001the next I took speech they like yeah they go like Dr please come back yeah you tell get up there I mean I right I can totally see that doing all the time yes boy this is like a classroom Glides right down thank you very much well I'm Keith Marty I'm the proud superintendent of the Parkway School District and it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight to the League of Women Voters uh annual uh candidate Forum thank you for coming out uh really appreciate uh your attendance and uh I know there'll be an opportunity for you to learn a lot about the candidates in the El before the election next week uh I want to just speak to the candidates a moment uh I've been a a superintendent for 23 years in a couple districts
002and I've been involved in education and I've learned over the years that there's uh there's something special about Schoolboard members and just the fact that people want to serve on the board and I I know if you know this but um they get a huge paycheck and they get uh a lot of benefits but just the fact that you when I when I think about democracy and I think about Service uh running for a school board is is one of the fine examples of people that want to really serve their community and serve children and I congratulate you for that interest and your and your willingness to put yourself out there in front of uh the voters in the community so thank you thank you very much the League of Women Voters has had a
003long tradition of uh sponsoring events like this and and uh I'm very very U proud of uh their work we should all be because they're willing to as an organization sponsor events like this so on behalf and I I failed to recognize a couple of our board members here tonight Jeff Todd our board president Jeffrey Spectre Debbie Hopper anybody else any other board members oh I'm sorry Tiffany Tiffany Matt Franklin I'm sorry uh are here tonight as well but uh it's my pleasure to to introduce vet Kell who's going to be vet Kell who's going to be our um moderator tonight and again I want to thank you for coming thank the board of the or the League of Women Voters and again thank you candidates that thank you very much thank you good evening
004everyone thank you so much for coming um as Dr Mar said my name iset Kell and I will be moderating this evening um I'd like to thank the Parkway School Board um for uh having us here and asking League of Women Voters to come and help moderate and be a part of this process um we believe deeply in these candidate fors because it gives the voters a chance to hear the candidates and what they believe in and um where they're coming from and we think that's extremely important as it comes to your decision to be an informed voter and hopefully everybody in here is already registered to vote and and ready to get to the polls on Tuesday um if you have not already done some absentee voting so um but I I'd like to
005put a shout out to all of our volunteers from the League of Women Voters in the uh in the audience this evening lelet will be doing our timing this evening so I will go over the ground rules momentarily but she has the paddle and she's not afraid to use it and then we have folks in the back Jan and Karen will be taking in questions so if you have any questions you would like to submit or sorry Nancy if you have any questions you'd like to submit if you've got a card or if you didn't get one of the index cards when you came in please feel free to go to the back and grab one and you can write a question down and then just wave it at them and they will get it
006up to me um it's important to understand that the questions that we're asking tonight the league did not make these questions we had an online portal people submitted questions so I have a list of questions that came in online prior to this evening and then have already received about seven questions from the audience um here tonight so I will get through as many questions as I can um we do have about 90 minutes here together and to go over the ground Ralls wanting to let you know how this is going to work each candidate will have two minutes for opening and closing remarks and then for each of the questions you'll have one minute to answer the question we will change the order of who goes first as we go through so we're going to
007start with Mr Williams here on the end and work our way through for the first round and then the second round we will start with um with John and work our way around and then we'll start with Kevin and work our way around okay um that way nobody is starting first the entire time and nobody's finishing last the entire time and nobody's in the middle the entire time it mixes up now I'm not going to say that after about question 10 I may lose where we're at in the system so keep me honest and just holler at me if I miss somebody or if I start in the wrong spot um we ask that you keep your remarks focused to the issues and not to um directing any uh questions at either any candidates um
008that we that the audience were respectful of everyone's answers and as they're coming in we don't need to provide any feedback other than giving a head noot if you need to okay um but please keeping it very civil we are here to hear what they have to say to the questions that we are asking um all right and then at 30 seconds you'll get a yellow and at the end of time you'll get a red I will let you finish a sentence but then I'm cutting you right off I also like to have fun in case you haven't noticed because we're here to have a good time y'all okay uh but we're here to learn learn more and we're very excited to get started right all right well we are ready to roll last letter
009are you ready to roll all right Mr Todd would you like to start us off with your opening remarks and this is where we're going to start two minutes okay with opening remarks and then we've got our microphone uh microphone man in the back he's going to take care of making sure that everyone can hear you all right very good can you hear me well thank you juette League of Women Voters I appreciate this um I want to say thank you to the candidates miss m nice to meet you Mr tettinger nice to meet you and also the the board members currently I appreciate your time you guys have done admirable work those six years you've been on here and as a parent I appreciate the time you've spent so thank you very much um
010um I also appre appreciate Dr Marty Dr Marty was uh able to sit down with me and actually answer a lot of questions he reached out to me and really did a very good job making me feel comfortable running for this position he also let me get in front of some of his administration and talk to them ask questions and really they all were very comforting in that position and answered a lot of those so I appreciate you Dr Marty for doing that I know as we discussed that there are other superintendents around the area and maybe Nationwide that don't even sit down with new candidates like that so I definitely appreciate that and in the coming months years whenever ever I really hope the next superintendent keeps that same mindset because I think it's
011very good for new candidates coming in so thank you very much um the three things that I've really focused on um in my campaign are school security I believe in the Parkway School District it's great that with in the middle school and the high schools we have sro's our full-time Security in all those positions the elementaries we have around 19 of those elementary schools ECC um ECC does not have any um security so what we need to do is actually get full-time security whether it be sro's or our own Parkway full-time security um in those positions immediately as soon as possible the next thing is we need to run the budget through the classroom and not as much through the administration we need to make sure these teachers are paid well and retained for all
012the good work they're doing and lastly we have two big events coming up Dr Marty is retiring and the CFO is retiring in June and we need to make sure there's a conservative on the board to get some more um get the group think out of the board and not have a 70 vote on that I appreciate your time thank you thank you Mr Tanger you're next well good evening and thank you a bet and the League of Women Voters for giving us this opportunity uh this evening and thank you folks for coming out out um just a little bit of uh backt trp on myself uh my wife and I have been Parkway residents for the last 35 years and I have three children that have all participated uh and have gone uh to
013Parkway schools uh I am not an educator by career I have two Educators in my family my wife uh worked at the college level but also worked for the Special School District for a number of years uh and my youngest daughter was currently a kindergarten teacher uh but I have for the last six years uh worked in the Rockwood School System as an oasis tutor uh at my daughter's school so I go in I work with the reading specialist uh one day a week uh and um uh work primarily with second third fourth grade students to try and Elevate their reading skills uh I'm running uh for the school board uh primarily to serve as a as a voice and as an advocate uh for the teachers in our system uh for our students uh
014for the parents and grandparents uh and and really for all the people that support this District uh on a day-to-day basis uh we have teachers that uh in their classrooms today uh are just really overwhelmed uh with a number of issues that uh I believe takes away from uh their ability to focus on academics in the classroom and I believe that's that's an issue uh and it's a concern uh we have um students that uh uh uh are performing at uh what I would consider uh below academic standards uh and I really would like to see an emphasis uh placed more on academics in our classrooms uh and less on some of the issues that are taken away from those academics thank you good evening I feel silly introducing myself with my name written in
015front of me but I'll do so anyway my name is Kevin Seltzer uh I'm a current Parkway School Board member along with Matt I've been serving for the last six years I also grew up in park way uh my wife and I both graduated from Parkway as did numerous relatives and obviously our kids attend Parkway schools uh sufficed to say we're a Parkway family I like to think I'm a Parkway guy uh and I just have the utmost respect and admiration for this district and I love being a part of it uh and one of the reasons I love it so much is our mission statement which if we didn't have these banners down would be on the wall behind me but it's an outstanding mission statement and what I really respect is how it
016informs all the decisions that we make a district or we we try to uh have our decisions informed by those words behind me um a colleague of mine who was on the board previously Sam Santino whenever we would get into you know a tough spot you know working through a problem he would always sort of bring us back in and say you know what how does it help kids and it was you know it's a simple sentence but to me it was such a guiding principle uh you know it's what we're here for obviously there's a lot of constituencies But ultimately at the end of the day we're here for kids and I like to think that you know we all try to live by that Creed and how can we help kids and that
