League of Women Voters - Board of Education Candidate Forum

001[Music] this different all right people in the back let's see if we can hear miss stein hello this is awesome all right everybody here yeah good people coming in make sure you get cards and pencils to write questions our volunteers if you could uh yeah [Music] um is everybody just about ready everybody ready before we start this evening having the privilege of gathering here to talk about our children and our school district um i'd like to take a moment of silence uh thinking about the people in ukraine who are fighting very hard to have the freedoms that we have here so i'd like to have just a moment of silence for them as we think about what we're doing here that they cannot do uh so just a moment [Music] okay and that gentle lady

002has just reminded me please everybody turn off your cell phones [Music] good on evening on behalf of the saint louis league of women voters and our hosts the rockwood school district and particularly ms regina fueler and miss mary lapic uh we're very happy to be here i live in the city of st louis so you'll know out of fairness the league always picks someone to moderate a forum that doesn't have any skin in the game all of us care about children but you know what i'm saying i don't live in your district uh this is being live streamed uh so you could check somebody and tell them uh on the rockwood youtube channel i think that's the quickest way for them to get there so you'll be able to follow that and my name is

003kathleen farrell i'm going to be your moderator tonight i want to thank very much the candidates who are participating this evening and i want to say that mr messner is coming he had a conflict because they set up a concert for his son to make up for one that was canceled and so he's going to be late when he comes in he's just going to take his place and sort of fit into what we're doing at the moment but i wanted you to know that you don't think he didn't show up these candidates are seated in the order that they're on the ballot so we have ms amy ryan we have ms debra spine we have ms izzy emmett we have miss jessica clark and of course mr charles nesman the league believes that one

004of the best ways for voters to learn about people seeking your vote is to hear them speak and answer your questions in a public forum so what we're going to do is we're going to have opening statements two minute opening statements in the order of who's on the ballot so what that means is that mr mayan will be first and then when we have closing statements we have the person who's last on the ballot give that first statement and that i hope is going to be mr besner okay and in between when we answer questions i'm going to keep rotating now sometimes i don't you know i may miss something so all of you are just going to say i didn't answer them question about correct it okay many say that civil discussion of community

005issues and particularly school boards is impossible since we are so politically divided but i know that you have come tonight because you care about the rockwood district and you care about your schools and you want to make a reasoned decision before you vote i'm hoping that the following rules are going to enable us to work together tonight to make that happen as i said the candidates are each going to have two minutes for an opening statement and each candidate is going to have one minute to answer each question all candidates are going to have the right to speak to all questions including those that were posed specifically to a certain candidate i'm going to restate that question so that everybody will get a chance to answer it and finally we're going to have two minute

006closing statements now here's your job and the form wouldn't go on without you because the league didn't write the questions you all wrote the questions okay what i have up here is a pile of 128 questions that you all sent in before we ever got here and i hope you see with all the writing that i have on them that i took them extremely seriously okay i'm using your questions in this forum plus i picked out some to start with and then i want you to write questions as we go along and when we try to sort these questions and i already have a pile of about 20 up here what i'm asking the league volunteers to do is to look quickly at the list of questions i already picked out so that we don't

007have repeats we want to waste our time we want to get as many topics in as we possibly can now the timekeeper that's miss clark here and she's a tough woman so she's tiny she's going to time all of your opening and closing statements and candidate answers to questions she's got a 30-second sign and then she's got a stop sign i will allow you to finish your sentence and it's not to be a long compound sentence okay it's to be a sustained sentence and then i might cut you off i'm a retired college professor so you know we all have to do what we have to do so this is my job every time i retain the option to combine questions that are very similar and address the same topic i want to make sure

008that everybody all the candidates have a fair chance to answer each question i'm going to enforce the rules and anybody can audio or video tape these proceedings totally open we don't do any that aren't open so that's what we're going to do tonight and that's my job and in good faith i'm going to try to cover areas of interest which have been expressed by you fair enough so with that done uh if you write a question and you're done with it just raise your hand and one of our volunteers will come pick it up for you are we ready then let's start with our opening statements and miss ryan i believe you are first thank you so much so thank you to the league of women voters for organizing this and thank you to the

009candidates for coming out tonight and thank you to the audience that's listening my name is amy ryan and i am a resident of wildhood for over 17 years it really just shows and investment to the community i've been married for 15 years i have two daughters one in wildwood middle and one at green pines i can briefly tell you the rest of my bio my immigrant story and how i became a citizen and how i'm proud of this country but that is not going to help your children achieve their highest academic potential what will help is my qualifications i'm a product of both public and private education so i know the importance of public education i have a bachelor's degree in chemistry and health sciences and a master's degree in health management and informatics specifically

010in cyber security i have 20 years of health care business experience managing political applications and product pull through enlarged to small hospital systems that impacts public health i manage multi-million dollar financial reports rmp processes and value analysis this translates specifically to the governance of the board and help all children to achieve their academic potential and collaborate with the community and school success thank you this stuff thank you for thanking us i will thank you right back and thank you to everyone for being here especially the league for organizing this um as we all should know that in the volunteer uh role that you're playing as is also a volunteer role to be a member of the board of education board of directors um it is a honor that i know that the current board sees

011very highly and takes very seriously i've lived in the rockwood district for 17 years i have three children who all recently completed their education in rockwood they went to fairway wildwood middle school and high school go wildcats i have a master's degree in public policy that i'm ready to put to use for rockwood i also have 25 years of professional experience in philanthropy and in different areas including dropout prevention and recovery work higher education and health and human services i also have extensive experience with audits budgets managing large grants and contracts including government grants and contracts and i've only made one campaign promise i think you should always make one campaign promise and that was to uh all the students of eureka high school i promised them i would dance with the golden line if

012i won this election so don't let that influence your vote please my tagline for my campaign the thing that i say over and over is that i believe in empathy and excellence and that they go in hand when it comes to education so both empathy and excellence will be what i would focus on you very much miss stanley hi my name is izzy um i was actually born and raised in iraq so you cannot ask me which high school you went to um so i became an interpreter for the us army i worked as a translator for them for the psychological operation unit moved here in 2006 got married we have three children right now in rock school district 7th grader fourth grader and a first grader we love rockwood obviously um i love this

013district and i felt like it's my duty to give back to this country and this is why i'm right okay thank you very much miss clark thank you all for being here and showing up to advocate for our kids and make sure that your questions are answered thank you jessica um i have four daughters in the rockville school district we have two freshmen a seventh grader and a fourth grader um i was born and raised in st louis initially from the city and we came out here for the school district um i love rockwood they have served our girls in an amazing way um two of our girls learned mandarin first and so they had unique challenges and our fourth grader just tested out um of needing any extra help so we are extremely pleased

