001check one two three check check one two three check check one two one two three mic check eoe meet the candidates tonight five four twenty one yep thank you very much um you know i always listen to this thank you uh no problem sorry [Music] um oh it was great they're making you work on may 4th okay is all right good evening everyone we're gonna get started there's some people out in the hallway but um we'll get started welcome to candidates tonight the grand island pta council is your host tonight and i'm the president of the council trish and i'd like to uh introduce the other pta folks who are here um they're out in the hall assisting people coming in we have amy mcmahon here and jackie carpenter who are both members of our
002high school ptsa uh we also have a member from the community maura mccoll and rustowitz will be keeping time and our student questionnaires are bethany kulakowski sofia terlecki and pearl shalina coffey so as a pta council it's our desire to put on a fair and balanced event tonight without any bias or agenda the the council has not passed along any questions in advance to any other parties or the candidates to be pre-screened or for any advanced preparation it did come to our attention i just want to bring this up in the interest of uh transparency it came to our attention that some questions were posted to a social media platform by the author of the questions totally they're provocative but just to be clear some candidates may have had the opportunity to review and prepare
003an answer for those questions the candidates are set up in ballot order uh they're not in alphabetical order or any other they're in bailout order they're at the table welcome thank you for being here glenn bovac was unable to join us tonight all the candidates biographies are available outside i think most of you had a chance to pick those up we would like to answer every question that was submitted but due to time constraints this is uh meet the candidates tonight that got the candidate's whole life story or answer to every question tonight uh so we did have some overlapping questions that we did our best to uh combine and uh to cover as much ground as possible tonight so now without further ado we will bring our student volunteers to begin with the questions
004and more you they're all prepared at the time what value do you bring to the board of education sorry my name is bethany kulakowski please introduce yourself my name is jim mulcahy joey lamarca jose madigan daniel alberno please give a background of yourselves i am retired i'm an economist by training i have worked in industry banking for 45 years i've taught economics and finance at the collegiate graduate level on a part-time basis over the years i have been involved in activities here with the school board over the years most notably the 1999 capital project but going back to 1979 also and other capital projects i am a current board of education trustee having served for two terms six years total i am a grand island resident and homeowner i'm also an attorney who has represented
005several uh people who have purchased and sold properties throughout the island and most importantly i am a parent of a first grader over at sibling i am the product of grand ellen schools i went to a school here kindergarten through 12 i'm married to mike madigan we have two sons who have also attended schools k through 12. um i'm retired right now i did work at gibco which is now known as thermal fisher i work in various aspects of purchasing supplies chain supply side i have background with contract negotiations spending analysis team building and value analysis good evening everybody so my name is daniel bruno and i'm the candidate for the school board i'm a long-term resident of grand island and a graduate of the district i am an attorney and after i graduated law
006school i began practicing landlord tenant law and then i shifted practice into personal injury for the past few years i volunteered at great island high school as the mock trial coach and i recently purchased a home on the island and the island is very special place to me and being able to serve my community what value do you bring to the board of education how will being a board of education trustee benefit you i'm not in this for an ego trip uh somebody asked me years ago when 79 when i ran would you run again and i said no i'm not nelson rockefeller i'm not obsessed with being an elected official getting another line under my bridgeway what i can bring though is an analytical ability to help make sure that our funds are wisely
007spent every organization has successful organization has two constituencies the customers are the constituency here at the school board the school system has students and taxpayers i can see that the taxpayers get their money's worth and having taught uh i know some of the trials and tribulations that the teachers have and what needs to be done uh the value that i would bring is my experience as a current board member is serving for almost six years um i have uh will continue to be physically conservative when it comes to budget review um continue to work with the other board members to make our board and our district and our community the best the value that i'm bringing i'm not a teacher but i am i have a business mind i'm data driven i'm driven to make
008the best decisions i'm passionate about the decisions that i believe in i'm also fiscally conservative i have a good background in spending analysis i intend to take a look at the budget go through it line by line make sure that it's appropriate and the funds are going to the right direction any funds coming in from other sources that we can use properly also so the value that i bring is i hope to be collaborative in working together with the parents and the teachers and bridging the communication and you know i'm driven by passion i am invested into the community and the district mrs lamarco please describe the role of function of a board of education and how it should effectively function what is something you think the current board of education is doing well what
