001Hello and welcome to the 2022 Wyandotte Connects TV studio Meet the Candidates Forum. I'm George Perdue and my colleague for this program will be Marcia Fry Cosmore. We will be interviewing candidates for the Wyandotte School Board. Remember, voting is your civic duty. We hope that all of you get out to vote on November the 8th. Hi, I'm Marcia Cosmore and I'm here tonight to introduce the candidates for the upcoming school board election. And our first candidate that we have here tonight is Teresa Serconvich. Hi, Teresa. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself? Sure, sure. I am a lifelong Wyandotte resident and I live here with my husband, Mike, of 28 years. And we've raised our family here, my two daughters, Erin and Rachel. Erin is a Wyandotte alum, currently attending Eastern
002Michigan University, graduating in December. And my youngest is a senior at Roosevelt, so it's a double senior year for the Serconviches. A member of the 100th graduating class of Roosevelt High School, graduating in 2023. In my professional life, I'm an educator. I've spent my entire career in education as a classroom teacher, teaching elementary, middle and alternative high school, college. And I currently work for Eastern Michigan University, supervising student teachers. Okay, nice. I'm going to ask you a question. Sure. Okay, our first one is, how well do you feel that the Wyandotte Public Schools responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, that has been the topic of the last two years, right? And how are we meeting those challenges? And I think the thing that we've kept in mind here is that our students have
003absolutely experienced loss and they have lost experiences. So during the time that we had to adapt in 2020 and 2021 in particular, I feel like the board worked together with the administration to the best of our ability, keeping in mind safety for students and staff, as well as kind of monitoring, learning and making sure that we were providing as much learning opportunity as possible. We were definitely uniquely kind of positioned because we have a one-to-one technology initiative here. So even when things happened and it was very kind of abrupt and sudden, we had the technology that allowed us to kind of service students and meet students in their needs at home. So that was certainly helpful. Certainly we had options for students like our WAVE program, where we allowed students to elect to be completely
004online. And then I think we just kind of met as we were required to every month and made decisions based on what the current conditions were in every kind of stage of the pandemic. And when things change and guidance change, then we moved with it. In order to meet some of the challenges that students and families had, we were doing lunches and breakfasts for students and servicing families that way. And then now kind of in our kind of waning pandemic time in our aftermath, we're working on instructional coaches to support our staff. We have interventionists at the elementary and middle school level to support student learning. We've hired an ELL coach. So we are continuing to kind of be responsible with those dollars and use those to meet student need. And we're really focused on
005making sure that we continue those supports. Okay. And our second question is, do you believe the Wyandotte Public Schools are adequately staffed? And if not, what solutions would you advocate to bridge that gap? Well, I'm glad you asked me that because this is, you know, this is what the space I work in. I supervise student teachers, so I'm working with people coming right out of college and choosing education as their career. So I spend my whole day most of the time talking about what what it's going to be like to be a beginning teacher. Actually, Wyandotte's doing very well considering there is not only a nationwide but actually a worldwide teacher shortage in Wayne County. We just had a report from Human Resources. We are there's only one other public school district in Wayne County
006who's who's looking for fewer positions than we are at this point, which I think is pretty good. Of course, Wyandotte has a large special education program and we are often looking for special educators. But we are doing pretty well. So we are always looking for ways to kind of meet those challenges. We renegotiated a contract and brought up the base pay of our beginning teachers. And we're starting to now as a board look for toward what are we going to do to attract and retain teachers so that we are, you know, not caught short in coming years. Yes. Okay. In your opinion, has School of Choice had a positive impact on families, students and schools? And the second part of that question is, does the continuation of this practice present any potential drawbacks in the
007short term or the future? Can you tell me the first part of the question? Okay. Does the School of Choice had a positive impact on families, students and schools? Yes, I would say this is a question that I continue to wrestle with as a board member. You know, declining population is a challenge statewide in Michigan. There are just fewer students to go around. But I think Wyandotte consistently has had a good policy. We do have open enrollment. We welcome families into our districts this year through August 15th and we have held our population fairly steady. So I think so. Wyandotte is an attractive school district. Our music programs, our sports programs, what we offer to students as far as class sizes. So I would say, yes, we've gotten a lot of great students here through
