001to educate the public patricia yes i'm sorry i just want to um let me just confirm with our i.t person i'm going to text him okay we're sad i just got nervous that maybe we weren't no that's fine sorry about that i'll come back on when we are really ready okay okay my apologies we are all set in live streaming through the bethlehem central schools events youtube page now thank you good evening i'm patricia sebelia i'm the president of the league of women voters of albany county and i thank the bethlehem school district for inviting us to co-sponsor tonight's candidate forum and providing the opportunity to educate the public on the candidates before heading out to vote the league of women voters is an organization that was founded out of the women's suffrage movement and
002it is focused on civic engagement and education the albany chapter is an all-volunteer organization made up of individuals both men and women and our core work is dedicated to education and civic engagement we are non-partisan organization meaning we never support or oppose any candidates or political parties our reputation is founded on this and we we have ch excuse me our reputation is founded on this nonpartisan position and we adhere strictly to it and with that i will let you know that i was chosen as tonight's moderator because i live outside of the district and have no vested interest in the outcome of this race please consider supporting us by becoming a member or making a contribution to us other league members have played a role in tonight's event on screen you see deb liebman our
003timer and she can wave a card or her hand there you go yep and ellen sullivan um also worked on this in with the um the questions and mary berry our director of voter services was coordinator on the entire event the forum is being live streamed as you can see over the bethlehem board of education youtube channel it will be recorded for later viewing voting for the candidates and the school budget is on may 17 from 7 am to 9 pm in the upper gym at the bethlehem high school and if needed absentee ballots are available at the district office at the same time bethlehem voters will also vote on the library budget and one open trustee position a meet the candidate event was held on may 4th and can be viewed on the library's
004website okay a little bit about the school board and the role on the candidates so the bethlehem central school board of education has seven members members of the board of education are elected by the voters of the district to establish policy and to direct the administration of our schools board members serve as volunteers for three-year terms they receive no salary no compensation they do it out of a real want to improve things those elected this year will will each serve terms beginning july 1st of 2022 this year and it'll go through june 30th of 2025. individuals are eligible for election to the board if they're qualified voters of the district meaning they're a resident they're over 18 years old or they're a u.s and they're a u.s citizen and they can read and write new
005york state education law does not limit the number of terms of office a member can serve the league has a policy to only invite those people who have been certified as candidates to our forums and tonight we have four candidates that are vying for two open seats they are in alphabetical order douglas lloyd tamara starr robert tegen and john watson okay our ground rules for tonight so this forum is going to run from 6 30 to 8. um the community had an opportunity to submit questions via an online form until sunday at 5 pm almost 100 questions were submitted and there was a lot that was was covered by the community the questions were reviewed and they were discarded if they were duplicative or combined we would discard anything that was personal or inflammatory and
006we ended up with um a set that i'm going to choose from tonight um to try and cover some were discarded as well i'll make a note so that people understand because question was um would be submitted that's just not pertinent to the office but as we know due to the lack of time not all questions are going to get asked the candidates will have up to two minutes so they have up to two they don't have to use two but they have up to two minutes for an opening statement and then they have up to two minutes to answer each of the questions and then at the end we'll have closing statements that will be one minute um they will answer the questions in rotating order so i drew lots actually it was high
007cards before we started this evening um and we will have mr teigen be the first uh person to answer then miss star then mr watson and then mr lloyd and it'll rotate through there so they'll always be following the same person the timekeeper will um hold up signs um signaling the candidates when they're one when it remains dead hold up your one minute sign so people can see thank you and when 30 seconds remains and then they will get a stop there you go their candidates are expected to respect and comply with the time limits and i as moderator i'm in charge i'll make sure that happens so and i'm sure they'll be just fine um during their responses the candidates may not interrupt each other or make any personal attacks um we are about
008to begin so as i said our opening statements are going to start for two minutes and we are going to start with mr tj mr tjen take it away good evening my name is bob teigen and i am running for my first term at the school board i am a 18-year resident of bethlehem i have three children two of whom who already have graduated from bethlehem high school one who's out of college and gainfully employed the other is a freshman in college and i have one student left who's a sophomore in the high school my wife deborah also attended and graduated from bethlehem high school so uh we have strong roots in the community uh in terms of my professional background i started off as a as an english teacher my undergraduate degree is in
009secondary education with a minor in english and i have a master's degree in english literature i taught for five years it was south school for boys in albany and then for a year at the albany county boces subsequently i attended albany law school and uh from then on had been a practicing attorney first at a national law firm and more recently at a smaller but equally prestigious uh smaller law firm in albany um i think that those my dual background as a teacher and as an attorney uh provides me with a strong foundation for service on the board as a teacher i not only had to educate the students but was involved in the development and implementation of curriculum which i think is important for the board and as an attorney every day i have
010to consume large amounts of information assess the information weigh the relative benefits of it and develop strategies for um best implementing whatever the uh whatever the information leads us to uh i've always been involved in volunteering activities within the community mostly in coaching and i want to continue that in uh in a new and different way um i've invested interest in this not only because of my daughter who's still a sophomore in the school but also because i really truly believe that strong schools equal strong communities and i want to make sure that i do my part to continue the excellence that bethlehem's had so far thank you thank you mr teigen ms starr your opening statement hi everyone my name is tamara starr and i am also running for my first term for the
011school board and although i've only been a resident here for two and a half years i have three young children two and a half seven and ten so i will be here for a while and i feel that i can bring a unique perspective to the table especially since i have experienced academic environments in several cities and towns of massachusetts new york city and now bethlehem central district so i feel that i only will not only be able to listen to what the needs are among residents but i'm also able to kind of help us all together figure out ideas of programs and support that we can provide for our students thank you miss star um now we will hear from mr wallston uh good evening first of all thank you to the league of
012women voters and all the administrative staff involved in organizing the forum my name is john walston my wife megan and i have been able to call bethlehem our home for about 21 years now and we have three children here for about 15 of those years i've been involved in the community pretty actively through coaching a long list of sports teams volunteering in the schools and different school programs volunteering for community projects and most recently as a member of the wellness committee for our schools i've operated a not-for-profit called the keep on movement for the last year and a half and that's an organization that focuses on encouraging people to embrace the struggles and challenges in life focus on positivity and keep on moving forward i also for 19 years i've had a construction business here
013in town i'm very grateful for all the the community support of local businesses thankfully is the school district that we live in i think it's filled with many wonderful teachers and staff who are truly invested in our kids and i do recognize that we're blessed to have the resources in our schools and many other school districts do not have i think our schools are much more than a learning institution as we have the ability to be so involved in our kids education and their development and i think our kids have a very unique unique ability here to not just be inspired by our great staff but also our students i think are given access to resources and tools to be inspirational to themselves i think i understand leadership really well and i have a relentlessly
