001wait patty thanks okay well we are live welcome and thanks to everyone for joining us here this evening for the tiger tualatin school board candidates forum my name is dan murphy i'm the managing director of the broadway rose theater company here in tigard in fact we happen to be on the campus of the tiger cf tigert elementary school um and we are um like everyone else uh doing a lot of virtual so please catch our last five years is now streaming available through may 16th now typically we're actually here live coming to you at the broadway rose but unfortunately we continue to navigate this pandemic so we will do our best to provide our community the chance to get to know your school board candidates a little bit better now tonight you will hear from
002five of the six candidates that are running for director positions on the ttsd school board in the may 18th special election now all the candidates were invited to participate and we thank those that have chosen to be here with us this evening now before we introduce the candidates i would like to start by introducing and thanking my co-hosts this evening margie green executive director of the foundation for the tiger tualatin schools and i appreciate it it's my pleasure to join you this evening and thank you everyone at broadway rose for all you're doing to bring just wonderful beautiful fun entertainment to our community and we can't wait to get back into the theater with all of you to watch your amazing productions good evening and as dan said i am margie green executive director for
003the foundation for tiger tualton schools for the past 30 years the foundation has been supporting our schools through fundraising creating learning opportunities and building partnerships within the community and also we help raise awareness about the impact that strong schools have on our students and our community and we'd like to thank all of you for making the time to be with us this evening and to get to know your candidates for your school board um a little bit better dan is now going to run through to show you how the evening's agenda is going to be going thanks dan great thank you margie now we'll begin by introducing each of the candidates each candidate has submitted an introduction and pre-answered the question what unique qualifications do you bring to ttsd's school board that sets you apart
004from the other candidates and the current school board members following the introductions we will ask each candidate to answer three questions that are focused on school district governance the last portion of tonight's forum will be dedicated to the student voice and we will have two questions that will be asked of our candidates by ttsd high school students that each candidate will answer the same question and have equal opportunity to speak the candidates will have two minutes each to answer questions once we hit the two minute mark i will respectfully interrupt so now to kick us off margie will introduce you to our first candidate thank you running for position number one is david hymas david hymas is a community member ttsd parent and educator who is passionate about the school district he feels that marginalized
005students of color in the district deserve representation within our school board he also believes that our community deserves a director who will make equitable decisions for the benefit of all students in combination with his training and experience as an educator his background in business and finance provides him with a unique perspective to utilize for fiscally responsible decision making he believes that together we can educate every child dan also running for position one amy zuckerman amy zuckerman and her husband howard are the proud parents of a ninth grader at tualatin high school and a seventh grader at hazelbrook middle school she has 25 plus years of professional experience in human resources and customer support and a long history of community involvement through this experience she has developed the knowledge and relationships critical to this moment in
006our district amy believes we are facing unprecedented times including a pandemic that has pushed us further into our own bubbles at a moment we need to be listening more closely to those outside our spheres of influence that the disconnect between oh sorry the disconnect between the district the school administrators teachers their union children and their families during the past year of comprehensive distance learning has been both enlightening and disheartening amy believes that active listening and calm frequent engagement is key to strengthening critical communicational channels as we rebuild the bonds of trust in our community this isn't a this isn't a stepping stone for amy nor does she come armed with a political agenda she believes partisan fights don't belong on our school board her wish is simple to advocate for her children and serve her
007community in the best way that she knows how margie running for position three is octavio gonzalez octavio was born in tijuana mexico and raised in southern california by migrant parents he has two children who attend elementary school in the district in 2021 he proudly took his oath as citizenship octavio is currently a ttsd budget committee member and has been involved with various school committees having been a business owner he is a strong believer in fiduciary responsibility wise planning um excuse me and realistic budgeting currently he is an hoa i think that's uh housing oh excuse me i'm not gonna even attempt to say what the uh um acronyms are for he's an hoa account manager when picking up his children from school observing conversations being translated by children for their parents is a reminder of
008his own childhood he knows firsthand these struggles and how they affect family dynamics and education octavio is bilingual and bicultural with a unique ability to bring communities together these strengths will lend a new voice to our growing community while his background identity and upbringing represents some he can't claim to understand the life experiences for all having lived these many challenges he understands the struggles and is looking forward to using these experiences to connect the community dan also running for position three tristan irvin tristan irvin is a long-standing parent volunteer and teacher in the ttsd she is currently a fifth grade teacher and has three children in the district a senior at tigert high an eighth grader at tuwality and a second grader at durham her strong commitment to public service includes being a board member