008School of Choice. Is it a continuing problem going forward? Yes, I think so because I think the smaller population of students going forward, we're all kind of neighboring districts are going to continue to compete for those students. So, you know, maybe looking at how we can even share resources so that our districts are not kind of doubled up. I know like we share our food service with Lincoln Park and we kind of share that resource so that we're not kind of using resources in two different places. But it's a continuing problem for sure. Okay. In recent years, both nationally and locally, fringe groups have attempted to ban books from school libraries. What role should religion play in shaping what materials are accessible to students in public schools? What role should religion play? Well, I think
009that Wyandotte Public Schools did have actually some challenges from citizens about books that were in our high school. And we have a policy that worked very well for us to make sure that we were given good consideration to the materials that were on the shelf. So we followed our policy and we evaluated three books of those three books. And I actually sat on this committee. I was a parent and a board member sitting on this committee. And of those three books, we decided that two were remaining on the shelf. But we felt that there was one that merited contacting a parent if there is an underclassman checking this book out. And I think looking at things in this scenario on a case-by-case basis and making a decision about what is not just recommended by school
010library journal or whatever, but looking at the population of students that we service and just giving parents the opportunity to say, I don't want my child to have access to this, but it is accessible if other parents choose to have that book in their child's hands. And I feel like that way was a fair and equitable way to handle it. Okay. And our next question is, how can we best protect our staff and students from the epidemic of gun violence? Tough questions. These are tough questions. But these are important conversations to have, right? So Wyandotte has, of course, taken all the safety measures that are available to us. Our staff is 100% ALICE-trained, right? And we have school resource officers that have started in our buildings this year at the middle school and the high
011school. We have locked and monitored entrances. We've taught our students the proper procedures. But I think part of my role as a board member is to advocate to our local, county, statewide legislators that we need help in this area, right? Putting forth efforts and common sense reforms that will make sense, that will help protect our students and staff, right? Because we can put as many protections in place as we want, but we also need help kind of with the problem systemically. And so I think that's, I'm hoping that part of my role going forward is that I am able to work with leaders on the statewide level to make sure that things are kind of monitored and handled in a way that's appropriate. Okay, we've got a couple more minutes and two more questions. Okay,
012hit me. I'll get all these in. Okay. Okay, can you highlight a program club or staff member that you feel is a credit to the school district? Oh my gosh, there's so many. Well, I'll talk about two that are pretty close to my heart. And one of them is the Wyandotte music program. We just hosted Wyandotte fan fair last night where Gibraltar actually did very well, your hometown. They came away with the top honors. But our music program is a draw to families and it's something that benefited my family as well. Both of my children have gone through the music program and made lifelong friends and just so many gifts that came from that. And then I think the other one is our STEM and robotics program. It's a newer program here in Wyandotte. And
013I'm excited for the opportunities that they are going to present for students going forward to kind of get a leg up in the STEM world. Okay, if elected again to the Board of Education, what issues facing our school district today would be your most pressing concern? Well, students are always my most pressing concern, right? And so I think providing the resources that students need going forward to make sure that they meet not only the challenges for kind of graduating and working in the current environment, but also thriving in the schools that we have. So making sure that we offer the programs, but also the supports, right? Mental health supports and those kind of additions. So is there anything else you'd like to add on to that? I would just like to say that I would
014be honored to have the support of the voters in Wyandotte again. And that I think I have a proven track record of advocacy and I hope that you'll support me with your vote in November. Thank you. Hi, I'd like to introduce Jake Kahnz tonight and I have some questions for you about the upcoming election for school board. Well, thanks for having me here. Anna, you want to say a little bit about yourself before we start? My name is Jake. I am a 18-year resident of Wyandotte. Fifteen years I went through the Wyandotte Public Schools Education System and I'm running for Wyandotte Public School Board. Okay, and our first question for you is how well do you feel that the Wyandotte Public Schools responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? I feel like there was a
015lot of struggle there. We had a lot of back and forth. I know we went hybrid, online, hybrid again, back online. I feel like it needed a lot of work. I know I was a student during that time and it was a struggle. We were just sent back and forth, back and forth and we never knew what we were going to do the next week. And I know they were just following the COVID outline, but it would have been nice to see a solid plan in place so that we weren't just thrown back and forth. Okay, do you believe that the Wyandotte Public Schools are adequately staffed? And if not, what solutions would you advocate for the bridge to this gap? I feel like we are adequately staffed. Like I said, I've been through these
