001[Music] It is [Music] light All right. Mom is on the same floor. Oh my god. [Music] Exactly. [Music] Just let us Oh, it's all set. Yep. [Music] Anybody check anyone? while we just even welcome my name offer and [Music] see the public questions asked many submitted similar and [Music] questionable answer. motion on the YouTube channel. We're going to start with an introduction each given answer to these questions will have time for all providing them to provide you everyone here. night [Music] tomorrow. We ask [Music] all remaining within my mind. [Music] Okay. JJ Monger Richard and then Ber [Music] Just a reminder that the vote would only take [Music] my name. I served on this board for six years and at the time I served as president. I'm the chair of communications committee 5 years currently
002policy committee and also been on uh facilities and audit as well. Some of you may know me from the CPS drama club. Uh my wife and I have co-produced the school last years. Some know some know me as Mr. Bridget. So you can figure out the I also coach little league and corn when I first ran for let's say district much much different which is had two capital projects that previous months and our buildings were some literally falling apart on top of that budget passing by pretty razor thin margin each spring sometimes by just a few percentage points. Uh but in my time on the board, thanks to the work of many people, I'm proud to say that we have reversed both of those trends. Passing the first major capital project in our district in
003over 20 years, which I was proud to lead the communication effort for, and in the last few years, passing budgets by much more comfortable margins due to a lot of factors, but including better communication. Uh I think in this moment, as I run for the board, however, we're uh I'm facing a a much different challenge. Uh, I'm not the new kid on the block anymore. I'm actually the longest serving member on the board. And I think in this moment in particular, that experience is important. Superintendent Dade has just announced that he will be leaving our district at the end of next month. And over the next year, we will likely be pursuing another capital project uh that picks up where the last one left off. I think the experience that I have will be important
004when tackling these two challenges. I think institutional knowledge uh is relevant especially on a board of education and while I think every board needs new ideas and new members I think it's a blend of having that new energy and the stability and experience that makes for the best combination. So that's why I'm running for a third term. I I appreciate the opportunity uh to answer all the questions tonight and I encourage everybody to come out and vote next Tuesday. Hi, I'm Jamie Fox. Thank you both so much on behalf of Rachel. Thank you to all the candidates, everyone watching, everyone here. Um I hope to be that new energy, the bread and stock. I agree institution knowledge is super important and having some new life blood come in. Um I grew up in the public
005school system, so I know how important it is. I find very passionate about it. I moved to Cornwall for the schools. Um so I was very excited to, you know, come upon this. Um I'm a mother of two children. I'm a one-year-old and a four-year-old who's currently in UPK at Butter Hill. So, imagine my stance on that. Um, I'm a part I'm a chronic joiner. I'm a part of Mothers Outfront with Walton here who has a clothing swap on Saturday. If anyone's interested, talk to me after the Cornell Democratic Committee and Riverfest, June 1st. It's coming up. Um, I'm a committee community member. I have board experience. I work with the New York City Brewers uh guild, which is as fun as you can imagine, as well as the Brooklyn Public Library. And I currently
006my my real program job is I'm the partnerships director of the New York State Brewers Association. So I work with the board every day and with nonprofits and big budgets. Um so I think I have the experience that is necessary to bring to the board and I'm just really excited, very passionate about kids and schools and education. Hi. Um, I'm Loftton Riser and thank you guys again for organizing this opportunity for us to uh have you get to know us and us get to know some of the concerns of the community. Um, I my background I'm originally from South Carolina and my background is in education actually music education uh specifically my uh undergraduate degree was in that. Um and then I moved on to um working uh in libraries for a lot of my
007adult career. Um so I definitely have a strong background in um education and information services. Um I'm also a musical theater performer and so I have a lot of experience with the arts. I've worked um in other places. Um I've worked in many places because I'm a military spouse so we've moved around quite a bit. Um, and I've uh worked with a lot of nonprofits um and very closely in a lot of those cases with the boards. Um, most recently I worked for Virginia Symphony as their the executive assistant to their board um as well as an assistant to their um uh CFO. So, I've got a lot of experience with the nitty-gritty of funding and finding money where there isn't any and um making those numbers work and just how it feels to be
008making decisions for an organization that you really care about. Um, and I hope to bring some of those new ideas from other places and my experiences to this area. I'm happy to be here. We've been here about four years and I'm uh at the point my daughter is also four and I'm at the point uh where I'm jumping into being more involved with the community and this is my I I'm involved with mothers out front of course but this is my big step into contributing because I'm big on contributing to the community that I'm in. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much and a big thank you to the PTO Trust for putting this forum together. I know it's not easy, but I think it's important that the community can hear from all the
009candidates running and make an important decision. So, I hope everyone is tuning in. So, my name is Richard Shapner. I am a lifelong resident of the community. I'm a proud graduate of the district. That's a distraction there, so I'm good with that. And I'm finishing up my first term serving on the board of education. On the board, I have served as the chairperson of the visitation committee over the past two years. I have also served on the communication committee and the facilities committee. Off the board, I work for the town of New Windsor recreation department where I direct the town summer camp program. When camp's not in session, I run uh different programming for our community's youth, adults, senior citizens. So, I'm all over the place. and I also organize trips and community events. It's
