001hello and welcome to the 2020 avon community school board virtual forum my name is trilby barry tayman president of the oriole advocates oral advocates are a collective group of parents and community members that advocate for the avon community school corporation within the community schools and at the state house tonight i'll be assisted by another oral advocate tracy justice to ask questions of the candidates on the independent ballot for three positions opening three position openings on the avon community school board one candidate vanessa pryor sends her regrets that she had planned to be here but had to attend to an unfortunate family circumstance you may access her quest her answers to our questions on social media our purpose this evening is to give the avon community a chance to collect information about each candidate the limitations
002for this forum are as follows there are no people in the audience in order to practice safe social distancing candidates will remain at their location and a camera will rotate to them during their response time candidates are seated in no particular order the answers will be given in one of only two orders of succession left to right or right to left tracy and i will each ask a question and give all candidates a chance to respond the candidates were sent these questions prior to tonight's forum our rules are once we have introductions from each candidate we will then proceed to asking the seven questions constructed by the oriole advocates each candidate will have up to two minutes to respond to each question so let's get into our forum with introduction by the candidates themselves good
003evening hello my name is kim woodward i am a candidate for avon school board i have been on the board for four terms i'm seeking re-election to my fifth term on the board i would like to take this opportunity to thank the oriole advocates especially you tribally for helping us to pull the forum together i feel this is an excellent way for us to be able to give you some details about what our vision for avon community school corporation is my husband and i moved to avon in 1999 because i attended ben davis high school he attended carmel high school and we concluded that our oldest daughter who was entering high school should go to a smaller school so you can see that didn't really work out for us we were proud to be in
004the band booster organization for all of her four years as well as our younger daughter rachel's four years our two daughters have chosen to stay in the community i have two grandchildren that live in avon one attending intermediate school east and two grandchildren that attend plainfield schools my husband michael and i live in the oak bend area and we are happy to be part of the avon community in addition to my boardsmanship i also serve on the mary lee mayor community pantry that is my heart to do that we are feeding a lot of very fortunate families on a daily basis and so um i really enjoy being part of the community and those are two of my outreaches i am the director of human resources for cunningham restaurant group we have 34 restaurants in
005three states and many of you may know our restaurant in avon cherbonos thank you my name is james williams i'm a candidate for avon school board this year this will be my first term if elected i've lived in avon almost my entire life i was born and raised in avon graduated from avon high school in 2002 and chose to move back to avon ten year or seven years ago now and both of my sons attend avon schools one at river birch and one at avon east we chose to move back to avon because of the experiences i had my wife was also from ben davis and she she teaches at avon high school she teaches biology there and we thought that the way the schools were was a much better opportunity for our children and
006i would like to take this time to explain that the reason i'm here is them and i choose to fight for them in every way i can i appreciate the oral advocates for bringing us all together and the other candidates for being here as it gives us all great opportunity to express our views to the community as a whole i've served as a wrestling coach through the avon youth program as well as here at avon middle school north for several years due to my job at clemenco a lead battery recycler i no longer can do that full time so i've now just gone back to volunteering my time as a aja coach usually coaching baseball and just wrapped up a good football season again thank you for everybody being here and i look forward to
007tonight's questions good evening my name is erica oden and i am also a candidate for avon school board this will be my first term if elected my family is one of the families that moved to avon for the school corporation i've lived in avon for almost 15 years and i'm also an avon graduate i'm a teacher by trade and currently i am pursuing an accelerated phd in social and public policy thank you good evening my name is ann engelhardt and i am in my 12th year as a school board member and have enjoyed every moment i too want to thank the oriole advocates and trilby for putting together just a great opportunity for us to meet and to discuss issues that are before us as a community and just an opportunity to meet each other
008as candidates as well i am you know i think about a community and um a community's hallmark is the leadership and those who come and serve and just looking at these candidates it doesn't surprise me that avon is as great as it is my husband and i have lived here for 20 years we have five children our last one graduated just this past year from avon high school and we plan to stay here we love the community and we plan to stay here and until it's time for our senior year so thank you for joining us good evening my name is cindy turner simmons i too have been a lifelong resident of avon and i too a graduate of avon high school uh back when i graduated back in caveman time i had 130 in