014with the academic aspect of the district and we want to make sure that that continues we want to make sure that our kids are prepared for their future make sure that when they're out and they're living their lives that they can compete with everybody else so for me it's all about academics i grew up in a household where there wasn't a strong academic value but we had family that had degrees and things so i saw what kind of lifestyle that they had and it's like i always knew that academics was a strong part of being successful in life my background is in um begging and partially finished my accounting degree which i hated so i stopped but even with that small amount of finishing that degree i got extremely far so i know how how

015important it is to have a solid academic foundation so that's what i'm pushing for and rockwood okay thank you and if we can just hold off on applause even though you may know and love the person that would be helpful so we're going to start with the questions first in this sign you get to go first and the first question is do you support prop p why or why not in one minute i do support prop p it's part of a long-term common sense financial plan for the district something that's been thought about for a long time it will not increase our taxes it will simply um i asked the question would you rather your tax dollars be spent on [Music] paying interest on debt or would you rather actually go to maintenance and upgrades

016for our facilities and i would prefer the latter and so i can support you okay thank you very much this is district has a really um long history a very successful financial history with having mr uh paul running the financial and his team um so i did go over poppy and i don't i do believe that we should go with it okay thank you very much miss clark um so for me the verdict is still out because i don't understand enough about it i see the benefits i see that our taxes are there's going to be no increase um my concerns are really with you know originally how it's set up you have a limit you know you have bonds that are there for a certain amount of time and then you're transferring them into

017something that's more permanent you don't have to go back to the community to ask if they want to reapprove it so i will say it's still out and more understanding again and i'll make a solid decision on that okay thank you very much miss emmitt oh i'm sorry miss ryan so uh the fed chair is going to be raising interest rates between about four to five times this year and i don't know about you but i don't want to pay my taxes to interest so the debt is around 13 we are paying that down that debt significantly so instead of being more on to our debt as we are significantly paying that down we need to transfer that money into funds for operations and maintenance those include technology safety mitigation upgrades and also uh technology

018so i am in favor for prop b because it will help our schools become safer and to secure places for learning thank you very much uh miss emmitt you are first this time here's the question what should be the relationship between the board of education and the district superintendent i think it should be open uh have an open dialogue and um you know have that open communication so then there is that transparency and trust okay thank you ms clark i feel like that is a very intimate relationship you are working on um very important decision making that has just like any relationship it has to be nurtured as a time period where you have to get to know the other person and what they value and how you can find common ground how you can

019best support them so that if there is going to be a foundation of trust there is going to be a foundation of open communication and transparency and i feel like the board is a bridge between the superintendent and the community so learning how to nurture is extremely important thank you very much ms ryan thank you in my field of work i have obtained years of health care business experiences and collaborating communicating with high level ceos cfos and lab technicians so just like everyone else said here communication is a vital part of that that process between parents superintendent administration and to the rest of the community i have done this already in my work and with my campaign what i would want to know specifically from the superintendent is how are our outcomes in the field

020of education and how is the maintenance of operations safety mitigations and also any kind of concern that is going on in the district and the community that we should be able to help our students more effectively through his leadership thank you very much for this thanks there are only a few things that the board of education is really responsible for they advocate for the school system they adopt policies they adopt and oversee the budget and they help the district set goals but the last thing that they do and one of the most important things that they do is to hire and oversee we have a wonderful once in a lifetime opportunity with our newly hired superintendent chris kane who as you all probably know just received the award for national superintendent of the year um

021if we can't rock it out in rockwood um with the best superintendent ever then that's alright okay thank you very much and this part we're going to start with you this time what should the board of education relationship be with the teachers union and let me just give you a little context there were a lot of questions uh about asking if people had been funded by the union their campaigns uh if they had been endorsed and i think you know some of that you can answer for yourself but i just wanted you to know that there was more than one question about this topic okay thank you um i believe that it should be limited they are the teachers young men they are there to support the teachers they shouldn't necessarily have influence over the

022board's decision that can get dangerous so if there should be a limit placed on the relationship between the two parties okay thank you very much ms ryan thank you so i believe that happy teachers equals happy kids and happy kids equals engaged kids that will focus on their academics physical capability and mental well-being so i think we must all support our teachers they are not on the opposite side of parents and the rest of the community so i import i support any associations or unions that support our teachers that help facilitate our children's academic performance okay thank you i think there may be some misinformation about what the teachers union is what the rockwood national education association is and what it does for campaigns and what role it plays in the district um i am

023endorsed by the rockwood nea i'm very proud of that because i know that no one knows education better than our teachers and if they think that i can do a good job on the board that pleases me very much they do not contribute cash to mini campaign and there definitely is a limited role that they play because not every teacher is required to be a member of the union uh they can't strike i mean it's not it's not like you know what you see in the movies our teachers need our support and you know can i guarantee i'm always going to side on the side of the rockwood nea i i definitely would never say that i don't think they would expect me to say that what i will do is take into account what

024the teachers think because they know education best okay [Music] um my thing about the aea is i believe that just research and not every teacher is a member of the nea um so i kind of agree with both candidates here i know they are limited uh with their resources with the teachers and i know there are a lot of misinformation out there by the enemy i am not important by the way um so i do agree i think uh a lot of the teachers we do have the teachers back they don't have to be members of the nea to need to have our support we do support them no matter what and i agree happy teachers have to students so okay thank you i'm going to ask you to help me keep you straight miss

025clark dorey answered this question yeah that's what i thought um here's the next question and we're going to start with ms ryan this time and that is what makes a school district successful how is that measured let me just say that a lot of questions that sort of circle around this same issue and i'm going to ask a couple more because they're specific i think there's a lot of ways to measure success for a school district so if you look at u.s news today their methodology is based on college readiness uh the breadth of ap classes proficiency math performance and reading performance and graduation rates so i do think that measuring a child's success isn't just a pinpoint it should be a progression from kindergarten all the way to senior level at high school okay

026thank you miss done so i agree with that i will build on it to say that many people confuse math test scores with you know you know as the ultimate they take that as the ultimate measure of success and that's just one measure it is one point in time and it doesn't take into account um all the all the things that are going on um the pandemic uh whatever what's going on in the children's lives changes to the test and so forth we are doing extremely well when it comes to test scores i mean there's been a lot of questions about that the sky is not falling with our mag test scores our children are doing a great job as our teachers thank you um from just recent interviews i did with a lot of

027the high schoolers and the parents actually our scores are declining from what i understood and speaking to a lot of the teachers um yes we're still in the top 20 in the country we are declining a little bit so i think um we need to really get back on track with our academics okay thank you you finally missed the part thank you so as far as a successful district i think when our community is happy with the results that we're getting when our families are reaching their goals when they are seeing their children grow and develop um as mrs ryan said that does start in kindergarten and those children they develop and they come with different aspects and they want to achieve different things and if we as a district are serving those various needs