016schools and I see these teachers do their best and these staff members do their best. Everyone from the custodians to the teachers, they have a passion for being there and I feel like there's always room to have more staff. So in any way, I'd love to have more people join our team and be there for the students. Okay. In your opinion, has School of Choice had a positive impact on family, students, and schools? And there's two parts to that question. And the second part of that question, and does that continuation of this practice present any potential drawbacks in the short term or for the future? I believe that School of Choice adds to our school. It invites people from the other communities to come see what we offer. And it also offers other kids from
017our community to see what other schools offer. Our school has great CTE programs where they can come learn and I know a lot of other schools don't offer that. So I'm very glad that kids from other communities can come and learn and see how we do things here in Wyandotte. I think it adds to our city rather than take away. There might be a few drawbacks. There's way more paperwork, I know that, but I just know it adds to our school. Okay. Now in recent years, both nationally and locally, fringe groups have attempted to ban books from school libraries. What role should religion play in shaping what materials are accessible to the students in the public schools? So we have a book team at Roosevelt and they decide which books go in the system and
018come out. I believe that religion should not have a factor in how we play going in the future. We cannot force our beliefs on other people. That is not what we're all about. So I believe that our book team can handle the propaganda, whatever comes through these books, the way that they've always done in the past. And I fully believe and support them. The next question is, how can we best protect our staff and students from the epidemic of gun violence? Safety is a top priority in my campaign. I'm constantly pushing and telling people I would love more security guards and especially police officers. I know we got two new school resource officers this year, which is great, but that is only two and we have way more schools than two as you know. So
019I would love to see more for our elementary and our center programs to be safer and maybe some security detection devices to detect things that are in kids' backpacks or anything like that, just to keep us safer. In today's climate, that is all we need is to keep our students safe. Now, can you highlight a program, especially since you're just coming out, a program club or staff member that you feel is a credit to the school district? That is really hard. I will say that all of our staff members, they add something to our school district. Custodians, teachers, anyone, principals, they all, even the lunch ladies, they are amazing and they all add something to our school district that is positive. I will say that I came out of the publications programs where we were
020taught how to write and how you can be a journalist and that is, I love our CTE programs, like our marketing department, our trades. Those give kids real world experience that you're not going to get from an English class and that's one of the most positive things I think we have here and I'm glad we can offer that to other communities too. Okay, now if elected to the Board of Education, what issues facing our school district today would be your most pressing concern? Safety. Without safety we won't have students. Nobody wants to go to school feeling unsafe and nobody wants to send their kids to school feeling like they may never see them again and that's just the hard truth. I would love to see more police officers in our schools protecting our kids and
021make sure that they feel safe. I would also like to advocate more mental health resources. These kids, they struggle every day and they need help and I remember last year especially that our social worker was overwhelmed with the amount of work she had because there was constantly kids in her office because people struggle and that's the way it is. It's okay not to be okay all the time and I would just love to advocate more mental health resources to doing that. Okay, and I'm going to give you a chance to look over here and say why do you want to be on the school board? I just want to be on the school board because I want to help these students and kids and staff. It's important that we show them that it's okay and
022we're going to help you. All my decisions, I want to be known that I will be contacting other resources such as teachers. I'm here to be the voice. I'm not here to govern. I'm here to ask you guys how to do things and I'm here to get your input because if I'm making decisions for you, you should have an input in this. And I think that's very good so thank you. Thank you. Hi, I am here with our school board candidates that are running in the election that's coming up next month and with me here today is Heather Zager. Thank you very much for being here and just going to ask you a few questions but before I do just kind of tell the voters out there a little bit about yourself. My name is
