001now your I hey Miss fup can you give me a thumbs up if we're recording and we can get [Music] started okay we'll wait follow need ni hey Mr nap can you give me a thumbs up if we're recording or recording okay thanks for being patient guys we're just going to wait another minute for some people to come on in and then we'll get started um so we're going to have our open Forum with this current um Urban na Schoolboard candidates tonight or today I guess uh thanks for joining us um and we have the current sitting Schoolboard president Katherine Hower here um so she's going to share a little bit about the board um and the job of being a schoolb member to us off and then we'll have everybody introduce themselves so for
002those of you that don't know I um before be getting on the school board I worked in this building um I was a counselor here for 10 or 12 years and then I was a librarian so the year I retired I ran for the school board and that was 8 years ago and I'm still here um it's a 4-year term and the commitment for all of these people who are next to me who will be on the board I know that they will because you're all going to vote for them uh we have two other people running who aren't here today um the ter itself as I said is four years we meet two times a month um most of these people over here are also on the board um Dr DCA helped us to
003add student members to the school board last year and um and it's been a very fine addition to have student boices there we we don't get any pay um some people believe that we do but we don't we kind of pay to do it in some ways um our job is not uh to micromanage the buildings we are charged with policy development and review um we hire and evaluate the superintendent um we are charged as a check and balance on finance so you'll notice some of you who have been to the board meeting or watched I hope that some of you have done that because you need gov hours right yes good uh so every uh session we have a Bill list that we approve we are responsible for signing all the contracts no matter
004what they're for and um we also after the curriculum is developed which some of you are involved in we've got a new math curriculum this year uh the board also approves the curriculum after it's developed here our responsibility is to listen to everyone no matter whether we agree with them or not to that end every board meeting has a an open comment time where people can actually any of you could sign up to come and visit with us about your thoughts about whatever issues are on the agenda the board agendas are always posted 24 hours ahead of time by law that's so that people actually know what we're going to be deciding I would say that the thing that I have learned um and we were just discussing this your class will be the last
005one that graduates that actually had time off here at the high school for Co right like when you in ninth grade I don't know if any of you watched the board meetings at all during that time period uh there was a lot of disagreement on whether you should be in school full-time or not huge disagreement on masks um in fact I remember being here for a meeting and very very strong feelings about wearing masks now if you remember most of you are old enough to remember that when your parents brought home groceries they might have Clorox wiped them because we didn't know any better that illustration is what we as a board do we take the best information we have at the time look at the highest good for our students and our staff and
006make the best decisions that we can in retrospect did we need to not be in school I don't know for sure but we did the best we could at the time and so uh in a nutshell that is what is involved as your board of education okay I'm done all right thank you Miss Hower um next can we have each candidate kind of go through tell us your name and then maybe a little bit about why you're running we can start with Josh here hi guys thanks for coming this morning uh I don't think you had a choice but thank you anyway for listening to us um I'm Josh v rwi um why am I running I have a daughter that graduated from Urbandale High School I have another daughter that's in Middle School my
007oldest daughter is gay my youngest daughter is half black I'm Asian so we check all those boxes my wife is a social worker for de Mo public schools and I just want to make sure that the schools are a place for everyone to be able to be the best version of themselves to everyone be represented and feel safe uh both physically and emotionally and I just I think urbel is a great school um they've done they did an amazing job for my oldest daughter and my youngest daughter and I want to make sure that stays for everyone for you guys for your younger siblings for your kids hopefully in the future if you hope this if you stay around Urbandale so I want this place to be an amazing place for everyone and that's why
008I'm running you can clap for him it's okay hi I'm Margaret young um I'm a mom to Evelyn who's in third grade and Jacob who's in kindergarten and first of all I want to thank you all for organizing this event I so appreciate the opportunity and these questions are the most thoughtful and provoking that we have had in the entire three months we've been doing this so well done and thank you I care about our kids I care about our community and and I want our public schools to be the best they can be so our kids can be the best they can be you all are our future uh last fall I had the chance to serve on the parents committee to look at diversity equity and inclusion in our district and I saw
009a lot of ways we can help our students and I was really concerned when I learned that only 30% of our students feel emotionally safe at school and when you feel safe you're more ready to learn um I feel very strongly that we have to support a safe Learning Place and this means you're physically safe it means you're emotionally safe it means you're appreciated for what makes you unique and special you can come to school you can be yourself you're treated with kindness and respect and I'm running to help make our schools a safe inclusive and productive learning environment I'm here to support our teachers and our staff my parents were teachers for over 35 years and I know that they pour their hearts into their students and they're here because they truly care about
010you and want you to be the best you can be um I know I can't do this alone so I'm here to listen that means listening to you to your your teachers to the community to your families um I want to hear what's on your heart your needs um and I really believe that our public schools are the heart of our community and you all are critical for ensuring a bright future for us all so thank [Applause] you well I've been grateful um to have been uh elected an officer for six of the eight years uh that I've been on the board the last five I've been the president um during that time time period we have built two new elementaries those of you who went through Jensen for example an old hestad uh and
011even Rolling Green there a beautiful these are beautiful facilities and then you know sadly you didn't get to experience them but we uh in the community have been able to offer those opportunities to um those who follow you um I am deeply concerned with a number of these issues that uh my friends up here have have raised um but mostly I want to see us continue to improve as a district and to do things that set us apart from the rest of the Metro you may or may not know this but about a quarter to a third of our students are open enrolled here people choose to come here and we want to maintain that we want to maintain the best programming that we can and as we go through some of these questions we'll