009on the washington county family justice center a member of the city of tigard parks and rec advisory board the president of the foundation for tiger tualatin schools and the president of the durham elementary pso in addition to this she is a team leader for pact with pride and worked on the planning budget and equity focused committees for the student success act her focus if elected will be on the equitable and academic excellence elevating student voices and prioritizing resources to help support teachers and students as we transition back to in-person learning she believes that collaboration perspective taking and strong advocacy for our students will be key in continuing to move our district forward margie and running in position five is marvin lynn excuse me dr marvin lin has enjoyed a nearly 30-year career as a lifelong
010educator working across pre-school through twelfth and higher education institutions in both urban and suburban contexts as an elementary teacher he was highly regarded for his ability to work effectively with diverse students and families in higher education he has taught and conducted research on multicultural education race and education and the work and lives of teachers of color his professional experience has helped him gain important insights into curriculum teaching and policies at multiple levels marvin has worked as a full-time administrator overseeing teacher counselor and principal preparation and and principal preparation programs in various contexts excuse me for the last decade he has learned a great deal about working effectively with school districts community agencies and state governmental entities to advance a racial equity agenda in education he serves on several national state and local boards commissions and
011councils as a board member he will bring a lens of racial equity a focus on student voice and a commitment to strengthening academic programs in the district most importantly he has a son who graduated from tualatin high in 219 and another son currently attending tualatin dan great thank you margie okay a reminder each candidate will have two minutes to answer each question so we're going to go ahead and start with question number one for position one candidate david and the question is the district is currently wrapping up a three-month community engagement process focused on budget planning for the new biennium have you engaged in this work and what investments do you believe should be prioritized for the upcoming school years thank you so much um i unfortunately have not engaged in uh this process however
012uh what i do believe that we need to prioritize is number one eliminating pay to play fees because it is inequitable for us to be able to charge students to participate in those um you know in sports and in other activities that are needed for them and um you know and prioritize the equity work that the district is currently doing such as making sure that we are instituting into the budget the fpas the family partnership advocates rather than funding them out of the sia money that we're currently getting so we need to be able to to do that and so those are my two top priorities and i believe that we can also work other things into the budget such as curriculum that can represent our marginalized students so those are the things that i
013would focus on okay great thank you same question for amy zuckerman thank you dan as a school board director i will always use my position to be a vocal champion of fully funding our public schools in the state of oregon the economic impact of this pandemic has been has really hit our schools hard um especially excuse me with the student success act revenue drawing up due to the economic hit in our state tiger talton school district is only expecting to receive a fraction of its expected allocation and there are no easy answers here and the fact is we're still in a state of emergency the board and the budget committee will undoubtedly have to make some very difficult decisions in the coming year but our underserved students have only fallen further behind in this year
014and we have to protect the funds that will most effectively address the achievement gap this will require a thorough analysis of all programs and expenditures to determine what we absolutely cannot afford to cut and what we have to let go of in the short term to successfully navigate the ongoing emergency but ttsd has a strong track record of fiscal responsibility so i would expect that our reserves could help absorb some of the shock there and also provide an opening to explore and uncover some of the underlying reasons why our enrollment is down seven percent a decrease that's disproportionate to similar neighboring districts and i believe that this impacts our long-term funding so it's critical that we understand the root causes of this decline thank you great thank you uh position three candidate octavio same question
015hello everybody um as a budget commit committee member i have been part of the budget process and we're going to be making votes here after the election um the first step i would do is of course review the academic return on investments this will kind of show us what the student outcomes on some of the programs that we had funded for the last five years so that is in review right now there is a process called program inventory where we are reviewing every single program and recommendations are being made on what can stay and what must go because of funding tiger 12 the school district is a very fiscally responsible district it's been proven in the past and hopefully some of the reserves that we have and the plans in place will get us through
016the next hurdle school enrollment is down which of course is going to be affecting our funding after talking to many parents with one-on-ones teachers and some community members it is clear to me that we do not support the social and emotional program to support our kids getting back to school have to fund find a way to find a rigorous curriculum for everybody to have access and of course uh we have to do everything we can to get the schools open and of course sports um so when it comes to fiscal priorities those are probably the three broad guidelines that i would support as a board member thank you thank you thank you okay uh position three candidate christian same question all right well thank you so much for having all of us here so i