009my class and now it seems so hard to believe that there's eight close to 900 students thank you again oral advocates for having this here tonight and as ann said it's good to meet the other candidates thank you for your introductions now we will proceed with our first question what motivated you to run for school board well as i said earlier i'm a lifelong resident of avon and i graduated from avon high school believe it or not my mom back in 1947 my brother sister son niece and nephew they all too graduated from avon my dad most of you probably remember dean turner he was a member of one of the first avon school boards for many years i am a retired elementary teacher with 28 years of teaching and after i retired i said
010i want to see the other side of the classroom i want to see how it's run the school is run it was unbelievable it's fun to see the other side a lot of work and i know teachers in the classroom have a lot of work too i wish to help make decisions that will help enable avon community school corporation to be the best corporation it can be for all of the community of avon well originally 12 years ago when i sought a seat on the school board i wanted to bring awareness to literacy that i felt like could be more robust through the years i learned that in some ways i was correct but in some ways i wasn't correct so i learned as we went now i want to bring steady experienced leadership you
011wouldn't be surprised by me saying this has been a challenging year but with experience you know what questions to ask with experience you know to make decisions based on responsibility and not on emotions though the emotions can be very very strong i want to bring experience that tells tells us that we need to start considering options when our revenue decreases more than likely next year due to covid and the tax revenues that have fallen experience enables me to work through covid but also at the same time keep an eye on a 55 million dollar project that we are working on in the schools experience enables me to work with a new superintendent and to help him on board and dr windham has done a fabulous job experience tells me and show and leads me to
012work through challenges and redistricting which will be a heavy lift for our school corporation and for our families i believe we are going to face some difficult decisions in the future and i want to be a part of that team that makes these decisions that will help shepherd our school corporation i believe that we can make these difficult decisions based on data but also keeping children on the forefront of our minds thank you so what motivated me to run for school board is because i am an educator who is passionate about the success of public education i'm also a member of the avon community and an avon graduate and i really love the community that i live in i grew up in a military family and one of the things that i was taught was
013unity and loyalty i also have teaching experience and i want to use that to provide input and perspective because i can relate to teachers and their daily challenges thank you with the challenges we had this year i was motivated to bring a new perspective to the school board based on my experience in more of a business sense we have challenges facing schools that they haven't had to navigate before because no one's had to navigate them before and i believe that bringing the passion that i bring to everything i do i can bring my experience in business my ability to lead and my abilities that i've learned through my education at avon to add to the team at the school board and help guide teachers to an area where they can reach more students i believe
014as the challenges continue to increase year after year reaching children and motivating children we need to look outside of just the realm of education and more into what works at all levels of life and how do we reach people at all levels and not just in the classroom how can we reach them at home how can we reach them where they are and not make them come to us and i believe that being out in the community i see that at different areas through aja through teachers with my relationships and friendships and that i have there that we're missing the opportunities we have to reach students because we kind of fall into an old hat where we see the same things and we do the same things and it's time for us to look and
015do new things and find new ways to address the education difficulties facing avon thank you 16 years ago i didn't want to run for school board i actually had not even thought of it and at that time two of the board members gary brinkman and steve pearl came to me and said i was just retiring as retiring as the band booster president for four years and they said why don't you go and try and be on the school board why don't you run for election to the school board it's a lot less work than ban boosters which proved not to be true um but i think that kids are or should be the heart of anyone's reason that they want to run 16 years ago i decided to begin attending school board meetings before i
016considered being elected i think that's crucial that you unders attend and that you understand what school boards actually do what the business of school boards is um i felt 16 years ago that avon was really poised on the brink of educational greatness we were a growing school district we had a new high school had a very strong administrative staff and teachers that genuinely wanted to be in avon i felt then as i do now that avon deserves the best and that our schools are a lot have a lot to do with our community identity when i first started with the school board avon's per student amount funded by the state was at or near the bottom and we've managed to bring that up we're still not to the state average but over the course of
