001thank you foreign my name is Keith Marty superintendent here in Parkway and it's my pleasure to welcome you tonight to the candidate Forum would you please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you very much um before we begin tonight um this was another another tough day for educators in this country for those that are associated with schools I can't tell you every time this happens it's uh it just it seems to eat away at our hearts and it was a very very tough day and I would just ask that we just uh pause for a moment to think about
002the families and children and Educators in Nashville and of course all around the country if we could just pause for a moment thank you and it was a tough day for us here in Parkway because uh many of you may not know but our families do that we also had many threats uh this afternoon and I just want to thank Two Gentlemen the back Terror who are on the front line Paul Tandy our director of uh her Chief Communications and Emergency Management officer and Mike Christian who supervises our security Personnel we had some threats and we on I should say fortunately nothing uh but uh again just a very very difficult day so thank you for all your support uh community and supporting our Educators and supporting our our young people well we are grateful
003again to the League of Women Voters for uh sponsoring this forum uh in my uh Dozen Years now I was superintendent in Parkway this is an annual event and I really appreciate their willingness every year so uh if you're a volunteer for the league would you just raise your hand please and look around the room we have a number of them here in the room and thank you citizens for for coming tonight I also uh and the board candidates know this because I I met with uh them and of course so we have the comments that I met with them I'm always amazed that people who are willing to serve on Boards of Education I think you know the uh the pay is uh is is wonderful uh but uh to serve their community and
004are Desiring to serve a committee I think is a great tribute so I thank them for their willingness to to put their name before the voters in the community I think that's a a wonderful gesture in their part and I wish them well tonight so it's my pleasure Now to turn that evening over to the League of Women Voters it's my pleasure to introduce uh the woman who'll be moderating the ninth uh Kathleen Farrell who's already said she's done a number of these this uh this spring so Kathleen welcome and fig in thank you to the lead thank you [Applause] thank you okay again everybody hear me in the back if you can't just wave your hands and I'll try to pay attention to that good evening and on behalf of the St Louis League
005of Women Voters in the Parkway School District particularly Kathy Dodge this forum is happening so that we can make some good decisions about who to vote for in April 4th it's being streamed on Parkways YouTube site if you want to text your friends and tell them uh they can get to that YouTube site from the parkway District website and it will remain there for them to see it afterwards my name is Kathleen Farrell and I'm going to be your moderator tonight and I'd like you to do a couple things first of all I'd like you to turn off your cell phones if you want them to vibrate in your pocket that's great but I really want you to turn them off sometimes we think we have them off but we don't and they startle us
006I and the second thing is uh I'd like to ask that we sort of wait until all the candidates are done for Applause no matter how much you like what they're saying or maybe you won't like what they're saying I'd like you to do that because my goal is to get through as many questions as I can tonight so there we have it I want to thank the candidates for participating and sometimes we have candidate forums where candidates decide they're not going to show up so I appreciate very much you're being willing to do that and all of you have the opportunity to elect three of these individuals for three-year terms and we have seated them as they are in order on the ballot so Mr Jeff Todd Mr Ryan Kerr Ms Kathy Guerra Ms
007Debbie Hopper Mr Mark ivancic close enough okay I'll get it right about the second turn and Miss Tiffany Matt Franklin and Mr Matt Alon okay so what's going to happen is they're going to give their opening statements in that order the order of the ballot and then closing statements we're going to do in the reverse order so we'll start with the bottom of the ballot and the league believes that one of the best ways for voters to learn about people who want to be elected officials is to hear them in person and to hear them answer your questions not my questions not some media Representatives questions although there's nothing wrong with that but your questions and therefore the questions tonight come exclusively from all of you now many say and this is another day where
008we're saying this again and I read around a little bit and sort of looked at the chatter on various social media sites about this race and other race races and sometimes people say look School boards have gotten so politicized that we can't sit down and talk to one another if we don't agree but I know that you are here tonight because you don't buy into that and you believe that we should sit down together and figure out how to give the best education we can to our students so we've got some rules that we hope will help make that happen and here they are as I said candidates are going to have two minutes to make an opening statement and then each candidate is going to have one minute to answer each question even if
009the question is directed to one person and there are several like that what I've tried to do is to put those questions together so that everybody has an opportunity to address that subject um and then everybody is going to have two minutes for a closing statement now here's your job and I've already told you what part of it is write questions of interest to issues in your District on the cards that have been given to you and collected and if you write a question and you're done and please only put one question on each card okay I'm 72 years old pretty spry but that's helpful to me if I don't have to read five questions so just raise your hand in one of our volunteers will come and get that from you now you might
010think of something as you hear people talk and so if you need another card just raise your hand and our volunteers will be happy to get that to you fair enough so here's the time keeper and she is Miss Sue Williams and I'm a retired professor in college administrator and she's a retired school teacher and she takes No Nonsense so she's got a 30 second sign and she's got a stop sign in between the two of us we're pretty good at cutting people off so it's not that we don't like you we're fine what you're saying to be interesting it's just that we want to be fair now I as the moderator uh reserved have reserved the right to combine questions and I will tell you that this morning everybody must have submitted them because
011at 10 o'clock all of a sudden there were 62 questions uh that appeared on the Fleek website and there were a few before it uh spring break etc etc but a lot of these questions are similar so I want to do that I also if the if the question is about somebody's private life exclusively I will not ask it but if it deals with a habit which affects their performance I will deal with it okay just so that you know what I'm doing now anybody can videotape this or audio tape it as you want it's an open forum and they're going to leave it up on their website and the league is going to put it up on their website as well so with that in mind anybody have any questions all right then we're
012going to begin with opening statements those two-minute opening statements and we're going to begin with you Mr Todd okay okay thank you very much good evening I'd like to welcome everyone thank you for taking time out of your schedules to be here tonight to hear what all these candidates have to say thank you to the League of Women Voters uh we really appreciate this forum and opportunity to address the questions of our community so thank you again my name is Jeff Todd I was elected to the board in 2017 six years ago and uh it was after probably serving 12 or so years in the district as a as a volunteer in the schools in the schools where my kids were I served every everywhere from from helping helping run the the reading program for
013elementary school students all the way up to being PTO president in multiple buildings and literally everything in between I then kind of moved into the district role serving on several District committees to learn learn a little bit more about the district and it just seemed like a natural progression for me to run for a seat on the board I did that in 2017 as I mentioned it was successful in 2018 I was elected by my peers as president of the Board of Education and have been every year since so for the last five years I've I've kind of tried to to steer us all together in the in the direction that the district has gone and and try to try to do the work of the people as you know this role is a a
014representative of you it's our job to to do your work and be the oversight on your behalf and we have 17 000 students and three thousand employees that we also report to but it's really those 17 000 students those are the reason that that we do what we do so I would appreciate your vote on April 4th and thank you very much right on the button Mr Kirk uh my name is Ryan Kerr and thank you so much for lead Women Voters as well as a couple other forms that we've had it's nice to engage with voters in general uh when it's not Saturday and Sunday and walking around neighborhoods so my name again is Ryan Kerr I am a 39 year old nurse my wife also a registered nurse here in St Louis we
015bought our house 12 years ago in Parkway solely because my wife went to Parkway graduated from Parkway South my mother-in-law taught for 40 years in Parkway in Special School District and it was important to us to have our kids have the best education they could possibly have especially with uh in the public realm and that was uh you know the whole Foundation of us of us setting that course of life now when it comes to uh the actual board you know it wasn't something I wanted to be involved with until my kids started school once my kids started school started to see areas that could be fixed areas that should be fixed and then the violence was very unsettling to me within the last year year and a half within the district and that's something
