001all line Weber okay I'll try to do it right and finally Mr David Randleman they're going to give their opening statements in that order the order that they appear on the ballot and then the closing statements and reverse order starting with Mr Randleman now the league believes that one of the best ways for voters to learn about people who want to be your elected officials is not just to pass the yard signs not just to look at Facebook pages but to hear candidates answer your questions that they did not get ahead of time face to face this in a civil public forum having been in several uncivil public forums lately I highly prefer this method it's been a tough time for schools and communities and there's been a huge focus on schools and school boards
002so this is really important some people say we're so politically divided and we're divided about what parents rights are and what our schools are doing and everything else that we can't have a civil conversation but I know that you came tonight because you care about Lindbergh schools that's why you're here and you want to find out as much as you can before you decide who's going to represent you and I hope that the following league rules will help us to get that done so the candidates will have two minutes for an opening statement they're going to have one minute to answer every question and even if a question is directed first to one person I've rephrased it so that everybody has a chance to answer it and we'll sort of change up who goes first
003second third fourth so the same person doesn't go first all the time and finally they're going to have two minutes for a closing statement now here's your job and you've already done a great deal I we got over a hundred questions online okay and I went through them but we've also gotten at least two questions that weren't in those questions tonight so these are your questions these are not my questions these are not the school district's questions these are not the lead questions they're your questions so if you think about something as you hear people talk and you will please write one question on each card and when you're done raise your hand so that one of the league volunteers can come and get that question fair enough and if you think of more than
004one and you want another card raise your hand again and we will provide that for you now I want you to wait to hold your applause no matter how great somebody is okay till the end if you can do that because my goal is to get as many questions out there and answered as I can get The Time Keeper is Ms Rebecca now she is a tough no-nonsense woman she's going to show our candidates a 30-second paddle and then a stop paddle and I'm pretty good at cutting people off so watch yourselves uh because we're going to be watching you so I as your moderator have had the privilege of combining some of your questions that are very similar and making sure that each candidate has an equal opportunity to answer them we determine which
005of your questions we're asking and my goal was to cover as many different issues and to reflect the sort of volume of your questions so if I got 20 questions on the same thing that meant it was really important to me and to ask it so that's my prerogative and finally feel free to to record this in any way you want to this is a public forum this is your forum and we go ahead and record so with that said we're going to start our opening questions and we're going to start with you Mr Alonso two minutes Kathleen thank you and thank you to the league for having us here tonight to express our opinions and concerns about the Lindbergh School Board my name is Matt Alonso I am currently a sitting School Board member
006I was elected in 2017 for my first term my wife and I have lived in the district for 20 years my wife Tracy and we have three children Amelia Marissa and Fisher our oldest Amelia is a senior at Lindbergh High School our middle child Marissa she is a sophomore at Lindbergh High School and then our son Fisher is in fifth grade at dressel elementary by profession I am an educator I teach math and computer science in the Parkway School District at Parkway North High School I am a very proud educator I believe that high quality teachers are what make a district successful I Believe In The Districts The I'm sorry I believe in the teachers in the Lindbergh School District and I'm proudly supported by them in this campaign some would probably say that maybe
007I have a a conflict of interest being a teacher and being on the school board and I would I would highly disagree with that I feel like I bring a perspective to the board which allows me to consider teacher needs and consider student needs since education is my life education is my passion has been for the last 20 years and always will remain to be that way I am very proud to sit up here today as an incumbent candidate for the Lindbergh school board and I look forward to sharing more about myself tonight thank you thank you Ms Watts thank you Kathleen and thank you to everyone attending I really appreciate it um I am Christy watts and I want to let you know first off I'm a supporter of Public Schools teachers and all
008students I've been a member or a resident for over 20 years I have three daughters who one who has just recently graduated Lemberg one who's a junior and one who is a um what grade is she in she's in seventh grade there we go now I got all the Wiggles out so I have three three daughters here and I'm very proud of them and I'm also proud of our school district to wrap around how I ended up here is through volunteerism when my oldest artist started at Kennerly I was the PTO mom I became the PTO president I think my first position was party planner if we still have that so that's where I ended up and then I landed at sparing where I was the PTO president there and then decided to run for
009the Board of Education as with Matt I was elected in 2017 I've been very proud of our work with the hiring of Dr lake with obviously our new high school looking at our facilities the new entryways that we have created and built for our elementary schools and for all schools actually to keep us a bit safer and then also when Matt and I were elected there was a little bit of a disturbance between our Administration and our teachers and I would like to say I feel like we've not I have not instrumentally but I have helped to bridge that Gap a little bit and I think we have very good relations with our teachers so as for what I do on a day-to-day basis I have 30 seconds left I have a background in human
010resources from the corporate world and then I also currently practice as a career coach with my own business and I help people navigate the job world and so I want to finish with I am here because I want to do what's best for students teachers and staff and I would appreciate your vote on Tuesday April 4th and I'm number two on the ballot thank you thank you Mr Lawson hi everybody I'm Andrew Lawson and I'll Echo the thanks that both the previous speakers have given to all of you and to the league for having us tonight um I am a my wife and I Megan my wife Megan and I excuse me are St Louis natives we have three wonderful children in the in the district I have Charlotte as if in fifth grade at
011Concord Genevieve is a kindergartner at Concord and then my youngest Lex he's three and he's over in ECE West giving them a run for their money um I am a U.S army veteran I graduated from Festus back in early 2000s and went straight into the military because I was done doing homework and I joined the military in 2001 and was there when the towers fell so I joined for an education and caught Wars instead I did three tours to Iraq and one to Afghanistan um and I spent 10 years in the service serving with a great group of folks um the the people that I met there from all different backgrounds all different experiences um all all combined together to maximize each other's strengths it really has formed who I am today one of my
012big pieces is ensuring that everybody has a place everybody has uh everybody belongs and everybody has strengths that can be used to better everybody um and the job of of anyone who is building a team is to play to the strengths of the people on that team I am a small business owner I also am a technology leader I work at Ameren and I lead a team that does 24x7 it monitoring and I'm getting the sign here pretty soon um I am also a the chairman of the young Friends board for United for children which is a charity in St Louis that focuses on providing resources to Early Childhood care providers I am proudly endorsed by the lnea leap and lead and moeb so again I appreciate your time and I would appreciate your vote
013on April 4th I'm number three on the ballot Mr leinberger weapons I apologize I'm new to this uh thanks Dr Lake the district ladies one uh women League of Voters I'm Paul I moved here 28 years ago I've been in the Lindbergh district for 28 years I'm a 15-year father in the Lindbergh schools I have one graduate he's graduated in 2013. I have one daughter she is currently in first grade at Concord raising heck with the teachers with that um having said that in my in in my first experience with Lindbergh it was quite different these are different worlds uh and that's part of the reason why I'm running um in in that era we focused very stringently on teaching to the test Concepts and and the likes now it's different today in that 15
014years let me get to my my volunteerism real fast um five years flag football three seasons of baseball at Afton ballparks down there uh two seasons of junior junior flyer football tackle football teams of 40 kids um did that for two years I was an intern League administrator for one year and I sat on the board for one year um I moved here for academic Excellence I think that when you talk to most of the people everybody says I moved here for the schools I moved here for the schools I moved here for the schools well you know what we moved here for the schools and those schools were based on teaching to the test so we have to decide whether or not we want that same academic Excellence that we had in the past
015today and whether or not teaching to the test is more important less important or some very variance in the middle to growth and that's why I'm running thank you and I guess I'm not going to wait for her to put up my red sign so and I'm sorry that I Mis said your name because I have a very good friend named with that name that I said so I was thinking about it fondly you can call me whatever you want as long as you vote for me okay finally Mr Randall Randleman hi so uh and for everyone who's here today and the League of Women Voters I appreciate you uh so I ran last year as well as some of you might recall but I'll still go over a little of the background my wife