014positive attitude to overcome obstacles and focus on solutions i understand what it takes to be part of a team focused on something bigger than ourselves and i feel that i can be a productive member of the school board and always remain focused on the students best interests thank you thank you mr watson okay mr lloyd your turn up hello bethlehem uh my name is douglas lloyd i am class of 1996 and uh i have about 25 years of experience in the defense and technology sector i'm running for school board to be the voice for in these very cultural uh implemented times where a lot of our parents and our teachers are are not being heard so i i'm looking to bring back the neutral aspect of our schools where we can focus on elite academics
015over a lot of the time that we're spending on on cultural issues um a lot of things that i i would ask everybody tonight to try to find the good in a lot of things that i say some people may have to change their paradigm a little bit um to find find the good in in what i'm saying so that it's it's not taken out of context we are we have to say things that can offend other people and offending other people is a normal part of communication so we need to explore all options all avenues and lay it all out on the table discuss the issues without getting personal or taking putting words in in somebody else's mouth so uh i'm really looking to bring elite academics back to bethlehem thank you mr lloyd
016okay we're going to start with our first question and as i said we rotate the order and with that ms star is first the question is have you been endorsed by the bethlehem republican or bethlehem democratic committee have you accepted any support monetarily or otherwise from political parties or partisan groups i can definitely say i have not i feel like all my contributions have just come from bethlehem residents who are supporting my campaign but no endorsements from anyone thank you mr watson same question for you correct same for me i have not had any affiliation or any any interest in being uh aligned with any political party excellent and then the question goes to mr wallace i'm sorry mister i i screwed that up mr lloyd well let me start by saying that i am
017a lifelong democrat and i did recently join the bethlehem republican committee um i still consider myself a democrat at heart i don't think my issues or my beliefs and values have changed so much i believe we are at a serious cultural divide um that has split us so much um i have not received direct funding from the bethlehem republic committee but i have received funding from members of the committee along with many other members in this or many other community members in our town thank you mr lloyd mr teigen i have not received uh either endorsement nor money from any political parties okay we're on to question number two so this question will be first answered by mr wallston what are your views and understanding on critical race theory my views and understanding is that
018in new york state it's not even an issue right now so i don't i don't think it's anything we really have to touch on because critical race theory is not anything involved in the new york state curriculum thank you mr walston mr lloyd um critical race theory is one of these learning methods and ideologies that is again started with with good intentions um but it's something that we need to evaluate how it is rolled out so that it does not divide people thanks for your response mr teigen i mean my general understanding of critical race theory is that it's sort of a graduate level theory or method of examining the world uh i don't recall specifically if i had it in either graduate school or law school but i did have lots of uh experience
019with different methods of examining the world deconstructionism and things like that so it's not something that necessarily uh frightens me at all um i think it's just a different way of looking at the world and examining how things are but yeah in in at the end of the day i agree with mr walston that it's not a part of the curriculum it's a graduate level course and it's it's not something that i think the board is going to have to decide on thank you mr teaching ms scar i also agree with mr wallston now mr teaching that it's not a part of our curriculum in new york uh however my point of view is that when it comes i am a political science geek in a history buff and i feel with any government courses
020social issues should be addressed as long as it's a part of the curriculum um but since critical race theory is not really an issue within our state i don't see it being a problem right now thank you very much um okay next question is um going to start with mr lloyd and it is do you believe there might be circumstances for books to be banned and or removed from a public school library if yes under what circumstances and using what criteria and who would make these decisions um banning books is a term that really gets overused in politics especially when we're trying to apply that to our schools um we're really talking about removing either controversial topics and age-appropriate material when we have sexually explicit material in our schools or books on certain topics that
021we all don't agree on that that should be looked at and removed from our schools right we really don't need kids there's a big difference between sexual education and teaching kids how to have sex because a lot a lot of these controversial books that were we're looking at like gender or lawn boy they are very sexually explicit and they have very sexually explicit uh images in them um and that would be the job of the board to to review that in coordination with the community and the library and our teachers okay thank you mr teigen so as an english major uh even the idea of banning books is repugnant to me in general obviously i i i sort of a poor absolute so it's not as if there couldn't ever be a book that i
022think would be inappropriate to be in a library but uh my presumption my strong presumption is against it uh in terms of the type of books that are available in the school uh library quite frankly i think that to the extent that that that a student is mature enough to seek that out they probably are mature enough to handle whatever the content is and given the fact that they're walking around with many computers in their pockets and can access any type of information that they want the concern about whatever hard copy books are in our libraries i think is is a distraction and not something that i'd either support or be too concerned with thank you miss tamar miss star so i agree with the star teaching that i completely am against many books i
023also understand that things do need to be reviewed within the community however i remember i was told by one student that a book that was considered controversial for i believe the fifth grade level was just a book that talked that show different kinds of families and even families with uh same-sex couples and that was considered controversial and i disagree with that because i feel for the sake of inclusivity we need to show our children that there are loving families out there that look in different ways they're a variety of loving families so that is my stance thank you mr walston uh in terms of book banning i mean i i agree i think it's very much of a you know political politically polarizing type type of scenario i'm i i don't i don't really see
024a need for much of having to really do any any book banning i agree with mr tisian how you know kids are mature enough to seek something out in in a library than they should i think it really comes down to us encouraging productive conversation if there's a parent who has a concern i don't think they need to be outraged and bring something crazy to the board i think they can speak with a teacher discuss options understand where that that that book is coming from for instance my daughter in 10th grade right now is reading a fairly uh explicit book and i think it's something where the parents should have some conversation with the child make sure they're they're okay to manage it but i think we do have to respect some people where some
025parents may be more conservative and um you know some we even have some cultures here where you know people really really limit the amount of skin that they're showing and when you get into some of these these these topics i think really productive conversation and rational conversation uh can be beneficial just so we have understanding but i also think if there's a book that may be empowering to a young person that should be considered as well so i i think it really comes down to conversation versus the yes or no and you know very emotional response to things that i think can really be managed like adults and be an example for the kids of how we can kind of work through potential challenges or understand each other better thank you mr wallston okay we're
