001for a board position on April 1st to uh address this board as well as the public who are uh in person or online and uh we will invite them all to speak at the podium except for those who are already seated on the board we can uh sit where we are seating and the decision was made to do that in the order of the random draw that their names will appear on the ballot um so uh in order that will be uh Tammy forier Carl schwarzy myself charity Chandler Craig Wartman and and Steve good um so with that I will open it up and Tammy if you would be so inclined to stand at the podium address us the board as well as the public as to your interest in running for the school board
002all right well my name's Tammy forier uh thank you for the invitation to address you um I am running for a board not because I have a long history in education I do not um I'm running for board because I was once in a position where was not a single board member that was advocating for me as a community member when a different District attempted to overstep and uh thwart on my parental rights when I was raising my daughter um that caused me to become highly engrossed in public education to find out what is going on in public education and my children seem to be failing in the United States uh to prepare for this I decided to uh look through some board documents and there are some concerns that should I be elected that
003I will bring to the board board and ask them to address um uh going over documents it seems that our district wants to interweave Dei andal into every facet of our district as a matter of fact your Cornerstone pillars state that you find secl equally as important as AC academic AC education but our high school proficiency and act is not even 40% in math or reading so I'm kind of feeling feel like maybe that needs to be transitioned a little and maybe an 8020 where maybe 80% of our school day is spent onal or on Ed academics and 20% is on social emotional learning um it looks like satisfaction with students are going down they think that their P the the staff doesn't care about their education they do not feel safe in school because
004bullying is going up teachers are also upset about the direction that Administration is going as as well as they're unhappy with the board there have been some concerns that I've heard in the community that the board is unresponsive to community members um some people in this room might say that uh I might not have any place to stand because I did not participate in the Watertown Daily Times candidate Forum nor or the candidate profile or the Forum no I'm not going to participate in um the paper because they do not get information correct and they've done nothing but disparage me for the past nine months I'm a principled person I'm not going to work with individuals if I don't have to um if they're going to disparage me to the public without even speaking to
005me um I will be a disruptor on this board I do not want things to be as they've always been we should not be heavily uh surveying our children we should not be dismissing concerns of constituents in the community when schools are closing and not answer them on their concerns about that especially when they met or exceeded all the expectations that this District put on those schools five years ago to stay open um I intend to make serious change if I get elected I am not going to be working for the board or Administration I will work for my constituents I will be the person there that was not there for me when my school was violating what was in the best interest of my family I will work with all of you respectfully I
006would enjoy robust conversations on why you think that the way that the district is going is in the best interests of our con of our community our children the constituents we're supposed to serve but right now based on what I'm seeing over the past nine months is you'd rather disregard what our constituents want because of what direction you're getting from a larger public education system that is failing our entire nation so I would like to get control go back to the board I would like us to have an opportunity for the board to look over academics that are currently not available and haven't been available for some years I would like to ask the district why they think it's a good idea to uh continuously uh take away time from learning Core Concepts to survey
007our children on things that are not any of their concern like if my daughter's sexting at home and if they find out my daughter is sexting they don't even reach out to me as a parent to let me know know that she might be uh involved in uh things that are happening that could seriously affect her outside in my home and you guys are all aware of this or Administration or somebody here knows that this is going on they get the surveys and they do not let the parents know what's going on in their child's life so I hope that my community members elect me because I will put the district's feet under the fire and expect them to move in the direction that the vast majority of the constituents we're supposed to serve want
008our education system to go in and it's not with 40% proficiency rates or less than 40% college readiness when children graduate from our education system that's about all I have to say I hope you all have a great evening and if I get on the board I look forward to working with all of you my name is Carl schwarzy Carl E on the poster I have a story to tell you I owned a gas house for about 40 years well I I still own it but I don't run it anymore but I ran it for about 40 years and when you walk walk into the guest house if you looked over the men's room there was a picture of an old cowboy head on wrinkled face age spots like I may have now smoking a