023Heather Zager. I have been in the Wyandotte School District with my children since they were preschool on up so my oldest graduated in 2019. She's now at Western Michigan University. My youngest, Ryan, is a junior this year at Roosevelt and been married to my husband for 17 years. Ryan, he graduated from Roosevelt as well and I myself work for the City of Wyandotte. Alright, so we're going to ask you a few questions and see what we can tell the voters a little bit more about yourself and some of your thoughts here as you're running for school board. So first question that I have is how well do you feel that the Wyandotte Public Schools responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? Well, I feel that we didn't respond as well as we possibly could have
024in regards to the virtual aspect of it. I feel when it was time to come back it was not as planned as I feel other districts did plan. So my daughter actually did come back to school face to face so she was a face to face student but I think that they really rushed into determining the WAVE program. I don't know that our WAVE program was the best result for our virtual students and I think that other districts around us had a much better program available for their online students and timing for their online students. So we weren't given a whole lot of time, A, to decide what we were selecting and what students had to go into. So it was like you're going to pick it now and you're stuck and then what they
025selected for us. So for instance, I know a good friend of mine, her students go to Southgate schools and they had an option where if their child was sick they could still attend classes online with their teachers in the schools and that's not available to us. And they also have, you know, Riverview had a much different plan and I feel like we were looking at districts like West Bloomfield for our models. Why are we looking so far away from what is around us? And I just felt like we kind of rushed and we didn't really plan as well as some of the other districts around us did. Thank you for that. Do you believe that the Wyandotte Public Schools are adequately staffed and if not, what solutions would you advocate for to bridge the gap?
026That is a tough question. I think that we have a lot of really great teachers in our district. And I think that in the next coming years we're probably going to see a lot of teachers go. I think that it's going to be difficult to replace a lot of those teachers with some of the younger teachers coming up into the new school years coming. I think that we need to build our, oh I don't, we need to build the program that has to do with our special needs kids. I think that that program needs some support that it's not receiving right now and I think that that really needs some help. We need more parapros in the district. But I think that overall we have a lot of really good teachers and staff and I
027think that they just need some more support. Both on a parental level, on a district level from our board, from everybody surrounding them. In your opinion, has School of Choice had a positive impact on families, students and schools? Does the continuation of this practice present any potential drawbacks in the short term or for the future? I'm actually really pro-School of Choice and I'm pro-School of Choice because my girls were actually able to stay within the district because of School of Choice. So we started out here as a Wyandotte family living in the district and my husband and I had to move outside of the district and my girls were able to stay here because of School of Choice. So I am very much pro-School Choice and I think that it's very beneficial to many children
028who live in districts who aren't able to get the education. And I think families come here because of the education that is provided by our teachers who are phenomenal and they care. And I think that that is a big thing for families outside of our district and in our district so I think School of Choice is needed. How can we best protect our staff and students from the epidemic of gun violence? Well, I think we've started taking some really good steps. We got the nightlocks and actually one of the candidates running against me, Jake Kahnz, he was very instrumental in getting those into the district. He took the time to do all the research to find enough of them to get them into all of our schools. So we've got the nightlocks for all of
029the doors in every school in our district because of him so we have to applaud him in that effort. I think that we have started getting, you know, we have an officer, one in Roosevelt and one at Wilson. I think that that does help. I think that there are other tools that we can utilize. I saw recently, I believe all of the teachers in our district have ID badges swipe you in and out of the classroom much like we use here at City Hall and all of our city offices. So one of the things that I've seen recently is there are other districts throughout the country that they have kind of like a touch system on their badges. And I'm not sure if our district has this or not, if it's in play where like
030one press on the badge notifies somebody that there's an incident in the office and we need some assistance. You know, two would state that there's an immediate need for, it could be, you know, like a call for 911, maybe somebody has a medical emergency. Or like, I guess it was like if you called like eight or 12 times meant we need a lockdown situation, something bad is going on in the schools and that lets the police department know that it could be a gun violence, it could be something else that was going on in the school. So I think that there are other things that we can look at and I think too that we need to, I know budgeting is a big thing, you know, officer wise, we are kind of at our budget