016that I think has to be taken head on in order to have a district where we want to send our kids to school in the name of their safety in general so thank you again and uh I would appreciate your vote on the April 4th thank you Ms Guerra okay thank you for having us and our opinions um I have found memories of my mother being in the League of Women Voters many many years ago I am a a counselor and I work with adolescents currently I've been a teacher and a uh and a high school guidance counselor uh I've been a mom of seven and uh I love kids I've been a long time 40-year Parkway resident and we moved here for four Parkway and I remember trusting Parkway with a few of my
017children and um my grandson uh I remember trusting and I think that that is what is Paramount between a board and it's parents its constituency I am not sure about the trust level right now so that's why I'm running I I am running on trust I want to protect children's brains uh from some of the things out there a lot of kids that I see are hurting and fearful and I would like to see some of that change so I would appreciate your vote on April 4th and again my name is Kathy Guerra thank you Miss Hopper thank you good evening and thank you to the League of Women Voters in the parkway district for tonight's candidate Forum it has been my honor to be serving on the parkway school board for almost nine years
018I attribute this longevity to the community placing their trust in me knowing I will fight for them listen to them and respond to the best of my ability The Last Five Years on the board I have held the position as vice president a mark of the trust my fellow board members have also placed in me since 2015 I've also been serving on the special school districts governing Council and elected chairwoman for two years while I have mostly enjoyed being on the school board I honestly have not enjoyed every moment which is the reason why I'm running for a fourth term you heard that correctly I've not enjoyed it and I'm still running and why I've been asked that many times and the simple reason is because I care deeply about this Parkway community and there's
019a lot of hard work ahead of us and difficult decisions need to be made some of which are gut-wrenching some of which a board member must do their homework and make that tough decision in an objective Manner and in respectful conference with their fellow board members all while losing a lot of sleep and having a little angst but tough decisions have to be made for the right reasons and as an elected official we have to be up for that task I am up for that task I've expended a tremendous amount of energy and time on training learning about District Operations and finances staying current on legislative and educational matters cultivating relationships around the community and with our district administrators and students and parents I've given given all of this in addition to being an active
020parent in the district I am well prepared to continue in this important leadership position thank you thank you Mr ivancic hi good evening I'm Mark I want to thank the League of Women Voters for putting the Forum on I want to thank the Parkway School District for the building and then it's usually I want to thank all of you for showing up it shows me that you're interested in the school district you're interested in what happens with the future of your children I want to thank everyone sitting here because it's a sacrifice to run and to take on a three-year term in on a board which is a lot of work I have lived in a Parkway School District for 24 years my children went to private school I have not been involved in the
021school district however I have been a board member on multiple boards and my phone is ringing because I thought I turned it off sorry about that I was never taught proper etiquette I think um I have I have not had children in in the school district and have not been involved in the school district but I have been on other boards I understand what it takes to work on a board to work with other board members to put things together to have plans and to work through them but the one advantage I do have is that I am not tied into the network of Parkway I do have the ability to look at things and say why not or why or just because we've done it that way before it doesn't mean that's the way
022we need to do it now so I do thank you again for coming this evening and hearing what we have to say and uh as they send Raiders of the Lost Ark Choose Wisely thank you Ms map Franklin thank you thank you for putting this forum on tonight I appreciate everyone that has gathered here and that's viewing online good evening I'm Tiffany Matt Franklin and I was appointed to the Parkway School Board in June of last year in the last 10 months I've had the opportunity to meet teachers principals administrators across the district and I am in awe and all of and all of the ways that they put the time and Care into their various roles it makes me proud to know that my three children who are currently in elementary middle and high
023school have had the opportunity to attend a school district that cares about and nurtures them as well as challenge them academically prior to my appointment I served Parkway in a number of roles I was on the project Parkway steering committee and I was also a member of the project Parkway ecod task force I've also been involved in my children's elementary school since they began I've worked as a library aide I volunteered in the classrooms I was a Junior Achievement volunteer and I was on the trivia night committee for two years before joining the PTO as vice president and president I also was a substitute teacher in the the district for two years 2018 to 2020. as a former sixth through eighth grade math and science teacher I understand the pressures that and stresses of teachers
024all over the country and many more that have been added since the global pandemic I'm currently a project manager in the Aerospace industry and I've spent 15 years in that role I think many of the things that I've learned through my 15-year career has translates well to the board as far as Community Services concerned I was also a commissioner on the judicial commission which is a nonpartisan role appointed by the Missouri governor I thank you for your time you're welcome Mr aylin my name is Matt Allen I'm in Parkway resident for about 14 years um married and have seven children two have graduated from South High School I have two or one in South High School presently I have two here in South middle and I have two in Hannah Woods so I've run the
025full Gambit as far as the schools in the parkway system um by education I'm an engineer a civil engineer I have my license in state of Missouri to practice engineering so I'm very logical I think I've took taken a lot of math and a lot of science it's sometimes it doesn't come in so handy with my wife but I do and then as I know I don't have the experience as the present incumbents do as far as being on the school board um but I have worked with numerous contractors and numerous other engineering firms and I know what it takes to get along and sometimes even compromise and just so things can get done so um I thank everybody for coming out tonight and uh yes that's about it thank you thank you so we're
026going to begin with Mr Kerr for the very first question and I'm going to try to give you a sense of how many people were interested in a particular issue when I do this so that you know sort of what people care about the most or at least you know what was asked the most so the first question is what is the greatest challenge that you think that the district faces and some people said what would should be the district's highest priority some people ask do you think that the district is going in the right direction so Mr Kirk so there's multiple points there I think financially the district's in a very good place and the board has done a very good job of that over the last decade or so previous from previously as
027far as biggest Improvement it's the violence we have an unprecedented amount of violence in this District this year compared to any year in the past decade and uh school year is not over yet um unfortunately that causes a lot more mental health issues uh a lot more bullying that's not being dealt with and then the self-defense a child should be able to in a witnessed event defend themselves if they can't defend themselves without being suspended what are we teaching our children that they should be beat until somebody comes to their until they're to save them and it's not uh that's something that I uh I think causes a lot more mental health and it does anything to protect any kids okay thank you very much Ms Guerra it's a first and foremost the curriculum which
028is definitely excelling in social emotional learning with which I disagree and I think what it is doing as opposed to uniting students people parents it is rather divisive uh that's first and foremost that needs to be worked on and then safety in the school as Mr Ryan had had mentioned that needs to be worked on too in extreme discipline okay thank you very much Ms Hopper would you mind just repeating the question one more time please yes um what is the highest priority to fix problems what's the greatest challenge of the district do you think we're going in the right direction okay thank you um I think one of our main things that we need to work on is our achievement Gap as we have been talking about and seeing as part of our state
029of the district address some of the data that came out was disturbing that said we see that we are still in the top 10 and 20 percent within the whole state of Missouri with some of our scores but there's still work that needs to be done and could be done better we needed to get past this whole changing the tests and assessments and things of that nature I do think that we're moving in the right direction we have project Parkway that I encourage everybody to be involved with April 27th I believe is our next meeting and that's where everybody can be involved and have a voice in that I do also see our discipline process and disparities are something that we need to continue to work on we have low staff morale issues we have
030student attendance issues that need to be addressed um and thank you thank you Mr ivancic the parkway is always been a leader in academics and I think even when you know 20 some years ago and we moved into Parkway School District people I said well Parkway is a place you want to go they've got the school district and academically they are ranked high in the state and we all know that but I do think that we need to change the academics a little in the sense that we have a little too much Social and cultural and worrying about um things that are not necessarily academic we need to put the emphasis back on mathematics science you know the basics of school we used to call it the three R's but I realize I'm I'm old