026up to the fourth question and this one will begin with mr teigen an important role of the board of education is to develop the school budget in the past five years bethlehem central school district's enrollment has declined but the budget has increased what actions can be taken to address this trend well we would have to examine the budget i mean a large portion of the budget is tied up with uh with with salaries so to to a certain extent that's going to be sort of a lagging indicator um to the extent that the the population of students continues to decline then in the future um you know as teachers retire possibly they don't get replaced but uh that's something that you know happens down the road um to a certain you know i'm not sure
027of the relationship uh that the relationship between student population and budget is a one-to-one relationship because a lot of the expenditures um take place um over the la all the the entire population of the students obviously as a taxpayer myself i'm concerned about the budget i'm concerned about the taxes that we pay and uh you know if i was on the board i would have to you know sort of sharpen the pencil sit down and figure out where if that that could be cut and do do my best to make sure that the uh that the budget is uh is as reasonable as possible thank you mr teaching is star i feel that bethlehem district is amazing academically and that's the reason why my family chose to move here and i feel to attract more
028families to come to this area we also need to excel culturally and to show more opportunities for our students because we're great when it comes to sports and we have that um the lab school at the high school but that's only for a hundred students i feel that some of those programs can be expanded district-wide so more students can get involved with stem projects or even the arts um and slanderlands has the intercultural fair that i hope comes back and i feel that should be brought district-wide i feel each school has such an important gem that can be spread district-wide and that's something i would like to do if elected on the board is figure out you know all the great stuff each elementary school is having and even the middle school in high school
029and try to make that district-wide thank you mr wallston i think school budgets are definitely a very very difficult challenge as you look at things um you know it's oftentimes difficult to please everyone and i think uh you know definitely you look at our budget there is a large amount that's in that's essentially eaten up by personnel and then i think it's a matter of trying to decide what what priorities of the school are and what options will potentially be most beneficial but i think you know really kind of narrowing it down and seeing what the trends change i mean there there could be a change there could there there could not i think you know again having been in business for almost 20 years budgets is is something that you really have to take
030a lot of time to look at and really prioritize and unfortunately sometimes make some some challenging decisions but i think at the forefront of that has to be the quality of our school the quality of the education the safety of our students so there's a lot of things to consider with that so i think to to really narrow it down to one thing right now is a challenge without without having a more detailed look at the budget as well as getting a lot of feedback from the school administrators the staff as well as the community at large thank you mr wallston mr lloyd yeah so bethlehem residents bear a very high tax burden um five times the amount of money goes into our schools then goes into our towns um it seems that everything that
031has been brought up to the budget has been rubber stamped and set right through there's not many times where we've said no to any improvements or upgrades or if there was a grant where we would we would offset money on that so we really need to be doing a more thorough cost benefit analysis on any way we're going to be spending money there's there's certain ways we we can do this one is is looking at a a buy versus build we have our schools that are outsourcing a lot of their technology so we're paying for the licensing the maintenance the support and there's no return on investment there that's straight money out the window so we should be looking at having developers on staff to handle all this and there's there's a lot of tendencies
032right now in including um with boces um we need to be looking at uh maximizing our our technology investments um and we really need to be looking at reviewing a lot of these political agendas that we're seeing coming down even if it's if it's state funding i mean what benefit to our kids education do electric buses have you know we i totally understand we should be evaluating all all technology but when we're making these massive massive investments and they do nothing for the benefit of our of our children to their education we should uh look at that a little closer thank you mr lloyd okay i'll just remind people these are questions submitted by the public so this next question um i will phrase as it was submitted it's obviously not myself asking the question
033but i'm putting it forward as a person who submitted it but i also do want to remind the candidates if at any time you want me to repeat the question um on anything that we're doing just just let me know and i'm happy to do that so this first one this this is miss stars first um she'll be first on this one and the question is as both a parent of two district elementary students and a teacher i felt that the school's response to covert 19 has been well planned implemented and adjusted throughout the pandemic while easy to judge in hindsight how have you felt about the district's covert response and how would you hope to influence that plan moving forward you start um well it was actually during covet i decided to move here
034because i used to live off western avenue my kids were at eagle point elementary and we got the notice that the kids were going to go remote for another year and i have a couple of good friends who live here and then they said oh no it's going to go back in person in bethlehem you should come here and i just i went in a heartbeat i looked for a house and came here and i feel honestly i the district did a great job um i mean it was not an easy job at all but did the best that they could and our teachers definitely did the best that they could and it was hard on our students um and it was definitely hard on my kids and i feel now things are starting to
035get to a better situation i am a believer in still following cdc guidelines or whatever new york state advises districts to do however i do feel as a whole the bethlehem district did a great job instead of our teachers our teachers are amazing during that time thank you miss star mr wallston sorry um yeah i i mean as a as a parent who's uh of i had three kids during during the covet time i mean i feel like at all at all the different levels there was a great effort to keep the kids um in in person and i think that knowing what happened on other parts of the country even other school districts locally i think a really exceptional job and a lot of work was really put in it was great how uh
036you know the superintendents collaborated from not only the capital region but i know that i think they also went out towards the rochester area and really tried to work hard to keep keep everyone school i think there's a lot of things in hindsight you could you could certainly look look back at and say oh maybe this should have been done that should have been done but i think in the moment i think they really approached it with great intentions um and i'm just really glad that we're back uh in person and that the kids are able to see each other smile and uh we're moving forward so that's great thank you mr wallston mr lloyd well you don't have to be sick to get better um our children throughout the pandemic who were the least
037impacted by covet or the brunt of the restrictions um we took them out of the classroom for a long time which had advantages and disadvantages because parents did get to see a bit more of what was going on in the classroom due to remote learning but we as a whole learned how important that our classroom time is um but there's a couple areas where we we can do better next time and and i would personally call for an internal review board so that we can look at the issues that we've had address them and get better for next time the first thing we didn't even do was we didn't look at any other alternative health options having a healthy immune system was the number one thing we can do to have good health through through
038this pandemic we've had a lot of parents who have been pretty upset with the vaccine mandates we are talking about experimental brand new technology that we have mandated um on our children and even now we're seeing we have kids that are banned from sports because they're not vaccinated we're talking 20 of bethlehem um i believe are are not vaccinated at this point so we're going with the policy where children are able to sit next to each other in class but they're not able to play sports um we basically taught our children that they are dangerous to others if they're not vaccinated and that simply isn't true um you know i've got immunocompromised students who their doctor recommendation was not to wear the mask because of their of their issue but again our our schools were
