Board of Education Candidate Forum - March 30, 2022

001good evening everyone my name is jeff todd i'm the president of the board of education uh for the last year up until uh our reorganization meeting in a couple of weeks and i i may be after that who knows but i'd like to welcome you tonight it's great to have so many people here and virtually we have a bunch of people tuning in and so we'd like to welcome you to the league of women voters candidate forum for this upcoming election a week from today or a week from yesterday so six days left for our candidates i believe we have some questions that have been submitted and and that process will be explained to you very shortly um but like you i am eager to learn uh more about each of these candidates and and

002uh what perspective they may possibly bring to the board of education here in parkway so without further ado i'd like to introduce your moderator for tonight ms sue williams thank you jeff i hope everybody hear this okay i'm gonna i'm gonna raise it just a little bit towards me okay uh good evening and welcome it's wonderful to see so many people here especially due to the weather which isn't very nice tonight um i will give you the outline of what we're going to do this evening i want to welcome you on behalf of the league of women voters and our hosts parkway school district particularly the organizers of this forum which were kathy dodge and nikki stiver and uh thank you for jump to jeff todd for the introductions this forum is being live streamed

003on parkway's youtube channel with captioning and interpretation for the hearing impaired um i believe did we get an interpreter in the room i don't know if we did that kathy do we have an interpreter in the room no okay we talked about that but that didn't happen uh as he said my name is sue williams i am a member of the metro st louis league of women voters and i will be your moderator i want to thank all of the candidates for participating on april the 5th you will elect two of these candidates to serve on the parkway board of education the candidates are in the order as they appear on the ballot jeffrey spector robert reddy is that riddy reedy reading okay um barbara butchered and catherine oh catherine choice was not able to

004be here tonight tony spielberg and scott winfrey and another candidate who was not able to be here tonight was wayne hartman so if you those you can mine are in a guide voter's guide the candidates will give their opening statements in the order that they're seated in the order on the ballot and they will give their closing statements in reverse order the league believes that one of the best ways for voters about people who are seeking election is to hear them speak and answer questions in a civil public forum many say that civil discussion of community issues is impossible since we are so politically divided but we know that you have come tonight or are listening online because you care about your schools and you want to make a reasoned decision before you vote the

005following rules are what we use to have a civil discussion these help work to get make they will help us work together to make that happen the candidates will each have two minutes for an opening statement they will have one minute to answer each question that's asked they the right to speak to all the questions including those that might be posed to an individual candidate although usually we try to ask the question of all the candidates they will have two minutes each for a closing statement we have a time keeper who is sitting up here in the front mr arthur lieber the timekeeper will time all opening and closing statements and candidate answers to the questions he will hold up a sign to indicate when the candidates have 30 seconds left and he will turn

006that over when their time is up to show that they need to stop they will be allowed to finish last sentence and then they need to stop always come back to a question that they haven't been able to complete in their closing statement the the audience we are asking that the audience write down questions of general interest directed to one or members of the group which have been the cards provided to you as you entered and they will be collected if you have one during the course of the evening please hold it up and someone will come and collect it we ask you to write one question per card please we have already received many questions online submitted to the the website and i have sorted those out to to about 12 topics that were

007of interest i've tried to include as many questions as i can in the combined questions although those of you who ask those questions may not hear your question asked precisely as you worded it but you should hear this topic being addressed and the candidates will address portions of that as the moderator that is my part of my job to combine questions that are similar and let you hear the general topic and let those candidates answer those questions to want to make sure that each candidate has an equal opportunity to answer each of those topics and i will enforce any rules that we might need to enforce although there's many people here to help audio or video tape recordings may be made of this meeting and as league members we determine which questions will be asked

008and we attempt in good faith to cover all areas of interest expressed by the audience okay see if i forgot anything oh there are members of their volunteers from the league of women voters here tonight not only taking your cards but to answer questions about the league if you have any so now we'll begin with the opening statements i'm going to ask the first candidate which is jeffrey specter to start us out and then we'll go down the line you have two minutes for your opening statements thank you first off i'd like to thank the league of women voters for hosting this event my other candidates as well as everybody in the audience and who submitted questions again my name is jeffrey spectre and i'm running for board member of parkway school district i'm a

009lifelong parkway resident i graduated from parkway central in 2003 i met my wife senior year of high school and we've been together ever since we have two children in the district kindergarten in second grade my wife was a dance coach and teacher's assistant in the district my mother was a teacher in the district for 16 years had various family and friends be teachers as well as as well as had many students and family members in the district there is nothing i want more than for parkway to succeed we've seen locally nationally a lot of divisiveness in the school board and in the school districts that needs to end and that's something that i want to help achieve parkway's mission as many know is to ensure capable curious caring and confident learners and ready for the

010future ahead that's what i want to help accomplish parkway is an amazing district it is a destination district and i want to make sure that that continues moving forward we need to get past any issues that may be conflicting with parents with other community members and come together to make sure that our children have a wonderful education moving forward and i appreciate you all being here thank you thank you robert thank you thank you to the league and thank you for everybody in attendance and online tonight for this forum and of course my the other candidates running that are here with us this evening my name is rob reedy i also am running for the parkway board of education and i'm doing this for a few reasons i think it's important that you understand where

011i come from i am a product of public schools all the way from kindergarten through undergraduate and college and i attribute public school to being a foundation for any success that i've had as an adult my academics athletics that i was able to excel in and get a lot of help from coaches and and others who've led me along the way band being in theatrical performances everything that sort of came together to create me somewhat was rooted in public school for that reason i'm a tremendous proponent of public school i think it's one of the most important public institutions that we have now i have six children i have three stepchildren three of my own and those three stepkids have already been through every level of parkway i've got two little kids who are starting

012one in kindergarten right now i feel tremendously vested in the success of parkway schools since college i've had a career in business i've learned how to lead teams cultivate ideas advance initiatives all the things that i think could be compelling and helpful if i were to be on the board and then the things that are important to me you know i look around us some of the things that jeff mentioned i agree with completely i think that as we come through the pandemic kids have been affected in many different ways their ability to learn has been affected their mental health is a is is rampant mental health issues and i think these are areas that we need to focus upon this a commitment to public service a commitment to want to help with public schools

013a commitment to want to help kids with mental health issues get their academics back on track after the pandemic these are the reasons that i want to run and want to participate on the parkway board of education thank you mr butcher hi there i'm barbara buchart and i i guess i'll just tell you what happened was before the pandemic i was at work with a friend of mine and she's in saint charles and she looked over at me and she said i asked my son what he learned at school today and he said oh i learned that you can't judge a person's gender by looking at them and i thought huh well that doesn't sound very much like education to me and and then you know i watch the news we all watch the news

014and all i'm hearing about is you know like sex like what sex do you want to be who sex are you are you having so would you like to read about sex in our public school libraries and i thought what i'm sorry was just startling to me and and i'm obviously very new to this i've never run for anything before but i thought who's going to stand up for these kids i mean you know instead of let's talk about sex baby let's talk about education maybe i so i just i threw my name on the ballot and i just want to stand up for the kids i i really want to he mentioned the um the mental health and so my big push is if we can have school counselors for people's mental health i'd

015really like to see personal trainers so that they can also work on their physical health because that will affect their mental health so that's kind of my priority you know and then i think scott's going to talk a little bit about apprenticeships and the importance of that so that they don't get stuck having to go into student debt and well that's 30 seconds so so yeah maybe he'll talk more about that but that's why i'm running and i just you know i wanted to stamp for the kids i said you know who's going to stand up for them i said here i am lord send me thank you thank you mr spielberg good evening thank you to the league of women voters thank you candidates and thank you everyone here this evening my name is

016tony spielberg and i've been part of parkway since 1977 when starting in mrs sternick's kindergarten class at weber elementary school my wife lauren is also alum of parkway and we have three sons in the district fourth in fifth grade at highcroft and then an 11th grader at parkway central i love parkway i've been volunteering with parkway for over 11 years in my children's schools and found an amazing opportunity with parkway called parkway spark about five to six years ago the experience was a game changer for me personally and professionally and it gave me a new way to give back to the district that i grew up in and i love so much my son who is now a junior as i mentioned is part of this tremendous program and i'm excited to be part of

017that when asked over the past couple years i've watched our current school board pivot and do the best job that they knew how to do without a road map since we've never seen anything like this pandemic before a few things started to interest me is my own children started to struggle online out of the classroom learning was tough on them i started asking questions and felt that we can do better and that should and could start with me where is my focus my focus is is really laser precise precision focused on core curriculum such as math history science and english i think our teachers do a fantastic phenomenal job at that but we need to figure out how to catch them up keeping soft skills at the forefront of everything we do as a district