010a really rewarding job. I am a member of the New Windsor Sons of the American Legion. I was actually just elected as an officer, first vice commander and I was elected as the SEPTA officer as well. And I mention this not to to boast about myself, but I care that I am involved. And I think when you're involved, it shows people that you care. And that's why I want to serve another three years on the school board. Thank you. Good evening. Uh I'm B Shakra. Um I moved from Wisconsin to West Point eight years ago. Eight years and a few months. And uh when I I came to New York just to take up a new job at West Point and I lived for a year and a half in Newor because I my family
011was still in Wisconsin and I waited year and a half. My wife was still studying. She finished her diploma and they moved and when they moved while they were still there I was asking everybody where's the best school district? at West Point my colleagues and uh pretty much everybody said it is going well. Okay. So I had the mindset okay when my kids I have three kids in the district when they come in I'm going to take them and register them uh you know schools. Uh then I got more and more involved like in that education and I started kind of watching BOE uh you know meetings on online and uh there were issues where I came and I spoke as a parent you know during those meetings I got this interest like you know
012okay I know my stu my my kids are going to the best schools but I'd like to be more involved in their education and I did run and I won that previous election three years ago advisor for three years on the board of education. Um, so I believe that like while I'm helping my kids and I'm honest about it, I am I you know I tell you you know very frankly I I I'm helping my kids while helping my kids. I'm helping everybody else at corn and that is students. Uh I am an educator. I university professor. Uh I call myself a teacher. I served. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um I'd like to remind all that we do have a one minute time limit on each question. We are going to start with Jamie.
013The first question is what do you sorry about that. We're going to start with Jamie. Our first question is, what do you consider to be the most critical challenge facing Cormal Central School District at this moment and how would you approach addressing it? Thank you. It's a big question to go first on someone who's not from the board. Um, I think right now the thing when I talk to parents, what our biggest problem is transparency. Um, which is no one's fault, right? I think when I moved to town, I was the same way. I was like, how do I get the information? and how do I learn about the board? It's there for you, right? But it's just meeting parents where they are who might not be able to come to the meetings or don't
014have the time to sit through the, you know, 2-hour meeting sometime. I think having the board get more out there in the community and being able to talk about the issues that we're having and being able to get live feedback from parents would go a long way. I also think obviously Terry gate leaving um is a huge issue, right, that the board, the upcoming board is going to have to address. Um, again, I think community involvement, speaking to the parents, students, the teachers, administration is the way that we're going to so we're address. What do you consider to be the most critical challenge facing Hormal Central School District at this moment and how would you approach addressing it? I would say that in talking I've also been talking with uh a lot of parents just
015in getting my signatures for this um and just trying to get a feel for the area. Um I've heard a lot I've heard some about transparency. I've heard a lot of um parents that are very concerned about bullying um in the area as a whole. Um and that there um are a lot of messages coming from our um uh not just ours our local government but our state government and our national government that um are uh confusing parents and making it difficult to know what's happening um and what is going to change, what's not going to change and I think um going forward in this year especially it's sorry I better keep it one minute. So I think a critical challenge we have right now is funding because we have a lot of needs in
016our district. We want to truly universalize UPK. We have space issues in our schools and in order to solve a lot of these problems it costs money and I think we're getting to a point I keep seeing the district uh shown as number one in Orange County and ranking relying on one firm uh that is not uh one of the best ranking firm to refer to. Uh I have the numbers I can talk about maybe a little bit later. Uh we are not the number one school district in the county. Uh are we number two number three? Uh we can check uh but this is just to say that we have a lot of work to be done to go up in ranking and and ranking is the reflection of what's going on in the
017school district. Yes, we are the best here in the area in this region close to West Point where I was referring to and uh uh to go there we need funding. Richard just mentioned that uh we're not private school private schools. So I think the uh there is a very short-term answer. Our most pressing issue is we need to find a replacement to superintendent date. But if we're looking a bit longer term, I think the thing I always keep an eye on our our enrollment trends. A lot of vowels in that. Uh just a illustrative point, when my daughter Fiona entered Lee Road, she was uh they had to add a fifth class right before the uh school year started to make it five classes in kindergarten. There were four classes on all the other
018grades. By the time she left, every class or every grade had five classes here in Leo. And we are currently just maxed out in space. Leo takes in the excess from other uh elementary schools and Leo itself has no more space. What we don't know right now is if this is an enrollment bubble that will pass through the district and uh will subside in future years. I suspect it won't be. The other question is will it get will it increase? Will it stay the same? Will it increase? Either way, space will become an issue and that is a big long-term challenge for us to solve. Question two. Um, how would you balance the need for fiscal responsibility with the goal of providing high quality education for all students? That's always the rub, isn't it? Um,
019is things cost money and if you have a cap on what you want to or are allowed to spend on those things, you have to get creative. Um, and uh, you know, you you're not going to win that ever. It's going to always be about balance. Um, it's going to always be about prioritizing what is most important, not to the board members, but to the community. And, you know, that I think is where communication with the community is key. What do the parents want and feel like they need for their students? Um because that in my mind is the function of the board is to help parents raise their children, help them with what we provide as a school. Um and so I would say um just making sure that the priorities are met first.