017should be the Forefront of all of our decision- making uh to that end I've learned a great deal over my six years it's hard you know it's hard to become a board member you know there's no learning curve the day you're sworn in you're on the board uh and it takes time to understand all the acronyms and all you know know who the people are and what's going on around you but over the course of this last six years I feel like I've got a handle of things and I'd like to continue to put that experience uh to use I also think that uh I bring uh board stability uh I think we work well as a board we've handled some crisis some good times some bad times and I think things are going well
018and I I'd like to continue uh my uh to serve uh I also uh along with Matt uh bring board diversity you know both of us uh are in the geographical diversity my you I I represent the North District and I think it's important to have different areas of the district represented on the school board thank you all right my name is Matt shler I appreciate everybody coming out tonight I appreciate you getting involved in the Schoolboard election a lot of times Schoolboard elections get overlooked so I'm really glad you're coming out and for those that are actually watching through streaming too I'm glad you're here because these are important issues and for Parkway we are a large district and we do affect 177,000 kids and for my role on the board I joined Kevin
019on the board in 2018 it's been up and down obviously went through Co during that time but I've just gotten a greater appreciation of public education in general by being on the inside and the importance of it my kids have are going through one's already out one's still in at Parkway South it's been a great experience and I don't think we truly value what we have here at Parkway and I think right now in terms of um being on the board and what we have in Parkway we have a very stable board we don't bring politics into our discussions we leave our politics at home we're not Grand standing up here as board members trying to get more attention we're working as a group each individual board member is one person of a seven person
020team and you have to work together and I don't think it is a nonpartisan role and I think it's very important to get that out there because primarily what is best for the kids it's about the budget and human resources that is the Crux of it politics does not get into this so I really appreciate where the board is right now and I really want to see over the next three years of my last term um to see it take go further because I will say for me I felt a little left out during Co we lost a lot of time and I'm really excited about the next three years to take to the next level thank you thank you well good evening everyone and uh as the other candidates have expressed I want to
021thank you for being here um being a part of a process is really important and as a candidate for this opportunity I want to be part of that process um I will formally introduce myself as Dr Stacy miton um I am a 20 over 25 year resident of the Parkway School District um I began my education in Parkway in sixth grade before the voluntary transfer program was in place um I am a graduate and a Parkway South where I was president of my senior class and a proud mother of three Parkway successful graduates and a 17year retiree um of at the district level from Parkway I tell you those things not to boost myself up or give myself accolades but I think my experience matters I have something to contribute to Parkway because I know
022Parkway I have uh been involved um not only as an employe but as a parent and as a uh student I remember what it was like I remember what it was going through with my Stu with my children and then and on the district level in the position that I maintained I was able to experience What policies were important how to put forth the things that were necessary and good for children so with the things and the experience and my quote unquote accolades I think I have that to offer and that is going to make me the the candidat is going to give you workway what it needs because I'm coming from a place of knowledge and unique resources thank you thank you all right going to jump into the questions first question is a
023combination of one from the audience as well as one that came online and we're going to start with Mr teder and again one minute how would you define the role of a school board member well I think there's um several responsibilities but probably the primary responsibility that people look for is when it comes to having hire a new superintendent for the district uh that's a uh a big responsibility for the school board uh to ensure that U we bring in highly qualified people uh that are focused on U education uh and academics uh and I believe uh as it relates to Parkway uh uh an individual that uh can work with a diverse student population so I think that's probably our biggest role uh in addition to providing uh key resources that are that our
024teachers need uh to support them in the classroom uh and to you know manage the uh fiscal responsibility for the uh for the district thank you Mr s technically speaking the role of a school board member is twofold uh to adopt policies into hire and fire superintendent uh however the role in my estimation is more than that although as Matt alluded to it's a whole lot more HR than I anticipated when I got into the role uh I see it as two functions uh governance and advocacy obviously the the governance is straight forward you know we oversee hearings on disciplinary things we approve or don't approve things we ask questions uh the advocacy though to me is Paramount you know we're we're tasked with uh implementing the values of the the community into the operation
025of the school district you know we listen a lot we hear what people think how they feel we ask uh questions of the administrators and other stakeholders to make sure that you know the community is being served that the values of our community are being perpetuated through the actions of the school district uh in addition to that I also think we're advocates for public education in general and I don't take that part lightly and over the next three years I see that becoming an even bigger part of the role I we live in a state where uh local control is Champion however in school districts often that's not the case as we get marging orders from Jeff City that we have to follow but I think it's incumbent upon school board members to stand up
026for public education thank you the primary role is oversight both of the budget of policies of employees but I think it goes to an extra level really right now and I think um really what Kevin kind of said is the advocacy for both not just Parkway but public education in general because it really is under attack there were things happened in Jefferson right now that are not in the best interest of students and we're having to deal with it and push back on it and even locally in terms of our funding for our district there have been issues we've had to push back locally to try to preserve our funding for schools and it's not going to let up schools are a source of funding that people see and politician see that they want to
027get their hands on and I think we need to be a strong Advocate because we are the largest elected body in the state of Missouri we need to actually work together in a much more effective way to really promote public education in a broad way thank you and I would Echo what has been stated in terms of the the term advocacy advocacy is a big part is a very intrical part of what the board does but advocacy is seen in so many other levels and not just the overarching for the uh term it advocacy is seen in how you monitor the budget how you influence policies how you U make sure best practices are implemented in the district and you do you see advocacy occurring in your HR um uh support so so advocacy does
028cover is an umbrella for what the board does in the many areas that it touches and the advocacy also not only does it create the opportunity for voices to be heard in terms of as I said Human Resources um policy and budget but for people who make up the district the advocacy needs to be where you hear the people that are making it a part the board and who are supporting what the board is about so make sure you advocate for those who support the board thank you and Mr Williams I have to say I strongly disagree with Mr Schindler on the politics and leave that at home that is not correct uh there need to be robust debate amongst the Schoolboard members they need to actually come together and iron out what is right
029what is wrong come together with an agreement not a 70 stamp every time that they've been doing the last few years so yes I I I truthfully I disagree with you there um superintendent CFO these things are coming up very soon we need conservative votes on the board I think we get conservative votes on the board I think some of these other board members need an outlet to go to and not just a rubber stamp like they have been for all this time thank you very much thank you and I'll remind again not to address the other candidates this is your your thoughts and your um answers based on what you want to throw out there not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with anybody else okay it's not a debate um the next question came from
030online and this is a two-part question so what research have you done that has led to how you have established your principles regarding smartph smartphone uses in schools we're going to start with that one and then we'll move to the second one and we're going to start with Mr salzer so what research have you done that have led to your principles and how you feel about smartphone uses in school well the word research involves uh implies a probably a more formal background than I may bring to the answer to this question uh however Living in America for the last 30 years I can't help but all of us be somewhat experts in cell phones and cell phone use and etiquette uh the question is getting cell phone use in schools and it's a tough one
031it's actually one that you know came up with some buddies of mine the other day who's one their sons got in trouble having a cell phone at school and it's not easy and I don't know that that you can have an over overarching policy everywhere the reality is cell phones are part of our life they're going to be part of our kids' lives you know on when they go home from school when they grow up when they go to college I don't think you can teach and run a school and pretend that they don't exist I also think that parents uh for safety reasons and others have become dependent on their kids having a phone uh so I don't think you can get them out of our buildings uh are they distractions yeah absolutely and