012be able to talk more about what the district should look like or what we'd like it to look like and that's mostly why I'm running again my name is Carissa Williams I um am a mom in the district as well um the reason that I'm running for school board is because I'm a big supporter of our schools uh my family loves Urbandale we chose to come here so our kids could be a part of the school system um I want to support you all the students in having a highquality education that you can be proud of when you leave the district I really want to support our staff and make sure that they are valued and feel that this is a place that they can work and want to work and stay um and I
013really want to support connection for our families so that parents have a good connection with your school so that they know what's happening here um and there's good communication back and forth between the school and families um as a mom and a Community member I'm really invested in seeing the best um that I can out of our district um and I want to make sure that we do all we can to retain those good teachers to make sure that you're getting a high quality education um and to make sure that we all feel safe and included at school when we're here both adults and students thank [Music] you all right thank you for that uh next we're going to kind of move into we're going to ask a couple of questions and then each of
014you can kind of go down the line we starting with Josh and kind of just answer those pretty um shorter or however you'd like to do that students make sure we're listening and phones away just make sure we're giving these candidates our full attention because they gave the time today and we'd like to honor that first question would be what particular experiences or skills that prepare you to serve as a board member um so when I was thinking about this I'm like I really can't pick one because I kind of look at it as life has kind of prepared me for this um I've had a bunch of different jobs over the course of my lifetime I've worked with people that that have doctorates have Masters have any type of degree but I've also worked
015with people that went to the workforce right out of a high school I've worked in a Fortune 500 company I've worked in restaurants I was a chef for a while I've been a financial planner and right now I'm the CFO of a of a brokerage firm so I think that my working with different people from different backgrounds has really helped that learning how to collaborate with them and learning how to communicate with them because with any type of leadership position you the most important thing is being able to communicate with others and learn what they what's important to them and I think I've been able to do that with the different people that I've worked with and the different settings that I've worked with so I think I guess that's my [Music] answer and for
016the last 13 years I've worked as a scientist in product development this is a really unique role where I can work with a wide range of people um people who are on the operation floor making our products the salespeople who are talking with our customers marketing Regulators quality and in that scope I've worked with kind people and challenging people and I'm known for always being genuinely kind listening to understand and not shying away from conflict I address it thoughtfully and productively with kindness um I've managed a team for most of my time um while I've been at C and I'm particularly good at connecting with people and building trusting relationships um I always act with Integrity I keep an open mind and I'm very curious I want to learn and I realize I don't have
017the answers to everything so as a scientist I like to collect data I like to look at that and understand the bigger picture I like to ask questions I want to understand the full perspective so that I can make a most informed decision I also graduated in May with my masters in business or I specialized in leadership so I was recently a student I can understand your perspective and kind of relate to your experience of homework and and being graded um now my favorite class in this entire program was inclusive leadership and there's great richness that comes from diversity but unless we can create an environment where people feel safe and have a sense of belonging you're not able to tap into that you have to have your basic needs met so that you can
018share your ideas and learn from each other so I've learned this and I've put that into practice professionally and I'm committed to creating that within the board talking with our community and our teachers and you um so as your school board member I will bring a unique combination of scientific background compassion and kindness and I promise to to listen and to lead inclusively so is this where I just say ditto no um so what I bring uh obviously I'm um of a different demographic than the rest of my friends up here um I do think that it's very important on the board to have a range of um life views life experiences uh a wide range of uh ages of kids their own kids um and a perspective of what I bring obviously is years
019of being here and kind of knowing how and why things developed the way they did the other thing that I would say is is a skill is facilitating the meetings which I've done now for five or six years um I always have something to say but I don't usually say it because it's important to have everyone on the board be heard with their perspectives on different issues any of you who've watched you know that we don't always agree on everything it's always important too to have people um be able to disagree civil and so we have made a strong commitment to following Robert's Rules of Order and U taking our cues from the proper procedure any of you who've watched board meetings in other districts no it does noise go like that and it hasn't
020always gone like that here if any of you watch for example The Mask meeting um so I do think that it's important for the board itself to model civil Behavior as your leader ERS and I am confident that everyone up here will be able to do that so I come to um wanting to serve in this position with slightly different background but some similarities as well um I've done a lot of community service in my life I spend a lot of time serving on boards for different nonprofits um I find a lot of value in finding ways to build and grow organizations and make them stronger um my biggest experience in the Urbandale Community specifically is serving on the pto's at my kids elementary school for the last four years I've been president and co-president
021at valus um which um if you don't know a lot about what the PTO do we do a lot of fundraising and a lot of community building we create activities for families to participate in we generate funds to support our teachers and classrooms and students um so that's been a focus of mine I've also served on several committees for the district um including recently the boundary committee that redrew the elementary boundaries um and I serve on the school Improvement advisory committee and some additional ones in the past um some of the other boards that I sit on I hold executive roles on those one for a professional association through my workplace um and then another one we started a scholarship for my hometown high school for seniors that are pursuing careers in Creative Fields um