017respectful dialogue with our state house and just constant support of organizations like the oriole advocates we've really made a difference in the educational funding formula for our community but we just still have a lot ahead of us still there are equity issues that i think need to be addressed and i feel that our rigorous curriculum needs to maintain its upward trajectory thank you thank you for your answers question number two describe your involvement in avon schools and discussions you've had directly with teachers this fall well as a current board member i spend a great deal of time in and around avon schools and you know nearly on a daily basis there's something pertaining to our schools that i'm involved with during the coven 19 shutdown i i talked to numerous teachers and administrators about what
018we could do to help them we were as many of you know the first to close um and then we were the first to open and that was uncharted territory we didn't really know how we were going to do that safely and effectively but we knew that it had to be done i talked to students and administrators about what we could do to help them and most i would say feel that we have led the way and that we're doing everything possible to make our schools safe while providing an optimal learning environment i just i am involved in avon over the 16 years of my tenure as an avon board member i've been involved in numerous projects pertaining to buildings pertaining to curriculum different three different superintendents and so i have a wealth of experience
019i think that i bring to the avon equation simply because i've been here quite a long time in addition to that i serve on the indiana school board association's board of directors i am the past president of that organization and i am proud to be part of that because i do think that our school leads the way in a number of areas that we are helping other school districts across indiana really be able to see and benefit from some of our experiences especially right now during the covet restart um so i love to be involved in avon schools and i feel that my experience over the course of many years helps me to be able to see what should be next for avon and its students i'm lucky enough to talk to an avon teacher
020every day i'm married to a high school biology teacher a lot of you know mrs williams or mallory williams and a lot of the friendships we've developed over the last 10 plus years have been with other teachers this fall obviously a lot of those conversations were dominated by covet 19. a lot of the teachers that i talked with and spoke with were very hesitant due to the lack of communication that they felt they weren't sure how they were going to be safe coming back a lot of the teachers i spoke with were excited to be back in the schools they were excited to see their students again and they were happy that they've had such a successful restart especially at the elementary and intermediate school and middle school levels the teachers i spoke with at
021the high school recently are most frustrated with the inconsistency of the schedules luckily it seems like we've kind of found a good pattern and we're going to be able to move forward with that and they they're all excited to have the students back in the classroom they just hope it can last with that the other conversations that i've had with teachers that have to do with education more and not about covid have a lot to do with the support they get when parents at home are reachable teachers can really reach students when pare and that's where it needs to become more than just education in the school building the schools have to find a way to educate not just the student but also the parents i've talked to a lot of parents that are frustrated
022with the new math and i've talked to a lot of new math teachers and they're frustrated because the parents don't know how to do it more resources that we can provide and more communication that we can provide and avenues for that communication between teachers and parents and other members of the community will help the teachers get the support they need to do the things they need to do to reach the students in their classroom so i have spoken with teachers regarding their concerns for the current school year i have also attended every board meeting since the school year started i believe that a school board member has a tremendous amount of responsibility and that requires knowledge and training i was able to learn about budgeting and finances in the decision-making process and find out about
023different things that are happening in avon that others don't know about thank you my discussions have included discussions with many staff members we currently have 1400 staff members and 608 certified teachers so i've had i have reached out to many staff members of the variety of employee groups over the last five months we've had discussions so that we could hear concerns and receive input on what would help each staff member to be successful at their job i've participated in zoom calls that have included teachers from the union so that i could understand the needs and to put policies in place so that they felt protected our staff reached out to me and all my fellow board members and they were sharing their concerns about safety but they also shared some great ideas many of the
024conversations i've had with employees has been that they couldn't wait to be back into the classroom that they just wanted to be with students one employee told me that he didn't care what he had to wear as long as he was in the classroom with with children now i am trying to spend time in the buildings i want to see firsthand the struggles that they are experiencing i want to see how hard it is for a teacher to teach with a mask i can't even keep it on for two minutes and i can't imagine how difficult it must be for them my decisions are heavily navigated by staff experience and needs i'm very grateful for all the conversations and for having a common goal to educate in person with safety first in our discussions and
