001That doesn't work. Good evening. I call this meeting to order. Roll call, please. Yes. Miss Karns, Miss Miller, Miss Williams, here. Miss Chzn, here. Mr. Moore here. Miss Lanny here. All right. I'll stand for the pledge of allegiance, please. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Is there a motion for the approval of the agenda? I'll make that motion. Thank you, Miss Rhonda. Is there a second? I'll second. Thank you, Miss Jennifer. Call, please. Miss Williams? Yes. Miss Miller? Yes. Miss Chzn? Yes. Miss Karns? Yes. Miss Lanny? Yes. Mr. Moore? Yes. And the motion passes? 6. Okay. Action items number one. Would you like to explain the process, Miss Donor? I
002can. There will be 10 questions that will be asked to each candidate and they will have three minutes to answer each question. Should time permit. There are two extra questions and also the candidate will have a brief few minutes for remarks on their own if they would like. And we ask that all candidates go to the hallway and Miss Eileene will call you all in by number. And once you're done speaking, you can stay. Follow them, Kenneth. Perfect. Okay, ladies and m prior to beginning, are there any questions? I do have one question about um I know we all sent questions to you and I'm just curious how you chose the ones you chose just because I'm curious. Well, actually everyone's are actually in the 10. Okay. Because when I was looking at the emails.
003A lot of them over overlapped. Okay. And that's actually I looked at that as like a good sign because it means that we're thinking kind of alike, which is out of the ordinary, you know, but I looked at it as a good thing. And so it's how come if you're looking at the questions, it may be like a two-part question or kind of long because it was like a combination of questions. Okay. I was just curious. No problem. Okay. Number one, it will be Dr. William Cold to get him. So, we're keeping the scoring and one is high and five is low. Yes. Yes. I know that's backwards, but yeah, I wondered about that. So, it's like it's like both who has the lowest score, not who has the highest grade. Yeah. Okay. I wondered
004about that. You know what? I'm a rule follower, so I went with it. It's always been that way, so I loved it that way. Good evening, Dr. Caldry. Good evening. I appreciate you joining us. Thank you. I appreciate you allowing me to come and give me the opportunity to be here. Thank you. If you look on the podium, there's a list of questions. Members of the board will ask each one in turn. Okay. As mentioned earlier, you will have up to three minutes in order to compile your compile your response. All right. Thank you. All right. Okay. Miss Jennifer, you ready? Mr. Hi. First question, well, it's kind of a two-part question here. What are your top three priorities if appointed to serve on the school board? And if you are selected, what is the
005most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? My top priority would be to continue your long range plan that you've already put together that needs to be completed. Looking at your long range plan, it's going to take a lot of work to plan it out. Uh, I've been through consolidation and I've been through a redistricting at one time and my goal would complete that project and then move forward with your your present plan that you have that you do wind up with your two high schools because I look at it both financially and educationally. Financially, we can't keep pouring money into buildings and buildings and buildings. And the other thing is if we're reducing in our population of our students like we are, we're down from 11,000 to 10. and we need
006to come together and look at it from a business standpoint. What's most efficient for the money that we get for the taxpayers? So, that would be my goal. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. Hello there. Um, what do you see as strengths of the school district and how do you recommend we make the most of those strengths? And then there'll be a second part to that in just a minute. I'm a courtapp appointed special advocate for your children. I had 16 of them there. I represent court. So I'm in and out of a lot of your schools. I had two my two oldest kids graduated from Central. My dad graduated from Benton. You have some amazing teachers out there. You have some amazing employees, not just teachers. And I think that's an important part. I was
007at the meeting on Monday night and they presented the new reading program that they want to use in the lower grades called benchmark which I think was amazing. The presentation was fantastic and you're working towards those things that you need to do to give all the kids in this school district a better education. And that's the most important thing. The first thing you got to do, whatever the decision is that you make tonight or whatever decision if I'm chosen, first thing on my agenda, how's it going to help my kids? And I say my kids because I look at them as my kids. The causes that I represent were 16 of them. And I go out and I say, well, I talk about my kids. I made that mistake. Somebody said, "Well, what are you
008going to court about your kids? What' they do wrong?" No, the 16 kids that I represent and they are important to me. Uh, I've been around kids all my life. I'm a Schwiner. I've transported kids to St. Louis. And I think that's important that there's that I have that zeal for kids and that's an important thing to me. Okay. What do you see as um challenges facing the district and what are some suggestions you have for those? uh the challenges I see faced in the district last year 25% nationwide there was a teacher shortage and you're fighting a teacher shortage I don't know that I could give you an answer to that uh there was less and less people going into teaching teaching is to me is not a vocation yes I got paid but
009it's not a vocation it's a passion if you don't have that passion to teach and the teachers that I've been around I've got to deal with with the kids that I represent have that passion and you just need to keep playing on that passion and just try to keep bringing more and more new teachers in and keep your retention up. And that's the biggest thing that you need to do is keep teachers here and prove to the community that you have those good teachers. Let them know what's out there. Sometimes I come to your meetings and I feel like I don't get all the information there and some of it comes out later. U Monday night u Dr. Seagris was on the corner and he brought up the comment about well we were established for
01011,000 students we're down to 10. that was never conveyed that I know of during your issue to raise your bond. Those are the things that you need to do for your community. From my background, I built an elementary school. I built a performing arts center. I built a sports complex. I built a a vocational school. And I put a ground source heat pump system in an entire district. And that is some of the most important things to do to give them information and knowledge out. Knowledge is power. and you want your community to have the same power and knowledge that you do and you need to communicate that. Thank you very much. Hi Dr. Gold. Good evening. What do you believe your role as a board member entails? Second part. A lot of hard work.
011I'm willing to do that. Again, I've been an educator all my life. Uh I just finished teaching at Sisters of Solace, nine weeks for the ladies down there. I taught them uh personal finance and it's just something that you have a passion for all your life and that's the important part of that is to continue that process. Education is a continual thing. It never ends. You never stop learning. You learn every day. And we need to instill that desire in the kids. And that's part of the job of being on the board. That flows down to your teachers. the teachers do that. Our job or my job if I'm on the board is to support them. I as a teacher and I as an educator did not like the top down theory. I just think
012that's wrong. You need the bottom up theory where your teachers say this is just like the benchmark that you had the other night went around to different schools, different grade levels, and they love that over the other choice that they had. And that's where your the administrator came in and recommended that. That's what you need. Your teachers need to know that you're here to support them to do and supply them what they need to do to do the job that they're passionate about. Well, the another part to that is how do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing our district and our school board? I don't only have a code of ethics with the board. I have a code of ethics for me. I believe in pride and I don't
013mean being prideful. I mean in personal responsibility for my daily individual efforts. So I have to put my efforts into everything and then my name's on the line, my life's on the line, people normally through the line and I take that seriously that I'm very ethical about what I do. I will not violate the ethical process. I will not violate something that's not ethical in the district or even ethical law. I'm a Christian and I believe in God and I try to I try to follow that. So I I'm very ethical about what I do. If I'm elected, you vote I mean and we agree on something. When I walk out the door, it's going to be we agree. We decided regardless what the vote is 4, three, 52, whatever it comes out, it's a
014we decision, not well the board decided to do that because I've been around, not in this district, but I've been around some well the board decided well you're on the board, but so they go out with that attitude and that's unethical to me. Thank you. Make sure you speak into the mic as much as you can. Okay. People, it's okay. The people on Okay. I'm sorry. Oh, I forgot about those two over there. I apologize. Thank you. Okay. Miss Lanning, are you in a position to read your question? No. I say text. Can you read it for me, please? Yes. Um, number four. Can you please share one decision of the board in the past 12 months that you have agreed with and then another that you have disagreed with? Can you also explain why
015for both instances? one that I disagreed with and one that I agreed with. I agreed with your bond issue, but from that standpoint, I just again don't think it was communicated well. There was lack of communication to me and I was chief financial officer for Excels Spring School District and I just felt there was information that I didn't have. And the other thing that I do, I go out in the community and I sit and listen. Sometimes I don't speak, I just listen. You'll hear a lot of comments about about there what's going on. So I agreed with that. What I disagreed was the way that was presented. It needed more more information. The information like Dr. Secrets presented about we're 11 times more down to 10. I knew your population was falling. Will it
016continue to do that? We hope not because that's more funding and money that we're losing. But if we don't improve our schools, we are not going to really grow here. Yes, Bish is doing a new thing. down in South St. Joe down there or not daily but the new plant down there making bacon and they're putting $100 million in it. But we want to continue to grow and we want people to come here and come and stay. We've got to improve our system and I see you working on that in different fashions and different ways just like the benchmark and other things that you're doing. So I agree with you on those two things. My disagreement would be I don't think you presented it well. Okay, Mr. Moore. Okay, Mr. Caldry, can you hear me?
017Okay. Yes, sir, I can. Okay. Excellent. Sorry I can't be with you tonight, but sure appreciate you being here. Um, my question, we've touched on it a little bit, but let me uh let me try to summarize here. If selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or might you suggest specific revisions or perhaps a new plan entirely? No, I would not make a new plan entirely. I think we have a good plan. One of the things you're going to run into through those processes and it's going to like a domino's effect. We've got to take time to sit down and plan this out because you want to change your schools in red district so that your female schools are taken care of and your female schools take care of your middle school.
018Your middle school takes care of your high school. Although I think that's an excellent plan. I think you're in the right direction. But again, it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of planning. Otherwise, that plan will fail, too. If I'm on the board, then I will support that and I will donate all the time that I need to to make that plan come to real for this school district because I think it's the way that we need to move. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. Okay, Dr. Cry, this school board is made up of many strong personalities and occasionally there's a little bit of conflict. How do you see yourself working with the current members of this board? And in what ways can you bring cohesion and team building skills amongst the board
019members? Well, I'm a team player. I've been that way all my life. I've coached football. I've coached basketball. I've coached track. And that gives me a skill to work with people and bring them together. You'll find that I'm a very patient person and easy to get along with. If you don't agree with what I said, that's okay. I don't take it personally. You have an opinion in your own. You have a right to that opinion. And we just go from there. We just cross paths. But we work our way through it. We don't get angry. We don't I don't get angry. I've always said, "Why get angry? Why cuss? Before I do those things, what's it going to change?" Not a thing. And sometimes the best thing to do when you get to that point
020is to stop and not say a word for a little bit. Let things settle down, but go back and realize, hey, if I said something to offend you, whoever, I'm sorry, it was not intended. I was just forcing my opinion. So, we need to come together as a group and make the decision as a group. And again, when that decision is made and I walk out that door and somebody asks me, I'm going to say we decided, not you, not somebody else. It's a we decision. Thank you. Welcome. Okay, Mr. Mike. Thank you. Back to me real quick. Mr. Cer, what suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? That's one of the hardest things in the world to answer, Mike, that's going on in this school district
021and some other school districts, too. But again, when I was at your workshop meeting Monday night and listen to the presentation of what your work wanting to do with your curriculum and make your changes, I think you're moving in a positive direction by bringing those things in. And again, you're going down your teacher level and they're saying, "This is what we want. This is what we think will work. We have faith in it." And if your teachers have faith in that, they're going to have faith in you that you support them and allow them to do that. And if we can create more interest and have a better educational process, then the desire to be in school is going to grow. Because part of your job, responsibilities to kids is not only educate them now,
022but educate them for the future and get that desire to continue to learn because whatever you do in life, you never stop learning. Even when you you still continue to learn. So we have to put that burning desire in them. And the best way to be there is be at school for that absenteeism hurts. Uh some of the kids I deal with, the older ones particularly. Uh their attendance rates is in the 60%. Uh I don't know whether you have a trusting officer or where you are with that for sure, but we need to look into what do we need to do to get these kids to school? Do we need to go get the parents and say, "You bring that kid to school, I need to see you at school. Your kid cannot learn
023sitting at home or doing whatever they do." So, I've seen that a lot with some of the kids that I deal with. Thank you. You're welcome, sir. You're back to me, Dr. Co. Okay. How should the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children? And what role should that community play when supporting education and our district? The whole community should be behind your school. It's the collective part of your school. It is your future, not your history. You need to look down the road and say, "Where do we want to be? Where do I want to be? Where do I want my kids to be? I want my kids to have the absolute best education that they had. I went to a small high school, 435, and I got a good education
024compared to what they had today and what I had then maybe mediocre education, but it did me well. It got me through school and got me through my degree work and everything that I wanted to do. So, we need to continue to offer that type of attitude. I know your teachers are out there and again, the 16 that I was, your teachers are amazing. They're amazing to some of these kids that they take on and deal with. Part of the problem is the lack of absenteeism, but part of the problem is discipline problems too that these teachers deal with. If a teacher has to do all the discipline, they can't handle their educational process. And I know that your teachers from watching them teach these some of these kids, they touch all three. They do
025the visual, tactile, and auditory. When they teach, they make sure their m lessons plan follow that. so that all kids in my classroom learn because you don't know exactly how each kid learns. That teacher gets to know that child and say that child learns visually, that child over there learns auditory, or that all over there learns tactile. So, I've got to incorporate all of those things into my lesson plans to accomplish the best education for this child that I can. All right. What do you believe are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the St. Joseph School District? And what is the greatest threat facing public education? That's a very long tough question, too. That's almost nationwide question. Some of it I look at I think about what's going on like the students
026that haven't paid their student loans and I look at that and when we were forgiving the loans I opposed that I thought that was wrong because what to me is we're just enabling them. We're not making them be responsible what they decided they want to do and what they're doing. So that's going to be a nationwide problem. And that's going to be a problem to get these kids really where they desire to be at school. That's the important thing. There was a young man uh he's about 29 30 years old and he belonged to the Southside policy if you know what that is in Kansas City. One of the most notorious gangs in Southside. He's now turned around and he's taken policy and turned it into positive outcome supporting student efforts. That's what he calls
027policy now. and he's working with kids and he takes them out. He went to one place he went to a hospital where these kids lost friends, lost lives and let them see the background. The hospital worked with them. They went through the labs, knew what they did there. And the information that these kids picked up and the understanding that they picked up was just amazing to them. They were saying, "Oh, I didn't know." So we need other ways to continue the education, other ways to bring in new desires and these kids to continue their educational process and continue to look more ways to improve. If I had the one answer to that, I wouldn't be here. I'd be a millionaire. So that's really a tough question and again it comes back not only to the
028board, but it comes to the teachers and it comes to your community. Got to have the community behind us. We've got to have the community support and whatever we do as we continue to move forward to give the absolute educa best education to every child in this school district. Thank you, Dr. Culture. Um, our school district and the Missouri School Board Association share a lot of the same legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri. Um, a few of the examples are um, student achievement funding and educators support. Can you let us know your views on advocacy for public education in Missouri and how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district in public education? The state of Missouri has the right to take one third of the general budget and
