001nking it's a Hunting PA hunting it's a hunting yes I had right after I had gold that's when they took the lottery away to have the gold not Wonder almost we have 10 seconds I was like I thought I heard Michael question thank you for participating in our forum for s Area Schools Board of Education candidates my name is Kate S one of the two student representatives to the Board of Education I'm in 12th grade at Selen High School all seven candidates have agreed to join us this evening and we are thankful for their participation the shs student bodies submitted nearly a 100 responses for our consideration tonight which we reviewed and compiled by our team of shs student council volunteers which we review We would like to thank the students assisting us with tonight's
002event and hre Jillian Hayes and Carmen Harish we appreciate those that are present in the audience this evening due to time constraints we are not able to accept questions from the audience thank you my name is m hre I'm a sophomore Seline High School each candidate will have an opportunity to provide opening remarks and respond to questions generated by students candidates will be limited to two minutes the timekeeper will raise her hand and or now show the yellow card when she when they have 30 seconds remaining and an alarm will sound when the time is up when the two minutes have passed candidates will be asked to finish their sentence and end their remarks my name is Jillian Hayes I'm a junior at Seline High School um I will be assisting as with the facilitation
003for of whoa of the forum tonight uh one important role for tonight is that of our time Cooper who I will allow to introduce herself hello I'm Carmen Harish and I'm a freshman at Seline high school before we begin I would like to thank superintendent Dr lot executive director of communications and community relations Jackie Martin and digital production coordinator Ben Goodman for their support this evening each candidate working in Reverse alphabetical order will have two minutes to provide their opening statement we will rotate the order of speakers at each question starting with Miss van single please share a little bit about your background your motivation for running for this position and your key goals okay everybody hear me okay okay good um my name is Kelly van single I've lived in the district since 2012
004I've got two daughters with disab abilities and differences they're both living with autism and um I have a big passion for literacy development I just completed my masters in literacy and inclusion and really um want to use that degree just for advocacy and for um uh parent training family training um helping everybody learn how to read and write I believe that learning to read and right is one of the key things to participating in in your in your society and your community so my three um big passion areas if you will are literacy also cultivating inclusion and belonging and as well as um fostering accessible instruction both looking at um vocational training as well as um Universal Design I'm really excited about some of the bond projects we have going on the new steam lab
005coming to the high school and the the continuing expanse of vocation opportunities we have with the Consortium and I'm really proud that we're one of the only districts in Washington County to have their own young adult program and um just want to keep serving as a public servant for Education thank you uh tises perfect you kids probably won't realize what it's like to have a landline and have people uh call your house and not know how to pronounce your last name so so thank you uh for allowing us to be here tonight uh this is terrific my name is Jason tises uh I have lived here in Seline for nine years my wife and I moved here specifically for the school district so we were very excited to be able to move into the district
006and be able to be a part of this community I have three kids I have a senior who actually attends New Boston Schools and I have two daughters that are in third and sixth grade here in Seline so I have a unique opportunity to see two different school districts operate concurrently so uh I get to see one in Wasa County one in Wayne County so I think that's a an interesting concept that I get to have and be part of I've been married now for uh my wife's going to yell at me because I'm going to forget but uh 14 years actually next uh Tuesday is our anniversary go up uh um uh for hobbies I love photography I like doing Barbecue on Big Green Egg back out on the deck like playing golf like
007playing with the kids uh like playing with our dogs we have uh my my old guy Murphy just turned 10 today and our little guy Griffin is going to turn one here shortly uh both golden retrievers so if you guys like golden retriever you can pet my my dogs anytime you want uh a little bit about my professional background uh for the last almost 20 years I've been in the private Criminal Justice System what that basically means is uh anything that courts probation offices pre-trial Services agencies cannot afford to do my company does I'm the vice president of sales and marketing for that company and we're one of the largest in the country I also serve as the chief executive officer and a board member for a startup SP out of the University of Michigan
008uh that specializes in making technology that helps fight substance use disorder uh I I'm going to get played off the stage thank you you may finish your sentence Miss Sten on to you well first of all thank you to the other candidates for coming and that we're all here tonight and obviously thank you to the students who are representing each of our grades we appreciate you uh my name is Jennifer stean I'm the current vice president of the Selen Area Schools Board of Education I'm serving in my sixth year I've been vice president for two years previous to that I was President for two years as well uh I'm the managing director for Executive Education at the Michigan Ross School of Business what that means is I help uh direct faculty and staff teams to
009deliver um senior executive leadership to companies around the globe um I'm a proud Hornet mother uh I have twins at Seline High School um we are a Seline running family cross country track and field and uh cheer um my husband and I also have two rescue colleagues Neville and Fiona probably see quite often um and uh we've lived here oh my goodness I think almost 20 years but my family has resided in Seline for over 100 years in fact my great grandma's um high school diploma is in that cabinet over there as well as her high school picture so um this community means a whole lot to me it's been my pleasure to serve on the board um two-time Pleasant Ridge BTA president long-term fundraiser for the foundation for Selen area schools um taught Junior
010Achievement um worked in the chadu foundation for over 10 years um let's see motivation um I love our students number one I am student focused um I want to keep them safe and I want to keep them performing at a very high academic level um oh I'm sorry I thought you were waving at me okay um let's see my goals um uh to enforce Dr latch's um bridge to civility Concepts uh around respect for those um on the board in the community and in our buildings um I want to focus on succession planning specifically in our buildings and with our superintendency high academic achievement always budget which I'm sure you'll hear more from Bradon um the mentorship of newer staff and overall employee retention and I think I just saw the red thing you may
011finish your sentence oh um and the continued support of our students for both um mental and physical well-being thank you for letting me finish yeah I saw them just Shuffle the cards they're getting ready all right Mr gerby all right hi Seline uh and I also want to thank everybody who is here I want to thank the students for doing this tonight and I want to thank the candidates for for being here and putting yourself out there so I'm Brad gerby and I have had the privilege of serving the students for the past four years as a as a truste uh I've spent three of those years as a trustee as a finance chair and as the treasurer so I think I have a good knowledge of school Finance uh I also am a teacher
012for 21 years in Manchester so I believe I have like kind of like a boots on the ground knowledge of how schools function and work and what it's like to be in a lounge and all those kinds of things I have a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old so a high schooler and a middle schooler and so I think just like a lot of people I am incredibly deeply invested in our students we have incredible Educators we have great programs we have strong facilities and so my job is to as a for the last four years right has been to try to enhance those things and provide as much opportunity as I I believed I could uh so I I'm proud of a few things that we've done over the last four years you know the first
013thing I'd say I'm I'm proud of is we navigated a a challenge a pandemic that was not easy uh we hired a tremendous superintendent who is in the in the audience and and deserves to hear that we've worked towards building inclusive School cultures and environments we have worked and prioritized staff and student safety and social emotional health and wellness uh my background as a teacher I believe that we've done a solid job in that regard with trying to promote you know literacy and we have strong program our programs and as treasure and finance chair for the past three years our fund balance is the highest it's been in 10 plus years and we've done a lot of right sizing and things to try to make our structures our cost structures equal to our enrollment and