039were forced uh for everybody to to math so we really need to to look at these uh issues thank you mr lloyd mr teigen so i think the question even prefaced this you know in the wording about looking back in hindsight um obviously there's always things that you can look back on and think that we could have done this differently or or possibly a little bit better but overall i have to say that i i believed at the time and continued to believe that everybody involved was making good faith decisions based on what they believed to be the the best interests of the students and the staff based on the best information that they had at the time and so i was satisfied with the response of the the school um i think that the
040response changed over time as different factors uh were altered um new information came in obviously the vaccines were a big part of that um and then as as things developed i think that the school was was good about uh altering the the recommendations and altering the guidelines and i think that's completely appropriate um in terms of you know what i would do going forward i would continue to uh assess the information i would continue to listen to the uh to the recommendations of the various health uh organizations that are giving recommendations and i would continue to make sure that the school is uh considering the best interests of the students and staff in conjunction with trying to provide the best and highest level of education okay thank you mr teigen all right for question number
041six mr wallston gets to go first okay what can schools do to support students with special needs what would be some of your recommendations for ways for greater inclusion of these students in general education after after school activities and sports it's a great question uh well i think anyone who's gone to a unified sports activity and not shed a tear may have to have uh some conversation with himself about what they really have going on inside uh i think our unified sports program is exceptional i think mr mooney does an amazing job and all the student volunteers i mean you've got great leadership opportunities so i think that those activities are really exceptional um and we've got several several other clubs the names are escaping me but i think that the opportunities at the high
042school are great um i think you know best best buddies and those types of programs are really phenomenal um and i think again it allows the kids with special needs to really have some great some great some great experiences it provides leadership opportunities for some of the other children that are volunteering there um and i think you know i think it's it's really it's one of those budget things i think we really need to consider where our where our priorities are but i think cutting back on special ed services uh funding and whatnot is is something that can be incredibly damaging for the population of kids with special needs and i think especially again with the social emotional health of our kids needs to really be paramount going forward so i think i think just
043trying to ensure that we're creating the greatest opportunities for those kids to be successful is really important thank you mr lloyd i i think having um some of the best teachers um for our special needs kids is is very important i've had the privilege of knowing some very amazing um special special ed teachers who really do more than just your typical school day they they're thinking about these kids all of the time so having our teachers who are planning additional activities using their own resources to really become part of these these kids lives and and help them with their special needs is is critical i also think it's important um that we integrate as as much as possible and uh give them a lot a wide range of opportunities um you know because special needs
044really has a a wide range right now even going into you know behavioral issues where these kids just learn differently um so having um you know the the right people and the right programs available is critical thank you mr lloyd mr teigen yeah patricia could you repeat the question please absolutely the question is what can schools do to support students with special needs what would be some of your recommendations for ways of greater inclusion of those students in general education after school activities and sports sure thank you um well i i think that i'll echo the thoughts that have been expressed already that the inclusion of folks with special needs is incredibly important it serves those students well and it also serves well the other kids who are involved with them who and volunteer with
045them um my my viewpoint of the school is that it should be a holistic environment to support all the kids to the best of each kid's ability obviously bethlehem is well known for its um you're producing college-ready kids and ap level kids and i think that we have to make sure that we provide all of the access and uh organizations that we need for other kids as well and i think that after school programs are important and all of the other resources that the school has been provided i think that we should continue to provide and the budget should reflect that thank you mr t star i feel that our special education programs in this district are almost like the best kept secret because you don't really hear about it outside but when i moved
046here i was especially in comparison to other districts our methods are one of the best i've ever seen so i feel that we could create you know as long as i agree with mr walleston as long as we can create more programs that involve inclusion to get the kids more together um it would be beneficial but however in comparison to other districts it's really one of the best and i wish that you know we can talk about that more even with other districts so they can take some advice from us because we're doing a really good job here when it comes to special education okay thank you all right for question number seven we begin with mr lloyd will you support doing what it takes to make later high school start times a reality in
047bethlehem later high school start times um i'm not a morning person um but i i do believe that our early start time is not necessarily a a bad thing um i would have to really probably bring up a a meeting together to hear everybody's point of view but so so far i haven't seen enough evidence to uh recommend moving our start times back okay mr teaching yeah i would support uh moving start times back at least for the high school students um my understanding of the uh research on this and the studies show that for the most part uh the older kids sleep patterns and their circadian rhythms um are such that the later start time would benefit them uh as i recall i believe that the decision had been made or at least was
048being considered uh to change the start times prior to covid um given my support and i i understand that there's probably logistical issues to be considered um after school programs sports um i'm not exactly sure uh sitting here right now how that would be affected and what would have to you know what would have to change um and whether uh it would be feasible given the fact that other schools might or might not have the same um start times but uh my overall impulse is that it's a good idea and i would support examining it and trying to put it into uh put it into practice thank you mr teigen ms starr i would support changing the times um but i understand that because of the bus driver shortage that's the reason things are the
049way they are but however as a working parent if we could make the elementary school times earlier i know that would help a lot of us because it it's hard to find child care to you know if schools if i have to make sure that my kids are on the bus by 8 55 but i have to start work at 8 30. i have to make sure i have child care to to make to watch them to make sure they're on the bus um i feel like i'm well i'm hoping we can get enough drivers so that the hours can change for everybody but i know that's kind of the idealistic situation uh but i completely support the concerns about the starting time for the high school and i honestly wish that the elementary schools
050could start earlier too okay mr woolston uh i think that logistically it really seems to be a massive challenge you know you'd have to get other schools to to be on board we've got bus driver shortages we the roadblocks just seem pretty pretty significant um and i think that while it's certainly you know sleep is important i'm actually someone who struggles with sleep so i get it but i think um you know i think it's one of those things kind of kind of prioritizing how much effort you put into something that may have a few too many too many roadblocks to to be that much of a reality um again because you've got the the bus driver issues the after school activities the way that coincides with other schools um you know students older students
051having opportunities to work after school so there's a lot there's a lot of pieces there that really really create a lot of a lot of challenges that again i think it's a question is priority wise is it something that's that's worth putting a ton of time into uh given some of our other or other issues that that may be a bit more pressing thank you mr wallston all right for question number eight we begin with mr teigen um there have been a lot of discussion about school curriculum what do you see as the role of the board of education in the curriculum the role of the school board is to you know implement overall policies for the school obviously school curriculum is something that's developed and implemented generally by the teachers and i would support
