonus. So we can uh begin with the first question. Uh what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the school district and how do you plan on addressing slashresolving these? I think we can probably just go with whoever
002wants to answer that or if we want to do it in a row doesn't it doesn't matter. Go ahead, Leah. Then we'll Sure. rotate. Um, so really I think the biggest the biggest challenge we're going to face this this upcoming year is going to be all the changes to the federal government, the federal funding. Um, we only get I say only we get about a million dollars in federal funding. Um, but we don't know what the changes to department of ed are going to do. As far as addressing and resolving them, I till they come, we're going to just have to pivot and take them as they are. I think lunch is probably going to be our biggest our biggest hurdle because that that's the federal money that that's what we use a lot of
003that money for. Um, and I don't know what we're at for free and reduced lunch population, but we were at I don't know somewhere between 11 and 15% I think. So, it is going to affect a good chunk of our population. Um, but yeah, until they come, we can't really address or resolve them, unfortunately. But I think that's that's going to be our biggest issue this year. Thank you. Yeah. And I I would continue on that funding path just from what we were hearing the other day about the state budget situation, the timing as much as anything else about how we're going to be a little bit in the dark. Uh, that that process, you never know how long it could go, but it we're hearing it could extend even out into the fall. And
004obviously we're making budget considerations before then trying to build that into our plans. So um we're we're operating a little bit uh with a little bit of uncertainty especially because there have been asks of the legislature to boost the amount of funding both per pupil and then for special education. Um and that money all goes into the same pot essentially and lets us uh um do more things with it. Um for and one of the biggest obviously staff compensation as we talk about a lot it's in about 80 more than 80% of the budget is for the people who work here and that's the beauty of the school. Um so we want to make sure that we're providing competitive compensation for them and uh rewarding them for all the good work that they do. And
005in a similar vein, I what I put down as the the thing I think is the biggest challenge coming our way or that we're in the middle of right now is declining enrollment. And it's something that is impacting schools across the state of Wisconsin. That has to do with just the change in population, the change in birth rates. Um, and the challenge there is that our funding is directly tied to how many students are enrolled in school. And so you can reduce your student population by 20 students and lose a significant amount of money, but that doesn't mean that you can um sell a school bus or close a classroom or anything like that. And so um we're not alone in that by any means, but but it is just a challenge that goes along
006with with how we navigate that instability of of funding that is that's in the future. I think some of the ways we we have tried to tackle that are making sure that we're keeping good partnerships with the village to do things to talk about increasing um housing, affordable housing, making sure that more of us a community families want to move to that. Also, we play a big role in that too, right? Making sure that our schools are um welcoming, exciting schools that families want to come and and be a part of. Um, and so, you know, there are there are advocacy things we can do to make sure that our funding formulas are more fair and that they change. Um, and but we also can design programs that will increase our flip side. And kind
007of on what some of you guys are saying with like being like in the dark from where it is not not knowing quite yet, do you think that um what's your take on if the dealing with whatever those problems are that are that do arise from different changes in the budget? if those are affected by past choosing of spending, not just on on partially on like having maybe higher populations of students or compared to different things such as, oh, we put our money here because we had more and now that possible future budget cuts if that puts us in a worse position to kind of handle those or how those affect each other if they do or don't. Yes. So 80% of our budget is um staff. So 80% of the budget we have goes
008to staffing. So we are also very conservative. We are lucky so lucky to have Scott Dion as our business um I don't even know assistant superintendent and business guru. Um he you know he we budget very conservatively so that we don't run into those problems like we don't ever want to have to cut staff or um anything like that. So I yeah I don't think so more so past spending you'd say is put in a good position. Yeah we have a very good fund balance which isn't a savings account but it is something we can tap into if we absolutely have to. We've done it in years past. So um yeah I think we've done we've done a pretty good job at being fiscally responsible. Yeah I I would second that. down and you think
009about um some of the investments that we're making are really long-term investments. Again, you you can't you can't cut your way to success as what it boils down to and thinking about the capital referendum that the citizens voted for which is just awesome. just had a meeting today talking about how that new kindergarten um edition will go on to the PC and that's going to be a really nice um shiny object uh that is going to you be able to talk to parents of young kids maybe uh maybe they're in Madison they're looking for a smaller town to move to and and set up shop and you can say look at what we can deliver for you. Um so I really like where we've spent the money that way and and just grateful to the