014now the future is really bright here and so that's why I want to stay I want to be a part of the bond projects I want to be part of inclusive curricula and Senior updates and stay of the art Technologies and weight rooms and solar infrastructures and classroom modernization and CTE and new operations and HVAC roofs and all of that thank you thank you on to miss EA hello um thank you for um Coming students and all of the students who submitted um their questions um I'm super excited about that I know in 2018 um when I ran for the school board um and got elected uh it was from the student debate team and I just I loved it and that's one of the highlights of me running and um and during this time
015so thank you um so I am Susan Eep um I was elected um in 2018 and served a six-year term or serving and um I'm running for reelection um my children um go to this District there's three of them um the oldest just entered uh ninth grade I have a third grader and a kindergartner so I'm going to be here a really long time and invested in the schools and the community um so my um I have a masters of arts um in educational leadership with Eastern Michigan University um I have a bachelor's in interdisciplinary studies and uh leadership and social change from Virginia Tech go hokit um my most recent position was as a program manager in the center for social justice and inclusion um in the and in the office of student life
016at the University of Michigan Dearborn um as a student affairs professional uh I supported uh college students and their personal and professional uh development um and uh I I really love working with students in and outside of the classroom um I've been super involved in the Michigan Association of school boards I've served on their um committee one of their committees um I've presented there um and I serve on um all of our advisory committees here um through uh the board um and as the first openly lgbtq Plus board member elected to serve as yeah um I'll be a voice both locally and nationally um for importance of representation thank you on to miss bwick good evening I really do appreciate this opportunity uh as I was working on yet another questionnaire before I came this
017is a very refreshing change so thank you um so I'm JY Barwick I am the mom of two recent Selena Lum my daughter is entering her senior year at the James Madison Residential College at Michigan State and my son just started uh his engineering degree at Michigan Tech um I have a BA in psychology from the University of Michigan and my law degree from Wayne State University law school um I think what probably sets me a little bit apart is I'm actually entering my 17th year of service to selary schools in the community uh my daughter entered kindergarten at hotton which none of you have probably ever even seen um uh in 2008 uh so that's when I started my volunteer career um I've done the last 12 years as a PTO and PTA member
018um worked on a strategic framework Committee in 2021 currently um proud to be a board director for the newly formed Seline stem boosters supporting our steam teams in the district um and I accidentally got roped into coaching Middle School robotics as well I showed up they're like said sure um but really what I love now doing too is uh substitute teaching so I'm teaching throughout the district uh Wasa uh both as a teacher and a par Pro um and you couldn't tell I really do love volunteering public service is very important to me and keeping our district as one of the top destination districts in the state um improves our community overall um I'm hoping to uh continue the good work that we've done already and my priorities pretty much are maintaining a so you
019may finish your sentence if you'd like uh I would like to ensure that we have a safe secure and welcoming educational environment improve Student Success uh student and teacher retention uplifting family Partnerships and um uh making it for a stronger Community thank you Miss Barnett well I want to thank the moderators and thanks Selene for this invitation this evening uh my name is Sher Barnett my husband and I have lived in Washington County for the past 26 years I have a daughter who's a senior at Central Michigan University and I have a son who's a senior at Seline High School um I've been a professional at the University of Michigan for the past 34 years during that 34 years I've been in the patient care areas as well as in leadership roles for clinical research
020Administration um and clinical research management I've served in the roles as a Respiratory Care clinical specialist for the trauma burn ICU with the primary role of implementing therapist driven protocols I've been a manager of a clinical research support unit and data quality monitoring unit and served as assistant managing director for the education Career Development and mentoring program for the Michigan Institute for clinical and health research 11 years ago I was offered a position to um join the thoracic surgery section uh for the Department of surgery at U ofm and build a clinical and translational research program for them which I can say now AB boasts a robust portfolio of clinical and translational research as well of several staff members and numerous opportunities for undergraduate graduate postgraduate post-doctoral research fellowships so I uh chose to run
021for this uh Schoolboard position because I have a passion for education of patients staff students and uh building education programs and creating policies to assess outcomes to ensure that our teams are meeting the aims and goals of our projects I think my background and training would be an asset to the board and I think that it would be beneficial and useful in terms of making positive changes to the district I would like to use my background to um reassess some of the policies and administrative guidelines and ensure that we are serving the community as a whole thank you thank oh geez sorry thank you again all the candidates um in order to maximize the number of questions we are able to address this evening we will be following the following procedure questions will be selected
022from this is not a fishbowl this is a basket um in post of three candidates who will each have 90 seconds to respond every question will not be po oh sorry be posed to every candidate and candidates will have an opportunity to address any question they wish during their closing statements candidates will be provided a complete list of questions at the conclusion I of tonight's Forum which they are welcome to address through their individual platforms candidate groups will rotate for each question once again Carmen will raise her hand or her card when the candidates have 30 seconds remaining and an alarm will sound when the time is complete okay question one is going to go to Barnett Berwick and East so your question is what changes do you intend to implement that you hope will
023have a positive impact on Seline students over the next 10 years yes um what changes am I um if I'm elected into this role what changes would I want to implement I think uh first and foremost I would like to see some outcomes outcomes policies um I think there's a lot of changes that are happening in The District in terms of the academic education delivery models and um I don't see um plans in terms of outcomes assessment um since I'm not on the board or I don't know if those are even done but I think that having those plans in place so that we can let the communities know the reasons these changes are being made what data was gathered prior to too and then what data is going to be assessed when those changes
024are implemented so that we can provide the community Benchmark data to know that these changes are actually beneficial to the students thank you m Burwick is next thank you um as someone who did Real Estate marketing for almost nine years um communication is crucial um whether you're communicating um peerto peer partner to partner um or districtwide I think that there's a lot of work that staff and admin and teachers do that we don't understand or see and sometimes that there's a gap between um our expectations and outcomes uh I'll give a quick example of a few years ago when we were looking for new principles the community was invited in to participate and uh comment on the candidates and a few weeks later when the positions were announced principles had been switched around um and
025what I said at the time was I trust your decision but there's an expectation Gap that happened there and so when we don't understand what's happening um it leads to dissatisfaction I think that if we're a little bit more transparent with our thinking and our processes and we communicate that effectively um I think that that engenders more trust and um acceptance for the direction that we're taking thank you Miss Eep yes great question um so this this goes straight into my goals that I I didn't get to um have time to get to um so I want to continue Focus fusing on uh Equity gaps in the district um address the ongoing bullying and harassment and hate speech um and support student and staff mental health and the retention and recruitment of quality Educators um
026so things that I um you know I think is super important is having student voice um a lot of those um you know goals um is student uh focused and um that's our role as a board member um to uh you know support our students and make sure that you all are safe and welcome um and so um I do want to get uh the voices of um the students um because we're not in the building every day um the district admin aren't in the buildings every day and so um you know that that's uh super important and um I appreciate all the the feedback that we have received um whether it's public comment I've seen some of you here um or um you know uh from the policy committee we would get um make