009area do you think needs most improvement a lot of questions right there [Laughter] okay so your first part was please describe the role of function of a board of education and how it should effectively function sure so the role of the board of education is that we are there's a couple of different paths that we put on the first thing is is we are to be able to set policy to be able to oversee certain aspects of the district but not perform administrative roles we are also in charge of adopting a budget and the district puts on that budget for us to be able to dissect it to ensure that it is in fact the best interest of our community as well as our district what is something you think the current board of education
010is doing well and what area do you think needs most improvement you're doing well but of the six years that i've been on the board the current work we have is the best sport that we have had in the six years that we've been on here we work together oh i can't the board of education has specific and these specific functions include picking the curriculum that the students are going to follow hiring a superintendent policy making policy enforcement monitoring how the school is doing what do i think that the school board is doing well we have a fantastic school here our students are coming out there up until this year our students have been coming out we have excellent sports here the facilities are fantastic what i think that we might want to do different
011is get back to fundamentals reading writing and arithmetic the old way of saying things it's not that it's not being taught but i'd like to see more emphasis with perhaps vocational training the the board functions to um develop the needs of the district while also accommodating the needs of the community and the well-being of the students what the board has done well at least of what i've seen since i've graduated grand island is is a ton actually the the safety precautions and um they you know implemented changes the double bolted doors the bulletproof windows um the state-of-the-art uh fields and athletic fields as well uh what we can do better i think is just communicating with the parents and working together and coming up with strategic plans that are creative too the purpose of the
012board is the purpose of the board is to act like the board of directors it's to set policy to set direction and to monitor to see if the goals are being met uh as far as things that need to be approved uh one of the biggest complaints i'm hearing is communication and i don't think it's just communication with parents it's one thing to tell them something that's fine but why aren't we communicating with albany and we need to tell them enough every other there's evidence everywhere that kids should be in school five days a week and nothing seems to happen in this state why aren't all the school boards enraged this is hair again mad again my apologies what is your familiarity with the new york state public health and its impact on the school
013systems in new york state well my familiarity with the public health is that it's dictating what's going on right now with the schools it's providing guidelines and those guidelines are changing and that is drastically impacting what's going on with our children in schools the rules are changing from one to the other to the other and it's very difficult to follow i am seeing that other schools especially the private sector is able to open successfully we have a public school in onondaga that's been able to open it seems to be doing just fine so that is my impression of how the public health and the schools are working together and that perhaps from that so the implications imposed by the state are definitely affected our schools and being able to comply with the standards that new
014york state has mandated and every every school can accommodate those restrictions differently depending on the school sizes and the classroom sizes it's important that considering that we are a public school and receive public funding that we follow the guidelines implemented by new york state but follow them to the best ability as possible and always work to um work on the changes as they come because as we know we're constantly getting new changes by the new the cdc and the new york state department of education i don't think we should act like sheep out the pasture i think we should be uh aggressively forcing albany to defend their decisions they have wasted a year of these children's lives the evidence is that this time out of school has been very detrimental to students we see other
015states other countries have had children in and private schools in new york state have been in full time since september why can't our public schools kids don't they deserve a good education too the governor issues executive orders the new york state department of health issues regulations in accordance with these orders the new york state education department issues guidelines that the public school system has to adhere to as a school board you are unable to act outside of the law and outside of those regulations that are provided by the new york state department of education which is in reliance with the new york state department thank you ms bruno what is your familiar what is your position on all students returning to school five days per week will you challenge state and county mandates that keep
016some of our students in hybrid and virtual models and how would you approach the issue well of course my goal is to get the students back into the classroom full-time five days a week but also following the rules required by new york state you know um if we were to violate the rules imposed by new york state we also risk the funding and the aid which is a substantial amount that the grand island schools district school district receives so i think that we can always work on what have we done and what can we do better um so you know but we at the end of the day have to follow the rules of new york state as i said we should storm the best deal we should get the other school districts in the
017state to come with us and demand the state do the right thing hiding behind oh well these are their rules and we are new york state they are our lives our children's lives are being affected and everybody seems to be just shrugging their shoulders i don't get it as a parent i would like to see children safely unfortunately with regards to the rest of the question there is a pending law school suit that has named the board of education as a defendant and because i am a member of the board of education i fully agree that this school should be open five days a week and there's going to be children there's going to be parents that are going to be uncomfortable with that if that's the case they can stay they can stay home