016here Maki is is with us a lot of people know uh me as marky's husband and not the other way around but uh we immigrated here from Israel and we have four uh kids we chose Lindbergh schools uh because they're uh they they have the the best academics plain and simple and they have a great ell program as well and our kids started with no English and ended up uh doing great my oldest graduated last year and I'm very proud of them I want to give something back to the district I want to give something put my time into it and that's why I'm running again I do believe we need to continue focusing on academics I think that's what the community wants and I think we also need to give more support to our
017teachers I think they need more tools to deal with changing circumstances and situations and and what the students need I've been endorsed by four more former board members Mike tischless and Kara Horton and also by Lindbergh leaders in literacy and uh yeah I I would like to ask please uh consider voting for me uh April 4th uh we were five points short last year so every vote counts thank you thank you very much and we're going to start with the first question and we're going to start with you Ms Watts so the first question has to do with your commitment to the district and your commitment to public education so people have written questions like um are all have all of your children been enrolled in the schools and I think you touched on that
018if not why not do you believe in school choice do you believe in using public money for charter schools and private schools okay they're interested in what your position is on public education so if you want to start this is a lot to wrap around there so um I am definitely a supportive public education I think we have excellent public schools in St Louis and the reason I say that is because as a career coach and relocation coach I talk to people across the United States that have to go through application processes takes them a month and a half to enroll a student and then within a family one child may go to one school district and one to the other because they weren't chosen um I hope the Open Enrollment will come back later
019but I am not a fan of that and I'm not a fan of charter schools because they can close at any time it's a business and there's no accreditation tied to the state of Missouri and if you don't believe me you're more than welcome to look at the State of Arizona which is filled with Charter Schools they've actually recently just decided to stop accepting them it's not doing well there so let's look at other examples thank you thank you Mr Lawson what about you absolutely um turn my microphone on absolutely uh I'm a big fan of public education I grew up my mom was an art teacher at Sunrise down in as part of the DeSoto District so I've been around education all my life and um I think our public education system is one
020of the greatest benefits that every child in this country has the access to a public education I've been to countries where education was curtailed I've seen what it looks like when little girls aren't allowed to read books and it's not a place you want to be it's not a place I want my country to be so firmly believe in in public money for public schools right that's where it belongs it absolutely if our tax dollars are going to fund it then they need to accept everybody they should not have the right to to turn anyone away um and for us again this was a destination district for for my family we came here because of the the academics we came here because of the school we've seen what it's like when the district doesn't meet
021the needs of our children and Lindbergh has turned that around and I've I'm seeing both my or all of my children flourish so thank you Mr leinweber I'm a firm believer in public education and I think that public money should go to the public schools however I would also say that if the public schools aren't getting their job done then parents should have some voice in where their kids get educated now I would agree with some comments down the line about um about accredited teachers you certainly need to have accredited teachers so whatever form that takes I'm not for sure but at the end of the day when my son went here we had 70 to 80 percent advanced math or sorry proficient math students 70 to 80 today we're at 48. so at some
022point a parent should be able to say where can I take my kids okay that's all I'm getting at and and if if vouchers or whatever it is you want to talk about in terms of money makes schools become competitive then that's what we need to do thanks okay thank you very much Mr randallman yes so uh I think everyone here is running because we deeply care about public education and we certainly want to support Lindbergh schools I'm a product of public education as well although in Israel not here uh and I've seen what it's done for my kids as for Charter Schools I don't think that they have room here in our district it's not right for our district and we need to continue and support our school district so that it's a welcoming
023place to all and and continues to be leading in its field thank you Mr Alonso yes I am a believer in public education I work in public education I send all three of my kids to Limburg schools uh very proudly and that is one of the reasons why my wife and I moved into the district was because of the school system as far as school choice is concerned I don't believe that really gets to the heart of why a parent would want to send their kid to a different school it does not fix the problem it really only affixes it for a few percentage of students it's like three percent of students would be able to transfer to a school and so I am in the business of what's good for all children not just
024the select few of children and so those are the those are the way I inform my decisions is what is good for all students concerned not just a small group of students thank you thank you gonna start with you this time Mr Lawson and let me just say that these are the specifics that several audience members wrote the statistics in this question since nwea shows that proficiency rates are 50 percent in Lindbergh schools and about 20 points lower than Kirkwood schools what is the plan in helping individual students if their nwea reading RIT score drops year after year what about our literacy program has it failed you can answer that in a minute okay yes in one minute so our literacy program has undergone a lot of focus and a lot of attention and it
025is still in its pilot phase as I understand it we are we are very careful as a district to make data-based decisions so I I appreciate the time and effort that the district and the administration are putting in to studying the tools that they're using and trying them and validating that they're delivering the results that they want change takes time change is is difficult and it can be challenging and it requires you to have a steady hand and to lead your way through and I think the Administration has done an admirable job of this there's still work to be done and I think we still need to focus on making sure that we're meeting the needs of each student and those needs are different no one tool is going to work for 100 of the
026students and so I think we need to find the right mix of tools that work for every student so that we can make each student their best self thank you Mr line Weber good job thank you um what a school could be it's being reviewed by committee members and the board and the real answer to the question is that we need to start being creative about how we teach our kids I think if you did simple things like add a teacher between first or second and third grade and a teacher between fourth and fifth grade and call it a twitcher a tweacher who would handle those kids who are struggling on the top end combine them with the kids that are excelling on the bottom end so that you don't lose those bottom end or
027bottom ends and top-end students okay that's creative that's Innovative all right that's an idea now as far as Northwest goes the advantages it allows you to check three times a year how a student's doing but when a parent doesn't get the report that's taken in December 12th until conferences in March we have to fix some things not saying it's bad I'm saying we have to fix some things thank you okay thank you Mr randallman yeah so I think uh first of all we need to move back to evidence-based uh curriculum selection uh for example in in literacy we have to go to uh phonics in math we removed math intervention in recent years I think it's we have to bring it back we can see that a lot of our students are struggling I've spoken
028to many teachers in our district and they're all reporting the same thing they need more supporting staff to help either with interventions or with uh Behavior situations in the class and so I think we need to give that support to to our teachers we need to take a good honest look at what we're teaching and and make sure that it's evidence-based thank you okay thank you very much Mr Alonso uh yes so um just released this week the new APR score under msip6 Limburg was rated at 87.6 percent which is actually just a few points lower than Kirkwood so um I know the original question said that we were 20 points lower than Kirkwood in um in nwea and the thing that we need to remember is that that is an ongoing metric in which
029we are measuring students growth throughout the entire year and so I'm very confident in the changes that we are putting forth with our literacy literacy program we have done many evidence-based instruction investigations and we are ready to implement those in the next school year Watts super excited for this question um first I had somebody recommend a podcast called sold a story which is fabulous about the history of reading and so I listened to that on my plane ride it's fantastic you guys listen to it if you're interested um with the NWA and I think the questions asking what are we going to do moving forward what I really like about the nwea is we're measuring those kids three times a year not one time a year it's not about taking a test it's about measuring