032I but I do think that it's not really the role of a school board to decide you know where a kid's cell phone should be in the course of a day I think it's a decision that's better left to our teachers and principles who you know they're on the ground and can manage those things so that they're used effectively and responsibly thank you Mr shler my research I've looked around quite a bit had a number of discussions with my family even about the issue and how we handle it and um I think right now it's part of it is too their phones are going to be there we got to teach our kids how best to manage it and I do appreciate some of the teachers are really pushing back and they are having their
033little pockets hanging in the classroom when the student walks in they put them in the um pocket it's gone for the rest of the class other teachers want to have that in the classroom and use as a tool too so again I'm not sure if we put a policy out there on cell phones but it definitely needs to be addressed in a more direct way and maybe something even school by school to try different things to manage it because it is part of our lives is it always positive no but is it partially positive yes so we got to find our best way for us as teachers and our students to manage them thank you when you asked the question I smiled because you said research and I think research is a subjective term um
034in terms of where your sources of information come from and I will say that my research comes from my experience being in the district and uh being on the end of utilizing and then working with those to try to help them not utilize it so much so it came from working with students in this very space um when they wanted to use their phones and when they didn't need to so it's a tricky type of situation and as was referred to um it's it's the way of the society that we live in they're going to exist and in many academic environments is necessary and in some it is not so it's really U as was stated up to it should be back up to the educator of the classroom that is where it is being
035utilized to you to say how it best needs to be utilized thank you Mr Williams that should determine this absolutely 100% it's their classroom it's a privilege not a right to have a phone if that student loses that right it should go in a pocket I agree I think that shouldn't be in a pocket and be taken away um I think this is the only way to do it Parkway has been around 70 years um um it is part of our Lives now but we need to get back to educating these kids and if they're on their cell phone underneath the desk they're not being educated and they could actually be a distra distraction to the rest of the students thank you very much thank you Mr teder I firmly believe that uh there's no
036place in the classroom for a cell phone uh you know I believe that uh children uh should have the right to bring their cell phones to school uh in case they need to be contacted but uh in terms of that cell phone being available in the classroom to me it's just uh an additional distraction that the teachers have to deal with uh they are dealing with so many issues in the classroom whether it behavioral emotional um to deal with children that uh uh in many cases uh are are more fixed to their phones than they are to anything else uh I think it's just a distraction that uh that takes away again from the teacher's ability to control the uh the classroom and focus on AC DCS thank you the second part of this question
037um and we'll start with Mr shener is still related to technology so this stud study results are clear that the use of Technology including School provided Chromebooks um and specifically smartphones during school hours is detrimental to Student Learning in building Community what steps will you take to encourage Parkway District level administrators to develop a holistic districtwide approach based on best practices in high performing schools across the country to ensure that our students learn in the best environment possible all right well OB technology with us so part of our education does need to include technology and the best management of it but I'll say one thing we're seeing here in Parkway and seen other districts too is the opposite of the phone is actually getting kids outside using outdoor education pieces that's partially what my work
038does so I'm I have an extra passion for it but that is the environment we need to get back to I think we realized during Co the benefits of nature the benefits of getting outside and schools learn the benefits of Education that can happen outside too so we're seeing more of that St Louis wide and in Parkway and I would really love to see the balance in you're going to have technology as part of the education and a Chromebook can be useful but we need to do the opposite get the phone away from them get them outside in nature you can teach them science math have them do English class outside there's many topics you can take outside and have the same experience the same education and honestly nature relaxes you when the kids get
039outside they come back in the classroom in a better mood thank you Dr M yes I um I agree that technology is necessary it is it means that it's it's function it's the way our society and where we are functioning and children are learning by leaps and bounds by utilizing technology but it needs to be done with a balance because it is not the only way for for learning to be held you um you spoke of Outdoor Learning you spoke of there's a cre there's a opportunities for Creative Learning um and other avenues for Learning and technology is not the only way so there definitely needs to be a balance that needs to be created in terms of its use thank you Mr Williams yes I I believe there has to be a balance um
040back to the phone I agree it shouldn't be in the classroom the Chromebooks are part of the classroom and I should be continuing to be in the in the classroom I think the thing that's going to come up over the next few years is chat GPT being able to write papers do research in a whim and there's going to be a delicate balance between the teachers knowing what is AI and what is not Ai and that is going to have to be addressed by our our curriculum superintendent and how this is going to be functioning because there's going to be a point in time where you're not going to be able to see the difference and that's that's that's a problem thank you Mr teder um I believe that uh technology is um is a
041valuable tool technology is um uh it's part of our lives today and uh and our children have to understand uh not only how to use technology but uh uh how to use it properly and the role that it's going to play in their lives uh in terms of uh technology in the classrooms um uh you had referred to possibly benchmarking you know I think benchmarking best practices uh is um a valuable tool uh you know I my career was not in uh education it was in packaging and we use benchmarking all the time and that's how you measure yourself against the best thank you so that was an awfully long question but it starts with a a premise which I kind of take issue with which is that technology is detrimental to our students um
042one of the things we learned during covid is when we all had to go virtual is yes it was not ideal and there are certain kids that very much struggled with it but there were also kids that were finally able to succeed For the First Time by removing barriers and focusing you know their learning through technology not to say that that's for every kid but I reject the premise that using technology is somehow detrimental to our students uh but the other thing that I think the question gets into is what really is the role of a school board member and having sat in this chair for six years I can tell you that no teacher has ever asked me you know how much computers they should let their kids use it's just not something a
043school board would necessarily get involved in but how can we be involved how can we help in this area and I think you know match Point's well taken getting outside is great finding different ways to learn it's great how can we as a board facilitate that the answer is to to shape a district that attracts good people and good teachers and good administrators and then let them have the freedom to utilize technology in a way that is advantageous to their students thank you all right so we're gonna start with Dr miton on the end and this question is from the audience tonight and um what ways have you supported Parkway prior to serving or running for the Parkway School Board what ways have I what ways have you supported Parkway prior to serving or running
044for the Parkway School Board well I'm going to my initial comments of my I indicated that I was a 17-year retiree um and not only did I get paid for the position but I gave back above and beyond um in my role as an employee I was at the district level and I was involved in District level committees District level um initiatives that created things that went beyond my role um as an employee and then in addition to that and most currently I am the a member of the Executive Board of the parkway Alumni Association so I felt that as an Alum I had something to give back I had a good experience in Parkway and I wanted those other alums in Parkway to realize that that they had something to give back and offer
045to so in that way as a member of the Alumni Association I have had the opportunity for the past three years to do that and have moved up to the executive board level so I can make it an even more intentional give back opportunity thank you that's how I've done it thank you Mr Williams uh I guess the first thing I've done in my 27 years of being a taxpaying citizen in Parkway district is being in good standing um also uh my sophomore son goes to Parkway and he loves to play basketball uh I helped a coach a basketball team a junior Longhorn team since third grade all the way up till they were taken in as freshmen and and that the rains were turned over so that was an enjoyable uh time during his
046life and and I was able to coach and I hopefully that will benefit the program in years to come and we have a very strong Junior program in in Parkway now across all sports but I have to take credit for a little bit in the basketball area thank you very much thank you Mr teder I I guess in my 35 years in the parkway District my biggest contribution has been paying taxes for 35 years um but uh you know aside from that all joking aside I um all of our children were very active uh in in Parkway athletically uh so I was uh I was very supportive of uh not only what they were doing individually but of the parkway teams um I did have a career that kept me on the road quite often
047uh but I came back uh uh for those events particularly uh when my children were involved uh I I've really had very little uh opportunity to be involved directly with the schools other than U uh through uh PTO uh and here recently I've been attending uh the parkway school board meetings just to better understand what's going going on here in the district thank you well uh my first six years in Parkway grade 7 through 12 I was a pretty significant drain on Parkway resources um but I like to think that the time subsequent I've made up for it as a school board member I've I've probably had several thousand hours of meetings answered and responded to and read I can't even imagine 10,000 emails uh all and as Dr Marty pointed out all for a