028i think that's what success looks like because it's not going to always be a data point the numbers are great and it does show us where we are but everybody has different outcomes and testing the waters and meeting with the parents to see if we are meeting those expectations is what a successful district looks like in my opinion thank you now there were five questions about that started out saying we think that the score is have fallen one of the questions said by 38 i don't know the answer to that um here's my question we're going to start with you miss stein um are you concerned about those test scores how should they be handled it's always wise to have a healthy level of concern about test scores i'm a parent i have three kids

029i i saw trust me like i sat down with those test scores um every single year and really thought about what that meant for my student and whether there were interventions that they needed or whether they needed to be more challenged in those areas um i think that you know when you look at the scores collectively you want to look at the trajectory of those scores and how they compare with other districts around the nation and we do them here really well so i would never say i'm not concerned about them because they are part of the puzzle and helping us make sure that we're going in the right direction but like i said before i don't believe that the sky is falling when it comes to rockford's test scores thank you um i believe

030that our teachers are spent tax they are having to wear many hats these days and it's taking the time away from our children um i think that we need to provide extra resources or bring extra experts to help with different matters or teachers to focus on teaching our children and i think that will bring our test scores back up thank you ms clark can we review the question sure um are you concerned about the test scores and what would you do to approach that situation um i am absolutely concerned about the test scores again as a mother with children who have unique needs um their test scores are low and i believe that we are we've gone away from the focus on academics and i think that's why our test scores are dropping there are

031many reasons i'm sure that contributes to that um what would i do that's really making refocusing seeing what we've done over the last few years when the numbers started dropping and how we get back to where we were um that's extremely important i know that kobet was a part of that but we were declining before that so we have to go back and see why we are you know where we're putting resources what why are our teachers why can't they focus on what they need to focus on okay thank you we're going to start with you this time okay so um regarding math efficiency scores specifically in math in 2016 there was a restructure and design maps for testing and the questions so if you look at year over year there was a decline because

032of added common core curriculum so because of that restructure there was a decline in race but again the sky is not falling we also have to not neglect the fact that ruthless schools have special needs children and with even with special circumstances uh they cannot meet sometimes of the state standards so it also affects and contributes to those proficiency standards but i think the children will be okay because our teachers are happy and they're going to help them perform in their academic performance thank you it was your line about the sky is not falling that made me think that you had to talk so i apologize miss emmett this is a related question and that is do you think that special programs should be instituted to deal with learning deficits that happen because of the

033pandemic if you do you have one example of one that you'd like to try to support yes um i do believe we should go right now we're struggling with discipline in many of our schools and i believe we need to bring some outside help to help with that okay thank you miss clark repeat the question again i was listening to our answer yes um do you think that there is a need to have some special programs because of learning retention or challenges we've had since the pandemic and do you have one that you would support i mean not just one but one that you really like um absolutely i'm always a fan of bringing in extra support because again we have a huge community with diverse needs and not everybody learns the same way not

034everybody deals with stress the same way so if you are finding a common problem between students in our population then of course bring in some kind of creative resource for them to use and take advantage of um i'm definitely in support of that um one in particular i don't have one that i can think of right now but you know again it goes based on whatever the community and the population is requiring at the moment thank you miss ryan so one of the ways that we can help our children is through uh interventionists so right now we have reading interventionists but i would like to add stem and math interventionists to help with those math uh math proficiency scores this will help our children who are not diagnosed with idp that are lagging just a

035little bit to help them catch them up and still meet the needs uh under the teachers lessons and the teachers curriculum so those are one of the ways that i'm looking forward to work with dr willit on uh specifically helping my children thank you thanks um amy just part of my answer which was about bad intervention so um it's clear that online learning was not ideal to put it mildly and it did leave us lagging in some areas i think the numbers have shown so far that the children are catching up and i enjoy strongly that they will um but we know that the lagging in reading was not as bad as the lag in math so having math interventionists at the elementary school level more of them i think would really help also there

036are elements of the way forward that already addressed this and so as a board member i really support finishing out strong with okay thank you miss clark we're going to start with you this time do you support what is called social promotion uh why are why not i'm not from is social promotion the same as my social emotional learning uh my understanding please correct me for the people who are you know interested in this question it is that you would promote a child even if they had not completed the requirements academic requirements to be promoted absolutely not um i think we fail our children when we promote them and they don't they're not proficient in what they need we're not doing them a justice if they need that's when the resources come in if they

037need extra support they need help they're not going to be able to compete if they don't understand the material they're never going to be able to catch up and that leads to you know depression because now they don't feel like they're good enough they're not gonna be prepared we can't just hand out you know gold stars just showing up that's not really what our district is about it's about acting and excellence and doing whatever it takes to get them to where they need and showing them they have the potential to be at the next level thank you mrs ryan thank you so one of the ways that we can help our children go to the next grade level is through summer school and i know kids don't like summer school but if they do not

038meet the expectations of their curriculum of their uh teachers homework assignments or reading assignments or math assignments that they should be able to have opportunity during that summer uh period to get them and see if they can get to the next grade level thank you this gun so i i would hope to do a lot more study on that because i know that it is a contentious issue and most people are able to see both sides of it um you certainly don't want to leave a 12 year old in the second grade just because [Music] however i think that if we would really benefit from having more flexible school days more flexible school structure and more flexible curriculum so that when when students go to the next grade level if there was some area that

039they were not ready for that they get extra help in that area and it doesn't they don't skip and never go back to it if that makes sense i believe that it's important for our children to gain competence but it's really very important also for them to feel that feel confident that they are doing well and that they're progressing with their peers um and so i i see it both ways thanks thank you i also agree with uh deborah here i do also see it both ways you know we have to provide the same opportunity for every child obviously now do we get the same outcome probably not and we do have to provide the extra resources i believe and we rockwood we are a rich district and we can give the extra resources for

040the children to help them meet their expectations okay so we're [Music] there were a number of questions about special education programs and children with various challenges the district's programs to help them and here's the question that i saw most often should there be a district-wide special education intervention protocol a couple of questions just to give you some context said that they believed that in different buildings um there were different intervention protocols so again i don't live in this district so i don't know but i'm trying to give you the context of people who wrote this so should there be a district-wide special education intervention protocol why or why not so right now currently we have two separate uh districts one for special needs and one within rockwood and i believe that they need to work

041together in creating a standardized protocol plan for our special needs right now i believe that we need to provide more special services for our special kids also defining a true definition for dyslexia and how our special needs can get a definition clear definition for an iep diagnosis not just through the medical uh through their medical doctor but also working with the specialty district and the rockford school district so i think there should be a standardization between the school two school districts and what that looks like um i am looking forward to seeing those protocol practices thank you this time i agree that it seems to make sense that there is a district-wide standard i will give a shout out to ssd and say that i think they do excellent work as do all of our