030their growth and so if you think about the fact that we measured in the fall and then we measure in the winter and if one of the students isn't doing well and let's say their times tables for fives then we can start to work with them for the rest of that time period till they get their fives it's called mastering it so it's allowing us to measure what the students need and then begin to master what that is now the other neat piece about this is not only are we going to know that in first grade but when they move to second grade we're going to know what they did in first grade and we can bridge that Gap from first to second time's up thank you thank you very much um everybody's gotten a
031chance to answer that and we're going to start with Mr Lawson for the next question and this is another question about people perceive that at first last time oh okay I'm sorry Mr Lawson go ahead I went first last time oh okay okay Mr lime Weber you are first this time thank you for keeping me straight it's a necessary job okay Mr line Weber here's another question about what people perceive as dropping ratings in this District for many years Lindbergh had been a top school and was even number one as recently as 2014 but has dropped to number 36 that's according to school diggers this question says while Missouri school ranking.org ranks Lindbergh at number 203 out of 516 and public schoolreview.com has Lindbergh ranked at 110 out of 557. why are we declining and
032how can we bring our district back to the top I hope this one's a little easier for me um to start with the you have to be careful when you look these these ratings up if you go to places like greatschools.com what you're going to find is greatschools.com has an affiliation with Zillow if you go to um uh whatever other organizations are out there you're going to find they are either non-profit or they are for-profit and have ties with people for profit I always go by the state stats the high school is rated significantly higher than the rest of our our other schools the reason why is because these kids were educated using teach to the test like it or not that's why that's why our high schoolers were the ones that won those awards
033that just came down off of the walls of our great elementary schools they need to be put up on the walls of the high schools because those kids earned them that's why we're dropping and we are dropping wait till our eighth graders get to be seniors I promise you you're going to see more drops much Mr randallman yeah so obviously it's a difficult question to answer in 60 seconds and there's uh more than one reason but if I had to condense it I would say there was a shift in strategy in general about where the school was going we have our five-year strategic plan where they surveyed the community and and created committees and that was the decision to to move forward so instead of having the academic focus and the rigor we we moved
034to teaching to the whole student and this is part of that result and I think we've also we could do better in choosing the curriculum and I won't repeat that again but I I I guess that's the the primary reason as far as I'm concerned thank you Mr Alonso yeah so um I I do agree that uh Limburg did make a shift uh to move away from teaching to the tests and teaching to the whole student and actually agree with that decision um when you look at tests that um were really matter to students uh tests like act tests that is where students are getting their scholarships where they're getting uh entrants into colleges when we look at the State Testing it's really more of an accountability centered test rather than a student-centered test and
035so that is the direction that we're headed with msep 6 and Lindbergh is a part of the success ready Network in Missouri it's a network of districts across the state who are trying to redefine how we test students and how we measure success in our students and so I'm very proud that Limburg is a part of that Ms Watts um a combination of things there is so much here to Apple but I think you do hook guide the reliability of the questionnaire like what are those questions um I was just in a meeting today and there was a shift in the questions and so all school districts in the St Louis area have fallen but if you would take that same information and look out last year the very same test they would have been
036scoring 95 and above so things are shifting things are changing different rankings are changing they're putting different denominators in there so I think you have to really look at that I'm again super excited up for our journey forward and leaving that information behind and moving forward and just really focusing on the growth for our students and for all students we have great graduation grades rates we have excellent number of students that do something after college and or after high school and so I think that's fabulous I think those are the two measures you really you want to look at okay thank you very much Mr Lawson yeah absolutely so um when you look at at the ratings on these these different organizations that have their own agenda um you're going to get a skewed story
037that supports their agenda um to Paul's point when you look at the state and you see where the state where we where we're measured by the same yardstick that every other school in the state is measured um you get a more clearer picture but when you look across the board Lindbergh is outperforming the state in all of these places and the state has even acknowledged that there's work that needs to be done on their metric which is why they have the system design ready system right that's that's why they're looking for how can we do this better because even the state has acknowledged that they need a better measure so I think holding us accountable to a measure that everyone has agreed is no longer effective seems backwards thinking so I I support the efforts
038that we're making to teach to the whole student to consider that these children are more than just a single number they're more than just a one test in one day they are a whole student and they deserve a whole education thank you thank you Mr Randleman we're going to start with you first this time and two or three people asked what are your thoughts on the pilot implementation of Standards based grading at Lindbergh High School and the current translation scale from standard base grading to letter grades is the translation scale Fair does this implementation improve Lindbergh students College acceptance eligibility and competition with students from other Missouri schools that do not use it thank you well before it was called standard base grading it was grading for equity and the problem with Equity is equity
039is supposed to be without partiality and this is exactly the opposite of that we are grading based on all sorts of other factors and I think that that's not a healthy thing I think we need to grade every one objectively but at the same time we want to support and give every student the opportunity that they can get to the maximum potential that they have but I really disagree with with this move that we're doing I think it's it's wrong and yeah that's it Mr Alonso so I actually do agree with um standard space grading and I think there's a misconception that when you go to standard space grading you are doing away with like your reading writing and arithmetic and drill and kill um part of the part of the issue is is that
040so I teach high school math and there is an app that students can get on their phone where they can take a picture of a math problem and it will solve it for them and so technology exists out there we have chat GPT which is an AI intelligence that will basically write a paper for a student too so with standards-based grading we are now able to assess our students on their knowledge and their skill as opposed to do you know how to drill and kill a problem and I agree that students do need to know how to solve a math problem but the understanding behind why they're solving the math problem I feel is more important thank you I saw the students smile when you talked about this app so clearly they know about it
041yeah Ms Watts uh so standards-based grading for the high school in Pilot pilot means we're trying it we're having discussions about it um I am not sure that I'm in favor of it because colleges haven't quite aligned College official ABC with gpas so I need to do more learning more studying I need more information before I could make a decision on it I'm not sure I'm quite there yet I can tell you I saw success in elementary school because my daughter the one who's in seventh grade could care less when she was in elementary school and when the report card came home and it said you need to master your five times tables she got that it clicked for her because that's how her brain works and then all of a sudden she went down
042and checked checked every box that she needed to to master and we were getting straight A's and that's working for all her also in middle school but I will be honest I'm not sure about high school yet okay Mr Lawson yeah I think I I'm in support of standards-based grading I think it is it is a better option to meet the needs of every student um if you say the only way to prove that you know a thing is to to answer one question just the same way that I would answer that question that's just proving that you know how to answer a question like me that doesn't necessarily prove that you know how to answer that question so I think standards-based grading lets you consider that student lets you consider their strengths in the
043way that they have learned a thing and give them the opportunity to show you that they have that competency they have learned that skill they have mastered that skill in a way that works for them so I absolutely support it to Christy's point when you put it into the high school it is important that it extends to the college so I'm I'm happy that we're piloting it there and we're looking at that we need to make sure that that doesn't doesn't delay our students in their Futures when they go into the college space but I don't think we throw it out just because it's different and scary I think we absolutely need to look at it and we need to make a database decision Mr line Weber how about you can you see the steam