029give it to education. They have never ever done that. They backed off the foundation forming at one time, redid it, and they finally brought money back. And we're getting more people to advocate there because that's part of your funding. But we need to advocate everywhere, not just there. We need to advocate to the community. We need that community support. We need the community advocating for us, too. Not just you, but your entire school district as a group. You want the board to come together and work cohesively. I want all of the buildings, all of the people and everybody that's employed with us coming together advocating for you. They need to make sure that they have again the information they need. And they need to go out there and be positive about what they say and
030positive about what they hear and positive about the information that they put out. If you don't and you get one person who says, "Oh, well that's kind of getting by." you realize how much damage that does. We need all that positive information going out. We need the positivity that I see in your teachers and the positivity that I see in this district. And I look down and I see nothing but positive things can and will happen. We just need to stay together and work together. And again, the first thing on your mission, the first line says students first. And again, that's the important thing. What are we doing for the students? If we do this, how's it going to improve their education? How's it going to make them in school? And then secondly, what's it
031going to do for our employees? Thank you, Dr. Jennifer. Could you take that first extra question? In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? transparency and communication. We need more communication going out there. Again, like Dr. Seagris the other night said part of the problem that we have as student population, you set up for 11,000, you're down to 10,000. Well, my first thought in my mind, okay, if you were pulling your two high schools together, I wanted to know what what's the class size average you're you're projecting for each each class, the snowball law. The second thing that I had my mind are you going to have to rid people if you that that's a concern but you have to do again financially what you have
032to do to make your district more viable. We cannot continue uh again to pour money into buildings over and over and over again somewhere along the line you're going to get to the point that you're putting more far more money in that building than you're ever going to get or so. And so we have to do that. We don't have any choice. So we your job is difficult because one, you're looking at education and you don't care what the school is because you want to do the best for your kids. And I support that. But then in the other hand, we're a business. We have x amount of dollars. We have x amount of money coming in and we can't just keep pouring it in at some place that's that's not getting us. I served
033on the evaluation committee that got sent to Kansas City when we took their money away from them. And Kansas City bought three baby grand companion pianos with the money they got from the state. And when we went down to find them, nobody knew where they were at. They were gone. Had no idea. We went into a room and this whole hallway was lined with books and cases of books they bought because they had money and they just said, "Well, we have to spend it. And I don't see that going on here. I mean, wasteful spending, but I'm just saying that somewhere along the line, you got to say that's enough of this billing. We've got to do something else. And my dad graduated from bed. I'm a fast talker. No, if you would like to
034take a couple minutes to let us know any other information. I gave you my bio. I didn't give you everything. I'm highly involved in this community. I'm on the planning and zoning board. I'm on the St. board, commerce board. I've been on it for seven years. I'm a diplomat with them. I've been on the planning committee for the banquet, business affairs, business retention. I attended uh the public affairs meeting today. I've never missed a public affairs meeting in seven years, regardless of what it is, because I want to know what's going on in my community. I want to know how I can support that. I want to know how I can help my community in any way that I can. So, I attend these things and I do all these things to be informed. Uh,
035like I told you, when I leave here, I'm going to a fundraiser for this symphony and we, my wife and I go to the symphony and we go to the performing arts center. I think that's important that we continue those things, too. So, I'm highly involved in that. Other things you don't know about me, I was highly involved in research. I published in the English journal of sports psychology, American journal of sports psychology and my last publication the research was involved was printed in the New England Journal of Medicine in 13. So I'm very used to pressure. I'm very used to working with people. I'm a veteran so I know how it is to work and depend on each other to accomplish what needs to be done. Otherwise you can't do that. So I think
036the cohesiveness of the board is another very very important part of that. And if I disagree with you, if you select me and you disagree, I'm not going to take it first. Again, you have your opinion. You have the right to your opinion. And that's not going to bother me. We'll go on. We'll work it out and we will do what's best for kids. I appreciate your time this evening. Thank you. Oh, I appreciate you and you guys have a hard time on your hand, but good luck and God bless you. Is everyone all up and everything? You ready for the next one? Good evening. Hello, Mr. Tom. Thank you. I appreciate you joining us this evening. As mentioned earlier, we'll be asking about 10 questions and you'll have up to three minutes in order
037to answer each one. Okay? And if you're ready to start, we're ready to start. I'm ready. Also, the questions are kind of lengthy and they're also like right there on the podium, too, as well. You're going to make me pull out my glasses. Well, I got mine on, so I don't need these, but it'll make me look smarter. Okay, M. Do Well, go ahead. All right. Two-part question here. Okay. Yep. Uh, first, what are your top three priorities if Dura plan to serve on the school board? Well, that's good. Every question is going to be a good question, so I don't need to start by saying that, but I think the top priorities for me have been and continue to be um for for our children. I think that we have a huge responsibility as
038a community, actually a primary responsibility as a community um with what we do with our children. um how we how we educate them and honestly how we launch them into life. High school graduation or GED attainment have been a huge thing for me for many years. And so that's number one. Um number two is to work together with the board in a way that's collaborative and um and I and I hope bring uni unity um in a in a way that builds bridges. And then number three, right along with that, is to um put our our school in the schools in the rightful place it is. And that is an asset to our community. Um it it um is super important to me that our community embraces our schools as a as the positive thing
039it is and that we leave um or we reduce the negativity and we increase the positivity about about our schools and what it means to our community. Awesome. And then the second part, if you are selected, what is the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? Um, probably that last one is um I'm running because I don't or I'm applying because I don't know that there's any more important thing. I have the opportunity um to be involved at Mosaic and to be involved at Missouri Western. Um, I consider what the school district and the important role in our community to be vitally important. And and really the only reason that I'm applying to do this is because um I think there's possibly a chance that I could help make a positive
040difference. And and to me, that's the most important thing our community needs. How'd I do on that one? No, I'm just kidding. All right. Hi Tom. Hi. All righty. Here is my question. What do you see as strengths of the St. St. Joseph school district? So, there's kind of four parts. I'll just ask them one at a time. What do you see as our strengths? Well, um I'll try to be brief if there's four parts. The um I I think honestly our our teachers are our strength. Um, I think that it's probably underestimated what they do on a daily basis um to support our kids. But I I'm a graduate. I we still had school back in those days. I'm a graduate from here and I have um two other children that graduated here, two
041others that were involved in the school system. We moved to Virginia a short time, but I think that um I think that our teachers invest in our children and I think that it's a positive experience when they come to school. So I think that's a strength. Okay. So how do you recommend that we make the most of those teacher strengths? I think that um you all are completely on the on the right track in terms of um recruiting and retaining um teachers um supporting them in areas that they need. um um working with the administration to provide the proper air covering to to be able to help them be successful and then to um um um to continue to help them um with their passion, whether that be further education or um clubs, but that
042have to do with building relationships with kids and making kids know how important they are to our future. All right, here comes another part. What do you see as challenges facing the district and what are some suggestions you have for dealing with those challenges? Well, I think I think maybe the biggest challenge was my third point is is that um is that I'm disappoint I I've lived in St. Joe a long time and St. Joe's is important to me. I'm disappointed that that we can't bind together and and support our schools. Um, and I think that I think that my desire to serve in this position is to continue to be an advocate in our community um, for our school, for our school system, for our administrators, our teachers, our board, and um, and to
043help and to help turn the help turn the tide in terms of attitude so that when it comes forward, I think we need to restore trust. And I don't I don't think that's just becoming more transparent. I think it has to do with um being honest, positive, and looking ahead. Thank you. Yeah. Mr. Richmond, what do you believe your role as a board member entails? And I have a second part to that. Okay. So, well, I I have I have the opportunity and I count it as a privilege to participate on a variety of board type of things currently and in the past. And I I liken it one maybe one of my earliest experiences was booster club president at Central High School when my kids were there. And I think I think e even
044then I didn't come in with an agenda that said I know how to better run the the athletic program. Um what I came in was to support um the administration, support the athletic directors and that will be a primary thing for me is to support what we're doing um to take a positive role. I think that in in my role um career-wise um I've had a lot of opportunities to be able to help help figure out how we can best implement things. And so um I feel like that if Mike Lefave was here, he'd say um Tom Richmond was my favorite booster club president because I worked with him and not against him supporting the things that that we wanted to do together. Okay. So with that, how do you personally interpret and value the
045board's code of ethics when representing our district and our school board? Well, I think it's essential. I think um I think that our credibility um as a board is super important and I respect that each of you um our communities put faith in you and elected you and and I have not been elected. I just get that out on the table. You've been elected. you've been chosen by our community um to be in that role and I think it's a high honor and I think it's a big responsibility. I think I think nothing will improve our credibility probably more than how we how professionally we act and I don't mean professionally like stoic. I'm talking about um that we we show that we can work together. we can we can disagree, but we do that
046in a very positive way and that we set an example um in our community through our lives. And and um I don't know each of all of your backgrounds, but I know that's important to me. Thank you. Um, if you could share one board decision from the past 12 months that you've agreed with and then also disagreed with and then if you could explain why for both instances, please. A poor decision and I can only pick one. And uh you know it's probably you know um you know where we chose to eat lunch today rather than um but you know there's um I I'm continue I'm retired but I continue to be in a position that I can um speak up and and sometimes um I've made the wrong decision. I I actually, and no
047one's going to believe this, except Lavll knows probably that this is true, but I actually go into most meetings thinking I'm not going to say anything today, and that's never happened yet. Um, and so occasionally, um, occasionally I speak too quickly. Um, one good thing is I don't I don't um speak with um um in a way that it's not open to what others are thinking and saying, but I'm not afraid to speak out. And so I think that sometimes sometimes I um I've got to be careful that I don't speak out um before I've listened. And so that's probably um what I would do differently. Is that a good example? Well, is there a decision? Well, is there a decision the school boards made in the past year that's like good and bad? Yeah.
048I And I'll probably not get the time frame right. Um, you're fine. I I think I I heard the other day um kind of a recounting of what's happened in the last some of the last 12 months and there's a lot of positive things that have happened. I think prioritizing the pay for the teachers as we went to the community was a very very important and a very positive thing. Um, you know, I think we were close. Um, and and some won't like this, but I spoke I spoke to the group about the four versus five day school week, and I vote I I spoke in favor of the fiveday school week. Um, and I I don't think that was a mistake, but I think that we were on a I think we were on
049a touchy area there. And I I think you all ended up making the right decision. Um Oh, no. That means I'm going too long. So, no. Um, no. But but relative to the school board, I think, you know, I'd be anxious to see what the results of the survey are relative to Proposition B to see if the community tells us that we could have done something better to inform them so that we could have ended up with a proposition, did I say B or is it two? I can't. I'm sorry. Um, but I think it'd be important to um understand um why why the community wasn't more in support of that and so that we could do a better job next time. Thank you, Mr. Moore. Mr. Richmond, I'm sorry I can't be with you
050tonight, but I'm sure glad to see you up there. Thank you. And uh I think this is a pretty good segue. So So my question is a little longwinded. It has to do with the long range plan. So bear with me. Um Tom is selected. Will you support the district's current long range plan or might you suggest specific revisions or perhaps a new plan entirely? Yeah, Mike, I I appreciate the question and I kind of anticipated that the long range plan might come up. So I I have given that some thought. I do support the long range plan. I was a part of um um many of the vision forward sessions that took place um in our community back in the I think it's the 2022 time frame where concepts and ideas were discussed and
051um and kind of formulated and then and then there was a process where that was um refined and put together in front of the administration and the school board and I think thoughtful consideration was made to that long range range plan. I think though I think in addition, not though, I think in addition, a long range plan um has multiple steps of implementation along the way. And I think there's still a lot of decisions to be made. I wouldn't just cart blank say every decision that everything that was in the long range plan uh has only one path. I think we have decisions and I I feel like part of the reasons I apply is not to be contrary to those but to help us implement along the way those things that are going to
052continue to best meet the needs of the students, teachers. Um certainly in agreement with the board and the community and so I think that there's still work to be done. Um but in concept I agree with the long range plan. Tom, a bit of a followup. Um, how would you convince the public of the plan's value? You know, I I think that um, Mike, that's a situation and I I wonder if that's not one of the core things that um, kept us from being successful in the last ballot. Um, I'm I'm curious about that. There will always be some that um, the financial part is a is the issue. there there'll always be potentially some other things, but I think I think if anything um the board could do the best job we can do
053is is help in our community see into the future and say things are going to be a change. But the fact is it's time that we invest in our kids. It's time we invest in our community and it's time we make a difference for our future. I I went to Central High School when it was an old building um 50 50 some years ago and um and you know I I I I like it. I'm not a one that just says I want change for change's sake. But what I see is all around us um um people updating. Everything in our lives gets updated. And I think it's time that we set a new course, a new generation. And I think it's up to us to cast that positive vision and to do that with
054a unified voice. Thank you, Tom. Yes. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Tom, this school board is created of lots of strong personalities and at times there's conflict. How would you um see yourself working with the current people on the board and in what ways are you able to bring cohesion and team building skills? Yeah, I I appreciate you asking that. I I um I think that's one of the reasons I've I've applied this time. I think that um I have experience. I worked at Altech for um nearly 40 years. Um I was involved here and then moved to Ron Virginia with Altech for 5 years. Um I was with wire rope early in my career. I think that um I've served with you and some of the other council members in on the finance committee. I've
055been I've been involved in that. I was actually one of the campaign chairs back in the 90s for a bond referendum for the schools. Um I I think I've demonstrated the fact that um I can work together and and those of you that have and and Jennifer, I haven't been as much in those things with you or Rhonda, but um I think I've I think I've been around that. I'm not afraid to speak up, but I'm not I'm antagonistic. I'm cooperative. I want to come to a resolution and a consensus and um and I respect others opinions and I think I've demonstrated that and my hope a primary hope of mine and I mentioned it in point number two as a priority is to help build a bridge that would allow us to operate even
056clearer in unity not not always unity but in consensus so that we speak one one voice to the community and we um we do that in a way that's posit positive that we've all agreed on. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Moore. Hey, I'm back. Tom, this is a short one, but a tough one. Okay. What suggestion do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? Well, that's a that is a that is a tough one, but that I I think I started with that as being priority number one. Um, I've learned the ingredients of high I I just can't stress enough. Um, the idea of of folks getting a high school diploma or GED. I just cannot stress that enough. I mean there's a lot of responsibilities we have as a
057community but to our children it's to provide them a platform there they can launch into the future whether that be a job a trade school a college whatever it is but but they need our help up through those ages and before they can make some of those other decisions but I realize and so that's a top priority for me but I realize there's ingredients to that um that you all have worked to address um attend attendance is important. We had a strive for five program that you know I helped participate in and that um had some success. Co set us back in terms of attendance and I think that we're still suffering um that we're suffering that on many levels of saying can I just do this from home and the answer really is no.