042in-school special ed specialists um i think that whatever we do if we can make it easier for parents to navigate the process of getting an iep um and helping children to actually qualify for services know what services are actually available and what steps they have to take to get those services that will be a win for everybody thank you this is it or will you repeat the question yes uh the question is um should there be a district-wide special education intervention standard [Music] um i can bounce off of actually both answers here um but then we can i mean does that include the gifted also uh it says special education okay um yeah i think we do need a yeah i agree with them right here um have you know provided we've been doing a

043great job with the iups and our special teachers and what we need to do is connect with the parents and you know have the parents work with the child within partnership like that thank you ms clark um i would definitely say absolutely there needs to be standardization across the district i think that when you have one group doing it this way and somebody else doing it this way that that brings competition or chaos and confusion among the parents you know they need to know this is what rockwood stands for this is how we do things you're going to go regardless of where you go in the district it's going to be the same it's going to be strong everybody's going to get what they need regardless of where they line up in the district okay

044thank you we're going to start with you this time this time um this is sort of a related question should there be standardized discipline programs yes yes yes um there should and we need to pay special attention to what our discipline policies are and to be sure that they don't negatively affect certain students and certain groups of students more than others there's a lot of research out there about this to help in frameworks to help us think about our discipline policies to talk more about that some other time when i don't have the 30-second pattern okay um i think i kind of touched on that a little bit earlier uh talking with several teachers in the district uh we need to have some sort of uh discipline plan that does not would not take the

045teacher's attention away from the rest of the children um so i don't know i think we do need to look into that a little bit more as a district and come up with a solution thank you so my answer to that is the same yes there needs to be a standard so that you know everybody knows what's going on there there won't be these cases where usually this child differently you know if there if there's an action and it looks the same as somebody else's action you know what you're gonna get when you commit that action so again this is about cohesion the district needs to be on the same page we all need to be saying the same thing and you know what you get when we when you come to rockwood that's where

046chaos starts to come in when we don't have standardization of things like discipline thank you miss ryan well i think first we need a clear definition of what disciplinary action looks like is different for the elementary school level middle school and high school so there should be a standardization but it depends on what level that child is at studies do show that certain suspension rates does not affect it for the elementary school level so i think the standardization should look different for each areas but disciplinary action for suspension is absolutely needed for middle school and high school if you ask my kids i am all about discipline in that room thank you so we're going to start with you this time this emmy um what role do you believe the board of education should take

047in reviewing prison um i believe this is really more of a district question you know this falls back on the district and what role would the board take um i think at this point as what we're seeing with across the board really um when it's starting to affect our children and the parents bring up those you know uh issues or concerns and that i think that this is where the board needs to step in step up and work with the district so thank you miss clark um i believe that the board should have a strong enough relationship with the community to know how to make those decisions when it comes to the curriculum to know you know to have a curriculum in front of you and know this goes against what we value or this

048is in line with the value of the district so intimately knowing the district intimately knowing the community incidentally knowing what our teachers are capable of what kind of position we're putting them in with the curriculum is extremely important so again it's a balance it's the relationship between the board and the community is how we make those decisions properly thank you this is ryan so the role of the board is to really provide that direction and what the potential is of where the district is going right so at the lesson level we have to not we cannot micromanage our teachers in lesson planning so i think the board's goal is to provide direction of the district of what the education outcomes should be and what it should look like but as far as the lesson plan

049level we have to trust our teachers in knowing that they know what they're doing thank you miss stein so our teachers are professionals they i took education classes in college and there was a reason that i did not come out with an education major the classes are harder than you think um i i believe in them but i also know that there are state standards that we have to follow so many times we don't get a choice when it comes to the curriculum and it is not the role of the board of education to micromanage the curriculum further i would point out the elephant in the room and say that there are many parents and community members who would love to see us jump in and say that we cannot teach accurate history that we

050cannot have conversations that might make students feel uncomfortable in the classroom and that is not the role of the board of education either parents can have input on committees and there are many other ways for them to do that but i believe it's best for us for public education to leave it up to the district professional staff ms in it okay let's see who should i start with this time all right um a related question what's the role of the board of education in challenged material decisions and let me just give you a sense the kinds of questions about this they want to know about whether or not the board of education should make a list of books that shouldn't be in the library as well as in curriculum i had two questions that talked

051about should there be topics that should not be discussed in material which is available to students in the district such as child rape and other kinds of things so this is what we're trying to get at uh and what do you think the role of the board of education should be again i think that it goes the board needs to make sure that we're upholding the values and the vision of the district and the community so if we have an opportunity to put policies in place to make sure that students aren't accessing books that may cause them trauma or over-expose them or go against the values of the community then that's up to us to put those policies in place if they are necessary um again the relationship between the board and the community how

052are our parents feeling about this how is the community impacted by this we talked about the successful school district we engaged that by our parents and how their children are being impacted by the decisions the board makes when it comes to things like books is right so i am a heavy proponent of parents challenging whatever books that they feel that is not appropriate for their children however as a board member i'm not going to cancel any books because it makes me feel uncomfortable i cannot take that choice away from another parent there is a process already there is a committee book review process that is comprised of teachers parents sometimes students a board member and a curriculum coordinator so you can get on that committee process if you want to so the process is already

053in place for limitations no limitations or totally behind the book but i will not sign last another parent's choice to a book for their child this done adding to that i will say that um we are at risk of losing ap status on courses if there are required books that require books and required lessons that are banned in missouri schools and that that is something that's very dangerous and we shouldn't um we shouldn't be for that i have read many of the bands or the books that people are challenging i have i understand why those parents are concerned about that book and it very well may not be for their child they have the right to keep that equipment out of their child's hands [Music] i believe that societies that attempt to ban books are

054always on the wrong side of history and that books are about ideas and you can stop fighting it's ending um so i really do not believe in bannon books i do believe however in age appropriate i don't think every child's brain really uh opened some of those books i mean we put raining on shows and movies um so we think i think we need some sort of a warning label and i do believe that there is yet a policy that's set in place i think it's in the spring and um i do look forward to learning more about it okay thank you we are going to who wants to go next it's ms ryan what do you think the role of parents should be in banned material decisions now a couple of you have alluded

055to a process that's in place that they can go there but as you know a close by school district uh dealt with this kind of situation where a particular material a particular book was banned other districts across the country are dealing with this as well how do you think that ought to be handled uh well just like i said before there is already committee review process for certain books or curriculum i am not about canceling or banning any kind of books or curriculum it should be appropriate for the elementary grade school or high school level but i am not in favor of anything just because it makes an individual uncomfortable i will say this parents have the right to opt out their child for their child but you cannot opt out another parent's choice for