044coming out of my head yet um my daughter I don't like the user by name went into the first grade at the 93rd percentile she knew basically all of the first she was first grade competent going into first grade she actually grew according to the NWA scores and the likes she grew 10 growth measurements and and not giving percentiles helps kids who want hope that does help kids that want hope but it doesn't help the kids that need challenge okay that's the only issue that I have with standard based grading if you don't say hey Joey you're in the bottom percentile you don't have to hurt their feelings right you can say hey you need to work on this or you are acceptable that's my only concern with standard based grading my daughter who went
045in at the 93rd percentile on December 12th she was scored in the NWA system in the middle she scored at the 85th percentile that's and she grew how do you score in the 85th after the time is up Mr Alonso we're going to start with you this time and instead of holding you all accountable we're going to talk about holding the Special School District accountable so there were a number of questions about this how can we keep the Special School District accountable for giving our students the services they need what do we do to make sure that they um give students who are endangered to themselves and to others what they need uh one question talked about administrative hearing commissions which deals with disputes so what about the Special School District okay thank you yes
046so um working in a school I'm very I work very closely with SSD employees and I will tell you they have one of the hardest jobs in a district they the paperwork that they do the amount of work that they do for students is unbelievable and the number of kids that they have on their workload is unbelievable as well um I do feel like we do a pretty good job of holding our SSD teachers accountable for for their job and unfortunately there are times where Things fall through the cracks and you know I I think the best thing for us to do is uh to support those teachers in any way that we can um and and make sure that they have the tools necessary to do their job effectively um and instead of going
047after them for not doing their job um what would it look like for us to work with them as a partner instead of a gotcha mentality thank you Ms Watts um so I've I've saw a couple of strides um with SSD and for the first time ever this year one of our board meetings their director presented to us and talked to us about their programs and things that they're doing and things they're changing and how their focused what their focus is and so being the first time I felt like that was a step in the right direction I know that some of our administrators are partnering more closely with SSD administrators to give them feedback and help them along and and with critiques and so I like those things that I'm seeing I would like
048us to continue to partnership with SSD maybe a little heavier so that they understand what how what's happening in our schools and so we can fix some of these things um I learned that some of it and I SSD teachers are amazing they really are I've met several of them but I've learned that if a student has some behavior issues then they're put in a different category and so they can't learn and so that really bothers me so as a board member I'm speaking out for that for that to change thank you Mr Lawson so um we use Special School District Services I have I have IEPs for my children and we've had an amazing experience here I also came from a district I mentioned a couple times that Lindbergh was a destination district for
049us those same children were underserved dramatically it's the it is the single reason that we moved from where we were to where we are we bought a house because they weren't getting the services they needed so um I will say this for for the special school districts here they're going far and above Beyond where I came from does that mean they're perfect no absolutely not I think we do need to partner with them that's a great word that that both of these guys just use we need to partner with them we need to have that Guiding Light of what is best for the student that looks different for each child so finding what tools are available what resources are available what interventions are available and applying those when they need to be applied correctly is
050the only way that we're going to move forward and give everybody the opportunity to succeed okay thank you Mr leinweber I have to be honest this is a new area for me I'm doing my best to learn about this I'm engaging with people online and I'm engaging with parents who have kids in these programs so this is new to me I will tell you this the people that I have met probably three parents so far with exception to Andrew um along with him they are very happy people I've engaged with online who have sent me males are not necessarily so I don't know exactly why that is and again this is a new area to me I come from an area on the upper Realm of the spectrum when it comes to students and so
051I have to learn that's part of this process I've been here for 12 years so I got another 10 to go so hopefully I can learn a lot before these kids are all gone thanks thank you Mr randallman yeah so first of all in my opinion the SSD teachers are absolutely Heroes and I've had the privilege of speaking to some of them and hear about their pain points I think there's been a growth of IEPs and and students who need support from SSD and I I don't think we've been growing the amount of teachers available to support those needs and so they're they're struggling they really are I know that the Administration has tried to improve coordination with the SSD District by getting a coordinator here and that sits in this building to try to
052help facilitate Communications and faster response but we need the bottom line is they we need more staff there to support our students thank you okay thank you we're going we're going to start with you this time Miss watts and let's talk about a different group of students several people asked about the gifted program are we meeting the needs of our gifted students why or why not what else should we do so I had two of my students who were gifted and I feel like they had an exceptional education um my they were both just talking over the weekend about space camp and how awesome it was and the critical thinking that they learned um and how that critical thinking really is valuable now that one's in college and one's a junior in high school I
053think our pegs and gifted teachers are amazing I love their Innovation they're having a new we've got a whole building now so the pegs can move there it's called The Idea Center which can't wait to get in there and see it and I Envision robots and I Envision little things running around on the floor and super excited for that so um I'm a fan I'm a fan so love it okay thank you very much Mr Lawson uh yeah I'm I'm proud to say that we also consume the gifted education side my daughter Charlotte is actually going to be the leap Student of the Year recognize that tomorrow's board meeting I'm super excited for her she has had an amazing time at leap she is an exceptional student and exceptional students have exceptional needs sometimes and
054uh it's nice that the district has our leap teachers and they also have the pegs Center that understand that special needs space because it's different than you might think just because somebody is academically gifted doesn't mean that they don't need attention that they don't need engagement or interaction sometimes they need it more and these teachers do an amazing job of meeting the children where they are playing to their strengths and giving them the tools that they need to be their best self and I'm absolutely absolutely astounded with the quality of our gifted education program at Lindbergh thank you Mr leinweber so as far as the gift the program goes my daughter is also in a gifted program and that that kind of goes to what I was trying to describe earlier hard to do it
055in a minute she came in to the first grade at the 93rd percentile uh dropped to the 85th percentile the gifted program has nothing to do with that but my point is that we need to our gift of program is great okay by the way but we need to be catching I think that these I think are leap kids are at risk they're at risk because they're in the top fifth percentile because they are once gifted either on the English side or on the critical thinking side what happens is when they're back in the normal classroom they Excel and what happens is the curriculum as all of the presentations that have been given to all the parents say the course goes at the same speed we'll give them a ladder up there wasn't a ladder
056up for that student so that we have work that we need to do and I think that those leap kids are at risk and we should be doing a study to see whether or not the top five percentile are actually dropping the first half of the year or for the first trimester thank you Mr Randleman yeah so I very much support the program and I want to make sure we continue to support that my own uh children benefited from that my daughter went to space camp she still remembers that very fondly so really I'm in agreement with what most have said here and I want to continue and see the the children have the opportunity thank you Mr Alonso yeah I mean I've heard nothing but great things about our gifted program um I you
057know space camp is always something that kids talk about and I I want to go to space camp and so I'm jealous that I did not have a program like that when I was in school and so it's it's things like that that are Innovative teaching experiences for our children that our gifted program brings and I think Andy said it well that meeting our kids where they are is what our gifted program does and I just absolutely love that about the program okay thank you very much we're going to start with Mr Lawson this time and this question and and we're going to switch gears and let me just say that you all turned in over a hundred questions online and then I've gotten about 40 here tonight and I will tell you that more
058than half of these questions almost two-thirds of these questions are about equity and so what I've tried to do is to group some of those questions and we're going to get spend some time on this because clearly it's something that people are concerned about first question is this should Lindbergh continue investing in equity programs and some people said you were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on it some people were pointing out particular programs Equity programs etc etc for teachers for staff for different groups of students some questions dealt with unrepresented groups that are not featured prominently and enough in the curriculum so for example equity for women equity for persons of color equity for lgbqt plus persons all of these things we're talking about um should we continue to invest as much as we