022and so I was a co-founder of that scholarship and we serve um to keep providing resources back into our schools work to learn program and to our seniors um through that additionally like I mentioned before I have four kids in The District Two in elementary school two at the middle school and married to a teacher um so every decision that I would make on the board would impact my family and so I think that's important to consider um that it'll come to me back to me from the full circle like I will all of you so I'll take great care and consideration in how I make decisions um and then in addition professionally I've served in a lot of leadership positions in my career um I'm a collaborative leader and I look for feedback from
023my group I've served um and worked with small teams large teams and I've created programs for people from ages infants all the way up to seniors and so I have a lot of experience working with a lot of different types of people um different backgrounds different ages and different experiences and I look forward to doing that on the board as well the second question we have is how does success in achievement look like what does success and achievement look like for you in a classroom and how do you plan to improve student achievement um achievement is the accomplishment of one goals and success is taking those steps to reach that goal but that looks different for every one of you in this room some of you may be going on to a higher institution of
024four years some of you maybe going on to vocational or trade school um and some of you may be entering the workforce out of high school so we need to learn how to celebrate everybody's successes and their achievements because not everybody's is the same and I think we really want to work on making sure that these plans are different are individualized for everyone so that everyone can share in those successes and achievements and how do and how do we do that in my opinion we have some of the best teachers around so what we need to do is let the teachers do their job let them have the freed them to teach because they're the they're the trained professionals I don't know how to teach you guys I'd be a horrible teacher but um I
025trust in them and I think that we need to give them the power back and let them do what they do and help you guys achieve those goals so that you can be the best versions of yourselves uh to me success in the classroom means you are prepared to be a a productive citizen and no matter what you're doing um that you're a lifelong learner it means that as the as a district we have challenged you and we've nurtured you to be the best version of yourself so how can we as a board impact that well we can look at curricula we can make sure it is rigorous and relevant and gives you the skills that you need to be successful and I want to Echo what Josh said that our teachers are our most
026valuable resource so as a board member it it's our job to value our teachers to compensate them to show appreciation and let them Teach as the professionals the caring professionals that they are our community is very diverse and I I think as a board we can look at hiring practices and try to make our our staff and teacher population reflect the diversity of our community now we've been out door knocking a lot and one thing I've heard come up many times is is is the grading for learning system and every parent or student or teacher I've talked to explains it a little bit differently um and I think grades are important to communicate achievement with families with a post-secondary institution so I'm committed here to listening to what needs are for for everyone involved in
027finding a solution whether that's building more understanding or it's changing the policy but we need to find something that's both Equitable and rigorous so pass it on to Catherine well success I'd say is a rather nebulous concept um I would begin by saying that you're all facing your graduation and I want to continue to emphasize that this is really the beginning for you not the end and and so success is really a journey and you know Josh kind of illustrates that he was a chef he's been a CFO so you will have all kinds of opportunities when you leave here and success will actually be measured by you not by us not by the system um I can tell you that I am always very very proud of what Urbandale does for people when we
028we have our graduation down at the Nap Center and we'll watch each of you walk across that stage and we will shake your hand and we will give you your diploma which is your ticket to whatever future you want for yourself now I think it's key here that we do pay attention to some of the data although I can tell you that I believe that we over test there's particularly standardized tests um that's a a contention that I have that's probably not going to change but I don't think it's simply based on a test score and I don't think it's based on your grades you are the master of your own faith and you'll be able to come back and tell us in 10 or 20 or 30 years yeah this was a success this
029is a foundation I got from you and I've had people do that repeatedly some of your parents probably remember me here and come up and tell me that I think that we are very grateful for being a part of helping you to move into whatever future you want for yourself I also think that it's very important here that each of you develops a significant relationship with someone in this building so that you feel safe and somebody has your back and that is a goal that I have and to do that we really need to help take care of your teachers and staff so I would Echo um a lot of what my counterparts up here have said I think um success and achievement is so individualized and I think it's important that each of you
030when you come into a classroom can grow a full Year's worth of growth no matter where you come in um to the year and that you can continue to learn new things get new experiences and have new opportunities to be a better learner and a better person when you walk out of your classroom um so to that point I think it's important that we as a system provide your teachers with the resources that they need to provide those opportunities for you I think it's important that you as students and that your parents and families understand uh the curriculum the grading system all of those things so they can have good assistance to help support you in your goals As you move through the year um and then additionally I think the relationship piece that Katherine
031mentioned is key I think it's important for you to build good strong relationships in your classroom with your class classmates and with um some adults in the building as well to help provide a strong foundation for you to go forward into adulthood and become the best that you can [Applause] be what programs or initiatives do you support for students mental health and well-being um for this um this going be kind of a really broad answer um I know that this is super important to you guys and this is important to me um that you guys have the support systems you know right now we have your guidance counselors we have the social social service help um but we need to talk to you guys and learn what do you guys feel like you need because