020Yeah, I think it comes down to communication, listening to the community, our stakeholders, and making sure that they trust us and our judgment and putting their children first. Because if you communicate and they do trust you, then there's more buying. Because I would hate to be put in a spot where I have to choose between, you know, cutting budgets or keeping taxes at a minimum and jeopardizing our students education. So I think communication bridges that gap and that's why it's so important that we do that. Can you repeat the question? Sure. How would you balance the need for how would you balance the need for fiscal responsibility with the goal of providing highquality education to all students? U again it goes this is a question this is a fluid question in a way I mean
021the answer is is fluid uh it's based on the economic situation and I mentioned in all the board meetings recently involving discussion of budgets that the economic situation we're in right now is not good out of four years recession okay we're still recovering the last thing our constituents want to hear about is a tax increase. I urged everybody on the board to go and reshuffle the numbers to come out with zero tax levy increase. They didn't do that. I said I'm willing to go up to 1.99 psychologically. It's not 2.0, it's 1.99. And I have all the numbers to show you. Again, they didn't do that. They went up to uh uh 2.75, I believe. Uh so the the the what we need right now on the board are people who know how to strike
022a balance between everything. So I think uh not everything uh in education has a dollar sign on it. I think one way to just to repeat some of the question deliver a high quality education still be fiscally responsible. It comes down to process and making sure that from administration down we are taking a very thorough process of analyzing the data in our academic trends and then making corrective adjustments to our curriculum if necessary. A great example, we had a uh presentation from our assistant superintendent for instruction earlier this year, Megan Narinho, who identified some dips in scores in middle school math, I believe it was, but one of the ways to address that was not just, you know, let's hire another teacher or find another program, but was to make small adjustments in the curriculum
023earlier in the uh elementary school cycle. So in third, fourth grade that would better prepare them for those kinds of issues later on. Those are the kinds of solutions that come from having a great organization that runs properly that doesn't necessarily cost money. Thanks. Um to reiterate honestly what everyone said, right? This is like the big question of the board, right? How do we balance budget with a quality education? Number one, I don't think you can ever say that you would not put the education first and foremost, right? No one I don't think anyone in this town would say that education or not give the best education we can our students. Um, kind of reiterating what Brendan said, it comes to planning, long-term planning, right? Holistic planning with the board that goes from, you know,
024kindergarteners to the superintendent, teachers, everyone. Um, I don't think, yeah, that's that's honestly it. I don't think I can even say anything more to what everyone else wants to do. Question number three, we're going to begin with Richard. Uh, how do you think your affiliations with political or social groups outside the school board will influence your decisions on issues presented to the board? Yes. So, for me, that's a simple question. I don't think anyone serving on the board should think they're a politician, and I think you should be neutral because this position serving your community on a school board is non-political. We're here for one reason, and that's the students. So I I I'm neutral. That's basically I would answer that and I would hope everybody else would remain that way as well. Would you
025like me to review the question? No. Uh this is a good question because that was one of the policy I drafted. I didn't have time to say that. I served on the policy committee for the last two years. Um, one policy plain English is keep the politics outside the perimeter of, you know, CCSD. Period. No politics inside the school. What's bad about that is that the board voted it down. Okay? Uh, you can go back to the meetings and figure it out. Uh, they voted down. I kind of it's a very simple policy. Now when it comes to a a a a prof a teacher discussing a political issue in the classroom, that teacher would have to be right in the middle like unbiased. He'd let the students debate political idea. Trump is good, Trump's
026bad, Biden's good, Biden's bad. You stay in the middle. You just let the student debate, right? So it's not like taking anything outside of First Amendment. Beth, can you repeat the question? I just want to make sure I'm not missing a part of it. Sure. How do you think your affiliations with political or social groups outside the school board will influence your decisions on issues presented to the board? Gotcha. So, I'm uh lucky enough to not be uh affiliated with any political groups. So, that part of it uh is not a challenge. But I think there's a another part of your question which is social group. So you have friends and I think in a small town there will always be things that come to the board that might uh involve people that you know
027and so I think that part of it is very relevant and if you are following your your north star and not allowing those relationships to affect your thinking then you might annoy people that are friends that you're friends with and you might have to sacrifice some friendships and it's a very difficult thing to do. The metric that I've learned to to use is I think of I'm not trying to please anybody uh right now. I'm not trying to please anyone I know. I'm trying to I look ahead the person I'm going to be in 20 years and I look back at the decisions I make. Will I be proud of the person that made those decisions? Will I cringe? Will I say, "Oh my god, I I can't believe I I sacrificed my integrity for
