001How's it gang? Today we're going to be asking Marilyn Jenkins of the school board some questions. Marilyn Jenkins is the current chairperson of a school district board of trustees. The questions we're going to be asking is, "What inspired you to run for a position on the school board? What's your vision for the future of the school district? How do you plan to support the student success both inside and outside the classroom? And are there any specific programs or curriculum changes you would advocate for? What are your opinions on the 4-day school week in the coming years? What are your plans for the levy or throughout the two levies going through the community this spring? What is your opinion on the dress code? Are you going to enforce it or let things slide? If SB260 were
002to pass, what would your suggestions be to the school? Without further ado, let's get into it. What inspired you to run for position on the school board? First of all, I'm Marilyn Jenkins and I have been on the board for three years. And part of what inspired me is the fact that I taught high schoolers for over 40 years, 29 of them here in Annis. And I have a deep understanding of what the inside workings are all about. And not just that, once you um are a public servant, you feel like, okay, I need to go back into a volunteer position that will give something back to the community in an area I know something about. Yeah. What is your vision for the future of our school district? Well, part of visions are always two-part.
003They're long-term and they're short-term. And so the long term is a bit idealistic where the short term is practical. And the idealistic part is we want to continue providing excellent education with as many course offerings as we have now because that number of course offerings does what? It reaches every student. You have to have variety. And variety is getting bigger and bigger in most school districts every day. And of course, it's limited somewhat by a small community because you can only have you have so many students, you can only have so many teachers. So, um, the short term is to try to build on that. And we've got to be looking ahead at growth because the school is gaining in numbers. All right. How do you plan to support student success both inside and outside
004the classroom? I think part of that is PR. You know, we need to get messages out better and we have established a friends of the school and they are right now working really hard to get our levy passed so that we'll have a safe environment for you students which is key. And the second part to that is that uh we can use the Medsonian. We can um you know give achievement kudos to the teachers and the students every chance we get. And I do support the activities. I am on my last grandchild graduating this year. That does not mean I'm going to stop attending functions. Yeah. Are there any specific programs or curriculum changes you would advocate for? I I do believe we have to somehow push uh trades a little bit further. We have
005worked hard at that academic end when um I was still teaching we introduced were able to start introducing the dual credit classes. So at that end those who are going on to college we've got quite a bit. There are some schools right now in the United States, not that we can do this at the moment, but are building a whole new curriculum with a whole new building and it's called uh building trades curriculum and it's coming because of AI primarily, you know, wiping out a lot of white collar jobs. So, what it means at this point is some of those other jobs, if a student is ready for them right out of high school, are crucial. Would you say you're someone who listens to the who listens to the students and keeps their opinions in
006mind? And can you give us an example of a situation that you would where I would listen to a student? Well, I think I could give you an easy example. Um, I have been a proponent of the four days since it came up and I know that the students are proponents of four days but not just the students, their parents once they understood what it was. You know, I think they did not realize at first it would be as many hours. I think they did not realize at first that kids were going to come back fully regenerated. And I think uh you know on Monday because they had that 3-day and from my perspective listening to the students it's that the teachers because there are so many activities in the spring and a lot of
007them fall on Friday the teachers are in front of the students more often and the students are where they belong more often. So I've I've listened there and I think that's probably the biggest example. Yeah. And I know you just answered this, but what are your opinions on the 4-day school week before coming? I kind of did, didn't I? Um, I will say additionally, I think, and yes, we make choices when we choose our professions. And so, I chose education. I had three degrees, but my primary one was English. And so, when I did the dual credit, um, you know, there was lots of correcting. And to me, correcting means you get back to the students as soon as possible or they don't care anymore. So I would be up at 4 in the morning
008and most of the weekend prepping and correcting because I had college composition and others. But I think that um that's one of my proponents because teachers I don't think the the public realizes how much extra teachers do. They think it's oh you're there four days or you're there five days. No, there's a lot more to it than that if you're going to be a good teacher and most teachers go into the profession with that in mind to be a good teacher. What are your plans for the levy or thoughts on the two levies going into the community this spring? Well, we always have a general levy, so it's not any different. And so many of our funds come out of that. And as you kids are well aware um with the building reserve levy that's
009entirely different from a general levy. It's you know encompasses just building and grounds. U my thoughts are we have to go ahead and repair and maintain what has uh been ignored for so long. It's to me I compare it to an old house. you go as long as you can and then boom, you have to do something about it or you're you're going to lose and here we would lose safety and we're we have done that to a certain degree already. So my thoughts are we have to have the money no matter what. the levy has to pass because if it doesn't then we we have to borrow the money anyway. But then we can't pay from where we need to and that money would have to come out of the general fund and the
010general fund is what we need to help with the classrooms and the students and the teachers and everything else. So my um you know my perspective is this is necessary. Uh we take care of our elderly in this community. So, a lot of our tax money goes to uh the hospital, to the nursing home, far less goes to education. We can't just take care of one end. We have to take care of both ends, the youth and the elderly. Yeah. What's your opinion on the dress code? Are you going to enforce it or let things slide? I'm not much of a slider. Okay. So, I think uh dress codes to a degree need to be enforced. I'm not a harsh judge of that, but I think that respectability goes along with the way we dress
011and we have lost a lot of our decorum. you understand what I'm saying about uh how we present ourselves not just as an individual but physically and I think some dress code is necessary. Yeah. If SB260 were to pass, what would your suggestion be to the school? Well, it has passed and um you're talking about Big Sky, correct? Okay. Um, it has passed, but it's passed with, you know, um, kind of what I would call concessions on both parts. So, the hospital has a concession and we have a concession to make and we are putting quite a bit more percentage-wise per student into what we pay up at Big Sky for those 25 students. Now understand that we have always paid for them and we've always paid transportation and there are other ways too that
012we have helped to take care of them but the percentage has gone up considerably. However, their concession is that they remain in our school district which gives us a tax base that is higher and it means that per capita our taxes are lower for every individual who's a taxpayer in Madison County. And so it to me is the answer. It's workable. Yeah. All right. Well, that's all. Yeah. Thank you for coming. That's it. And I enjoyed and I'll shake hands with both of you. You did an excellent