058And then I think what you what what's happened with early childhood um Mark Twain and and um Lake Contrary so far I think there's a plan to include purging in the future but I think I think childhood readiness is important but I I I so I think that there's elements there that are super important. I know attendance is super important and I think we need to work with with the barriers to remove um the obstacles of attendance, but I think we need to keep our eye on the ball of saying we've got to figure out how we don't let our children disqualify themselves from their future by not getting a high school diploma or GED. It's just super important to me. I've seen too many times um that that be a barrier for folks and
059they just can't get over that. And in our community, how exciting would it be? How incredibly exciting would it be if a 100% of our children that went through our system got a high school diploma or and I realize it's called HSAT or something now, but everybody knows what I'm talking about. If all the children, 100% of our children got a high school diploma or GED, that would put us on a unique platform in terms of what we're doing to value our children, the biggest asset that we have and their future. And so that's what I that that's what I say on those subjects. Thank you. So this kind of goes along with Mr. Richmond. How should the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children and what role should they play
060when supporting that education and the district? Oh, I I think the community I think the community should be extremely involved extremely involved. I'm I'm appreciative about what the community does already. And so I'm not I I don't mean to be saying negative regarding that, but I think that what's happened in our district and not with this board, but in our district, is there have been um reasons given that says I don't support the district. I don't support what what's going on. And then it becomes an excuse for not participating. And boy, that's a strong word. Community, please forgive me. that becomes an excuse for saying I'm not going to get in there do the work and participate and I think we need to get past that. I think we need to engage companies. We you
061know we've just we've just had the line center come on convergent technology is a partnership with Missouri Western. I've been involved with the u inspire you program for our young children through um through the Mosaic Life Care Foundation. And there are other projects that happen and we need to get a plan together and approach our commit our community and be able to say it's time. Now's our turn and we need to we need your support and participation and and I think that we've got to figure out what are the barriers to that and we need to overcome it. I and I'm not saying I can do that. Uh there's a number of good candidates that are out here that you guys are going to visit with, but I'm going to tell you, if I'm the
062applicant that's chosen, I'm going to try to help us do that. All righty. What do you believe are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the St. Joseph School District? And what is the greatest threat facing public education? Well, I think the I think um for the St. Joe School District, um I think it's a I think it's a difficult challenge we have with decreasing population in the area. I think that, you know, I was I went to high school with maybe the second largest class that Central had. We had over 600 freshmen come in and I think we had 560 people graduate um from high school when I went my senior year. Um I think the declining Hello. I think the declining population um means that we have less students and so
063it's harder. my I have um I have a son I mean I have a daughter and a son-in-law that teach at Park Hill and um you know they're they're growing and so it it's not hard decision for them to figure out we're going to build a school. it's a lot harder decision to say we're going to replace a school and um when they build a new school then they're kind of the new school kind of brings the others along with it and I think that um I think that um that that's a challenge that we've got to get over that say the past is good enough and that um we don't need something different and it's hard in our own lives. I mean, I I drive a um car that'll be 10 years old. Um
064and and I'm thinking, well, this car is good enough. I mean, I think there's some of that and I'm a conservative person. But there comes a time where you say, you've got to do something different. And I think we're at that time. I think we're at the time in our community that we need to say it's time that we step up and make a difference. And um I think the plan that you all put forward, I even think the idea of building the school south of 36 highway was a really smart plan. And um and and I'm not sure if we didn't get the plan fully explained, but I think that we need to figure out what it's going to take to light the fire. And as we light the fire, then um be able
065to bring a whole change of attitude regarding the pool district. And then I think we can attract people to stay here and we can retain people to stay here. Um the school district and Missou's school board association share many legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri. A few include educator support, student achievement, and then also funding. Well, can you let us know your views on advocacy for public education in Missouri? And how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district and public education? Yeah, that that's that's an important question. I am. Let me and Am I going way too long? It's okay. You're good. Um I um you know, we are a little bit of a hybrid thing so we can get along. We when our children were young, we
066had four children. We're their youngest years. We did a little homeschooling. Um so we did that and my wife was the best teacher they No, I'm just kidding. My wife did a great job. Um and we took it serious. Um but early on then they transferred to a small Christian school. Um, we were involved at a church that had a had a school and that's what we did. She was still heavily involved. They went one or two years to what now is St. Joe Christian. That was the earliest days of St. Joe Christian. And then um in different sequences, one went to Bod at seventh grade, two went to Bessie Ellison at sixth grade, and one went to Bessie Ellison at fourth grade. And so we've experienced kind of the gambit of that. I I
067still um do some support personally to um to St. Joe Christian. I'm not afraid of that. I've got three children, three grandchildren that are in um Cathedral. Um and so um I'm a bit of a hybrid. But all of that said, I wouldn't stand here tonight if I didn't think that a number one need in our community was a robust public education. Um and and I'll do I'll I will advocate at every level about the importance of the ability to have a robust, healthy, successful public education system. And I know different people are going to make some different choices and I understand that we made choices trying to decide at different times what was the best for our children and our family. But that never ever diminished the fact that we felt like um we
068want to support the public school and I still feel that way. Thank you. Hi Tom. I said hi. You didn't hear me when I came in. I was online but I heard Well, I but I as you stepped in I said hello. right in the middle of a sentence. I was listening. You might have thought I was calling you out, but I No, I didn't. I didn't even hear it. We're going to ask you another question. Okay. In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? Well, um I'm going to say something a little bit sarcastic first and then I'll I'd say choose me. Um but that's that's a little bit. But one of the reasons I said I'm coming on here is I want to I
069want to help that I want to I want to help make a difference. I'm involved in lots of areas of of the community and um I'm here for only that reason is to um is because I consider what we do at the district to be so important. I I said I recently had the honor of being asked to be on the um Dr. Stuver Health Clinic um board um in the fall and I said to people that's the last thing I'm going to do. I I have enough. I'm not going to do anything else. and um and then this came up and it's compelling to me because it's so important and I think possibly I can help make a difference and I think that one of the things as a board that my encouragement would
070be but I think there's other people here that can also make a difference. So, I'm not saying that exclusively to me, but I think for the board, it's the idea of saying you have robust discussion, but then you figure out how are we going to make a plan that we can agree with together, get consensus, and be able to go. I I've said casually, um, I'm not joining the board to be a fourth vote. And I I say this, it's probably controversial. I'm not joining the board to be a fourth vote. I hope to be a seventh vote. I hope to be one that says and that that I I've had a chance to work with and semi know most of you. There's not a lot hidden about me. Um and my hope is is
071that I could I could be some part of the bridge and that the fact then we could begin to speak with confidence with one voice about what we want to do for our children, our teachers, our administrators and our community and to make a difference. And so, um, that's what I think the board can best do with whoever you choose is to figure out how do we create that positive unity? And you guys have expressions of that and that happen. And then we have some kind of a bleep or we we have something and and the community is not very tolerant of our bleeps. Well, they may have to get more tolerant. But the fact is is that we need to show them we're moving forward and we're moving together. Okay, Mr. Tom, you've got
072one more minute in order to tell us anything that's not included in your application or or you think that we should know and go. I think I'm I think I'm a little more humble than what I've acted like when I'm here. It's um you know, you're here kind of trying to say what difference you hope you can make and uh it's kind of embarrassing. I see my friend Don Dunan back there and I think he'll probably stand up and say Tom won't do any of those things. But uh I uh I uh I think that I think I I just want to say thank you. Um thank I want to thank Rick Garing. He's a friend of mine. I want to thank you all for your courage to lead. And u I've had people say
073to me, why are you doing that? And it's clear the reason I'm doing it is not for personal gain. It's not for make my life easier. It's to be a part of something that is so important. And I feel like there's nobody on this board that I can't work with. And that says to me that's an important ingredient for our future success. Did I go over a minute? Probably. No, you're fine. I do appreciate your time. Yeah. Thanks. Are we supposed to stay around or are we supposed to open Tom? Okay. Thanks a lot. You can stay around. I remember though, if I stay, I can hardly not keep from saying something. That's how I am. Thanks a lot. You appreciate Yeah. Yep. And what I'm doing, I'm just adding it at the bottom. So,
074we are scoring that way. You're right. So, we do score. I'm scoring. Okay. Because I didn't know we were scoring. Yeah. So, okay. Extra minute. Yeah. No. Um, take a couple minutes up. Are you needing a break? Just a second. Okay. Are we ready to continue? Okay. Good evening, Miss Field. Um, we'll be asking a group of 10 questions. could be 11 if there's extra time. You will have up to three minutes in order to answer each one. And a copy of the questions is also at your station because they're kind of lengthy at times. Okay. And are you ready? Yep. Okay. Go ahead. All right. My twoart question here for you. We'll start with the first one. Okay. What are your top three priorities if appointed to s serve on the school board? My
075top three priorities to serve on the school board would be to address what I believe are three of our major problem or concern areas. I would like to work towards addressing behaviors um addressing attendance and working towards improving some of the academic standings in the current schools. Okay. And if you're selected, what is the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? It's a multi-part goal, but in a broad sense, I just I want to improve outcomes. I want to improve outcomes for kids. I want to improve outcomes for teachers and staff. I think that there's some minor changes and things that we could make to improve things for both teachers to help retain and recruit staff and for the students on the behavior and attendance area. Thank you. Is she speaking
076loud enough? No, I'll move it. Sorry. I have a hard time projecting sometimes. I think the mic's off. Oh, did it die or did I turn it off? Sorry. You're good. I'm not very good at speaking into a microphone either. I either get way too close or I'm not close enough. I can work on projecting better. Can you guys hear me now? Yeah. Okay. I think that's better. We can continue. Okay. Hello, Cassandra. How are you? Hello. I'm well. How are you? Good. All right. What do you see as strengths of the St. Joseph School District is my first question. And then once you're finished answering that, I have a couple other ones all combined in here. Okay. I think we have a couple big strengths in our school district. First and foremost, I think
077we have a lot of wonderful teachers and staff on board. Um, I know personally when I was a student in our district, I have several stories of staff support and teachers going above and beyond for myself and other students in the district. I know a lot of that still continues today. Um, I see it with my own children who are students in the district. I also think that St. Joe has a really strong Oops, now it's on. Has a really um strong sense of community. A lot of us are really invested in, you know, the the north end, the south end, central, things like that. We're we're all really invested in this town. Most of us have attended school here and graduated, stayed in the community, established homes and careers, and now we are not
078only sending our children, some of us are sending grandchildren here. So, there's just a real strong sense of community here in St. Joe. Okay. All righty. Um, how do you recommend those strengths that you just discussed? How do you recommend we make the most of those? So, I think with the the teachers and staff, again, we need to work on recruiting and retaining teachers. I think that um with the quality staff that we do have, we need to incentivize ways for for them to want to stay and want to continue their careers here. And then, you know, in some ways mentor these new teachers. Um I have several family members who have taught throughout the years. uh there's a large difference between a first year teacher and a four or fiveyear teacher. Having those teachers
079who have been long-standing in the district, you know, kind of partner or buddy with them would help kind of rely or not rely but help expand on those strengths for the students within the district. Um as for the sense of community and like the pride in St. Joe and the pride in our schools. I think listening to those stakeholders and working together to come up with like ideas to improve the district as a whole um is a big part of that. I know we've done recent surveys, we had surveys beforehand, we did vision forward, worked on long range plan. I think all of those are good steps forward to continue with community involvement. Okay. Right. Here's the second part. what do what do you see as challenges facing our district and what are some suggestions
080for dealing with those challenges? So there's a lot of challenges out there. I think postcoid we've struggled some with uh academics there there was some delays during the pandemic with virtual learning um some some students all students learn differently. I think the pandemic really put some things behind for us, not just as a district, but honestly as a country as a whole. Um, we're seeing that we're seeing the APR increase year after year because we're implementing some changes, but there's still a lot of work to do there because we are not quite on on target where we need to be. Um, I think other challenges that we face is community perception. Over the last few years, I feel like we've done a better job of being more transparent with the public, of putting the information
081out there, of answering tough questions, and having hard conversations. And I think we just continue to to build on that and continue to be transparent, open, and honest moving forward. Okay. Thank you, Miss. What do you believe your role as a board member entails? And I have a second. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Yeah. Hold it, too. Oh, I don't want to hold it. I don't know. I'm too anxious. It'll be like this if I'm holding it. Uh, no, I think my my job as a as a board member is a few different things. Uh, first and foremost, we, you know, evaluate superintendent. We work on policy, procedure, implementing, changing, seeing what's working with the data, what isn't. Uh we listen to stakeholders, community members, students, staff, administration, uh work with legislators to bring information back to
082our district to export information from our district. Um we answer questions of the community. I feel like as a board member, you are in a sense a public servant. You're elected by the community. you have a duty to them to talk to them, to meet with them. Um, I mean, obviously within reason, but you know, we have a duty to the public and to the students and staff and and community that we serve. How do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing our district and our school board? I will be honest with you, I have not read the complete code of ethics of the the school board. Um, but my understanding of what a school board member should do is is to work collaboratively with other members of the board,
083with community stakeholders, and again stakeholders within the district, including students and staff. Um, and I think that we we act professionally. We work together as a team. We keep in mind we have a common goal and interest, and that's to see our district be successful, students to be successful, um, and our community to thrive. Thank you. I'm here now. I can ask this one. Uh, please share one decision from the past 12 months that the school board has made that you agreed with and one decision that you disagreed with and please explain why for each instance. Okay. So, first the decision that I agreed with. I attended several of the meetings regarding the book bans. Um, I agreed with the process that the board used to evaluate the concerns of the books. I agreed with
084the implementation of a plan that gave the power to the parents. Uh I believe that parents should be able to make those decisions for their children and I think the district addressed that appropriately when they gave parents the option to monitor their library choices, to preapprove library choices or to restrict books ahead of time. Um a decision I disagree with. Um, I think one thing that I I disagree with is a a small piece of the long range plans. I I have questions about when we go to a two high school model, how teachers would be redistributed. Um, like who would be given opportunity to, you know, transfer to what school? What would that process look like? How would those jobs be listed? Um, I feel like that should have been a little bit more
085pre pre-planned. So, that is something that I wasn't quite understanding of and I feel like should have maybe been done beforehand. Okay, Mr. Moore. Hi, Miss Steel. Can you hear me? Okay, I can. Hello. Hello. Sorry I couldn't be with you tonight, but I really appreciate you being here. Um, okay. So, you mentioned long range plan and this next question gets into that. Um, if selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or will you suggest specific revisions or perhaps a new plan entirely? So, I I do support the long range plan. I believe we are a two high school town. Um, I've put a lot of thought and effort into into this because I I'll be honest, initially I'm a Lafayette girl. I was not super keen on the idea of my
086alma matter not being a high school any longer. Um, but where my heart said no, my head quickly said yes. Um, my daughter started as a freshman at Lafayette last year. She's currently a sophomore. Uh, I was very disheartened and surprised to see the state of my school. uh when she started there. It's much different than when I was a student there. The student involvement is way down. Attendance is significantly down there. Um and then I was even more disheartened when my son started as a freshman at Central this year and I saw what he was offered at Central and what he has available to him versus what my daughter has at Lafayette. Uh that was a really big eye opener for me. I really didn't understand it even growing up here. I always knew
087it was different, you know, like we all knew Lafayette was different, Benton was different, Central was different, but I don't think any of us really understood the extent of of the difference. Um, I did take a look at Vision Forward. I think that that was really great that you guys had the community community stakeholders from various, you know, outlets throughout town come together um and and create a plan moving forward and then implemented that within the long range plan. Like I said, my concerns mostly with the long range plan involve how staff will be moved. You know, the boundaries. I was at the board meeting the other night. I think some people did bring up some good good suggestions in the survey about, you know, the feeder system. What would that look like? They wish
088they had that information a little bit sooner. I think that that is important. Um, and again, information as a parent myself, I I would like to have too. I do believe we are a two high school town though when I look at areas around us. Um, we're closest in size. We're kind of weird, but we're closest in size to Independence, who's about one and a half, two times our population. And also Joplain, uh, who's off by about 20 25,000. Joplain's a one high school town. I think one high school is too big. It cuts too much opportunity for the students. However, I think the two high school model does fit us more appropriately. The schools in Independence have student ranges from about a,000 to,400 students. And I think that's where we would sit and they
089seem to have really good standing scores right now. Um I know there's an argument for smaller schools, but I can tell you I was concerned my son going to Central and it being so big. Um but he's thriving there and doing wonderful. And I don't necessarily think bigger is bad. Um it's it's about how you utilize and allocate those resources that really matter. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Good evening. The school board is made of many strong personalities and at times there's conflict. How do you see yourself working with the current members of the board and in what ways are you able to bring cohesion and team building skills? Okay, so a couple things. I I see myself as pretty easy to get along with. Um I try and keep in mind again that
090I think the intention of everyone in the room is the same. We want the district to succeed. We want students to succeed. We want to retra retain and recruit quality staff here within our district so that we can continue to thrive. Um and I think when we look at conflict in in things that we don't agree on, we take ourselves out of that equation. It's not about me. It's not about you. It's not about anybody else sitting on the school board. It's about those kids in that classroom. It is about that staff that's working hard to teach our children. Um because at the end of the day, everybody's here for the kids. We are all here for the kids. And if we can keep ourselves out of the equation and keep in mind that everybody
091is interested in what is best for those children, then we'll be able to complete a lot of work and we will be able to avoid a lot of conflict. I teased a couple people when they asked me about this that I would approach it, how I would approach things with my ex-husband. Um, is that him and I don't agree on everything. We don't always see eye to eye. But when it comes to our daughter, it's not about me, it's not about him, it's about her. And I think the more that people can do that, remove themselves from a situation and make it not about them, the easier it is to work together and avoid the conflict. Thank you. Mr. Moore, are you there? I am. This one always comes too quick. Thank you. I'm sorry.