032we can sit up here or sit in in a meeting and say you know this is what we should do this is what everybody the experts are saying we should do but we're not living it you guys are so I really want to talk with you guys um and learn what kind of support you think you need you know there's there's also the state supports like Iowa State schools one Iowa 988 so those types of things are available to you but again we want to learn what you guys feel like you need this needs to be a conversation so we represent you um because you're the ones living it every day and we know how scary it is and things can be out there for you I really appreciate this question um you know I
033mentioned the district's Equity audit but I think it's worth repeating that only 30% of our students feel emotionally safe and I think there's a number of things that we can do to improve this um in this audit students shared stories of feeling um physically and mentally exhausted when they come to school they experience microaggressions and slurs and I I think as a board we can encourage and create policies and give funding to teach students why this is hurtful how can you recognize a slur how do you recognize mic progressions and what can you do about it I think we need mechanisms for anonymous reporting and ways to follow up so you do have a place to go for help um I think feeling connected is critical we all want to have our basic need to
034belong fulfilled and I think we can support extra curricular activities there's core Key Club uh there's the homework club that was started last year Esports these are all excellent ways for you to find people that you connect with um I think a lot of teachers sponsor this out of the passion of their hearts and they're not paid for this and I I think we can support our teachers and compensate them for going above and beyond in this way and what I can do personally as a board member is advocate for you to our state legislature to bring in funding and to share why this is so critical in our [Applause] schools I think that uh the Assurance for you as students that all of us and the current members on the board are deeply aware
035of of uh feeling of being unsafe in our buildings all of our data shows that unsafe physically unsafe emotionally um I think it calls on each of us and if I look at you I look at your eyes there's no one in this room who doesn't have something that they're working on um including all the adults each of us it may look on the outside like things are fine but but they really aren't for for all of us there's something or some things that you're working on I think treating other people with the kindness that they deserve is very important and the fact is that the only one who can control that for you is you so I think we start by having an awareness that other people are struggling I think having again the
036awareness is that the people but we're not here every day you're here every day so I think again going back to supporting your teachers and uh adults in the building who can help you um but be aware that this is a continuing struggle and we are aware of it I've had and I come in periodically to speak to classes and I'll have students ask me are you aware of what's going on on in the buildings and yes we are I want to assure you that we are we're all concerned we all want you to feel good and safe here I don't have answers if I did I probably wouldn't be volunteering on the school board um I'd have a lot of money so I'm trying really hard to balance going last and not just saying
037what they said but there's a lot of good information that heard so far um I I know that safety to you all um is important for your mental and physical health I know that making sure that you feel a connection and feel that you have a group of people that love and support you that you can be with at school and at school activities is important um so I think supporting those things and those activities outside of just um the regular things that people think about when they think about safety are important um to that end when there are reporting procedures or um counseling services that you have access to too I want to make sure that students are aware of and know how to access those things um and then that those systems do
038provide the support that you need so that way you don't reach out and then not get what you need from the system um so I will always support programs that follow through with action um when it comes to this type of situation and like Margaret said I also will be an advocate for you um whether that's at the state legislature or in the community and telling people how the policies that are implemented impact you on a day-to-day basis so I would hope to hear from you um your ideas and concerns as well um if elected what input would you provide the board When approaching Senate file 496 um which bans certain literary taxs in schools um so first off that that that law it's a law we can't do anything about it we have to
039enforce that law but where we can can do his work on how it's interpreted and my stance is that the law has been written in such a way that it clearly defines what what can't be in the library and so if I would have us look at it and if it doesn't meet that criteria it will stay um I personally think that any any literature that can benefit one person should be there and someone else shouldn't be able to will say that you can't have that because they don't agree with [Applause] it so starting off similar to Josh um as a board member I I am required to uphold the law U but I am committed to protecting our teachers and their licenses you know if a teacher loses their license this is their means
040to provide for their family this is their life um so I think one of the most important things we can do is as a board take the Heat and be in the spotlight and protect our teachers um now there's things I can do I can listen I can collect data I can read the books that are questioned and give input if it complies or not and I can share stories and how it's affecting you and I'll I am committed to advocating and using my voice to support you now personally I think books are powerful and important um I was bullied in high school middle school I was I cried too much I was Heavy my teeth were big my hair was weird I don't know there there was probably nothing wrong with me but at
041the time it made me feel so sad and so hurt and I started reading the Harry Potter books and her mining Granger became my hero her hair was too bushy her teeth were too too big she was a bit too smart too clever but she was amazing she helped Neville she rescued Harry and Ron thousands of times and she was clever and she embraced being smart and I thought well I can be smart and I can be kind um so this is this is my personal story of why books are important I I think they give us stories to connect with each other they help us understand they let us know we're not alone we can relate to each other I I struggle with this because I think there are books that are banned today