031and it's that's different but I do think we need to take the academics and put it back into education and in that aspect thank you Miss Matt Franklin um I think there are highest priorities would be addressing the academic gaps that we have in our school's specifically within our subgroups um I would also say that the other thing that we should be looking at and it's going to be a challenge is our our Nationwide teacher shortage that we are going to be facing in the next few years we are graduating less teachers in this country than we are putting students into the classrooms we are going to have to be Innovative in our thinking and how we educate our children that's it for me Mr Ayla in my opinion I think it's the the education
032aspect of it um I'm a firm believer and stay in your lane and like Mark said go back to the I mean any basketball coach will tell you what do you do you go back to the basics that's what we need to do um and I think the number one thing that the school is challenged with is the whole social emotional I don't think physically it's par even logistically it's possible it's just way too much on teachers plates they've already got enough as it is thank you finally Mr Todd um a lot of great answers many of them I had jotted down but obviously our greatest challenge is educating kids and in building an educational atmosphere that's conducive to their learning and at the same time to give teachers the tools they need to be
033successful in in delivering that curriculum I think our highest priorities among them need to be the addressing of mental health issues it's something that we've been working on seriously for the last several years the Staffing shortage that is facing a lot of districts across the country fortunately Parkway hasn't had that issue yet with regard to teacher teachers we have head Staffing shortages in lots of other areas which presents a whole different set of circumstances that we have to face and uh again I think the finances I think we're in great shape but I think closing those achievement gaps in the disparity and in discipline or among the other significant ones thank you Ms Guerra we're going to start with you this time and talking about those concerns here were two here's one question that was
034asked over and over again and that is about class size they say teachers are worried about it some parents are worried about it and I can't claim that this is a factual number but this is the number that popped up three times in some Elementary classrooms the questioners are claiming that there's as many as 27 kids in one classroom and they talked about not being able to deal with individual students and their concerns or groups of students and their concerns and really do what they need to do they also said in these questions that Parkway says that they're working on it but at least four people said they haven't seen anything happen yet so they want to know what what are you going to do so okay well first of all teacher A's are integral
035to a classroom that is a huge number correctly speaking 27 per class for one teacher and I remember being a teacher myself having so many different uh mental issues to work with and levels of learning and ability it is a difficult task in the classroom that we know I and I think if we really hold our teachers to a standard give them decent pay more than they're making and improve the discipline policy then I think that we will retain our teachers better and have better uh teacher aides thank you okay thank you very much and Ms Hopper what about you we take pride in our district that we do have one of the lower class sizes than most districts do we have been challenged with that mainly because of a shortage in teachers and we
036are struggling with that and we're hoping that we can continue to improve upon the number of teachers that we can we can hire some of our elective classes are the ones that we see are having more numbers of students and um so I do understand where that is an issue but we still are we we do look at our class sizes Administration makes adjustments to those periodically at the very beginning of the year when we see what our enrollment is going to be we've got maximums we have targets and according to our board policy we are to stay below that maximum thank you thank you Mr Robinson in talking to some of the teachers that I have talked to throughout the district and that seems to be the number one thing that comes up as
037classroom size and it is something that probably needs to be dressed I do know that the board is addressing it however the teachers tell me they don't think it's going fast enough so the question then is is exactly what Jeff was saying is we need to recruit more teachers there needs to be a more solid plan put together to teach to recruit teachers but then I even wonder is there opportunity to bring in others maybe we need to bring in some more volunteers from the community to help with the classrooms and teaching the parents and those types of things are set up programs that allow stimulation at colleges to train more teachers thank you Ms map Franklin could you repeat the question yes it's about class size and some people are saying that in some
038Elementary classrooms that can be 27 and they're also saying that the district said it was going to do something about it but they haven't seen it yet okay so um as Ms Hopper said Parkway has a policy that keeps our maximum class sizes actually below the Missouri standards and so that's something that I know all of our principals work hard to achieve sometimes it it's not possible based on how the the numbers come in and it might be that it's too late to um hire a new teacher because the numbers came in late but it is something that we are continuing to work on as Ms Hopper said a lot of times we do see the attendant I mean the higher class sizes and electives and that also is due to varying situations that principals
039are aware of and are making those adjustments so that they're more consistent across the board okay thank you very much Mr aylin unfortunately the the times we live in now the workforce is for some reason dwindling I don't know why um and it's hard to find teachers even just to find people to work let alone teachers I would I mean my opinion is that I mean it may not be the favorite thing to do but parents may have to step up their game a little bit in order to actually help their children like I said it's not it's not the easiest thing to do especially I mean I've got right now five kids in school and trying to help them with homework alone is sometimes hair pulling so thank you Mr Todd uh the state
040does have very specific numbers in in the vary by class uh or by age range board policy is far lower than the state averages or the State numbers uh and we expect our HR staff to to staff those classrooms appropriately and they they do an outstanding job of working with what they have to work with uh I know we've we've hired teachers the day before school has started even even a couple of days after and so that's a challenge we also have a fairly transient population in some different parts of the district and so it's a challenge when we have as many as 20 30 students who may be new new students during the course of a semester to a particular school and trying to juggle those obviously the most impacted or special programs special
041classes electives but also our nurses and our counselors they're the ones that that have the extra workload when there's more students that come in okay finally Mr Kerr yeah I think with uh with this one it's less emphasis on the teachers we're always going to be hiring teachers but I think we have to have more emphasis on teaching AIDS uh that we can give heavy uh training with neurodivergency uh I think neurodivergency in our schools now is a whole other issue that we've never really grasped or dealt with in the past decade or two and that's now an overwhelming uh problem with distractions in classrooms my first grader has 40 children in their classroom and two teachers as part of a pilot program uh there's aspects to that that are good there's a lot of
042distraction and she's been home twice as many days this year as uh our kindergartner and the amount of days last year when she was in kindergarten so I think as far as doing that in a respiratory pandemic we also uh run risks that not sure we would have taken a year ago and yet that was a good idea this past year which has left us with uh picking up that slack okay thank you very much um we're going to start this time with Ms Hopper is that right and a related question and I would say 10 people I got almost 100 questions um online and then you know you are echoing what many of those people said they're worried about staff shortages across the board and people started to mention that but they want you
043to be specific what strategies What policies will you put in place not just to have more teachers and teachers aides but all the other support staff like bus drivers and nurses and counselors and all across the board what specifically would you do okay well a couple of the things that we have just gone through in the matter of last month or two and reviewing the data over a period of several months with our chief HR Human Resources person and our CFO is looked at our budget and how can we keep salaries competitive as well as the benefits competitive for all of our staff we've done this across the board every bracket every channel whatever which way it goes we have looked at all of our all of that and have made improvements with that the
044other thing that we are continuing to do we have a grow your own program in spark for teachers and we also have that's what we consider a grow your own so that we're trying to bring in an influx of teachers and I think first and foremost I think we need to have an environment a working environment that people enjoy being working in and that includes teachers support staff that they feel that they're respected and safe Mr ivancic yeah I would agree with what I'm hearing here from everyone at this table is that we have to come up with a program to you know bring more teachers in but also more I think the words ancillary Personnel you have teachers aides why not have the parents step in and do more is there opportunity for seniors
045to volunteer and work in the education process is there opportunity to take college students that are in the process of you know freshmen in college they're undecided maybe we should have a program that we could bring them in get them interested in education and allow them to be involved and then they in turn wouldn't may want to turn and become an educator on their own okay thank you very much I'm Ms Matt Franklin so when it comes to our support staff I think one of the biggest things that we can and have been doing is increasing the wages when we look at the wages we've recently done that and we should be paying our our support staff who in general take care of a lot of what goes on in our in our schools a