009cigarette drinking a beer at a bar there was a caption above the sign that said so soon old yet so late heart and that's how I come to you tonight as I actually volunteered to do this I was approached by some people and they asked me to run and I had a weak moment and I said okay I'll do it I'm a very busy man but I know what kind of situation you people are in we're hearing it now tonight it's not good I'm not doing this for myself I'm doing this for my fellow taxpayers and the students and the community I just wonder what I'm into going to be into but my mission is first I want to know where all the money's coming from then I want to know where all the money's
010going and I want it report it to me in a in a sense that I understand it I've been in the accounting business going on years and I've read some of these reports that I get they certainly don't look like a K10 to me the DPI evidently must tell you people how to do your books so be it you do them the way you want to do them but what I want to relay to the public is that they know where your money's coming from where the monies are coming from and where the monies are going it's my only Mission except I will say that our most valuable resource for our country is our youth and we better take care of them I don't want to see him go through the stuff I had to
011go through so for that reason here I am I don't I'm not telling anybody how to vote you can vote the way you want but vote please vote and vote for the person that's going to fulfill your wishes not mine thank you thank you Carl I guess that's Le leaves me to be up next uh I'm David Shrader I've been on the board for almost four years um I guess I'll keep this relatively brief um I am not here with an agenda I am here to serve I attempt to serve all stakeholders that includes the parents the students the taxpayers the teachers the employees uh the businesses who also pay property tax this overall Community I do not come in it with an ego I do not come in it with a grand plan and
012I try to attempt to leave all of my personal ideologies behind at my home where they belong um I'm a servant leader that's how I treat myself when I'm on the board of the YMCA the board of the hospital Etc I Tred to support the people who are experts which includes most of the certified staff and other employees in this room I do not use usurp their experience with mine mine is from a business World mine is from an engineering background it is not from education so I'm here to give support and lastly I try to keep the level of the board at governance and not management we are not in this business to do the teachers jobs or any other individuals in this room there are certain things that the state empowers us to
013do and that is our job that's where it stops and that's where I attempt to stop other than that I like to run efficient meetings but uh that's not on the ballot on April 1st just my election so that being said thank you all appreciate your support next up is charity Chandler born and raised in mtown um and and chose to come back because my family's here and Family's inred incredibly important to me um we started the business here in Watertown and I've been actively involved as much as possible in educational related Pursuits because at one point I went to school that's what I wanted to do I wanted to be a teacher I have a grandpa who was a teacher and cousins who are teachers and I respect to feel significantly for what they
014have to offer our students and our future I wanted to be a part of the Board of Education because I want to continue to make a difference and so you know as many folks have already mentioned I can't do that alone I represent 23,000 people in this community and some of them are parents and some of them are the students and some of them are neither but have an active invested interest because they pay taxes that contribute to what's going on in our in our schools I've seen amazing things happen we've been able to support a lot of different things and and as Addison was talking about when you have a chance to go and see what these students are doing and what they're contributing it's really powerful and I look around the space and
015I see engaged teachers Educators leaders parents and that's incredibly important I think um you know to share a little bit personally I think there have there have been some things that are out there and I would just encourage people to get to know me to have a conversation with me as well um because I think that people might be surprised by some of the things that I have to share because at the end of the day like David mentioned it's not about me it's not about what I believe and instead is about what is best for the students what is best for the community and it takes all of those voices parents Educators community members students students voices matter to really determine where we can go and how to make the best District possible we
016have a strategic plan in place that was community co-created so we're going to have that coming up you know that you've got the referendum decision and regardless of what happened with that there are top decisions that need to be made we have a huge financial responsibility we've heard it from basically almost every candidate who's mentioned finances and we know that it's not going to get any easier as we go on and so continuing to have people who are willing to share and hold us accountable as a board as to where those those financial resources go is incredibly important I was appointed to this role not elected to it and as I shared at The Forum selfishly I would love to be an elected representative of my hometown Community if so C time thank you charity