028for something so small." So once you see things through that light, I think all of those uh situations become a lot clearer. So interestingly, I listen to this question in a different way. Um I'm a part of many different social groups, we'll call them, within town, and I feel like I get so many different inputs from people that I've never thought of before. And it informs my decision-m in a way that I wouldn't do on my own. So, you know, people who have children that are different than mine or circumstances that are different than mine. um might change how I vote or feel about something, but I think that's good and human because if we, you know, I have my convictions, right? But I'm always learning and always getting new input. And I think that
029that is important for the board because we need to represent all of the community, not just my interests. That was good. Um yeah, I I agree. Um uh with regard to the the actual concrete question um I I'm not involved in any political organizations but I agree that I don't feel like politics um in and of themselves belong in uh the school board environment. Um however everything politics is not that separate from our life. So we are who we are. Um and you know politics affects who we are and and how we experience the world and you know it is a reflection of um of our experiences what our politics are. Um, so as much as possible to take ourselves out of ourselves completely as Brendan was saying and not make it about our comfort
030or what we want, but really honing in on what is best for the students and at the end that being our north star of, you know, what is going to benefit the most of amount of students like um Jamie said, Okay, Bass, I'm going to start with you. This next question, what are your views on the current curriculum and what changes, if any, would you recommend? Um, you know, state kind of I mean, we don't create the curriculum. I mean, we follow whatever the state wants us to to do. But what got my attention recently, not this school year, previous year, there were some exciting students in high school uh wanted uh an extra uh I think college course API or the other one um in calculus and uh the student advocate came here and
031spoke very eloquently, beautifully and I urge everybody on the board to approve that course and it was not approved. So things that giving that would give opportunities for our excelling students to get extra credit towards college but from uh I would I would like to add that uh because this is our power as I said you know state mandated curriculum we can come up so I'll start by saying I think our curriculum is very strong so I don't think there are glaring uh deficiencies But uh I would like to see you know where possible uh challenging courses um at at different levels. But specifically when it comes to reading um you know there's a big national debate about uh different approaches to reading um whether science of reading is superior or not. I think that
032our current approach scient approach is a uh proven data but if there's one shortcoming it has has been double focus and a much longer text books I would love to see what about it but still have kids challenged by serious books long reading from early age I think that would help battle a lot of larger things that are happening to our kids attention span through phones and social media and would just open their uh minds up to worlds that they cannot possibly imagine. I'm so sorry to say this, but again, I'm going to piggy back off of what Brendon just said. Um I think we have a very strong curriculum. I'm always impressed by our school district and by the numbers coming out of the school. Um talking about the science of reading and reading
033about it a little bit. The one thing that scares me is, you know, and of course you're going to read both sides of the story, but like it doesn't focus on the love of reading. And as someone who loves reading, I just want that for my children so much. And I hope that they don't get bogged down in like the phonics of it all, and they don't see, you know, the forest, the trees, whatever, and learn that reading is just like the most beautiful thing you can do. Um, especially in our our world of smartphones and second clips. Um, and beyond that, honestly, if I was on the board, I would love to speak. Who better? Yeah, I'm gonna be back off of that by um just saying that I think we should listen to
034experts. I think we should listen to teachers. I think we should listen to the people who have spent, you know, uh, their lives doing this, um, rather than try to make any decisions. I know the board doesn't have a lot of power over curriculum, but make any decisions as people who don't really have any expertise in that. Um, my mother is a reading interventionist. actually she uh spent half her career in special ed and the other half in reading intervention. So I have a unique perspective on the reading question. Um I won't get into it right now but uh meaning based reading um and so uh if you're interested in that I'd be happy to talk with you more about it but um she's written a book about it. This is a tough question to
035go last on but I'll say I think we do have a strong curriculum here and I credit our teachers for that and our staff because they are the ones that make the difference. Now curriculum is bass matching is set by the state. So we don't make curriculum decisions, but I believe discussion and collaboration is important. And I think that's an argument as to why we should look at forming a curriculum committee that would include board members, teachers, community members, families. I think that would help us all come to an understanding of where we're at now and what we could do to maybe strengthen the mandates set by the state here in Cornwall. This question will turn to how would you propose maintaining open communication between the school board, parents, students, community members, and our PTOs?