042that really could help a student I know they're not for everyone um but what if one book saves one kid's life well as I said I have a library and information science degree from the University of Iowa that I earned after I was 50 years old so obviously I'm very committed to books and literature in my experience Banning books does not work and what it typically does for people your age you're trying to figure out why don't they want me to read that and what are you going to do go read it from my take that's kind of a success because because a lot of people don't read we don't really have a choice because it's state law and there are definitely punishments in there for people who don't abide by the law um it
043hasn't been defined well and I'm not exactly sure what the purpose is um again in my experience if you tell people they can't read something that's what they want to read because trying to figure out why and so we as a board your teachers are barred from allowing you certain titles that doesn't mean you can't read them you're perfectly free to read them and I would welcome you to do that most of the stories that have been brought to the Forefront are stories of people just like you who go through struggles and try to figure out what their life is about and so I would welcome you to continue to read and continue to experience the lives of other people as you go forward I would also like to point out that it's not terribly
044effective to ban books if one still has access to for example your Chromebook or your cell phone that seems kind of counterproductive to me but I'm not in the legislature I hope that you feel empowered to try to find out exactly what it is you know that people don't want you to know because you're smart enough and I have to tell you in all my years and working in high school you're smart enough you're perceptive enough you're probably better at being honest than most adults and I would encourage you to be true to yourself I will Echo support for reading read read read any chance you get um the board's role as mentioned before is just making sure that our district policies are in compliance with the law so we must follow the law um
045I think that the point that it comes down to is that when there's um not Clarity or when there's conflicts or confusion around an issue that we defer to what's best for students and students learning um and so taking an interpret ration of the law that is allowed that allows us to continue to put your needs first um and I think that it's important that we trust our teachers and Librarians to use their professional skills and qualifications to do their job and do it well and that's not the role of the board to do that unless it's necessar about a policy and law now how will the board um approach and deal with the issues of student Safety and Security both in person and online again this is going to sound kind of like one
046of my other answers but um we don't we don't live your guy we don't live your guys' life we aren't here every day you guys are the ones that are here so what I want to do is I want to collaborate with the students and the teachers and the staff because they're the ones that are going through this every day we want to learn what is important to you where do what do you not feel safe about what are things that you think need to be changed what can we do to help you we want want to listen to you and find out what what you need um I know this sounds like other answers and I think I'm going to use it again later but um we this is we can sit up here
047and say you know this is what we think but you guys are the ones living it so we want to listen to you guys and we want to figure out what we can do to make you guys feel the safest both physically emotionally and also the teachers too because they're also they're so important to us that my wife she's a like I said is a social work work at an elementary school um in another district and you know sometimes their staff doesn't feel safe because of the kids and so you need to be able to feel safe both as a student to be able to do your best work and same with the teacher be able to do their best work and again I'm going to say this every time that I want you guys
048to be able to be the best versions of yourselves and this is one of those ways I think we can really do it but we have to do it together as a team you know I I think that in order to learn most productively you must be safe um you know I'm grateful our elementary schools now are designed with the double door of security I I I appreciate the federal rapor system that will do the background checks when people come to visit these are important improvements um you know and i' I've listened to your teachers and I've listened to you uh we've been out nearly every night and every weekend for the last two months talking to people and I've heard that there are Corners in this building and stairwells that don't have camera access
049so these are places where kids go to have a fight you try to avoid them it's a scary place I think we can do some simple upgrades to our infrastructure to make sure that every place in this building is safe I'm grateful as a parent that we have a senior resource officer and I know our sro's jobs are very different and more complicated than any typical police officer I also believe it's important that they receive training on issues that are important to you like implicit bias um now I think bringing a gun to school is absolutely unacceptable and as a parent this absolutely terrifies me um and I know it it's the school board's job to make tough decisions and I promise I will always prioritize the safety of the whole school I know it's
050important that the student who brought this has resources and has support but that you can't bring a gun that's absolutely unacceptable and my priority is to protect the whole school I also think gun safety starts at home 76% of guns that come into school are from the home so as a community we can educate on gun safety gun locks and it's important that we develop Mental Health Services and ways for students to report for harassment and bullying in 90% of cases there was a warning sign so we need to have ways where you can give that feedback and stop this before it happens now I think there's less we can do as a board to protect you from online harassment but I do believe that knowledge is power so creating awareness of how social media
051can be dangerous how you can go down the rabbit hole of the internet and and find trouble um the Gallup Corporation published an article recently that teens on average spend 4.8 hours every day looking at social media um the ways that it's reduced is if parents put on limits it if you're feeling more socially connected and well you're less likely to be on social media so I think it it comes back to making connections creating a place where you feel safe and and just bringing knowledge and awareness and just know that we are here to listen and we want what's best for you and we want you to be physically and mentally and emotionally safe I think the school board um in the bigger picture is really trying to do as much as we can
052both with the infrastructure and the building and some of the measures like these badge things I mean that is uh the district the board voted and help Finance to keep people who shouldn't be here out um the other thing that I would say is you know we're constantly looking at keeping your building physically safe like how many of you just hold up your hand how many of you use that Locker that you're assigned Al [Laughter] righty uh yeah I can tell you horror stories of people whose mother packed them lunch every day and they never ate it but left it in their locker and basically it crawled out at the end of the semester but so that's a Side Story kind of entertaining though um I do think that um we continue Contin to try