048very significant Sou but I do think I've hopefully made up for the first years with the latter years of supporting the district in this capacity thank you and Mr for our family we chose Parkway we chose Parkway to grow our kids we moved from another area before our oldest reached on kindergarten so honestly before the school board there an active father going to father daughter dances going to parent teacher conferences going to art fairs just being an active participant because I'm a big advocate of public school schools and we need to have more parents involved with their kids' education and going to events going to the parent teacher conferences and I think that was doing that and being involved in that got me excited and then an opportunity arose to join the school board it
049was a great fit because I it just it took it to the next level I got to get a behind the scenes understanding of what it takes to run a school district the challenges and the successes of that so it's been a fun ride and I'm hoping to get three more years of the ride thank you all right starting back up at the top this one's about school safety um and came in online what are your views on school safety measures against acts of violence specifically how some districts allow School Personnel to conceal carry firearms on school property with valid licenses would you be for or against the specific policy um as far as the if it's within an SRO or private Parkway security I would be in favor of that and that's one of
050my major platforms is is securing the schools um so I think it does lead to those issues of maybe an SRO our private security would help with those problems that arise in the classroom and not just leave it up to the teacher to do this themselves we are hiring new counselors next year that are going to be helping in this area but I think security would be a major major step in helping the teachers do their job even better and not have to deal with that on a daily basis of distracting the other students who are trying to learn at a very good pace and not just continuing to restart every time someone has to be taken out of class thank you thank you Mr tender uh I had significant U uh uh training with
051weapons in my four years in the military uh and I guess my view on uh weapons or people carrying uh in the schools if um if we have professionals whether they're police or security people that have U uh have U proper training uh and understand the proper use of these weapons uh I would fully support that but uh I'm not so much in favor of people just uh concealing and carrying uh without really fully understanding um what their capabilities are and how they would react in a serious situation thank you Mr saler so I I think the question's asking not so much about police officers but about concealing and carrying in schools and you know as a board member and particularly in nights like this it's kind of incumbent upon us to sort of you
052know see both sides of issues and kind of come to a consensus however I can't help the feeling that I it's hard to imagine something I'd be more opposed to than inserting more Firearms into schools it's just not a place where we need to have armed teachers and it's just it to me there's ways to secure schools some of them can be done at the board level arming our teachers and folks in our building it seems to be about as bad an idea as you could have I agree um yeah I do not think we should be arming teachers Administration leave it to the professionals but I will say though um in terms of resources that are out there we have put a lot of resources in Parkway into security for the bond issues with
053double door security extra windows the signage you see in this room they're taking lots of steps it's it's sad commentary on our society right now though but public schools are a reflection of our culture right now we're having to react to it react to it I've been through both the um training our teachers get for acce Shooters I've gone to the high school and seen their drills it's scary but we have to do it right now which is sad in terms of what going on in our culture right now and I hope as a whole for the culture we can improve the situation I was waiting oh it's okay now okay um well my first just initial just thought is that safety obviously is of of utmost importance because it impacts the learning environment so
054significantly if a child does not or a teacher staff person um does not parent that comes into the building is not do not feel safe then there's there's a problem there um and along with that but I do not believe that we need to start carrying in um weapons um as Educators and as staff within our buildings I remember um as an employee we went through a a approach where it was being considered for for the teacher to conceal and it was so not supported and it's not NE it isn't necessary there's already enough problem in our society as it relates to gun violence and things that are going on with outside the schools why bring that into the schools um and and there are measures that can be put in place to provide safety
055but not with teachers carrying G no thank you all right we will start with Mr tettinger and um this is a combination of a couple of different questions that came in online as well as we asked here this evening what does Equity versus equality mean to you well when I think of um when I think of equality uh and and many of you have seen the uh there's caricatures of uh uh they compare Equity with uh equality uh if you had three people that were three different heights and they're trying to look over a fence to look at a ball game uh you would give each of them a different um uh height of a stool uh so that they would all have the same opportunity to look at the game from the same height
056uh so that would be treating everybody equally um uh if if you treated them equally and uh they were of different heights the shortest person uh may not be able to see over the fence uh Equity uh would be a situation where uh you would uh provide the tools uh so everybody could look over that fence uh with differ sized uh stools uh and and they could achieve the same uh result uh with with a different height stool so you know equity and and equality uh uh equality is going to uh treat everybody the same uh Equity is to treat people differently but look for a similar outcome thank you Mr szer I'm also familiar with the uh Cartoon that John was alluding to and if I had been the first to answer this question
057I'm guessing I would have done something similar try because it does explain the difference far better than I think we can articulate in our minute um but to sort of piggyback what he was talking about you know equality is about you know equality is should be a given the equity component is you know equality is treating everyone the same which fine you know Equity is about taking into account where our students come from what their experiences are what their needs are and creating an opportunity for all the students to succeed and that might mean treating some students differently than others which is not necessarily a bad thing you know we all come into you know kids come into a building coming from different places and different backgrounds and different experiences and it's harder Equity is
058a lot harder than equality because teachers it puts more on a teacher to understand the student before them and find a way to get through to that student to help them succeed and that should be the goal of of an of a school district and it's not easy but it's important thank you I think definition is kind of laid out there so I just kind of take it to the next level in terms of um with equity in education it is really personalizing as best we can to serve the students and we're seeing more of that tested out in Parkway with to rental Springs and now at Central Middle we're trying to meet the needs of the kids trying to figure out where they're at to get them to the next level rather than giving
059them a blanket just read your chat CH and come back take the test and I think it's really it's exciting to see I encourage you to get a chance to visit those schools please do because I think it's kind of the where we're heading right now we are really and is more work for the teachers they'll admit to it too but it's exciting for them because they're seeing the results also coming off that personalized learning and that an approach that really where is the kid at where are there what's where do they need extra help to push them over the line and then have that success we're seeing that and hopefully see that more throughout the district you know as as was uh reference the definitions have been stated and really when you think about
060Equity um it's not so much Equity versus equality because you cannot put one against the other they need to be done simultaneously and they are often uh transposed two terms Equity definitely refers to fairness um and it's a checks and balances um it's a gauge of what is fair and who is being treated fairly and with equality in education is about seeking a Level Playing Field which Parkway has sought hard to work towards and with not only Department that I was in but just within the different spaces that I was in we worked to make sure equality was sought in terms of the curriculum um best practices providing a cultural responsive plan for children so the two terms while different they work they need to work together thank you and Mr Williams um equality everyone
061has an opportunity Equity is equal outcome uh put it in basketball terms if you're shooting free throws uh equality is shooting until you make it 10 times let's say Equity is moving the lineup until you can make it 10 times so I believe equality is very important and we need to keep that in the Parkway School District thank you all right Mr saler you're start us off with um what is your background um or what background do you have working with underrepresented groups and how do you um what skills have you developed in order to help better communicate and support underrepresented groups this would be a tough one to go first on um well I could get real cute as a lawyer and talk about uh representing unrepresented clients but I don't think that's what
062the question is asking you know the question is asking you know how what what do we bring to this position to help underrepresented folks uh and to me what that what I that speaks to is addressing the achievement Gap that we have in America and every in Parkway as well and uh it's to me a big a primary focus as school board members is how do we create a district that can narrow that Gap to create a situation where all of our students have an opportunity to succeed uh and it's not a straightforward question and it's something that that doesn't have an easy answer but I think as a school board it's a come it upon us to adopt policies to adopt procedures to try to put people in place to help bridge that Gap