018get some virtual learning or even home school that's not a problem i i do disagree that we have to be worried about the funding that we're going to miss we have saint stephen's school open the bus goes by my house every single day i haven't heard a word about it i realize that's not a public school that's a private school there's a totally different teachers affiliation there which allows that school to be open secondly however i did mention this already there is the the public school open in syracuse i don't see any pushback on that the governor is not pushing back on that if they are doesn't matter kids are at school i want to see them open i want to see them open now mr radican grand island has experienced campaigns to vote down
019the school budget in the past what is your position on vote down campaigns and how they affect the students can you repeat the question did you say they've received they have voted it down don't carry me grand island has experienced campaigns to vote down the school budget in the past what is your position on vote down campaigns and how they affect the students so it sounds like you're asking me what is my opinion if there's a campaign out there with a number of teachers and taxpayers that want to vote it down not that it has been voted down i'm in favor of that if there's a good reason why the budget should be voted down i want to be sure when i am elected school board that i am looking at it line by line
020to make sure it's appropriate every single year when the budget goes up by two percent two percent two percent remember if you put a penny in a in a bucket and just increase it by two percent sooner or later i understand the mandates coming from the federal government the county governments the state governments but we need to take a look at what's going on what's causing the budget increases and go from there taking a look at the budget that came out of the most recent um bridge thing here our administrative costs that's what's causing the budget to go up 9.19 percent i'm nuts you know something has to be done or sooner or later we need to get things a grip on things we have a wonderful school with beautiful buildings again we need to
021focus on reading writing and arithmetic the curriculum and things like that i'm not sure that we can always afford the best the best the best to hold it up high if that's the case feed all the kids lobster right at lunchtime i think we need to have the fundamentals in place and continue on with the sound budget that the taxpayers can handle i have not i am i have not voted to spend on the budget but i will uh ensure that as if i am voted in as a board member to collaborate to make sure that the board has the best interest of the district and avoid unnecessary spending i see nothing wrong with the taxpayers of voting down the budget if they feel so i mean that's the reason for a vote that said
022it's the job of the board to make sure you have a rational budget out there i can't live in a vacuum i people have jobs with uh incomes that fluctuate it's not everybody has a nice fixed salary and sweet benefits and they have to be taken into account too uh if we are going to just try to cope with it and people get the idea that we're just spending money we're going to have bad rep people ultimately will not put up with our budgets everything will be suspect and we don't want that no i've never campaigned nor encouraged a vote down of a budget for the six years that i have served on the board we have spent hours line by line going through what can we move what can we not move what can
023we how can we squeeze more out of the budget that we have with the limited funds or the questions with regards to funding and what type of funding we're getting especially during a pandemic so there's hours that go into budget into reviewing it and to ensure that it is conservative our budget is looked at by all of us we go line by line we ask questions and we ask difficult questions during our budget hearings so no i have not ever voted or campaigned to vote down thank you miss verno how will you support the needs of all guard island students teachers and community members well i think it's important to hear the needs and to consider strategic plans and plans that can be executed um to communicate better to provide transparency to look at statistics
024and data um of what we've done and what we can do better in order to implement policy change so um i think that hearing the new needs of all parties is crucial to the district to the taxpayers and especially the well-being of the students so i would look towards the transparency in improving the communication skills mr mckay yeah uh as a board member you're trying to uh weigh these different constituencies but the main constituency is is the students i mean that's what we're here for and the next group is the tapes the fundness and to see so we can have a good system we want to spend the funding widely responsible because we don't have an unlimited budget we don't drink money we only have access to the fed uh we have to live within
025our knees the job of the board is to make the tough decisions and here cut there and they should step up and do it we will continue i will continue to listen to the community continue to advocate for children continue to uh when we receive incoming emails we just to discuss to advance to fight for children to fight for our district the school board does need to hear from the students the teachers and the taxpayers i think one group that might be lacking that i'm not sure how much the school board hears from is the teachers themselves i would like to see more maybe teacher involvement with the school board as i i'm not on the school board so i can't say what's happening now but as a school board member for communication with the
026teachers to understand what's going on i would advocate for being in their classroom monitoring classes here and there not to monitor them for appropriateness of teaching but to understand from them what's going on what's going not so good um in my years of business we had the slogan of management by walking around walk around talk to the people that are actually educated with children i want to hear that communication i want to hear how that's going with the teachers and the problems that they have secondly with the taxpayers just a quick note that there's an email is a wonderful thing maybe we need to get the taxpayers involved with the top administrative communications such as budgets and elections thank you we are halfway through our questions are there any more index cards with questions if