025also allowing students to be able to have a great experience and have education brought to them that they deserve i have visited numerous schools with dr windham and i've talked directly with teachers in their classroom i've also spoke with administrators and other staff i heard their concerns they were often positive and then there were some complaints as i understand as a board member that i am i am open and i'm willing to listen and discuss all comments in order to make avon schools the best school corporation it can be thank you question number three describe what policies and or actions you might take to address the oppression or marginalization of certain groups staff or faculty members in our schools well it's we have student groups staff and faculty members and they're all a vital part
026of making avon schools successful everyone has a right to voice their concern or ask a question as a board member i'm going to always listen to those concerns and questions and then to discuss my goal for our students is to feel accepted valued and respected but that isn't always how it is to feel marginalized is heartbreaking as a single parent in the 80s i can relate my approach is to seek understanding and ask questions like describe how you feel about that situation or what do you need to feel like you can thrive my goal as a leader is to remove barriers that keep a student or employee from thriving in their role the board sets the tone for the environment for the students and staff members so that they believe they can be successful and
027they are valued everyone has a place and everyone is needed so if we set the standard in which we can be successful then we can be successful together now that all sounds so cliche so let's talk about how we can do that by focusing on professional development for staff with the help of counselors to guide us when we have tough conversations we have sought out and been awarded multiple counseling grants so we can hire full-time social workers we have made social emotional learning a priority and as a school board member it would still be a priority i would address marginalization of students by offering support and diversity and inclusion as a high school social studies teacher i have had the opportunity to do so i have had students from various cultural and religious backgrounds and
028understand the desire they had to be represented in lessons for instance when i teach history i had a student that was a recent immigrant from thailand and he barely spoke any english and he was really shy so one day i surprised him by incorporating his village and his language language into one of my history lessons i also spent time working in special education so when i think of marginalization i think of those students as well to address that i would look back and refer to idea which stands for individuals with disabilities education act specifically part b and that says that each student should have a free appropriate public education regardless of their ability to address staff member marginalization i would want to have equity training as well as cultural conversations the difficulty with marginalization is
029how easy it is for a student staff or faculty member to become marginalized addressing that through professional development and education is key understanding how other people feel and how other people think is just as important to understanding how you feel and how you think having an emotional intelligence incorporated into the classroom is a would be a priority of mine getting students to understand that the words they say matter not just in how not just in what they say but how they say them understanding that teachers have that same responsibility to students even a compliment can be taken the wrong way and can marginalize a student when it's not properly delivered focusing on teacher professional development and emotional intelligence would be key to helping reduce the amount of marginalization another key would be to make sure
030that all students can learn at their pace and at that pace is consistent with what it needs to be in order to do that i've one of the things i've proposed is to find leading indicators that find when students are struggling before a test before we get the grades before we see that they failed the ilearn or istep test understanding which kids need help before they even know they need help is important to making sure everybody stays on track and doesn't fall behind and even those that are ahead can stay pressed and pushed so they don't forget how to study a common problem i've seen is when kids get to college they don't know how to study because high school was too easy seventy percent of high school graduates are inadequate problem solvers it's very
031easy once you go to the next level to learn those skills but if we don't start focusing on what problem solving really means and how to think through problems and not just a plus b equals c it has to be more than that uh the policies or actions um that i we might i might take to address the oppression and marginalization really is um continuing um to do more of what we've been doing i think in avon um implicit bias and marginalization um those efforts really need our focus not only in avon but just nationwide i'm continuing continually asking administrators to look for diverse candidates to join our avon team as an hr director that is my background and focus and i believe that one of the key and essential things that can make a