018start to grow our financial literacy platform so the children have have usable tools as they get older a stronger focus on civics without civics after all how do you know how do you know and how can you expect young people to understand the voting process we need to focus on these things and we need to continue to provide more options for kids that want the path of vocational training and finally what i do in my career i'm a manufactured ambassador an ambassador usually works to create middle ground thank you mr winfrey all right thank you everyone the league of women voters parkway employees the police everyone that showed up everyone that's online watching and most importantly the sound guys in the back thank you for making this happen well i don't even know where to

019start but we're really in a mess a little bit about myself is my family has been in parkway uh since the 70s i've had the pleasure of being involved in parkway since elementary school i went to henry piermont parkway west middle and parkway west high school which i represent i was a substitute teacher in the in the st louis area for five years and i've been a substitute teacher in parkway for three years i can tell everyone here that the real reason i'm here is you know this is a great platform to let me know that let you guys know that the students are really doing an amazing job and it's not necessarily the curriculum that they're having problems with that i see in the classroom it's you know their emotional health and well-being and

020so that's the reason i've decided to continue my education finish my masters i'm working right now at the urban league downtown and i see firsthand what can happen to young people that really um that are really they're really suffering right now um just today i was i was downtown in south city the state streets and i was working um with a young woman who's 21 years of age and you know she's she's an alcoholic because her family was was really just just an awful mess and so that's really what's what's brought me here is the ability just to listen that's what everything's come down to it's just it's just sometime when you take some time to listen to each other all right thank you thank all of you for those statements um my first question

021which is one of the ones was submitted online um is regarding equity in the district how would you support the district's equity task force recommendations which i'm going to summarize uh as foster to foster a diverse equitable and inclusive community while supporting students and staff to address issues and opportunities that might impede student learning and feelings of belonging that that is a statement from the parkway website so i wanted to make sure we were all on the same page as to what the district's equity task force was about um so i'm going to ask mr spector to start with that yes uh equity is something that's very important to me it's been something that i've been talked a lot about on my platform we need to give our kids the opportunities to succeed and that

022is not a one-size-fits-all approach students need to be given individualized attention in order to succeed and it's not just the students it is also teachers and staff from student level making sure that all students are being heard over 40 percent of our student body is minority we need to make sure those students are heard and are represented in our curriculum as for the teachers and staff we need to make sure we're looking at minority job fairs making sure that the staff and teachers represent the diversity of our students these are just a few ways or a couple of ways that we can help with the equity issues that we the task force found and hopefully will implement in the future thank you mr reedy the same question you have one minute yes i familiarize myself

023with the equity task force i think it's very good work that the district has already undertaken i'll say that in my background growing up i went to a school whose student body was i think representative of the demographics of the community i think there's a strength in that i think when kids understand different cultures and people with different backgrounds it teaches them empathy it teaches them the ability to communicate well with others and i think this is vitally important i think that the important thing about the equity task force is there was there were several recommendations that were laid out the important thing is that there's follow through that was done right at the beginning of the pandemic and i can't fault the district for focusing a lot of effort on getting through the pandemic

024but now we really need to double down on the equity task force we need to make sure that the initiatives and the recommendations are being followed through upon followed through on and that it's not just a static document it needs to be organic it needs to live on and i think it needs to be revisited periodically and i know that's something the board will intend to do and if i were on the board that would be very important to me thank you ms butcher well when you talk about equity what i hear is that people are being marginalized and i guess what i don't understand is who is being marginalized and how they're being marginalized and i haven't familiarized myself with this document so i don't really know anything about it but if i knew

025how they were being marginalized then i could address it so really that's all i have thank you mr spelberg sure you know when we talk about the equity task force and you read that document there's some fantastic things in there and candidly it goes deeper than most probably think when you when you talk about something in a document that important to the future of parkway you have to set timelines you have to set goals and you have to set readable data points so that as we move forward over the next three to five to ten years that we make sure that we're achieving these these absolutely important initiatives that the equity task force played out there for us look we want the same treatment the same opportunities for all of our students and i think

026that once i can hopefully be elected to this board i have the ability not only to bring people together and create a less divisive climate but create some middle ground on this in this topic specifically thank you okay mr winfrey well i'm excited about different projects and initiatives going on in parkway such as project parkway where the district has a group of over 400 volunteers that aid in developing parkway's mission value and strategic plan at the end of the day if you really want to talk about diversity equity inclusion you have to include everyone you know as great as a task force is you know everyone needs to be involved and the task force may have a vision but really we could be doing more as a district to involve non-profits and community events like

027i said i'm a big fan of the st louis urban league we're lucky in st louis to have the largest chapter of the urban league there's 90 affiliates in urban league and this one's number one they serve 125 citizens every year they've had 40 food drives i was up last saturday with one in north city in the victor roberts building we serve 2 500 uh families and some of those families are involved in the parkway too so just because you know they might be in indoor city you know we're part of the ecosystem here so we all have to support each other okay okay i think we've all addressed that one this is a related question i i've kept it a little separate from the other um this is from our audience here as well

028as some people online what would you do or what would you have the district do to address disparities in student discipline and this one we'll start with mr reedy you know that's a great question it speaks to the performance gap the discipline gap the incarceration gap that exists between black and brown students and the rest of the student body i think this is something we need to give careful attention to particularly around what institutes what would be considered reason for expulsion or suspension examining this particularly at the elementary school level and making sure that kids are treated in a way that addresses their own cultural differences you know i know some children struggle with eye contact some teachers might look at that and think that's a sign of disrespect i think understanding kids and where

029they come from is the most important way to kind of mitigate these issues that exist with discipline okay thank you would you repeat the question yes the question was what would you have what would you do on the board and what do you think the board should do to address disparities in student discipline okay thank you very much and robert that was a great answer yeah i'd like to take that answer yeah because i don't know anything about what type again it's very general so i don't know what types of disparities there are i don't know i would just want to apply things equally that just makes sense to me i don't comment common sense solutions you know that's really all i can say to a generalized question like that okay let's just start by

030great yeah i think you know we have to ask how the student got to this point in the first place that's that's the first thing and secondly we have to really use a different lens and how we and how we look at students and their behaviors it didn't just start when they got to ninth grade or sixth grade or third grade we have to look at what the background would say about these students you know it's important for stu it's important for students to feel safe physically emotionally before they can reach their full potential and we all know that we need to use more positive imagery and messaging supportive of their of their issues and then we can improve you know supportive language as words really do matter um and we also need to work

031at removing some of the existing barriers and there's a great way of doing this if you look into universal design which is something i'm familiar with and i work with adults with developmental disabilities um this is something i believe could be applied here as well thank you mr winfrey well um i can speak to this on many levels i could speak this as an educator and i can also speak to it as a student at parkway they got in trouble a lot so if any of my teachers are watching i'm very sorry really what i've noticed in the five years as a substitute teacher in the three years at parkway most student discipline issues are because the students just want to be heard that's really the bottom line and so a lot of times a

032lot of this can be avoided um just taking the student aside you know just letting them sit or calm down or just letting them talk i think one of the major issues that we face as a district is that we don't include the parents enough in in the issues we could listen to the parents too i remember a case in which i was a long-term sub and a mother called me and told me that she's having trouble with her son and that she wanted me to help help her and so i did and so i called and we talked just about every single day when i was a long-term sub and we really got to the root of the problem which is you know it was a family issue at home with his father and

033so that young man went on to the next grade with with better grades thank you mr spectre in 2015 2016 there was a study done black students were suspension suspended more than four times than white students students with disabilities were suspended four times more than students without disabilities and to speak with more with rob and tony and all the candidates would have said it's it's learning why it's not just seeing an action and taking an action we need to look at restorative practices really get to the root of what is going on with our students if we don't understand what is going on in that student's life how can we effectively discipline that student we need to take an interest in that student and learn more about what's going on as scott mentioned it's sometimes

034a cry for help there could be issues at home and as school should be a safe place for these students um and when students act out it's not necessarily because it's something they just want to do to to escape it's something that they are we need to get to the root cause of and something that using all of the issues that have been brought up will help combat that thank you i think we've all answered that um i'm going to segue just something kind of related that someone mentioned parent involvement what are your views on parent involvement this is really two questions combined and what are your thoughts on a missouri parents bill of rights as has been proposed in the state legislature that would give parents or family members more access to curriculum and