056their child hey thank you it's done so i agree with that i believe that parents should be involved in education i was an involved parent there were many times when we sat at the dinner table and talked about the book that the children were reading in class especially in high school and um for anyone who thinks you can indoctrinate a teenager oh my god more power to you and they wouldn't agree with each other either but we had um we had great faiths one piece of advice that i learned today from one of my colleagues her student got a hold of a book from the public library not the school library but it was a book that she did not want him to read too late he had already listened to it in audio form

057um so his punishment was that she had to read the book also which was very embarrassing for him [Music] should make sure that the books are age appropriate and i believe the parents actually should opt in so we know what books are age appropriate i do believe that teachers are again wearing many hats and they are getting taxed and spent and um this is where i am not for both bannon at all but i do believe that we should have some sort of age appropriate and we do have that process going on right now ms clark um i would agree i'm not her book banning but i think it is the school district's responsibility is the school's responsibility to show make sure the parents have access to everything i like the opt-in instead of having

058to opt out through all your research to figure out what's going on i think it's also the responsibility of the schools and the district to show parents how this is leading to academic excellence we have access to so many resources so much literature why why do we choose this i think that we have to hold the school's account what are we leading in a certain direction how does this add value to our students in the community what are they getting out of this when we choose these we could have chosen anything why are they choosing this in particular i think that's a conversation that we have to start having we don't have to pay and you just need to show me why this is going to contribute to a strong act of accommodation thank you

059we're going to start with you this time miss stone is there evidence that including material about diversity equity and inclusion and on harm's children if so what is it quite to the contrary i believe that when we include diversity education in our schools it helps children and helps them learn um there's a lot of talk about crt and i'm not an expert in crt thankfully i don't have to be because it's not taught in our schools people often get back confused with diversity education they're not the same thing i support k-12 lessons that tells students the truth about history in an age-appropriate manner and that affirms their differences and helps to build empathy between students and others who are different from them yes um the question is is there evidence that including material about adversity

060equity and inclusion and curriculum harms children if so what is it i have not looked into that um so i really cannot answer that question unless i look into that furthermore okay thank you very much this part so i believe that there's evidence in the way that our students are interacting with each other um i think that we should focus on the ways that we are similar versus focusing on the ways that we are different especially in an education setting we need to focus on acrobatics i don't think we should talk so much about race i think we should talk you know diversity can be diversity of ideas we come from different perspectives and different backgrounds regardless you know you can have a diverse looking room where we all look different and have the same

061ideologies the same backgrounds but to have a diverse background of people diversity means different things you know we become in an area where language we twist language to mean something different so to say that i'm against diversity would sound bad but it depends on how it's implemented and it can't be harmful if it's implemented incorrectly okay thank you miss ryan so just like jefferson regarding c or t crt is not taught in our schools let's all agree that crt should not be taught in our schools because it is a high level law class and that is too complicated for young developing minds to understand what i believe is this i believe that every child should be seen heard and accepted because if they feel accepted in their classroom and community they are better engaged in

062their academics than reading writing and arithmetic but just because we talk about race doesn't mean it's racism and just because we talk about racism doesn't mean we're oppressive we our school have a lot of ideas and we bring those ideas to the experiences of our past thank you we're going to start with you this time on as a school board member how would you balance your personal views about different matters like diversity with your duties as a school board i believe our district is designed uh really for our people of all shapes of life if you look at our district we are the largest district here um i mean the school that we belong to are designed to bring our children together um so what can i the question was what my background is that

063yep how do you balance your personal beliefs [Music] well my personal beliefs should not be impacting my role as a board member at all and it just we should just focus on the children it has nothing to do with my personal beliefs this is literally just about children of our district thank you mrs clark um i believe that you know being a board member you are in relationship with other board members and you have to nurture that relationship like you do with anything else we're not going to always agree but we have a common goal and that's making sure that our district is excellent our district is serving our kids our district is providing safe space for everyone as long as we can go back to that and find the common ground which is our

064kids and making sure that they're getting what they need you know what i believe personally won't come into effect and if it does we learn how to communicate and find common ground and move forward from there okay thank you miss ryan so i believe that as a board member i cannot bring my own bias beliefs and ideology into the decision-making process i already do that at work i have to be analytical and to be thoughtful and see what are the best metrics to bring the best outcomes so for education it's no different what are the metrics and designs and methodology used to create the best district for the best education outcomes for our children okay i just want to point out that ms emmick has to go of um emergency and so she doesn't want

065to leave us but thank you for coming thank you um so i i really believe that i can balance my personal views when i'm on the board it's going to be really important to be able to listen to others and evaluate data to make the best decision so i really hope what i really hope is that my personal views will evolve based on what i learned from being on the school board that the perspectives that i get from working with the parents and the teachers and the administrators and also that it would always be based on evidence and that my decisions will be data driven so rather than my my personal beliefs influencing what i say on the board i i really hope that what i learned from my experience with the lord will influence

066my personal beliefs okay ms clark we are going to start with you for this question we're going to take a break and have a different kind of question right i got four questions about buses how should the district deal with the bus shortage you want to start i guess i have no choice oh you know um so i i've talked recently to somebody about you know the budget and not being able to find enough drivers and things of that nature across the board everybody is struggling to get people to do work i think that rockwood is doing an amazing job to incentivize bus drivers to come into the district and as long as we continue to do that i think hopefully everybody's ready to get back to work that's something that it's hard to control

067after kovic glory is being at home so i mean we are offering the drivers great packages right now so i think just get the word out and let them know that those opportunities are available thank you this is ryan attracting us drivers for more rounds it's a difficult challenge right now um you can see it in the supply chain you can see it in healthcare you can see it in education and then teacher shortages right now we're averaging around 17 and 26 for bus drivers depending on their if they already have a license or not um i think we need to increase that uh right now if you go to mcdonald's you can go to burger king they're paying their people 25 an hour so i think we need to preset one of the ways

068also is to look at benefits if you look at parkway they're providing health care benefits and they do not have a striker shortage so we need to look at pay we need to look at benefits that is in line with fiscal responsibility so we can increase our rights and help our parents with logistics thank you mr great answers um and i agree with them it is it's very hard to get bus drivers because you're asking someone to do a job in the morning and then take a bunch of hours off and then do a job in the afternoon and many of these people are looking for full-time employment um so i'm not privy to all the things that the board has already considered i am sure that they have considered so many different things but