046living wage and so we have been taking steps to increase the wages of our support staff which will in turn hopefully allow more people to want to get involved in our schools I think once they're involved in the schools they enjoy the atmosphere they enjoy the Personnel they enjoy the students and many times we can re we can keep them as long as the wages are there to match Ellen well I would say in my opinion like I said earlier possibly get more parents involved more help and if I mean if it comes down to it start cutting different electives so the teachers are available for the the main Reading Writing and arithmetic get the major source and concentrate on the basics again and it's not going to be pretty but if worst comes the
047worse that's what that that and and good pay but the problem is you can only pay somebody well I guess you can't pay him so much because they'll take as much as you give them but um I don't know I'm not sure if pay is the right way to go helps but if the workforce isn't there it just isn't there so thank you Mr Todd how about you uh some great comments Ms Hopper and as Matt Franklin are correct the district has been working very hard the last several years to come up with come up get us closer to a living wage for a number of our historically lower paid positions you may have seen in the news we've we're increasing bus driver pay starting pay starting this fall significant amount we need to think
048outside the box the district has done a great job in the last several years of of looking outside of St Louis not just for teachers but for other staff as well and we need to think about strategies that that will bring those people to St Louis for for a district-like Parkway to work in a place that so many people want to work and I would just say that that we really we really continue to look at trying to provide a teaching staff and a staff in the building that mirrors our student population thank you Mr Kerr yeah I think the uh this goes back a lot of these topics go back to safety uh as well as staff and the uh with staff you know those teaching AIDs that uh that we can hire and
049heavily train to help with some of the massive increases in children that need special help in the classroom uh is great but it comes back to safety and will they feel safe in that atmosphere where there's a lot of abuse uh and it's not uh necessarily intentional abuse by a child but it's uh it's abuse nonetheless and in healthcare we've seen a mass Exodus in the last two or three years uh just since the pandemic uh related to directly that uh and the abuse without uh recognition and or um any sort of uh Insurance uh from employer that you're number one and not uh something else Ms Guerra I think that we need to listen to our teachers more my daughter's a teacher I listen to her I've spoken with a lot of teachers in
050Parkway so we need to survey the teachers in a way that they will not be persecuted for their views uh the funds need to be spent not on new programs because we really just want them to be educationally focused not on new programs but have the funds going to go to job fairs and uh go to the hbcus the historically black colleges and in that way we could not just teach diversity we could live diversity and that is where we get our teachers thank you okay thank you very much everybody have a chance to answer everything and I think this time we're going to begin with you Mr ivancic and there's an awful lot of people who were worried about what they call disparity in the suspension system and they are worried that that disparity
051is racial and also with students who have problems what do you think is the number one action that could be taken to close that disparity and how would you get that done um you know the the disparity I'm not sure what the disparity is you're talking about there but I I would say that as with anything you have protocols this school district has protocols there's ways for it to be administered to administer it that way and you make sure it's consistently administered if it turns out that one group has more a number than another group and there's a disparity if you know that it's being operationalized from the front correctly and equally that's all you need to worry about Ms Matt Franklin there's definitely a disparity in Parkway and it's not any different from any
052other school in this country I think one of the things the biggest thing that we need to do is make sure that all of our teachers have cultural education I'm going to give a quick example a stood a friend of my son was in a fifth grade class with him they had a substitute teacher substitute teacher he noticed was always calling out the black kids for being disruptive and the white kids were doing the exact same thing and she was not calling them out she she called her out on it he was sent to the principal's office that child understood that that teacher did not have cultural education to to be able to tell that the behaviors were the exact same thing and that she should have been calling all of those kids out or
053not calling out the black kids it's one or the other you can't pick a cheese thank you thank you Mr Ayla I mean I believe the same way it should be the same all the way across the board and if it's not then something needs to be done either retrain teachers or principals or Administration or something along those lines I mean it should not be stood for that African-American Asian any children are treated differently than any other children a child thank you very much Mr Todd as Ms Matt Franklin acknowledged this was an issue across the country in in all schools I think that uh in addition to what she said the the effort that we've undertaken uh at educating teachers and those in the classroom about trauma-informed care to know their students and know
054the situations that may have caused the behavior that that they're seeing those are things that can play a significant part in how that behavior is handled at the time and also after the fact when you're when you're bringing that student back in the classroom how are you going to re-enter that student uh with their peers so that everyone is is feeling like you know we've we've healed from this moment that has caused whatever that discipline was so I think those restorative practices are important uh in in keeping children in classrooms thank you occur so two things root cause analysis is first you have to know what is causing the disparity in suspensions which is something I've been asking Parkway for eight weeks for data on I've been told that the only data is the top
055end aggregate data which is suspension by days total and no other data below that without qualifying that data it's very hard to see what's actually causing uh that disparity if we're saying that that's the only data that we have and that it's absolutely accurate which is what I get from the district then we have to take a hard look at four of these schools in our district having very very racist uh suspension policies uh via administrators and that's a that's a major problem especially if it's truly accurate data otherwise we need to collect a lot more data and understand the root cause of what's causing these issues Ms Guerra the root cause and that is very important look one strike okay two strikes that's it because we need to find the root cause why are
056children misbehaving if they are not understanding class material let's figure that out and let's get that intensive testing to see what the problem is did they learn to read in the first place we've got a problem with that currently right now in Parkway reading so we I'm sure we'll get into that later but we need a new reading program if these kids could read maybe they could be better engaged in a classroom and not disruptive thank you Ms Hopper would you repeat the question one more time please yes the the question is about disparity in suspensions which many of the writers of the question said is racial um What specifically should we do about it so disparities in suspensions um we recognize that we do have disparities in that and in fact when we did
057our state of the district address we didn't back down from that information because we knew that there was an issue and Dr Marty even said you know some of this information is not pretty but we're not going to sugarcoat it we're going to deal with it so that's what we're going to do we're going to take deeper dives into this information we're going to find out exactly what's going on to your point of root cause analysis we do have to have more cultural education and I do believe that our professional development does incorporate de-escalation techniques so that we can help our students stay in the classroom that between the the teacher and the the student that they can work together as far as suspensions go we have to have a discipline policy where certain behaviors
058just cannot be tolerated and we but we have to also look and see how how is that you know a disparity so okay thank you very much we're going to start with you this time Ms map Franklin and I didn't dodge any hard questions here so we're going to have a cluster of them this is about library books about selection of books and libraries about what the state is doing about library books and parents and the bottom line is this do you think that Librarians and teachers and administrators should be free to select books and decide on policies in terms of age appropriate books or do you think that parents should have more control I don't see that as an and or a question I see it as a both I do believe that our
059teachers are our Educators our Librarians they are educated in this manner they know what's age-appropriate but as a parent you know your child so you can you can make recommendations to your teachers your children's teacher and librarian on what your child can read or cannot read I've done that a number of times with my own children in fact in our library in our elementary school we send home manila folders with that a parent has to sign in order to give permission for their child to read it because it's tend to be be seen as a little bit more mature it's usually for reserve for the fourth or fifth graders and not for anyone under that age but a parent has to sign it to make sure that it's okay for that child to read it