053to monitor places in the building as Margaret said um facilitating that everyone feels safe so that you know you use the restrooms here rather than wait till you get home because you don't want to go in there I know it's not okay sometimes the other concern is the um you know your safety online to a certain extent we facilitated that when we gave gave you each a crown book but I do think that the system itself is trying to empower particularly people that are younger you're on your way out of here but particularly for people who are younger we're devoting Personnel to try to actually have lessons uh continuing programming to try to develop sa Online safety and how to deal with online bull we all spend too much time online you know those little
054notes that come up on your iPhone that tell you how many hours you're on there every day um that's kind of discouraging isn't it but anyway the the situations that we are trying to deal with it's continuing journey and again we are deeply aware and we are working on it again fourth person in the line a lot of repeated comments but I do want to encourage that we build a community where everyone feels safe and welcome at school um we want to have an inclusive environment so people can feel that connection with other people um we need to have expectations for students to follow and then have clear consequences that everyone understands um and then follow through with those consequences when the code of conduct or our our agreement on how we'll treat each other
055as broken um I think it's important that we focus on the staff piece here I think it's important that we have an adequate number of Staff um so that all of our adult positions are filled so that way um there aren't stretches in what your um teachers Associates and staff are trying to cover and do uh I think it's important that when you look for an adult you can find them and they can help support you and make school a safer place for you um we need to build those relationships between families and the school so when there are problems um families feel like they can approach the school and there will be a resolution to their concern um and so that things don't continue to fester and cause problems in your life outside of
056school which ties into the social media um and online piece as well um and then like we've talked about before providing those reporting opportunities and then making sure that those concerns are followed up on when you do report something if elected how are you planning on addressing the staff shortage issue um that's a that's a question that is kind of hit every school across the country is how do you address these shortages um you're seeing we're seeing less and less people want to be teachers or be work in the schools and there's more need for it the way we can combat that is we can make this the district where people want to come to work by making it in a fun inclusive um place to work we can look at our hiring practices and
057who the type of type of teacher that we hire um and try to maybe match our student body a little bit better um we can work on their compensation but I will say the board has done a great job with it whenever the union has asked the asked for something the board has given the teachers union what they've asked for so you know just we have to differentiate ourselves as being a special place where people want to come work and we have to work on keeping the people that we have because again they're our best resource and they're doing a great job and I think that we can really be as special place with those teachers that we have I I think our teachers and our staff are our District's most valuable resource and it's
058important that we compensate them um correctly so I'm committed to researching what the compensation and benefit packages are throughout the metro and making sure that our teachers are being paid fairly I I think it's also important that our teachers feel valued and respected and I think we need to make the teaching profession something that you want to do you are our future so that means um always supporting our teacher taking the politics out of our schools and just letting them be a place where we can learn and help you to become the best versions of yourselves well this looming teacher crisis is not going to go away and so our district itself I think is committed to looking at some more Innovative programming some places are actually uh helping to pay off student loans as
059a benefit to try to get teachers to to stay or uh initially even apply um there is is a movement to grow our own so some of you in here may be in the uh class with um Emily mostly Moly Moly okay yeah mfy was her name uh which is an attempt and I think that we're going to continue to develop that kind of programming so that people who participate and earn uh dmac credits for some of that programming actually have a commitment from the district that if they finish when they finish they'll get hired here and so we're going to have to be much more creative we are also at the state level going to have to be very creative with funding so that we can actually pay teachers more um and I I
060I am as I've said deeply concerned my whole family is teachers um and it's deeply concerning because we can't have school if we don't have a teacher for each of you similar to what everyone else said um but I think a focus that I think is important is that we work on retention of our current staff you know we have hundreds of employees who are here and are working here and I think making sure uh that they can stay working here here and want to stay working here um is the first most important step I think every time we have to look for new employees to come in that's a lot more expensive more time consuming um and causes a lot more uh work and issues down the road to try and get new people
061on board than if we can just work on starting with retaining people um at that point um we need to talk about compensation and wages differently than we probably have in the past um it used to be a discussion of what other districts were doing and I think now we need to realize that a lot of people are leaving the field of teaching entirely um so we need to be competitive with different industries that we might not have had to in the past which means thinking about how we structure our agreements differently than we had in the past um so that's a lot of overhead talk just to to get to the point of saying listen to a lot of creative ideas ask our staff what they are looking for in a workplace and then
062making sure we make changes based on what we hear thank you um so now for the sake of time we're going to just kind of skip to the last question here um what do you want Urban School District to look like in the future and what is your ideal version of the district um rainbows and unicorns that's my that's my vision um no I really think Urbandale we're in a really special place right now um we have great facilities uh we have the budgets of a suburban school but yet we also have this growing diversity within our school school that is a lot more like some of the urban schools in De Mo so I think we have a chance to be a model for other schools to be something that shows how with different