017think um having had the privilege of working with a diverse array of budgets with my experience as a member of several boards i think we often times run into this idea of sort of either or instead of the mindset of also and and i think in addition to that when we are dealing with issues related to covet specific which are really um sort of a short time specific priority we also can look at our long-term priorities as well so i think the one thing we need to remember besides not knowing exactly what our budget really looks like but to prepare we do need to think about um you know what is the full impact of the budget going to be for the students that didn't attend in the district this year and we also need
018to be thoughtful of what our campuses will need in the fall to reopen safely um i also will look at in terms of the long-term fiscal priorities what makes the largest impact for the largest number of students and i think the number one thing there is supporting students and teachers when we return to full in-person learning um using some of that ssa money that students success act money along with the general fund to make sure that we are continuing to prioritize culturally responsive partners social emotional learning supports and mental health supports including counselors psychologists and medical social workers and then finally i would say that we need to really take a deep dive and a good look at um tag because our tag program requires identification and services but we don't currently get state or
019federal funding for that so differentiation on all levels should be happening all of the time thank you great thank you and um position uh position number one no it couldn't be position number one it must be five right is marvin so marvin is joining us uh from phone so go ahead marvin same question yes thank you for allowing me to join by phone i am um doing pick up and drop off for my boys tonight both of whom are at track practice um so i apologize i'm not able to join virtually um but i have had the privilege of serving on a number of commissions one of um which is the oregon community ministry board where we oversee a 100 million dollar plus budget and and as a dean i have overseen a 20 million
020dollar budget there so i have lots of experience with managing and maintaining budgets and the priorities i think are in this upcoming year or next few years is really going to need to be focused on making sure we maintain teaching positions i i think we need to prioritize that i think drastic cuts in the teaching ranks will only hurt our students i also would focus on the social emotional learning and support for students particularly those who are returning back to full-time after having been um in many cases isolated and experiencing trauma potentially and so we need to be prepared to support those students there are a number of those students are also going to need additional learning support and the funds need to be set aside to make that possible particularly for low-income students and
021then that the third priority for me would be to continue to strengthen our racial equity focus and um by really focusing on by really focusing okay thank you by really focusing on um addressing uh disparities uh in in education attainment for students particularly students of color in the district great thank you so margie question number two all right thank you everybody we'll start with position one candidate amy zuckerman the question is as the ttsd school board enters into the planning process for a new five-year strategic plan what do you believe should be the top three priorities amy thank you margie so as part of preparing for this uh the four cornerstones of ttsd's current strategic plan are student achievement equity talent climate and culture of those the first two i believe student achievement and equity
022have taken on additional urgency during our current tumultuous year and too often i feel like these objectives have felt as if they're in conflict with each other when in fact i believe they absolutely can and must work hand in hand if one leg of the stool falls the whole thing falls over right um along with that you know i think those are excellent cornerstones um they provide a really good framework and i think we could still build from that um in addition to those two i would say climate and culture we've had a trying year with different public and personal emergencies impacting members of our community in different ways and if this year has taught us anything it's that one size does not fit all comprehensive distance learning has been a surprise success for many
023and it's been heartbreakingly challenging for other students uh it's been easy for no one right so we already know that the current educational system works for some kids and not others and this is a watershed moment for our public education how can we meet more kids where they are and provide more flexible paths to the finish line so closing the achievement gap will require constant evaluation and flexibility for years before the pandemic even teachers faced increasing demands in the classroom the system they're working in does not necessarily support them they have rules that are hamstringing how they manage their classroom disruptions for example so i would look at ways we can better support our teachers so that our classrooms are once again the focus of learning and not distractions i believe every child deserves an
024academic system that keeps them engaged challenged and will prepare them for their best future and this is an area where teacher and student voices will be critical um the board's responsibility is to set policy and hold the district and school administrators accountable for results that is time thank you thank you amy and now octavio gonzalez same question thank you this is a little challenging for me simply because as i'm going through the budget committee process and going through the program roll up and figuring out what's working and what what's not working uh one thing is for sure for the next five year plan we definitely have to plan for the social and emotional support program having to decide how long to continue with these programs whether we do it for the first year for the