032student feel that they fit in is to see administrators and teachers that look like them i believe that our discipline policies need to be examined to ensure that we do not have disproportionalism um in those policies and the students that are under those discipline policies just this week at a school board meeting we were pleased and fortunate to hear about our el programs and that discussion was led by um angela razer who is a part of our avon team i was really pleased that our community attracts english learners to our communities very similar to how we as a community attract performing arts students and we attract special education students and the reason that we do that is because we have excellence in our curriculum that allows the people to see themselves coming to avon and
033having their students their children be part of that effort whatever that is whether that be special education or english language learning or performing arts i'm proud that we attract families in our community in this fashion but we still have more to do i believe to make sure that oppression and equal opportunities for all students are prevalent in avon thank you for your answers question number four what factors would you consider in making decisions related to covet policy and how do you ensure the teacher voice is considered well had you asked me before school started my answers would be totally different than what they are now this one would not be different i want us to be safe but i want us to be bold and aggressive in getting students back into the classroom kids need
034school they need it in a building they need school with peers and they need it with a physically present classroom teacher before we came back everyone was worried about how will we keep masks on the kids and yet it's been my experience that that has not even been an issue at all the youngest children in my family are the best mask wearers that we have because simply they have now gotten used to it and they know that that's what's expected of them i want to provide everything necessary to ensure that our classrooms are safe but i do not want to halt in-person education we had a meeting a school board meeting about a month ago now where many many many patrons were in attendance and rightfully so they wanted to hear avon's plan there was
035a young woman that stood up in the in the audience that said something that really marked me about how our covert response will be successful and it is this she is a student at avon high school a freshman student that plays high school volleyball and what she said was that she came to avon for that opportunity which she hopes will afford her a college education because of scholarships she made mention of the fact that covid may change the trajectory of all of our lives for a month or a year or for several years but for her she felt that without extracurricular and supported um educational programs in avon high school the trajectory of her entire life was going to change as a result of that and that really marked me to be as ambitious as
036possible but as safe as possible in our our coveted response teachers voices are important um but not when we can offer solutions and help them solve problems thank you i think the most important thing to consider when looking at any type of new challenge is what is known and what is not known and understanding that you're not going to know everything and how you address the unknown is almost as important as how you address what is known the ability to keep students safe would be the first and foremost priority of mine that being said it has a delicate balance with safety and educational value and community responsibility schools have a responsibility to the taxpayer as well as to the student and balancing that is important understanding that students need to be in school for their
037development but they need to be in there safely as a very difficult thin line of how to do that the data shows where spread happens and how it happens and i believe that we should increase our encouraging our encouragement of the free testing that's available as well as encouraging social distancing outside of school giving examples of how students can social distance and still socialize socialization is almost as important as what as what you learn in the textbook so being in school is important students being in the classroom is important teachers looking their students in the eye is important but it's only important when there's a plan in place that says this is how we will keep you safe this is how we will keep your students safe this is how your child is going to
038stay safe if you're a parent sending your kid to school this is exactly how we're going to do it and this is why we think it's going to work the pandemic that we are currently experiencing is having a significant impact on all of our daily lives so factors i would consider in decision making would be guidance from the department of health and human services the cdc the indiana state department of health and the hendricks county health department along with any other medical professionals i think that teacher voice is very important because school boards make decisions that directly affect us so to have teacher voice heard as a school board member i would want to have meetings specifically for conversations between board members and teachers so that way teachers have the opportunity to participate in a
039dialogue to ensure their voices are heard through all of our conversations with teachers at the beginning of the school year they asked that we make decisions based on data and on science through data we were able to collaborate with the indiana state and the county health departments and was guided us on our policies of mass social distancing etc multiple times a week we received information with data to help us know where we were successful and where we needed to tighten the activities we have looked at many data points hospitalizations positivity and contact tracing is very insightful and has warned us about potential cases the science that we have looked at has been really very interesting since covid is relatively a new virus there are many new articles that are released daily and sometimes those articles