052them in their in in any ideas that they have i think the curriculum is something that should be continually examined uh obviously just some because something was taught 10 years ago or 20 years ago doesn't necessarily mean that it should be taught in the same way today i think curriculum is an important thing obviously it's what's being presented to us to our kids to the students and i would imagine that the that it it's working in conjunction with the administration and with the teachers um to support them because they're the ones who are in the classroom they're the ones who are on the ground and whatever the board says they're going to be the ones who are implementing whatever curriculum changes are made and so whatever we did as a board i would want to
053make sure that it's in conjunction and close coordination with the teachers so because it's fine well to say do this but if it's if it's not feasible then you know we have to have that consideration as well so support the teachers i would support the administration and developing the curriculum and then supporting them what the decisions were made with regard to any changes to the curriculum thank you ms star i also agree with mr teigen that the curriculum is set by the administration and carried out by the teachers and the role of a board member really is to just help support um but you know also advise in case you know there have been changes that need to be made um just thinking about the sciences if there was new technology introduced you want to
054make sure that things are a little up to date but i don't feel it would be my position to try to change the curriculum it's up to the administration and the teachers okay mr wallston yes i i follow a lot of their thoughts i mean i think the board is really about focusing on policies that are going to support curriculum that's going to allow the kids to achieve their best potential to allow the teachers to help to [Music] to really have the greatest impact on the young people to move forward each year but i think it really really comes down to the board supporting policy that's going to be beneficial based upon the advisement of the teachers and the administrators so that we can really create the best outcomes for our kids mr lloyd i
055think it's the probably the most important time right now to be on the board to be dealing with the curricula challenges that that we have um as a board member we are the liaison for the public to express their concerns at the board level right because there is an escalation procedure but once once it gets to us we need to be able to listen to these parents we need to be able to understand their concerns and we we need to be able to address them right because what is changing in our schools is not only what we're teaching but how we we are teaching our our kids um you know our goal as the board is to make sure that our teachers have the ability to do their jobs we don't need teachers getting hounded
056about a curriculum that is controversial we need to be handling that at the board level and i think we're going to have um some challenging couple years because new york state is is changing a lot of our curricula we've got it coming from the department of education we've got it coming from boces we got it coming from regions and you know going back to critical race theory we're starting to see aspects of critical race theory show up in in our curricula for example um we're seeing cultural issues being mixed in with math exams so that you can answer a cultural question instead of answering a math question um so we really need to be the the voice for the people and the voice for the community so that this load doesn't get put on our
057teachers because they need to focus on what they do best thank you mr lloyd thank you okay for question number nine we start with ms starr again you can ask me to read the question again if you need it's a long one so i'll i'll try and be clear up front but certainly i'll reread it if necessary for anyone capital region boces recently held inaugural national letter of intent for new job opportunities career and technology education cte is a way for high school students to pursue traditional trades i'm sorry to pursue pursue traditional trades licensed professions and honor level and college level programs via boces as a school board member how will you make it a priority to promote career and technical education here at bethlehem central i feel that manufacturing there are so many
058jobs out there just because there has not been enough of an emphasis of okay you have career options you don't necessarily have to go no offense to college i have my master's degree but you can study a trade and do extremely well as well and so i feel with any kind of career day or any type of job fair there needs to be an opportunity to also showcase that you can have a successful career um if you attend a vocational school or if you decide to go to a boot camp like a tech boot camp after high school like you can just make at least 65k as a coder like just by getting a certificate um there are a lot more paths that a student can take that or they can at least see that
059there are options for them um so i feel that we just need to make sure and especially if i'm on the board i will definitely make sure that students are aware that it's not just college but you have a lot of options for a successful partner sorry thank you miss star um and mr wallston uh yes i actually uh love this question um given my my background i was actually on a zoom call two weeks ago with boces and a lot of local construction companies all discussing the issue of trades and shortages and lack of labor and trying to get these young people involved and that it's not just the track to college that there's you know other other options and opportunities and we're actually actually hosting a young young man this summer to uh
060to work with us so i think it's a tremendous partnership i think it's a great opportunity and i think young people can realize that they can step out of high school and be a functioning productive member of society and make a decent living and have a career path that will be incredibly beneficial to them because not everyone's meant for college not everyone wants to go down that route and um i think we really need to focus on trying to create a broader a broader workforce and not just have the priority be on beyond college so i i love this this this whole idea i think it's uh it's needed i think now that there's collaborations um between the schools boces local businesses um and different different opportunities are being are being created and collaboration so
061i love it i think it's great thank you mr wallston mr lloyd i think that our college loan crisis uh that the country has right now is proof that this is necessary we have so many people who have gotten degrees that are unable to put them to work right now um as far as vocational we really need to remember that people learn differently right the kid in class who can't sit still um and isn't a big fan of math he's going to be the guy that's out building big twin turbo engines right he has a completely different skill set so we have to make sure we cater to all of these these different skill sets um you know we should be teaching uh financial literacy and we should be teaching kids how to start their
062own business you don't have to go to college you don't have to work somebody with for somebody else we we should be teaching them that you can start a business it's scary when you can't get a business loan when you're 18 years old but you can go and get a college loan so we need to empower um our children as entrepreneurs and give them the education they need to be successful right out of the back there's no reason they can't thank you mr teigen yeah it's a great question and i saw that um that story about the signing the letter of intent i thought it was fantastic um this goes to my overall sort of viewpoint of the of the of the school as to make sure that it supports all of the kids um
063as i said earlier we have a we have a great school that produces incredible students and we're well known for producing you know high level students that go to all sorts of great colleges you talk to any college recruiter and that's the first thing they tell you is that bethlehem is a great school and they know it well um and i've gone to college fairs with my kids uh that's designed to push into to provide those opportunities and i just want to make sure that we're offering all of the same benefits the same support and the same opportunity to all sorts of kids whether it's for a four-year school um you know hudson valley a two-year school a great great institution that we have just in our in our area here or a trade school
064you know i worked at boces for a year i saw the passion and the interest that the kids had for the different trades and i think that just as as we do for all the kids it's just one more area that i really think that the school should make sure that we don't neglect um that we make sure that the kids have that option that it's provided you know you can think of it maybe like a buffet you just put all the options out there and the kids can sample and choose what they want and whatever it is is fantastic and i think it's a great question and it's something that i would support fully thank you mr teigen okay for question number 10 we're going to start with mr walston what are your thoughts