063programming that we can be that place of inclusion where everybody has that shot to be that best version of themselves with different ways because it's not going to look the same for everybody but what we want to do is again I I say this a lot is I want you guys to be able to become the best versions of yourself whatever be like I said if you're going to go on to a four-year institution if you're going to go to a trade school if you're going to enter the workforce we want to give you those tools to be the most successful version of yourself that you can be and I to me that will be what I would love to see Urban delis and I think we're on that path to be there that we
064have those tools that we can do that it's hard to follow up on rainbows and unicorns all right you know I want urband Del to be a safe school and a model for all of the uh other districts in our metro area we need great dialogue we need to be Solutions oriented and I'd like to see us be Equitable you know every student has different needs and we want each of you to to reach the Finish Line some kids are starting 2 feet away and others are 2 miles over and we need to understand what these individual needs are so we can best serve them and help each student to reach their potential uh we need an affirming learning environment where you come to school and you feel valued and respected you're nurtured you have
065agency to make decisions and you grow up to be a conscientious caring person ready to Take On The World um I think there's a few simple things we can do to improve equity in our schools I'm kind of co-opting the question before I'm sorry I I think we could provide breakfast to each of our students in the morning I've heard from teachers who bring breakfast in for their students every morning um no kid should be hungry and we as a community can help with that um I also think we need to offer more preschool options when preschool closed at Rolling Green some of my neighbors couldn't get over to Webster and Olstead was already full um I I want our district to be the sought-after number one place to go and some rainbows and unicorns
066would be nice too I really like this question because it comes down to this is actually the issue for The Who whomever is on the board going forward we're not going to grow because we're 4 and a half square miles there we we are not going to be bigger than we are that's a good thing and a bad thing a lot of you have opportunities here that you wouldn't have if you were in a high school of 2500 we are able to go ahead we develop clubs for you know they K-pop you know we whatever people's interests are um to try to help people feel like they belong here I think we have very very high ratio of uh students in activities compared to our total School enrollment so there are a lot of pluses
067with being the size that we are but there's some negative too and that we're not going to grow so then I think it behooves whoever is on the board along with the community to say okay what other things can we offer to all of our students prek 12 we already have a lot of uh opportunities for most of you how many of you have earned dmac credits while you were here almost everyone huge Plus I know some of you will go in you know as either second semester sophomores or first semester Juniors that's a huge plus now on the other side of the coin there's a huge demand in the Metro for people in what we call the trades and we aren't doing a very good job in our district of providing those opportunities um
068we don't have enough staff and we don't have the facilities and I think we need to begin to examine that the other thing that I think we need to think very seriously about is kind of a somehow developing a universal preschool that is the most effective thing you can do to provide Equitable opportunities for everyone and we probably can do it because as you know we've got two spare buildings now and that property could be developed to offer some very unique opportunities going forward for the district we have a luxury in that the district has been very responsible with its money and the community has been supportive of everything that we've tried to do your parents voted 72% of the community voted to bond 60 million for these two new elementaries we have remarkable community
069support and those of you and a certain proportion of you will come back here or you'll stay here people do so what do we want want to see as far as new opportunities for the district going forward that's why this is such an exciting question because we finished the buildings so now who do we want to be and I think it's very exciting going forward and to put a final closing to all of those great things I want us to be a welcoming District that people look to and think oh that's a great place um I know I'll find my space there um and we talked a little bit about the size I think the size of our district is something that's so unique within the metro and I think it's something that a lot
070of us like and appreciate um for some of the reasons that Katherine mentioned you can get involved and you can find Opportunities to be yourself and find people to connect with um in a way that's different from some of the bigger schools so I think that's to our advantage and we should use that um I want to be different than our neighboring schools in different ways too I want to find cre ative opportunities to provide something that our neighboring schools aren't I think it's neat for each individual District to have some sort of Niche specialty um that they can provide that makes the community proud to Rally around and provides you a unique opportunity um and I really really really want our community to back our schools I want to see that um respect and
071support for what the district is trying to do and I hope that we on the board can serve as that touch point for the community to find access to and information from um and help build that relationship between the schools and the community to help support everything that's great that's happening here okay so oh okay I would like to thank the candidates so far for answering all of the questions again these are all the questions that you guys submitted in your gov classes um we are now going to kind of hurry through and candidates will have to keep these answers short um but we want to do an open Q&A um so we're going to come through the audience with microphones anybody who asks a question will get a piece of candy um unfortunately you
072can't eat that in here but you know so um please put away your phones um we'll come around put your hand up if you would like to ask a question this is a wonderful opportunity because we are the next generation of Voters this is why this is so important so so important um so they're going to come around and keep your hands up um also one more thing please keep your questions appropriate um somebody asked in our Google form how to make chicken alfredo I know how to do that I'll Cofe after just ask some appropriate questions [Applause] please is a little yeah okay so historically the school board has um listened a lot to the parents wishes when it comes to things in our education how are you going to make sure that you