010community for that and obviously the $4.8 8 million recurring operating referendum. Without that um we would be making some brutally tough choices right now. So just want to always highlight um that they put their money and their faith in the school system and uh we have that on our minds all the time to make sure that we're spending that wisely. Yeah, absolutely. Um to Adam's point also on investments and how we've spent some of that money, we are also mindful to do that in ways that um increase not only student well-being and the and our programs, but fund but our funding sources as well. Right. We have a resource development coordinator who um I just learned today her that that she's been able to help us write grants over the year that have been that
011have totaled up to a little over almost a million and a half dollars um in income. So that is a an an investment made that is paying paying dividends. And would you say with some of the different things that we have spent money on? And notice we're talking about like especially like resources and sources for wellbeing and other um sort of things to address for the students and staff as well of if those resources and sources if you guys see those as being in a good position or in a position of wanting to change the way that those are accessible or accessed to staff or student body. Um, we go through every year we work with the administration on a budget process around this time of year. Kind of goes from January to April where
012we take a look at at how how the funds how the budget's being spent. Um, and we we do talk about specific areas that we feel that that maybe need addressing um through that process. I can't think that there's anything at this point that I would recommend that we change from the path that we're on, but that is a recurring discussion. Yeah. and and we have had high level discussions about this coming year, but we haven't got into the specifics yet on that. That's that's you know there is a lot of nitty-gritty there about where $20,000 or whatnot gets moved around. And we always try you never have enough money at the same time to address everything that you want to do. I think that's the thing that we struggle with a lot the most
013when you look at this budget. Yeah. So you try to look at like the most pressing needs, priority needs. Um, I know that we've reached out to the uh the teachers association, education association, and asked for some of their input and and and made a real point of that this year to get out in front of the budget cycle saying, "What are you what are you most concerned about? Where are some areas that we can work together on so that it's not just us coming up with the solution? We we're basing it off of the folks who are in the buildings all the time and seeing how the the operation works." I don't really have anything else to add based on what you guys have said. Yeah. Yeah. Even I would say there's a lot
014of really good things even branching off from the budget. What would be your guys's take on maybe some of those things kind of like the doing what when having the money? But even kind of outside the the budget and just different like ideals of like with along with the mission of the different schools and like the way that in the day-to-day different things are addressed or talked about or such things of where those are at in in like being like a good place open for change or just kind of like what your take is on almost those those changes or things that were that they're doing that are outside of the budget like the dayto-day, how are we addressing different problems that are occurring, different um different things that are like socially just high raising
015or like notice taking things that are like you know in the news a lot or not in the news a lot. those different ideas of like of like well-being, mental health and those sort of things and how if those are being addressed adequately or inadequately or like changes or or like continuities for those types of things. Yeah. So, like Carly and I just came from the we have a safety review task force. Um, and so, um, it's one of those things where we got to figure out, we we've come up with this huge list of priorities and we've categorized them and we've prioritized them and we've moved them around and now we're to the point where we got to figure out, okay, what's it going to cost to do? Can we write grants? Can we
016and that's in some that's outside of our current budget. So, we're going to have to figure out how to do that. Um, but as far as getting into the daytoday, we try to stay out of the dayto-day. That's where the the principles, the teachers, they're setting your guys' dayto-day. Now, we are going to write policy that, you know, helps navigate where those go, but ultimately, we try to stay out of the day-to-day cuz we're not the experts there, but we're really good at writing policies. It's my favorite thing to do. Yeah. you know, the the one area where it's not a policy, but I'm thinking about like our power goals for the board and and well-being is one of those um ties in with safety and psychological safety and comfort for students when you're when
017you're at school. And we've placed an emphasis on that. and it's already part of our strategic plan, but set that as one of our three priorities um to make sure that kids uh you know like the baseline question is there an adult at school, one adult that you feel comfortable coming to if you have a real issue that you have to deal with. We want that to be the norm for everyone. We realize 100% is probably not possible. Um but we do Exactly. Exactly. And we see the work that our um faculty and support staff do every day to kind of bridge those gaps. Um I will say you speaking a little bit tangent but maybe it gets to what you're talking about. You know we were at a a program two nights ago um