025second year or third year and then of course sunset it or whether we make this a permanent position for school districts we know that our schools are always looking for more counselors which i greatly support this may be that catalyst for us to provide them with that kind of support especially for the emotional needs that i assume to come the other church declining is of course how do we get our skits back how do we get our children back into school there has to be a ramp up process of course summer school is something that is widely being talked about by many parents to help kids get back into school get them ramped up from the loss of education of course the interaction with the schools and on and on so some school programs are
026something that we should look at closely um don't know how popular the kids like it but i think for us parents it would be something to help advance us to get us back to where we were once before when it comes to education the other part is to continue with some of the district's equity work that work is um continues to be very important and focus for everybody and the school is doing a very good job with that so that's something that will be part of my support the other items of course open schools something that the school district has done very well is to set a nice infrastructure for our work ready program to help prepare our kids to after they graduate and so we need to not only of course get our kids
027back to school give them the support they need but we also just can't forget about the students who are looking to graduate and launch into a good career or college ready program so rigorously work on career readiness work programs to help our kids move and transition into the next stage of their lives thank you thank you octavio and next is tristan irvin thank you so you know again i think that we have an opportunity for some also and thinking here and you know when we're specifically looking at strategic planning um using the framework that has been implemented i think i would move forward um in the following ways so looking at student achievement we do need to focus on things like academic excellence and closing the achievement gap but what does that mean right that
028really means we all want our students to succeed and that looks different for my kiddo and your kiddo and everyone's kiddos and to do that we need to look at enrichment and differentiation opportunities in order to meet those needs and ensure that our students have access to a curriculum that represents multiple perspectives i think in terms of talent we need to keep an increased compensation for our staff we need to actively pursue staff that represents our students we know how valuable it is for our students to see themselves positively reflected in positions of leadership we need to continue meaningful training on issues such as classroom differentiation strategies bias recognition and restorative justice and then for the third priority i would sort of combine equity and culture climate so i would really say moving towards increased
029action transparency and input from our students families and specifically those that are historically margin marginalized and really focusing on those equity pillars and then combining that with our culture and climate do our students all feel safe welcome and valued and we know that they don't and so i think that's why we circle back to that equity piece and really continue that action transparency and input from our students and families thank you tristan and now candidate five marvin lynn thank you so as far as strategic planning goes i would focus on three areas and they're broad the first would be advancing racial equity and that would involve examining and addressing education disparities looking at curriculum to address how we respond to new state laws for example around ethnic studies and holocaust studies and how we integrate
030that effectively into our curricula it would involve examining policy that disrupts learning for under underserved kids as well as developing teaching practices that uplift all learners regardless of race language and ethnicity that's the first priority that's part of racial equity and part of the second priority would be building and growing an academic and academically enriching culture and for me that means increasing opportunities for students to participate in tag increasing opportunities for dual credit participation online education opportunities early childhood education and so on the third priority for me would also be what we refer to in education as high impact learning experience for high impact learning experience for students and that involves things like increased leadership opportunities in in and out of school travel study abroad opportunities internships externships and other opportunities in the community partnering
031with businesses to really enrich the learning of all students thank you marvin africa are you okay and we'll go on to our final candidate can't position one w hymas same question um thank you so much and can i just say that uh before i get going uh i forgot to say this because at the time but i wanted to acknowledge that we are having this meeting on occupied land that belonged to the athloti tribe and who are members of the california tribe and they are now part of the confederate tribes of the grand ronde and we believe to them to be past present and future caretakers of this land and for the strategic plan question i would say that my first goal would be to implement strategies that promote safe respectful and responsible students to
032support the overall well-being of the students i would do this to ensure students feel that they are safe valued and active members of the learning community while providing support for social emotional health we can do this by promoting inclusion of all students and providing equitable access to engaging and powerful learning opportunities we could also cultivate mental health partnerships that support all students proactive teaching skills for social and emotional health we could also another goal would be to foster partnerships with communities communities with community business and families and what that would mean is to actively develop partnerships with families businesses communities and local organizations to provide enrichment students experiences and student support how would we do this we would do this by consolidating coordinating and supporting of community partnerships partner intentionally with families to develop positive