092I am back. Hey, uh, tough question, but it's a little shorter than the other ones. You're what suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? Okay. So, looking at the APR scores, we are continuing to improve year after year. So, I think what we need to do is pull the data from that and look at our our problem areas. Where are we still struggling? Where are we starting to excel more and how do we continue to repeat the areas where we're excelling and those areas where we're struggling. I believe that the implementation of the early learning centers and expanding upon that program, we will see further growth in our a overall graduation rate, our overall academic scores, the APR, all of it will increase because we all know
093that implementing the importance of education and early learning early on improves all of those things down the road. It sets the expectation that we show up to school. It sets the expectation that we read and work on our schoolwork. and and it's this trickle down effect where everything eventually does rise. Um, attendance is difficult. I know that prosecuting attorney is working on implementing more of our attendance policies. I think a lot of where we struggle in our community is we have parents in our community who just kind of I feel like what I see in my office I should say is we have parents in this community who don't necessarily know know how to address some of the behaviors and problems they're having with their children at home. Know how to support them in a
094school setting. Know how to approach a conflict with a teacher or a principal or things like that. And sometimes it's just sitting down and having that conversation with them and sharing that information. It's as simple as that. Um there's a lot to do with behaviors and all of this too, which I could go on forever about behaviors, but um all of it's closely correlated. If you can improve one tiny piece of the equation, all these other little pieces tend to start falling into place. And I think when we continue to build upon that and work upon that that we'll see all of these areas continue to grow in the right direction. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, back to me. Yes, ma'am. How should the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children and
095what role should the community play when supporting education and our district? Okay. I think that parent involvement is a a big one. I think the more you can get parents involved, the the better. Um, I'm going to be honest with you though, coming from a very middle class family and working my way to where I am today, I think sometimes time and money is very much a luxury for for people in our community. Um, I think, you know, finding ways that we can work with parents and kind of meet them where they're at. you know, continuing to place importance on things like reading for 10 minutes with your kindergartener, your first grader. Um, working on maybe some programs to help encourage parents or deal with some of the conflicts and things that they're having at
096schools or even at home because a lot of times if we're seeing it at school, we're probably also seeing it at home. And it is difficult to manage, especially when you're looking at a single parent who has maybe one, two, three kids and they're trying to deal with all of this on their own and work and take care of all the other kids. It it's a lot. So, I think finding ways to support parents in that fashion. Um, as for the community, get involved. I think we have several opportunities within the district to be involved. um lunchroom help, you know, reading help, field day help, uh judging art contest. I mean, there there's ample opportunity. I think maybe advertise it in some different ways. You know, we are in the day and age of technology
097and social media. Those those things can be powerful tools to get word out quickly to community members. Um but also not everybody's on, you know, Facebook and social media. So utilizing like KQ2, News Press, things like that, just multimedia ways to get the information out there will really help. Miss Page, what do you believe the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the school district are? And what do you believe is the greatest threat facing public education? This is a tough one. So I would say in my opinion the greatest threat to the success and the sa sustainability of the school district is a lack of knowledge. I think that there's lots of things going on in the district and lots of things that we're trying to get support behind. um and and people
098are are voting and making decisions on things and I don't necessarily know that they have all the information that they need. I think that uh we're working on being better about communicating with the public and being transparent and I think it's a vast difference over the last again two to three years than it was prior to that. Um, but I think that there's a real disconnect here too between what our student stakeholders want, those kids in that classroom that sit there for 40 hours a week. I mean, with what they desire and what they are wanting in their education, with what the educators who are, you know, boots on the ground, frontline people, what they see and struggle with in their dayto-day, um, and how we as a community can support them. There's a real
099disconnect there and there's a real disconnect between what people think is happening and what is actually going on. Um, the biggest threat to public education right now is our honestly our our own government. I mean, if you if you look at the state of Missouri, we have not done the best job of supporting public education. We're continuing to lose funds and public education dollars. Um, we're losing, you know, potential title protections if the Department of Education is not around. Um, there's several several threats to public education, voucher systems, open enrollment, things like that. While I think open enrollment wouldn't necessarily hurt our district to the point we'd be closing our doors, I think of neighborhoods around us. I think of Albany, of Steuartsville, of Mazeville, places like that where their schools are very small and
100every student counts. Um, I worry about opening up enrollment throughout the state and and how that would affect those schools when tax dollars are following students to the school that they go to. Um, I think that we need to do a good job of listening and educating ourselves about what's going on locally and at the state and federal levels and working on deciding what initiatives and ballot measures support the things that we believe and desire for our community and which ones don't. Thank you. And that kind of leads into this next question. Our school district and the Missouri School Board Association share many legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri. Um, examples are student achievement um increased funding and educator support. Can you let us know your views on advocacy for public education
101in Missouri? And how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district in public education? So, um, my views on public advocacy as a nurse, I have a strong desire to to advocate for the things that I care about and the people that I care about. Um, as a school board member, I think again that goes back to taking your your stakeholder feedback from administration, from staff, students, community members, families. um taking those ideas, seeing your problem areas, your your concerns, potential concerns, and working together to figure out where we can address these needs and how we can address them. Um again, I'm I know I'm a broken record, but behaviors are a big deal, and that's one that I think we really could use a little more advocacy on. Um MSTA did
102a recent teacher survey for teachers across the state of Missouri and the number one and two reasons that um teachers are leaving the profession altogether is not money. I think a lot of people say oh we need to pay our teachers better and while I do think we will never pay them enough um that's not the reason that they're leaving. Most of these teachers are not taking jobs for the money. They're taking it because they care about children. Um, but it's hard to continue to sustain a career when you're dealing with behaviors and the stress that follows that. And those are the top two concerns and the top two reasons that teachers in our state are leaving the profession entirely and going to corporate jobs and going to other places is because they are struggling
103with managing these things in the classroom. I think we need to advocate for some kind of reform for them. Um, I have a long-term goal, dream, whatever you want to call it, to try and get teachers a special victim status. I see children and staff of this school district in my office all the time who are either assaulting students, staff in buildings or are being assaulted by other students in the building. It is a problem, a big problem. And I think people don't understand how big the problem is. And while I think it's getting better and we're making some strides, we are nowhere near where we need to be when the number one answer for the entire state is that teachers are leaving the profession because of behaviors. They are public servants um just like
104a nurse or a police officer or anybody else. And I think that they deserve that as well. And that would be something I would really truly want to advocate for is for teachers to have a special victim status. Thank you. Um In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of sorry public? Uh, so, you know, again, I think that that it's improving. I don't think it's great. I don't think it's where we need it to be, but it's like anything else. You you've got to continue to show up. You got to continue to say, "I'm going to do this." And to follow through with what you say. The quickest way you build rapport with somebody is is to follow your words with the actions that you say you're going to do.
105Um, the more we see of that, the better. There's going to be people making noise matter what you do. You can do every single thing right and somebody's always going to find something to complain about. And I think the more you can let that noise go and continue to just do the work at hand and continue to do what you say you're going to do, the quicker we can turn that around. But the more attention that we pay to that noise and the more, you know, we continue to bicker and argue and not be able to follow through with the things that we say we're going to do, the longer that discord will stay. Okay? And if you can take one minute and let us know anything else that you think that we should know.
106I feel like most of you guys know me or you know I've campaigned with a couple of you for the last four months. Um I'm I'm going to be honest. I'm I'm a product of this school district. I have parents who retired with successful careers from the district. I have four children here currently. Um I have a lot of compassion for the district. I want us to succeed. I'm proud I'm from here. I'm proud I graduated from here. I want my children to have that same sense of pride. I I want my community to thrive and flourish. And we all know that successful public schools equal a successful, thriving community. You look at areas around us that are booming. You look at Liberty, you look, you know, North Kansas City, places like that, they all
107have pretty successful public schools. We've we've got to flip the script and get that going. Um, I don't have all the ideas, but I have some and I'm willing to put in the work. I appreciate your time this evening. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you guys. Okay, ladies and Mike, take a moment real quick to score up. Anybody need a break? Are you doing okay? Can we get like a five minute break? Okay, let's take a five minute recess. I wish I could hit the Are we ready? I'm gonna get all around my blanket. Okay, let us begin. I appreciate you joining us this evening. Thank you. Um, as mentioned earlier, you will have about 10 questions and a bonus and you'll have up to three minutes for each question. Okay. Okay. You ready, Miss
108Jennifer? Two-part question for you. All right. Okay. The first one is, what are your top three priorities if you're appointed to serve on the school board? All right. Uh, so the first one would just be academic success. I mean, when you boil the school district down, the number one priority we have is to educate children. And so, uh, we need to do everything we can to improve student success. and that includes test scores, attendance, graduation rate, transitioning to um occupations after high school. Um so that's a first priority. Um the second priority is recruiting and retaining an excellent staff. I mean the number one relationship in a school district is the teacher and student inside the classroom. And so I think we need to recruit and retain excellent staff and also building staff. You think
109there's a lot of kids that build a relationship with a custodian, with a kitchen staff, with an art teacher. So the people we put in the buildings with the students is a big priority. And then the third one is just uh presenting a long-term plan that ultimately the district district can get behind. Um ultimately a long-term plan sets a vision, a mission, a purpose that every employee, every community member, every parent can buy into. And when you have that security of knowing where we're going, it gives you an option to buy into that. And that's what we need right now. We need buyin from every stakeholder, students, parents, community members, uh business community. We need buyin and you got to give them something to buy into. Second part of that question. If selected, what is
110the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? Uh, I would say student success. And, uh, I would say that means every student having an opportunity to succeed in the way that they are gifted in succeeding. Some of that will be transitioning to the workforce out of high school. Some of that will be a four-year college. But every student needs to succeed. I mean, we need every third grader reading by third grade. I mean, every every grade has benchmarks, has goals, and we need to help every student hit those goals. And so I think we need to really focus on our academics, focus on our curriculum, focus on the student, and make sure that we're equipping every student for success. And that's going to look different um at each level, but every
111level is important, and we got to get the early ones right, and we got to finish strong. But ultimately, student success is what what we're in the business for. Okay. I guess all righty. What do you see as strengths of the St. Joseph school district district and how do you see us making the most of those strengths? Okay, so I volunteer in two elementary schools and so um I volunteer at Picket Elementary and Hosia. We also have a freshman at Central. Uh we've also had a kid go through Trimman Middle School and I can say hands down the people of our district are phenomenal. Um I would say loud and clear that our kids have had an excellent educational experience here in St. Joe. Now that doesn't mean that we're done or that we've arrived.
112Uh we started every day in elementary school with a saying by uh Dr. Vaniton. Uh never let it rest till your good gets better and your better gets best. I think we have a good education here in St. Joe, but it can always get better. And so I think the strength we have is the people. It's the custodians. It's the kitchen staff. It's the secretaries. It's the teachers, the principles, it's the admin. I mean, these people care about the kids. It's the coaches. Um our freshman at Central has an IEP due to vision challenges. And I can say hands down that his education experience is just as good as everyone else's. every teacher met his IEP. Every teacher was invested in him. And so, in our experience as a family, it's the people that make
113this district so powerful. And uh I think we need to capitalize on that. I think we need to tell their stories. I think we need to highlight them and let them feel treasured by the the people they serve. Um it's the people in the classroom in the buildings that are changing lives every day um and coming alongside our community. I have a second part to that. What do you see as challenges facing our district and what are suess some suggestions for dealing with those? Some of the challenges we have right now is just where we're going. Um I think the board has done a good attempt of trying to establish a long-term plan. I think they've put time into it. I think administration put time into it. Um unfortunately the vote in April uh was
114not a successful vote. And so I think that the one of the biggest things we have is we don't know where we're going as a district. Not that we haven't tried or that anyone's done a bad job trying to get us there. It's just we got to get that question answered. You know, teachers in the building need to know what is the long-term plan for my building. Families need to know what is the long-term plan for where we live and where are my kids going to go? What is the long-term plan in terms of facilities? And so, I think one of it is just answering the question of where are we going in the next 10, 15 years? And I know a lot of that goes back to facilities, but it also includes feeder programs.
115Um, it it affects, you know, it goes through all of that. And so, right sizing the district. Um, I think Dr. procedures was very correct when he said two days ago, you know, we have a district of, you know, where we could we have staff and buildings for 11,600, but we have 10,000 students. And I think that is a weakness right now is we have too many buildings and too much staff and we're going to have to rightsize and we're going to have to do it with the cooperation of the community getting feedback and getting a plan that everyone can say that's the future of St. Joe School District and I want to be part of it. Thank you. Can you please Is that Oh, that was your I'm very sorry. I will accept the
116question from either either. I was just trying to be on my stuff, but go ahead, Ken. You are you're right. All right. It's me, D. All right. What do you believe your role as a board member entails? and how do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing the district and the comm and the board? So, I owe all credit to St. Joe School District for teaching me what a board member is. When you sign up to run in an election, they give you a packet. And one of the pages in that packet is a color-coded five columns of what is a board member. And I remember going back and reading that and being educated very quickly that a board member is one who comes alongside a superintendent to assist uh
117advocate for and ensure goals of the district are being met while establishing a budget that meets those goals and ensuring policies are met. And so I think that that sheet that they get we advocate for the district. We work alongside the superintendent. We align a budget to meet those goals. We follow policies and ultimately we root for student success. So, my answer goes back to what uh what I learned when I first signed up to run. And then did you could you repeat the second half? You bet. How do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing the board and our district? Yeah. I think ultimately when you're in places of leadership, everyone that you lead is looking to you as an example. And so when you're on the board of
118education, the admin is looking to the board to see how they conduct their business. and teachers are looking to their principal and principles are looking to, you know, the people at noise and students are looking at teachers and parents are looking at at the board. And so when you're in leadership and you're on and you're at the top in terms of service, um you need to set an example that you want to be replicated throughout the district. So when it comes to parent conferences, we don't want parents behaving in a way that intimidates teachers or makes them feel awkward or makes it, you know, uh not a pleasant experience. You know, you don't want employees in a building treating their principal wrong. And so, we need to set what it looks like for respectful dialogue,
119even when we disagree, but respectful dialogue where we collaborate to find out what is best for student success. Listen, 99% of what a school board does, they should agree on, student success. There's going to be the 1% we may not agree on, and we need to be able to demonstrate how respectful adults can agree to disagree and work through something. And so I think as a board we need to set an example of how we want administrators to act, teachers to act, principles to act, parents to act, and students to act. If a student can't do it in a classroom, we shouldn't do it as a board. I'm going to go now. Are you ready? I'm ready. It's my turn. Uh, can you please share one decision that the school board has made in the
120past 12 months that you've agreed with and one decision that the school board has made in the last 12 months that you've disagreed with and explain why for both? Yeah, I'll say the first one I agree with is the book challenges. Um, I think the board did a phenomenal job handling the book challenges. I think the community was able to follow policy and submit uh their concerns. Policies were followed. uh the committees were formed as the policy said a mix of librarians and community members they read the books they made the recommendation uh community members then could either accept that uh outcome or take it to the board and one of the instances it went to the board and uh the board did as as they were asked to do and so I think the
121the book challenges in the last year is a shining star uh for the school board of St. Joe, I feel like community was able to speak. I feel like the committees did what they were supposed to do and I feel like the results honor what the policy said and that's what you have to do as a board. You have to follow policy. We may all have personal preferences but policies decide the outcome or the procedures on how we do it. And so I think the book challenges should is a is a shining star. Like I said, um, one decision that I did not agree with that's a tough one. um struggling miscellane. I mean, we do a pretty good job. Listen, I I have great respect for the board. Uh I try to watch every
122meeting and I follow along and I do think the board does a good job of trying to work through and follow policy and uh I don't have one off top of my hand that I would say I I disagree with wholeheartedly. Um I normally come to the meeting and speak in the public session if I do. So, you've heard me there. So, um No, I I I really I don't have a a good example right now. I will say one thing that was alarming maybe is I did not know we did not have curriculum uh for reading in the early elementary grades and I learned um two nights ago that we are purchasing it. Um but I would say that's one thing that I I think we need to start asking the question more. Do
123we have curriculum for this staff that we're trying to recruit and retain? Um we talk about how we're going to get quality teachers and quality staff. I think one of the recruiting tools would be giving them the best tools in the classroom. And it was alarming to me and I went home and asked my wife and she said, "Yes, I have not had reading material for two years, which means all of my kids that have went through early elementary, um, we are dependent on teachers going to Pinterest or other sites and hodge podgeing something together." And I think the board should have been asking more questions about curriculum and academics maybe and discovering that our money needs to be going towards equipping teachers to be successful in the classroom. I think teacher burnout may be
124a result that they're just not given the tools they need to succeed. And I don't know all the details, so I hope no one takes offense to this. I'm just saying I was caught off guard Monday night to learn we did not have reading curriculum um for early education in St. Joe, Missouri. Okay, Mr. Moore, are you ready? I am. Dr. McMillan, good evening and I'm sorry I can't be with you, but I'm glad to see you there. It's all right. We can always get Chinese another day. Sounds good. All right. Hey, listen. Um, this one's a little this one's a little u involved, so bear with me here. So, if selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or might you suggest specific revisions or perhaps a new plan entirely? Yeah. And
125so, once again, the board works alongside with the superintendent. We do not do the day in and dayout work of the administration. We work alongside the superintendent. And so I think where we're at right now is we're on to a plan B. Uh the board has asked administration to go and to provide details on how plan B could be executed. And I think that needs to be uh accomplished. I think that that needs to be done. And that's not done by the board. That's done ultimately by our administration team that gets together and presents what plan B would look like. Um I am a supporter of a two high school model. Uh once again, it's right sizing the district. Um, and that's been the models that have been presented to us by our administration. So,
126um, I have to to trust them and work alongside them. I've had no reason to disagree with them so far on that on that plan. Okay. And a followup if I could. Um, how might you convince the public of the plan's value of the plan? Say it again. How might you convince the public of the value of the plan? Yeah. I I think we got a I think we got to try as best we can to educate them that this is not a plan based on preference but a plan of necessity. Um I think when Dr. Seager says we have buildings and staff for 11,600 but we have a district of 10,000 I don't know any of us that would say it's wise to have a 10% surplus of fattiness uh that's not cut. That's
127not good budgeting. That's not good financial stewardship. And so I think one is just getting into the weeds and and trying to educate people that this is not a plan of preference but a plan of necessity. Um, I think the board did a good job of looking at the equality of education, uh, making sure every student has an equal opportunity in the high schools. I think that was a strategic point. Um, but ultimately I I think we need a vision that people can buy into more than a bond vote. I think the people want um a vision bigger than just a two high school model. I think they want to know that it's not just about facilities. And and I think you got to make the conversation more about child success and and academic success
128and the future of our students and less about facilities. And I know that's challenging because you're talking about facilities, but how does this new high school and how does going to two high schools improve academic success? All right. So, if one of those answers is we get to make a 10% budget cut, we're pledging not only to cut that, but to take all of our savings and to purchase state of the the best curriculum there is in the state. So by eliminating one of your high school, every high school now have better curriculum and better uh better chances for success. I I think somehow you got to tie it back to the student. Um heritage is a powerful thing. Um I'm not a St. Joan. Uh but I've learned to respect the St. Joans and
129you know they love their high schools. There is fond memories in them. Uh their parents, their grandparents graduated. I pastor in the south end. I understand the 238 in Bitten. But I also understand that everyone puts kids above heritage. Everyone puts academic success above tradition. So if we can show them why it helps academic success, then I think they may be willing to buy in. But if it's just about a model and this model or that model or this preference or that preference, we're never going to win that. Um, and when I say we, I mean those who do think we need to go to two high school model. So academic success needs to be the talking point of any purpose, mission, or vision of St. Joseph School District. Thank you. You're welcome. Good evening.