018Dr. Serno was there and Jessica Aragon from our school board as well about uh called the anxious generation and talking about the impact of social media and phones. We've taken steps to tighten up phone usage during the school day. There are a lot of parents there and obviously it's a crowd that was attracted to this subject. So there's a little self- selection, but I think that the theme's pretty universal about how most parents are open to a lot tighter restrictions. And so I think that's something that we'll be discussing as a board and just thinking about the impact of that on the learning environment and then also on kids, you know, more broader mental health and and security. Yeah, I I mean I would just echo what both Adam and and Leah said and particularly
019on the the power goals. Those are to to Leah's point, we don't set specific programs in the schools, but these three these particular three priorities we've given to the administration and they're the ones that will figure out how to actually make them happen. And so Adam mentioned the belonging um the belonging goal that was one that I originally that I also felt very strongly about. Um the other the other two that are in there is a focus on um academic growth in math and language arts. Um, and the other one is a is a life life readiness goal. Do you have enough volunteer opportunities? Do you have enough career preparation? Like how do you how are we helping how are we helping you get ready specifically for the next step out of school within those
020like um sections for like I just for like life readiness. would like behavioral of behavioral of students play a role in this and like school provides a lot of like kind of like boundaries for students which I feel like boundaries for like kids and like their day and schedule which can help like provide a lot of stability with them and help make them feel more secure. Um I'm just curious if the the difference in especially with uh how certain certain um levels of our generation have dealt with experiencing certain years of schooling like virtual. So without the as much the the regular the schedule that allows them kind of like structure that that they can be in if that plays a role in that behavioral and what that behavioral might play in life readiness or
021is that more those skills of looking into careers if that plays a role? I'm just curious your take on that. You know, this question is actually tangential to some of the other questions that have been previously prepared for the evening by the class. No, I appreciate that. I just apologize. I'm being a taskmaster. We have about 25 minutes and we have six questions remaining. We're only able to connect on that one. Um, to this end though, it's important that we answer your thoughtful questions. Any reflections at all on that piece? Yeah, you know, I'll take it in this direction of uh behavioral from the beginning that I feel like uh this school has done this school district has done a really good job starting at the youngest age of kids thinking about themes of belonging
022and we saw a lot of that as early as the kindergarten level, first grade level where you're getting kids together and you're having them discuss uh where they're at. Um I also point to the as grades increase that exposure to um zones of regulation and how that's played out in different um you know side settings inside the school where kids are taught to recognize where they're at on their own behavioral path and be able to selfcorrect. Um, I'm lucky enough to know the person who invented that as one of my uh uh college friends wives and I've talked to her a lot about that and she couldn't be more pleased to see um how that started as something that was a program for um kids with developmental dis disabilities who maybe just hadn't had the
023opportunity to um guide themselves and it obviously has applications to everyone. So, I've been really excited to see that and I think you plant those seeds early. to try to set the stage for later on just in terms of how you're feeling emotionally. Obviously, needs are different at every level and need to be tended to. And I I know that everyone on this board and especially, frankly, since like May 1st, that that's been on our mind a lot about where where people are um mental mental health and any trauma that they experience that day and helping them through it. And as you mentioned, thinking about COVID and pandemic and closures, um how much time and money that this district has invested in um specialized coaching uh for for kids to try to get them back
024up to speed on anything they might have missed. Thank you. Um so we're just going to try to move along. I think we have have answered a couple of these questions incorrectly. But so for a second one is like how do you feel that the school board does communication with students and do you think this can be improved? Does it need to be improved? And if so, how will it be improved? I can start. I I um the current avenues of communication we have we have student we have a student representative on the board um on the full board. We also have student representatives around on several of our committees and that's been super helpful to get their perspective directly on the topics that we're talking about including the safety task force that Leah referenced
025earlier. Um, and it's it's again been great to get their voices. I do think the other thing we do is each of us is a building liaison and we try to um work I'm the leazison for the middle school. So, I try to stay in touch with the middle school specifically and and hear more about what they're doing. I will be the first to admit I could do a better job at that. And I do think as I thought about this question, I I um personally like would love to to try and figure out how can I um it's one thing to visit the school and sit in the class, right? And see how the class goes, but that doesn't mean you're getting like direct student feedback. Um, I'd love to go to student council