059are in these kinds of programs why or why not we get to start with you um okay so short answer yes I think we absolutely should continue to invest in equity programs anytime you talk about Equity it's important to understand the difference between equity and equality it doesn't look the same for every student I've said that several times tonight not every student has every has the same needs so Equity is designed to meet the students where they are and bring them all to that level where they can all be successful uh kind of my my resounding call if you will um so I think we absolutely need to continue to invest in those programs on top of that you called it out and and part of the question it's not just the students we have
060an entire staff and those staff are made up of people and those people deserve to be in a place that is safe where they belong where they are heard and represented and feel seen and that's what Equity is about is giving everybody an opportunity to belong and to be somewhere where were there heard where they know that they can just exist without it being a problem so that's my answer okay Mr leinweber this depends on how you define equity if Equity means that the kids at Crestwood get the same number of teachers as the kids at Concord that's equity all right that's Equity to me now having said that as far as meeting kids where they are Equity means taking all kids where they can be not meeting them where they are Equity doesn't just
061cross racial lines it doesn't just cross sexual it crosses all lines we need to be fair to everybody we need to make sure that everybody is comfortable at school if that's where we're spending some money that's fine but if it's going to cost us our grades there's nothing Equitable about 48 math proficiency that's not Equitable for there's nothing Equitable about pulling middle school programs such as the advanced AP whatever their uh challenge classes what's Equitable about building challenge classes where is that 4K gonna go Sylvan probably not Mr randallman so I very much Believe In The Melting Pot philosophy I think the students represent themselves they don't need to have others that look like them they represent themselves and as long as the school district is uh accepting and accommodating and giving the same education
062opportunity to each and every one which I expect nothing less then we're giving equality that is the American way that is exactly what us as uh immigrants here have received and that's what every single student deserves to get and it doesn't matter what their background is we accept them we love them and we want them to have that opportunity and again like I said before Equity is something dispensed we dispense Justice and Equity but that means no partiality thank you Mr Alonso um so I I think it is worth repeating again Andy said this earlier that uh Equity does not mean everything is equal um it does not mean that you give every student the same um the same whatever it is it means that you are creating an environment where every student can succeed
063based on their own individual needs and so I I also believe that we do need to be spending money in this area and I feel like we do a service to our teachers to teach our teachers about things like implicit biases so this is an area that I have worked on as an educator just knowing my own biases as a as a person who doesn't necessarily look like all of my students and so having that ability to notice and to realize that has made me a better educator later and I and I feel like we are doing our teachers and our students of service through this work Anna admit it I just had a conversation earlier around this and I am learning and I think that's okay because I think everyone is learning about this
064equality piece um we have a de uh Deni administrator and I love what she said equality is everybody having a pair of shoes but Equity is everybody having shoes that fit them and as I listened to that tape in my head I can cry anyway as I listen to that tape in my head it's so true and I'm so proud of our students because they have an organization called CAP and this was founded a year ago and so I attended the equity night and this was about a student who um is homeless and is moved at night time at 3am but someone expects her to focus and so we need to meet her where she is and understand that maybe she wasn't in her bed all night and she's going to take a test today
065but she just wants to put her head down for a minute and sorry get emotional it's my passion and it's also about a student who has ADHD and can't sit in their chair to listen to a lecture they just want to you know jump around or something but that's where I'm headed I'm a student and I'm learning so yes I want to spend money there we are going to start with you this time Mr lineweber um we're going to keep asking some difficult questions here for a while how do you define parental rights for example and there were a number of examples where people said is this the parents right is this the parents right so I'm going to repeat a couple of those so you sort of know what people are worried about for
066example if there are students who identify as something other than their biological gender or even use a different name should their parents be informed why or why not uh other people talked about should they be told if their uh if they're student wants to use a bathroom which is not the designated bathroom for their gender their biological gender so these were the kinds of questions that people were asking another final question was about sex education and should we start you know where should we start and should parents have a right to determine that for their child so I just want to give you a sense of the kinds of questions people had about it do this as quick as I can here gender Euphoria it exists what the causes maybe I'm not here to say
067having said that those kids need a safe place it's just it's only fair um having said that parents should absolutely be informed our teachers aren't doctors so that's where I would go with that as far as the designated bathrooms we've already accomplished that because what we have is a boys and a girls but we have stalls in every bathroom so you know at some point we spend a lot of time talking about activists type issues in our schools and what we really should be focusing on primarily is our academics okay I'm not saying these things aren't important I'm just saying that we're going to spend a lot of time talking about this what we should be talking about is ABCs and one two threes and why our kids aren't getting any schooling okay and that's
068where I go with that as far as Sports Go the idea of transgender boys and girls Sports unacceptable Mr randallman yes so certainly uh gender dysphoria is a real thing and and I I believe that a lot of those students are really dealing with identity issues in their life and my heart goes out to them I think also parental rights has almost become a little bit of a dog whistle so I want to be very clear what that means I think every parent would agree that they are the primary care and decision maker regarding the health and decisions of their students I don't think it's right for on a topic like this which is so crucial to how we raise children to uh have conversations with with staff without the the knowledge now I think
069it's it's possible for uh a counselor to reach out to the parents say your child's struggling with something is okay for them to talk to me and they'll want to keep it in confidence if the parent agrees that's fine but the parents have to be involved and we have to be sensitive about that there are students who have been hurt because the the parents the students have been hurt because the parents didn't know and and it brought situations where those students needed therapy after because of that so that's that's uh my stand on that thank you Mr Alonso um so uh being uh being a public school teacher I am a state mandated reporter and uh this is not one of those situations to have to report um if a student says that they prefer
070to be uh referred to by a different gender or by a different name now with that being said as that safe person for that student they felt comfortable enough to tell me these things I would also advise that student that they need to be having conversations with other people in their life that that love them and care for them now whether that's the parent or not I don't know I don't have the luxury of knowing when my students go home who that safe person is for them I hope that it is their parents and my family it is my wife and I for our children but not everybody has that same luxury and so I would encourage students to seek out the people who love and support them and get advice from them as far
071as sex ed you know we we allow parents to opt out children out of sex ed in any topic parents know ahead of time and so our parents do know your time is up thank you Ms Watts so um Matt's correct the sex education part um there's opt out for that teachers send information and tell you exactly what's going to be taught you don't want your kid to learn it then they're not going to be in the classroom and they're not going to learn it so um we've addressed that as a district I'm going to answer the rest of the question the same way it did in a different forum and I think that students probably go to teachers because they find them a safe person to talk to they see them in the classroom
072every day there's some kind of a connection there our teachers are not certified and I think our teachers know that I think our teachers pass them on then to counselors if they feel like they need to so as for parental rights yeah absolutely a parent should know if the child wants to be called by a different pronoun if they're uh whatever whatever piece you want to talk about different sexual orientation yes the parents should know I think there's a bit of a process to go through though the probably as Matt said going to talk about a safe person first thank you Mr Lawson yeah so I'm I'm more on the side of the student right if the student is dealing with something and they trust their teacher they trust their staff enough to come in