040actually conflict each other but what we garner through through consistencies that we see in these articles have really helped us to make good decisions about our about covid and how to manage it and if you look at our school webpage our covid webpage you will see that we have been able to have some successes i think there's been some rough points and some things we needed to learn and change but overall we've had a successful first nine weeks i'm not ready to spike the football yet because it's only after the first quarter we still now have a whole game to play but i believe we are on a good um a good trajectory and we will continue to have safe education one thing that we learned through science that i personally found interesting is that
041covid will not spread if it is not on a protein well through our science and through um research we found a product called sanitizer and it eliminates the protein so if the virus did land on it it could not be picked up by another human because the protein wasn't there and since learning that i've learned that other restaurant groups use sanitizer and even riley hospital so i was grateful that all the research led us to a great product science and data will continue to develop our policies and we will continue to look at what needs to be done to provide a safe environment and we will continue to listen to our staff when they see that maybe we need to rethink different policies as i mentioned previously i have spoken to several teachers in person
042and via email i also received several messages from the parents that were concerned with the cove pandemic i can assure you that the school board has taken every precaution and advice that has been provided for both by the county and state health departments to ensure that all of our students faculty and staff staff stay safe the information provided by the county and the state health departments are the main factors in determining the corporation's decisions regarding the education of avon students and again the facts the safety of the faculty and staff teachers commented about the difficulty of planning hybrid virtual and in-person learning as a former teacher i fully understand their concerns even though i have not experienced these problems it does take a lot of planning for three different forms of teaching and learning it
043has been very difficult for the teachers to motivate the students at times and i applaud these teachers for their diligence in trying to make this educational process successful thank you for your answers question five describe how you believe schools should address students requesting to be called a name in a class that is distinct from their biological gender designation the administration which should include the principal teachers parents and or guardians and should all meet and discuss the change once the parents guardians have approved then the student should be addressed by their distinct name the role of the school board is to set policies that protect students staff and the corporation we navigate tough situations and this is a challenging one as a board member i expect the staff to meet with parents and student and to
044hear the concerns and to work together on a plan to meet the needs my desire is for this student and for all students to feel like they can learn and have a great experience at our schools again the role of the school board is to set a tone where everyone can be heard and needs can be met the school board also must ensure plans put in place are in accordance with state and federal regulations so we do not discriminate against anyone we often seek guidance from our legal counsel and to work through title iv and title ix and that guides us in protecting our students and staff incorporation when i first thought about this question my mind immediately went to my high school students and some of the requests that i've had what i did
045was talk with the parents and we came up with what we were going to do and regarding what their student wanted to be called i think school should address it by administration meeting with the parents the students and the teachers to talk about their name choice i think that this is not limited to older students it also affects younger ones as well so i think those parents should also be contacted and communicated with so that way there is insurance that there's no discrimination and there's no confusion i think the initial response from the teacher should always be to acknowledge the student's request and fulfill it and then talk with the parents don't don't bring it up in front of the entire classroom don't make a scene acknowledge it use it contact the parents if as
046the administration policy would follow and meet with them with the student to discuss what's what the plan would be going forward a student should be able to be called what they want to be called just as i am james i can be called jim i never had to have a parent meeting to do that at the same time if it's distracting to the class a parent meeting to make sure that it's going to work is feasible thank you i believe that all students actually all people need to be and live their authentic selves um in this particular instance i do believe that communication and agreement with parents or caregivers or whoever it is that is looking out for that student's best interest should be involved but i would not presume to judge a request that
047really would harm no one thank you for your answers question six one of the most important responsibilities that a committed school board member does to complete his or her service to the schools well by indiana charter there are really only two things that school boards are established to do one is to select and retain a superintendent and the other is to set policy for the school corporation but really adequate or exceptional boardsmanship is a lot more than that i believe that being a conduit between the community and the community's interests and schools is an important element i believe that's why school boards should be locally elected is to represent the taxpayer interest the community's interest and be that bridge if you will to the school corporation i believe that it is very uh important to