035lesson plans teacher training materials performance information district financial and contract information and give them the right to opt their child out of certain curricular content and health requirements it's a big question so if you need to repeat it's mine i will but we're going to start with uh barbara yeah i got the big question the long one well i mean i i didn't know that they needed a parent's bill of rights i mean that's sad if you're saying that you need that um so that they have access to curriculum i mean that's kind of new to me i mean i looked up some of the curriculum um so i don't understand why it's hidden but i think it should be transparent like i've said before the parent is the customer of the public school system

036and we want customer satisfaction i it should be transparent i think i would support a bill of rights if if that's necessary i'm just i'm a little astonished that it seems to be that that's necessary definitely for parents understanding what the curriculum is and uh and deciding whether or not it's appropriate for their child thank you thank you mr speaker yeah i like this question because you know as a parent of three kids in the district one of the things that i always think about is what is my role as a parent when it comes to uh dealing with some of the the new rules or new curriculum or new the different opportunities that are provided and you know parents absolutely should have a voice at the board level but so should every other stakeholder

037in the district so this is not this is not any different than any other stakeholders teachers students parents it all it all should be the same parents really should be providing resources they should be volunteering in school events develop good relationships with teachers and principals parents should keep the schools well informed about homework curriculum problems in child development things like that so that there can be a partnership between the parent and the school board and i believe that if we can do that we don't need a parent's bill of rights okay mr winfrey um i believe that a parent's bill of rights is critical because like they say absolute power is corrupting absolutely there needs to be accountability on every level especially in the educators level there is a big difference between an educator and

038a content master if you don't believe me you can go to college because you can see that sometimes the university professors that lecture don't always have someone there to hold them accountable and what i've seen personally in the classroom is how much of a difference parent parental involvement can really make in a student's life so i absolutely believe that parents have a right to have at least some kind of oversight to the curriculum and be able to voice their opinion to how their you know their students and young people are going to be taught okay mr spectre um parents are already involved uh with with recalibration of curriculum if new curriculum is to be entered into parents are involved in that in in those decisions their parkway already has the ability to opt out of

039certain curriculum or certain books if we i'm sure there will probably be a question later about books but there's already processes in place that parkway has so looking at missouri's bills and then parkway separately parkway's already doing things that this bill is already is trying to do parents have the options to work with their administrators to potentially opt out of certain things that they don't feel are appropriate for their students um we have these because we know that other students should have the ability if they so desire to to read a book or to have the curriculum um so i think parkway's already doing an amazing job and will continue to do so thank you okay mr riddy this question has been answered pretty thoroughly but i agree for those who've said that we don't

040need the bill of rights i really don't think we do i think that particularly parkway there's a robust i.t access parents can access the internet and see the curriculum for all their kids classes largely of course they can speak to teachers and answer any ask any questions that they might have as jeffrey said there's state laws surrounding um deeply held religious beliefs where parents can opt out of certain subject areas that affect that and there's also some laws around sexual reproductive health education where parents can opt out this this already exists beyond that it's just sort of logistically difficult to allow parents to opt out of various other areas of subject matter so i think as jeffrey said being involved in the curriculum recalibration phase which is always ongoing is an important aspect of where

041parents can become involved and just getting to know the teacher talking about the curriculum and asking questions asking the student questions these are all great ways to become involved okay thank you the next question somewhat related um this is a question regarding uh concepts such as sexual orientation gender dysphoria sexual reassignment the the questioner asks should these types of concepts be a part of the curriculum for k-3 students and i will also add this will be part you know if you think it's appropriate so um i think we are going to start with mr spielberg sure got a good one k-3 is certainly different than k-12 so i just i just want to make sure that um that we make sure that we're talking about that look parkway's done a really great job of offering

042the opportunity to opt out of certain subjects if the parents feel like it's necessary i believe that that is appropriate and and something that parkway should carry forward um i i do i believe that it is okay for children to learn about these things we've never opted our kids out of anything as a matter of fact today it's funny that this question comes to me is my fourth grader was actually called to the principal the first time since he's been at highcroft and his older brother had just learned they were learning about the human reproductive system in the fifth grade and he had gone to the computer and he'd heard his brother say something and he typed in a word that he had heard and the teacher saw it and i just said my wife

043calls me i'm like oh man but you know what it's okay we're okay with that but i do think that the parents should have the right to opt out of these things i think it's absolutely important and something that parkway has done a great job at and we should carry it forward okay mr winfrey yeah parents like i said should have the ability to understand the curriculum of what their young people are getting involved in should be able to opt out um like in the in the classroom like i said i could speak from personal experience the you know the young people are very intelligent they'll find out sooner or later you know they have phones this is not you know the 1950s anymore so we also have to be realistic as adults too to

044what um the young people are exposed to and so we need to be able to have open and even difficult conversations with them too that's really what this should be focused on about is how do we have conversations with young people with the stuff they're struggling with um if you guys are familiar familiar with catcher in the ride that book was banned and all that did was create more hype around it too so we also be very careful um that you know if we're banning stuff all it's going to do is bring more awareness to it so being realistic you know we it's really more about having conversations with young people and having that open dialogue and being honest with him that's really what this should be about thank you mr specter same question as

045tony had mentioned obviously we've already got policies in place that would allow a parent to opt out if again they feel uncomfortable with the subject i personally don't believe we should stop teaching these subjects our students are learning things earlier than i ever did when i graduated from school and again we are trying to prepare our students yes for beyond school but while they're in school um if they don't hear it at school there's a chance they may hear it outside of school we need to make sure our children are prepared and again if as a parent you believe it is inappropriate for your child then you have the ability to opt out and which is which you should have that ability um but to answer the question i i i don't think we should

046be changing the curriculum and removing it okay mr reedy when you talk about equity and inclusion i firmly believe that includes the lgbtq ia plus community as well i'm very reluctant to agree to any kind of policy that would remove a teacher's ability to talk about all different types of students and parents at school of course there's no formal sexual education training in k-3 but what about a student who has gay parents same-sex parents and it's time for them to draw a family picture are we talking about a rule that would not allow them to draw their same-sex parents on their family picture i wouldn't be in favor of that um so um i'm just very concerned about litigate or talking about legislating rules around how teachers teach i think the policies we have right

047now are strong and have the school moving in the right direction we can always re-examine them but i don't think there's any need for wholesale change right now okay mr would you repeat the question please please should concepts should concepts such as sexual orientation uh gender dysphoria sexual reassignment be part of the curriculum for k-3 students and then i added on or for older students okay yeah no sorry i'm sorry math science civics history uh no that's a no that's your answer short and sweet and i i have to ask the audience to please refrain from applauding during the uh time of the form but at the end you certainly may do that so well i have another one on this similar topic because there were a lot of questions on this uh there were

048more than six questions submitted and several here in the uh on the forum tonight that i want to be sure we get to these so several people have asked the question what is your position regarding transgender students participating in sports and or this is and another and access to bathrooms and locker rooms that conform with their gender identity and let's see i want to be sure we start with mr winfrey on this one would you like me to repeat it no i heard it okay yeah that's it's um it's tough because you know as an educator and as a member of the urban league we're here to support all sexual identities so with that being said i i support uh transgender in any shape or form so if they use the restrooms they should have

049they should have the right and they should have the right to choose what sports they'd like to play in the district thank you mr spectre uh as an as well as an advocate for the lgbtq plus community i support gender-neutral bathrooms i use a gender-neutral bathroom at the airport i use a gender-neutral bathroom at the store i take my daughter who can't go to the bathroom by herself into a gender-neutral bathroom i i don't have an issue with the gender-neutral bathroom we want our kids to be safe we want our kids to be feel included with regards to sports i see both sides the argument there are biological agents that that come into play i understand both sides but again it does boil down to the students feeling safe at school and if they don't

050feel safe in their own skin and they feel that they should be able to play a sport that is designated to a different sex that does i have no issues with that but again it's all about safety for our students thank you mr reedy as i said earlier i'm an advocate and an ally for the lgbtqia plus community and with that in mind i think they should all feel included they should feel like they're part of the parkway mission they're part of the parkway family and to do that there have to be some some liberties granted to them and i do think that gender neutral bathrooms make sense i am also a proponent of that and look for sports i don't think we have that completely figured out right now i think it should be

051approached on a case-by-case basis i think we need to be very careful about forming rigid policy you look at our country right now there's there's laws going in place all around the country and i've been emboldened by the fact that i've seen a few governors also say republican governors who have vetoed bills who have out wanted to outlaw transgender in sport and i think they've said and i agree with it should be handled case by case there should be conversations with all of the stakeholders in the community to see what makes the most sense we want kids to feel like they're part of a sporting environment no matter what their sexual orientation is but it should be done in a fair way i agree with that okay mr butcher hi thank you well um i