065on the assertion that women's sports in the district has been underfunded mr wallston sorry i flaked on you there real quick um women's sports being under i think i think all sports uh bethlehem has really kind of taken taken a a downturn uh i think the priority has kind of disappeared i know that the uh the numbers are down um i don't know if that's a trend just because kids are becoming less less active but uh you know having kids who have played sports from modified all the all the way through uh it is unfortunate that bethlehem you know has uniforms that have got rips and tears and numbers not on there you got duct tape on there um and i just think i think focusing on trying to keep the kids active is huge
066um i think that you know supporting the coaches that they have the resources they need in order to create opportunities for the kids that there's enough support staff for those coaches um so i i think all sports really need to be to be looked at um and if it is an issue with with women's sports that i haven't i haven't noticed any difference between the men's sports and and women's sports in terms of of funding um but if that's something to look at i think we should definitely consider that but i think sports in general in bethlehem definitely needs to have an increase in priority and consideration in the big picture thank you mr wallston mr lloyd i mean i think the most important thing about sports regardless of the funding is keeping the morale
067high um you know we can get by with some mediocre equipment right it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest of everything we're out there to go play sports we're out there to go team build and to learn how to respect others and and and compete competition is is key if we don't we're i mean we're seeing curriculum these days try to lower the bar for everybody to be more inclusive um but when we play sports there's always a winner and there's always a loser and it's very important for the winner to always turn around and help the loser out so these concepts for our children are very important to learn um i mean yes we need to be careful with our funding but we also need to remember that the morality of playing
068sports and the benefits that we we get out of that regardless of of the funding is is critical to our schools and to the development of our children thank you and mr tegan so i'm a big proponent of sports um i think it's one more aspect of what i would consider to be a well-rounded student again going back to my buffet uh analogy i just think that all of the different types of activities that we can offer to our kids are very very important whether it's sports or theater or band or clubs any of that i think it helps to produce you know happy healthy kids who are going to able to function well in society um with regard to the funding of the sports and the specific question that was asked about the underfunding
069of women's sports uh as compared to men's to be honest i haven't looked at the numbers um so i can't uh i can't expound on that except that i can say it anecdotally i've had some experiences that it seems as if they're it's possible and to the extent that you know i'm on the board i certainly will take a look at the relative um levels of funding and make sure that you know both boys and girls have the adequate levels of funding that they need because as i said um you know i think sports are a great opportunity for the kids along with all the rest of the um other sort of extracurricular activities thank you mr t jen not teagan my problem but my apology i think i also might have also um fluffed
070mr walston's name once or twice so i apologize to all the candidates for my errors in that way ms starr you're next thank you yeah it's a very important issue because i feel strongly that sports should just be equally funded and honestly one of my favorite memories in high school was fundraising and i feel like fundraising is such a strong skill set to gain and i would love to just empower students to be creative with their whether they want to hold auctions at the school or do little fundraisers at the corner i i i feel like just because there well one it should be equally funded period but two if there are things that certain teams uh want to gain or need access to you can still figure out a plan to fundraise to get
071those funds it doesn't have to be oh my gosh okay now we're stuck with this like no if you want something better you have the power to do it like the community loves to students the community wants to support students so i don't mind being that advocate for helping students create fundraisers for whatever it is that they're looking for thank you miss star for question 11 we're going to begin with mr lloyd who seems to be quite prepared to start and the question is this year's bus proposition is asking voters to approve the purchase of five large buses including one electric bus purchase that is higher than each of the diesel purchases are you in the favor of this plan and how can the board inform voters of the transparency of the budget process so
072there's two parts to that question all rolled into one right um i believe this is this is a lot to unpack you know i believe the um bus department was looking for medium-sized buses um we've gotten ourselves into quite the pickle with the uh bus shortage um which was really a self-inflicted wound this is where we went ahead and put in vaccine mandates for our bus drivers and we lost a lot of our staff our staff either retired or they went to another district or they were actually fired for for not not getting the vaccine um we need to be really careful how we move forward with our electric bus rollout um i would propose more time going into evaluating the capabilities of the um or the eum manufacturer converted buses that that we're using
073and either yeah we really need to do some cost analysis on on on these buses because they're what 360 thousand dollars as opposed to um 180 000 plus the infrastructure that we need to build um and the increased maintenance costs um and the fact that you know our mechanics can't work on these these high voltage systems we have to call just like the tesla's right we've got to call specialists in to to deal with the with with the high high voltage system um so as of right now i i i would not support our our current position on this thank you mr lloyd mr teigen yeah um i mean i haven't i haven't examined the issue i i i trust that the folks who looked at this looked at all the numbers looked at the
074the pros and cons what weighed all of the factors and made a decision so i'm not in a position here um to sort of second guess that i will say that in terms of the purchase of electric buses and other types of sort of environmental type of activities i i think it's the future i think it's it's good to be proactive um i i assume that one of the um the pros of it was that down the line it's going to save money eventually um obviously with the gas prices what they are you know electric buses is looking better and better at some point um you know i i appreciate that there's going to be an initial outlay in terms of um infrastructure and mechanics and what and things like that but i do think
075that um it's probably the way that it's going to be going it's gonna have to start at some point and i trust that these factors were considered um and uh i think the second part of the the question is about transparency of the the the the process um you know i think that quite frankly the the the process has been fairly transparent um my knee-jerk reaction is always for more transparency i want to make sure that the community is is informed of the things that are going on that we receive feedback from the community and that we assess and consider that feedback and so that everybody is aware of what's going on so there's no surprises later um so i would support the transparency and any additional um questions about transparency or or solutions that
076can be coming down with regard to additional transparency then i would support that as well thank you ms starr i also kind of agree since you know i'm not a current board member and not sure what happens during their closed sessions i do feel that transparency is an important issue and even when there are hearings not everyone's able to attend them so there should be kind of a another path okay if you're not able to attend contact us here to share your concerns just so the board is at least able to get as many perspectives as possible i mean i personally am pro-green but that doesn't mean i wouldn't be the type of person to listen to what the community's concerns are um and i agree with mr oh wow now i forgot i am
077sorry i agree with someone who mentioned how the gas prices are going up and you know i am hoping for free tesla one day already just because of that but i i do feel that it's good for our environment um i do support the decision but as far as before it ends up on the ballot there should be more transparency for members to give feedback thank you mr wallston um i do think you know i think we obviously have to move in that direction you know there's there's regulations coming down uh i think one thing to look at is the budget considerations uh i think how how how aggressively we move in that direction is definitely something to consider i think you know eventually we're going to get to a point where there's going to