031for that right now. But I think we can look for other creative ways and maybe getting some sort of grants to help us get those budgetings. So if elected the school board, what issue facing our school districts today would be your most pressing concern? Well, I think we need to look at safety. I think that is a big thing and I think that we also need to look at social emotional health of all of our students and our staff because I think that's important for everybody. I think that the social emotional wealth and well-being of everybody plays a big part in everybody's day. And I think that if we're not, you know, mentally focused that it makes it very difficult. I think that we have to get back to educating our students on, you know,
032our ABCs and 123s, but we also need to focus on making sure that, you know, they are happy and healthy. But as you know, we have all sorts of obligations as parents and teachers and educators. And I think that as a community and as school board members and as educators, we all can come together and work together and make us work. All right. We'd like to thank Heather for coming out here for us today to answer some of these questions. Good luck in the upcoming election. Again, thank you for being here. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All right. We are here with Kelly Weber, who is running for the Wyandotte School Board. Kelly, thank you for being with us today. Thank you very much. Could you please tell us a little the voters
033a little bit about yourself? Sure. Absolutely. My name is Kelly Weber. I am a proud resident of Wyandotte. I am also a proud parent of a Wyandotte student in Wilson Middle School. I've lived in the city for 15 years, but prior to that, I was actually a student myself up until seventh grade. So the school district holds very, very dear to me. So when the opportunity arose for me to actually take over a two year seat back in February of this year, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. So I'm humbled. I'm grateful. And I'm looking forward to the next four years of the campaign. All right. So go ahead and ask you a few questions and let the voters know a little bit more about how you feel about some of these issues. So how
034well do you feel the Wyandotte Public Schools responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? So I think every district had an issue with this. This is very unprecedented time. So this is not something we've ever been through before. I can say that I've heard some things during the when everybody went to wave during that time frame. Certain districts were not up and running as fast as we were. We were very fortunate to be able to kind of almost unfortunately scramble because that's unfortunately what we had to do at the time because we obviously you don't know where to go from there. But, you know, I think that there were things that were handled wonderfully and I think that there's things that we can learn from as well. So, you know, I think as we move
035forward, we're still kind of in the throes of the pandemic. But I think as we move on and as we hear, you know, comments from parents, even some folks in the city that maybe don't have kids in the district, but are aware of what's going on with the pandemic. I think that, you know, all that input helps us to learn and grow from maybe what we did right and maybe what we did wrong. Thank you. So do you believe that the Wyandotte Public Schools are adequately staffed? If not, what solutions would you advocate for to bridge the gap? I believe at this time we are very, very well staffed. We have the least amount of openings out of any of the districts in the area. We are a desirable district. So, you know, I see
036how much the educators love being here. I see it firsthand through my son and, you know, the way that they handle their students, the way that they're handling curriculum. I think a lot of folks want to stay here because of what we offer and, you know, the wonderful things that we do. You know, I would say that obviously there are some opportunities for us to grow and be more of a desirable district than some of the other districts in the area. So I'm looking forward to really diving in now that I've had got my feet wet a little bit here on the board for the last eight months almost. And, you know, looking to always, you know, adapt and grow and, you know, make us just the best district that we can be. In your
037opinion, has School of Choice had a positive impact on families, students and schools? Does the continuation of this practice present any potential drawbacks in the short term or for the future? I don't believe so. I don't believe so. I think when we have, you know, with districts that have the opportunity for School of Choice, you know, it allows kids that maybe are maybe not getting what they need from another district to come here. We have so much to offer and I think it would be maybe even foolish for us to maybe scale that back. I think we need to I think we're on a good path. I think we need to keep that open, you know, maybe even have a little bit more opening in the future, you know, because that also gives us growth
038for our educators as well. We can bring more in. We can do different programs. So as we grow and adapt, we want to obviously broaden that as well. So, you know, kids from other districts can come in, experience some of the things that we have to offer here that maybe aren't elsewhere. How do you think we can best protect our staff and students from the epidemic of gun violence? I think, you know, just with everything that happened with Oxford last year, which was an incredible tragedy. You know, I saw the opportunity and growth that that we could do with the Alice drills and also with the addition of the resource officers at Wilson and at the high school. I'm hearing some really great and positive things about that. They're already getting acclimated with the students.