060it's a it's a both I think both parents and teachers should work to Mr Aylen I agree with Miss Smith Franklin um but I will say I mean if there's even any doubt in a librarian or Educator's mind it should just not shouldn't happen if you have any doubt at all don't put it in the library but also parents should be involved and know what their children are reading for one thing but I guess that a lot of parents do expect that they're not to be reading children and schools shouldn't be reading things they shouldn't be but and maybe Reserve that for a higher levels of like the freshman sophomore junior senior hey Mr Todd I agree with my my two previous fellow candidates that parents should have absolutely have uh involvement in determining what
061their students are able to read in the state of Missouri we passed a law about a year or so ago I think it went into effect that that uh there are new and in very specific rules uh that dictate what uh can be read what can be accessed by students in the library and we chose in Parkway we chose to pull five books from our schools in order to protect Librarians and others who who may be recommending a book or or offering a book to to students but I think just like the the curriculum I think having an opportunity for parents to review any book in the in the district I think it's a great practice and I'm glad that we do it hey thank you Mr Kirk this is one of those topics I've
062never understood why we have such an issue with controversial books when we have millions and millions of options for our kids there's never an issue growing up for me and it seems like to stay away from these uh books that are going to offend one person or another are relatively easy thing to do uh when it comes to that but I also think the second part of that is a parent advisory board where you have you know six seven ten uh parents that meet you know once every semester and go through books that are concerning and debate you know the the quality of those books as far as historical value or whatever it may be and then give board recommendations thank you Ms Guerra I think in an academic setting such as Parkway our goal
063should be to teach to teach math to teach English writing science sexual books or graphic nature not so sure about that in fact I had a mother say to me the other day my kid can't read and yet has access to material that he shouldn't so I think that we need to think about that Ms Hopper so just to clarify the question it was if parents should also have involvement in determining the library books and how much and how much involvement so we're talking about library books only right now we're talking about library books at this point we're going to talk about curriculum management so we do we the parkway does have a process for reviewing books that come into the library I think we've got a very solid process that we are able to
064identify books that can um uh help a variety of students enjoy reading that's our main goal is we want kids to be able to to learn to read and to love reading they have to be able to find books that they can relate to that they enjoy reading but that are still age appropriate I very much agree that parents should know what books are in the library and if they do have an objection to a book that they let the librarian know the principal know so that that child does not have access to that particular book it is very important that we do have parents involvement and I'm comfortable with our process that we currently have in place and with the new legislation that's in place as well here's another layer there that helps protect
065some of those books that are coming in thank you Mr ivancic yeah it sounds like to me that we pretty much all agree on on what on how this should work I mean the book should be age-appropriate Educators should present that parents should be involved as to what the books are and what's being presented to their children if a parent objects then I think the parent does have the final say on whether or not the child gets to read the book or not read the book it should always be the parent is having the final say okay thank you very much Mr aylin we're going to start with you on this question and now we're going to talk about curriculum and uh this was the second highest volume of questions about curriculum and that is
066and understand there's a difference between curriculum and lesson plans okay and some people talked about specific lesson plans and some people talked about curriculums lesson plans are the things you do specifically for that period or that day okay but they want to know um how transparent should the district be about specific lesson plans some of them wanted to know how transparent should the curriculum should the curriculum be uh to not only parents but also District Casp uh taxpayers and four people said that they objected to the curriculum and specific lesson plans in Elementary classrooms dealing with lgbtq plus issues and they thought that was going on so that is the one example that kept surfacing when people talked about this so you get to do that one first um I mean my gut feeling is
067or my opinion is for curriculum the parents should in reality the teacher should have no agenda other than education if it veers from education as far as the basics again then you're off course and unfortunately teachers can do that without parents even knowing unless a child comes home but I think yeah for especially for grade school in my opinion that should not even be that subject shouldn't be broached really it shouldn't be taken care of by the parents as for for that certain aspect um I mean maybe the teacher sends the child's parent an email or a letter and says your child is asking questions would you please go over this with them again I think just staying early thank you thank you Mr Todd I agree with Mr aylin that uh you know like
068the the book uh topic that we just discussed uh there should be an open conversation between parents and teachers um teachers from from what I understand over the last uh however many decades teachers have been very accessible uh with parents and uh even to the point that a couple of years ago we strongly encourage teachers to turn off their computers at night and take a little personal time for them and not be responding to to parents at 9 10 11 o'clock at night but still be responsive but I do think that that there needs to be a two-way conversation uh communication at all times between parents and teachers and then that that means that parents need to be engaged and we have a lot of parents who are not and I hope that more continue
069to become more engaged with their teachers so they know what's what is being talked about in in the class and they have some input thank you Mr Kerr so it's always been my opinion that the teacher shouldn't have to make their lessons plans available to parents and the reason being is why should we have to worry about that why should we have to be worried about what's being taught in the classroom especially when it comes down to elementary middle school but uh when you inject political or social ideology into that classroom you're not teaching a child how to think you're teaching them what to think and there's a big difference there and we see that in uh in all of our academic measurements when it comes to critical thinking there's been a large loss of
070critical thinking over the last decade and it's very very evident as uh map standards change they also are heavily based on critical thinking uh and so that's a big drop in that in that proficiency which we've seen a lot in the last six seven years of the addition of social emotional programs that have seemingly eroded the trust in a lot of parents whether it's true or not and I know our child is elementary and I don't know of any uh LGBT uh curriculum thank you Ms Guerra so the question was how transparent should the curriculum be the pathway curriculum and or lesson plans yet okay and lesson plans are a teacher's business they should actually be reflective of what the subject area is we shouldn't have to worry about that as Mr Kerr said uh
071they should not only be transparent the curriculum but parents should be involved in the curriculum of the making of the curriculum with teachers with department heads especially in this day of of the issues that Mr Kerr referred to the social emotional learning teachers want to teach we need to free them up from that but it is soaked the curriculum is currently soaked with s-e-l and they are instructed to teach in that regard okay thank you very much Ms Hopper I I think the the curriculum and or lesson plan should be very transparent parents have a right to know what is being taught in the classrooms to their children um sometimes you don't get that from your kids so you need to get that straight from your teacher my understanding though of lesson plans is that
072sometimes these can change and that that may end up being very burdensome to the teacher to always constantly be having to put a lesson plan out on a website because things change the Dynamics of the classroom may change where kids are at and trying to learn the material Etc so I'm I don't know if a lesson plan per se we would need to have our teacher voice in that to understand if that's truly something that is doable but by all means transparency for parents to understand and know what their children are are learning in the classroom okay thank you very much I'm Mr ivancic yes transparency should be there we do have it in Parkway it can always be improved we have to look at it from the from the light of you know if
073we're teaching academics and we're staying a little away from social and cultural teaching which is staying with math and you know physics and all of those things it it should be open and at any time a parent can look at what the lesson plan is what I would like to see is the parents more involved in that what I've been seeing in the last you know couple of years is all of a sudden a parent looks at their child's piece of paper and says oh my gosh I didn't realize that's being taught you know that's horrible how come the parent hasn't from the ask that from the beginning how come the parent hasn't gotten involved in the beginning and said what is the curriculum what should it be and the school can be very open
074and say this is what it is and then at that point they can start the dialogue okay thank you very much and finally you Ms Matt Franklin thank you for leading me into that question Mr fancy um curriculum has been transparent since the internet was created I remember when my child was when my firstborn was in preschool and I was looking at Parkway as our school and I started cyber stalking everything all the different schools that my child might possibly go to what was the curriculum what were the lesson plans who were the teachers the information is out there parents have the information they just have to look and it's not hard because it's posted on every single website okay thank you very much Mr Todd we're going to start with you this time the