130Good evening. The school board is made up of many strong um I guess you could call it personalities and at times there's lots of conflict. Can you let us know how do you yourself working with all the members of the current board and in what ways are you able to bring cohesion and team building skills among the different people on the board? Absolutely. You know, when the southside flooded um about three or four years ago, we had five different agencies come together. CAP St. Joe, Inner Serve, Habitat for Humanity, United Way um and then Journey Baptist or the Baptist. And you know, there's a lot of strong personalities because every one of us leads a nonprofit. All of us are used to sitting in the main chair. But when we get into a conference room
131and we have an objective of rebuilding the south end following a flood, it's not about who's sitting in the main chair. It's about rebuilding the south end. And so I think one of the things when it comes to big personalities is we check them at the door because why we're sitting in that chair is not our name. It's for the kids. It's for the staff. It's for the community. And so when we get together with nonprofits, even when we're all used to being the leader of the conversation, it's easy to lay that down when there's a purpose of why you're laying it down. And so I think for me, if I was part of the board, it's easy to lay down maybe my personality or my uh the the pattern normally I lead the meetings
132because I'm laying it down for a purpose of great value and that's every student of the district, every teacher, staff um and for our community. Um, also at PTA at Picket, uh, we have a lot of strong personalities. You've been to our meetings a couple times. Um, you've watched me firsthand, uh, work with parents and teachers of different backgrounds working through issues on whether we're going to have a all girls dance or we're going to have a chocolate bar fundraiser or we're going to sell Redhe, but you personally have seen me sit in a room and interact with multiple adults from different backgrounds and effectively lead a meeting in which we all come together for the sake of picket PTA. And so I think you could easily testify to the fact that I'm willing to
133work with a team for the purpose when there's a a purpose there and that purpose is students. And so the same way I've worked at PTA seven years, led the board through three transitions, um I'd be more than willing to work on this board and to work with people, be collaborative, and ultimately check our egos and be selfless when we sit at that table. And when it comes to handling conflict, um it's just about remembering we all have weaknesses and we all say things we we didn't want to say and being able to work through that and uh um being able to talk about it and not bury it. So I don't know if I answered all of your question. These questions are multiple parts and so you guys are really challenging us. So thank
134you. Yes, I appreciate your answer. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Mike, are you ready? Okay. He's ready. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. I am ready. And uh you know, you you've mentioned several times, Jacob, uh you know, student outcomes. What suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? All three of those are the result of a collaborative work between student, parent, and teacher. And ultimately, we got to do a better job of getting teachers and parents back into the community of schools. Um coming out of COVID, our schools have become almost like banks. Um we all arrive at 8:30 and we all leave at 4:00 and no one wants to be there after hours. Um no one wants to do extracurricular activities. Every PTA is struggling for volunteers. Um
135staff um if it's not in their contract, they they don't want to go and and parents if it's not required, they don't want to be there. And somehow the district has to redefine why it's important for all of us to be together even outside of the classroom. And the reason it is is because when we're outside the classroom, we begin to believe that we actually are rooting for one another. And that parent wants to help the teacher with their student at home. And that teacher wants to go the extra mile for that student because they they know the parent is supportive. So I think improving test scores, graduation, attendance is a collaborative work between parents and teachers or parents in their buildings. And we got to get that relationship restored. We got to get, you
136know, PTAs back up and running. We got to get classroom parents. We got to get volunteers back in the building because when you're there and you see the good work they're doing, it's contagious. When when you see the value and what's going on in our public schools in St. Joe, you want more of it. And so somehow we got to get the parents there to where they want to be part of it again. They want to help their students succeed and they want to be part of the classroom experience. So I would say the collaboration between um home life and classroom somehow we got to get that back restored. Thank you. You're welcome. So on that line, how would you encourage the community to participate in education of our children? What role would you like
137them to have? The community, the success of our children. Yeah. I think every I would encourage every parent to try to volunteer one time a year at their school. I mean, you get to meet your your kids' friends. You get to meet the teachers. So I I think it's just I hate to say it, it's sweat equity. There is no easy This this is not the answer is not a philosophical answer. The answer is very concrete and it's just going to take sweat equity and we somehow have to tell the stories and put the volunteers up and let them tell how enjoyable it is to serve in their school. You know, we got to give nights for PTA presidents to recruit at back to school night. You know, instead of having the line at back
138to school night go the opposite way of the classroom, we somehow got to get the PTAs and the student councils and all those extracurricular activities right in the heart of our school. So, it's it's not an easy answer. Uh, Miss Miller, if I could be honest, this is not there's no textbook answer postcoid how we get parents and teachers back together. But you have to encourage it. We can never give up on it because when the student leaves the classroom, their teacher now is their parent. And somehow we've got to have a passing of the baton every night. You know, kids going to bed on time, kids studying their Spanish vocabulary, you know, kids reading a book every night. And so, it's just going to take a lot of sweat equity. I will say principles
139are worth every dollar we pay because a principal sets the mentality of the building and when the principles set a mentality and a vision and purpose for the building that everyone can buy into then I I see they buy into it. You got to give people something to buy into just to say get involved in your school. What is that? You got to give them a vision. You got to give them excitement. But this has probably been the toughest question I've had to answer as PTA and Miss Karns can relate to that is our PTAs are struggling to get you know recreational sports have kind of challenged uh school involvement and so somehow we got to show the value of being in the school after hours and building relationships deeper than just the classroom. My
140turn. uh what do you believe are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of our school district and what do you believe is the greatest threat facing public education? So the greatest threat I think to St. Joe is that we got to become an appealing district quickly. Um you know everyone wants to talk about vouchers and whether it's going to happen for the board of education St. Joe. That decision is probably not going to be made by the board of education St. Joe. That decision is going to be made by somebody else. But what can be made by our board is if we can become an appealing district, an appealing district of academic success, then parents are going to want to send their kids to St. Joe and teachers are going to want to
141work here. And I think if I looked around, I had to pick from five districts, the number one thing on my list is how well are the kids learning? How well are the third graders learning to read? Are the ninth graders learning algebra? Are the seniors being equipped to transition to, you know, what's next in their life? And so I think the biggest threat for St. Joe is we somehow have to make ourselves appealing again. A lot of the meetings I tend attend I hear all this that we're losing families or people are seeing their kids elsewhere. Listen, we're a bigiz city that has a lot of resources. There's no reason we're not the most appealing district in Northwest Missouri. We just have to decide what we're going to be known for. And I think
142if we make it academic success, I think that's very appealing to a lot of families. And so I think the biggest threat for St. Joe is not becoming appealing district. um having an image where everyone says I'd rather avoid it than attend it. I would rather watch the meeting than be part of the board. And it's nothing but a circus. And I think we got to get that corrected. We got to have a mission, purpose, vision. We got to be professional. We got to be very focused on every kid succeeding because that's where you want to send your kid. You want to send your kid somewhere they succeed. Uh the biggest threat probably to public education um is probably legislation that's above us. Um my wife and I both come from broken homes. Uh my
143dad passed away when I was a kid. My wife um her parents dealt with homelessness and alcoholism. Uh we're both the products of public education. Um if it wasn't for public education, my wife and I would not be prepared for who we are today. And so unfortunately that decision and the public education will probably be made above my pay grade. Um but I am a big proponent that public education offers every child a chance to succeed in life. And not every kid has parents to help them navigate a voucher system. Not every kid has advocates to help them figure that out or send them where they need to go. And public education eliminates that problem. It offers every kid an an equal opportunity to succeed, to learn, and to grow. But I think the biggest
144threat is probably above all of our pay grades in this room. It's probably from state and and and federal legislation. Well, and that kind of leads into my question. Our school district and the Missouri School Board Association share a lot of the same legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri and those include student achievement, educator support, and also increased funding. Are you able to tell us about your views on advocacy for public education in Missouri? And how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district and for public education? Yes. When you look at our funding principle here in St. Joe, 55% of our funding comes from local taxes, 26% come from state t uh state support, and 16% comes from federal. So you're talking about 41% of our income is
145dependent on state and federal legislation. So we got to be active there. We got to remind our legislators the value of public education, the value of equipping every kid in every neighborhood and every house and every family has opportunity to succeed. And I would say I'm more than willing to tell my story and my testimony, my wife's that ultimately it's public education as an extension of the home that really equips our kids. Um, not every kid's going to have a home that can navigate and advocate or advocate advocate advocate. Anyways, people who know me will make fun of this moment right here. uh not every kid has a home life that is going to do all the research and decide where to send them and how do I use my voucher and what school's best
146and so to me it's putting too much it's putting kids at a disadvantage when we as adults in our state and in our country should realize that public education is a value of our country educating every kid and equipping every kid and teaching every kid and we can never lose that so I would meet with legislators I would meet with those in government and I would promote public education until I'm blew in the face my kids attend public education. My wife has worked in public education for 14 years. Um, I serve at the PTA. I serve at the building. We do two after school clubs. Our church is a business partner. I mean, everything in our life is is geared towards public education and I look to continue that. Thank you. You're welcome. In your
147opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? I think I think our meetings need to look more professional. I think it is discouraging when seven adults struggle to communicate and respect each other. Um I I do think when you watch those meetings and you turn it off, you say, "I I don't know where we're going and I don't know how efficient we are and I don't know if I want to give them a dollar." So I think it starts with our public image. I think we need to rebrand the board in terms of uh the professionalism um the respect um what is the goal of the board of education getting back to the basic of uh success of every child and uh that's where it starts. We got
148to clean up the way we treat one another. Um second of all, we just got to follow through with what we say. Um, you know, I I think whenever you have a plan and then you deter from it and then you go back to another plan and this plan, everyone always feels like they're going to wake up to a new plan. So, it's hard to trust any plan if you always think you're 90 days away from a new plan. So, I think we got to have a purpose, mission, vision. You got to use your CIP, which I've now learned continual school improvement plan, and you got to make your board of education meetings more about your CSIP and less about personal differences. Um, you know, I think we need our board of education meetings to
149talk more about academics and curriculum and student success and less about buildings. I just think we need to do that. Buildings are necessary, but they should not u dominate the conversation for 15 years. This school district has always talked about buildings because we can never get past buildings. And that's just led to a distrust that it's always about buildings, it's always about money. I want people to tune in and hear about reading programs and new curriculum and kids succeeding and everyone graduating from Hillyard has a job day one when they leave and how many kids are in the nursing program and our drama clubs and our choir. You know, that's what they need to see because then they see why we do what we do. So, I think it just really goes back to when
150they see the board, what are they seeing? Because that's what they're going to think the whole district is about. So building trust starts with how we what business we conduct and how we conduct it. Okay. You have one more minute in order to give us any any other extra information you think that the board is needing, you know, to know about you at this point. I mean, I will say I just want to say I am thankful for St. school district. Um, I don't have any gripes. My kids are getting a wonderful education here. And I don't think the question is like, is it bad? I think the question is, could it be better? I think everyone has to ask that question, everything they do. And so, I think what I want the board to
151hear is that, um, I think you guys do a great job. There is rooms of improvement. Um, but the product we have in St. Joe is one we should be proud of and one that ultimately should be the center of our community. Um, I think a lot of people know who I am because I ran two years ago. Um, I think a lot of you know who I am because I continue to work with you. I know with the levy, uh, I worked with, uh, a lot of you on the flat levy and trying to make sure that the increase that August was for every staff member in an equal way. And so, um, I think you guys are very familiar with who I am and uh, I I don't have anything probably that'd be
152new or shocking to you guys. I appreciate your time. Thank you. All right. Okay, ladies and if you're able to take a minute in order to complete this, are we supposed to be going adding these? Are we adding them later? I'm not adding. I'm just pouring as we go along after a person answers a question. I just I make a couple notes and I add a score and then I didn't want to be like I'm supposed to start again. Well, then the problem is Well, the problem is is if you're like adding a score after the fact, it's not really accurate. Well, and I can't listen and add simultaneously. So, okay, guys. Are you ready to begin? Good evening. I appreciate your time here today. As mentioned earlier, you'll be asked about 10 11 questions,
153given up to three minutes in order to answer each one. Are you ready to start? Yes, I am. Okay, Miss Jennifer, I have two questions for you. Okay, the first one is, what are your top three priorities if you're appointed to serve on the school board? Trying to see if I can remember my letter of intent. Um, I definitely would like to look at the between having two or three high schools and the feeder system into the schools. Um, and help to develop a long range plan to that's going to work for all of our students. So, um, I definitely feel like our middle schools need to be more equitable. I don't like the fact that you have Spring Garden and Ruboo with six, seven, and eight and Truman and Bod have seven and eight.