027not we're going to expand our time for answers what is your familiarity with the new york state curriculum for each grade level and how will this impact your role in the board i have to say that it's been a while since i've been close to the curriculum the only one that i've paid any attention to is i've looked at a couple of uh social studies teachers in american history and what they talk about the great depression and not one of them that i uh where they had anything about what caused the great depression which was the actions of the federal reserve that is well grounded known economics and if we're not teaching that in our social studies plans about american history we're failing these kids so things that i know about i would um time
028teaching where i had 200 plus students and i was blocked for punishment and had essay questions on the exam these states and the feds have gotten dagger about testing and with the test continually almost at least illusion of teaching and when we give tests at the end of the year we get touchdowns why aren't those tests good enough for monitoring student performance if we keep having multiple tasks throughout the year all you're doing is teaching through a test and then teaching them one of the main items that we have been working for and one of the things i've been very vocal in public session is version that you have between certain subjects are learning the same they have the same programs they have the same subjects it's something that we're very passionate something that i
029am very captioned on and this is something that i'm constantly bringing up looking for the status it has been in the works publicly for you it will continue and over the six years it's great to see that it is happening and it is and it is it's moving towards day one as opposed to goes to approval thank you again our curriculum is dictated to us by the state returned by the government and i think the new york state curriculum has had a high emphasis on regents tests when i went to school 40 years ago it was an option if he wanted to reach his diploma now apparently it is a requirement that's a good thing and a bad thing it does provide a base level of what the children should be learning and what when
030they graduate however not all students are college bound not all students have the same capacities to learn everything i think that we should really emphasize vocational training the pandemic has showed us that we need jobs and many of the plumbers the skills the small businesses these kind of things you can see help want it all over the place for construction and everything else i would like to see more vocational training here so i agree with what joy said that the board has worked to streamline the curriculum between the elementary schools you think of mine and i think that that's been a success and also with the budget uh there the consideration one of the considerations of many was to work towards um you know the loss enrichment that the students have you know in dirt
031from the remote learning and to improve the interactions with the teachers how to use utilize those dollars for the well-being of the students um so that was considered as part of the budget to improve the curriculum given the um you know what the students have suffered as a result of the remote learning there has been talk of making school fun and enriching through spelling bees extra reading classes and extra help for failing students how will we fund this and how will we staff such extras the talk that you're referring to is this something that is through the community so when we have a budget there's a line item budget for each individual item so if there is additional items that are asked for at that time when we actually sit down with the principles or
032we do tours or they submit their proposals for spelling bees or for additional items those items then go into the proposed budget that shows as a line item and then once it gets done put in and then it's presented to us and then it also depends on funds where we are funding as well so those additional items would be brought to us we would work with them and see and then everything costs money it seems like no matter what we want to do everything's going to cost money i would like to go more along the volunteer path i know there's parents out there that would like to volunteer maybe more and uh i have a couple friends that have been volunteering over kegebine as a student helper for years um that might still be going
033on i can't honestly say whether it is or not at all levels of school but if there's going to be a spelling bee how about fund it how about maybe to get the girl scouts with boy scouts to help get the spelling bee going if it gives them a part maybe a badge and organizing something while it also gets the school kids involved in spelling bees i would also like to suggest that businesses we have many businesses on the island as kids are age appropriate it's a possibility that there's internships for them easy internships for them to come over do some work as well as the opposite i came to kegabine school for about three years in a row and helped with the second grade class as part of my giving to my work i'm
034going to apologize because i didn't hear your question i'm so sorry can you repeat it there has been talk of making school fun and enriching through spelling bees extra reading classes and extra hope for failing students how will we fund this and how will we staff such extras well i i believe that the budget accounts for those services in that curriculum i i think they're they're they're the budget accounts for those types of projects so if they're if there's a way to improve the you know education and curriculum of the students by ways of the spelling bees um and other projects that you you suggested in your question i think that that would be a strong consideration before the board if not already voted on to include in the budget i don't understand why we