027sure that we had student voice from like student orgs um and making sure um I I was the only board member to advocate for students and teachers to have a say in the dress code policy and unfortunately um I I support the the policy and it's great um but yeah we didn't um the students weren't added in that thank you all right on to group two this will be gerby steon and tises all right how oh sorry how will you ensure that student voices are heard and considered in decision-making processes at the district level for example how would you want to interact with the student government bodies like student council black student union uproar and the diversity Council all right well first and hot seat all right so I guess what I would say is
028that you know as a as a teacher I understand that our students are everything right this is what we do this is what we're here to serve you're you you are what we are supposed to do and so I guess the biggest thing that I can do is just have an openness and willingness to just listen to when you say you need something from us right so whether that be taking a phone call whether that be writing an email whether that be you B visiting us at the board whether that be you you know I hope you would feel comfortable enough to tap me on the shoulder at bushes and say hey this is what's happening in my school and you know so I guess that's how you like honor student voice the most is
029just by listening to the experiences of what's happening in our classrooms and what's happening in our school buildings and then do the best job that you can and uh you know for the last four years that's one thing that I I feel has been a has been a strength of of of mine and of ours we we do really try to embrace that student voice piece and we really do try to to make sure that we're we're advocating for you to have the best curriculum the best teachers the best uh facilities the best resources and so I I I hope you know that that this is what I want to do and if you want to talk to me about anything that's happening in our schools it's my job right I took this job I
030want to do it so at the end of the day like that's how I want to serve students and that I that's how I want to value your voices perfect timing thank you Miss stean so thank you for the question because when we say student L we really mean it and that's why the four of you are sitting here right now and why we're so excited um I have long been in the classroom both as in the ptas or pto's as um room parent Etc um but I think you know model the way that you want to see and the very first thing I did when I announced my candidacy for reelection was to partner with a student so Sarah Yousef who is a uh Selen Hornet Alum of 2024 is I don't like to
031say campaign manager because this is a nonpartisan role and we should we should remember that but she is my student adviser uh she's building my website right now um I've been consistently talking with students when I ran in 2018 um I had Britney Bryant from our debate team actually do our are uh do my interview instead of having the Seline post do it Tran was the videographer and I had Britney lead it as a student um you mentioned a lot of great student uh clubs but I want to for don't want to forget our elementary students and partnering with those individuals and our Middle School I teach Junior Achievement for the um for the elementary level and I've been receiving wonderful board me uh wonderful messages from our former student board representatives and I think
032that that says a lot that they will step up and and and endorse me for this role to continue in this role so I appreciate that and appreciate all of you thank you Mr tises I'm just gonna make you say my last name each time uh this is actually a great question because this this gets to the heart of of what the the Board needs to do what the student body needs to do what the administrators need to do and that is listen to each other and that was already echoed by by Mr gby and Miss stepen but realistically when you guys go off to college or if you guys go off to college all of your professors will have what are called office hours there's going to be a few hours during the week
033that they are available in their office I think that the board should do something like that so that the student groups uh whether they're an organized club or just a student that might have a concern can come to an individual board member and explain that and maybe that individual board member relates a little bit better to that particular student or that particular club uh the nice thing about our board here is that there is some diversity of thought uh and between the candidates and the incumbents I think there's a lot of a lot of value that everyone that is sitting at this table right now can bring to the board and that's why we're all running the most important thing though is that students need to feel that they can be open they can be
034honest and they do need to speak up when they do see a problem uh they need to speak up when they see problems that are happening to themselves as well as to others because that is going to be the number one thing that keeps us safe as a school with the teachers the staff and the students thank you we will now move on to our third group this group includes miss van single Miss Barnett and Miss Berwick oops school shootings Contin whoa continue to be a very real threat to students across the nation what recommendations would you suggest to improve student safety at Selene area schools thank you I think that's a really excellent question in light of the last 25 years of history in this country and even the events of last week in
035Georgia um one of the strengths I think we have in our district is our partner parip with our local law enforcement and having our resource officers not only with Selene police department but all the also the pittfield police department I think anything we can do to capture that um collaboration is really positive and I think another thing that would be really um important is to to layer on our social workers as much as possible in that process as well um because so often um school shootings are coming at the pivotal moment in somebody's Mental Health crisis so I think anything we can do to help people get help before that tragic pivotal moment comes is super important um I think sometimes bullying can relate to how people feel about themselves in their overall mental health
036as well and so um one thing I'm wondering is if there was a way to maybe use the okay to say format for not just reporting anything I mean really anything that's of concern not only violence or terrorism but even if you feel bullied or threatened if could there be uh an anonymous way or an easy way to report those kinds of things too thank you Miss berett you're next great so um I know the school has a policy for emergency preparedness I know each building has drills that they they do according to the policies and so I would say you know just keep those uh drills and um make sure that we're reporting out if we're assessing areas of weakness during the drills I think the the physical Securities during the school hours are
037great there's been some new implementation of like check-in for visitors but one of the things that I'm concerned about I have seen just in the years of picking up my son or just coming to events during non-school hours there's lots of doors that seem to be propped open for ease of Entry um and so those are things that are a concern of M because um yes the student body is out of the building but it just takes one incident for someone to get in and and uh the consequences can be pretty catastrophic so you know school safety school security as more of these terrible events happen this is an evolving um issue and I think the district we just need to make this and continue to make it our top priority and adjust our resources
038and attention accordingly thank you Miss Berwick I think it's on now um there will never be changes that we can make to infrastructure or U building design that will keep you safe um human being beings will work around that regardless we are public schools are open to the public for meets and events and um at competitions over the weekend the buildings are open we'll never fix that we do need to work on addressing social and emotional learning and mental health supports that is one common factor if you look at a shooter profile there are generally cries for help and Advance um we have a lot of supports in place already we need more for those who say that social and emotional learning is not should not be a part of the the educational system I
039wholeheartedly disagree this is the time when we grow and learn together we learn how to communicate to one another we learn conflict management skills we learn how to support and um grow with our peers that is incredibly important and that is probably where the biggest um difference can be made right now there will always be building updates there will always be technology updates it is the human factor that you can't really account for and uh that we can work to improve thank you we will now move on to our fourth question question this will be asked to miss Eep Mr gerby and Miss stean how will you balance the needs of a public school system with your own personal or political beliefs let me see stop whenever you're ready yes um I consider myself an
040advocate for public education um I you know value I mean my my degree um my work in um higher education working with student affairs um I'm I'm just really um that's my strength that's my passion um and part of public education is um you know I really believe in um diversity equity and inclusion um it is super important to me personally and for everyone else here um you know in in the public schools um I think it's really important um so as far as like balancing that I don't see any um my values that I hold is um is values that um the public education system um holds and and so um but um working with others who have you know differing views um is important um I think I like to base my stuff