052like robert's answer because i don't like generalizations and specifically i do think case by case is good in general though no i'm not in favor of uh them competing in opposite sex sports and uh and i like that you know i like the idea of a gender-neutral bathroom i mean if that's your your thing use a gender-neutral bathroom i mean i had a friend who had a transgender son and like nobody knew like i didn't even know like maybe maybe i don't know i just i i'm confused by the whole issue thank you yeah i'd like to say that i'm an advocate for for all people um with that being said i do not support transgender athletes in a different um you know if you're born a female you play the woman's sport and if

053you're born a male you play a male sport that's where i stand on that um i don't believe that the crossover should be there i don't think it's fair to women i don't think it's fair to men and the women have worked so hard for so many years to achieve so many great things and to do this at this point i don't i just don't agree with it when it comes to the the transgender bathrooms you know a gender neutral bathroom is fine with me i have no problem with that i don't think that i don't think anybody should have a problem with that so i'm not sure why that's even a question here i believe that parkway offers the great opportunities are ready for that and i believe that that should be the pathway

054forward if that's what we need to do okay thank you i think we've covered a variety of those questions um now we come to sort of the elephant in the room um this is the question that had the most questions asked about uh the topic rather that had the most questions and that was it was worded by some as critical race theory i'm going to ask the question that i thought was the most um kind of neutral in a sense um although you may not agree that doesn't actually use the term crt but here is the question that i chose to ask you from our list should a balanced account of our nation's historical treatment of people of color be taught in the classroom and how much autonomy would you allow individual teachers especially us

055history teachers as well as schools over curriculum decisions and materials to be used so it's a big question um and we're going to start that one with mr specter back to you yes uh so to answer the first part of the question uh yes we should be teaching the history of our nation um i know we're not using critical race theory um but i can tell you parkway doesn't teach critical race theory i'm an attorney by trade it is a legal scholar post-graduate course it is not something that parkway teaches we need to be teaching about our history and how our history was shaped and how it has changed how we live and that doesn't just mean 50 years ago that means something that happened yesterday that means something that happened a week ago something

056that will potentially happen a year from now is learning about that [Music] whether the autonomy we have a set curriculum our teachers should all be teaching the curriculum teachers should not be necessarily taking that curriculum into their own hands if there are instances where the curriculum appears to not be taught that needs to be addressed and again on a case-by-case basis as similar as we've talked about with other topics thank you mr brady yes i think that our nation's history our world history should be taught with all of the unvarnished uh truths that go along with it all the wrinkles that go along with it i think it would be a disservice to the children to sugarcoat any aspect of history i truly do and i realize that makes some people feel uncomfortable but i

057think it's important to society that we take that approach as far as teachers going sort of off the rails as it comes to following curriculum you know of course i i think that the curriculum is set forth in many ways by the state the school districts are able to put their touch on it in certain ways and then it's up to the teachers to follow that curriculum so i i don't completely understand there's a little vagary in that question but i think teachers should follow along with the curriculum that is put forth in front of them okay thank you well again yeah it's very vague because you know you say critical race theory you know what does that mean it's you know a lot of people here anti-white and yeah i don't it's not specific

058i would have to actually look at what the curriculum is to to make a you know a firm decision um i mean i agree we should teach history but i don't want to teach people white people to feel bad about themselves it should be equitable in all ways and as far as the autonomy goes i don't know i think you should stick to the curriculum i mean that's why there's a curriculum thank you thank you thanks rob i'd learned a new word tonight a lot of vagary because i i actually love the word bakery um i think there is a lot of vagary in this question and i think that you know when we talk about crt or you know things that that people believe our students should learn they have to be vetted first

059and right now parkway's stance on it is that there are no crt taught in the classrooms and i agree with that you know what crt has done as it stands currently not that it couldn't be proposed in a different way but it causes the student to be an oppressor or be the oppressed and that's no good for our kids they don't know how to deal with that parkway policies are right on right now and the teachers need to teach the curriculum and if they would like to to work on something else and i believe that's what there's a curriculum board for and and talk to other stakeholders in the district to bring that forward but right now i am i'm i'm not i'm not in favor of that being in our schools thank you um

060as an educator i'm a big fan of balance i think that's really the key to to all this you know besides having a little bit of oversight um you know one like i said it's it's very important that young people understand difficult history um you know it's you can't keep anything a secret you know they go anywhere especially downtown either north city or south city they're going to see history you know especially with abandoned buildings and the homeless like i said this is stuff i work with and i see every single day i will give the parkway administration a lot of credit um especially the superintendent because like as he states the role of public education is to make sure we are we have a well-informed citizen that will carry on our democratic principles treat

061people well and understand history so i just want to you know give them a shout out for that okay thank you um the next question is regarding censorship in your opinion are there legitimate reasons to ban or limit certain topics of lessons areas of study or books if so what is your reasoning and we'll start that question with mr reedy well of course i think every school district needs to have policy around what books are on the shelves in the library and that needs to be agreed upon um by administration and and executed um but that being said i think that policy should have a very very difficult threshold for removing books from shelves i'm a proponent of having access to all types of learning all types of media i think some may be not

062age appropriate and it should be then available only to students of an appropriate age but beyond that i don't think that books should be banned i do think that parents should have the ability to limit books for their children if they have family reasons to do so and that should be on a one-on-one basis where they can reach out to the librarian ask that a certain book not be made available to their student and then the book can be for everyone else except for the student whose family doesn't want them to have access okay well thank you um i guess you know i'm not quite sure if you mean banning books from curriculum or just in general from the library but i think the question and there were several other questions too about books in

063the library as well so um i think several questions are dealing with books in the libraries of the parkway schools as well as classrooms if there's sexually explicit content then i'm for not having that book in the library or as reading material in any curriculum um you know again i don't know i happened to go to a board of education meeting in rockwood and i they read some of the the content of some of the books in there and i definitely don't think that's appropriate if you need to read something like that go to amazon thank you let's just go away you know one of the things that we don't do enough of at forums like this is commend the opportunities that have come before us than when things are done well you know when

064you look at the parkway library and you look at the expansiveness over the past few years there's been some great expansion there's also been some expansion that me personally i don't want my kids to read those books but what parkway has done very well is allowed the parent to have that choice for their kid you should be able to opt out of books there there is no there's no reason why this is even a debate anymore and quite candidly if a child you mention amazon if a child wants to learn something there's not a lot of kids that don't have tablets or these other things so kids will find them but at this point i do not want to ban books you know no matter what people say i don't want to ban any books

065as a matter of fact we don't from what i understand i heard this from robert or one of these guys at one time we don't even have a book in our library written by a muslim somebody of muslim faith so you know when we talk about things let's talk about all things let's just not talk about some of those subjects thank you thank you mr win like i said a lot of this has to do with balance and you know what's really age appropriate especially elementary middle school but to be honest you know when i was working with young people i'm a substitute teacher and they're in the library they're mostly on computers you know they're not reading books really and no they know if anything we should really be talking about social media and

066tick tock that's really what they're interested in doing so let's i mean i'm just trying to keep it real try to be respectful to ever ask that question but you know this isn't necessarily about books because they could find all the access they want on the internet anyway it's really about you know age-appropriate stuff and finding that balance and making sure that they're staying focused and not necessarily on social media all the time that's really what this should be about going back to what we talked about earlier with you know diversity equity inclusion we want to make sure that all of our students feel represented parkway already has policies in place that allow parents to opt their children out of a book in the library parkway is on the forefront of a lot of these

067issues these issues aren't issues for parkway they may be for other districts but they're not issues for parkway if a if content is felt inappropriate by a parent they can opt out of a book from the library um but as tony had mentioned uh as you can see we've been on a few of these together um the i was at a group where they had mentioned that there's a there's a large muslim population in parkway and there's not a single book written by a muslim author or about muslim faith in the library i did not know that so we need to look at those things as well and again having the ability to limit what your child can check out is something that we already have in place and i support okay thank you this

068is a question submitted tonight that i think kind of touches on a little bit of what you've just said do you believe that parkway schools in general are doing a good job of allowing for diversity of thought among students and if so give any examples you are aware of um and if you if not uh why do you believe we do they do not me uh yeah let me see where we are yes that's you so diversity of opinions that's thought that's what the diversity of thought now i'm a huge fan of teaching kids how to think critically as opposed to just you know i'm not a big fan of them you know memorize and regurgitate so i and i don't have any examples because again i don't have any children in parkway i'm just