063thank you um for me I've had my career has been a nonprofit so I work refugees and immigrants coming to St Louis helping them hopefully start a business grow a business here in the region and then of late I work for an agency that promotes Community Gardens and school Gardens across the region both through city um St City s County Madison County and St Clair County so it's really I think the approach is where the where are the communities at where are the people at what assets do they have already I think a lot of times we always think look at people with a deficit they don't have this they don't have that what do they already have how can you build upon that to help build their projects build their expectations of what they
064want to have whatever that dream is for them and their local community and themselves so I think in terms of working with other communities and trying to build them up that's kind of been my career so thank you a similar way that Mr SSA just respond has been my career it's really been my life um I have chosen to uh be part of environments and spaces where I serve as an advocate for an underrepresented voice an underrepresented group an underrepresented organization um and going back to my experience in my role as a district counselor that was the responsibility of what I did across the district not just in one school one area but across the district and it wasn't just my job it was my job to make sure the district was working towards working
065with underrepresented populations so it wasn't just one person's responsibility but I did have the experience to do that not only within Parkway but currently I'm on the board um of with an organization of Children's Home and working with the same population so I continue to do that because that's my life's Mission thank you Mr Williams I have not had the privilege of doing that actually before but I believe the way Parkway operates that I've seen in real life is equality I think every child that walks through that door has an equal opportunity of getting out and graduating from Parkway and I think we need to continue that I think we've done a very good job over the 70 years but we need to maintain that and bring it up to the standards of today and
066make sure that everyone does have an equal opportunity and have that continue thank you thank you Mr tiener you know my experience in the packaging industry we worked with a very uh diverse group of U uh employees across all the plants that I was responsible for uh many immigrants uh people that came in from uh lower income areas and uh you know uh my view was always to uh provide every employee that we had uh the opportunity to be as engaged as they could uh not only with uh what we were doing in the business but with our with our uh with our customers uh so we spent a lot of time uh working with folks not only to bring their skill sets up uh but to uh actively get them involved uh so that
067they uh understood not just the uh the business itself but uh our customers and we would get them out into the field uh to interact with them thank you all right we're starting with Mr Schindler and this next question um what would you do to address the racial disparity in suspensions I'll will admit the hardest part of the um being on a school board being a Schoolboard member is discipline hearings and having to figure out what is the best future for some of these kids when they've done bad things and um the disparity we have right now and some of the discipline we have it's a problem and we're getting better I think in terms of really breaking down some of the numbers across the district to see if there are patterns or certain issues
068happening at certain schools we're making progress but we're not there yet so I think it's going to take more effort both Administration the school board and all the schools to kind of close those gaps thank you my first response is to continue what was done when I worked in the district to put forth the policies and initiatives to address the racial um disparities that did exist within discipline I sat on DRC the discipline Review Committee for a year and witnessed the disparities um and we as a group focus group the equity tax Force for three years we spent time to focus on and look at and research what was going on what what constituted those disparities and then beyond that you I would Advocate to put in resources to dispel those disparities meaning provide the
069counselors and staff that was necessary to address the issues that were done from the research so research has to have been done which it has been done and then it needs to be continued and then therefore you need to put the people in place to do the work that the research showed thank you Mr Williams um I think this goes back to the um diversity of ideas on the board to be honest with you I think there's plenty of school districts around the country that are probably addressing this issue and have been very successful at this issue I think you bring some of these to the board and let's discuss them take the good take the bad but not just rubber stamp everything like we've been doing if there's problems going on maybe we need
070to change things maybe we need to look at things differently and that's how you have alternate ideas on the board and maybe you can come up with different ones and Implement some but keep some the same but I agree this has to be changed this is this is falling way too much on the teachers as far as letting them handle this first um but we need to change this thank you Mr teder you know I believe that um our approach towards disciplinary action should almost most be color blind uh you know uh from my standpoint uh there should be a progressive disciplinary system in place and everybody should be held accountable uh to adhere to those disciplinary procedures um uh irregardless of uh of background or Race So to me it's it's it's a it
071shouldn't be a racial issue thank you Mr salzer um first of all uh I want to Echo a couple of things that were said over here um first of all Matt's correct it it's the absolute hardest part of a of this job is dealing with discipline issues sitting in a room for a kid who's made mistakes and figuring out you know what we're going to do about this kid's future it's it's devastating it's a it's it's the toughest part of this job and um so I don't take any of this lightly uh as far as the question at hand I think it'd be really hard to U say more than you Stacy said it perfectly and you know she's been in this role and it' be arrogant of me to think I could say that
072better than she did but uh everything that she was discussing I think is a part of the solution to the issue that you're discussing uh and I think what goes along with that is is owning that there is an issue you know this the this issue is before us and in lots of districts uh but not hiding from it and I think Parkway to its credit owns up to it you know we we had the state of the district uh the last two years and we make those those some of those uh statistics public and we say this is a problem this is an area where we can do better uh and this is a Marketplace of ideas and there no we we should be exploring all sorts of options to make uh to improve
073in this area thank you all right so we're starting with Dr meon this time and we're going to um we're going to Staffing we're going to talk about Staffing a little bit um we are losing middle middle career teachers 12 to 20 years at a pretty rapid rate how will you encourage the district to find and offer solutions that will keep our experienced Educators in the classroom that that is a that was a very significant issue when I uh worked on the various committees specifically refering making reference to the equity task force but then looking just across the board outside of Parkway teachers leaving education um at record-breaking rates is really sad um and what I would like to what I what we began to do was look at the reasons they were leaving uh
074uh low salaries uh low morale not enough resources not enough support and so what I would do is look at addressing those issues they're definitely something that's happening at the state level because those are the issues that the legislator is focusing on um looking to first of all increase teachers pay because teachers are the most undervalued profession um that that exist and they are the ones that provide the basis and foundation for everything your politicians your athletes entertainers all that kind of stuff so definitely increase teacher salaries um but then look into issues of morale what's going on that teachers are leaving why are they leaving you know and then in addition well I'm sorry thank you I was gonna let you finish the sentence thank you then that was give them more give them
075more money Mr Williams um I believe there's three things I believe the disciplinary problems are a huge issue of why they're leaving and going to either private schools or Charter Schools um pay is definitely one um that's a hard issue to to do as far as a public school because you are there are certain years in and there's certain pay that is that needs to be addressed but maybe we should look at partnering with the Special School District and figuring out how we can partner as far as the kids that are in the classroom and special training for the the teach teachers on how to deal with that um because I I talked to a lot of teachers and there's a lot of issues with the internal workings of classrooms and the amount of work
076that's put on them and not the Special School District or assistance or things like that so I think there's a combination that again needs to be hashed out with the teachers and the principls and the board all looking at this together coming up with a better solution thank you Mr teder uh I believe this is a a critical issue uh uh in in the school district here uh from the standpoint that um we need to win the classroom back for our teachers uh our teachers uh are struggling in the classroom uh they come to work day in and day out uh uh with a love of educating their children uh and with the distractions whether it's emotional social uh whatever the issues are uh there there are so many distractions in the classroom that take
077away from the teachers's ability to focus on what what they truly love to do uh that uh we need to we need to get win them back that classroom uh and give them the resources they need to take care of the other issues and let them focus on what they love to do best and that's just to to educate these kids thank you so yes of course the easy answer would be just to have throw more money at the problem and Pay Teachers what they actually deserve unfortunately as a public school we're constrained by a budget and there's only so much resources to go around and so I I just don't think it's I would like to see teachers make more money but this problem is not going to be solved solely uh in that