035need to get more money to run spelling bees a teacher in this classroom talks a teacher in that classroom let's have a competition at the 11 o'clock period tomorrow it's not that uh we used to do this all the time when i was in grammar school in that class against uh one donald hall uh but there are things that do cost money and need to be taken into consideration four or five years ago i was at a budget hearing and i got rid of the field trips now when i was in school i loved the future and everybody else was there love the fields but they got cut they didn't have any money and it cost roughly five thousand dollars per field trip well i guess how much does this bridge that we send out
036four times a year it cost five thousand bucks an issue i said well then let's issue it two or three times instead of four and then you can have a field trip what is your stance on the critical race theory curriculum as well as the 1619 project would you be for or against bringing it into the gi school district i've already mentioned my stance on education i think we need to focus on the fundamentals that's math that's reading that's writing in penmanship they sound old the science history i am not in favor of bringing in a cultural difference it's aside from the basics of what the kids need to know the children need to grow up in no basics sports is great soccer is great football is great but if they don't have a sound
037foundation of math of reading being able to critically think and everything else i think the children as they turn into adults are going to have a problem if we bring in different philosophies of what's going on in today's experiences you're just going to be changing one curriculum to another curriculum to appease the masses it's more of a political question we shouldn't be bringing politics into this we need to focus on the fundamentals so i think the fundamentals are crucial your your core subjects your reading writing your math and um even speaking public speaking so this is not always the easiest but i also think it's important to understand that we are evolving and times are changing so it is important to consider um cultural dynamics and diversity and awareness to what's going on in the
038world um around us so that they can be prepared when they come out of high school and they enter you know the working field and the many political issues and concerns that we have and see every single day and it's it's just getting more prominent i am utterly opposed to critical race theory and the 1619 project critical race theory is just a rhapsody on marxism there's no place in the school of curriculum it's propaganda the 1619 project has had a bristol stomp done on it by prominent historians that are conservative and liberal we should not be wasting students time with this we have enough useful material to teach them and to focus their attention on give them the tools to think and if they want to go off and i'll fiddle around with him that's
039their choice but we should not be wasting time i am going to decline answering this question thank you miss bruno will you seek to change the board of education bylaws to change the way board of education business is conducted for example roundtable discussions in place of executive sessions so the public can see where each board member stands well i think that the executive sessions are held for a reason and that they involve highly sensitive matters including minors and salaries of administration that should not be known to the public at that given time so i of course encourage roundtable discussions about during executive meetings because that level of you know security there for purposes of sensitivity is there for a reason that's not where the change needs to be in the board meetings i mean they
040we have executive sessions because they uh involve labor issues and other things that are confidential by law on the other hand the voice of the people time is a fight it is nothing but a social safety veil the whole people rent their spleen and go home you can't get a straight answer on anything we need to have more discussion on topics we can take the voice of people into two things though that part a where people just want to make a statement part b where people have an issue that they would like to get some feedback from the board from they don't get answers executive session is for the purpose of employment sensitive information concerning minors as well as other items that are highly sensitive in nature currently the board and the six years that
041i have been on the board we do have a round table it happens at the end of the board meeting prior to the board president issuing the next available dates the board president goes around to each individual trustee as well as to the superintendent the district clerk and the assistant superintendents asking if they would like to contribute to the roundtable discussion and pre-pandemic when we were all going to sports games and meetings and concerts you would hear and each individual you know where they've been what they've been doing pta you would also hear if there's something highly uh if they had an opinion on something that was highly uh spoken about at that meeting that board member did give it so roundtable discussions have been in effect for as long as i've been on the
042board thank you i would not change the way the board meeting is conducted executive sessions are required for obvious reasons there's things we can't talk about salary teachers discipline all sorts of things the public side however i think there could be some improvements i would like to think of the school board as a high performance team a high performance team will embrace all decisions that come from parents teachers taxpayers students and all those decisions should come in and i think that the school board members the trustees should also have a voice on what their opinion is for the various things that they're talking about i think those opinions should be known by the community but once the town board does make a decision in within the round table i'm not talking about executive session within
043the roundtable i think then the school board does need to speak as one voice we need to support each other we need to be sure that whatever policy was implemented even if you dissented from that is followed and isn't here too mr mccabe what are your thoughts about the new york public schools desire for every kid to go to college versus vocational education programs even though i'm an education junkie spent many many years i think it's a mistake to uh i think it's a mistake to push college on every child i think it's terrible that people are looked down upon if they don't go to college you may not need a lecture and supply and demand or on shakespeare's silence but i bet you you'll need a plumber or an electrician at some time in