069in addition to what's been mentioned um you know perhaps there is uh some way that we can partner either with other school districts or um with other local businesses somehow to um to get our bus drivers closer to full employment um some sort of partnership program that allows them to do something to earn money during those hours that they're not on the bus okay thank you very much miss ryan we're starting with you this time there were three questions about redistricting in the district and two of the questions said that the schools are uneven in terms of population do you think that redistricting needs to be addressed why or want that yes yes yes i agree that we need to look at redistricting and allocating our enrollments i have a child that which agrees that

070is going to wobble the middle and then all the friends go to eureka and then she will go to lafayette so i think to balance the high schools we need to re-allocate some of these enrollments if you look at eureka specifically they are exploding with new subdivisions and new population growth so i think we have to look at enrollment at the high school level especially okay thank you i think it's a given that we always have to do that on a continual basis i mean things are changing so quickly out here and it's just going to to continue which is great because it brings new people new tax dollars university into our schools but we do need to make sure that our facilities are being um used you know that they're being that they're full

071but not too full and i know that there's going to have to be some good decisions made about adding on to school buildings and perhaps even building new facilities so that's something that's going to have to be addressed absolutely thank you miss clark um absolutely yes i the example that amy gave about you know the children being separated because of the district lines and when they um fall that impacts their emotional needs and their social needs so um absolutely if the district sees that that is necessary and we have to do that okay thank you very much i'm going to start with you this time this time um what one initiative would you support to reduce bullying and i have to tell you i had almost 10 questions about this between tonight and you being

072present and the questions that were pre-submitted to me as a matter of fact one person who wrote a question said that their child who is a child of color had been bullied for a number of years and then actions were not taken uh to stop them so i'm just trying to give you a sense of how people feel about this topic so what one initiative as a priority would you support it is a huge problem and it's something that really tears in my heart personally i would support any program that emphasizes youth development positive youth development that can take a number of forms programs that affirm students that give them a sense of belonging uh you know this can happen in a theater group it can happen in a you know a cohort of students

073that you know many live in a certain area but as long as it incorporates positive youth development it's going to be successful in helping students stop bullying behaviors and also increasing the resilience of students that unfortunately [Music] something happening usually outside of the school so having the resources for those students of course there needs to be a culture um in the schools we're saying you know if you are being bullied we hear you you're making sure that you're safe and that person is going to have to answer to that but also some kind of intervention for the child because that is the sign that there is something happening with that student that is causing them to act out so yes the program where they are able to express those emotions on top and you know

074be rehabilitated from whatever trauma they're dealing with that's causing them to believe students thank you so many of the school's successes against anti-bullying is in conjunction working with non-profit anti-bullying groups one initiative that i would like to take on is working with non-profits that decreases the isolation in our children and also decreases the depression in our students but one of the non-profits that i would love to work with is that they deal specifically with children because children they sometimes don't know what is mean and what is bullying so if we can have our children identify what is what and stand up for their friends in a organized fashion um working with these nonprofits would be the way to go so they can identify what is what okay thank you very much we're going to start

075with you this time ms clark a number of people wanted to know bullying is one challenge but there are additional challenges i'm sure they're related uh with the mental health needs and emotional needs of our students can you point to one initiative to work on that that you would want to support um absolutely so we all know that rockwood is in a mental health crisis i think that um the pandemic and virtual learning and asking all those things contributed to the mental health of our students um talking more about it allocating enough resources to where you have someone that is qualified and dedicated or multiple people and that is not the teacher's job because that's not their qualification so just ensuring that rockwood has a culture where we prioritize mental health and that our students

076understand it and they know how to go and get the resources that they need okay thank you i guess we're gonna start with you this time uh a related question uh and i got this question [Music] question okay thank you see we're all so engaged we're i'm trying to put these questions together as i go so that makes sense what one initiative would you support that engages the student student lgbtq community so the program that rockwood just implemented right now is called hazel health it's for mental health uh programs for our community and as a project manager the implementation of that i think needs to be reevaluated but regarding with the lgbtqia group specifically i should say in transgender uh children they are two to three times higher in depression and suicide rates and they

077are 75 percent higher in anxiety the siblings of transgender kids also are impacted mentally so i would hope that we can all with parents and the teachers and the rest of the community could really promote health and how to implement it logistically for the for our children would be the initiative that i would have wanted to start with first thank you miss dunn so i'm going to answer the first question for sure i'm aware of a program called cognito starts with a k it's a training program that helps people understand how to identify a mental health crisis and basically how to be a first responder it is it's an engaging way of doing that and i think that should be required training for anyone who is interacting with students and for students um at the

078appropriate age levels so if every student in the high school was trained in what they needed to do to um to advise and to refer a fellow student who was in a mental health crisis and every coach and teacher knew what to do and where the resources were i think that would be a tremendous help the other part of the question was about gay and trans students right and what was the actual question what would you do to engage with this group of students what what initiative would you support to engage with that sure well this this could be a part of the same initiative um i i wholeheartedly and engaging with those students and letting them tell us what the problems are and how we might be able to fix that there are a

079lot of trans students engaged students in rockwood many of them i have had personal conversations with wonderful kids but there is there are still misunderstandings and stigmas that we need to work on as a culture thank you this is art okay so i let me try to lightly with this one all kids have unique challenges i don't think kids that are part of the lgbtq community have any more challenges than any other children i think as long as they know that their teachers are there to support them like i don't think that we should be talking about student sexual orientation i think that goes beyond what the school is about but just like any kid with any other problem knowing that there is somebody that you can talk to and they have access to resources

080but to isolate them as if they have different issues than any other child is not appropriate okay everybody answered that question i have a question for all of you that deals with health standards and some of the things that have gone on this year about required virtual learning about masking about vaccinations etc so here's the question miss ryan what standard should the district use to determine public health school policies i think it should be a customizable standard specifically to runway i don't believe in vaccine mandates i believe that that is going to be up to the parents choice if they want to vaccinate themselves or their children but i will always follow the cdc the nih the american academy of pediatrics the local public health department and our local doctors in what is appropriate safety

081mitigation the number one actual safety mitigation is not masking is hvac systems air circulation if you go into hospitals negative air pressure is the way to go in deflecting covet so that is something that i want to prepare our district in rapid readiness as we get the essence in and look at those projects so there are ways to do safety mitigation and healthcare standards but we have to also be guided by the professionals that do this every day thank you [Music] um mr i that was an excellent answer and i agree with that i think following um the recommendations of the cdc is a pregnant way to go because we always have to consider first the safety of our students and our staff in rockwood and we also have to remember that it's not just

082the decisions that we have to hear about we're also a major employer and we can't risk having our employees all of them out sick and dying um and that's literally that was literally the risk that we that we were faced with if i'm on the board all like all anyone reasonably can promise is that if anything like this ever happens again that we will listen to um public health experts and that's gratitude okay this clark so as as you know we all we all just live through this um and i think that there needs to be of course listen to the professionals and the experts but when you have experts with opposing views and ideas who gets to choose so making sure that everybody comes to the table with their ideas and then when things