041or base everything off of um research-based uh National Best Practices um and so that's really what um guides um where I stand I bring a lot of policies and law to the table when I'm making decisions thank you Mr gerby next well balance so board service to me is entirely about the students and your needs and the staff and the people we Empower to be with you needs right and so our job is is to to listen to that and then to listen to our community you'll talk to us and you'll talk to the superintendent and you'll tell the superintendent these are the things that we need to be successful with whatever it might be whether whether that's a club an organization a a sport um something in the classroom whatever it is you're going
042to advocate for those things right and so my job is just listen and so my balance of my personal beliefs is that I listen to the things that come to us and then we evaluate them and sure we have you know our own personal belief systems and those things drive us and and I'm not going to say that those things don't don't happen but at the same time in a public school my job is to to listen to what is good for the totality quity of the school district what's good for the student body and then I'm supposed to make the best decisions I can based on the information um the one thing I will tell you that has been really important to me is expertise right when we made decisions on health um when
043we made this we make decisions on curriculum I want to talk to teachers I want to talk to Educators I want to talk to students when we talked about health stuff I wanted to hear from the individuals who are our leaders in healthcare right and and so like those are things that I will continue continue to do and that's how I balance my own personal beliefs versus the needs of a school district and I I I I think I can respect those boundaries thank you Miss Devon well I don't think there's anyone who would doubt how much I love public education I come from a family of public Educators my mother my grandparent my grandpa uh and my aunt um all in various roles in public education um I've received the endorsement of our Seline
044educators and our support professionals um so I know that they believe um that that I know how to um best support their needs as well um I recently released a nonpartisan statement I understand exactly what this role is and I understand exactly the division that we have in this community and what a critical time a being a calm empathetic leader and being a connector between people for respect and for civil conversation is important for that reason I decided despite any person personal views that I definitely have um I would not seek any type of political U endorsement I I believe that this is a nonpartisan role and I have uh exemplified that the past six years two years as president I led this team um through hours and hours of public comment um I was
045respectful um and adhered to parliamentary procedure and made sure that everyone's Voice Was Heard whether I personally agreed or disagreed everyone was given their three minutes and done so in a respectful and orderly manner so I think that that speaks for itself thank you we will now move on sorry we will now move on to our fifth question this will be to Mr tises miss van single and Miss Barnett mental health is an increasingly important concern among students as a member of the Board of Education how can you support the mental health of our student body through implementation of policies or programs that's actually a really good question um so mental health as a whole is on the rise and I'm not ashamed to sit up here and say that I have mental health disorders
046uh I think a lot of us do it's a matter of knowing where to find those resources and not being afraid to seek out those resources for so long mental health disorders had been a stigma and they shouldn't be uh lot of people suffer with various mental health disorders that are some of their own doing and some not of their own doing so as far as policy goes uh oural here is Fant just fantastic that needs to be a large part of our kids education in the schools um I know from experience that that students Excel fantastically when they're given that little extra attention the dedicated support the very specific touch points throughout their day in school that can mean a lot to a student that is suffering from a mental health crisis and those
047kind of things are the types of policies that we need to expand we need to be able to assess more students we need to be able to service more students and we need to be able to have more touch points with more students regarding mental health thank you next Miss V van single yes um I think that um focusing on social emotional learning as much as possible um in amongst the the reading and writing and arithmetic and everything else that we have to do is of Paramount importance for overall wellbeing and not only do we need a lot of resources for our students and their social emotional health and ultimately their mental health but I think as much as we can do as a district to know about inter agency collaboration whether it's with the
048local community health agencies or otherwise is also of tremendous value um because some of our students who do have mental health needs or disabilities May um be lifelong clients if you will of Community Mental Health and I think there's a lot of um ways to empower families and students with resources both inside of school and outside of school for everybody's overall well-being thank you thank you Miss Bernett yeah so I think um one of the most important things is to keep an open dialogue so for the the teachers and the administrators at the school is to keep an open dialogue with parents and Guardians about um student and mental health and uh family mental health I think um continuing education for educators um I think we need to really stress that and make sure that
049that is something that is high on the priority so that our Educators know how to identify factors associated with a student that may be suffering issues that they may be having trouble with at home and then ways to manage the student so that their their troubles are not becoming a compounding issue in their ability to advance their education and so I don't know what that looked like a teacher may know but perhaps it's just something like letting them know that they're doing great maybe minimize um shorten an assignment or expectations on the scope of a project so that they're feeling good about themselves their self-esteem is staying high and they're able to um progress in accordance with academic standards I also loved last week I saw um an email about a partnership that the school
050has with great soulless which is a 24-hour Confidential Care Hub and I think that's a great first step in helping to get resources back to the families because the child is going to excel if we make the family strong at home and give them the resources to manage stress and depression thank you we will now move on to our sixth question this will be POs to M bwick Miss Eep and Mr gerby this year administrators at Seline middle school and Seline High School took steps to limit cell phone usage among students cell phones are expected to remain in Lockers in the middle school and be put away during instruction at the high school do you agree with these policies why or why not great question uh and actually as as a substitute teacher I so
051appreciate the um phone pockets in the classrooms um the when I go in as a substitute teacher I get instructions from um wh whomever I'm subbing for that day and many of them will have me have the students put their phones away uh and I see remarkable differences between the educational experiences in classrooms where they don't have their phones and when they have their phones um they are significant distractions I've got great stories that not going to stay from up here um so yeah I really appreciate when the cell phones are away I think that the concentration improves the work improves the learning uh is more meaningful I understand as a parent not being able to get a hold of my child um my daughter was on campus in February of 2023 with the shooting
052and being able to track her and talk to her was incredibly important for me sorry um so I understand that part of it from a parental perspective um and I don't have good answers for that I do trust that our schools are fairly safe and I trust that Administration is making decisions both for safety security and and for optimal educational outcomes so I think that that right now it's it's what we need to do thank you Miss Eep you're next yes um so um I guess first an un I think there needs to be an understanding of um and I think everybody's kind of had questions about it over time since I've been on the board um but um we have Schoolboard policy and um we have administr guidelines and then we have the handbook
053so this actually isn't a board policy um so sometimes like um you know like the hate speech acts um uh sometimes it's referred to as a policy but it is not um so it's come you know come from some of our policy language and um so I guess with that said um I think it's something that um I would love to have student voice and input on um CU um you know I'm not in the classroom um if I'm volunteering It's usually the you know Elementary School um so but I also understand that there are situations where um there are students who do need their cell phones on them and I know that that's worked out between um staff or Administration um you know as far as um maybe some mental health um issues going