026meetings more frequently and hear what, you know, have it be more of a have it be more of a conversation where where appropriate. Um, my take. Yeah, you I would second your observation that I know that I could be doing a better job of getting into the schools and that's one of my commitments here for the next three years of uh connecting on a more personal level more regularly. And then the other thing that strikes me is that um you know I have a now I have a kid in college and I have a senior in high school and um I'm not as connected to the experiences of younger kids just based on my peer group and whatnot. So that's another area of concentration for me is reaching out to some especially younger parents. I
027mean second grader is probably not going to tell me much not knowing me but be able to talk through them and their experiences and and how they're feeling because what what my kids went through is now 10 12 years old. It's different. Everything changes all the time and it's really important to stay on top of uh the pulse of where things are at. Um, one of the things when I was president, I don't know, eons ago, um, we visited not only the high school student council, but the IC student council, the middle school student council, and they were not afraid to tell us what they thought, which was fantastic. And I would love to get back to more of that. We actually got to go sit with the high school student council yesterday, and it
028was awesome. And they actually asked the similar question. Um, and we talked about we have student board members and all of that, but we also, if you ask us, we will come. If you have something cool going on in your classroom and you're like, "Hey, you guys want to come see this cool thing?" I 100% will rearrange my schedule to come see the cool thing. Like, it's it's so much fun. But it's also something we need you to tell us because I've been told by my children that you don't use Facebook and that's how I do most of my communication. So, so like we need to know from you how do you want and what do you want to hear from us? Um, right cuz we have a I mean Dr. should have puts together
029a great board recap. We could send it to you. Are you going to read it? Probably not, but we could send it to you if you want it. So, we we just need to know like how do you want to be communicated to and about what? And we could 100% improve it cuz I know even my own kids are like, I didn't know that. And I'm like, how do you not you live in the same house as me? But they don't know. So, yeah. I think it's interesting how like for students I think it's an interesting take for saying like how you need to hear that information like from the students because I think it makes sense. I think so much of our generation is used to like instant communication and just being like, "Oh,
030we'll just like Snapchat them or like just like that, whatever." And like for like whatever it is and then I feel like then when for example like receiving information like be like for some reason like that sort of thing is our generation is not always as good at being like oh yes I shall read this whole thing like but it's not just like a headline like give it to you on Twitter. Right. And like with a short followup, how do we feel like we can get your what you actually do as a role out to students? Because I feel like not many kids know exactly what this board is, what they can do. They either think of them as powerless or a weird bureaucratic step or entirely omnipotent in these kind of three different categories.
031[Music] So, how could we think we could go about I feel like students would definitely be more willing to ask and want to show things and get support and yes, have their own self- advocation if they had a better understanding of what the role of the school was. And I think sometimes students can be like, oh, like this day or whatever. They just are seeing like the okay well this thing happened and they're not seeing like necessarily the the motives behind. And of course not every student is going to agree with everything no matter what it is. Um, but I think high schoolers can and below too, but especially I think high schoolers the area where they're focused on those things can be have difficulty with accepting those without the judgment saying they know cuz
032it's not presented to them necessarily of like what your task is on question. Yeah. I think we need to to get with Aubrey and have her get out the fancy Instagrams and do a story on who we are and what we do. and then somehow get it to the youth. That's something really good. Thanks for bringing that up. That's something that we can chew on. I would say um just the next question we have on here, what do you feel is have been your most important accomplishments in your time as a schoolboard member? And what do you have planned to accomplish in the 2025 206 school year this week? I mean, I have a long list, but I've been doing this forever. Take it. Um, high priority. So, so I've been on the board. This
033is my 12th year. Um, so I've been on for a long time. Um, in when I first started, we didn't have 4K. We now have 4K. That was one of my big things. We didn't have summer school. We kept being told we can't have summer school. Can't have summer school. We have We have summer school. It's like trying to get band tickets. Like you're like, "Okay, ready, set, try, get your kid in the class." Like it's it's turned into this awesome thing. Um I was part of the group that hired Dr. Slayer now. I think that's a great accomplishment. Um so like we we've done a lot. I mean there there's been so much in the last 12 years, but for next year I think our biggest focus is going to be getting the ELCPC
034situation launched off and then bringing in the the Baloran program. I mean, we're we're ready to go. I think that's going to be super exciting next year and I can't wait to see where that goes. Is that just being um like employed next year or is it already like grassroots within? Um it starts it starts next year. Yeah. Yeah, it starts in the fall next year where people can start signing up for it and then I I'm hoping it grows and becomes this big awesome program that we have. Um, so that's that's okay. I summed up my 12 years pretty quickly and I feel less accomplished. Leah did a lot more than that. She also got a board meeting shortened from 2:00 a.m. until about 9 at the most. So, thank you. Can I thank