078be some infrastructure considerations to look at um and i think that you know still the other consideration is will we have enough ability within new york state to to manage the demand and whatnot so i think you know trying to stay on this path of aggressively purchasing way ahead if in the event that that goal post gets gets moved i think is a strong consideration to try to wonder um you know trying to be that far ahead of the of the date in which we everyone is supposedly going to have to go electric i think is a strong consideration for our budget um just given that you know again we're still we'll still we're still burning a lot of fossil fuels in order to create electricity so i think in new york state is definitely
079a consideration for us uh from from a budget standpoint i think transparency i think again not being part of the closed session uh but i think during that that that budget hearing i think the the existing board certainly asked a lot a lot of questions uh you know they were clearly motivated to try to move more in the direction of uh electric bus versus some of the other uh recommendations but um again we have to eventually move in that in that in that direction i just really want to look at if that goal post will will be moved down the road uh that we're not making budget decisions that are going to put us in a tough spot that may impact other other options given that the electric buses are you know almost more than
080double what uh the other the other bus options are so thank you okay for question number 12 we're going to begin with mr teaching how do you plan to engage parents and families in meaningful conversations around important issues and decisions so it's a great question um obviously the board as it is has the meetings and um you know part of those meetings are open for um you know for back and forth and for conversations um i have to say that even in the process of running for the board i've been engaging the public quite a bit people recognize me on the street and i stop and i talk i'm always happy to do that um to the extent that there are additional things that we can do have an open forum have more less formal
081um meet and greets with regard to issues that are coming up and maybe and not just so the strictly formal um board meeting setting i think that's great um i certainly would be open for any of that and i think that the more communication we have with the with the community the better because a it allows us to understand what they're thinking it allows them to feel as though they have at least some sort of voice in the process and the decisions that are being made and hopefully that brings everybody together with regard to what decisions are eventually made thank you mr teigen ms star i apologize sure she can use my water bottle i apologize for that um but i feel even with as soon as i decided to run for the seat on
082the board i immediately thought i need to start talking with those who i plan to be serving and accessibility to me is my number one priority i want everyone to feel like they don't have to wait until the board meeting i want them to feel that if there is an issue they can feel free to email me um or email anyone else on the board i know that there is one email on the board page where you can at any time uh send over your concerns i recently just found that out actually uh but accessibility i feel accessibility is so important and i just want everyone to know that my personal goal is to make sure that you can contact me whenever with any issues that you may have that should be addressed thank you
083ms star it's it's always lovely being a parent isn't it um mr walston your response uh i think the more parental involvement the better uh and i think there's probably a few educators who would you know argue that um so i think the more that parents can be involved would be great i think you know one thing i'd love to see kind of first off with potentially with the meeting structure that the that the parents can share their thoughts and communicate things at the front end of the meeting um you know watching somebody's parents wait you know hours and hours to then finally have to say something i think you know i think i think shifting that forward will definitely show a greater priority in hearing their feedback so uh definitely something that i would
084be interested in discussing and to see if that's if that's an option but i also think you know just just being more open to to feedback and considerations is really really important uh you know whether that's a bigger message board um or um again i agree with bob 100 you know whether it's some type of you know quarterly meetings with parents that they that they can reach out but yeah i think to discourage any interest in parental involvement would be uh a failure so i think definitely encouraging more parental involvement is uh is a win for everyone thank you mr lloyd well i'd like to say it's difficult to communicate with the board unless you agree with them speaking about any differences or challenges that you have even if these are legal concerns um for
085many people over the past year have not been addressed by the board when we send emails to the board or to um and and we only get back thank you for your comments we we we're not looking to comment we're looking to engage have a discussion um and and find a solution at the board meetings there is no communication with the board unless you create an agenda item um the only thing we have at the board for parents is three minutes to um express their concerns and the board won't engage you so there are there are some challenges right now especially for right anybody who disagrees or has complaints for for the board um as far as accessibility i'm very accessible in fact i've been in touch with dozens of parents and teachers for the
086past couple months trying to work out issues with the board which is again why i'm here so i can represent these people and provide a different viewpoint right it seems like biggest challenge one of the challenges we're having is that everybody agrees on the current board i'm not looking to disrupt anything i'm looking to provide a different point of view and ask that others change their paradigm so they can see the advantages of my point of view thank you mr lloyd okay for question number 13 we are going to begin with ms starr what is your opinion regarding district initiatives in the area of character education diversity and inclusion and what are ways the board of education can implement measurable goals in this area in these areas i feel it starts with exposure honestly and
087i brought up the slingerlands in intercultural fair before because i feel that is one example of being able to show the whole district that members within our district come from different countries and different backgrounds and it that needs to be shared i know so many there i know some students who almost feel isolated because they they don't feel that their differences are celebrated and i feel that just comes it's only because there isn't enough of a celebration aspect to it the celebrations of cultures like one high school statue one high schooler told me i really want to create a jewish club i'm like do it create the jewish club i feel people need to understand there's more things besides hanukkah to celebrate within the religion i feel that we need to just have this culture
088where all of our backgrounds and ethnicities are just celebrated instead of just looked at okay that person's different it's not like me thank you mr wallston uh i think we really have some very amazing clubs right now you know there's no place for hate there's rack there's a multicultural club so i think we we have some really awesome awesome clubs that touch on both character and some of the diversity uh topics a huge piece that i would love to see is more community involvement for the young people more leadership opportunities and volunteering opportunities i think if these young people can gain a lot more perspective on the world i think we can step away from some of the contentiousness issues and adversarial stuff that's there if these kids can gain more perspective working together being
089involved in things being involved in the community you know let's let's face it kids are at the most selfish point in their lives and i think if we can get them out of their selfish bodies and experiencing more life and and having a perspective on things and working together i think that would be huge i get that kids are busy but we also have kids who are spending excessive amounts of time on screens so i think you know any kid who tells me that they don't have time to spend an extra couple hours a week volunteering i think uh that's that's that would be a tough sell if we were to uh look at things a little bit deeper so i think providing more volunteer opportunities where they can really grow and develop and just