078vein uh I sort of thought after the pandemic when all of us were home with our kids for a couple of years that we would start to really really appreciate what teachers were doing and and I think to an extent that's happened but it hasn't you know created the financial um result that you would have hoped for uh but how do we keep our veteran teachers engaged uh if we take money out you know other than the money part of it and I think part of it is giving them some autonomy uh part of it is giving teachers the opportunity to hone to to teach the way they want to teach obviously there's constraints and there's curriculums but the more we can let teachers do what they love do what they do and have control
079over how they do it I think that will go towards having a happier workplace and a workplace that uh retains more teachers I do think there's a couple other things that we can work on class sizes uh balance the workload you we put a lot on our teachers as far as educating and also social and emotional uh well-being and those things are all important I certainly don't want to see them go away but if we can help teachers this is a really long sentence because my time went out but if we can okay I'll let back take it from here well I guess for me um it's a little personal because my oldest daughter is a senior in college she wants to be a teacher she wants to go to public school so what does
080her future look like and I think for Parkway though we're lucky we do pay well we do have good benefit benef and we are adding more support part of it is to support in the classroom because teachers are getting more and more placed upon them and they need more support even just with custodians we're down on custodians in terms of Staffing teachers are having to clean rooms now so we need to get back to fully staff ourselves and actually get some of the burden off the teachers going forward and then honestly work with the Union too we need to talk to the teachers figure out what they need and what they want and what's going to keep them here because we are a destination district and we need to keep it that way yes we
081we have teachers here that have issues and struggles we're working with them but we still are a high level District that do attract administrators and teachers from around the region thank you all right starting back at the top Mr Williams okay um an average of 46% of Parkway students are not testing in standardized testing at grade level as a new or reelected board member how do you plan to address this statistic um I really believe we need to get back to let the teachers do the teaching and the parents do the parenting um we can't allow the Parkway School District to assume the role of the parents it's it's putting way too much on the teachers we need to get back to the parents helping out much much more and I think this this really
082could help with these test scores one one major thing that I think has been going on as far as this testing and proficiency and things like this we've been seeing the gpa's climb as the proficiency has gone down and I think that's a lot to do with parents complaining about the GPA and it's that's not right we need proficiency is the key to graduating these students and we need to get back to that as a district and helping these teachers to taking the burden off them is one way to do that thank you thank you we just went to mood lighting somewhere if someone walks over there it'll go back oh oh oh gotcha say lack of Moval there we go it is it's a commercial break hang on all right uh Mr teder if
083you need me to repeat it let me know no um you know I believe that uh uh we've all experienced a little bit of a drift in public education from uh uh from its primary activity and that's been to focus on academics and critical thinking and U I think that U um because of uh the issues that our our teachers are faced with in the classroom and their inability at times to uh fully focus on academics that that certainly affects the uh the students outcome uh but I also I'm a firm believer that uh there needs to be more parental involvement too uh to uh support what the teachers are doing in the classroom uh quite often uh we see uh parents uh uh leave everything up to the teacher uh but there needs to
084be a lot of Parental support to go along with what the teachers are doing in the classroom thank you so the lawyer and me wants to pick apart the question and that you said 46% are not testing at grade level and obviously I don't know where that statistic comes from and I can't vouch for the accuracy of it um but I guess it begs the question what does that mean to be testing at grade level and to me two thoughts come to mind one we just came out of a global pandemic and the kids you're talking about also had two years that were very different from two years that a lot of other kids have had over the last over the course of history and to hold them to a certain standard might not exactly
085be the fair but the other thing it highlights to me is what is assessment and how do you assess students and I am proud to be part of this District we have a assessment Department uh that is everyone's trying to hire our people because we do our assessment is outstanding you know we we are uh part of an initiative to change the way Missouri um you know evaluate schools I think figuring out how we evaluate students and then how to reach them is you know a Paramon concerns so just to say yeah our kids their 46% are not tasting the grade level I don't think tells anywhere near the story and to say that you know we should just be focusing on academics I think that's problematic too because some of these kids are having
086trouble learning because they're dealing with other things and if we can help them to get to a place where they can learn it's not just the academics you know we have these are people not test scores sorry I got distracted stole my answer wow okay dang it um but really yes test scores have dropped over the past few years and it's not just a Parkway it's St Louis it's the whole nation but but you look at parkway's numbers are still above well above Missouri average too so our standards are still there just we're dealing with it we're trying to figure it out and the testing system we have is not the greatest right now and I think I I applaud Parkway for joining other districts trying to find a better way to track and actually
087take that data in a much more time timely fashion to put it into actually action because reporting comes out so late from the state we can't actually get to the kid to actually make a change so if we actually as park now moves ahead with a hopefully in the next couple years a new method of actually assessing and judging our kids we can actually be more responsive for them to helpfully get them up to where they need to be in a much more efficient fashion thank you I want to ditto or Echo what Mr seler said because you answered that question very well because you identified what happened um when we came out of the pandemic and as an educator having been part of the pandemic and then as an educator working with students that
088came out of it they were still behind um and we're still C and and our students are still catching up in ways you know test scores are a barometer of one's learning Mr Williams says they are not the indicator of how proficient they are how knowledgeable they are and so our measurements of success need to be looked at they need to be looked at in a different way you know test scor should not be the only way you determine if a child is successful or not um and I want to applaud Parkway as was indicated that they were working towards doing that their assessment Department was great and we provided statistics and opportunities that gave us information to look at different ways of mar measuring Student Success test scores don't do that thank you all
089right Mr teder we're going to start with you and this next question is about book Banning what role do you believe the school board plays in Banning or not Banning a books and where do you stand on how to incorporate teachers parents students that's the end of the question that's the end of the question sorry I should I should have said question mark yes uh I guess my uh my view on book Banning is that uh um the books in our school libraries um I think should uh the only books that we should have in our school libraries are those that are age appropriate uh you know I I do not believe that uh we should have books in our libraries that uh are pornographic uh um uh and and not age appropriate for our
090children um I don't believe that uh it's our responsibility to to ban books but if uh uh if parents want their children to look at books that are not age appropriate for the kids they can go to the public library and look at it uh but we have a responsibility in our schools I think to make sure that uh nothing in our our libraries uh uh are out out side being age appropriate for the children uh in our grade schools or middle schools or high schools thank you so I first heard the question I want to be glib and just say uh no role in Banning bucks and then pass it off to Matt it's just like emphatic but I think the question deserves perhaps a little more discussion than that uh we talk about
091local control in government and this is an issue that I think requires that yeah I I think state federal bans on books are are silly and counterproductive we at Parkway have good people we have good Librarians we have good teachers I assure you that they if you hire good people and you have those people in place they are not voting pornography on our children and I don't think it's the board's role I think to decide what books go in a classroom I think it's the teachers and Librarians role to decide what goes in a classroom what to assign and what is appropriate furthermore it's counterproductive for two reasons the first being um you know when there was the ban on some books or I think that was beginning of this school year last year here
092um what it prompted us to do is go through use a lot of administrator time going through books but we also had to cancel all the students access to the public libraries because we didn't know what was there and we couldn't risk having our teachers arrested uh and so the kids ultimately suffer because you know they lose access to public records it's also counterproductive and then I think there's no sure way to get a kid to read a book than to ban it thank you thank you Mr Schindler I agree with most of that I'll just add on to it really because in Parkway if a parent has an issue with a book we can put a check on it they don't check it out the library and there's a process we have too if
093there's a book that we actually parent believes should be out of the library there's a process for that we have a committee for that it's already set up there's no need to have anybody else outside of us judging by what kind of books we put in our classrooms and the other issue too is the fact that I always find it very humorous because the phones they have has much more information out there than a book will ever have that could be actually be offensive thank you my first thought to the the question was there's no place for book banning at all because when you ban books that's eraser of Education of history of knowledge and that is not what our society is about and it's definitely not what the Parkway School District is about the