044your life and we should encourage kids who have aptitudes that way to go for it uh this thing of just i my cynical view is we push kids towards college to validate our career choices uh let them do what they want right we need everybody we need every skill we don't need just a handful um narrowly defined skills not every child is the same there's there will be children that will excel in vocational prefer not to go to school college vice versa you can't fit every child in one level there's diversity there's individuality what one person may excel at another person may not so to put them together as one what agreement with jim and joy and you've already heard me speak about this again i will say it again college isn't for everybody and
045as things have evolved through the years the few decades a lot of kids children go to college and come out and they're a dime a dozen and now they don't have a skill and they're fighting for a job out there that might pay almost minimum wage for your college degree and death i i totally support vocational training when i went to school here i remember um a lot of the kids left class and went to trot learned how to fix cars learn how to be plumbers learn how to do construction fix refrigerators and everything else they had a job and they were making money way before i got out from my four-year degree and in some cases i wish i had done that because i think it was smart and i think we really need
046to push that on the children let them know there's lots of paths and i think maybe too much we've been pushing college you know i agree with the other responses so you know i'm a proponent of education but at the same time everybody has different interests and passions um towards different fields and i can tell you i need the people in the vocational um areas because i can't you know do a lot of things and those people can so i appreciate their expertise we all need them so it's whatever interests the students and um what they believe that they're going to excel at in life so i um i can't agree to eliminate the vocational program this is lamarco please share with us your knowledge of and experience with a diverse community of students on
047grand island diverse community um well i'm not really sure how this question is experience as with my daughter and with her going to school in the community experience with attending games and sporting events and concerts and supporting children in the talent shows unfortunately a lot of this isn't happening right now due to the pandemic but it's always been a huge shame in life to be able to support the children and when they come before us to see their accomplishments and to see their awards well diverse community at grand island i see people that are well off the people that can pay for it their kids are getting educated at private schools and and i find that to be great for them but a real shame for others there might be a middle market there where
048some of the moms or dads but probably most of the moms who had a career women's rights let's all work well they had a career another home with the children because our schools aren't open that's not saying our school is a babysitter that's saying that our school is not teaching our children and they're trying to learn by virtual on the computer you and i all know it's so much easier to go into a class interact with the teacher and learn something that mental group there is struggling the group that's really having a problem are the ones that don't have a mom or dad that really care they're not at school they're not being taken care of and that's the worst shame of all again i think we should open up the schools uh you know
049with the question of experience with the diverse communities um i think that we should look towards um common grounds and bringing people together um from depend you know doesn't matter what background it is and whether or not you know it's it's the teachers being involved in supporting the students as well um no matter you know what community it is or um it's everybody being equal and on the same page and bringing people together for you know the betterment of grand island as a whole um i would like to personally be more involved so thank you yeah now last year i taught a couple of very large econ classes that be 250 270 students and then we went to the online and i have a minute i was terrible at it as teaching i mean i
050just all of a sudden i had a webex in my face and uh trying to do it and i think the students had a hard time too some students were very good i they will succeed in any environment but others will not especially the way this thing was done this past year where everybody was dumped into it all at once and the teachers really can't get the feedback of which kid is having a hard time until they see the exact refund which every point is a little late uh the we really need to get the children back in classrooms simple as that mrs madigan buffalo boards have brought up permanent remote learning for high schools what is your thought or opinion on this subject i think permanent remote learning in today's environment with better broadband
051out there and the videos i think it's fine however if the schools are teaching that way it sends me down the path of why don't we just tell the kids to watch certain youtube videos that are produced better and might say the same thing and might say it better i mean at what point do we start saying we don't need teachers we don't need that individual training you don't need that one-on-one versus just go home and watch youtube video heck i learned a lot of stuff just watching youtube videos i'm sure that you all do i think there's a fine line of doing it right and doing it wrong and if we want to get to the point of kids staying home and watching tv and trying to learn that way i think the social
052skills are going to go away i think the whole masking thing with the kids wearing masks and not seeing their facial expressions that's going to be a huge grave problem for kids to grow up and i could be able to read people's emotions the whole virtual thing not socializing not being with their kids we talked a little bit about the diverse community i just want to jump back in that the diverse community that i was talking about was more about economic dysfunctionality from the high rates to the low range the folks with money are getting their kids taught the ones without money aren't and that is also causing diversity that's causing a social status and that's not what we want we want the kids together in school working together socializing together one child that might