075absolute number one topic of questions was about gender identity issues both online and tonight the questions that you've turned in so I've tried to combine them uh what is your position on gender the place of gender issues in District policy that would include and people were very specific they want to know what you think about designating bathrooms they want to know what you think about locker rooms but a lot of them really want to know what you think about student confidentiality issues if a student goes to a teacher or counselor is that person responsible for telling their parents and they're also worried about protecting the lgbtq plus community so what do you think the relationship is or the place that gender identity issues have in District policy all that in a minute well obviously uh
076it is it is a question and everybody's mind it it's becoming more and more of a question as our society evolves um I think that uh as far as uh our policies go uh we don't have a policy that that dictates uh what bathroom has to be used we expect boys will use the boys bathroom we expect the girls will use the girls bathroom we have gender neutral bathrooms in some buildings the nurse's office has been identified as a nurse's bathroom has been identified as one of those as well the confidentiality uh is a big thing uh We've we've heard about recently um and as long as a student is under 18 we have an obligation to let a parent know um when when a student is having questions that may be better suited for
077a family and we encourage families and students to have those conversations so uh like Mr Todd said most buildings have unisex bathrooms at the nurse's office uh or somewhere else in the building I think those are a great uh I want to say concession but a great uh Avenue uh to give the ability to have a bathroom that's Theirs to use without uh the issues of parents across the board uh and then wanting boys and girls bathrooms uh I don't see any issues with the boys and girls bathrooms and I think uh Misha controls locker room policy when it comes to boys and girls in in bathrooms in general so that's not something the district controls anyway so it would just be your ancillary bathrooms which I think is a very easy solution there okay
078and feel free everybody to talk about the other examples Ms Guerra okay so I think the bathrooms are covered so I would say as a counselor that every individual child ought to be protected lgbtq children and also the lgbtq not being encouraged to pursue such and that is of concern to many parents and I think that's why there were so many questions on it because we here tell the stories of how it is encouraged and we also see as Miss Franklin suggested we do the research and I did and the uh the organizations that Propel this agenda and I say Propel it is being encouraged it is written in directives for teachers by organizations such as CDC first and foremost and Seekers it's reprehensible thank you Miss Hopper well first of all I know this
079is heavy on everyone's Minds we have um where I believe we do our best is in local control that on an individual building basis students are able whether they are lgbtq or otherwise if they don't feel comfortable they want alternative options for locker rooms and bathrooms they are free to talk to the principal a counselor a nurse and talk about some alternative options every student should have a feeling of being safe and not everybody enjoys being in a locker room with a bunch of other people um uh Misha does not control the um locker rooms and bathrooms they do control they do have policy over trans athletes I think that's where that was going with that and we do follow Misha when it comes to trans athletes um but again we want to remain in
080a respectful environment where everybody feels safe okay and Mr evansik I assume we're talking about sexual identity with the child in they bring up we have to protect a child and take care of them if they bring up a question or have a concern and it's brought to a counselor a nurse a teacher so many education School District the first set of actions should be a ghost to the parents in the family and the parent and family take it over at that point they take care of the counseling they'll take care of whatever needs to be done with that child that's not the role of the school at that point um well leave it there but that's what it should be no it's fine this is Matt Franklin so honestly I think that um us
081adults make a bigger deal out of this than their kids I think that when you are a student that may be transgender or gay or part of the lgbtq community all you want to do is feel safe and included that's and that's what our schools are supposed to provide safety and inclusion for all of our students um that's really all I have to say about that I think it's really an issue that we just need to to treat our students as kids that's what they are and um keep keep some of the other stuff out of it let us educate our kids Mr Aylen I believe in the same as soon as a child expresses any kind of Interest or wants to talk to a teacher I believe the first thing the teacher does after
082that conversation is call the parents the parents should have a say I mean the school is not raising this child the parent is so the parents should be in charge most of the time restrooms most restrooms have stalls in them the Stalls provide privacy so but it's and these kids are I mean especially in the Middle School they're very confused they're I mean my kids it boggles my mind sometimes what they say because you don't know what they're thinking so I mean these kids are very confused as it is and this especially in the Middle School so it's uh I mean parents just need to unfortunately this sounds old school but they need a parent okay just so you know that you have hope we only have a couple more questions before the closing statement
083but let's change subjects a bit there were a number of questions about classroom technology the specific one that applies to this district is what do you think about the proposal to replace textbooks with Chromebooks there were two or three questions that said don't you think we're using too much technology in the classroom studies are showing that's harmful and then I I also was sensitive to what somebody said about what you put in students brains um and then two people wrote questions tonight saying are you talking about technology with that um so they're interested in what you think about that so Mr Kerr so I I don't see any reason we switched to Chromebooks from textbooks uh and we can you know is it cheaper maybe uh is our child's health uh worth uh a few
084dollars less I don't think so at least in this District uh the reality is we have dozens and dozens and really hundreds of academic studies uh that show uh how poor screen time is over and over but also gives you an example uh my first grader who really shouldn't have a whole lot to do with Chromebooks anyway uh they just don't have a whole lot of stuff that they uh they use those for I came home last week and uh told me that uh that Ukraine had lost the war and I have several Ukrainian friends uh and I didn't know where she was coming from I started I started prodding her and she said that uh she she said that the there was a website that came up on her Chromebook uh which tells me
085it's very you know poor security so thank you Ms Guerra so yeah poor security that comes up and then fractures a child's attention span and also takes away a parental perusal from an actual book of what is coming out in the classroom uh look people in Silicon Valley don't even allow their kids to have a Chromebook because why I think it's interesting that's my position on it books are important okay Ms Hopper I believe that we need textbooks and classroom technology in order to fulfill the complete education of our children um where there are some things where our hard copy textbooks are are valuable especially when it comes to math and if you have paper and pencil um that on certain things that you have to be able to do then we we need to
086be able to do both um I do believe that there is um something to be said for a Chromebook and to be able to use technology I have a 14 year old daughter and if I don't know how to do something I just say here help me please and she she's able to do it so this is educating our our students for an ever-changing world and to be capable curious confident and caring as part of their mission technology is a piece of that we cannot get away from that I think we do need to do it in a safe environment and we do have safety features on our Chromebooks and monitoring that goes on if there are problems so I'm very comfortable with that thank you Mr evansik I would agree that it it's a
087blend of textbooks and Chromebook technology my concern with the technology is making sure that we have the security on it that it just has what the child needs to do their lessons and their work you know it's not doing social media or doing internet searches or anything like that that distracts them one of the things we do have to be careful about with technology is that sometimes it breaks and that can hinder the the education of the child because textbook doesn't you open a textbook up it's still there I would also agree with Deborah about handwriting stuff out that helps with the learning process to actually work through a problem I have an MBA I took my MBA before computers existed and we had to do future value and present value pencil and paper and
088you learn how to do it and you understood it a lot better whereas now you can go into a spreadsheet and the formula just does it and it makes you wonder have they learned anything or not thank you Ms Matt Franklin I believe believe that technology is important to our classrooms we are moving to a technological world it's important for our students to understand how to use our technology and how to use it appropriately one of the better ways of doing that is to teach them how to do that in a in a safe environment our Chromebooks have great parental or even Beyond parental controls on them and it has a 24 7 monitoring so our students are are constantly being monitored on what's going on on their Chromebooks I would also say that it
089is important to continue to have a written paper there are some students that need that and from every option I mean from my communication with different counselors and teachers I've had that opportunity to give my children the paper copies if they needed it instead of just the Chromebooks so we do have those options available thank you Mr Elon well I will say this two years ago or three years ago my child broke through the firewall and we had to have a conversation with Dr Marty so it's not the safest and a lot of these kids know Electronics better than we do most adults for sure I believe I can use a computer as a tool I use it for calculations and writing reports at work that's about it my children they have down time they're