094Parkway School dist spouses learning um critical thinking and um just out side of the box and if you bet a book you take that away and that is not what needs to be needs to happen in the district at all thank you Mr Williams yes uh I believe the school board has no role in Banning books at all um age appropriate and I it pains me to agree with Mr Seltzer but excellent excellent Librarians in the Parkway School District we need to rely on them we need to rely on them let them do their job thank you thank you all right Mr saler we will start with you what what role should a school play in student mental health and socio emotional development um inactive rule is the short answer the longer answer is harder
095uh you know some of the kids that come into our buildings you know it's easy to you know assume that you know everyone has a similar background to you but that's 100% not the case the kids come to our buildings come from all all different places you know some of them don't know where their next meal is coming from some of them are you know being you know in an abusive situation some of them have you know an alcoholic parent and they come into a building and then you know they're expected to learn but that building might be the only place that they can get help the only place that there's an adult that they can trust and so I think it's incumbent on us as a district to make our buildings safe welcoming places
096and to meet the needs of these students because you know it's easy to say we should be focused on academics they should learn science they should learn math and they our students should but you can't really learn science or math if you've got all that baggage you're walking in the door with and we need to be there for these kids to help them because in a lot of instances we're the only people that ever will be thank you I mostly agree because really you think about 30 years ago the answer would have been different nowadays mental health is part of our education system and yes we are still teaching the core subjects but we are having to put more resources into getting the mental health state of our kids in a good place so they
097can come in classroom like Mr szer said and learn be in a place to learn because if you have trauma you have issues you walk in the classroom you're not ready to learn so it it's it's evolved for public education and taking this role on that we have to do it and it's going to continue and there's more and more issues coming up and I think as a district we're learning about other um challenges to learning and we're I'll admit we're learning too as we go through this process about different um disabilities different challenges our students have and we're adapting as best we can with the goal of trying to serve all of our students best way we can thank you I Echo what has been said that involvement in mental health um initiatives and
098education is a must um with throughout the entire District not just for those who are hired to do that as I was as a district counselor working with individual families um and students in and out of the classroom visiting homes um working with students through the uh the pantry um after school you have to Pro provide a support for their mental well-being because they will not be able to function and learn within the classroom and school environment and if the district doesn't support that intentionally you will not see the you will see some results that are not very good for the students of the district thank you Mr Williams yes um so I actually was dropping off ass sign to a teacher a kindergarten teacher that just retired last year and she brought up a
099very interesting point of during the covid issue um the the the students coming back now to class when you get them in the kindergarten class we are putting the curriculum at a very fast pace to try to catch up with things and what she pointed out was these kids are have a lot of social anxiety going on that was supposed to be taken care of earlier on and you're speeding the process on quickly on these kindergarten teachers and it's going to create more problems lastly I think the 15 new counselors that Parkway is is Staffing next year I think it's going to be excellent for the district I think that was a great move and um I look forward to to uh helping those counselors do that thank you Mr tender uh I I agree
100with uh with Kevin's comments relative to um uh schools do need to take an active role uh in supporting U uh these issues uh and and students do feel need to feel that they can come to a a safe and welcoming environment I don't believe that it's the teachers responsibility uh in the classroom to uh not only have to deal with academics but to be uh a counselor so to speak and to handle all these issues uh that's uh that's one area where uh as you come to board meetings here the teachers are screaming for resource support uh to address those issues and and to get help in the classroom but uh we have have to take an active role to help those kids but uh U you know I think teachers need resources to
101to do it properly thank you all right this is going to be the final question for the night and I know I have not gotten to all of them I will address that momentarily I have a lot up here I'm trying to shuffle around um but this is going to be the final question for the night and and it is going to be a softball question I'll throw that out there right now um because I'm going to I'm going to challenge you for your closing remarks but uh what do you think are the top three challenges Parkway is facing right now and Mr Schindler we're going to start with you honestly the first one is mental health that is a challenge we have right now we're still dealing with it we're still working through it
102that that probably is that number one challenge right now and number two I think right now is um I think just getting the kids more experiences I think both at the um Elementary at the middle school at the high school level we need to get them more experiences I think we've realized the value of getting the kids personaliz learning and at the high school level to Choice programs of actually getting them out of the classroom get them in the real world getting a taste of what's going to be like out there making those decisions and choices of what they enjoy and what they really do Thrive and then thirdly um another challenge I'm gonna turn into a praise one thing we haven't discussed at all was a budget um Parkway has a great budget we
103are doing very well we have large reserves so I just want to put that out there because look at other districts right now discussing 4- day weeks because of budget issues and challenges along those lines we're not discussing that here we have a very stable situation and we need to be proud of that thank you Dr M uh I would agree with the first um point that Mr Shindler made was the social well he said mental health but I'll just say the social emotional uh health of the students staff and just the district in in general um that is the underc cor of what propels them to do their jobs to function as teachers and then for the kids to learn um second to that and I wouldn't say necessar I don't know whether I
104would say second but it is very a high priority is teacher morale because as you were referenced um earlier teachers are leaving the field of Education why and we need to look at that and change that because teachers provide the foundation for our society and then I would say thirdly um the curriculum just what's happening in the curriculum there's been so many challenges um you know from the legislature to um you know uh uh interest groups wanting to have a say in terms of what the curriculum should be and the we're getting away from what's fundamental so the children can learn and then be productive citizens in in our society so those are the three I would say Thank you Mr Williams uh I believe the three challenges um we need to look at first
105of all the parkway Board needs a better diversity of ideas on it that's got to happen April 2nd um proficiency testing I think that has to increase and one thing that maybe we need to look at more is trades maybe not every student is going to go to college increasing the trade programs in Parkway needs to happen and that would be that would give them another option of After High School what are they going to do they're going to have a heads up because of Parkway going through those trade programs and another issue I think as far as the budget goes we're we're demanding that teachers are paying for a lot of things at the beginning of class that they really shouldn't be out of their own pocket um maybe even fundraising by parents for
106bake off or something like that I think there's plenty of money in the Parkway School District to take care of all these needs without anybody coming out with out of pocket more than what their property tax bills are currently thank you thank you Mr tender uh as I've attended the board meetings over the last um over the last year the three things that really stick out to me the most are um the lack of uh resource support or uh the shortage of resource support that our teachers have in the classrooms uh and not just the teachers but uh across the system I think I do believe the teacher and employee morale is an issue and I also hear uh it's a Common Thread that U uh uh communication and lack of transparency uh AC across
107the district uh as key issues come up has been has been an issue parents bring it up uh employees bring it up and uh I'm not sure what the what the causes are but uh we need to be better communicators and be more transparent in terms of what we're doing thank you well I'll return the favor it pains me to agree with Todd Williams but I do on this one um I think we need to rethink one of the challenges we face is what does school look like in the years to come as Dr Mar's out someone came from 100 years ago and walked into one of our buildings or they came back butchering this I'm sorry if someone from the past from 100 years ago looked at looked at the world today everything would
108be different except for the way we teach high school and that's something that we need to think about is how do we change the way we teach how do we offer programs without the without the expectation that every kid is going to graduate and go to a four-year College how do we uh give our students the opportunity to learn in different ways and change the way education looks uh second I would say uh teacher retention hiring new teachers we're looking at a future that's it's going to be tough to to fill some of these roles and how do we make Parkway or how do we keep Parkway a destination District where teachers want to come and want to stay uh and finally we've got aging facilities Parkway a lot of our buildings were built around