048model studentship as a board member like ms oden i am also in a phd program at indiana university majoring in education not because i ever intend to use that degree but because i really believe that modeling studentship is an important element in understanding what student life is like i also think that to truly understand school complexity and how to influence the decision maker makers in our state takes years and years of effort our legislators have commented before that education confuses them it's so widespread and there are always so many elements of that on a yearly basis that i think our legislators need some uh voices of reason locally and in the community to cut through all of that and say this is what we really need um this is where our focus should be um
049i always loved the story about mitch daniels who wanted to enter politics and he said what's the um what's the most thankless job that you can do as a publicly elected official and someone told him well serve on a school board and he said okay well what's the second most thankful job and he became the governor i believe that you do this because you love it thank you when i first felt the the nudge or the the passion to start looking into what school board was when i was thinking about running for school board i was overwhelmed with the variety that was out there on what what school boards do what it came down to for me was preparation if you're talking about what's the most important thing a school board member can do for
050the school it's to prepare themselves for their meetings to do the work in between the work when i met with dr windham he talked about that you know a lot was you know everybody sees the school board at the meeting dates they don't see all the work put in between and i think that's the most important thing they do is to put the work in the research in going through budgets going through data going through all the things they have to go through for each decision that's made the amount of work that you can put in and that the amount of information that you can digest to make your informed decisions is the most important part of the school board i think that a committed school board member should be involved with the corporation and
051support students when necessary i also think they should make sure they communicate with the parents students teachers and other staff members because avon is a smaller school community i think the school board members should also touch base with new teachers and new administrators to make sure they have what they need to feel comfortable in their new role i know that when i was a new teacher i really appreciated it when anyone came to check on me and made sure that i was okay and had what i needed to be successful in my new role well i'm going to touch a little bit on the functionality because um mrs woodward and mr williams and and misogyn kind of took some of what i wanted to say so i'm going to talk a little bit about um
052just the schedule a little bit um outside of we meet twice a month and the the meeting that we do the business we it will receive a document about three days before and it's about 200 pages long so yes there is a lot of preparation that goes into that we work as a team the five of us come together and the five of us on the board are very different and we come with very different skills and we have to take time to really work through our opinions and work through our agendas to come to some common ground and have and then create a great plan we manage as a team four funds or four bowls of money if you will and our budget is right around 140 million dollars we manage growth and in
053avon that can be very i'm very serious we grow there's years will grow by a couple hundred students we are very pleased that this year we grew by over 70 students when and we are kind of expecting that we may lose enrollment um i looked up some recent data about washington township which is where avon um located and in the last 180 days over 600 houses have closed we have um issued this year 343 building permits so if that tells you anything we are still growing so a school board has to always be understanding and preparing for future growth um with future growth comes redistricting and we are about to go through redistricting and that's going to be a real heavy lift for our corporation for our community it's it's very emotional and it it
054is very time consuming and we've already got a team working on it of parents and staff so it'll be something that we will be working at we also set policies policies um if you get on the web page you'll see that we have thousands of policies pertaining to every thing under the moon and we work at those at every board meeting the main role though and kim mrs woodward touched on this is hiring and guiding the superintendent and that is a role that um is very humbling to do and very exciting to do so going forward we at the school board is going to have a lot of challenges to look at but coming together and working as a team we will get through them a committed school board member is active and they're visible
055in all of the corporation schools i have personally visited many of avon schools and participated in various activities with the students just recently i visited avon high school i was invited by mr liv to attend an outside rocket blast i attended and i was so inspired by the students teamwork and knowledge in launching the rockets the teachers and the students were all appreciative of my attendance i have attended numerous school activities and i assist with the marylee mayor food pantry i'm also a member of the plainfield rate development commission which includes the southernmost section of avon school corporation the responsibility of an engaged school board member includes listening to the parents listening to the faculty staff students and the administration the entire school board must work together and be co and be a committed board