069here because uh you know i want to protect the kids from all this discussion about sex and i'm concerned about their their mental health i mean that's gotta affect your mental health you know and again pushing the physical aspect of the mental health back to if we can have social workers in schools we can have personal trainers in schools so i don't you know i don't have any examples about parkway i do think that they're a great school district but i want to keep it that way yeah yeah thanks for the question um you know the diversity of thought i see my kids come home with these wonderful papers and a lot of that is due to the teachers that offer them the ability to choose these topics um you know parkway recently just promoted

070promoted cartelia lucas who's absolutely one of my favorite people on the planet to the head of diversity equity inclusion cartilia was a principal for my oldest son at highcroft ridge and really taught him different ways to look at opportunities at topics along with the fantastic staff there so what i would say you know to this i would say to this is that you know what we should allow kids to be kids we should allow them to write about what they want to talk about as long as they're choosing that subject not being told to write about something political or divisive or divisive sorry or or any of that nature okay scott yeah um i could tell you for a fact that this is not an issue what i've seen in the classroom for three years

071at parkway students have plenty of diversity of thoughts and i want to commend the teachers if they're watching this for keeping the students from cursing so you know they're doing an excellent job there so it's not the students really have a great outlet they can speak their minds there's no real issues like i said the teachers do an amazing job to keep them from using you know foul and appropriate language so this is really not um my opinion is this is really not an issue in this district i think parkway does a great job of having our students be able to give their opinions on things i recently met with the black student union at parkway west [Music] obviously i am a white male in my 30s i came from a different background as the

072students i met with today they would tell you something different that they don't have the ability to speak their minds and i think that's something where we can learn from is again as a board member you are representing over 17 000 students i'm not just representing my two children my friends kids it's looking at all the student body and making sure that they have the ability to also have those diverse thoughts i think that's where we can make a difference and make sure that they feel safe and really give them a voice that they may not feel that they have right now okay having had children go through the parkway school district and having kids starting out in it now you know i try my best to be completely aware of what they're doing what

073they're participating in obviously with the pandemic recently it's been harder to get on campus but from what i've seen there is a encouragement to have diversity of thought there's a variety of clubs and extracurricular activities that the kids can participate in that i can tell you have various ideologies associated with them um i know that in the classroom having seen some of the papers that my older kids have brought home there is very few limitations put on what types of subject matter can be covered and this is the kind of thing i'd expect from parkway you know when they are actively trying to create capable curious and confident learners who understand and respond to the ever-changing world we're in right now you need that kind of diversity of thought to create citizens who can participate

074in the future after they graduate high school okay thank you very much a little bit to teachers due to the pandemic teachers have had to deal with more behavioral problems as well as the controversies between parents and the board and parents and teachers over masking and curriculum in if you are elected to the board how would you recommend that the board offer support to the schools and the teachers going forward and this should be a question we'll start with mr spielberg yeah sure you know this is this is actually a great topic because we know that this is a this is actually happening right now in real time what maybe many of you do not know is that parkway already offers this opportunity with the i'm going to read this one because i don't remember

075the the it's s-e-s-s which is a social emotional support services department formed by parkway i think that you know while that was developed i believe for the children i also believe that this is a real opportunity for us to grow this program it's already a robust and a great program it's it exists in all the schools and i believe that you know they will this program will build teams with the teachers with the students with the parents with other stakeholders in the district so i believe that we are set up for success here if we implement what we already have on the books okay thank you mr winfrey um i'm never opposed to any initiative or any resource but this is such a personal issue um that we're facing right now um half a million

076educators have left this field including administrators who i want to i want to state since the pandemic happened in early 2020. this really needs to be a case um that we need to really take the initiative and just listen uh on a case-by-case basis with with teachers i mean there's there's just nothing there's nothing fancy that we can really do except just you know talk to each individual teacher aside that's what i believe would be the most effective you know my fear is that um like i said i'm not opposed to any resource or any any groups but you know you really never know what someone is going through until you just take the time to take them aside and just have a one-on-one and just really really listen to them thank you mr spectre

077you know as a child of a teacher uh i have more respect and then support teachers than than i can even imagine um they need our support they don't need people coming at them for any reason other than their child's education we need as a as a district to support our teachers if we want to be the excellent district that we are we need to attract good teachers the only way to do that is to be a supportive group of our teachers and it's not just teachers it's maintenance workers it's custodial workers it's the rest of the staff attracting quality teachers supporting those teachers will only ensure that our students have the best education and that's what we all want is our students to have the best education and the best parkway and the way

078to do that is to have the best teachers and we need to support them thank you of course i agree that we need to support our teachers we need to make teachers who are at parkway feel like parkway is a destination career for them where they want to stay and we want prospective teachers to want to come to parkway i feel very passionately about that although when you talk about this topic and it has so many different sort of aspects or facets i think rather than getting granular i'd like to focus on something else that i'm very passionate about we've had the chance to talk about a little bit tonight and that is mental health you know you talk about discipline issues and i think that that sort of that venn diagram overlaps very close

079with mental health and parkway has the mental health task force they're very forward thinking in that regard they've got mental health professionals at every high school every middle school and roughly one for every two elementary school i know they're trying to build out a safety net so that there's screenings in place so that we can detect the most vulnerable students who may have issues that we can help create interventions that then we can help them be happier and better students and ultimately that will lead to less discipline issues so that's something i think is very important and it's already underway thank you thanks richard well thank you um i i guess i kind of think that maybe the reason there's discipline issues is these kids are really frustrated and i again i go back to

080the whole they're not physically active enough and if we have enough money for a social emotional support system then i think we have enough money again to bring in personal trainers so these kids can get some exercise i'm just a bit you know i think that's very progressive let's do something new and you know we're talking about all these counselors coming in and yet suicide rates are still skyrocketing we're not doing something right let's maybe focus on physical health that might help the mental health thank you okay um so i'm going to move a little bit from that um along some of those lines we've been talking about the problems teachers have had during the pandemic hoping that we will not have to consider these things in the future but should there be other health

081related situations like the pandemic in the future and you are on the board what would be your position on mask mandates vaccine mandates reduced in-person learning a reduced number of days in school so those were a number of different questions that came in um in the case of any future health threats like the pandemic so this question we will start with mr winfrey well um you know we're not out of the woods yet you know there's all kinds of variants coming probably down the line because this is this is a global issue um but one thing i will commend you know our area and the parkway you know we've really done very well to get vaccinated and to be respectful of each other as best we can i i believe that you know depending on

082the learning that masks do inhibit learning and especially with individuals who are deaf so i feel that you know it's it's a case-by-case basis i do feel that as a district we need to also listen to the nurses because the nurses are the front line workers and they would know especially the nurses unions too that we need to give them some credit um but if you know it at the end of end of the day it really needs to come down to options and allowing parents to have options too that they should be able to opt their student out or put them in the classroom if they feel necessary thank you mr specter obviously the goal uh is to have a disruption-free school year in person for most students to be in person at the

083schools i believe that the pandemic response plan that parkway has instituted has worked i will be the first to say on february 16th i was hesitant to remove the masks hopeful but hesitant i even stated that i would not have voted to remove them i am glad that we are in the place we are i am glad that our students are able to be in person are able to take their mask off if they'd like but again i was hesitant but again i do believe that parkway did an amazing job with their pandemic response plan in the future if this were to happen again uh hopefully it doesn't um looking at a similar way of thinking i think is really the the best way to move forward um we've seen that it worked our students

084stayed in school and that's that is the main goal and to have a disruption-free school day okay mr reed i'm proud of the way parkway handled the pandemic i think they took the right steps when it came to mitigation and i think it was largely with the goal of keeping schools open i was here at a board meeting um a month or two ago and i heard our board president jeff todd relay an anecdote where he was talking to a family member who has knowledge of the springfield school district in springfield missouri a very large school district i think it might be the largest in the state and they had to shut down for an extended period of time because there was simply too big of an outbreak too many teachers were ill too many

085students real they couldn't keep in person class going that didn't happen to parkway after of course the initial shutdowns were completed and i think that that's largely due to the decisions that they made moving forward if there should be some other medical emergency i think we should do as we did before and that's turn to the cdc turn to the local health boards to see what policies are best for teachers and students and follow those guidelines they're the professionals okay well i wasn't there when the board was discussing the details regarding what they thought was right or wrong about masking i know that i was excited when the cdc came out and they said if you're vaccinated you don't need to wear a mask anymore because you're protected and i thought wait i thought we