036Well, I think uh it's always hard when you have uh busy people and and conflicting schedules, but I think having uh having more community events uh would be a great start. I think the uh one thing that you learn whenever you're involved in communication and certainly um through the communication committee, I've understood this. It's not just about getting the message out there. It's about receiving what people have to say. uh it's a very difficult thing to do and and stay consistent at and so we certainly can always use improve use improvement there. Um but I think that's the you know it's the only only way to ensure that we're getting as many viewpoints as possible. Um I would love to uh start a the committee that has is is a little more broad than just
037the board communication committee. you know, it's kind of limiting in its in its scope and work with other organizations around the uh the district but also the community to have instead of just an event where you go out to the community and say show up uh those members are on the committee itself and we're all doing it together. Um, just from my line of work, I can say this takes work. It takes so much work. Um, bridging the gap that people feel because I feel like people are already um, you know, people get, you know, no one's listening to what I'm saying. So now I'm not going to say it anymore. And I think that, you know, when that happens, it's really hard to bridge that gap. So I don't think we're there yet. And
038I think that the, you know, the board of education has a great opportunity to get out there and speak to teachers and parents and the administration and the nice thing about it is our community is, you know, it it is small, right? And we do have a ton of community events. I'm always in awe for I'm still I've only been here four years, so I still feel like I'm, you know, in the honeymoon phase. But, you know, even having the board of education have a table at Riverfest, right? Thousands of people show up there. um just an opportunity for people to come up and say, you know, good things, bad things, whatever. I think we could do surveys, you know, I do that a lot in my job right now, like just sending out surveys
039to teachers to parents. You know, tell us the good, the bad, and the ugly. They can even be anonymous, right? Tell us, you know, what you really think. Um and I think publishing those surveys goes a long way to making people feel more comfortable about saying that it's Yeah, agreed. um on both counts. Um I think having more avenues um for dialogue to be open and not just making it one thing, you know, giving the opportunity in various ways. Some people prefer speaking with someone one-on-one. Some people do prefer filling out a survey that may be anonymous or um and my work with nonprofits as well has shown me the value in that kind of thing. um where you know you do get to um pull your um uh group whatever um that may be
040teachers, parents, and find out what's important to them or what they're having issues with and then have an opportunity to address that um and I I agree publish it so that they feel heard and then there's a response that they can look to that's concrete um from the board. Yeah. So, I think there's numerous ways you can go about this. I think we have to use the tools we have to our advantage like social media. Um, quite a lot of people are on social media. So, I think communicating through that would be effective. I also think just visibility at events. I mean, I've been to uh many community events and I'm thankful enough to work in a portion of our community and I have some great conversations with people. And I think when you're actively
041listening to your community members, that makes a big difference. Um, but I would propose, you know, board members just making themselves more visible and maybe even having some sort of board committee that makes themselves available at different public spots like two ales or, you know, a local hangout just so people feel more comfortable to approach you and have a conversation and you point them in the right direction to whatever their concern is. Okay, thanks. U yeah, this is a very good question because uh what we're doing so far uh there's a lot for for improvement. I can tell you that uh uh when I first came on the board 3 years ago uh the public comments uh at every uh board meeting uh they used to go unanswered and I pushed for answering the questions
042from the public during the POE meeting with this high visibility on video and everything. And what we did is we modified we we we we uh adjusted the policy uh that would allow the board to come up with answers one meeting later, not right away. And I'm still not happy with that. And at times, I mean, even like we don't give the public the answers they're looking for after one meeting. Uh I'm not happy with that. There's room for it more there. I don't have the whole time to keep talking about it. uh open uh meetings law limit us in what we can do. Okay. Um how would you select an effective hiring committee to support the board of education in appointing a new superintendent and what qualities do you find important in our district's
043new superintendent? Feel like that's the question of the day or the month or whatever. Um first of all I think it's really important that we involve all aspects of the community right so the board of education teachers administration parents community members um the schools are a huge part of this town and I think everyone has stake in it even if they don't have children in this school and it's really important to get input from everyone um and what was the second part it was qualities qualities I mean you know the qualities I think should be the superintendent someone who's inclusive someone who's empowering to children, someone the kids can look up to and feel comfortable, like you know, obviously knowledgeable and smart, right? These are the things, someone the teachers feel like are, you know,
044has their back. Um, but at the end of the day, you really want someone that that the kids feel like, you know, this person gets me and I feel comfortable and safe going to them. Yeah, I think involving as many different facets of the community as we can um in the decision. I mean, it's never going to be a perfect process. Um we're never going to be able to make everyone happy with um a decision like that as big as that. But I think, you know, making sure that that everyone is heard and that we tick as many boxes as possible. And, you know, hopefully there's a candidate out there that's um going to do that. But making sure that that person is um someone who is knows what um uh they're undertaking if if