154that needs to be fixed. It either the other two need to it needs to go back to the way it was or the other two need to add and but I also feel like those buildings are there needs to be an evaluation of the middle school buildings to really help them. And then um I feel like we need more ELC's. I I think there should be one like if you're and that's where the feeder system comes in like so if we have three high schools well okay all the schools that feed into the southside middle school should in the elementaryaries there should be an ELC for that like where it's a straight line like okay if you live in this area here's your elementary your middle your high school and I think that needs to
155be figured out for all of the district. If selected, what is the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? Transparency from the board to the community. I feel that I feel that sometimes the community has these great ideas and they don't know how to get it to the board and and sometimes it becomes a us against them and that's not how it should be. I mean, you may not physically be on the board, but you can show up for these kids and the staff members, too. Hi. All right. So, I have a question with some parts to it. So, what do you see as strengths of the St. Joseph School District and how do you recommend we make the most of those strengths? And that's the first part. Okay. I feel
156that our in every single building, no matter what part of town you're in, as a staff member, you are appreciated and valued by your administration and by the parents of the students that and you have a sense of family. I will say from personal experience when I taught for the district, I was at four different schools in four years. I worked for the then ESOL department. So I taught at Truman four years in in the morning and I felt valued and appreciated by the parents, my other staff members, my administration and then my first year I split my afternoon. I was at BOD I and then two days before school started the next year I got moved to Rubidu. Luckily at the end of that school year I was told I was going to Spring
157Garden and I was there for two years before I left the district. So, um, that's a big strength is that there was some teasing about like, oh, you can't wear a Bodie shirt. You're at a Truman event. You know, there's a little teasing about that kind of stuff, but all in all, I felt like I was part of a family and I was valued. Okay. All right. Here's the second part. What do you see as challenges facing the district and what are your suggestions for dealing with those challenges? Um I think some of the challenges we have I personally believe open enrollment needs to end. It there's no reason for it. Um, and I also think that some of the boundary lines need to be redrawn. And I know that can be expensive, but I
158feel that going to the whole three schools, I feel like the city as a whole, if you re if you ended open enrollment and redrove redrrew the boundary lines to make the three schools equal in size. I feel that would make the city happy. However, on that note too, when when or if that happens, there needs to be a lot of data taken. If you realize it's really this model will not work, you need to show the people why it won't work. That's going to take a lot of data collection on your part. And I know for me, I would not I try to never make any kind of a decision without seeing all the data because data speaks volumes. Thank you. Why do you believe your role What do you believe your role as
159a board member entails? And I have a second part. Um I believe my job as a board member is to listen to all the requests um for that falls under our like falls under our jurisdiction I guess like you know approving hires for the district and and looking at data and being a community member. for helping the students in the district. Now, how do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing our district and our school board? I'm going to be honest, I I don't have that memorized by any at all. Um I mean, to be honest, I feel like everything I've read it before that it's it's typical things you do as an educator like and as a parent and you know because you're your child's first teacher like I
160know I my son is four he's at Lake ELC he starts at Hosia uh this for summer school and I know and he even did parents as teachers uh we've had a wonderful person who's been coming to our home for the last two years. And I like I know that my son is prepared for school. He's prepared because I've worked hard to teach him. And I know that as a board member, I'm going to think about every kid in the district like they were my own. Like that's my job is to make sure that they have what they need to be successful because if I mean they're going to be my son's friends and his classmates and maybe one day his future co-workers, they need to feel supported. Hi, Catherine. Can you please share one
161decision that the school board has made in the last 12 months that you agreed with and one decision that the school district the school board has made that you disagreed with and explain why for both instances to be honest as far as the four day school week I kind of think it should have gone through. I know that um I know as a teacher like and I know that there's I think the four day school week would have been good for the fact that moneywise for operations for the district I think it would have been a good thing. A lot of other districts do that and I think it's one of those things that it could have been helpful. I really wish they would have done it. Um, now as far as something they've you
162can say, I can't think of something. I was like I mean, as bad as this is, I'm trying to think of something that I and I don't want to say like I don't have something in my mind that I know that I was like, "Oh, I agree with that 100%." I that 4 day week really is one of the things that I thought should have happened. Um, but I don't want to say that I don't feel like you guys make bad decisions. It's a great interview answer. I I mean on the whole I'm sure that there's something on there I agreed I agreed with that you did. I just at this moment can't think of something um Okay. All right. Okay. Mr. Mike, Miss Seaffort, uh, good evening. I'm sorry I couldn't be with you
163tonight, but I appreciate you being here. U, my next question has to do with the long range plan. So, if selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or might you suggest specific revisions or perhaps a new plan entirely? Um, in order to support the current plan, I would need to see all the data that was used to make that decision. I'm not making any decision without seeing the data. I would be that person that if there was, oh, we want to close this school. Why? What's the data show that that school needs to be closed or locate? I want to see the data. I want to see the numbers. I want to see the plan. I will say um as far as planning thinking about uh when Carton Park was built as
164an English teacher I am so sad to know that they did not think to put a library in that school like someone wasn't looking over at the plans. That is every school needs a library. Our kids need to be reading books. So, um, yeah, I would need to see the data to support that or I feel like we need to get all the stakeholders involved, the people that aren't it's affected because if our district is not a good district, we're not bringing in businesses. Businesses don't want to have a business here because why would you want to move your child here if you know they're not going to get a quality education? If the city as a whole is not safe, is not I know for me, my father grew up here. So when he
165retired from the Air Force, guess what? We went home to St. Joe. My mom is from overseas. And uh dad literally said, "We came here because this is where he was raised." And I know he is. And for me, I I left, but I came back. I was living in Kansas City. I had a very good job at a charter school and decided that I didn't like the charter school and I was going to apply to St. Joe and I came here in 2014 and worked and I have no intentions of ever leaving. I bought a house here. I'm going to raise my children here. This is where we're going to be and I'm going to do everything I can to support the city as a whole. I I support downtown. I I'm just getting
166back into doing some volunteer work, but um I feel that this town has been amazing and can stay that way and be even better if we just put the work into it. Okay, thank you. Okay, it's my turn. Our school board is made up of of many drunk personalities and at times there's conflict. How do you see yourself working with the members of this current board and in what ways could you bring cohesion and team building skills? So, um, and this was one of my reference letters was from my former boss, Britney, and again, who's the general manager of the South Belt Pizza Hut. So, I worked for her in 2016 2017 when I was teaching at Truman. It was a second job. So, um, at that time there weren't any kids that I had
167known from like because I was a middle school teacher, but I worked with a lot of high school kids. Um there's a lot of strong personalities and especially when you have teenagers and college kids and different ages and there are some people who work there who were like, "Oh, I'm older. You should listen to me because I'm older." That's I don't do things that way. So I know I had worked there when I was a teenager myself. So when it came to doing something I wasn't familiar with, I'm like, "Okay, you've been doing this longer. Teach me what I need to know. let me help. So I feel age doesn't mean you know more. Um and I stopped working there and I went back in 2019. Now by that time there had been some of
168my middle schoolers that I knew from Truman that when I my first day of work they're like whoa is that no. And I'm like I have kids running up to me because they recognize me from the hallways and they're like you're working here. They've been there longer than I had. They knew more. So, I'm like, "Okay, what are we doing?" Like, I had managers that were 10 or 15 years younger than me. I I didn't question them. I followed their they were the they were in charge. I followed the lead. And there was a couple of managers that I know they would tell me they're like, "I'm so glad you're working because you're just so I have these two employees over here. You know, they don't get along. you seem to be really good about
169keeping them from arguing with one another and I was like just sure. So I feel that um I probably would definitely be the peacemaker. I have five there's five of us kids in our family. I'm the middle daughter. I'm the second oldest. I'm used to having to keep people in line or keep people from arguing with one another and trying to have it be a calm environment. So, thank you. Okay. Uh back to me on the computer. Uh next question is, what suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? Um, we need to stop teaching kids to a test. They need to be taught to think. I know when I was a student in this district, I was taught to think. I was never and not that we
170teach to a test, but sometimes I would have some interactions with my students that it felt like they wanted me to teach them a like the answers. And I was like, I want you to think. Um, and I know for me, most of my experience with in the classroom for St. Joe, I was working with kids, English was not their first language. And so that was really hard for them to say, "Okay, I'm new to this country. I have to take this test. I don't even speak English." Luckily, they didn't always have to do that. But then a year or two was not enough time for them to learn English. And it was really the test was twice as hard because it's not even in their native language because not every language could be translated.
171You know, we have kids that like we have two key speakers. We have kids that are from Guatemala. They speak Kwanhabal and Piche. Those aren't even written languages. So showing them a test in Spanish. What's this? It's like giving me a Russian test. I'm not going to be able to read that. So I think that on some level we put so much pressure on them to pass the test that we need to remind them that to do their best and we need to show them that we believe in them because who wants to come to school when you have a teacher who's not kind to you and doesn't encourage you? I mean, that's as far as students I know, I've had I I was that teacher that if I was the teacher that sometimes kids
172would come and be like, "So, I don't really get along with this teacher. I don't think they like me." Like, now come on. Well, what's going on in class? They're like, "Well, are you are you being respectful? Are you doing what's asked of you?" So um yeah I think and also they need to be fed. Kids who are hungry cannot learn. We need to make sure that the lunch programs are it's good quality food. They get breakfast. They get lunch. They should never be hungry. And as far as graduation Oh my three minutes up. Sorry. Oh please please. I was saying as far as as far as graduation, no, as far as graduation, you mentioned graduation rates, I feel that I feel that we need to talk to the kids and remind them that there
173are three options. Traditional college, a trade school, and sometimes it's just going out to the workforce and the military. So, really four. And we need to really help them figure out where they belong. You know, like where do you think you you're see yourself? If you tell me I don't want to set foot in the classroom ever again after I leave this place. Okay. Well, then it looks like it probably needs to be the military or we need to find a job that you love that you can get the training you need on the job. So, that's what I feel like we need to help them when they're in high school is help them figure out where they belong. I knew since middle school that I was going to be a teacher because I had
174wonderful teachers at Spring Garden. And then my freshman year, Lisa the Fox, she was her and then Jennifer Schultz my junior and senior year. I remember Jennifer Schultz showed me she cared about me. I was working at Pizza Hut and I was not being the best student I had been and she showed up at my work, talked to me and like, "Hey, you're better than this." And showed me she cared. Thank you. How should the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children and what role should the community play when supporting education and our district? Well, I think coming to board meetings and getting on like committees where we welcome community involvement is good. I mean, if you're a parent in the district, just being involved in your child's school and is
175number one or if you're an aunt or an uncle, grandparents, if you can support, I know that precoid you would have family members were volunteering in various schools, especially on an elementary level, and I'm not sure if we've really gotten back to that, but um I think we need to make it something that's acceptable. Like, you know, send a letter home to every kid like, "Hey, do you do your parents do you have a family member who you think would want to come volunteer? We need to start pushing that. We need to go back to old school PTAs where you're getting all these parents involved and they're helping with fundraising for different events. If some teacher says, "Man, I need these new textbooks." Let's go to the parents. Let's go to the PTA. Let's help.
176What do you believe are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the St. Joseph School District? And what is the greatest threat facing public education? I feel like the greatest threat on some level is living in the past. I'm like I said, I am a southsider through and through. I have lived on the same street since 1990. Literally lived in three houses. My parents lived in two different houses on that street and I bought the third one 10 years ago. um like living in the past like I really really want to see all three of our high schools continue to be as they are but I'm also willing to say that show me why we can't keep all three. Like I'd like to see the numbers. I So if you were to ask
177me are you for or against? I'm for the kids. So if three high schools is what's best for our high school students that's what we need. If two is better, that's what we need. I do know that our middle school kids are have been ignored for far too long. Like the middle schoolers, that's the most vulnerable time when you're a teenager. When you're little, your teacher is like your who you look up to. And when you're in high school, your teacher who helps you become an adult. When you're a middle schooler, you've got a lot going on. They need to know that they're valued. And I don't think we show our middle school students that they're valued in any of our schools. I'm sorry, I had to catch up on my notes. Okay. Um, our
178school district and the Missouri School Board Association share a lot of the same legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri and those include student achievement, educator support, and the funding. Can you let us know your views on advocacy for public education in Missouri and how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district and for public education? Well, um, as far as that, so everyone who lives in this city pays taxes. Our tax money goes to support our school system. So whether you want to or not, you're helping p public education. And and I feel like our city probably needs to be giving more money to help because we see what happens with the state. The state's going to help districts that are bigger. I it's sometimes it's hard to get
179state funding. Um I do know that I think we need [Music] to I think if we involve the community, I think it would be easier to have more support in our schools, not just with money, but with personnel, with people there to help the kids. So, thank you, Commissioner. Sorry. In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? full transparency. You I mean like if a request is made to see something I mean unless it's you can't say everything because sometimes people don't realize that you aren't allowed to give certain information like you can't break FURPA or HIPPA things like that but I think uh a trans It needs to be transparent. Like I sometimes think that um if you would just give a little more reasoning
180behind doing something. So I was like, "Oh, I get that." Like for me, I was totally for three schools all the way. We don't need a two school model. But then I had some friends telling me about looking at the lack of resources for our middle schoolers and I was like, man, you're right. I should know this. I mean, I worked in all four of them. I know the challenges I faced as a teacher. I my first my first classroom at Truman, I was literally in a closet. I was in a closet in the music room because unfortunately that was I didn't have enough kids to really be I never had more than two or three. So, it was okay. But like my kids were embarrassed. They hated walking out of the room if the
181music teacher had a class because we were in a closet. And then luckily things moved around and I was in a normal classroom after that. But that first year I was in a closet. So like no one should ever be teaching in in an in an environment like that ever. Okay. Um you have one minute in order to let us know anything else we would need to know in order to make a decision tonight. I I am passionate about education, about children. I definitely want to see this district succeed. I have a son who's going to be kindergartener. My daughter um was born with special needs. She has tricom 21 and had heart surgery at 8 months old. And to be honest, the best education she's going to get is in a public school setting.
182and I want to make sure she is included and there's full inclusion. I had a middle school student um that I worked with at Sherman for theater club and he was just a a joy and a light in that school and um I'm lucky that I got to be friends with his mom um as an adult because he has Down syndrome and he's my gold standard on what a kid who has a diagnosis and a label can accomplish if you have faith in them. So, I want that for my daughter. I want to know that everyone who's going to interact with her is going to fight for her and is going to help her be the best she can be because I'm not putting my daughter in a box. I don't want anyone else to
183do it. So, I will listen and I will hear all sides. I will try my best to make sure I'm always respectful in my words, in my tone. Um, I hope I would be the person that if I was on the board, they're like kind of in the back of the mind, don't know how that one's going to go. I don't know. Like, I don't want to be sold, oh, she's definitely going to go, "She's on this side. She's on that side." Nope. I want to be the person that that, you know, is going to listen. I would like to know that if anyone in the community, if I were on the board, came to me and said, "Hey, I'm really concerned about this." I'm gonna listen to that person and I'm going to try
184to help the best I can. I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you so much. Are you doing all right or are you needing another break? Are you needing a break? Are you good? I'm good. Are you okay? Okay, we're ready to continue. Is anyone eating anything from the snack basket? I do my car. Hello. Hello. I appreciate you joining us this evening, Mr. Young. As mentioned earlier, you will get about 10 questions up to three minutes each question. You ready to begin? All right. Are you ready? I'm ready, I think. All right. Question number one here. Okay. First one. What are your top three priorities if appointed to serve on the school board? Three priorities. Uh, probably the first would be I think we need to find some way to help teachers. Not just give
185them more, but take things off their plate so they can go back to their first love. Nobody goes to school to check on phones or do attendance. They go to teach whatever their subject is. That's the thing they love. Um, so I think that would be probably number one. Number two would be uh trying to get a handle on how do we how do we deal with 21st century kids. They're different than when I went to school. You know, how do we make it so that they can succeed and at the same time make it so that all of them can succeed that we don't leave any we don't I don't want to say no child left behind. That's not what I'm aiming for. But what I'm what I'm trying to say is, you know,
186if they want to work and want to succeed, we need to make sure they have that opportunity. That's I think I'd probably just stay at those two. Those are probably my big two. Okay. And then if selected, what is the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? Uh probably to learn how to be a board member. That's probably my first priority is to learn how this works. I, you know, I've complained about boards and councils and government since, you know, I am old enough to remember and it's now it's time for me to get off the bench and learn how to do it. I think it's so vitally important that we succeed. Thank you. Okay. Good evening. All righty. Um, I've got kind of a couple of different questions. So, what
187do you see as strengths of the St. Joseph School District and how do you recommend we make the most of those strengths? That's the first part. Okay. Strengths. I I would say teachers. We have a lot of really good teachers. I work with some really amazing uh professionals who give well more than their contract hours. Um they they sweat. Every student, even the ones that have a two, they sweat. How do they how can they help them? How can they get them motivated? How can they do things? I think that's our our greatest strength really. Okay. Then the second part is what do you see as challenges facing the district and what are some suggestions for dealing with those challenges? Challenges facing the Wow, we've got a ton of those, don't we? I mean, we're
188at a weird place in time. Maybe it's not. Maybe if you look back at board minutes from 1975, they're the same problems. But we have a trust problem. I know that when talking to people uh my parents who've lived here since 1971 and it's it's not fair. It's not fair to the students. It's not fair to the board that's here now. But it's still out there. It's that lingering um that's I think a weakness we have in our community. And we I think it's a weakness for all of us as people. We are afraid of change. We like the way things were. We want our children to go to the same high school that we went to. We want to have that that lineage going down, but that may not be what's best. And so