039You know, again, with the Alice drills, I think that now, you know, we're doing these regularly. So, you know, I feel confident sending my own child to school every day. You know, could there be more that we could do? Sure. But I think right now where we're at, I think we're handling things in an appropriate way. OK, can you highlight a program club or staff member that you feel is a credit to the school district? You know, I will say that they're I mean, all of our clubs are great. You know, we've got some really wonderful educators. It's hard for me to pinpoint one of them because my son has experienced a lot of wonderful, wonderful educators over the years. So I think maybe just holistically and all encompassing, we have such a wonderful staff
040and all of them have wonderful things that they contribute in many different ways. So I can't pinpoint it because I feel so strongly about everybody that's here and educating our students. And, you know, that's that's that's how I feel. OK, in recent years, both nationally and locally, there have been different groups that have attempted to ban books from school libraries. What role do you think, if any, that religion plays in shaping what materials are accessible to students in public schools? You know, I do I do understand everyone's religious backgrounds. You know, we we as a as a group there on the board, we do have a committee that does review these when they're brought to us. So we're looking out for the best interests of not only the students, but the parents involved. So it
041does play a role, but obviously it goes through a process that we have to do. And, you know, we can't we can't ban every book. We'd love to to to obviously make everybody feel better. But, you know, the process involved in reviewing those and, you know, making sure that we're not putting students in a situation where it's promoting something versus educating. So that's where we're where the divide lies. And I think we do a pretty good job in making sure that we're not exposing our children to something that is just not OK all the way around. So if elected to the Board of Education, what issue facing our school district today would be your most pressing concern? Transparency. You know, a lot of we have a lot of parents come to our meetings, which is
042great. We want more of that. We want more exposure with our parents. You know, we want to make sure that when a problem arises, we're tackling it head on because, you know, children are I mean, they are our first priority. Education first, obviously, but safety is is is always in the forefront here. So, you know, I just I really truly believe that, you know, we we are we're doing what we can and we can only go up from here. All right. We'd like to thank Kelly Weber for coming out today and answering a few questions. Good luck in the upcoming elections and we'll take it from there. And we are back. And with me, I have Cindy Kinney. Cindy, thank you for being here. Would you like to tell the voters a little bit about
043yourself? Well, my name is Cindy Kinney and I'm finishing out my second term on the Wyandotte Public School Board currently serving as board president. And I am born and raised in Wyandotte. I graduated from Roosevelt. My son graduated from Roosevelt. And I try to be as active in the community as much as I can be. And I decided after being in anything and everything my son was in and on the hockey board and everything else that he did and very active at McKinley School, I decided I want and when he graduated and my stint with marching band was over, I decided to raise my level of involvement and run for the school board. And here I am. All right. So I have a series of questions for you and to share a little bit more
044about your thoughts and feelings with the voters. So the first question is, how well do you feel the Wyandotte Public Schools responded and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic? I think we responded quite well in most ways because there's always learnings from that event as I learned in a book because I'm a nurse and I've worked at all. So I believe we made the right decisions in mask wearing to protect all. That's not about one person. It's about the all. I believe we fell short and as most across the country did with the mental health aspect and we didn't know what was going on. And then we had those discussions at work about kids we weren't seeing we should be seeing. And so I'm very well aware of that, but we aren't the only ones. So
045next time maybe we can do better. But if there is a next time, let's hope there's not. But I think that's the only shortcoming I could really see and maybe the little extra help that people didn't get that they needed. Do you believe that the Wyandotte Public Schools are adequately staffed? And if not, what solutions would you advocate for to bridge the gap? I'm involved on the classroom committee and I think that's so important. I'm all about twenty seven, twenty five from K through five. I'm just an advocate about that and we've been able to do that. And we have one that might be a little over this year, but then we had to have to edit parapro eight hours, not just half the day. They have to be you have to have hands on,