073and have that conversation with them I'm not going to come in and mandate that that teacher then betray that trust if that's the concern we don't know what is happening there and um I think it's important that we provide that space to any child right that's that's why we trust teachers to be mandatory reporters when it comes to domestic violence because they're gonna see it and they're gonna go do that right action and I think the same thing goes here you need to talk with the child give them that opportunity to talk and then if they're comfortable with it absolutely I would not have any teacher go through the whole process of of trying to help a child transition but have the conversation with them and if they're comfortable direct them to the resources that
074they have I don't want it to turn into you can't have this conversation with me because I have to run back and tell your parents whether you want me to or not and so that's my stance okay we're going to start with Mr Randleman this time uh and I want to privilege our students question as part of this question one of theirs it deals with curriculum decisions how much control do you think parents should have over curriculum over removing books from the library and the students want to know what your personal position is on teaching what they call Holistic history particularly the 16th 19 project all right well first of all in my opinion history has to be taught objectively in the context of its time if history isn't taught by that fashion and we
075apply our own current lenses it gives us a skewed understanding of what happened at that time now uh we we look at things we we understand the situation we we we as free critical thinkers we can determine if if that was right or wrong and make our judgment but it has to be objective it has to be by the time uh the context of its time I don't remember what other part of the question though that was asked 1619 project right so so that I kind of covered in the context of History I don't believe that book is is really uh historical it's it's it's it's through a Viewpoint it's through a lens and so you have to take it with the grain of salt in that fashion Mr Alonso so I'm I'm proud to
076say that when we hired Dr Lake one of his first priorities was to create board advisory committees and one of those committees committees is a teaching and learning committee and that committee is directly involved in making curriculum decisions and there are many stakeholders on that committee they include students parents teachers board members people in the district office and so all the right people are at the table they all have a seat at the table when making decisions on curriculum and I I feel like our curriculum and instruction team does a wonderful job making those decisions in terms of the holistic history approach I I do feel like there are things that are missed that we teach in our history classes and one of the one of the things that I I would like to see
077is making sure that we're offering opportunities for students to learn maybe different viewpoints from history learning history at my school we have a history class through movies and so I I think we need more diversity in that aspect Ms Watts um so again I'm going to Echo what Matt said about we have the board advisory groups and we have teachers involved we have administrators involved we have professionals involved in researching this curriculum we pilot a lot of curriculum um there's another point I had there um but also parents can opt out so again this information is on the teachers filter that through to parents so like when we're doing AP social studies we know it's going to be in there and so if our I don't want my child into AP social studies then I
078can opt out of that they're not learning the same as what the other students do and AP is actually a college course but I do feel like we do a good job with the curriculum can we add more in we can we could probably go both sided um and there was another part to that tell me that 1619 Pro 1619 project okay I'm gonna be vulnerable I don't know what that is so there you go I have no answer Mr Lawson um okay so I think from a holistic education I think that's the only way to go uh if I work in the technology field we are a rapidly shrinking Community right it's come to a point where you're I say shrinking but really it's it's expanding in that we're part of a global Community
079it's no longer you you grow up and live with the people from your town and that's how you know there's a reason that you they ask what high school did you graduate from in St Louis right because it tells you kind of where people came from and who they know but that's becoming less and less important as you look at the fact that we're part of a global scale that's interconnected we have access to information from everywhere and if we don't teach the whole history if we don't teach all of the things that happened we're sending our kids out there half prepared for what the rest of the world knows the rest of the world watches and sees what we do and if we don't teach them what happened they're doomed to repeat it so
080the best thing that we can do is give them all of the information flaws and all and say look this is what was done then we can't go back and change it but we can prevent it from happening again finally Mr lineweber um as far as the 1619 project I'm kind of with uh I'm sorry Christy sorry I apologize um the history is about truth okay and it doesn't matter whose truth it is it's about all of the truth so the To the victor goes the spoils that's the way history has been you write whoever wins the war gets to write the story right so what I would tell you is we need to have all of the truth out there and we should never demonize our country and we should never let our children
081feel like they come from somewhere that they should be ashamed of okay so when it comes to history that's my viewpoint they need to be proud of where they come from but they need to understand that we make mistakes um having said that I'll give you an example don't just treat teach all of the bad things we did teach our kids that in 1808 and 1809 the British and the American colonies or the America were the first ones to Outlaw the slave trade and do away with it before the Civil War okay and before the Western continents of Africa teach that in history class okay thank you very much Mr Alonso you're gonna go first this time you can all take a deep breath here um teacher burnout is a problem how can we support
082our teachers hire and retain excellent ones what what is it that challenges this is it classroom size is it salaries is it um a curricular challenges etc etc and you know what part does the union play in this okay um so when when I was first elected to the board in 2017 teachers were working to contract and what that basically means is they we have a contracted time to start and contract to time to end and teachers would not work outside of that time period um so they would not answer emails at the end of the day they would not come in early to help students and as a teacher I can tell you that that just kills me to know that a teacher would have to go through that because of um concerns over
083their employment and what we have done in the past six years is we have Boost teacher morale incredibly I would encourage you to talk to any teacher in the district district and ask them how satisfied they are teaching in Limburg we were losing teachers right and left to other districts Clayton Lindbergh Parkway but now that it's not the case we are keeping teachers we have increased our teacher pay to move us up in the in the area we are not top in the area we will not be top we are not a Clayton Clayton School District but we have made great improvements in this area okay thank you Miss Watts um excited about this question as well as I said in my opening in 2017 there's a little bit of a discrepancy also as Matt
084shared one thing we started out with right away was taking a look at the teacher's scale and see where everybody was we actually had some teachers and one step that would get a one percent raise and teachers right next to him that'd get a 10 raise so got in there figured that all out and so we have a focus on teacher pay and I know a lot of it's talked about across Missouri as well we we've moved up in the ranks we continue to talk about that also Wellness was a big thing for me and a couple of years ago I started talking about we need to do something for the teachers around Wellness you know how are they're stressed we just got finished with covet or we're in the middle of covid and so
085we now have Wellness coordinators in each building to help with yoga some of the teachers get up and do yoga because there's a yoga instructor now I know there's some meal planning going on so Wellness was really important to me I feel like it's a combination of things and actually voted number two is the best place to work in St Louis this year Mr Lawson uh it's simple with without teachers there is no education um you can't have a school without teachers in the room without teachers leading our students so we as a district have to make sure that we're supporting our teachers and they're and we're meeting their needs it shouldn't be a struggle for someone to get a living wage it shouldn't be a fight it shouldn't be an argument it shouldn't be
086a point of contention um it's it's important that we invest in our Educators and we have the district has done a great job in talking to uh you know as I mentioned I've been endorsed by the teachers union and um the the resounding answer what I got when I asked you know what are the teachers saying is they're content they're they're comfortable with where they are right and that that goes a long way to saying the district is is on the right path there we can still do better we should always do better and we need to make sure we keep an eye on it to make sure that that doesn't change and we don't slip out of out of where we need to be um but I think it's it's important that we remember
087that teachers are people and we need to invest and give them the resources they need to be successful Mr line Weber oh sorry uh the idea that the 2016 drop in academics was a result of teaching to contract is maybe justifiable as to why it happened but that was 2016 and we haven't recovered so unless they're still teaching to contract that can't be the reason Okay the reason is we've dropped rigor and we dropped academic the idea of academic Excellence through testing that's what happened um as far as our teachers go I'm I have no idea whether or not she they're super happy with what they have or whether they're not happy with what they're had what they have but I want their student teacher ratio to drop we started the year at 19-1 the