189we have to we have we have to address that. Um we don't want to get bogged down in my school's better than your school. That's we're supposed to have given that up when we graduated. Um how do we address that? I think you know I've seen some things uh that I think are favorable. We need to be very open, very transparent. We need people to know why we made the decisions, not just what the decision was. We really need to make sure that people know that. I think personal opinion the advertising for the proposition in the last election failed in that regard. I was already on board and it didn't convince me. So, we we need to really make sure that we I'll I'll be a shorting board member. Um, we we need to communicate
190to the community why we made the decisions, not just the decisions we made. Thank you. Of course, I just took a bite. Mr. What do you believe your role as a board member entails? Um, that's part of what I'm going to learn. What all it entails? I know being prepared for meetings, studying up on the issues, visiting and seeing with my eyes the things that are going on, talking to people that are, you know, in the trenches, which probably tells you a lot of how teachers see their jobs when it's referred to as a trench. So, um, you know, I think that's probably that's it right there. We need to we need to help them big way. The next that is how do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing
191our district and the school board? Well, that goes just back what I just said. We have to be very transparent, even beyond transparent in a little a lot of ways because the distrust is already out there and we have to combat it. We can't just convince them that this one thing is a good idea. We have to convince them that the next thing we decide is a good idea as well. Not because we thought of it, but because we worked at it, we talked about it, we argued about it, we researched it, and then we came up with that decision. And they need to know we did that and that they know it's it's important or trust. How do you function without trust? My turn. Okay. Can you please share one decision that the school
192board has made in the last 12 months that you have agreed with and one decision that the school board made that you've disagreed with and explain why for both instances? Um probably the first one I am I'm very much in favor of the two high school system. I know that I know that offends a lot of people because of that lineage idea and and north end and south end. I I know it. I've been in I've I've been in each high school as an employee. I've seen the passion that people bring to their high school, but there's no reason that can't happen again. It looks it'll look different, but I think for our children to have two equally sized high schools um reaches what I call a critical mass of teachers where you have more
193teachers in each subject allowing you to teach um electives. Electives are what really got me through high school. Those are what I came to school for. I didn't come to school for algebra. Sorry, Mr. Rosenberger. Did you? Yeah. I wasn't coming to school to see him. Sorry. But, you know, to coming to see Hair Meyer, my German teacher, you know, our Sergeant Major Nestler, my RTC teacher, those were huge parts of my day, and that's what I look forward to. And I'd love our children to be able to have that ability to develop the relationships with teachers. They don't just have them their freshman year for world history and then they don't see them again till maybe junior year for psychology and then you know that's it. I'd love to have them have opportunities to
194see them more often. Okay, Mr. Mike. Okay, Mr. Young, good evening. I'm sorry I can't be with you, but I'm sure glad to see you there. Um, next question has to do with the long range plan, which you brought up a couple of times. If selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or will you make might you make uh specific suggestions for revision or perhaps suggest a whole new plan entirely? Uh, like I said, from the basic part, the two high school plan, I I would agree with wholeheartedly. Um, far as the other plan, I have I have to admit that I'm not familiar with every aspect of it, but that's part of that learning process that I really want to be involved in. Um, we have some, you know, great people
195in our schools and in the administration that have a lot of knowledge that we we need to pay attention to and we need to look at those options. Look at options that may be outside the box. I being a veteran, I would say that no battle plan survives contact with the enemy and the enemy is budgets, elections, all those things. We have to be we have to be flexible in in any long range plan, any medium-range plan for that matter. Okay. And and and a bit of a followup to that one. Um as you support the plan, how would you convince the public of the plan's value? I I think uh going back to the idea of having that critical mass of teachers in each topic so that every school every student in high school
196has a chance to have Spanish and French and maybe another language instead of just Spanish in Lafayette and Benton and choices at Central. I I I think it equalizes our education system that there's no flagship school that we are a school district that has two high schools, not one real good one in the two others. I'm not saying there anything wrong with Ben and Lafayette. I've been at both of them. I liked both of them, but you know, just the opportunities for students to uh explore areas that they probably won't if there's only, you know, four teachers and they're booked up teaching required classes. Thank you. Okay, Mr. Young, our school board is made up of many strong personalities and at times um it can cause conflict. How do you see yourself being able to
197work with our board and in what ways are you able to bring cohesion and team building skills? Um well that's uh I have 33 30 more than 33 years of training with my wife who is very strong willed. Um so that's a start. mostly female school board. Yeah, I I said, but she is a very strong willed woman and uh uh mostly I'm calm. That's really the thing I think is what I bring to the I I I look for try to be calm myself. That's not always as easy as it seems, but uh look for consensus building. Look for those places where people are talking past each other because I found most of you here, I would bet very probably all of you in this room have the same goal. You want a safe,
198caring environment for your children and just the members of your community's children to have access to a great education that just pushes them out into the world for success. And so when we look at it that way, and that's always going to be one of the first things that breaks down in conflict is we start to uh assign bad motives to people that are on the other side. So we have to step back and say, "Hey, I know this person cares. Let's find something that we agree on and build from there." It doesn't mean we won't argue. doesn't mean we won't shout, but it means that we we're we're headed the same direction. We've just got to figure out how to row together. And that's going to take a while. I I think for any
199group of people, every time you add a new person, it's going to change a little bit. And it'll take a little bit, I think. But we have to we have to take that step back and remember that the people that are here aren't our enemies. They're our friends with different ideas. Thank you. Okay, back back to the computer. Hey, a little more tech tactical question now. What suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? That's a struggle. It's been a struggle since I got here. Uh we've always been fighting that uphill battle and I think part of it is part of that long-range plan. I think part of that long range plan sets us up to put us in a place that where we can be proud of
200our schools that we will be building the community that we want for the future because that's what schools are about, isn't it? We want to build the people that are going to be fixing our cars and talking to us and our doctors in 20 years. Um that's what we want. And so we need to have a situation where people are proud to go to their school, not just because of the colors, not just because of a team or whatever, but because they know they're getting something out of it. It's one of the things that I saw uh even as a freshman history teacher that students struggled with was feeling like nobody's proud of a prison, they're proud of a high school. We need to make them see the value in what they're getting. how the
201how we go about that probably going to be uh a lot of talking from many different teachers to all the kids because we all have different reasons. You know, I look back at my high school days and you know, obviously reading was a huge part of my you know what I love. Um but that's that's just part of it. And not every student's going to come because they love to read. That's just not going to happen. But maybe they like math. Maybe they like science. find that hook and let them know that it's a good thing. Um I don't know how we equalize things in the schools. Um I feel like a lot of things seem to have uh kind of risen to the top and take a lot more priority in activities and I
202think students that are involved in those activities kind of feel that what they're doing isn't as quite as valuable that I I mean we only have so many hours of the day. We can't have a pep assembly for every sport and every activity that's going on. But maybe we need to see a way of of equaling that out and and really celebrating those students that do well. Not just the 100% attenders, but you know that honor role and bring that kind of stuff back to show people that, hey, these people are working. Not just they're not just smart, they're working because I had a lot of smart kids that fail my class. Thank you. You're welcome. Okay. You're not eating this time. No. Good. I just lost my chance to be a waiter. How should
203the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children and what role should they play when supporting the education in our district? Um, I think a lot of it comes back to the board showing that transparency, showing that we can disagree without being disagreeable. I know that sounds trit, but it's really true. How do we show people that I can disagree with you about what we're going to do, but I still value you as your input? Because that's going to be maybe one vote. Maybe there'll be 10 more that we come we agree on perfectly. We don't want to burn the house down for that one vote. And we need to show that to the community by behavior, but also by talking to them about why again back to why we made that
204decision. Why did we decide to do this? What are the benefits that your students are going to see immediately and what are the long range benefits as we as we realign how the schools feed into the high schools and how then they shoot back out to colleges and hillyards and things like that. so that their you know they can look and say their student is like oh he wants to be a diesel mechanic and now there's a path and I know what the path is um so that they can get on board with the teachers who are saying you can't flunk all these classes and get to go to heal you so you need to step up and you know I'll help you your teacher will help you we got all sorts of resources to
205help but I think so students sometime get that blinder I'm going to do it on my and then I don't see a path so I just give up. And we need to make sure that the community knows that there are pathways so that the students when they get to that point of feeling like they gave up there are people around them to say hey this is this is way you can go or better yet this is the person I know you can talk to to find that way you know to go to the counselors or whoever it's me it's me Okay. What do you believe um are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the St. Joseph School District? And what do you believe the greatest threat facing public education in general is?
206Greatest threat to both is cell phones. I I just I detest them. I have one in my pocket. I think it's awesome that I can compute have the computing power to launch a space shuttle, but I don't need to launch a space shuttle. competing with those phones as a teacher was a struggle, a neverending struggle, never ending struggle. A teacher, you know, who's, you know, making $50,000 a year cannot compete, you know, with a trillion dollar entertainment industry that's at their fingertips all the time. And we need to find a way to move some of that pressure off of teachers. They're not just policing phones a good portion of their class periods. because we're assuming what they're teaching is important because that's why we have them teaching the classes. I I think to me that's
207the greatest threat to education is the distractions. Greatest threat to their safety I think is drugs. I don't think that's changed. And now we have, you know, even more lethal drugs than I ever imagined when I was in high school. And I think it's they need to know. I know they won't necessarily listen. I didn't listen very well when I was a student, but we need to be trying making sure they know not just that it's out there, but what's out there and what to avoid because it can make you dead very quickly. Well, on that note, sorry, kind of a downer. Our school district and the Missouri School Board Association share many legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri and those includes student achievement, educator support, and increased funding. Um, what are
208your views on advocacy for public education in Missouri? And how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district in public education? however I can. I I don't think we can do enough. Honestly, there's always something new that we could help with. I think sometimes that because of the way our school districts are aligned, not just ours, but all around things tend to go internal. And and one of the big things I learned, this was in seminary of all places, but we can't let the good destroy the great. You have a bunch of good things swallowing up all the time. Suddenly the great can't be done. We need to move some of this outside of the school day, outside of the school time, outside of the school personnel, preferably with volunteers, whatever we
209can get, explaining to them, we need you to reach out. You know, you know, it sounds it sounds like, oh, it's not a big deal to ask a teacher to stay for another meeting, but they've got children in daycare. They've got all this stuff going on, too. So, we as a community need to, well, we as a board need to inform the community of opportunities to help these children in different ways because we all have experiences that we've seen and places that we would love kids to ex to aspire to. That's how you get, you know, troop leaders and boy scouts. That's how you get volunteers like that. But we need to let them know there's an opportunity here. And I we don't want to just keep putting it on staff. We we need to
210find a way. And I I don't necessarily know how we do that, but I think that's I think that would be a great goal is to try to bring more people in because the more people who see what's going on, they I think they'll agree with a lot of what the board's already decided when they see, you know, the schools, not the not the students, but the buildings themselves. Thank you, Mr. In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? Well, that's back to two and three. Transparency I think is just vitally important just like the fact that this is going out to you know people out probably not enough people but we need to make sure with you know however it is maybe email blast I
211don't know just to let people know there's a board meeting tonight you don't have to come you could watch it at home you know you don't have to sit you know but chairs are nice but you know you don't have to be there directly you can see what's going on um and hear about what's going on and sometimes like you know I watched several you know trying to prepare u just the the neat things students do at the board meeting show them kids are really doing some cool things and you need to be aware of that not just sitting back thinking they're just you know playing on their phones and doing nothing else they're they're doing some good things and so um yeah they've got to see us and we've got to be and when
212they see us we need to be acting appropriately We need to we need to make sure they know that, you know, when the when the gavl sounds and the meeting's over, they're known enemies. They're just people that care about their kids. Okay, Mr. Young, you have one minute in order to let us know anything that you'd like to tell us. Um, I guess the biggest thing I think right now we're in a situation, it looks like we have a lot of problems. We have just a lot of things. But inside those problems, there are opportunities. And I think we need to be making sure we're looking for opportunities to engage with those problems. Not just to overwhelm them, but maybe just go around them. That's when we talk about things that are hard to beat.
213Sometimes the way you you don't beat them by hitting them with over the head with a club. Sometimes you just go around and you say, "We'll deal with that later because we can't fix it. We can't fix the drug problem in America with a school district budget. I don't think that's going to happen. But we can help our students have something else to look forward to." So that's not the thing they turn to. That's, you know, give them a choice. give them better choice and uh and always be looking for those choices because just because it worked for this five, you know, next five years doesn't mean the next five years will look the same. Who knows what's going to come out in five years? Probably going to have, you know, headsets in our brains
214or something. Try to find that when you're doing a test proctoring. I've appreciated your time this evening. Thank you so much. Thank you, sir. Okay, ladies and Mr. Mike, are we still doing good? Anybody need a bathroom break? Anything like that? Or we want to rock out this last one? I'll be right back. Okay. I need more food so I can a two minute break. Let's do five. Let's do five. Let's do five. Five. Okay. Five minute break. reader, are you ready? All right, if you could join us at the podium, please. I appreciate you joining us this evening. As mentioned earlier, you will have about 10 questions up to Three minutes each question. Are we ready to begin? Yeah. Sorry, I lost. Oh, no. You're good. Yes. Yes. All the questions are at the
215podium. They're a little bit lengthy. So, in case you need a reminder. Are you ready for me? Sure. All right. I got twopart question here. Okay. The first one, what are your top three priorities if appointed to serve on the school board? Well, first of all, I'd like to say thanks for having the forum for us, but also um there's a lot of things I could say about being last, but I won't bore you with those things at this time. So, to answer your question, what's the three things I'm going to do? The same thing I've always done. I'm going to be for students first, teachers, and taxpayers. And then if selected, what is the most important goal that you hope to achieve during your term? The most important goal I hope to achieve. Uhuh.
216I don't have any personal goals. I'm just looking out for what's going to be best for the district as a whole. Thank you. Okay. Have your next question for you. What do you see as strengths of the St. Joseph School District and how do you recommend we make the most of those strengths? That's going to be the first part. We have one huge diamond in the rough. I advocated for it tirelessly and still will, but it's called Hillyards. What we have at Hillyards is uh on the verge of being something we could become known as the MIT of tech schools in the region. And now with what Missouri Western's partner with us, you can even go to a higher level. But I can tell you about heliards, 90% of the people come out of Hillyards
217have a good paying job that day. College graduate, it's about 52%. And I I have a problem with my tech. I call my granddaughter. Find a plumber or a carpenter or electrician. And if you can get him to show up, I mean, it's 75 or $80 an hour. So uh Hillyards is the thing we should have a goal to double heliards in the next 10 years. Absolutely double it in every trade possible. So we are something here and it also motivates our we have third largest manufacturing in the state and uh manufacturing is high-tech now. It's different than when it was. So, um, those skilled jobs pay really well and we're already there and all these manufacturers in this area need workers. We might as well be be the genesis of that. Okay. And then
218the second part that I want to ask you is what do you see as challenges facing the district and what are suggestions for dealing with those challenges? [Music] Well, you end up being one vote of seven. Um so the the challenges of the district I would say that we concentrate on the wrong things and we're worried about a perception of a few individuals that want executives to move here. I'll take 15 Altech workers any day before I take some executive. So, and we are, we can't deny it. I I'm part of it. We're a high uh poverty rate town in district. So, stop trying to live like we're stale. We're St. Joe. Okay, we can deal with that. So, uh there's nothing wrong with having a high poverty rate because that's our very basic mission
219is to educate every single kid in our district. Thank you. Here's a good report for you, Mr. reader. It is how do you what you believe your role as board member entails? Um well if I just go by past experience uh I'd say uh referee. All right. So, how do you personally interpret one other thing, voice of reason, as stated by the newspaper in the editorial? So, how do you personally interpret and value the board's code of ethics when representing our district and the school board? What was that? Code of ethics. Code of ethics what? That the board has to follow. Oh well. Yeah, we should take them in consideration. Great. My turn. Can you please share over the past 12 months one the one decision that the school board made that you approved of
220and one decision that the school board made that you did not agree with? And can you explain why for both? So an approve something in the last year that you approved that we did something that you did not approve of a decision that we made and then your reasoning for both of those. Well uh the one I approved of which in hindsight may have cost me my election but I don't care because I made the right call and that was over the 4-day week. And look what's happened since then. what kind of quagmire we'd be in right now if we had went with the 4-day week. Let me tell you about the 4-day week. Now it's a state law. And that changed because um there's about 510 districts in the state. About 160 of them
221have the 4 day week, but guess what? They're all less than 3,000 students in that entire district. They're all rural. Guess what? They don't have 7,000 free and reduced lunch. So it works out there in the rural district. And the state legislature was very smart about it. They say now if you're in a your district's in a population of more than 30,000, you have to take it to the vote of the people. So look at poor independence now. They have to take their 4 day week, which by the way, the second year in has been a disaster for them. And I'll tell you why. It's a dirty secret. They don't talk about. They did it for like we almost did it for just to recruit somebody. Okay? Well, they went from 80 some people they
222recruited the year before to once they opened up four day week they got over 400. Okay, this is the second year in the end of the second year. Guess who they got? All the un kind of motivated teachers were willing to leave the other jobs. The district of independence has 22 districts within a 20 minute driving distance of them. St. Joe has four districts and they're all smaller than us. So, the thing wouldn't have worked here. And now, oh my gosh, what chaos would he cause? Like independence. Went to the 4 day week, got a whole bunch of bad teachers, unmotivated teachers, and they're stuck with them, and they're going to have to go back to the five day week. So, anyhow, that was the best decision I stuck with. And I'd do it again.