090on YouTube they're in the classroom so in my opinion I think school books should come back and only maybe have a computer lab to where they go learn how to use Excel or Word Microsoft Word or something like that otherwise they have way too much time too much down time and they can get themselves in trouble okay thank you and finally Mr Todd what about you uh I will say uh like Ms Matt Franklin did that Parkway security is among the best uh in schools in St Louis I know we're regularly collaborating with other districts on uh the best practices I know our Chromebooks have layer upon layer of security uh on them and uh as Mr aylin pointed out kids are smart and every day they figure out a new way to get around
091something so if you if you're a parent and you do discover that there's something that your your child shouldn't be seeing please say something to someone a teacher a principal or send the board an email but I do think between textbooks and Chromebooks I think there needs to be a balance I think technology Prides a great view of the of the world outside of here I think textbooks also provide a a traditional and in well-proof method of instruction so I think it's it's a all of the balance okay thank you very much now I didn't get to ask all of your questions and I have one more question left but if you've got your old-fashioned pens or pencils I want to mention some things that people asked about that I think belong answered in your
092final statements so let me just mention some of them to you um what specific skill or attribute unique one do you bring to the district as a reason for you to be elected why do you want to serve some people are very concerned about endorsements who endorsed you be they National groups local Nea groups etc etc so maybe you could address that uh there were a number of questions about personal Behavior and I decided that I would give you the option to talk about that in the closing statement do you believe that as an elected official that you should your personal Behavior for your personal Behavior you should be held accountable and how does that position in the community affect what you're free to do even in your personal life so I hope this gives
093you some things to think about and to incorporate into your final statements I think they belong in there and there were a lot of them and I tried to group them so that we could do that let me also say that there was a number of questions that I don't have time for some deal with tiffs you might want to talk to them specifically about that afterwards um some also deal with um other kinds of negotiating with unions etc etc and I hope that you will stay afterwards we've built the time in for you to talk to these people about those things and I apologize I tried to focus on what I thought was most important to you just given what you turned in so here's the last question and by my calculation I guess
094I'll put it that way with my little pin Ms Guerra you're going to be first and then when we get to the final statements Mr aylin you're going to be first and we're going to go up the table here's the last question lots of people are concerned about violence school safety in terms of potential shootings but they're also concerned about violent acts that they say are accelerating in the district um what specific thing would you do to start addressing that and we're going to start with you miss Gary as I said before first and foremost change the content or how the curriculum is taught and then enforce a heavy discipline policy children need to learn to be accountable for their actions their behavior and I have a neighbor who said Kathy he doesn't want to
095go to school because he said he will learn more at home it's too noisy in the classroom and she asked if he could have home instruction via online no the answer was no I think that's an issue discipline is an issue and as I stated before I think we need to have a heavy discipline policy and test these kids Whoever has a problem a behavior problem and I am not saying it is black or white asian everybody ought to be tested I think there's a problem thank you Ms Hopper could you I'm sorry could you repeat what what the bottom line question is here people are concerned about violence they talk about it in two distinct ways number one particularly given the events of today um addressing the risk of this school shooting or a
096severe violent Act secondly they're concerned about what they say is an increased Trend toward violence in this District violent acts that aren't school shootings okay what specific thing would you do to start working on those problems okay thank you um well nobody wants to see violence and I am all for trying to improve the bullying the harassment and the intimidation within our schools I don't believe that our classrooms are so out of control that our teachers um aren't not able to teach our students I do not believe that um what I do believe is that we we do have sros in our schools we're very proud of them we have a 4E training program for our students and teachers to be able to know what to do if we do have some kind of um
097active shooter type of activity taking place we have a wonderful Security Department who is top-notch here but I also believe that we also need to improve our character development program we need to get our students to feel that you know violence is not an option and as part of our social emotional learning things we do teach and there are some standards that help students to learn how to control their emotions thank you I think the question the second part of the question on the violence I don't want to talk about school shooting because I I don't think this is a time to talk about that right now but if you know Parkway has protocol to have policies and how to handle situations with students and those just need to be followed maybe they need to
098be fine-tuned a little more one of the problems we have in society as a general is that we don't operationalize our laws we love to make laws we don't enforce them things would change with traffic if we had a police officer at every corner and stopped everyone who ran a stop sign I was going up the street a couple years ago School Bus stopped lights sign went out car went right around that school bus I actually waited until school bus took off I followed that car stopped the driver and talked to him myself that's how he did at talk only talked um but it what it made me realize is that thank you too thank you that's a good place to stop Miss Matt Franklin so when we look at our society we see violence
099increasing throughout our society that's naturally going to come into our schools I think one of the things that we can work on in our schools is to understand the students and the environments that they're coming from the trauma that they're exhibiting this is Nationwide it's not just in our schools that we're seeing it so we have to do something with our students that can help them learn how to deal with their various issues that they're dealing with that might come out in violent ways one of those ways is through our character education programs through social emotional learning through having additional Mental Health Resources available within our schools all of those things can help that those particular students learn how to deal with the issues that are out in our world that's coming out in them
100in a violent way thank you Mr aylin as far as like the safety in the schools um I mean barring turning a school into a prison kids are going to learn how to get in and out if they have guns unfortunately um my my thing would be to hire an outside source and I'm pretty sure Parkway has probably done this and uh four want to know about your endorsements both by national organizations some people mentioned the Nea where that was concerned the local Nea with this they want to know if you should be held accountable because you're public official for your personal Behavior um what you why they should vote for you so they're they're interested now in your character and why you should be elected okay um as far as I know I'm not
101backed by anybody but my wife um as far as your character yes I believe character in my opinion character is a big thing and we we teach our kids this um I mean you can be you can be hanging out with people and be found guilty by association and we try to make sure our children hang out with with people with good character but that being said also people do make mistakes and sometimes we have to Little Grace but I'm not a politician I'm not I don't I really don't even I don't want to really even have this job but my whole outlook is either you can sit at home and complain or you can do something about it and get in the game so I I decided to try to do something about it
102so that's why I that's why I'm I'm running and um I don't have I don't have a whole lot of diplomacy sometimes but I do have I think logically and um I'm an engineer and my job is to solve problems so that's what you know may take a while but eventually I do solve the problems and vote for me on April 4th thank you thank you Miss Matt Franklin so I consider myself a servant leader and I believe through the years of being in Parkway I've served Parkway in a number of roles as a parent as a I was a classroom volunteer and I had the ability to see a teachers nurture our children in that capacity as a volunteer I was able to see how teachers um dealt with those 6 through 11 year
103olds depending on that grade level and keep them all on task skillfully as a substitute teacher I was able to communicate with with the students in a way that often brought me back I was often requested to come back to different teachers buildings and if Parkway entrusts me to serve a full term it would be an honor I honestly consider myself this a service to our community I am committed to Parkway because Parkway has done so much for my family and my children their education has been top-notch is it perfect no I don't think so and that's one of the reasons that I get involved is because I want to see parkway at its best and I know that when we when we work together that's what we'll get is parkway at its best um
104as a I also understand that being on a board we are not individuals we are a board and we need to work with our superintendent our one employee um to to make sure that we are collaborating and working effectively to move the district um in a successful way um most the most successful districts have a very effective and collaborative superintendent and board team and I would like to continue that Mr ivancic I want to thank all of you for being here tonight because you got a great opportunity we live in a republic in a republic you get to vote in the person who you think represents you so that's the choice you have amongst all of us here for myself I have a unique ability and that is as I said earlier I can see