083are implemented and people have questions that those questions are being answered and that the families in the community know why you're doing this so when information is not to go along with that the parents need to know why that's happening as andy said there has to be choice you know there has to be choice in what the parents do because when it comes to health like that that's on parents that's on the community somebody has asked a question about what exactly is in the curriculum and i'm going to change it slightly so that it's a useful question for everyone and that is you're asking is there any subject matter or readings from the 16-19 project in the curriculum where they're also saying the 1776 one uh please explain how one can discover these you mean

084how to find them yes so you can google either of those things on the internet and if you you can see a lot of it the 16-19 project was something that came out of writings that were in the new times maybe i wasn't oh yeah please is it being used in the district in the curriculum how can someone find that oh how can they find out is it being you yes okay so when you know when you're when you're dealing with when you have a question about the curriculum the first thing to do is to talk to the classroom teacher um there are syllabi that are given out at the beginning of the school year where you can um you can see if they're very transparent about what it is that's um that's going to

085be taught um that doesn't mean that a student on their own might not take one of these sources and bring it in as part of a classroom project they have the right to do that just like they would any other source um and that's all part of the process of critical thinking i would say my understanding is that um those resources are not you ms park i believe that there are influences in our district when it comes to ideas surrounding things like the 16-19 project again our teachers have they have freedom and flexibility about what they choose to bring from the classroom i believe that our district does um we promote certain authors and certain ideas like kidney and things like that so when that's promoted in the district your teachers are going to lean

086towards you know using things in that nature so is is there an influence in the classroom that may come from the 16-19 project yes first of all i think we have done make sure that we all understand there's a difference between curriculum and lesson planning so the curriculum is the overall design of a particular subject because it has to be safe and meet certain educational outcomes i do believe that a half the curriculum should be age appropriate again they do not want to micromanage teachers they decide on the lesson plan that meets the state's standards of the curriculum the parents can if it's not enough through pto email or phone that they should reach out to uh their teachers in in a matter of different ways if that is not sufficient we could definitely look

087at the board to improve those communication standards but i am not going to be micromanaging teachers on the actual lesson planning of our kids education okay um we're going to start with you this time part what experience do you have in managing multi-million dollar budgets so none with managing multi-million dollar budgets but i do have um experience with managing multi-million dollar accounts my background is in banking um and accounting so um i mean the only budget i manage now is my household budget which can be a little sketchy but that's either here so over the past 20 years in healthcare and as supporter of the manufacturer of the healthcare system i deal with multi-million dollar contracts daily so when i deal with uh products and contracts i have to be compliant with those contracts and

088i have to make sure that when i work with cfos then i meet those contracts as their budget to make sure also that we get patient outcomes that we need so when i would deal again with ssn bjc mercy health they're not in just in the hundreds of thousands there is in the tens of millions i actually just recently closed a contract with mercy that is over 100 million dollars so i believe that that expertise and qualifications will be transferable to the board thank you thanks i am lucky to have 25 years of experience working in some large organizations that were that have multiple funding sources including government grants and contracts and large philanthropic gifts each of which had to be handled differently um the the rockwood school district budget is extremely complicated but i've

089seen stuff like that before my my master's program covered non-profit finance and government accounting and related subjects like that um at washington university which is where i work now for the past 12 years i am the senior the chief development officer for arts and sciences which is the largest college on the main campus we have 45 different departments and programs within arts and sciences and each of them needs funds so i support the dean in helping to raise millions of dollars every year to support academic research and student support thank you all right we're nearing the end of the questions um i have a strong belief that you should never keep people captive over a certain amount of time for me it's an hour and a half and i also believe that you all personally

090probably want to talk to these people that begin so i'm going to ask uh two last questions but before i do that and we turn final statements i want to mention some questions that i think belong answered in the in the closing statement by candidates just so you know that i consider them and i think that they're important a number of people have asked why are you one of the two best qualified candidates to deserve my vote some people have asked what in your background and your education makes your best to serve on the school board some people have asked what amount of energy and time are you going to be able to devote to this job so i think that those employees really brings you here tonight for a non-pay complicated sometimes tense written

091unpleasant sprinkled with moments of joy of course okay good job and i think those things belong in the final statement so i just want to give you a little bit of a heads up about that uh before these last two questions fair enough here they are number one what would you do to bring decorum and civil discussion back to districts um the number one thing that we have to do as a community i know we are hurting we've been hurting for the last couple of years and i completely understand that is repair the reputation of this district and so the first thing i think that we need to really start doing is having an open and productive conversation between the parents the teachers and our children so we can provide a compromised and fair balanced

092solution for the betterment of our children the second is really to focus on retaining and recruiting teachers if we really want to make sure our children is performing at their academic potential and their academic rest so communication between the entire community and supporting our teachers should be the number one goal in repairing the reputation of this district thank you mr stun i really truly believe that empathy is one of the best life skills that we should hope that our students develop and we have to model that as well we have to model civility and responsibility and kindness for each other this you know it has been a very very heated couple of years um i understand that people are very emotional about where they're coming from on some of the issues that we have to

093deal with but i would support myself in a way that demonstrates that i don't believe that this role is about politics i believe that it is about having a strong excellent school system just like we have keeping it that way and making sure that it serves all of our children equally and removes any barriers that they have to success so i think just keeping the focus on that and trying to listen and show that i can be hearing everyone um that's what i would do okay thank you miss clark i think that we've lost our way um when it comes to just allowing people to be human and seeing where they are and meeting them where they are and being okay with disagreeing with each other and not dehumanizing people because we don't agree our

094district is very divided and a lot of politics have entered that but you know we have to show our students that it's okay it's great it's okay to have a friendly debate it's okay to learn and grow from each other it's okay to allow someone to change our minds on an idea so we have to be more heart centered and we have to refocus on what this is all about and that's making sure that our kids have a strong academic foundation okay thank you here's my last question and that is and i think we're going to start with you give us an example of a situation in which you it was really tough for you to happen really tough and tell us what you did well that's hard my friends like tell you one of

095the most annoying things about me is that i have a lot more empathy than most people and my husband in particular so okay um [Music] one of my daughters is not my biological daughter she was at the vent program and for those of you who aren't familiar that's the desegregation program um the single city and she got to be friends with my daughter back in elementary school and um when it was hard for me to have empathy at times for her parents who um had you know been frankly neglectful and very difficult to live with and the way that i got over that was basically trying to get over myself i don't have it all down either people have struggles uh i spend time with them i ate with them i think okay i might