223And if it cost me another election, I'd still do it again. And I think you guys all know that. I didn't mind being the six to one vote for many years. I mean, I was on the board four four months and the newspaper front page abstainer and chief. Yeah. I'm going to abstain when you bring something to the meeting for the first time and it involves money. You expect us to pass it and you they stopped doing that. Okay, Mr. Mike. Mr. Reader. Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Reader. Uh, good evening. I'm sorry I couldn't be physically with you tonight, but I'm glad you're here. Um, I'd like to ask a question about uh the long range plan. If selected, will you support the district's current long range plan or might you suggest specific revisions or
224perhaps a new plan entirely? Yes, I'm going to rock your world because a brand new, entirely new plan and a real plan, not brought out of the back room by several educators. a a real plan. And um that's um this plan. My plan is guess what it is? We're going to build a new school. I want to build a new school, but we're going to three keep the three school model. I want to build one new high school. This needs to be on the east side of 29 somewhere about 1,700 students. We still need to keep open enrollment because you know right now at Lafayette just under 300 kids are in a central district. They choose to go to Lafayette. A lot of times in a high poverty district it's logistics people. We've got a
225grandma there can pick the kids up or whatever it may be. So and Ben about 175 kids live in the central district. They choose to go to Ben. You build a brand new shiny school out there, you're going to have just as many of those people in that neighborhood want to come to Benton and Lafayette because they'll have a chance to be in debate, to be in theater, to play football, play basketball in your high school years. So with open enrollment, you'll have just as many from Benton and Lafayette that want to go there as that will come. And there's nothing wrong. We've always been a district with differentiz high schools. 50 years ago, Benton, Lafayette 3A, Central 4A. It was always a big thing when Benton and Lafayette beat Central. Well, there was nothing
226wrong with those differentized schools. It gives us more character and dynamics in this town. There's nothing wrong with old schools and new schools. Look what we do to our great schools. We got several brand new ones and several old ones. Those old ones are given just as good as educational as those new ones are. So the same way when you have one in a town our size and shrinking population on top of it, one new school, um with our open enrollment just like we have, it'll balance out just fine. There's nothing wrong with Lafayette being seven and 800 or Benton 7 or 800. And um again, it gives a lot more of our students opportunities they only have once in a lifetime in high school to do. And it's not just football, basketball, and things
227like that. It's character building stuff such as being theater, being student government, and other things that are just as important in your high school years. What was the question? Uh, thank you. You you answered it was about long range plan and you answered it. Thank you. Yes. Uh, new plan, new high school. Okay, Mr. Kenny. The school board is the school board is made up of many drug personalities and as you already know, you know, at times it's a little bit of conflict. How do you see yourself working with all of the members of of the current school board? And h how can you bring more cohesion and team building skills? I think he's just be so marvelous and fantastic. Works with absolutely every one of you. You too, Mike. And uh people have never
228scared me. Even people who disagree with me. The ones I'm worried about is the ones who agree with me. But um I don't see a problem. It's kind of like didn't want to use this line. But guess what? Most of you been there, done that, and um I'd like to get back into it up to here. I thought it was a very rewarding time. Actually, I thought it was very rewarding. And I thought it was so much better than the old boards of the day that people stole money from us and went to prison because guess what? Back there it was seven seven always unanimous vote. Back in those days, we had all these CPAs and real doctors and stuff on there. They're the one, look at the FBI report. They're the ones that cost
229us all that $25 million. So, um, our disagreement, which has been a little bit over the top and probably has been, uh, not progressive for us. That disagreement is the very essence of our world right now, people. There's nothing wrong with those disagreements. We could have moved things a little bit further than we did. I suggest we get on a better track that way. But there's not a thing wrong with that disagreement. Again, I go back to those days. I've been in this fight for 25 years. I I ran my first election against Dan Kogan. That's before he went to jail. Um so, um seven and0 seven and0 seven and0. And if you dear voted no, oh my gosh, you probably got fired the next day. or they leaned on your wife or your husband
230in some place. That's the way they did it. I had three interviews with the FBI when they came and they told me he they was run like the mafia. It was look at the people who suffered back in those days. So our disagreements, while they're a little bit too unresolved, I'm ready to get back into it because that disagreement is what brings everything to the table. Everybody. I'd rather have people sitting in their room disagreeing with each other. Okay, that's where I'm at. Thank you, Mr. Reer. Okay, Mr. Mike, did you guys pay the bill today? Yes, it's your turn, Mike. Okay, thank you very much. Um, um, a pretty tactical question now. What suggestions do you have for the district to improve test scores, attendance, and graduation rates? I think the best thing would
231have been an opportunity that we missed last year, but that would be I always wanted to put a billboard on 29 saying highest paid teachers in the state. If we could even get from the bottom third to the top third, that would be an accomplishment. But look, we had an opportunity last year and every single person capitulated. We passed that raise and they advertised. They spent 50,000 advertising that oh staff and teachers are going to get a raise. But guess what the end of the day was? They never mentioned all the administrators got the same raise. I'm sorry. Somebody making over all those people 200 of them in this over six figure category in our district. They could have got by without that money. You know what it done for our staff and what it
232would have done for our teachers? It almost double er your raised. But no, we capitulated and gave the administrators. Not by law. We didn't have to do it. For some reason, we allowed them to do it. Nobody would stand up and fight that. I did. I would. I still lost. I'd still fight it again. That's wrong. It was for the teachers. And by gosh, if we had we could start our teachers at $50,000, we wouldn't have a recruiting problem anymore. And do you realize raising the teachers raise to 50 is insignificant in a $147 million budget which 70% of it is uh labor employees cost. That is what makes graduation rates better. You have teachers that are motivated and you can demand more. When you're paying them the most, you can demand the most. And
233you have the most people standing in line for those jobs as well. It's insignificant to rate. Where are we now? 43 or something like that. 42. Um, let's go to 50. But come on, leave the administrators out of this time. I know that makes a lot of the administrators mad. They all voted against me, too. But we have too many administrators, too. Couldn't do nothing about that, though. Only this district in the state had three assistant superintendent. Thank you for the answer. Yep. I got more. All right, Ken. Um, how should the community be encouraged to participate in the education of our children? And what role should that be? Stop getting away from thinking bigger is better. Bigger is only better for administrators. You know, in the state of Missouri, you're paid by if you're
234in a bigger school, you your school population. And so you're in a great school with 600, you get paid more as an administrator. Not the teachers don't. Ministers get paid more. In the state of Missouri, it's your title and how big a school you work in. So, yeah, you'd rather work in a high school of 2,000 than you would a thousand because you're going to get just paid more when it comes down to that kind of money. So, um what was your question again, please? It's about involving the community. Okay. So, um involving the community is um it's a fleeting thing, you know, with education. your kids in school uh and before you know they're graduating and then you lose all interest in the schools until you start paying your property tax. So, uh it
235becomes full circle then and that's why um we have the ability to do things but we don't for some well um laying off or taking away positions is not popular. I understand. But when it's not needed and we have low graduation rates, attendance is bad, our GPA are horrible. Okay. Well, let's add the teachers. Let's take administrators. Let's add the teachers. Let's pay them more. Ready for the next one? Okay. What do you believe are the greatest threats to the success and sustainability of the St. Joe School District? And what is the greatest threat facing public education? Well, I I don't know if it's a threat. Again, we're still going to be a declining district for a while. Um so, and on a national or state or region level, um I think there's a lot
236of changes on that coming on that this direction. I always did kind of wonder though um when it comes to something beyond our city limits and maybe even at the state level even though I don't think Desessie and all these people Misha and whoever it is at the state house should have as much nose stuck in our business here in St. Joe just like I don't think anybody in Washington has a clue what my second grader needs in St. Joe. We don't need the bureaucrats. We we need this local involvement. When people feel like they can't be involved, they make a difference because we march to our own tune. We don't follow somebody in Jeff City or let alone somebody in Washington about things. Uh there's going to be some tweaking on this while they've
237downsized on a national basis. But we'll see the stuff that needs to be there will still be there. It's it's I don't know. We haven't noticed too big of a hiccup too yet so far. So, and again it's talking about state or a national level have no control that I can have opinion of it but I don't bring my opinion to what we need in this school district. I'm for what this district needs and every student in this district need whether I disagree with you or I agree with you. I'm for what's best for this district. Okay, Mr. Our school district and the Missouri School Board Association share many legislative priorities aimed at enhancing public education in Missouri. Those commonalities are student achievement, educator support, and increased funding. Can you let us know your views
238on advocacy for public education in Missouri and how do you plan on advocating for the needs of the district and for public education? Uh well, I I always keep looking around a lot of students. My son graduated in 2008, my uh granddaughter in 2022. Guess what? Me in 73, we're all public school district educated here in St. Joe. Um gosh, dang. The roof's not falling. The sky is not falling as much we seem to hear over and over. So the public education is always going to be something a living document. It's going to be a moving document. But we have to have that local involvement to move that document, that living document the way we want it done here locally. That means being straightforward with us people here, all of us taxpayers especially, being straightforward
239with what we're going to do and need to do. Um what was the question? Um I know advocacy. Yes. Um other than the billboard out in 29 saying the highest paid teachers in the state. Uh I don't know. I could put some signs on my pickup and drive around. But the public education, sure it it's horrible in a lot of places. I know everybody's thinking, well, okay, with open enrollment or, uh, the voucher system and something like that, things will come to a collapse because we lose a lot of money, uh, the money follows the student, so to speak. I think it's still going to go that way for a while. And I hope and I think maybe that'll force the public system to get real. And you know what? The best thing for a
240town like us in a high poverty rate area. Hilliards. Hilliards. Hillyards. Hillyards. Double the programs there. Double the square footage. When I was on the board, I luckily served on that when we built the new addition on Mike. You know that. And they started out getting 20,000. They went at 20,000 feet. My first meeting. Mike was there. I said, "No, no, no. We're going to ask for 40." And then that way we might end up at 25 or 30. Sure enough, we end up getting 25 and we're begging for 20. I wish we had went to 40 actually. You're going to fill that place up. And it does for our students. Can you imagine the attendance rate, how it's going to change with that sixth grader, boys and girls. I say sixth grade and seventh
241grade. We take them on a bus tour out there and walk through the nursing section, walk through the welding section. about sixth or seventh grade and I'm sorry I were those kids gonna start oh yeah well well how am I going to get there I don't have to go to school stop talking about sending me to college I mean I get to go do this type of thing a broad range of things all I have to do is be have good attendance really you don't have to hardly pass but you have good attendance because guess what you're sixth grade seventh grade you say I don't start going to school I'm not going to get to go to Hillard I have to go do book work or something. Uh I have to like really go to
242school. Going to hear her is more than a school for those people. It's a school of course. It's education and the camaraderie and how you get socialization but the skills they are learning learning you cannot pay for. Thank you Kitty. Okay. Last question. In your opinion, what can the board do to improve the level of trust with the public? Put me on as your next board member. That's it. Okay, Kenny. Um, you have one more minute in order to let us know anything that you'd like to let us know. I told you I want one new school. We going to keep the three school model. I'll help run the election. Um thing I disagree with this situation here is that I feel since we were only a few days, a few weeks after the last
243election, the only people that could have put their name in and be considered tonight, let alone have to wait out their three hours in the heat. But only number three, number four, number five, number six should have been the only ones you guys put on the interview. Because I'm always disappointed again when people always want to volunteer to be on the board. and but they don't want to run for election. They want to come in by influencing four people instead of taking the heat of being out here and running an election. You guys all know how that feels and how much money you have to spend. Why' you step up now? If you're serious about this, why didn't you step up a few weeks ago? And that's why I think that it would have been
244a lot less complicated and all three, four, five, and six the people came in to be here and those were the people wanted to be here. And so by now throwing it wide open, it's like, well, no big deal, you know, so what? So what? Those people ran pee on them. I mean, what the heck? Well, we don't want them back in here. We beat them already, right? So, um, put me on the board, the trust comes back, uh, and they know I will hold my ground. I will not compromise on being students first, teachers, and the taxpayer. I appreciate your time, Mr. Leer. Thank you so much. Okay, ladies and Mr. Mike, if you can take a few minutes and go over your notes and your story and then after everyone's ready, we will
245discuss. Um, if everybody can tally up their numbers for each candidate, Dr. McInness and I will take them and put them into our final rubric and the one with the lowest number. Hopefully, there's only one, there's no ties, but if there is, then we can discuss and go from there. How is Mike gonna participate? Mike is going to take a picture of his rubric scoring and send it to me via text. Yeah. And hey guys, by the way, it just felt really really awkward to me the whole time, but just to just to make sure I'm on the same page with everybody else in this world that we're dealing with tonight. The lower the score, the better. Playing golf and not basketball. Thank you. That's really hard to believe. It's a challenge. Yeah. So, I'll
246send I'll send you down I'll send you all a picture of all three of my sheets and and then I I've tallied it up at the bottom. Thank you. And there are 11. Remember the bonus question at the bottom, too. So, there are 11. Yes. Actually, 11 questions. Yes. Yes. Okay. I separate scribble on the bottom of it is a separate No, I'm adding on a separate newspaper. It is basic. I'm double checking. This is serious work. This is serious. Oh crap, I didn't do it right. Okay. Take your time. Make it right. Okay. Now I Okay. Are you able to understand my I think that's Yes. I added all of my Yes. Okay. And I know no one can really read my handwriting, so it is what it is. Today I went to Spring
247Garden. These are amazing. They have the winners of the art show um Starbucks gift cards. That was amazing. And then I wrote them each like like a card about their artworks. Well, and then I was really extra proud of myself. So, you want the And then my kid was like, "Mom, did you write in cursive? You're Oh no, you can take a walk. It'll be a couple minutes. The way that screen is. Oh. Where are you at? Detroit. Oh, I got a project there. I'm getting ready to go there. I hope there's stuff to do. Is there stuff to do there? That's the Is that correct? Yes, people can hear you. [Music] She already went She already spent her Starbucks card. Are you making fun of my hand? No, I'm not. I have to do
248it, too. It's It's okay. I know. I know. Like chicken scratch. I don't want to be the reason this is. I went to middle school today, too. That's interesting. I don't want air freshener or something. Just No, it's all Did you ask questions? Last time it was last question. It was a lot. Except they didn't um question Yeah. Yep. Okay. So, question. Yes. Um because I know that it is um it's a board choice. Are we going strictly off the scoring or That's what that's what we've always done. But so I'm fine with that. I mean, I think there's some issues with the scoring science, but are you okay with going off the scoring? Yeah. Are you guys okay with going off the That's what we're supposed to do. Okay. Okay. Are you in agreement
249as well, Mike, that that that we go off the score? Yes. Yes, I can agree to that. Okay. Um if we are going off the scoring, it's the lowest score and the lowest score is Tom Richmond at 149. Miss Donna, would you like me to go ahead and install him tonight? Yes. Ready to be installed? Yeah. You can raise your hand. or affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Missouri and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge the duties of school director in and the St. Joseph school district county of state of Missouri to the best of my ability to I will I do I need a I need a signature sir. Okay. Wow. Thank you. Hey, thanks everybody and those that that applied.
250Thank you. And I was impressed with each of you that got heard. So, thanks a lot. Thank you everyone. I do appreciate everyone's I do appreciate everybody's time and your energy and your and your support of our district. Me too. I was glad to hear uh the positivity um that you all shared about our district and I think if we can all um kind of get on that same train all of us can make a difference for our kids. So I do appreciate it was good to hear people say the good things that they know about our district. I do appreciate that. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all for spending that time and getting your answers out and putting yourself out there. I really appreciate it. A lot of good candidates. Definitely. Okay,
251guys. If you look at your agenda, I have a question before we go to the next one. Yes. So, and I'm pretty sure we've had this conversation before. Mhm. So, we the email came out this morning that we were going to have a close session and it came out as a special meeting. Right. Right. Okay. So, that's not 24 hours in advance, but we have it included as a part of a close going of open going into closed. So, then it would meet the sunshine law. So, I tend to believe that we're following the sunshine law because it's on this agenda and a late addition of a closed session is fine. But I think the way that we are putting it in assembly or how we're phrasing it like we're phrasing it as a second
252meeting, but we're we're essentially in this meeting voting to close the meeting and then reopening and adjourning. But we do it very differently. I see what you're saying. So, that was the emails that I sent today. That was that was where my concern was is that we had posted a second meeting, not 24 hours in advance, right? But if it's on the agenda, it's not a second meeting. It's just the same meeting into close session and then coming out, right? You are correct. So, can we clear that up? I see what you're saying. Okay. So, that was where my that was where my concern has been. Got it. I appreciate that. Thank you. I am too. Thanks. Because you had confused me, which is not hard. Okay. I make a motion to go into close
253session pursuant to RSMO 610.03 and 13 for hiring firing discipline and particular employees and individually identifiable viable personnel records. Is there a second? Okay. I took Jose because she's right here. Okay. Miss Williams, yes. Miss Miller, yes. Miss Chzn, yes. Miss Karns, yes. Miss Lanning, yes. Mr. Moore, and Mr. Richmond, yes. And the motion passes 70. Can I look at this? Yes. Yes. Um guys, can we take a five minute break? Five minute media break.