073balance the voices of parents and students and best advocate for the students wishes um not just the parents okay so I see I see that that's a popular question um honestly I think one of the great things is what Dr DACA did last year was bringing on the student members student representatives of onto the board and for you guys what you need to do is communicate with them so they can ALS so they can be a conduit from you they can be your voice because that's their job just like our job is to be the voice of the community but again I also want to listen to the students I want to come meet with some of the clubs in the different groups and also know that you know we're always I want to be
074always available to everyone um I was one of the crazy people that on my note on my bio I put my actual cell phone number so if you go in sech on the urban mle School District you can get my email address and my cell phone number that I always have with me and I want to talk to you guys I want to listen and know what's important to you thank you for the question I think your opinion is the most important um I appreciate listening to all perspectives and as a scientist I'm really driven to understand the full perspective and I appreciate the transparency and the openness and I I really I think across our district and across our state and our nation we need to listen more and we need to ask our
075future what they think we should be doing so I'm committed to listening to you you can email me I will give you my phone number I didn't put it on the district because I'm afraid Josh might call me but please I'm here to listen I value your perspective I want to understand and I want to be your voice and make sure you are [Applause] heard I neglected to do do this earlier but um this is my third time running for the board this is the first time we've had a student forum and I'm deeply grateful for all of your teachers giving you this time obviously you showing up I know it's easier to show up late on a late arrival day anyway um I also appreciate the work that your teachers have put in and
076um your student leaders you may or may not know this but we all have a school email or they will when they get on on the board but I also have a school email and I get mail all the time from people you are perfectly free at any point um to email your concerns I know that you don't get a choice because you have to watch the meetings anyway either us or city council so you just as well get involved and express your ideas and feelings that doesn't mean that we are going to immediately jump when people say you don't listen to me that isn't usually what it means it means you didn't do what I want you to do that doesn't mean we're not listening we are listening and I as I as I've
077said you know I've devoted my life to empowering people your age I always taught in high school so I want you to realize that you're opinion does matter a great deal again the fact that you're here the fact that a number of you are going to be able to vote for the first time a week from tomorrow and I hope that you do that because this is a very important election so we are listening I promise and we will as I said before your opinions are probably more honest and genuine than most of the adults that I know so Express Yourself I will add to that that I'm the kind of person that likes to get information from a lot of people and I like to look for common ground and I really truly believe
078that um if we look and listen to everyone we might find that there's actually a lot of common ground in what the students are asking for and what the parents are asking for um they might not come to the same Solutions in their mind but they're probably looking for some some things that are common so just like the others I want to hear from you I want to hear from everyone um and make sure that everyone's voices are heard um and then I also want to bring those concerns to a table where we can have good discussion I think it's important for people to hear from people from different perspectives and have different opinions and learn something um and then when your voices as a student are heard um it makes a good opportunity for
079the parents the teachers the board to understand a little bit more where you're coming from and then find those commonalities so we can work and move things forward because progress is made faster when everyone feels feels like their voice is heard at the table um I hate to do this I have to run I've told everyone ahead of time that I have an appointment that I've got to go to so I just want to thank you really quickly to all of you for being here um and thank you to your student leaders who took on this project of kind of putting it all together for you it's been really tremendous um like Margaret said at the beginning these questions that we received were the best questions we've received from any of the agencies that have
080sent information to us um so we appreciate the opportunity to answer them please reach out to me find me um I'm on social media I have a website and Josh has my number so if you get to Josh's number you can get to me um but we do want to hear from you thank you so much and I'm sorry I have to run all right now unfortunately we are out of time so can we just thank the candidates for giving their time today and coming to talk with us um hello can you hear me okay so really quickly Miss Hower has a few things to say about a very important issue that is coming up for reelection basically um called The Pea Grant so we've been very fortunate in this district for as long as
081I've been here that your parents and your neighbors have supported us with something called the physical plant uh Levy it's $134 for each ,000 of property value um without that um we would have to take probably close to 2 million a year out of our general fund that this a special tax rate and school Finance is incredibly weird and convoluted but the bottom line is this particular Levy can only be used for physical things including say new carpet in here or the sound equipment that got a updated or all of your Chromebooks come out of this fund um the district vehicles that you see right riding around come out of this fund not every school district actually has a a pble but we have been fortunate to have had it for a number of years
082so that that $2 million is freed up for us to be able to do a number of other things you can't pay people out of this fund and there are you you know you can't buy unfortunately School breakfast for everyone this is specifically only for infrastructure and Technology it's doesn't raise anybody's taxes that's the beauty of it so it's kind of like if it goes away it's not all that much money back on your uh property taxes so it's very important for those of you who are voting we would love to have you vote for the four of us who showed up here today but very importantly we would really like to have you continue to support this uh PPP for the coming the students that are coming after you um again we deeply appreciate
083the fact that you have been kind civil I'm so impressed I mean I'm so proud of you all you know you the end is near and by this time next year you'll be who knows where I'm very proud of you very proud of you can we get one more round of applause for our candidates today okay really really quick before everybody heads out really really quick before everybody heads out um Angel and I are returning members on the school board as student Representatives Matthew and kirston are on it as well so feel free to email us with any issues you might have and if you're going to be 18 before November 7th please please please stop at the table right outside the PAC so you can get registered to vote thank you thank you guys
084for something your guys work