053not normally talk to the other child because of race religion whatever they talk to each other because they're here in school they have that i don't think it's a great idea if we have to do it because some children can't go to school there might be health issues not just culverts but other health issues whatever it might work i don't think it's the best thing to do uh so i cannot endorse permanent uh remote learning i think it's imperative to a child's child's growth um to develop and interact with you know their friends their these fellow students their teachers and it's also crucial to their growth in learning and performance i think that the live remote sessions um have been better but i cannot endorse fully permanent um remote learning okay there's a couple a
054couple of types of remote learning home schooling is a form of remote learning but these people there is a community of those folks and they get together so the children do have social interaction straight online learning watching is a mistake it's one thing to have a video that you video your lecture so the kid can go back and revisit it for something that he may have missed and wants to get a little more of but all the evidence that i've seen is this remote learning has been a failure there are some kids that do well but like i say they'll do well in anything but so many of these kids aren't showing up to their lectures i mean it's three million four million nationwide aren't going to anything they're not doing anything it's not doesn't
055bode well for the future as a parent and a mom of a six-year-old with an iep i have to tell you permanent remote learning against the children do need to be in school but they need to be in safely and legally and once they get here they're missing right now the socialization the interaction trying to do uh ot or pt through a computer screen it's now the same as when she's in the school and she's doing it so as a parent no permanent remote learning will not work they need to be thank you please give a 90 second closing statement starting with ms bruno well again thank you everybody that's online and here today i hope that i could um you know earn some trust here the questions were well articulated and i appreciate the
056accountability and having to answer those questions i look to improve transparency and providing also conflict resolution and working towards mediating and being common grounds towards the parents and the the teachers um i look forward to developing strategies on how to execute bringing the students back in the future and that those strategies be creative and rewarding those creation creativity um by also looking at the data the policy um how those policies will work based upon the data and the statistics so i hope to earn your vote and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be a candidate for the school board because i am here for a reason and i'm driven by passion so you know it would be the utmost honor to be able to serve my community in a district that has been
057so good to me i too i want to thank the pta for hosting us and everybody that put their questions in and everything else um i realized that if i am elected i need to take some time to learn the ropes i'm not going to come in like a barrel and move things over i need to understand why decisions were made i think the school board has done a good job all these years all the years i went to school all the years my sons went to school it's done a good job i think uh with today's crisis situation with hobick i think we've seen that there's some lacking of i hate to say it but maybe leadership or pushback or passion i see that the supervisor is all back together i don't know there's
058about 20 supervisors wrote a letter talked about how the uh not being in school is hurting our children but it's a letter it's like a snail mail letter i don't see anybody beating down the drums i don't see anybody talking back with our federal our county our executives but i do see other areas in new york state that open again again again i see the public the private schools are open i understand that we're getting funding but we're not we shouldn't be held hostage the funding that you're getting is the taxpayer money that's going to the government that's funding our schools the parents are crying because they want their kids in school i cannot understand why we're not taking a stronger approach accepting that the parents have a voice and move forward the parents had
059to pay for a lawyer to get something done and the school board is a defendant probably because the school maybe didn't push hard enough thank you for your time i'm learning again to continue my promise to work in the best interests of our children our community our district our teachers i'll continue my promise to be physically conservative and because i've been on the board since the 10 minutes has started not to abandon our children and not to abandon our district and still continue to work with the community the teachers in the midst of a pandemic in this ever-changing world so we asked your vote okay as i said in the beginning i'm running that for any ego trip i don't have children in the school system i have grandchildren in the school system but i
060think i have something to offer and one of the things i think you should keep in mind is that most learning takes place outside of formal education so what should we be doing ultimately we should be instilling a love of learning into our children and giving them the fundamentals the reading writing and arithmetic they can't be and they got a love of learning they will be successes wherever they go what can i bring i can bring a reasonable passion to topics i look for ways to get things done i'm not going to why can't we do this question why what can we do to get it done i understand budgets and as i said i've taught and i know some of the trials and tribulations faced by the teachers so there i am all righty
061that wraps up our evening i would like to thank all the candidates for taking the time to be here giving your thoughtful responses to the questions thank you to all the committee members who sent in questions and came to be here tonight for the event have a wonderful evening