088administration told me there was no plans to change that fortunately after December it dropped to 17. so I'm appreciative of that but most of the Jason districts are 15 14 and 16. I think that's significant Mr randallman yeah so first of all credit where credit is due I think that the district has improved uh salaries and benefits for the teachers and and I am very grateful for that uh when I've spoken to teachers the the primary feedback I get from them is a little bit of a frustration when it comes to communication uh when when they're the boots on the ground they're they're seeing situations and they want to relay those Communications to the administration uh a lot of times there's there's a difficulty getting that through or there's difficulty getting a response or action
089so how to improve things for teachers I think we need to make sure that senior teachers have a have a stake in some of the decision making or at least uh much more of an influence and that we make sure we have a process so that teachers that are voicing concern uh know there's a timeline until there's a response that happens from the administration back down thank you one last question and by the way we've gotten through 12 questions we will and I think that's pretty good actually um and I could not ask many of your questions but I tried to pick the ones that Mo that a lot of people were concerned with but before I asked the last question which is about money I want to tell you some questions that I think
090belong being addressed in your final statement so let me mention some of those to you um and let's start with I've got a number of questions both online and now several from the audience tonight and this one is directed first to you Mr randallman but I want everybody to answer it and you can just do a yes or no they want to know do all of your children go to Lindbergh and if you haven't answered that question directly which some of you did in your opening statements uh please do that other people want to know look we are all talking about diversity and inclusion how come we have an some people have said and all white Maybe Union endorsed perhaps liberal School Board I'm trying to tell you what has been the language that people
091have used um so I think a good question for you to address and I'm not sure that's right what do you think about that um and what unique voice would you bring to the school board that you think needs to be there okay so I'm trying to put together some questions there other things that they want to know what is your number one personal characteristic that you think will make you very effective as part of this team as you look to New Challenges and other people are saying you know how are you going to really communicate with parents how are you going to communicate with the teachers and the staff do you have one or two unique specific don't just say more communication is better okay a specific suggestion for how to do that and
092finally why do you know why do you want this job why do you want to stand up for this District so is that fair enough I really think those belong in the final kinds of statements so I thought that I would mention them and those all came from the audience so here's the money question a number of people want to go back to prop R from 2019. and they're saying okay we upgraded facilities in the district do we need to keep spending more money on capital projects would you use bonds for if our enrollment isn't increasing they also want to know is the new high school on budget how do you watch these money kinds of questions we keep spending are we going to have to keep spending in the future what is your position
093on that so it looks to me as if Ms Watts you're first don't you love it money money money money money love is my favorite question almost um okay so do we need to continue to spend in capital projects yes we do because we have a middle school without air conditioning and with our heating so this Middle School is costing us a lot of energy efficiencies just heard today we have some schools that still have boilers in them so I don't know if anybody have heard of boilers I wondered if they threw chunks of wood in there or how we're heating that so do we need to continue in Capital Improvements we do we also have some elementaries that share cafeterias and gymnasiums so we got to coordinate the schedule so that kiddos can go
094to lunch students sorry can go to lunch and then some can go to gym I wouldn't be fantastic of students could be in the gym and students could be at lunch so do we yes and excited for that Five-Year Plan because we're getting ready to redo that it's it's about ending and so we're excited to redo The Five-Year Plan thank you Mr Lawson um yes so um everything Christy just said it we absolutely need to continue to invest we still have work to do on our facilities facilities are that space and we need it in order to keep educating our students the the growth or decline in enrollment is is an important metric to look at but not when deciding on if you should invest for the future because what happens this year may be
095very different from what happens next year and so we need to make sure that we have a plan for longevity of the district facilities and that's done through those capital projects we do need to work to make sure that we keep them on budget but we also need to make sure that we deliver the things that that were supposed to be delivered under that Capital project to make sure that we're giving the students what they need in order to be successful so that's my answer Mr leinweber um thanks Christy she answered my question yes uh having said that I would say that my son the 2013 graduate went to Truman Elementary so that gives you an idea about how old these buildings are okay so and if you can justify some of that with things
096like cost savings on upgrades that's a good thing and I think she kind of you know touched based on that you also mentioned I asked about what I would bring what I would bring is a K-12 experience about how things work when you're raising your kids through a school system and the passion um I I'm going to be honest we have an average school district I think at this point in time a little bit above average but when it comes to comparing ourselves to locally we're a little bit below I would actually have moved if it wasn't for the fact that myself my daughter lost her brother the year before she started kindergarten and I want her to be able to watch the high schools and walk the schools buildings and touch the walls she
097doesn't have that with a photo that's why I'm running and that's why I have that passion thank you Mr randallman yeah so uh I studied the the finances in Lindbergh schools uh the the report it's it's like this thick and a lot of numbers and I I find a lot of interest in that so first of all I believe the district has been a good stewards and faithful to the taxpayers I I think they've done a good job I also know that some of our buildings are starting to reach end of life and we have to weigh the cost of continuing to maintain them uh and and do the fiscal responsible uh calculation of maybe it's time to upgrade certain things and so as long as we have that uh sensitive uh mindset and we're
098looking at the long term and and cost I think the district will continue making the right decisions thank you thank you Mr Alonso uh yeah I absolutely do believe that we need to keep spending money on Capital Improvements so just like your house um when you make Capital Improvements to your home it increases its value and so by making improvements to our schools we're just increasing that value of our school as well and we're being good stewards of our property in that way um Christy had also mentioned the cafe jimatorium as it's so affectionately called and a lot of the elementary schools and um part of adding a gymnasium to the elementary schools that do not have one you're also adding a storm shelter which touches on safety for our children and we have a
099state-of-the-art storm shelter at dressel at the high school at a few of our other schools and why wouldn't we want that for all of our children in the district thank you be ready for fun start with Mr randallman thank you well first of all I know there were some questions addressed specifically to me I'll do my best to address it on my website on the Q a because it's way too long to explain that in two minutes so for the closing right now really what it comes down to is a decision on two paths the first path is where we've gone in the last five six years and and and and what we've seen or trying to go back to the Lindbergh experience that we we know which is a more academic focused and that's
100the decision that the community members and and everyone present need to decide uh you know and I would say no matter what we we heard tonight as far as stats or things like that even when we compare to our neighboring school districts there's something to be improved upon and finally this this coming election April 4th there are three seats open but you don't have to select three seats even though the ballot says choose three you can bullet vote you can choose only the candidates that you want and so my request is vote for me or vote for me and any other candidate that you agree with that has that Focus that'll increase our chance and again last year it was about five points off from winning and I really want to represent you all and
101I mean everyone and uh so I hope you'll give me that chance thank you Mr leinweber I want to bring back academic Excellence I think that David said a lot about this uh I think that um at the end of the day we have a we have a good school I think that our Administration and our teachers and I think all of the incumbents and everybody up here love our kids okay having said that you have a choice you can go back to you have three I see this three options you can go back to teaching to the test and high academic scores you can go with where we're at and lower academic scores and we Trail Parkway Kirkwood Webster Groves and I believe don't cite me on this one Rockwood may have just pulled