035you for that? Yes, you can. We used to read the minutes into the like someone would literally read all the minutes into the minutes. It was bananas. Um we touched on a bunch of them that come to mind for me. The referendums uh that came through a lot of our post-pandemic adaptation to try to get people back up to speed. Um fiscal prudence um curriculum evolution. I was a part of that. I think also the growth of the youth apprenticeship programs and a lot of that readiness training. I think that is so huge. Um, going back to phonics based uh, reading at the youngest levels, getting kids up to speed on that. Uh, things like introducing an American government course that'll be coming up as a requirement. I think that that's going to be well
036received by people, believe it or not, like all across the political spectrum, something that we can agree on and that's uh, going to be good to have. And then for um uh thinking ahead to next year, uh again, I think that the career readiness is just huge and IB has a great program with that. Um it's a that if you go all in, it's a 2-year program to help you work on a lot of these soft skills to get you ready for life as much as you know the actual knowledge and a specific skill. And then the last thing I'll mention, hopefully I haven't gone through all of them, um the evidence-based grading that has been coming along slowly here and will be implemented over the next few years. That's going to be a really
037um complicated process to get done and to get done correctly and to be able to explain that to the community. So I know that we're really tuned in on making sure that um that's well thought out and um well communicated. Um, I I would agree with everything that's that's already been said. I put down the passage of both the operational referendum and the capital referendum for the PC in there. Those are big asks of the community and we're very very grateful for them, especially in a tough inflationary climate. Um, and a tough political climate as well. So those there were a lot of people involved in the passage of both of those referendums, not just us. the teachers, the community members. So, so I can't take credit for it, but um but it is but
038I'm very proud of the work that everybody pulled together on those. Um, other than the things that have been said, the other thing I wrote down are the we reestablished our strategic plan, kind of reaffirmed reaffirmed um our strategic plan for the next several years. And we have just continued to do slow, steady, and consistent work on student belonging and inclusivity and um you know, teacher teacher work, teacher trainings on in that area. um community engagement in that area as well. And um looking forward, I am excited about the the construction of the of the elementary school, the community engagement in that and giving them transparency and how that money is being spent. Um and right now right now is excuse me budget season at the state legislature. So, my focus for the next several
039months is going to be seeing what we can do to get the legislature to increase the um reimbursement rate that they pay us for special education funding. Right now, we are mandated to provide uh education for all students um regardless of their need and the state only for that mandate the state reimbures is only about 30% of the costs we incur. Um we think that it's we think that the legislature can do better than that and so we have a lot of advocacy efforts around that that to increase that which will have a big impact on our on our budget and our bottom line touch yeah we're going to touch a lot on question five just about this idea of like diversity both when it comes to race but also socioeconomic status and like student
040ability we have, you know, you might look at the report and say like, hey, our school's 99% our high school is like 99% Caucasian, but we have a very wide variety of socioeconomic status ranges and especially when it comes to students with disabilities. So, how can we embrace these diversities and reduce these prejudices? Like what policies we want to implement to see change in these regards? [Music] How do you know I struggled with with it from a policy framework? I think that we have the policies in place to do that. I think it is a matter of the thoughts I had on this. You know, when we sit down and we have our board meetings, each one of us has in front of us a sheet that reminds us of it's a decision-m framework that
041reminds us to make sure that as we're making these decisions, we are thinking about all of those things. you know, making sure that decisions are accessible regardless of regardless of race, socioeconomic status, immigration status, whatever it is. Um, and so I think that culture starts at the top and we've definitely made up from all seven of us a commitment to to that culture. Um, and I and so with as a board, we've given that direction to the administration who has embraced that as well and run with it. there are teachers that um that work together in a committee to to continue to build on that work as well. Um and and I think it goes back to some of the things Adam was talking about earlier around having specifically focused on the student belonging is
042one of the one of the three priorities that we picked out out of the out of the strategic plan. So, that's something that I know our staff and our student services team continues to work on. Some of it is some of it's bringing in curriculum. Some of it is additional um teacher training um at all at all grade levels. Some of it is community engagement events to make sure that that our community is aware of everything that's going on as well and is supportive. Yeah, building on that, I I agree. It's like a lot it's a lot of the um getting visibility and trying to influence hearts and minds as much as the trying to legislate it. Uh because I do feel like we have some pretty good protections in place and those are only