045they've not done that job before, but has has the experience comparable to really tackle it without having such a learning curve because I think we're in a place as a district where we need somebody to kind of hit the ground running. Um and uh you know just someone who never mind. Yeah. So this is one of the most important roles of the school board is hiring and firing the superintendent. And now we we have to begin our search for our next superintendent. Um hiring committee. I think we need to include everyone, students, teachers, staff, parents, community members, even those without children in the district because they're part of this district, too. And I think that will help bridge the transition to our new leader, whoever that may be. Uh some qualities that I think are
046important is one experience, two being able to deal with different personalities and getting along with um the board, the staff and community. And three, I agree. I think it should be someone that students can look up to and say they're happy to have him or her as their superintendent. The question was too close. Okay. How would you Okay. How would you select an effective hiring committee to support the board of education in appointing a new superintendent? And what qualities do you find important in our district's new superintendent? Uh thank you. Uh the hiring committee should involve uh everyone. Uh just echo what Richard said. uh uh I remember when uh I was in grad school I was part of the hiring committee that hired the dean of engineering. I was student. Okay. So this is
047very important and thanks Richard. Uh you have to involve all the all all the uh uh uh stakeholders. Uh as as values I'm I'm looking for credentials/experience definitely no compromise there whatsoever. uh rapport and approachability with everybody with the teachers. There was a concern uh we heard about before that uh maybe that was not the case uh at all times. Uh we did talk about it before sort of poor and approachability of that person is a huge and goes a long way and role model for everybody for the students and for the teachers. We have time. You want to skip me? Now that I'm put on the spot. Uh so I think number one, you have as many stakeholder committees uh as as you can. That makes sense. So I think you have, you know,
048distinct stakeholder committees for teachers. Uh you want to know administrators. They're going to be working directly with this person. And then you want a a nice blend of uh parents. And you know, even within that group, you'd want some diversity. You would want some teachers that have been in the district for 25 years and some teachers that maybe have only uh you know, were just granted tenure in the last few. Um and just try to find as broad a swath of people as you can. As far as the the qualities that I would be looking for and I would I would hope that the board as a whole would be looking for, you want somebody who u is committed to academic excellence. Of course, I think you want someone who's a great communicator, not just
049with uh us, the board, but with the public, with the staff and teachers. Um, and I think someone who has a soft touch. You know, we are a pretty small, let's say, small to mediumsiz district. and being able to be personal with everyone uh in this kind of district is very important. We do have time to continue. We have two more questions we'd like to ask. Going to start with lock. If you had the ability to to divert funds from one budget category to support another, what would it be? I wish we did not need to spend so much on security. That would be in a perfect world. Um that is not the case. But in a you know in if if this would not be a realistic situation, I think uh anyway, so we're
050going to go with perfect world scenario. I would love it if we didn't need to protect our children as we need to in this day and age, but um if we could take that money and put it towards the arts, this would be no surprise to anybody who read my bio. I would I would love it if we, you know, could make especially things like um drama more accessible to everybody, you know, cuz right now it's a a club and, you know, it the participation isn't um you know, uh something that, you know, if a child can't, you know, uh afford um or their parents can't afford to have them in an extracurricular like that, then, you know, um Okay. So, I feel like this is kind of a trick question because I think we
051put forward a budget that I, you know, support. I think we did a good job with that. And I don't know where I divert these funds from. Let's say we came up with funds. I would want to put that towards uh first UPK. I want to make that truly universal. And I would like to invest more into our buildings and infrastructure because our buildings are old. They need repair. Like I said earlier, we have space issues in this district. Our uh enrollment is growing by the year and it's going to come to a time where we may need to look at building another elementary school. So those are two things I would like to divert money to. Um not going to answer where that would come from because I feel that's like that's a trap.
052Oh, I think everybody knows I'm voting no on the budget. I wasn't happy with the budget. I wanted uh people who work on the budget uh to go back to the drawing board and reshuffle everything just so we don't increase the tax levy. Uh they didn't do that. Um to to divert money from here and there, I'm going to give you two quotes. If you look carefully at the budget statement, uh there are there are 28,000 plus 28 $312 for the board members to go on conferences and to pay their professional society memberships. $28,000. I don't want the taxpayers to pay for my conferences and my professional society membership. There was another item district meeting contractual went from 13,000 to 46,700 $33,000 increase. That's 251 increase. What is district meeting contractual? So, I guess it
053would be a little disingenuous if I had a whole bunch of things I would do to change the budget when I was one of the people who just worked on the budget and vote yes on it. So um it's very it's what it points to is the difficulty of being on the board is that it always comes down to choices and everyone would love to fund everything but that will always come at the expense of something else as long as we are publicly funded and we don't have private revenue sources. Um I would spin the question a bit to you know what do I think should could be funded more. Uh, and it's been said before, but I've been a vocal supporter of the arts. And I think, uh, one thing that we're always proud
054of with arts kids is how resourceful they are. You know, we we turn their challenges into a virtue and say, well, they're always given nothing. And look what they create. And I ask, what would they create if we gave them just a little bit more than nothing? So, that would be a uh that would be a dream scenario for me. And then, of course, attend any facilities committee meeting. We have a long list of things to do throughout the district. So, I would love to eat at that list. Um, I just want to say that I really appreciated Loftton's answer because I also just, yeah, no security, everyone's safe and perfect. Um, but of course, it's not the world we live in, unfortunately. So, I do appreciate the budget this year, how, you know, as