109the same time around 70ish years ago and they're all kind of getting old at about the same time and that's going to be a real challenge to this district and this board in the years to come is how do we invigorate our District by having usable buildings that a lot of them are going to need a lot of work real soon thank you all right so as we go into I'm GNA give you a minute to catch a breath and to think think about this we had uh several questions I didn't get to and I I do apologize but had a stack some things to possibly address in your closing statements the funding of the Arts or the lacking of the lack funding of the Arts Middle School sports was another topic that was brought
110up that currently there's no that school do not have school sponsored Middle School sports that it's parent run and parent funded excuse me um teaching or having a curriculum with hot button political topics in the classroom um so hard hard subjects about America's history and um cultural differences amongst our students and then finally there was one more question about school safety and utilization of SRO within disciplinary po um procedures so munch on those for a moment you can address all of them none of them one of them totally up to you I want to thank all of you for coming tonight very much appreciate all your questions I am sorry I did not get to all of them there were a lot up here and I tried to combine as much as I could if
111your questions did not get answered I encourage you to speak to the candidates oneon-one um reach out to their sources look them up make sure you educate yourself on where they're coming from in the areas that concern you and most importantly make sure you get out and vote on Tuesday um again very much appreciate you being here this evening appreciate you bringing the League of Women Voters I do appreciate some of the jokes that were put up here that that always makes the night go by a lot easier in your closing remarks you have two minutes and we start at the end of the table Dr M so I get to go for that's right everybody everybody gets to follow me well first I want to say by thank you all for being here and
112um I'm going to take off my mom voice um I have a tendency to be very serious um about what I do what I'm involved in and I'm very passionate about that so therefore as a mom you know you come across this very serious because you want to be you want your kids to hear you you want your um you want to be understood and I definitely don't view view you all as kids but I want you to understand and know that my experience and the exposures that I've had in Parkway um for the the length of time that I've lived in the district and been involved with the district as an employee and then as an alumni member um make me want to it motivates me to be part of this board um I'm
113not seeking this for personal gain um nor uh to address an issue to get something resolved and I'm not trying to say that anybody else is but I want to be a part of the structure which I believe is what the board is the board is the structure for the district that that puts forth the blueprint of how the district moves and I'm I I talk with my hands excuse me on that but I want to be part of that structure so I can use my skills my abilities my knowledge to influence the District board when they uh influence District policy District practices District um um uh budgets and way I want to influence how they monitor the best practices of the district um to ensure that the board is being held accountable by the
114constituents that come to the board and then that the board holds the district accountable for what they say they're going to do so that's why I want to be on the board and I believe with my experience I can provide that thank you Mr Williams thank you very much for coming out I appreciate the League of Women Voters putting this on um maybe in the future we will have a debate that'd be great um let's just um get the the Middle School sports is very interesting I come from a school system about an hour south of here everybody has Junior High Sports or Middle School sports even around the the Missouri area everybody has Middle School sports it is a wonder why that is going on and I think maybe it has something to do
115with private schools and uh and these uh select teams they don't want that that's that's big business so that addresses that question but last of all I you know running for the board hey it's the these people are to be commended that have done this for six years now I I appreciate it very much again like I said um but the taxpayers out there in Parkway you are running you're running Parkway you are electing the board members here to make sure the school is run correctly if you feel like your voice is not heard out there voting you need to look at other Alternatives and I hope I'm one of those alternatives on April 2nd um there needs to be discussion on the board there needs to be ideas bounced back and forth not everything
116is agreeable to everybody it's okay to have robust debate so let's do that let's do that maybe we need to start the pendulum back the other way and get a very diverse idea driven board back in Parkway thank you very much thank you Mr teder oh thank you very very much again for hosting us tonight and thank you all for coming out and participating and supporting us all um you know when my wife and I moved here 35 years ago uh we did move here because Parkway was a destination School District uh and uh when I look at Parkway today and I look at our neighboring school districts both Kirkwood and and Rockwood have surpassed us academically and that's a concern um I believe and I'm concerned uh that uh in spite of the focus
117on academics that uh there's a bit of social activism uh that's taking place in our schools uh and it doesn't belong in our schools uh I I'm concerned and I believe that there's a battle going on right now for the hearts and minds of our children uh I've got two young granddaughters uh that potentially will be coming into the Parkway School District um and I'm here to fight for them and I'm here to fight for your kids uh I'm here to fight for the teachers I want to be a voice for not only the parents uh the teachers and the children that are going to school here uh but uh we need to be on the right side of that battle um I really applaud uh each and every one of these folks it's not
118easy to sit up here and and respond to your questions um and uh I appreciate the work that both the commitment and um that you all have made over the last several years uh to serve this board it's uh it's very commendable uh and I just appreciate the opportunity and hopefully I can uh uh earn a position myself to serve the community here on the board thank you uh we only have two minutes but people are good enough to submit a question I kind of want to hit everything uh funding of the Arts uh I'm pretty proud of parkway's record in this uh this field a couple weeks ago I was fortunate enough to do the opening at the district-wide orchestra concert we saw a thousand kids playing u in at St Charles Family Arena
119and we have lots lots of other theater band I I feel like it's a strength of Parkway uh particularly the program where elementary school kids are all playing violin and have that opportunity uh Middle School sports um I know my son plays for the Parkway North Junior Vikings I understand it's sort of a club thing and if there's any opportunity to expand those programs I'd certainly uh something I would be in favor of I just think that those are great opportunities for kids to make friends and you know participate uh as far as teaching hot button issues I think there is absolutely a place in our schools to discuss things uh that aren't that sometimes make people uncomfortable I think you know the idea of you know you don't talk about certain issues just makes
120it more divisive I think the earlier on we can get kids talking to each other about things they might not agree upon in a respectful way I think we as a society will do better if we're able to encourage that more uh as far as security uh Matt highlighted some of the things that have transpired in our schools over the years uh vegetables different uh security things in our buildings uh it's always a balancing act particularly when you're involving the police department and uh the sro's uh but where I do think Parkway is sort of a leader is we combine the roles of uh security and Communications are all under one umbrella and I think that's critical because when there is an issue when security does become uh when there is something going on it's
121not just a response it's also the messaging to parents you know when you get that Alert on your phone and you don't know what's going on it can be terrifying that's why it's so critical that our security and Communications work so closely together because keeping parents in the know and it's critical uh and finally um you know there's been talk tonight about rubber stamping and 7os and no Marketplace of ideas and I hesitate to call it insulting because I'm part of a seven- member board that we work together you know we collaborate we ask questions we ask hard questions we challenge each other and yes votes may come out 70 but that's a robust debate and it's like I said I don't want to say it's insulting because I'm honored to be a part of
122a board that works that way thank you I was actually going to get into that um yes we are running on our records we both have been on the board for now six years and it's a stable board because we do work together there honestly I do not always agree with this man next to me but I do like him because there are issues that come up that are not black and white there's lots of great area we get to deal with as a board so for us to think that we're stamping things we work as a great team I really appreciate my other board members that are here tonight too it's actually a good group we all care so much about kids right now that is the focus and when you see other districts
123around the region bring in politics and their own personal politics onto the school boards what do you see you see disruption at the Schoolboard level that filters down honestly Parkways benefit from that in other districts because we have administrators and teachers leaving those districts and applying here because we have a stable board we have a moderate board we have a respectful board and I hope to be part of that board going forward for the next three years and honestly my website's Matthew Shindler dcom there's a QR code outside please vote on April 2nd and honestly bring 10 other people your family your friends in Parkway and make sure they vote too thank you thank you let's give our candidates a round of [Applause] applause thank you so much for running for uh the board and
124for being part of the process very much appreciated I know it's not easy to sit up there and answer all these questions um thank you again for coming thank you to the candidates and again please feel free to talk to the candidates and ask them your questions if you did not feel they got answer thank you