056in order to make avon schools successful i am proud to be an avon school board member thank you for your answers our last question for the night question number seven describe your greatest contribution to avon community schools as a current board member i've been involved with the renovations that are now occurring at several buildings i've also been involved with the transition to a new superintendent and a new assistant superintendent the current avon school board that i am a member of received the 2019 indiana school board association's exemplary governance award that was presented to only three school boards in indiana the award represents extensive dedication to professional development through commitment to the students the school corporation and the community as a result of outstanding leadership and excellence in our school board governments governance well what i
057feel like is one of my contributions in schools is that i love my community i think avon is awesome and i really believe in avon as a community i believe that the school corporation is the center of that and i want to always be a good contributing factor to the corporation by bringing in bringing able to bring common ground with other entities i work with other entities throughout the county and i always try to represent avon as a collaborative partner throughout our township many i meet with many leaders of the other function that function in other ways businesses elected officials other taxing entities and i looked for ways that we can be partners and collaborate with each other i like to remove barriers i like to solve problems and it is a joy to be
058on the board and contribute whatever i have to it well i haven't had a lot of opportunities to contribute to avon schools but i plan to collaborate with the other board members along with the community because the school board is a collective effort of cooperation from multiple individuals we all have the same objective which is to do what is best for our children when i first saw this question i really thought about taking the easy way out and saying my two boys and i i'd still kind of stick with that if it's that they're my greatest accomplishment in life and in the school corporation and i think their teachers would would agree with me um that being said to answer it a little more openly the way i impact the schools right now the most
059is with the volunteer coaching i do through aja that's where i get to impact not just my son's lives but the lives of their friends and their classmates i get to teach them not just the sport because that's always comes second to me when i coach the first thing to teach is life and really the second thing is to have fun because if they don't have fun they don't come back so teaching them about life teaching them to have fun and then teach them about the sport but when you teach them about life you teach them how to be good students you know i always talk to them about what they do in the schools how their day or what who's their teacher i ask those questions because it's important for them to know that
060it's not just their parents that care about their education it's the community as a whole that cares about their education and that's what the school board to me represents we are the representatives of the community and we care about their education not just our kids but all the kids in avon serving on avon sport has given me the opportunity to really contribute my talents and skills along with other really great exemplary board members to do the same you may recall that my first uh answer was that i when we moved to avon and i decided to serve on the board i really saw avon as a school corporation poised on the brink of greatness and i think that we've achieved that in the state of indiana our schools are wet very well revered across the
061state and i think that our board takes in some part some credit for that through my contributions at indiana school board association i believe that our school board leadership has become known in the state and very well revered as indicated by our exemplary board designation this year i also because my hr background have had countless situations where i've been able to contribute my professional training in my boardsmanship i wish that the question really was what has been the most gratifying contribution that i have made and i would have to say that that is serving on the board of the mary lee mayor community pantry i work alongside teachers to create this pantry that is a collaborative effort between my employer cunningham restaurant group and avon community schools to feed well-deserving families in this in this
062town of avon children cannot learn if they have food insecurity to be able to fill that need for many many families weekly gives me an incredible amount of joy it feels like it's the reason that we're all here to invest time and energy into avon and to make it the best place possible for our students and our community thank you well that concludes the questions that we've given our candidates for our virtual forum i'd like to thank all the candidates for taking the time to think about and answer the questions that we put before them i'd also like to thank our advocates the avon school i.t department and also even avon middle school north for letting us host this virtual forum on site please consider being aware and getting involved in the education of our
063next generations in our avon community school corporation good night [Music] you