017Craig C Wartman I'm extremely blessed and honor to serve this school district and was capacity for the last three years um it's been a humbling experience I uh I like to than that after thr as a person uh I like to than that um one of my one of my claim to pain our personal uh missions is to fix things and help people and the way that I can do that is you know to seek to understand uh I do believe that uh we can come to some common ground we might not agree with everything all the time uh and that's okay we can agree to disagree and four separate ways and still respect each other I think that's a a thing that our community um strives to to work towards um I've as I've
018been out and about the community I've heard a lot of concerns I've heard concerns about public trust I've heard concerns about uh finances and and believe uh I I I'm going to work hard for people here in Watertown to their public trust and to work towards trying to find a better solution for those kind of concerns like buling um I'm husband of a teacher in the district who's been teaching for over 19 years I'm a son of a teacher son of a former business school business administrator um I I myself made it three quarters of the way through a music education degree before I decided to serve people in a different fashion I completed a business degree in entrepreneurship I'm a Problem Solver by trade Administration has expressed a desire to have uh some stability
019on the board uh by um you know having board members continue on in their service if possible I feel that there are going to be some really rough challenges that we're faced as a school district coming forward and i' I'd like to try to help um with that process navigate through that um I I believe in strong I believe in strong board leadership and governance um I believe that we can keep ideologies and politics out of the classroom our school district needs to build a meaning Bond of trust with our community Through transparency and strong communication we need to focus on academics and academics only uh teaching a child how to think not what to think whether you push a broom work in a c classroom drive a bus or maintain the facilities I'm proud
020of your contribution and respect your hard work please I welcome your feedback I support full transparency parents staff community members deserve the rationale behind the decisions being made sometimes we have to admit what didn't work so that we can find what does I need to know how you feel please speak up it's hard to fix something if you aren't told what's broken I I expect that you won't be a stranger and I really firmly believe that we can make inroads to becoming one of the best school districts in the state of Wisconsin thank you for the opportunity C and then last up uh Steve good evening my name is Steve good uh thank you for the invitation uh I decided to run for school board uh for a number of reasons first being that uh
021I believe in accountability I believe in leading uh from the front and showing people where we need to go uh I also believe in being part of a leadership group uh one of the things that has happened over the years on our board is that I think there has been so much parismetrodriving the students but the teachers um I would look to represent the needs that our teachers and that are students need I also believe that we need to work on the basic skills raising our reading levels raising our math scores moving in the right direction in that sense uh I got the privilege and honor of being invited to LEAP this past week uh for their bingo and pizza night uh great experience I got a tour of the school uh I got to
022see firsthand what they do so I can understand the passion that the parents and the students have about wanting to keep that open I if I had had my students go through there I'd be very passionate about keeping it open as well they are doing some amazing things out there and I think I understand more by actually going there what what they see and what they feel and it's it's something that I would encourage all uh board members when you get those invites to go go see them go interact with the students go talk with your administrators go talk with the teachers see where what they need instead of saying that we kind of know or we hear what our community says sometimes you got to be an advocate for the teachers and the administrators
023as well uh I look forward to talking further with everybody uh one thing I do want to say openly um I've heard that some of our candidates have had had people threaten them or say things because they have a different view over time uh we have become a society that gets very used to threatening getting on an opposite side and calling people names and doing things like that uh we do not do a good job of being open to other people's opinion and listening and then you can agree to disagree you don't have to agree with it but at least listen to the side and where they're coming from all the candidates tonight have made similar arguments everybody's talked about accountability everybody's talking about fiscal responsibility how we get there and how we do it
024there might be a different Road and we don't all necessarily need to agree on that road but we have to find a way to get to where we ultimately want to be which is Watertown being one of the best school districts in the state thank you very much and have a great night