054on or um you know students who don't feel safe because of um their race ethnicity um so sometimes you know there I feel there is a need um for students to have that um and I do appreciate the pockets on the wall as well thank you Mr guy all right well boy did you give me a question right in my wheel house so the reality for me is that is a you know first of all my my kids at home home right sorry kids but if if I have to compete so if I have to compete for a student's attention versus Taylor Swift I'm gonna lose right like my chemistry lessons as fantastic as I might think they are and as incredibly engaging as I think I might be in the classroom I mean they'd
055much rather Tweet back and forth they'd much rather send pictures and have fun with that I totally get it um but the reality is if you give us our your focus we can get a lot accomplish we can learn a lot and so that's what we're here to do right and so I think that the rule is designed to maximize learning opportunities in the classroom and to try to keep some of those distractions away from us so that we can just focus on the task in hand right there's a time and a place for those balances and so I think the classroom uh is the place to do that this is also something where like teachers and Educators have had these conversations in their staff meetings and have had these things in their lounges this
056didn't just come to us out of nowhere it came to us probably because that's what they wanted right and so that's the reality and then when you think about like maintaining you know like we're we're trying to keep the focus in on in the classroom right and so we don't want other things and distractions and now we got to deal with those things through Administration and all that so like I just I'm sorry students I support it and I understand why I don't like it thank you next we're going to move on to our seventh question question this is our last question in alphabetical order and then we will move on to questions that were randomly assigned they were put into chat gbt and and and click and click Shuffle on the names this will
057be Miss St Mr tises and miss van single what strategies would you recommend to help improve the academic achievement of students who can consistently score in the bottom 30% insuline schools may I ask a clarifying question I was trying to write that down was it top or bottom uh bottom okay thank you so much um so the first thing I would say is we should be paying attention to students at all levels uh from the tip top down to the bottom that that when we mine data and we look at test scores we should be serving all students um there is a person behind the data and we need to remember um the whole child um when we're thinking about academic achievement I am all for accountability on academic achievement um but I just wanted
058to make sure that that I acknowledge that too so the first thing I would do is um get together with Cara Davis who is our executive director for teaching and learning for our school district and also talk to the teachers that are serving those individual students because my guess is that 30% has hundreds and hundreds of stories behind how they're performing why they're performing I've heard discussions of mental health um it's important to meet each child where they're at and it's very important to um use data and talk to the individuals that are actually working with the students in the classrooms as well um no child should be left behind and everyone should be included and supported from an academic perspective from a mental health perspective from a club and activity perspec perspective um in
059consultation with our subject matter experts in the classroom thank you thank you next M Mr tis uh this is a very good question because you can draw a lot of correlations to uh the school environment as you can nobody yell at me from the criminal justice environment in criminal justice the 20 or 30% of the people that are involved in the criminal justice system take the most amount of resources in the system but when you devote those resources you make a dedicated and individualized Rehabilitation plan if we look at that from an education perspective and we take the last or the bottom 20 or 30% of students and we turn that around and take the resources and turn it into an individualized plan then we will have success uh the the whole aspect of not
060being able to Excel for whatever reason is not true every student can Excel we have to find the thing that they excel at and exploit that in order to have them have better achievement so by individualizing a plan by having a number of touch points with that particular student drawing on their strengths then you can increase the likelihood that they will be successful I spend a lot of time in what are called treatment courts and that is exactly what they do in the criminal justice sector they take people that have specific problems but they cater to the specific reasons that they have those problems and we can do the same thing in education with the with the lower scoring students thank you next miss van single yeah I think your question relates a lot to
061um the perspective possibly that you would see in the life of special education students but not necessarily it really could be for all Learners I think when you're having low test scores the test isn't the only measure of Student Success right um two of one of my daughters is nonverbal so how do you even test you know so there's a big um movement in education called Universal Design for Learning where you're looking at making learning multi- sensory you're looking at the how and the why and the when and the where of learning um you're using different um means of expression um using assistive technology using things that motivate a student um I think that if we can also um Embrace and use the building support teams that we have for multiple tier support layers that
062can also help thanks thank you we will now now move on to our question or our randomly assigned groups uh this is question question eight uh will be posed to miss van single again Mr gerby and Miss stean uh what are your thoughts on alternative models for school calendars I.E a balance calendar yearound school or 4 day weeks Etc first again okay that's yeah I think the the notion of a Balan calendar actually would be very very appealing um we have a very long history this country of having summers's off you know of our our agricultural Roots you know being off in the summer um I think with so many families um my both parents or both caregivers were working out of the home I in my own home it's really tough when there's nothing
063offered at school in in the weeks in the summer for for special education students so I think if there's a way to look at how a balanced calendar might be of benefit to everybody to all students it it could be a really appealing um and intriguing idea to look at in our education system Nationwide and also here locally thank you next Mr gerby all righty um so this is interesting because you asked earlier about a question where you balance your needs versus your own right so here we go so my personal belief on this is that as a teacher and as an educator and just as a human I do like the idea there's something called the faucet effect and the faucet effect says something to this effect you've got this faucet you turn it
064on in September you let it go go go till de June and this like you know the the snc fills up right and then what we do in June is we then take the students away and we start to drain and then we turn it back on right so like by doing balance calendar or some kind of thing you um reduce the faucet effect now as a District Schoolboard person that's a local decision right that is something those are discussions that should happen with the superintendent those are discussions that should happen in teachers lounges and in staff meetings those should happen um by looking at the data and looking at things with our leadership teams and then they make recommendations about what they would like to see happen more to us right so I see
065that more as like operations and and a local thing and and talking to to students and talking to families and what do they need and then reporting those things back to us personally I won't mind if if that conversation ever came to the table and I personally wouldn't mind considering it in my own home with my own children and my own family but again I want to do the work of the of the team here well when it's a seven month I thank you next Miss steon uh thank you for the question and I like this format and you're using AI so appreciate that um so I understand how these calendars are created and a lot of times um the community believes that the board creates the calendars because I get a lot of questions
066when are you posting the academic calendar so this is a partnership it it it goes down to a delineation of responsibilities we are a strategic focus and this is an operational task that we place on our consent agenda so first I would seek to understand what our unions um think about this because they are crafting this um academic calendar draft in concert with our admin um so I would want to know both of their perspectives I want to want to make sure it's legal with 180 days of instruction and enough professional development for our staff and be cognizant of Summer slide if we stayed with the academic calendar that we have right now um that said I seriously believe in play in rest um we have a policy that you cannot take away recess as