105things differently because I'm not tied into the network I'm not tied into the Nea I'm not tied into the uh history I'm not tied into anything so I can ask those questions very honestly I have a background of Finance I have 45 years in health care before I retired I won national awards and operational efficiency I've been on multiple non-for-profit boards I understand the collaboration there is into working on a board working with people having objectives and moving organizations in those directions if you think that's the person you want on the board click mark on the ballot thank you thank you thank you I'd like to also thank my fellow candidates for being here for tonight's dialogue we've had some nice conversation um I do think that board members need to serve as role models
106in their Community I believe I have proven to be somebody that can be counted on that is trustworthy that is responsible and that will listen as far as the endorsements go it did bother me that I heard some of the the things that were being said about that we get a lot of questionnaires from a variety of different groups and I feel compelled as it's my duty to respond to any question and any meet and greet invitation that comes along because I think educating voters is very important we don't always ask for those endorsements they come to us that does not mean that we're beholden to any endorsement it just means that they support us which is great and thank them very much um I I want to continue I'm very proud of Parkway and
107as I said earlier I have a deep care for this community and I want to continue to see it Thrive and I'm proud of what we have done is there still work to be done of course but I want to continue to maintain the Public's trust and keep Parkway on a path of continuous Improvement and I uh finally you have my personal commitment to Excellence in doing what's right for all of our students I'll continue to ask tough questions I will challenge our district administrators and I will work collaboratively with my fellow board members to be a collective decision-making body as an Alum of Washington University and having worked at their medical school for almost 20 years also with some Hospital Administration background I have developed a passion for being in a vibrant educational and
108diverse culture this along with my school board experience in raising children in this District prepare me very well thank you I appreciate your elect your vote on April 4th Ms Guerra I'm running on trust the greatest trust that you can give someone is to care for another's child so that's why I'm running uh I believe that I bring some skill set attributes of mental health care and a background that can help our students and this is an issue ongoing why do I want to serve I care about people I care about children they are our asset and so I believe that that I can in my way as a therapist add to boards knowledge on how to in those areas I think that my life should be important what I do and to to all
109human beings that it's not just for the school district it's for everybody for the world someone also mentioned that lgbtq is not a concern so much to the kids as it is to the parents but I will remind you that our brains are fully formed and so I appreciate I appreciate you being here appreciate your vote thank you Mr Kurt so we all make mistakes uh seven years ago I made a big mistake and I wasn't a uh adult per se uh uh in the sense that uh I didn't know a whole lot about myself I've spent seven years uh not only not trying to correct that uh but to understand myself uh understand how my brain works I understand how my uh intuition and ability uh to affect others and change things Works uh
110and that's uh I think something that's more important to me than anything is the journey uh and not uh not the uh the unfortunate incident uh I will say that the uh the original video that was uh uh six minutes and 37 seconds long was edited two and a half minutes of context out of it before it was reposted with the original that has never violated Community standards being deleted the day before uh so you know political uh hit what you want uh skills and attributes data driven I live and die by data that's what I do I do research uh data doesn't know a color data knows root causes we look at data because it doesn't it doesn't delineate this child from this child it says this is the issue and then how are
111we going to solve it on evidence-based practices uh bottom line why serve my kids I want my kids to have the best education they possibly can without costing me my entire salary every year uh personal Behavior as a board member absolutely you should be accountable as a board member uh for your behavior in the community uh endorsements uh I don't have any special endorsements I've actually declined uh however I still answer the questions when we get the questionnaires and I send them back out I post every single one of those questionnaires uh on my social media as public and transparent there's nothing that nothing that I don't want however I think endorsements uh put you in a bad place when it comes to negotiating thank you Mr Todd well I'd just like to thank you
112all again for spending the evening with us I'd like to thank the women League of Women Voters again for this opportunity I think the one skill or attribute that defines me in this position is a leader I've been a leader on the board for uh five of the six years that I've been here I've been a leader in multiple volunteer opportunities in the community why am I serving I'm the only one of these candidates that graduated from Parkway schools my father went to Parkway schools a long long time ago and my kids are proud graduates of Parkway schools when I ran six years ago we didn't have an election three years ago because we were on a post but when I ran six years ago I had certain endorsements then I have other additional endorsements
113this time around not six years ago not this time have I ever taken one dime for many of those organizations and behavior I think behavior is Paramount I think you know we we try and lead from the top down we have a great very cohesive Board of of directors and everyone behaves well Dr Marty our superintendent demands that expects that of of all of our staff and we support him in that and we try to model all the the behavior that we expect to see in our staff and then we expect our staff to model that behavior that they expect to see in their students I think that being on this board I think is is one of the one or more of the board members said it we're a team it's it's seven people
114you you have individual thoughts and ideas but you can't be on this on this board with an agenda you you have to be willing to work collaboratively with everyone else on the board with teachers administrators and you you really for those of you making your decision you have to trust thank you let's give them [Applause] give them I think that we got through a lot of issues tonight if you found this to be helpful we also have the voters guide in the back there and you can find that to be helpful and we have it online vote411.org for those who like technology and we also have it in paper form in the back or take one for somebody else we do six counties and if you think that educating voters and trying to model civil
115discourse and talking about real issues not just sound bites not just the flyer with two lines on it that lands on your doorstep if you think that's important think about joining the League of Women Voters we think the number one problem in our culture is divisiveness and we have got to learn how to work together for better government nothing is more important than a school board and so I hope that you will join us now the problem with voting is that people don't vote or they just think about presidential politics there was a question I didn't ask about something that Congress passed today and I just decided not to do it not that I didn't think it was important but I think local politics is where we need the most work because it affects our
116lives the most I want you to pledge to contact five people who are wavering about voting on April 4th and persuade them to do it now you all live in the county right now you can do no excuse absentee voting by walking up to one of the following four places the board of elections in Saint Anne at Northwest Plaza the North County Rec complex uh but out here you can go to the the Ballwin Police Department which is at 300 Park Drive and you can walk in there and during regular office hours 8 30 to 4 30 you can no excuse vote before the election you're also extremely lucky because you can go to any polling place in the county and they will pull up your ballot I live in the city I do not
117have that privilege yet I certainly do Envy it so if you have to go to a doctor's appointment on Election Day or you're coming from work or you're picking up your kid look at the list of polling places find one that's near where you're going to be and go there and vote they will pull up your individual ballot this is terrific and I commend your Board of Elections for spending their coveted money to get that done so the thing is you need to vote thoughtfully and in the back we have not only the school boards but we also have City councils we have important propositions some of them are municipal propositions some of them are County propositions etc etc and in a non-partisan factual way we have tried to explain them to you particularly the
118ballot issues in English so that you can understand them and we will be at as many polling places as we can to make sure that everybody can vote and please tell those who are elderly in your circles that if they have a driver's license or a real ID non-driver's license ID that expired after the November 2022 election they can still use it to vote the authorities are being very quiet about this but I want you to know that and secondly if they don't have that by gosh make sure that they do file a provisional ballot if you don't think provisional ballots count I hope you read the newspaper or heard the news in St Louis city we had a dead tie in the primary and award election it was the provisional ballots that were checked
119against signatures that made the difference in that so we need to get serious and protect our democracy and democracy starts right in our backyard so thank you very much and and I apologize for keeping you a little bit longer but I thought your questions and we have lots of League information back there and we've got voters guides and I even have 50 years more in the back of my car so go ahead and take them out