033nurturing environments for students and then the other one would be to promote the continuous improvement in student achievement to meet or exceed the state standards that we currently have yeah sorry i've i've been around the block and i know a thing or two about uh strategic plans that is our time thank you so now we're going to move on to question number three and the question is as a school board member how would you lead with a commitment to equitable outcomes for all students provide examples from your current work that dem demonstrates how you would support the ttsd equity pillars of the district's strategic goal dedicated to educating every child and we're going to go ahead and start with candidate octavio thank you so i am in full support of equitable opportunities for every student
034regardless of race socioeconomic status and sexual identity i'm in support of equitable access for all students including students who have been homeschooled who would like to transfer into the school district the perfect example of a group that potentially may not be admitted into our school district or potentially have all the credits transferred from home schooled into our district full support of that program in addition to i do feel that schools should always be a safe place for kids to fail try different things get backed up get ripped off and then go again it's difficult to specifically talk about equitable i'm not a school teacher of course i'm a person in the private sector i know that some of the support programs that i want to do is to give students access to everything possible in
035the school district thank you okay thank you and next uh candidate tristan urban same question thank you so again i think that equitable outcomes really begins with all children feeling safe supported and valued in our school community um as my work as a teacher you know working with students i teach a lot about social comprehension and how we look at multiple perspectives and take on the practice of perspective taking in order to have dialogues that are safe and help kids really understand you know where other people are coming from i know that cobot has highlighted several inequities um in our district and in schools in general and that's given us an opportunity to really reimagine how we provide these supports and certainly when everything first shut down packed with pride came in and that's another
036example of work that i've done to provide um a service that was often looked to for the schools to provide um when the covet is over these are still things that we will need to develop a long-term plan for in addition to these i think opportunities to connect and leverage our students lived experiences and prior knowledge really focusing on a community oriented perspective i think prioritizing cultural literacy critical thinking um both which require looking at our curriculum through the lens of racial equity i think that student student-centered and a community-driven approach will be really helpful when we're looking at equitable student outcomes and then beginning to or continue to remove barriers addressing needs and doing formative assessments through the structured time that we have with students to really get to know and understand them in
037addition to this i think we can look at accelerated learning opportunities and multiple pathways representation great thank you and same question for marvin thank you as many of you know um my life's work has been committed to racial equity both as a researcher as a teacher and also as a leader and so you talked about having us sort of discuss how our current work demonstrates that um i think it's evident in much of the work that i have done um how do we advance equitable outcomes for students in schools well i'm a strong advocate for adopting an anti-racist stance which the district has already done i would also be an advocate for using that as a lens for looking really closely at our system i talked before about curriculum i talked about teaching i talked
038about policies and we're really using it as an as a way to think about uh the way in which our system is supporting um racially marginalized and underserved populations of students but also staff i think we have to be really concerned about what we see is um a gap in the retention of staff of color for example and i think you're using our racial equity lens to look broadly helps us to not only not only reveal that but then to understand what is precipitating those particular conditions i would be in support of using that lens also to think about how we support and to develop clear action around supporting lgbtq plus students and i would again add and staff um and administrators and so on as well and then looking and then also looking at
039students with diverse social cognitive and physical abilities and figuring out what are the best ways to support that population as well great thank you marvin same question for david perfect thank you um i'd like to start out before that by um you know thanking director on because she has been instrumental in developing those four pillars so thank you so much for that and as we know the four pillars stand for family community staff and students well in my current role i am a i maintain that pillar or the equitable pillar and families by having meetings for our marginalized students this is families we've also continued the the current work that um that i helped with and that director un started with the affinity groups and so i i'm doing that in newberg uh we've started
040our first black student union out there as well as there's been other affinity groups out there with the community i focus on reaching out to our marginalized communities parents uh with the with the parents and with the community and building bridges like with the latino network with capacious and unidos out in newburgh and as well as taking part in the equity the what am i trying to say the equity work in the city of newburgh with the staff i am a leader uh an instructional leader with them and we focus on uh equitable practices and we focus on culturally responsive practices so that we can affect that side of the next pillar which is the student pillar and creating equitable outcomes for them as well as making sure that they all get what they need
041in order to succeed which is to graduate from our schools great thank you question for amy thank you so every decision we make as a district must lead with equity concerns in mind and this will always be a priority for me excuse me uh tiger taulton school district has been talking about further incorporating culturally responsive culturally responsive teaching methods that are more reflective of our diverse student body i'm a big believer in data the data is showing that our students of color continue to track behind their white peers and education outcomes what we haven't successfully answered yet is why one element of this is building a staff that better reflects our diverse student body and ensuring that we're retaining our best teachers i've also heard from many parents concerned that our equity planning isn't including