067a form of punishment for our little ones that have recess and I do believe that summer is a really restorative time for a lot of our um students and you asked about student voice earlier and I can pretty much tell you what they would say about the summer so um to date I have not been in favor of a balanced calendar I would always be open to having any conversation because we've already talked about the need to balance what your own personal opinions are uh along with the community the students and the staff thank you now on to our next question posed to miss Burwick Miss Eep and Miss Barnett do you feel diversity equity and inclusion is important at Selen area schools how would you work to create diverse Equitable and inclusive environments for
068everyone I absolutely believe that diversity equity and inclusion is important in our school districts um we are a community that comes together uh I think there are probably around 3,300 different families and about 5,000 children and so when we come together in one place with the goal to be educated learn um experience we need to be able to account for and reflect the diversity of our families um when we do that and we uh are responsive with cultural responsive instruction uh making it so that our students see themselves through windows and mirrors in the curriculum it gives students the chance to um be excited about be curious about and the uh opportunity to make that learning meaningful for them um I do think that we're doing a good job assessing curriculum providing for Affinity groups
069at different buildings and um having conversations with the community so that we are all on board thank you next Miss Eep can you repeat the question I want to make sure I hit every yes oh do you feel that gez diversity equity and inclusion is important at Seline area schools how would you work to create diverse Equitable and inclusive environments for everyone okay so um I ran in 2008 18 um I need to be quick because I have so much um so I ran for the board in 2018 and my huge thing was making sure that our environment was safe and welcoming to all of our students there was a history of it not being welcoming um especially for lgbtq students and um our students of color and so that was one of my motivations
070to run uh for Schoolboard um there were a lot of great uh Community conversations ations and we started a diversity equity and inclusion advisory committee um and so we had that since 2019 in 2021 as the uh policy chair um I helped um create and draft and introduce to the policy committee um that policy so we currently have um diversity equity and inclusion ah advisory committee um who makes recommendations I would like to see that those recommendations um actually get um implemented um and that the board holds um those recommendations seriously and um you know uh values that input because I truly do um we have a lot of um if I could touch on it in other areas but um you know a lot of issues that still continue to exist that we need
071to um really work on um we've made a lot of progress though so I appreciate that thank you thank you finally for this for this question Miss Barnett yes so diversity absolutely so everyone needs to have a sense of belonging regardless of religion regardless of ideological um political affiliation regardless of gender gender identity sexuality sexual identity everybody inclusion the same I feel like everyone needs to have a sense of inclusion but I also think that we need to get to a point where inclusion on operational aspects of the school if if there is a student if there is a family member if there is a staff member who wants to be included and have their voice heard and have a say in terms of what they feel about a certain advisory committee what and including
072on the advisory committee I think we need to be um a little bit bit more inclusive in terms of making sure we have a balance and then broadening the the um um the number of people on committees in terms of equity I think that equity and inclusion if it if it means um ensuring extra supports around students who are who are coming into the district maybe not as um um and they don't have academic achievement as high as some of the students in Seline and we put supports around around them I think that's great if we have a student who needs maybe a smaller homework assignment or more time on an exam or the scope of a project kind of Whittle down I think that's great um and that to me that's what equity in
073education means but equity in education does not mean to give you extra credit or raise your grade based on a particular aspect about your background and then um lastly I just want to say that thank you we will next we will move on to our 10th question posed to miss stean m Berwick and miss van single the sex education Advisory board has presented two public hearings with recommendations to update the Adolescent Health curriculum what are your thoughts on these revisions I go first okay I didn't want to speak out of turn um so I was sitting up here Tuesday night talking about this right I think that the um the cab has done an incredible job researching uh for a long time uh recommendations to bring to the board um I thought they were answering
074our questions efficiently however um one of our heritage teachers and I saw many Heritage teachers sitting in the audience um did express some interest in having additional time to give feedback those are the teachers that are teaching this content to our students so I am very glad that it was not put on the next agenda but it would be considered on a later agenda to give them time to review the curriculum and have conversations with Administration with Dr Lodge with Cara Davis um and then come back to us so I'm very excited to see an updated curriculum for sure um it's not for all of our students it's actually um not for the high school um so it's fourth fifth and the Middle School um so I look forward to hearing the recommendations and getting
075the input from the people who are actually um implementing that in the classroom thank you back to miss burck yeah I'm very much looking forward to an updated curriculum um for the um fourth through 8th grade and then hopefully one for the high schol school at some point here um as our knowledge evolves so should our education and uh our sexed curriculum has been stuck in the past for a long time um unfortunately with social media and access to the internet um I think that our children are being uh or at least have the ability to access information at an earlier age that they wouldn't have been able to in my time um so I think that prevented measures with with education is is what we need to do as a school district um having
076said that we did hear from the teachers and I think that we need to respect that because they are the ones who are going to be working with that curriculum directly with the students and so taking um their recommendations is very important uh I think that if we're working together we're going to get better results and they have Express that desire to work with us a little bit more and I think we need to honor that thank you next on to miss van single yeah um I appreciate the question um this has been a very passionate issue in our community in recent years not only for gened students but also for our special education students um I really think it's a valuable tool that teachers have what they need to teach um children um about
077their own health and safety um especially in the disability Community there's a really high rate of somebody being sexually abused in their lifetime and if they don't have the tools of how to even know that it's happening to them that's something we should be giving to teachers to help those students not just special ed students but but all students but I would also say that I really appreciate the process in Michigan that we have a law that each district is supposed to have an Advisory Board and it is a democratic process that feedback can be taken and that there's also that opportunity to opt out um if you don't feel it's appropriate for your learner and it's not just all in or all out the curriculums are so sophisticated now that it gives um transparency
078of information to parents and to teachers so that you can customize that learning process for your student no matter whether you're in special ed or gender when it comes to Sexual Health thank you we will now move on to our next question posed to Miss Barnett Mr tises and Miss Eep Seline area schools has a current board policy in support of transgender and nonbinary students in what ways will you uphold or modify the existing policy and work to ensure that students feel safe in our schools so um so I was reviewing the policy that's published right now and I was um thinking that we probably need I know we're working on updates but there was a new um law um by the state of Michigan to expand the non-discrimination law to include not just um
079sexual orientation but gender identity so I was hoping that that would that language would actually be um included into the new policy um there is one issue with the policy that I think I disagree with and that's just because as a mother if if I had a child who was questioning their gender identity that would be information that I would want to know um I would want to know that so I could support that child at the Home in in in the home and so um the in the current policy it states that in general that information would be not shared unless there is consent from the actual student and so what I don't know because I don't have access to the administrative guidelines is is that by default no by default no unless the
080actual student tells you to share that information or is it by default we ask is it okay and so those are those are nuances that I think is very important to making sure that we're for bridging um Partnerships with the families at home good timing next on to Mr tises so this is a good question and I I've reflected on this a a couple different times uh this gets asked a lot of school boards not just here in Celine but but all over and I reflect back on the fact that I don't remember this being prevalent 10 years ago 20 years ago 30 years ago when I was in school so when I was in school in high school college we we didn't have these discussions transgenderism wasn't really a topic unless you went to