086were wearing masks to protect other people and then they went on to say well if you're immunocompromised you might want to keep your mask on hence i guess the the ppe it's personal protective equipment i'm all for letting students decide whether or not they want to wear that equipment or not and as far as the reduced learning or this i love the zoom option i think that's cool i think we should keep that in place if a student is sick for any reason i think that would be neat that they could just zoom into their class and not miss their school work i think it's a great option thank you um i have actually read the pandemic response plan not not real interesting reading sorry sorry mr todd but you know what i would tell

087you is that masking vaccine mandates are not something that i favor my favorite parents choice and that is that is what i believe should be the case you know online school for my house was not great it required my wife lauren to stay home or me to stay home and you know and and that was that was a problem for us because not both of our jobs were shut down so you know it really is difficult when you talk about the threshold of two and a half percent in our current pandemic plan i believe that if we're going to have a threshold it should be a little bit higher than that when you look at the national governors association which actually they take all the state's data per state what they have agreed on and

088it's a document posted on their website as a five percent threshold plan for for schools nationwide so i'm i'm there and with the zoom option it's absolutely great when when when it works however if there is no parent home and you have somebody that's in sixth seventh eighth grade it's very difficult to make sure that they're doing their work so thank you one questioner would like to know how you would focus on making up for the lost time for students who have fallen academically behind during the pandemic and i'm going to start that question with [Music] mr specter obviously taking a role at home to see what can be done from a progression standpoint and again i use the word progression we need to it we cannot just look at our students map scores as

089a way to see if they're doing well if a student started on level a reading and ended the year at a level d even though they should be at a f for a g that's progression we need to be looking at those things every single student took a hit over the pandemic some hopefully excelled but i would say and this is generalization most kids struggle during the pandemic we're all coming back from behind and we're doing everything we can as parents the board is doing everything they can the district is to try and get that gap to be smaller hopefully you know our map scores even though is not everything are better than than most schools we're proficient in in every category and from there we'll just we'll continue moving forward to me this question

090or the answer to this question is truly a confluence of academic performance and mental health proficiency making sure that students feel safe that they feel that their anxieties that were produced during the pandemic are being addressed as a board being hyper aware of academic deficiencies that exist as a result of the pandemic being able to look grade by grade shortcomings in reading math etc and having a nimbleness so that resources can be applied to those areas to help make up those deficits and this is ongoing i mean we're not out of the woods yet we're still learning these things so i think it comes down to awareness of academic deficiencies that were created awareness of mental health issues that were created and addressing both of them simultaneously okay thank you yeah i think that really

091it needs to be handled on a case-by-case basis i don't know if there's an overall drop that that's a huge issue and it would it would require collaboration between teachers and parents and students to get them up to par i do know that i have a friend whose son has struggled and this the school a different school district wants to just pass them and and she really wants to hold him back because he's not up at level so these are tough things and i think it needs to be dealt with especially with the parent i mean the parent needs to be because they know the child best i you know that's that's the best i can do you know this is going to be a collaborative effort something that is some would consider it almost

092moving mountains when you lose two years of in classroom experience you lose a lot some of the things we have to be more specific our teachers are doing the very best they can we have to offer them a little bit more training right if they want it let's give it to them let's spend those resources let's spend let's spend some dollars on the public private effort to bring some of the private resources in possibly to the district that could help our students get there faster there's a reason that all of these you know with the different learning centers are in every retail spot there is there's other people that can help us let's try to partner with them identify clear and specific objectives when talking about specific subjects model them with clear explanations provide opportunities

093to practice give feedback these are all common sense things that have been proven over and over in education if we can continue to stick to these open up our minds to some public private partnerships bring more folks in we have a lot of organizations that including including folks that build these great rescue teams that come in like we can and some of the other organizations that we work with thank you okay so this has always been a very difficult issue to you know the real question is how do you engage young people and excite them to learn that's that's the real question so the pandemic has really exacerbated this this issue as a substitute teacher especially when i was in the middle school that was the real issue is how could i reach these young

094people and keep them interested in education i know a lot of times this is done by a case-by-case basis and that's the most difficult thing is how can you understand each individual young person i remember one of the young people was really interested in vietnam and he was he was just all over the place and so finally i asked him what he was just so interested in vietnam about he said the helicopter helicopter gunships so i took the time and i started adding that into the curriculum a little bit just for him so it just keeps them engaged and keeps them interested and it really helped them improve his reading scores for that so i do agree with tony's idea of collaboration and resources especially we could be doing more to um to give resources

095to the parents too because i can't express enough how important parental involvement is in education okay thank you very much um this is a question there's one of the questions directed to several several of you but i'm going to address it to all of you yard signage and ads indicate that a block of candidates has been endorsed by the pnea or perhaps another organization i haven't seen the signs so how is it not a conflict of interest for those who are endorsed by the pnea union to uh support you during your campaign and then if you are elected you would turn around and negotiate valuable contracts with the union including teacher pay increases etc i'd like to ask dr mr reidy to answer that first all right well it's my belief that the parkway nea

096is of course they are the group that represents the teachers when it comes to collective bargaining that's true but i believe that that group has the children's best interest in mind as well you know when you look at a group that wants to advocate for reduced classroom size you look at a group that wants to look at allocating more resources to teachers ability to teach students that's the nea i believe in that group as far as conflict of interest you know i there are ethic rules in place around how donations can exist how endorsements can exist and it is perfectly fair and reasonable for them to endorse a candidate and that is the way it exists right now so i embraced their endorsement and i don't feel like it would sway me one way or

097another when it came to making good decisions for the district thank you i'd like to give all the candidates a chance to answer that barbara would you like to comment on that right well i do remember when i got my name on the ballot i was contacted by a couple of different groups and i uh i just ignored it because i just want to represent the parents okay thank you this is this is this is a very emotionally um charged topic for me because my family myself people that know me have all been attacked by folks that support the the pnea and you know in talking with pat mcpartland initially and going through the pnea interviews i had asked you know specifically to speak with the teachers and the reason the union uh representatives after

098the call pat was phenomenal he's a great he's very good at what he does however none not one of those representatives returned my call because when they asked me the question what did i think about unions nationally or what did i think about the unions there was a lot going on in the city of chicago i have several friends that are teachers up there they were being locked out of their schools by the unions that is inappropriate that is unfair and when you talk about this the teachers not able to endorse candidates there are plenty of teachers that would not agree with the p a endorsements i like these guys there's nothing wrong with them but what i will tell you is it it allows folks to just go ahead and jump on a bandwagon

099and and and not ask the hard questions of candidates i believe that that should never i don't i believe that the pnea endorsement should go away okay thank you mr whitford well um i could tell you guys i'm an educator and i wasn't endorsed by them so just it just gives you an idea but i do feel that it's important that we all try to work together uh collaboratively and you know it is what it is thank you and mr spectre uh to kind of echo what rob said obviously we rob and i are the pnea endorsed candidates um no different than a parent giving me a donation they are looking or they believe they are donating to the candidate who they believe best represents parkway not just the students but teachers the other community

100members there are state laws in place with regards to campaign finance and i don't think there is a conflict of interest i already supported teachers and as i've stated multiple times i am a product of a teacher it in no way changed my campaign receiving funds from the pnea and it was not the most amount i received it was not the least amount i received but in no way did it change my course of my campaign it in no way changed the way that i view i will be on the board and to make what's parkway great for the students as well as the teachers okay thank you very much i think that answers those questions um this is a question specifically addressed to barbara but again everyone may answer this uh since you're the

101next in line i'm going to start with you the the person has asked what do you mean by stand up for the kids do you include lgbtq plus students in that statement stand up for all of them equally i don't like the segregation you're just a child to me they all should have the same rights and if they're not if they're being bullied we've got we should have rules against bullying yeah i'm against that but no we should stand up for all the children equally everyone else would you like to address the question i mean there's you answered the question i i don't i don't think that there's any i don't think any of us would disagree with that answer i'm not speaking for you but yeah go through if you have nothing to say

102you can just say pass yeah i mean you know that's one good thing about parkway is it really i can't express this enough how much of the community this is i've worked in five other school districts and you know i always come back to parkway because you know there's just something very special about this community yeah i echo the same no no no student should be should be left out and treated differently um just echoing what others have said yeah i mean if you're talking about equity and inclusion then i don't know i mean if you're saying that a child who falls in the category of lgbtqia plus can't talk about their authentic selves can't talk about maybe parents who are gay or trans then i don't know if you're standing up for those kids