046especially at that age. In your opinion, has School of Choice had a positive impact on family, students and schools? And does the continuation of this practice present any potential drawbacks in the short term or the future? The only drawback that I can see from it because it is here to stay and we are not just are they from our school? It's a community school, so just got to let that go. So is that if we get too many and our class size is going to go up and that's my fear. That's the only thing I worry about with it. In recent years, both on national levels and local levels, there have been different groups that have attempted to ban books from school libraries. What role, if any, do you think religion plays in shaping what
047materials are accessible to students in public schools? We have freedom of the press, freedom of religion. You should be able to read anything that you need to read. And maybe there is an age group like there is with movies that we should have parental permission, just like you have to do going to the show. It should be that kind of thing. How do you think we can best protect our staff and students from the epidemic of gun violence? I think we've made great strides since Parkland and since Oxford, particularly since Oxford. We now have two officers, one at Wilson, one at Roosevelt, and I truly, and we put all the locks on the doors, the special locks. We've done, we've got cameras everywhere. I think we're better than any district in our round that touches
048our borders, let's put it that way. And I think that we can expand on it, maybe a dog at each school or one to go back and forth. That's what I would like to see. Can you highlight a program, club, or staff member that you feel is a credit to the school district? Okay, I have to say, although I'd love to follow in the geo addicts all summer. I just was so thrilled with that. The robotics, because I would see, would like to see the robotics become a class. It's career technical education. It's under that funding. And I think that's where we need to go with that, because that will take them so much further and add on to our education. So last question, if elected to the Board of Education, what issue facing our
049schools today would be your most pressing concern? The social aspect. That's a big deal, not just social media, the whole social aspect, how people feel about themselves and acceptance. If we can get the kids to accept each other like we all should accept each other, we'll be doing okay. Well, thank you very much, Cindy, for being here. Good luck on the election next month, and we'll take it from there. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. This concludes all of our candidates on our Meet the Candidates Forum. I would like to thank all the candidates that showed up today. We'd also like to make it known that we sent information out to all the people running for school board. Frank Tarnowski said he would not attend due to COVID and didn't submit a statement. Carolyn
050Martinez said she could not attend due to COVID, but she did submit a statement. I will read her statement. Hi, Wyandotte friends and family. I had every intention of participating in the candidate forum today, but I'm unable to as I'm currently recovering from COVID. So instead, here's a little information about me and why I'm running for school board. First of all, I was born and raised in the city of Wyandotte, attended Wyandotte schools from elementary through high school, and graduated from the University of Detroit Mercy with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering. I'm married to my high school sweetheart, and we have three daughters currently attending Wyandotte schools. A few years ago, after speaking at multiple school board meetings about the health and safety of our students and staff, I felt the drive to do
051more, to be part of the solution, and that is why I'm running for school board this year. These are just a few of the things that I'm passionate about. One, social emotional learning. The Wyandotte school system has made great strides in this area, and I want to make sure that the schools continue to have the resources they need for our students to not only succeed academically, but mentally and socially as well. Equity and inclusion. I would like to see programming that educates staff, students, and families about diversity, equity, and inclusion. All students should feel that they belong and have access to the resources that they need to establish an equitable education. Listening to our experts. Our amazing teachers and staff are the experts when it comes to evaluating the needs of our students. I will
052make sure to listen and represent them. Developing a strategic plan to ensure that all are working toward common goals within a long-term plan. I look forward to hearing from you and representing you on the Wyandotte School Board. If you'd like to reach out with any questions, concerns, or ideas, I can be reached through my Facebook page, Carolyn Martinez for Wyandotte School Board. Take care and have a great day. Thank you, Carolyn Martinez. Remember that you will also be receiving your absentee balance in the mail. And remember to please vote on November the 8th. Thank you.