081Eastern Michigan so East goles uh but uh uh we had the psychology of sex uh freshman year in in college and that was really my first experience with transgenderism uh during that time so regarding the policy I actually Echo what M Barnett said the the biggest problem that I have with the policy is the Restriction of information being given to parents right now I think parents are the ones that are raising their kids and our students are spending six to eight hours a day 180 days a year with the teachers and teachers are an extraordinarily important part of the kids upbringing but parents are the most important part of the upbringing of of our kids and our students so uh all the other Nuance aside the only main issue that I have with that policy
082is the Restriction of information given to parents thank you next Miss Eep hi so I need more than a minute and a half um so I actually um as policy chair and as a policy um member um for five years um I introduced this policy and it's the TR transgender and non-binary students policy when I was running for the board um there were parents um of transgender students who were meeting with the administration and part of that was let's get some you know um things in place to help support um our children our students um for years then they were talking about a policy and so um when I became chair um you know I heard those voices and um I start went to work um I made sure that the people who um who
083were impacted by by the policy or who would be infected by the policy that we heard their voices and so the parents of transgender students helped you know we met with them um and helped us uh you know adjust the language it's based off a mod model policy through glisten and the National Trans uh transgender um equality organization um and we looked at policy and law and um I'm really comfortable with the policy that we have and um do not recommend um unless our students come to us um the policy needs to be implemented though um that started this year after three years of being in place so okay oh I didn't hear it thank you okay next on to our last question uh this will be posed to Mr gerby Miss Barnett and Mr
084tises bullying continues to be a concern among students with many students feeling the administrators aren't doing enough to prevent or address it how can board members better address bullying in their schools through policy Andor accountability well I'm I'm glad I'm getting a chance to to talk about this bullying is you know there's a there's a whole idea of the power of 100 right this idea of surrounding individuals with positivity with mental support with with with things that with connection right and so I guess what I would say is that we need a couple things we need one we need to to make sure that those structures are in place and that we have things like our link crew and and all that so what can I do as a board is I can make sure
085I'm advocating for those programs I can make sure that I advocate on behalf of funding I can you know you'll hear them programs will come to the board and I'll say how can we help you what can we do for you that kind of thing so I want to make sure that we have some of those things in place that give goto individuals for students right right like every student I believe needs connection they need someone that they can go to as a safe individual for them I also want to empower strength in our students right like when our students are willing to stand up for one another and be strong for one another we're all safer right and so um I would encourage our superintendent and I would encourage you know anybody who's Associated
086from there right because we don't do operations but to come to us with what do you need what do you want what are things that we can do to to support these things because it is a it is a big deal and when kids don't feel supported that's when you get tragedies that's when you get things that are are are are negative for student outcomes right and we talked about bottom 30% and you talked about like how like sometimes it's layered and so I guess those are things I'd be advocating for in want thank you next Miss Bernett great so so yes we have an anti-harassment we have an um an AB bullying policy in place but I think there are some issues um in terms of data capture and of the incidents and so
087we had a report from the superintendent um a couple weeks ago and um there was some acknowledgement that capturing the incidents of bullying there's some challenges is it groups is it individuals are people afraid to speak up you know there's lots of reasons why actual incidence rate is not um being reported but I will say the one thing that's preventing us from taking a giant leap forward in terms of decreasing the bullying in the schools is the consistent application of the current policy we have in place and I think if you ask any student if you ask any parent or even a teacher they will say that there are some kids who get uh disciplined and there's some kids who don't and so I think moving forward we need a consistent application I know that
088there are plans in place to do more proactive anti-bullying and I think that that is tremendous but one of the things I think would be interesting to try to implement would be something so like for example in my world we do a cancer surgery and then we do surveillance for 3 years afterward where we're assessing to make sure it doesn't come back something like that so not just a a pre um preventing of bullying but a post- preventing of bullying where we're actually following up with with the individuals who were doing the bullying with the families and making sure that we're having sustainable results thank you last Mr tises I think you hit eight out of eight good job uh bullying looks very different today than it did when when we were all in school
089kids have to deal with social media an influx of information it I I don't even know how you guys do it because I don't think we would survive uh having to do with that but the fact that it looks different means that we have to react differently so again drawing on my criminal justice background you can draw a straight line sometimes from bullying Behavior to behavior in the future uh kind of looking at it from a predictive analytic so when you're looking at how it's changed from what it used to be to today you have to change how you react to it like you used to um I agree that we we need to look at it from a data perspective it's really interesting that these were all created with AI I just gave a
090speech on AI last week so uh the fact that you're going to use AI to create a question also means that you could use AI to find the solution to the question so the basic the basic premise of all this is that we have a fundamental lack of respect and just a huge amount of divisiveness in society and that is caused by the influx of information that is just thrown at the kids I'm being hooked off the stage so sorry I'm not going to be able to answer that thank you as I'm I was gonna intervene yes okay so to clarify we used AI to shuffle the past the past five questions names so that it wasn't like we weren't like sorting them no the questions were generated by students uh submitted into a Google
091form and we revised them to cover as many of the main topics as possible good good job I I still want I still want to know what prompts were used so as we wrap up this evening we would like to provide each candidate 2 minutes to address anything they didn't get an opportunity need to speak about tonight and allow candidates to wrap up their remarks for the evening working in alphabetical order Miss Barnett we will start with you okay well I want to thank everybody who came out here tonight and everybody watching from home um thank you for this opportunity and um I would like to ask for your vote for Selen Area School Board coming up this fall in the school board election I think that um it would be great to have a
092more Bal Balan representation of individuals on the board who are committed to bringing the voice forward from the entire Community as a whole and um and I I feel like it would be great to have uh board members who again know the full scope of the role which is supervising the superintendent or evaluating the superintendent approving the budget and then approving policy that affects the education of of your children um and lastly one of the main issues that I um have that we didn't get to touch on was the budget and then the loss of students and so U one of my biggest concerns is the loss of students in the district so since 2016 we've lost over a thousand students when you looked at the numbers back then versus now and we have area
093private schools um that are at capacity they're growing new schools opening homeschools co uh homeschool cooperatives that are um at there's no vacancies and so we have to figure out a way to go back and talk to these people who left our left our school and talk to them about what factors led them them to that decision and how we can bring them back to the district because we have a great budget now um due to conservative spending and influx of covid relief money but with without bodies in the seats we are going to have problems going forward without the per pupil funding thank you next Miss Berwick you have two minutes yes thank you to the students who are uh and the audience members who came tonight to uh uh host the Forum um