043as good as what people believe in uh behind it. Uh you can you can dance around a lot of different rules and regulations. um being able to think and talk to people in a way that explains how we're trying to train you all to be able to go out into a world that doesn't necessarily look like Mount Horton. Um there's a lot of different people, a lot of different backgrounds. As you imagine, there's a lot of different types of diversity even within a population that at face value looks it looks the same to people. So, um, it is about just sort of recognizing the strengths of those differences and understanding that people come from different places. Um, I do think it's really important that we don't lose the fact though that we have to look
044out for kids who have been historically marginalized, whether that's people of color, LGBTQ. Um, that there's no getting around the fact that that continues to be an issue. Uh, and it's probably one of the biggest sources of concern, fear among parents of those kids. How do they fit in? Where do they fit in? Just because it's that much easier to, um, you know, channel frustration, uh, anger, whatnot at people who are visibly different than you or act different to you or they belong in different groups, so to speak. So, um I think it's our our board has said time after time that we're not going to stand for anything less than full support of inclusivity in in the high school and and at the lower grades as well. Yeah. We also talked I think it
045was safety and wellness maybe we talked about it. We have a board um I don't know what we technically call it. It's a board like diversity statement. Um, and we've talked about kind of relooking at that because we haven't looked at it in a while. Updating it maybe if it needs to be updated. Yeah. Getting it out there again because it's on our website, but if you don't go to the website, you don't know it's there. Um, and we've also some of the things we've done in the community like we held a potluck. I forget what it was called, but everybody brought like a dish from their ethnicity and then there was a huge potluck. Um, try to do stuff like that to to bring in other cultures. Um and even like doing some of
046these field trips where people are going places so they can they can meet people like they did the um look at the dancers were they were twirling in the air Chinese or Japanese they're I don't remember but it was very cool um and taking kids to see that stuff that they're they're not going to see here right so trying to open their minds that way but I I struggled right away with this question like how are we going to write the policy we already have like we have our golden policy you know we have our we have our statement. We have a lot of policies in place, but I think um I think you're right. It comes top down. So, we need to start looking at our board statement again and maybe it up a
047little bit and put it back out there. And um yeah, we're I mean, we're lucky we're in a where we're at. You have a board right now that isn't going to put up with with any of it. Like, we'll we'll put our foot down. We're not going to we're not going to tolerate any of that here. just not. So that really answers your question, but I I think the biggest thing that that students can ask for going forward, you know, we have the policies, but how can we what insurance we have that they will be protected like kind of like our last question, right? The we have a lot of these like policies that teachers do. We are allowed to fly a private flight. We have these pronouns and email signatures. Other districts had these
048too, but some of them repealed them, right? So, how can we have assurance that these measures are going to be protected? I think it's important to remember at the same time that certain certain situations in which I know that one issue was when the um I believe it was maybe last June the pride flag was being flown at the high school and it did cause some issues more so in that some people's religions um not that they look down upon those people or like you know hate those people for choosing their actions but say that you know because of the religious beliefs okay I cannot support support this then they're being represented as supporting it and then almost in the uh almost feeling bad as like the discrimination against them for their religious beliefs and
049that they aren't allowed to have them or have those opinions. Um I think that the issue can also arise in the way that certain policies can obviously not be related to religion but um be certain things such as pride flags that can that can bump up against students um religions that they have and not necessarily the expression of those religions but the expression of things that rather aren't exactly against their religion but have support beliefs that are against against their religion and how that would also play a role in different policies in that that can also be a way that people can experience that sort of prejudice and being shown down that that their ideas or that their beliefs are forcibly seen as wrong. But then how positive would also address that side of the
050issue? Yeah. I mean go ahead. I think um the when when there was some of that discussion and the point that I where I stand on that is that the in that particular issue to Adam's earlier point LGBTQ people are one group that have been historically marginalized historically and today and the if there are people who feel that that is a against their own personal values. My argument would be that this is to be a straight white person is the norm, right? That is that is the norm. And um there [Music] is less of a call to celebrate the norm because it's celebrated every day by everybody. And I if I'm struggling a little with choosing the right words there to acknowledge that there are marginalized groups does not take away anything from from those