103i feel that way i feel strongly that i would stand up for those children as well as other children outside of those groups to answer that question thank you very much this question is regarding unity in the district how would you as a board member ensure that politics and polarizing ideologies do not become a priority during your term on the school board how would you bring the board together and i'm going to use that someone else talked about here in constructive agreement or disagreement to serve all the families and constituents in the district and uh we'll start that one with mr spielberg yeah that's a that's a big question i listen we all have to be at some point in our lives we have to be courageously uncomfortable and it's a topic that really um

104is prevalent almost every day in what i do in work because if you live in that state of being courageously uncomfortable you ask more questions you include more stakeholders you surround yourself with the best folks that can help you come up with those solutions you know this whole campaign kicked off for me in finding middle ground that was actually my website was finding middleground.net i didn't end up using much of it but you know i think what we have to we have to do as a district and i and i don't think that i don't think that the current school board is not doing this but we have to figure out a way for communication and transparency to be at the very forefront because without that we don't have a trust between the school board

105and the stakeholders in the district so i would start there i would start with the communication i would start with transparency i would do tuesdays with tony coffees every week if it would help the district you know whatever it would be but i will tell you that what's important what's important is that we get all stakeholders at the table we listen to all voices and we keep special interests um out of out of the board thank you mr winfrey i agree with that um a lot of this is to do with respect and communication personality and politics i'll give you a quick story when i was an undergrad at umsl i was tasked with the anchor initiative bringing non-profits you know some of the 16 000 non-profits in st louis together and i remember a

106story in which um you know a lot of inner city schools aren't as lucky as parkway and so they rely on some of the non-profit sector to kind of fill in the gaps that they can't afford especially with young women in toiletry issues and i remember hearing this um argument between two um two heads of the nonprofit the directors and they got into an argument and really at the end of the day who suffered the most were the young people and the young women that couldn't get these uh needed you know toiletries and so that really stuck to me that at the end of the day we really need to come together and focus on why we're really here and that's to work with and better young people thank you uh if you get a

107chance to go on youtube and view rockwood's board of education meetings you will see a much different meeting than you see a parkway what you see once a month is not the only thing that the board members do i've had the ability to speak with every one of the board members currently serving and what everyone has told me is that what you see at the meeting most of the things have been hashed out they have been thoroughly reviewed looked at these are things that don't necessarily need to be done at a public meeting so when i know there's a lot of people who say oh it's always going to be a 7-0 vote well that's because the issues that certain board members have had has already been discussed with the board those aren't things that

108need to be yelled at or screamed at at a public meeting like you will see at other school districts we are very lucky to have the cohesive group that we have and i know myself and any of the candidates on this on this board that hopefully make it that's all they want is to not disrupt anything and continue with that seamlessness i'm really glad this question was asked of course i'm aware of the divisiveness and the extreme polarization that exists in our country and in our local community right now and although in my modest campaign i've only really been able to focus on some of the issues that are most important to me i am very aware of this and if i were on the board it's something that would be front and center for

109me because this is when you get into the actual heavy lifting of working to advance initiatives for the kids so something i'll tell you is that i've done a lot of research lately reading podcasts on folks who are focused on this idea of reducing or minimizing tribalism the idea that you don't have to be on two different sides of an issue some of this focuses on an idea called cognitive empathy many of you are probably aware of emotional empathy trying to understand the feelings of others but cognitive empathy is trying to understand the thoughts of others why they're thinking a certain thing you don't necessarily have to agree with it but if you at least try to understand where another person is coming from then you can have a frank and open discussion and try

110to find some common ground thank you i've only been to one board of education meeting and it was in rockwood and it was something um i just i think um i just don't even know why politics are even in education i i'm i'm i just i just want to focus on educate the children and of course you know make them physically healthy that would be great i'd love to add more you know again personal trainers if we can have social workers for their social emotional learning we can get them into the gym okay i think i think yes i think you're the last person on that one right um i have one question from the audience here interestingly enough of all the questions we had this is the only one about money so i think

111it's good to ask it um and let's see we're going to start this one with uh barbara i can't remember where i left we started with best i think i started with you last so i'll be with mr winfrey the question is what involvement will you take in reviewing budget proposals and decisions well you know hopefully as a board member they'll you know the district hopefully will include me in some budget you know to at least have some oversight in it but you know at the end of the day it's really about oversight and i can't express that enough and it's not just the board but you know you know we have sunshine laws and to keep things transparent so you know there needs to be constant oversight especially when it deals with money and

112where the money is allocated especially to the schools to the teachers the unions or wherever money goes because at the end of the day you know this is your tax payer dollars and since i mean i'm a resident of parkway i know that the state bills are not cheap out here so i appreciate everyone coming in and paying us so um you know as a member of the board you need to make sure you lean on others who are subject matter experts we have an amazing cfo patti bedburrow who many of you may have met or listened to at various board meetings or at the recent project parkway meeting you need to lean on the subject matter experts when it comes to things like budgeting i am not the subject matter i am not a

113subject matter subject matter expert on budgeting but because we have one we are able to have the largest bond issue coming up in parkway's history we are able to we are fiscally responsible we have gotten ourselves out of debt we have a triple a bond rating and that is because we parkway as a board and as the administration has leaned on the subject matter experts and have utilized their expertise with regards to budgeting and that is something that i would continue i agree only one question about money it must mean that folks think we're in a pretty good place financially and i think we are jeff made some of these comments but we have incredible financial solvency right now due to the leadership of dr marti and cfo ribro and because of that we're in

114a great place we do have the aaa bond rating and this gives us the chance to do a lot of really important things from an infrastructure improvement standpoint of course we have aging buildings that need to be cared for but also facilities and capital improvements you know the project part way discussions putting in beautiful new swimming pools are going to happen new playgrounds being able to put programs in place that can attract and retrain retain the best possible teachers i think we're in a great place financially due to wonderful stewardship and leadership that's been in place and i'd be proud to be part of that continued tradition because it is in fact a strength of parkway well one of the boards that i've served on was my condominium complex board and it was because i

115wanted to make sure that our dues were being used uh appropriately and efficiently so i'm i'm you know i again i'm not a subject matter expert on financials but it is definitely an area of interest we all pay money to make sure that these schools are run and they should be run efficiently it's a huge concern of mine right yeah parkway has had tremendous fiscal responsibility i you know you can't argue that um you know i think our budget is close to 250 million dollars at this point maybe a little less but it's a big number um one of the things that i believe separates me from some of the some of the rest of folks out there is that i've run major companies i've put together budgets i put together strategic plans around fiscal

116responsibility we bought new buildings we built new buildings we've we've installed new product we've bought new products i think that i think that having that having that skill set will be a tremendous asset to the board and i believe that what we have ahead of us which is passing this bond measure for 265 million dollars is tremendously important we cannot lose sight of that and we all whether we're elected or not to this board of directors we all need to support that to make sure that our schools move forward that we can be more competitive and that we can attract the best and the brightest teachers and students and administrators thank you okay no i think we still did you answer that question yeah okay i'm sorry kind of losing track here well this will

117be my last question prior to your final statements um what do you believe is the number one issue that parkway needs to address in the next three years and what will be role in that and we will start with um to to narrow it down to one thing um obviously as i've said before i think parkway is doing a great job as a district i think our biggest goal is on the diversity equity and inclusion area [Music] again we have over 40 percent of our student population is diverse we need to make sure as times change that not just minorities but children with disabilities dyslexia is an issue in the united states that we are giving all of our students the opportunities to succeed again that there's not a one-size-fit-all approach to that it is

118a long-term process and i perhaps three years was is enough i don't know but we need to look at these things and to make sure that our student body all of our students are getting what they need to succeed no matter what differences they may have no doubt jeff i think equity and inclusion is of paramount importance and it would be important for me every year that i served on the board however i think acutely right now the most important thing that we need to focus on is just recovering from the pandemic you know and what does that mean i think it means identifying those areas of academic deficit that exist focusing on bringing them up to the high level of parkway standards that we've become used to i think it means going out and

119looking across the entire student body and finding the most vulnerable who might be affected by mental health issues where they are facing increased anxiety perhaps areas of diminished self-worth finding those kids identifying them and getting interventions in place so they can feel healthy and contribute to again as students and and learn in the best possible way that they can so for me that's an area that's front and center and that's an area where i'd want to give a tremendous amount of focus over the next intermediate term can you repeat the question yes um what do you believe is the number one issue that parkway school district needs to address in the next three years and what will be your role in that if you are in the elected three years well again the main reason