055long as it gets approved, they're putting more money into our safety. Um, that being said, I don't know where we would divert money from, right? I don't have that intimate knowledge. I don't think that I can speak on that because I don't I you know I've looked at the budget. I don't know where that would even come from, right? It's a tight budget. We did what we could the money we had. I mean, at the end of the day, if I was going to give more money, who do I think deserves it the most? Teachers. I would like to give more money to incoming teachers and offer better packages. Um because, you know, as time goes on, we'll be needing to hire more teachers. Um, outside of that, of course, UPK and I really like
056your answer about resourcefulness market because um, yeah, imagine it. Okay, our last question, um, start with Richard. What motivates you to seek a position for re-election on the board of education and what specific goals or contributions do you hope to achieve in this goal? So, I have always had a passion for giving back to my community and that started from a young age. I think since I graduated from Cornwall, I have demonstrated that uh through my roles in different volunteer positions, including this one. Uh some goals for my next term is to continue to be transparent and communicate with the community because I think that's what's important and that's what uh people value and respect in the schoolboard. Um and as I mentioned before, I would like to see uh UPK become truly universal. I
057want to see our teachers continue to be uh fairly compensated and I'm proud of the contract that was agreed upon. I think that's a step in the right direction. So, I think we're making progress, but there's still a lot of work to be done and that's why I'm hoping that you'll support me for another term on the school board. Thank you. I wasn't killed with the question. I mean, yeah. What motivates you to seek a position or reelection on the board of education and what specific goals or contributions um do you hope to achieve in the role? I'm serving on the board like everybody else served. Uh it's a volunteer position. It's not a paid job. Uh so this is finding uh some time to give back to the community you live in. You you
058really uh uh are attached to uh with my my background in education 14 years mechanical engineering professor, university professor. Uh I know education. I know teachers. I like the teachers to look at me as one of them, not a board member. I feel exactly what they feel. the long nights creating papers and what have you, preparing for a lecture to make it better. Uh that's why I'm volunteering here. I'm not volunteering somewhere else in a different industry per se. Uh 3 years went just like this. I feel like I have an unfinished job. I want to finish what I started uh started working on. I mentioned like the policy of keeping politics outside. Vote it down. I hope we'll vote it vote yes on it. So, I if you asked me six years ago when
059I first ran for the board if I would be sitting here running for a third time, I would have said heck no in a different way. But, um, when you you go through this experience and yeah, I think we all have a role to play. And now that I sit here at the end of my second term, I'm the longest term member, I think back to some of the people that served on the board when I first entered. We had Larry Burgerer had served, you know, I would joke, you know, a million years, but close to 15 years or so. Uh Jim Kelli had served 12 years. Before that, Dave Morettto had served well. And these they carried so much uh institutional knowledge. and their testimony and and and stories it when we would discuss
060issues were so valuable that I thought as I look at this current situation I thought you know that's a role that I might have to step into and I think it's important for every board to have that. So although it's not this is not an office that I seek, you know, for my own personal benefit, I do feel like that's a role that needs to be filled and if I'm the best person to fill it, then I have a responsibility to do so. Um I fear that I am a child of the 80s and 90s much like the be the change you wish to see in the world type of person. Um so I am, you know, very into volunteering. Uh the school board is super important to me. So when I moved into town
061and my kids started attending the CCSD district, I was like, "Okay, well, you know, I'm not going to complain about things, but I'm not going to do something about it." So that's my answer for why I'm running. Um, I am a great mediator. Uh, I listen to people on all sides or every every seat of the table, whatever you want to say. Um, and I think it's important to have someone who can see every viewpoint on the board. Um, and my legacy is that I think this district is incredible and I want it to be better. Um, I am motivated to join the school board um because I have a daughter and she's starting in school and as Jamie said um you know uh I don't want to complain about something if I'm not actively
062a part of being um you know the change or progress. you know, I'm not I don't think that things need to dramatically change for this um school district, but is there room for improvement? Always. And I'm one of those people that likes to just say, why not? Um and really look at the challenges and what the barriers are. And uh my background in nonprofit work has helped me be very creative a lot of times with finding solutions to getting around those barriers however we can. And I hope that I could bring that to the board. Um just that creativity of arts people that we talked about. Okay, we are up to our closing statements which are two minutes and we're going to start with Bass. Uh thank you. Yeah, we uh those one minutes were
063really challenging. I we never managed to finish our uh idea. Uh but that's fine. Thank you very much for putting this forum together. Uh greatly appreciate it. uh people who watch the videos online for the last 3 years uh maybe noticed something about me. Uh I'm not complacent. I'm not uh conformist. Uh you'd see that uh were nine members on the board very I mean I would say a lot of votes went 81. Guess who that one is? Me. Um I have my beliefs. I defend my beliefs. I explain them. Right. And we have a democracy on the board. You know 54. Whoever is on the five would win uh with the with the with with the resolution with the idea. Um as I said earlier and just to say I accept that I mean