051others from anybody else regardless of what it is that you're what what marginalized group or what area you are elevating or highlighting at any particular time. Um, in terms of insurance, that's a tough one, right? Because it depends on the people, depends on the people in place. And so I would say that that democracy and voting is the insurance. Again, you have a board right now that is very committed to that. I when I like the one line I wrote down in answer to this question I read there was an article in the New York Times a couple weeks ago about an administrative judge at the EEOC who was federal as federal guidance was starting to come down she emailed her so her she emailed her team with what she felt was the right thing
052to do and um and she was recommended and then the quote that she gave to the paper was I can exist on cornflakes and community if it means that my soul is intact and that resonated with And that's how I feel. That's my personal that's my personal commitment and insurance that that we will continue to support um all of our students, every single one of them. And if that means that we know that that open expressions of of inclusivity help further that um sense of belonging from all of our students. So, and you would say that those I know this is kind of expanding on a question, but then would you say that those those certain examples that can go against the certain other ones that you consider being the norm? Um, I just wanted
053your take on the idea of certain things like, well, the norm often is, you know, treating people one way, but honestly, not always with kindness. I think people would say, oh, it's it looks bad if I'm kind to this person, so I shouldn't do that cuz I'm too cool for that. um and different things and how that can relate showing that well what will support visibly certain people but these people know um I'm just interested on how like it relates in the specific protection of some while the others that you know appear to be the normal on the outside as we were saying that much of Mora appears to be, you know, the normal and appears to be all of the same and how that relates then to those within the community who would technically
054fit within the normal box then say, well, but I'm still struggling with this. And I think it really ties into what you were saying with the anxious generation and how I think more so I feel like my question is more coming down to like view of of policies but even different actions on kind of all those people including those who would be technically the norm because usually they're written off as well they're receiving support already so we can look the other way but how we can kind of your view on positive that sort thing, adapting to fit, adapting to make sure that they are existing there for um the entirety of the student staff body. Yeah, I mean I I think I can state after what I've seen and how this district operates that um
055administrators, teachers, support staff, everyone straight on down is looking out for every kid all the time and that there's not special treatment given um to anyone based on different status or background or anything like that. So, um, I I guess I would say that I don't see there being an issue that way and that I feel like there's a lot of different supports built in for anyone who's having any issues of any kind and it should never be thought or assumed that um, life is easy for anyone, especially when you're coming through high school. Um, doesn't matter what your background is. It's not just about high school, it's about the world. So, a lot of people with a lot of money who are experiencing tough times. Um, so I think that the school district has
056shown itself to be committed uh to all kids all the time. And also to say if you want to get into like the religious aspect of it, we actually just had policy review on um observing religious ceremonies or whatnot. kids are allowed to pass take time out of the school day to go and um or whatever religious you know classes or anything else that they might have their own commitment. So we honor people who have different faith backgrounds uh who have no faith background. Uh this is this is a an environment where everyone's in it together. Everyone is different. But at the end of the day I come back to feeling really good about how this district um respects everyone and wants everyone to succeed. It really is amazing how fast time flies here tonight.
057That was a really great question to end the evening and certainly also the responses you provided. I think you all have a statement or two at the end uh in the script. Yeah. So, just thank you for taking your time to just give feedback to us and just you know a lot of these questions I come up with I just ask a couple people like what do you want out of the school board? So, I just like really appreciate you coming here tonight and just being able to answer this and being frank with us throughout all these questions. So, thank you so much. One thing we did still tell student council and I didn't think to say it is we all have email addresses and they're school district email addresses. So, you can email us
058from your school district email. So, if people have and they're all on the district website, you could just type our names and they should come up in like the directory. But you are more than welcome to email us if you have questions or if you think of something later you're like, "Man, I wish I would have asked them." You can shoot us an email. We one thing we will tell you is whatever. Like I'm not shy. I'll tell you. If you ask me a question, I'll unless I can't legally tell you an answer, I'm not going to tell you an answer. So, um I think we're all kind of that way. Absolutely. Thank you very much spent putting this together and spending the Thursday before spring break. being made with us. I know it's a
059very busy time for you and and I appreciate your interest and