102ahead of us but I know that the other three for sure are Superior to us so when we compare ourselves you need to do it to your local region having said that I love these kids I always have as a coach and that's why I'm up here like I said it would have been easier for me to buy a piece of property in Kirkwood right I I'm here because I have a passion for this district and until I have to move I'm not going to um having said that I you know I'd request you to consider me for to lead and I really don't know what else to tell you your third choice is balance between those two things okay we don't have to go back to teaching to the test we don't have to
103go with not teaching to the test we can go with things like why don't you teach to the test in third grade with that twitcher and teach to that test in the fifth grade with that twitcher so that you can improve those scores for the fifth grade and the third grade where they're really emphasizing those tests so if the kids are slowing down in first grade now they can catch up a little bit when they take those tests and make us competitive with our neighbors that's all I ask I want the same number of teachers in the classroom as our neighbors I want the same resources as our neighbors that's Equity with our neighbors okay so that's what I want and that's all I'm asking for and I commend the district for being better than
104the national average but I want us to be better than the regional average thanks so 2 minutes for a closing statement I'll close with I moved to this District because of this District because of what it can give my children it's why I'm here and I have been astounded by the professionalism and the dedication and the above and beyond service that my children have received in this District so why do I want to run because I love what Lindbergh is doing for my kids and I want to make sure that other parents feel that same way I want to make sure that if someone has a need this district is equipped to meet it if one of our students is struggling somewhere this district is there to catch them I I focus on transformational leadership
105in my professional world I focus on continuous Improvement and better is better right it doesn't have to be straight to Perfection we can make it criminal improvements change takes time change can be scary but we need to change because the world is changing so fast and if education doesn't keep up it's our students that get left behind and they're going to be out in a public space that they're not prepared for because we fail to do our job we have to make sure that we are keeping Pace with what is happening outside of our little world outside of our little Echo Chambers we have to prepare our students for what they're going to encounter when they walk across that stage and get handed a diploma and then we say good luck right so that's our
106job what is that a take it takes a lot right and I have 30 seconds and not nearly enough time to talk about it but that's why I'm running that's why I'm here and I'm proud to say that all of my children do attend Lindbergh and my children will continue to attend Lindbergh because it's why we're here so April 4th number three on the ballot Andrew Lawson thank you so Kathleen I went right down your bullet pointed list I'm sorry I don't have to have so you guys are going to get my bullet points here one thing that I do want to mention is I am also supported and endorsed by the teachers I'm very proud of that and as I said my opening statements I am a supporter of public schools a supportive teachers
107and a supporter of students and so into my what is my unique voice I shared with you I have students who are gifted I also have a student under SSD and you can see my passion coming again but so so I go all ranges here I go all ranges and in between I think that my background in Human Resources is beneficial because I am working with people in careers I'm working with people in I.T I'm getting ready to do a resume for somebody who's going to go into Ai and so having that knowledge and bringing it here to the district and to our administrators and sharing that I think is important um I also am the one on the board who likes the political piece and so I'm the Delegate for msba the Missouri School
108Board Association go to Jeff City once a year kind of dig that sort of thing and so that makes me a little bit unique as well my strengths are and if anybody's familiar with strength finders it's an assessment tool that you use in the corporate world and my strengths are strategic futuristic and positivity so I'm always going to be the cheerleader for that district for our students and for our teachers as for communication I'm very visible you're going to find me every Friday night at football games you're going to find me at basketball games you're going to find me at championship games you're going to see me everywhere I will have my Limburg logo wear on my closet in fact is stacked by limber Limburg logo wear dance team will go where and dance studio
109logo wear and then soccer so that's about me and why do I want the strap as I stated earlier I'm invested I'm a Community member my kids go here I'm engaged I'm invisible I'm visible um like to learn and as I said before I'm not sure what 1619 is so one quality you want about a school board member is joining us is to go home and study and I have to sharpen this up but that's the end vote for me on April 4th number two on the battle finally Mr Alonso yeah so um I I would like to point out I know there was one question that kind of stuck out to me that you had said about the school board being all liberal and I I would encourage you to have a conversation uh
110with the members of your school board I think you would be surprised um at the political leadings of everyone on the board um but one thing that I can say is that none of us ever put our political views above the needs of our students we are always doing what's best for students we are always trying to make that decision that is going to benefit our students and benefit our families in the district and that means putting our political views aside we work very well as a board currently and I am excited to see what happens after the election and I hope that you would consider voting for me one personal characteristic about myself I am a lifelong learner and so um I am constant learning new things being an educator one of my philosophies
111in the classroom is that I am the lead learner for my students I am learning right alongside them and so an opportunity that I have serving on the board gives me a unique perspective one from a teacher point of view and then two from a student point of view because I see so many students every single day I believe in what we are doing in this District this is why we send all three of our kids to Limburg schools this is why we are so proud to live in the district I believe in everything that we are doing I believe in our superintendent and our cabinet and I hope that you would consider voting for me on April 4th I am the first on the ballot and should you need more information feel free to
112visit my website it's Alonzo the number four limburg.com and reach out if you have any questions thank you thank you very much and I think we ought to give all of our candidates a round of applause [Applause] thank them for participating thanks to all of you because these were exclusively your questions and I have a pile up here if anybody wants to look at them uh and thank you to the Lindbergh District who is very welcoming and helpful and finally if the league volunteers would raise your hands that would be great just so you know that here's folks who care about education a lot too or else we wouldn't do this now I challenge you because last year when we did this two people joined the league immediately after coming to it so if you
113think that this is helpful to you please think about joining the league in the League of Women Voters is not for women only we have over a hundred male members so you would be in very good company um I we hope you appreciate the free services we provide to educate voters it's not just enough to vote although we're not voting enough the problem with voting is that we don't vote so I challenge each of you to get five people who weren't going to vote in the Municipal elections to please do so nothing matters more in your lives than what happens in your own backyard okay so we need to vote in those elections remember that you are lucky in the county I live in the city and I'm not that lucky you can vote at
114any polling place you want I can't yet okay so you can go any place if you're on your way home if you're on the way to a doctor's appointment the grocery store go to any polling place and all of them are listed on your Board of Elections website uh if you want to look at the polling places look at that website where you can call them or you can call the League of Women Voters and we'd be happy to help you find one that would work perfectly for you please inform yourself about these candidates and also all the other things that are on your ballot uh two things if you get on vote411.org and I would say by Friday that will be totally live and you just put in your address it pulls up just
115your ballot the league does not endorse candidates it does take positions on issues like we have a very strong position and we are appearing in Jeff City quite a bit this legislative session to support public education but we do not endorse political parties we do not endorse candidates but look at 411.org and on Sunday the Post-Dispatch is printing our voter's guide which is for five counties and the City it's 24 pages long we're in the midst of doing the final proofs on it they're going to issue it on in in the Sunday paper the 19th in plenty of time for the election we also take about 15 to 18 000 of these our volunteers carry them to libraries to senior centers if you want some let us know or come to our office and pick
116them up we do all of this as volunteers we do all the research and all the write-ups for it and the post produces it so I think it would be very helpful and teach the young people and the old people in your life to learn to be an informed voter and to use that now the election is April the 4th as all of them have said polls open at 6 a.m they close at 7 pm please get out and vote please care I know you do because you're here tonight and finally I couldn't ask every one of your specific questions but I hope you recognize that I tried to hit as many serious issues as I could and some of those specifics I know that the candidates will will be glad to stick around a
117little bit that's why we tried to end a little bit early so you can talk to them if I didn't get to ask your specific question so thank you very much I hope you found this to be helpful have a good evening thank you