120why i'm running is just to make sure that we stay focused on one thing and that's just education and um one of the things i'd like to move forward and again scott's talked about that is preparing kids to leave high school and have good quality paying jobs you know there's he talked to me a lot about apprenticeship programs i'm a big fan of you know you can take course work like myself i'm a certified insurance counselor you know you they can start taking those courses in high school go out and get a very good job and the insurance industry is starving for young people um and then you know again they keep talking about the emotional you know damage that's been done so again i go back to the kids need to work out we

121need to facilitate that yeah if we're looking at a three-year window one of the biggest fears that i think most people and stakeholders have in our district is the is the teachers that are leaving the administrators that are leaving at a record pace and this is not just our district it's a national problem you know when when we talk about teacher pay we are right there when it comes to the initial pay and where they start when we hire them one of the things that i believe that i would want to i would want to push the union to do is fight for the teachers to have better pay increases based on merit not just on not just on not just on an idea but on merit i believe that that's tremendously important for us

122to keep our teachers value our teachers put them on a pedestal they are the major stakeholder along with our students and our parents in the district without focusing on this all of the other stuff that we want to talk about which feels good and is good for the district it doesn't work we don't we don't we don't remain that district that sets the bar for all other folks to follow we start to fall behind ourselves we have to support the teachers we have to figure out how to do that and in the two year conversation we also have to look at the nurses with this pandemic plan that we have the nurses are underpaid and we've got to figure out how to how to advocate for them thank you mr richard well this is tough

123because you're asking for the number one if i have to really say the number one thing it has to be the students because that's the reason we're all here i understand that it's difficult and we need to you know support the teachers and the nurses and the support staff but at the end of the day we're all here because of the students so i would say the number one issue would be how can we focus on making sure that young people understand their role in the next steps post-secondary education the best example i can give is the jennings school district the jennings school district has a 100 percent uh rate of putting all their students into post-secondary education and they make sure all of them do it so i ask ourselves why can't we as

124parkway have a 100 percent uh rate for all of our young people if jennings can do this too what are they doing different than what we could be doing that's the question i want to leave with everyone thinking right now okay thank you um so that concludes my questioning part and now we will give you an opportunity to have to make a final statement for two minutes each and i'm going to start with mr winfrey i'm sorry you had to come right into this but yes i'd love to give you a minute to think about that um and we'll do that and then we will conclude and i'll just say now since he's going to let him think for a minute i apologize to who asked a question and did not get that asked i

125tried to combine as many as i can however if the candidates are willing perhaps after the forum you'd have an opportunity to speak directly to a candidate if you have a specific question for a candidate i had a couple here that i did not get to okay so mr winfrey are you ready to go yes two minutes really to kind of boil down my three years at parkway as a substitute teacher being in the trenches this is this is really a great district i mean you guys really shouldn't be worried about the curriculum uh that you know the young people here are exceptional they work the hardest the kindest uh people in general i've ever been in my entire life and i can't emphasize that enough um the real issue here is how can we

126help these young people with their mental health how can we take these young people to the next level because right now a big issue that i see is that every teacher thinks that his or her class is the only class the young people have right now and so we really need to listen and be able to communicate effectively as a district to really engage everyone and that's really why i'm here because like i said the biggest thing about my education that i took away from from the university of missouri st louis is how important it is for all of us to have a collaborative effort and to focus on why we're really here i mean we're all suffering you know the young people are suffering the teachers are suffering the support staff are suffering everyone's

127suffering but at the end of the day we really need to put our differences aside and focus on the young people how can we best help them how can we best support them how can we best make sure that they have options and they have a future out of high school and that's what this is all about thank you mr spielberg oh good um things we didn't talk about tonight that i feel are important to the district civic learning financial literacy nurses pay vocational training house and senate bills 1750 and 1585 students with disabilities soft skills training volunteerism those are big big juicy topics we need to cover i love all the other things to talk about but but missing these tonight i think doesn't do us all a service i think you should reach

128out to each of us and ask us where we stand on those subjects like parkway i do believe that setting higher expectations creates brighter futures my focus if elected we talked about teacher pay that's important but we do need to laser focus on our curriculum our core curriculum such as math history science english teachers are doing the best that they can we need to give them more resources again keeping our kids in the classroom i know that it's daunting i know what we've gone through but that is so important we see that we see what it's done and we see the damage it's done start to grow our financial literacy platform it is there but it needs to be more robust so the kids have real usable tools when they leave high school we have

129to have that a stronger focus on civics if our kids don't understand how the election system works and how things are going they're going to be influenced by social media as we talked about earlier by tick tock by those things it is it is the parents responsibility but is also something that i valued growing up in parkway and i learned a ton about it and i think it's important we have to support our teachers and admin with continuous opportunities to train learn lead and grow on on the fifth i'm asking for your vote and i appreciate the time tonight and thank you to the lemons week the league of women's voters sorry thank you okay miss bridget um i guess in closing you know there's there's very little chance that i'm going to be elected

130i mean i don't have any signs you know i didn't i didn't get any donations i'm donating my time i don't have any endorsements but there's a few people i've met here on the board tonight and if they were elected i would feel very good about the direction of the parkway school district thank you tony and scott thank you mr reed i hope i've been very transparent tonight um i hope that i've come across showing you that i really do have the students and teachers and staff of parkway's best interest at heart and that includes all of them so when i say that i mean every type of student across the spectrum of learning every type of student across the spectrum of diversity everybody at parkway i think needs to have a great shot at

131moving forward advancing their education and becoming the best possible person they can when they graduate from the parkway school district i am a product of of public schools i patronize public schools by using them for my own children's education and i think it is probably the most important institution that exists for the betterment of our society it's of critical importance that there's good leadership in stewardship in charge of public schools and i want to be a part of that i've got a background in business where i've led divisions of multi-billion dollar companies where i've had full p l responsibility where i've had to make difficult decisions where i've had to work with a cross-functional group to coalesce around an idea and then advance that idea forward and i think those skill sets would become very

132handy in a school board setting so i'd like you to consider voting for me this upcoming tuesday and i promise to put all of my effort into advancing parkway school district i'd like to thank the legal women voters again for hosting as well as the other candidates for attending um i i think i've probably said this a thousand times during my campaign parkway is an amazing district it is um we've got over 17 000 students our graduation rate is over 96 we are constantly ranked as one of the top 10 districts in the state we we are great and i want to continue that greatness my goal as a as a volunteer for this position is to create a better parkway in the future for our students for our teachers for our staff no matter

133your race your gender your ethnicity your religious belief it doesn't matter for those who don't have children in the district why you should look to vote parkway has great tax rates with wonderful housing market there are reasons to be in parkway beyond just school and those are also people that need to be looking at this race our main goal is our students let's be honest it is but parkway is a community and we need to get back to that community that we kind of lost in the past couple of years and all i can say is if if elected that i will use my platform as the board to help try and unite the community to make parkway better going forward for everyone involved students teachers staff and residents of the community so thank you

134okay thank you to all of our candidates for participating and thanks to all of you let's give them a hand [Applause] i also want to thank our volunteers from the league of women voters our timer the ladies who collected the cards and people that are back at the back table if you found give them a hand as well if you found that this forum was useful by the way this is the 18th candidate forum that the league has sponsored this season um and if you found this this forum to be useful think about joining us the league of women voters is not just for women we have a lot of male members as well and if you can't do that or don't care to do that you could also make a modest contribution to pay

135for the services we provide to educate voters we also produce along with post-dispatch this voter's guide which we have a few copies of back here that give you information on every election that's happening this round and all the future rounds that are coming up and for all of the counties not just st louis county st louis city franklin jefferson warren st charles county so that's a great source of information if you can't get that you can get some of the same information online you can go to vote111.org you can put in your address and it will give you 411 excuse me what did i say vote 4-1-1 don't deny them don't call and you put your address in it will give you a personalized ballot that you will see when you go to vote that

136will give you a chance to see who the candidates and the issues are that you're voting for we have literature out here we also provide speakers for groups we have a speaker's bureau we study issues and although we are not partisan we do not take a position on any candidate we do study issues and sometimes take positions in favor or opposing certain issues so of course the most important thing is to vote and get your neighbors and friends to vote local elections affect all of us so much more really than some of the bigger elections do we have so much more input into the local and we are affected so much more directly by the people and folks that are elected and i shout out to everyone who wants to be a part of any

137local agency school boards and otherwise so the polls will be open tuesday april the 5th from 6 a.m to 7 p.m you do not need a government-issued photo photo voter id if you need to find out where your polling place is you can call the st louis county board of elections their number is 314-615-1833 or go online you can also call our league of women voters office at 314-966-6869 someone will be there all during before end during election day and once again i want to thank everybody and wish you all a very good night [Applause] you