094the one thing that I would really like to address um is that again I communication is so important um that is that is why I think we need to put our phones down and uh talk to one another uh that is the number one skill set you're going to need when you go out into college and careers is the ability to communicate with your peers your supervisors and um those who may work under you um if we are not practicing those skills and um working out how we live and learn together um we're not going to be successful in uh creating the giving you the educational outcomes that you deserve um to that end I've really appreciated uh Mr tisa's idea of office hours um except that I would like to extend um the uh
095option of I will come to you so you guys have sports um clubs activities I will come to you when you um are interested in having conversations same with families I'm fortunate enough now that I have successfully launched My Two children uh and the house is very quiet uh and despite my love of substituting it's I'm not employed full-time I fortunately have the ability to come and meet for coffee I'm hosting a few more coffees uh and a cider and donut party uh in the near future if you would like to have those conversations I've made my email and phone number available to teachers uh for them to reach out and um it is really important to me that we are Bridging the Gap between families and school thank you thank you next Miss Eep
096you have two minutes okay yes um extra 30 seconds sorry so um a couple of questions that um came up that I didn't get to address um too much was the uh mental health and also um the security piece um so that's you know one of my um biggest goals with with the mental health um so um you know I think we really need to start providing support um to our students and staff um and the whole District um with normalizing mental health um educating on mental illness because that's going to help with um recognizing things going on with maybe family um with your peers and really how to be um supportive of them and and understand that um I think our uh staff uh need to be trauma informed um to be prepared to
097um you know deal deal with things that do come out um and with uh safety um I'm advocating and I encourage you all to um at a state level um contacting my state reps um to make sure that the mental health um and Safety and Security funding that we lost um or didn't receive we had last year we didn't receive it this year with the um funding that um we advocate for that line item um to you know um come back and so we can get that funding that is so important um so uh I advocate at a local um state level um I'm super passionate um about public education um I will continue fighting for safe supportive and an inclusive environment and I hope that um you vote for me um you all and
098if you're 18 you can volunteer um my website is vote.com thank you so much thank you next Mr gerby you have two minutes all right well I want to thank thank everybody here and I want to thank you for this opportunity I will give a plug from my website as well www.v gby gb.com and you can find questions there like you could get a preview of trans questions of me they're Scorchers and uh the Sun Times is there mejc is there I I have links all kinds of things we did a forum a couple of weeks ago um so anyways you want to get more information it's out there so um I I will say a quick thing and then I want to text spend about 5 seconds on other things so I want you
099to know that I choose to be positive about where we're going right I choose that because I think our students and our staff and our they deserve it and and they deserve to be uplifted you know majority of the time that's not to mean that we can't address the things that need addressing but I choose to be positive now here we go um the changes I would Implement civility right I want us to connect more as for school shootings I would continue training inacast Technologies but making connection and I would want to vote for leaders who emphasize a genuine desire to provide tools for mitigation as far as mental health goes connection developing go-to individuals bottom 30 resources for our student achievement teams and those individuals who are in our school they need time they
100need the ability to do those things and have those collaborative conversations as far as Dei importance every kid I want you to know that you're important and you should have your experience recognized in our schools um as far as um seab curriculum right these are tools and resources we want to put as many things in the basket of our teachers you know I think of it like a mechanic with a tool shop I want to give you as many tools as you can to do varying different jobs and complexities that come your way support for Trans students of course I do if we need to look at expansion for gender identity you know I I'm all for that and so that is me in a nutshell trying to answer a whole bunch of things but
101I just hope you'll allow me to keep this job and keep doing this work for the next four years and I thank you thank you next Miss steon I'm out of breath after listening to prad you have two um so thank you to the students um we really appreciate your your voice and your presence here this evening so we'll wrap up so you can go home and do homework um so I think we need somebody like me who really understands what this role is the delineation of responsibilities between strategic and operational um someone has seen two appointments $180 million bond has led the compensation committee has led the superintendent search committee who has provided calm empathetic and respectful leadership um I've seen a lot um I think we need a connector in the community which
102is exactly why I mentioned that nonpartisan statement earlier um I also think we need less talking and more listening so I appreciate you giving us Voice tonight but we should be listening to the community the staff and you all more than we are talking up here um I love the kids I believe in the staff I am so grateful and appreciative to our Seline Educators and our support professionals who have put their trust in me for the past six years and want to continue to see me on this board um and I'm just simply grateful that we are able to raise our twins here um this is an important vote always vote always vote vote for your school board flip the ballot over if we happen to be on the back four seats is a
103lot um so everybody please vote and forever go Hornets thank you next on to Mr tises you have two minutes uh I want to thank the students this was this was great the format was fantastic I was super excited to be able to be a part of this uh I'll put a plugin uh for my website jason4 seline.com I don't want to make anybody have to spell that last name because you can't pronounce it uh so I think everybody up here wants to be on the board everybody up here thinks they can do the very best job they have the students at heart it's just what it comes down to with individual particular characteristics so what I want to say is we had a lot of questions tonight and almost all those questions were those
104hot button topics those Sizzle topics if you want to call them that those are very important obviously uh school safety school shootings extremely important it gets all the Press but that's not all that school safety is there's all kinds of things that go into school safety Miss Barnett mentioned open doors at all at all times there's things like that that we have to look at and we have to expand and with my experience in criminal justice and Community safety I think I'm very well equipped for that uh to sit on the board and be able to help the school district expand our safety Readiness uh being prepared for all the eventualities I also am very proud to be recommended by the Seline Educators and Par professionals here in Seline I'm so proud that that they
105did that and I think the one thing that sealed it for me when I interviewed with their board was what I answered when they asked me how I make a controversial decision and that is I listen to all sides I learn everything I can about all sides and until I can argue both sides as effectively then I know that I can make the right decision there's my hook again I need like an extra 15 seconds all the time thank you very much thank you finally words from Miss B single you have two minutes thank you I want to thank everybody for being here both online and ONN and for you students for moderating um our discussion this evening um it is really an honor to be here amongst these super qualified candidates up here um
106I would say one thing I didn't touch on a really in my opening um remarks was just a little bit of um other board experience that I do have I have been on parent advisory committees in the cak here in Seline so a lot of my previous board experience has to do within the realm of special education but I really view this role um as a board of education trustee as a role of public service for for everyone for all constituents for for everyone in the community for all parents all students but if if my life experience can bring um some representation of of those with disabilities and differences and those who are marginalized to the board I think that could be of great value as one of seven seats um I uh really my
107passion areas really are literacy development I really think that um as much literacy skills that we can build for everybody across the lifespan empowers them for communication for being plugged into their community and also for future employment um Michigan ranks 43rd in the state in their literacy scores so whatever we can do with accessible instruction to to reach every learner is really Paramount and I thank you for your time thank you thank you candidates students and administrators for your participation please remember to cast your vote in November thank you [Applause]