090leadership is is huge so i think in terms of how do we measure success if we were able to do something like that i think it would be you know at the end of the year how were we able to increase volunteer hours for kids and what was the impact on the community so i think something like that could really have have a huge have a huge impact and i think be very easy to track in terms of level of success thank you mr lloyd i think we're getting into dangerous territory once we get into dei again we are talking about well-intentioned right we want to celebrate our differences but when we take all of our kids and put them into different boxes and say this group gets to do something because they're in that
091box that ends up dividing our kids um i see schools as more of a neutral place where we can acknowledge our differences but we we really need to focus on equality and not equity um we understand that children come from different backgrounds and have different hard hardships but when they come to school they all need to be treated the same we can understand that you know we have rich dads and poor dads but we shouldn't be using that to have one kid get something that another kid doesn't so we're putting people into different boxes and we're really dividing up our our children when we do that not everybody wants to be um you know the underprivileged class the whole time that is degrading to a lot of these kids so um i understand the the
092intention uh but i think we need to focus on more neutral um elements as well as actual equality thank you mr lloyd mr teigen so character inclusiveness equity and diversity obviously these are all laudable goals um and i think that as part of the school curriculum i mean i i look at the school as more than just um reading and writing when i went to school we took um a civics class which basically taught us how to go out into the world and be a better citizen um i see this as sort of in the same vein where these kids are going to leave bethlehem they're going to go off to wherever it is trade school college you know move out into the wide world and they're going to be exposed to all sorts of
093different things and as part of that preparation in the same way we teach them to read and write and do arithmetic i think we have to teach them how to interact with other folks how to view life from different viewpoints um you know and i think that that all helps to help them become better critical thinkers which i think is incredibly important that they are able to use their minds they're able to look at things they're able to experience different viewpoints and it doesn't necessarily have to change their mind but they're exposed to it and they're going to be exposed to it when they got it when they get out of bethlehem i think that there's not a no problem at all with exposing it to exposing them here i absolutely agree with with john
094that volunteerism is one way that it can be done outside of the school because the best way to develop empathy among people is just exposure all sorts of studies show that you want to get people to get along you put them together and kids in bethlehem sometimes come from you know certain backgrounds and i think it's great to have them exposed and obviously volunteers and this is a fantastic way to do that um and i think i would support all of these initiatives thank you and thanks to all your candidates as well as the audience we're at a point where i'm going to start to shift towards closing statements but before i do that i just want to remind the audience basically that voting is on may 17th from 7 a.m to 9 00 pm
095in the upper gym you can get an absentee ballot if you need one from the district office and there will also be voting on the library budget and the one the one open trustee position and again you can see their candidate event that was held on may 4th on the library website but i do want to thank all the candidates really for answering the different difficult questions and providing their insights so that we can have some educated voters who can go to the go to the polls that are understanding who they're voting for a recording of this event will be available on the board of education website so we will now shift towards closing statements we do closing statements in the opposite order from where we started um our opening statements so actually the first
096one up will be mr mr lloyd one minute well i'd like to thank everybody for their time and uh participation tonight it was nice to uh meet uh the other candidates and uh find out um their views on a lot of these issues since the beginning since when i have announced my campaign i have been very hard on talking about these very divisive issues that that were we're dealing with and i would uh i would ask for your vote and i would ask that uh um you consider me your ally in the community to work with the school board work with um our superintendent to provide um the best education and elite academics and return to a merit-based uh system um for everybody at bethlehem thank you mr lloyd mr wallston your closing statements again
097i'd like to thank everyone for their time uh for for watching us all here i am really excited to be a candidate for the school board um i want to be part of a team that's focused on promoting policies that support the students to really reach their greatest potential and i am excited to be running to encourage increased community involvement in the schools and to increase the students involvement in our community i believe that it's really our time to support the development of our children through a focus on resiliency and mental health and i think we need to keep our kids healthy both physically mentally and emotionally wellness is really paramount and i want our students to learn how to manage success and manage failure and i want them to be functional members of society
098when they leave the halls of the high school after graduation excuse me so i really like to be part of the team that's supporting policies to make our programs even better and i want to keep our teachers and staff provided with the best resources available so that the future generations can really take advantage of this tremendous school district thank you thank you ms starr your closing statements just want to thank every single person for watching us and it was great to meet finally meet all the candidates to hear their point of views and i just want everyone to know that advocacy work is always going to be at my core it's something i've always done since i was a kid volunteering it's pretty much second nature to me and i still volunteer and i'm involved
099in a number of organizations that i can help well i already do within the community but gain more exposure for the students to do and i really want to empower not just students but the parents that you know if there is something missing within the district they can speak up and they can even try to create those changes um i just want to make it clear that you know i'm always here open to hear any suggestions i want to be your voice on the board and i appreciate you listening to me tonight thank you so much mr teaching yes let me enter the things that the other folks have done here thanks to the albany county league of women voters for putting it together and thanks to all the folks who took time to either
100submit questions or just listen in tonight uh it's very important um and the fact that you've taken the time is a good thing because i think that um it shows the support for the board and therefore for the school and as an extension for the community and it's great so i um i would ask for your vote on may 17th i think that um i can be an asset to the board i i really believe that uh the board has done a great job so far of of doing a lot of the things to keep this an amazing school and to provide our kids with uh with amazing opportunities uh i think that going forward it's going to be some tough times it's been an amazingly challenging time for the last two years for everybody
101involved my hats off to everybody who who's who weathered these storms uh i think they're going forward we're gonna we're gonna have to keep working and make sure that this district stays at the same level of excellence as it has been thank you very much thank you and thanks to all of the people who participated by sending in questions one of the things the league strives for in these sorts of forums is to have those questions come from the public this is for the public's um best interest and to allow them to hear from you so i thank all the candidates for really their time in in providing their thoughtful answers i want to thank the um the board of uh i'm sorry the school district for allowing us to provide this to you again
102the budget is is being voted on as well as these candidates there's only two you get to only to choose two of these very four strong candidates on may 17th you can this can be viewed again if anyone cares to on the website for the district office and we really want to um appreciate we really want to thank everyone for participating the league is is actually celebrating its 100th year our local chapter is celebrating its 100th year actually this year we hope that you will consider joining us either as a member or as a financial supporter and with that i again i thank everyone for their time this evening and really um hope that this really achieved i know it did for me um really achieved what we had hoped in terms of getting the
103public educated so with that i say good evening and have a have a great day and good luck to all the candidates thank you so much thank you very much you