064I don't feel bad when I'm the only one pulling against the resolution. why everybody is supporting her. I'm currently in the last three years u as I said earlier I'm a teacher. We are three teachers on the board Christian they're here with us tonight and myself. Uh so uh being a teacher on the board I see it as as a big plus. Uh I'm not a lawyer. I'm not a businessman. U you know uh I'm not a famous guy. I came from education. I'm staying with education. I'm an advisor capstone a project advisor. That's the senior the fourth year of the cadets at was point. Uh I want to continue to be engaged in education. I don't want to go far from it. Um and again I don't have Okay. Thanks. So uh again to
065the PTO Trust, thank you for putting this event together every year. It's such a a service to the community. I just want to implore everybody to not only get out to vote next Tuesday, but also to stay involved as much as you can. I think one of the things that really defining characteristics of any great school district, of any great community, is how involved the parents are, community members. You know, it's one of the things when people move to Cornwall, I noticed it the same myself. My god, how many people, you know, sign up for little league and things like that. These are the the small ways of the small windows into the big things. And I just want that to extend as much to the schools as possible. Uh, a great school district is
066a fragile thing. I think it's easy to assume that because Cornwall has had a great school district for so long that that's just that has a momentum of its own and we always will, but we only will if every generation that comes along makes sure that we do. It's this the spirit of volunteerism that I think inspires a lot of people to run for the board. This sense of if not me, then who? But even if you're not sitting up here, like I said before, everyone has a role to play. that starts with voting, but maybe that continues in the fall with joining a committee or finding a way to stay involved if we all do that. And that is what gives me the most hope that our school district will continue to advance and
067have a very bright future. Thank you. And again, I just wanted to thank everyone out here because obviously we're all vying for a volunteer spot. Um, which is amazing. Again, a testament to the type of place Cornwall is. Um, as Brendan said, like when I moved here, I don't think I met a parent who wasn't involved in some way in some committee or some group. Um, it's it's awesome for someone like me. I'm like, "These are my people. This is great." Um, I wanted to go back to a compliment someone gave me once. Uh, it was a boss that I worked with years ago and it was a flippant remark and she just said, "Well, I know if I say something to Jamie, she's just going to do it." Um, and that's the type of
068person I am. So, if that's the type of person you don't know in a school board, you say, "You mentioned something to me at an event. Hey, can you mention this at the school board? I'm going to do it. And if I think it should be done, it's going to get done. Um, and yeah, I just believe in this town a lot and I want to give back what it's given me so far. Thank you. Um, I definitely agree with um the things that everyone has said about community involvement being so important. And I think we're all so busy in in our lives. Um I hope to provide um if I'm elected to the board um a someone who will listen and will also do the necessary research to to know what our options are
069and what um what the issues actually entail. Um that's that's something that I'm really big on. Um and that um I often feel like is missing from a lot of discussions is um I don't like to speak on something if I don't have some kind of um research rabbit hole is what my husband calls them. Um just to to make sure that I'm operating with the best um amount of information that I can for the students. Um, and that's another thing that I didn't get a chance to mention that um that really motivated me to run for board is I know that I don't make decisions lightly and that I really try to understand what I'm uh making decisions about. And um and that not only, you know, uh includes consulting experts or um doing
070research on something, but it also is the listening um to the community. And the more that everybody can be involved in having a say of like, oh, I don't know that you've thought about this option or you you maybe are not present in this part of the community to see this impact and how it's affecting us. Um, can you bring that information to the board so they're more informed? Um, I really think that together we can do that. All right. Again, I want to thank the PTO Trust for putting this together. It was really great and I learned a lot about uh fellow candidates here and I want to just give everyone here a shout out for stepping up to run. It's not easy and I give credit to anybody that steps up, puts themselves
071in the spotlight to volunteer their time. It's it's truly a great thing to see and I have to say we are so lucky to live in a community like Cornwall where people willingly step up. I mean I at all the events I've been at there's been parents and community members volunteering whether that's at the concession stands at varsity football or with the PTO's. It's truly a great thing and we cannot take that for granted because not every community and school district has that kind of support from our community. So I want to thank everyone who does that. I'm going to end with this. So I was actually watching last year's forum and I heard a question asking about what book would you use to describe how you view academics? The book I chose because I
072was prepared. I thought maybe it would be asked was Pete the Cat. And I don't know if anyone knows what Pete the Cat is. Yeah, it's a very nice ch children's book. And I've read it to many children in my role. And the moral of that book is Pete and his friends, they always go on adventures and they face obstacles and challenges along the way, but they always find a way to get to their destination point. And that's what I want every student in Cornwall to learn from a young age. So I hope everyone gets out and votes on next Tuesday, May 20th. And thank you for being here and thank you for watching. Thank you for sharing my closing statements. But yeah, thank you guys um very much for um stepping up and you
073know um being here tonight. Thank you everyone for coming. Um we will be posting um the link obviously is on the BOE YouTube channel. So, please if you know encourage people to watch it, re-watch it, get out there next Tuesday to vote and remind everyone that tomorrow evening at 7 is the um budget forum here at CES. So, that's important um to push that information out there as well. So, thank you very much everyone. Have a good night. [Applause]