096even talk about that but i think you could fill in so if you have a teenage daughter you know that there's lots of school drama lots of stress with that and so you know i'm no different my daughter had a lot of trauma at school with the girls that they were being you know really mean to her and of course as a as a mom you know you're ready to call the parents and you're ready to go there um so we had to live in this school here and again we spent time i like that um never talked about anything and spending time you know these girls were in my home so i know these girls and so instead of just encouraging her to ditch those kids we turn it into a life lesson because

097it's not going to stop you're always going to have somebody that's dealing with something that you don't understand they're going to try to take it out on you and they're going to so you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes and understand to know them and why are you like this there's a reason that you are like this and we have to learn how to disconnect from people when it's time okay thank you finally so uh i put a lot on my on my family because i'm gonna be busy and i expect them to be incredibly busy so i think um when i say to my kids your number one job is to be a student and i put i think sometimes a lot of pressure on them because i put a

098lot of pressure on myself uh to reach a certain standard um as a citizen in this country so i think that i need to sometimes pull back on my family and make sure that we have fun and we enjoy ourselves and reap the rewards that we work so hard to get but um at the end of the day that they need to succeed because that's what expected them thank you we're going to now have two minute closing statements we're going to start with ms clark and then i have just a couple of announcements at the end so if you'll bear with me and then i think we're leaving plenty of time for you to meet with these candidates get material and to talk to one another yes clark you ready yes um so one of

099the questions was you know why am i here and qualifications and things of that nature i think that my biggest qualification is that i am a parent i get to see every day the impact that the board's decision makes i get to hear the crying and i get to hear the stress i get to see all of that on a daily basis sometimes we get so far away from the individual and the humanity of the student we're so high level on you know numbers and data and plans that we don't think about how this is actually impacting them every single day so that's a huge qualification i feel like i've brought to the table why am i here i love my kids i want i know that education is the gateway to freedom giving them

100the opportunity to choose what kind of life they lead because they can read because they can do math because they have a solid academic foundation so whatever it takes for me to be a part of that to say that i was there to support you and that i played a part in making sure that your school was the best school you got what you needed that's why i show up and that's why i will continue to fight and advocate and make sure that other parents have that voice also thank you thank you this time i'm here because rockwood has given me so much when i look at my three children who went all the way through rockwood schools just graduated last year all three are off to college doing very well and i think back

101that it's because of rockwood that they can read it's because brockwood that they can add and subtract um and it's because of brockwood that they understand critical concepts like you know what's going on in the world today they can sit and have an intelligent conversation about that um has rockwood lost its way in terms of academics i can tell you without a doubt come sit at my dinner table while my kids are home from spring my kids are so much better prepared for life and for continuing their education and selecting and succeeding in a career than i ever was at 18 or 19 years old and that's because of rockwood it's because of all the people who poured their lives and much of their own personal money into the classrooms to make their experience so

102good and to give them the freedom to think critically to express themselves and to become who they are so i want to do that for everyone else's child and that's really the simple answer um the other thing is that i i can't imagine a more wonderful opportunity than to serve on a board of education with someone as promising as dr kane and i just ask that everyone in this room and everyone watching online please give him a chance no matter who gets elected just give dr payne a chance and listen to what he has to say and help him succeed thank you it's funny so i think we all agree that education implement it is quite different i will keep my promise that rockwood's education be centered on our children and our community and our

103classrooms this is not just a slogan for me this that is deadlines and time runs that also impacts broadcast children in a positive way a vote for me is a vote for merit a vote for me is real transferable experience and qualifications someone who has actually listened and learned from all perspectives that you can trust me with your children's education your voice matters your child's voice matters our teachers voices matter and i want to thank two very special people tonight one is harper my youngest she has taught me to fight for everything and fear nothing and the other one is hayden who taught me what real representation is that my adopted family didn't look like me or didn't speak my both language and was i saw her eyes staring back at me i understood what

104representation means and i will push for representation for all of our kids coupled with real academic achievement we need both for children's success so i asked for your vote on april 5th and i ask for our community to start healing and move forward all right first of all let's give these candidates [Music] a couple of friends of mine i was doing this tonight they said really okay that's going to be chaos have you watched the board meetings i said i'm a simple woman i trust that we can come together and discuss things civilly as long as we have a forum we just run well as long as we are fair and as long as we listen to one another and ask good questions i didn't get to ask everybody's question but i hope i came

105close to touching those subjects that were important and you can ask other questions afterwards so i want you to give yourselves a round of applause you made this for you i want to say thank you to our hosts it takes a lot of work to run something like this in the rockwood district particularly regina and mary and i want to thank the volunteers from the league of women voters who came out here and forced to make this forum as good as we can make it and if you would just raise your hand those volunteers okay i probably have a sense of this we're having how many forums is it 18 marker we're having 18 forums in addition to that today we turned in the last items of a 1300 item voters guide it covers six

106counties in the city of saint louis with over 800 candidates and 117 ballot issues we did that all with volunteers the post dispatch publishes it we produce the content we take democracy very very very seriously and we're very concerned about the threats to it but tonight okay there was no threat in this room there was a commitment to that democracy regardless of whether or not we agree on things i'm very grateful for that if you found this forum to be useful think about joining us by becoming a member of the saint louis league of women voters we've got three or four members from eureka now they're important members in our group we'd like you very much good by the way the league of women voters it's not for women only you may not know that

107we have about what 70 80 members now who are man and they are holding key roles uh in the league and we welcome your participation i want you to make sure that you know that tomorrow is the last day to register if you're going to vote in the safehold collection you can vote i mean you could register to vote tell your friends and family this you know online through the secretary of state's website or the saint louis county board of elections website through tomorrow it probably is tough right now but we've got some voter registration cards back there and we will make sure they get there if you fill them out because we want everybody to be able to vote the polls are going to be open tuesday april the 5th from 6 am to

1087 pm if you want good accurate non-partisan information about candidates and ballot issues in about i would say six days get on vote one and it will be up online okay and then the post dispatch publishes a 250 000 copies of the voter's guide in paper form that again our volunteers in hand carry to all parts of those six seven counties including warren lincoln franklin et cetera et cetera we assure you come out here we came from the libraries and senior communities and all kinds of places and we hope that that's helpful to you now some of the polling places may have changed this time around uh a few of them at least so look it up ahead of time you can do that on the st louis county board of elections website or if

109you get in trouble at the day of the election don't know where to go or another question call the lead with women voters okay at six nine 314-961-6869 our volunteers will be there to help you explain charter amendments there are four of them versus campus county plus everything else that you're gonna vote for local government makes your life different it affects you more than anything else so while we're facing everything else in the state and in the country and in the world okay go out there and work to make your community a better place vote thank you very much it's been my honor to be your moderator this evening i'm sure the candidates will be happy to talk to people we all talk