042enough conversation about tag and our students with special needs and disabilities and these are areas that must also remain part of the equity equation and finally we must provide a way to more provide more support for to work with kids in small groups once our students are back to brick and mortar buildings this is especially true at schools that are non-title one schools that don't have that additional funding to help breaking out into small groups so that's another critical area where you know teachers feel that we've been able to move the needle a little bit and we need to definitely continue to support that great thank you margie thank you we will now transition into the student voice section of the evening very exciting um and to lead this portion of our agenda we'll have
043it be turning over to ttsd director of equity and inclusion zinnia on xenia thank you margie um good evening everyone at ttsd we value culturally and community responsiveness and see students as partners as students are the experts of their lived experiences we would like to continue our practice of having students at the table for decision making i'm honored to introduce two student leaders from each of our high schools i'm starting with natalia jacquez president of tigard high school youth council representative so natalia please ask your question hi i'm natalia president of tiger youth advisory council and my question for you is how do you plan to combat the potential trauma of covid and the learning slash achievement gap left by recent times okay in that question we're going to start with tristan to be the
044first to answer thank you natalia so i think um really it comes back to that idea of when we come back in the fall and making sure that we have our staff and our students um with all the supports that they need which can look like many different things so again just like everyone when we're looking at that equity approach we all need something different um making sure that we are prioritized having um counselors in the schools psychologists those culturally responsive partners and really just sort of easing back into things and knowing that no one has expectations for what people's experience has been like in the last year and a half and i think a lot of the trauma comes into feeling like they're going to get placed right back in sort of where they
045should be and again i think that should word is can be really sort of anxiety producing so i think coming with all of our students and our staff knowing we are going to meet every student where they're at we don't know what everyone's been doing for the last 14 15 16 months and really being able to talk with students know where they're at um know them as people and then we can kind of make those formative assessments as to what will best help kind of suit their needs and make their transition a little bit easier going back into in-person learning great thank you so same question for you marvin i would say um first of all i'm so impressed with the just the way in which this whole thing is going and with how serious
046all of you are taking this and i've i've said this everywhere i've gone the students in the um tiger tales and school district are the most impressive students i've ever encountered and i'm not just saying that because my sons are in the school district um but i you know what what a great question i talked before about the the need for really increased uh mental and mental health and social emotional supports for students who are coming back who may need it and the opportunity for um assistance for kids who may have maybe experiencing learning gaps my understanding through attending some recent board meetings is that the plans are underway to make that possible so i'm really pleased to hear that but but so those would be my two areas of concern i do think that
047there's also going to have to be some attention paid on the part of staff for for students who are going to have to need some support with making the adjustment back to school after being away for so long um tensions may be high for some there may be um you know disagreements between students that might be a little bit more than usual because people aren't have to get readjusted to being back together so i think that we're going to have to be really ready to support all of our students socially and emotionally in whatever way is necessary to to help people reacclimate back to school great thank you and uh david you might no i'm sorry yes david same question thank you so much for that um and thank you for the question natalia i
048want to let you know that as an educator i know how important it is to bring you guys back to school in a safe manner and i can tell you that all of the educators at ctsd all care about their students and they're going to receive you with open arms they're going to care for you they're going to value the relationships that they have missed over the you know the past pandemic and they're gonna make sure that you guys are thriving both uh academically as well as emotionally and so i know that you guys are in the best hands uh in terms of the achievement gap you know everybody is behind right now and everybody is going to come back into the classroom and we're all going to do as educators we're all going to
049do our best to catch you up to grade level a lot of a lot of our students have thrived in this environment in the in the distance learning they haven't had to go and deal with things that are normally done in school that they um you know they don't they don't have to deal with it during distance learning and so they thrive so we got to find a way to make sure that we honor that and we um and we you know just make sure that we continue that work right um and then in terms of the the trauma well you know we're we're all dealing with it and i think we're all going to come out better with our social emotional learning that is going and going on and we are going to learn
050how to become more resilient than what we already uh were so that is how we're going to beat this thing and and come out of it more resilient great thank you david um same question for amy miami sorry that did a weird message popped up on me can you hear me yep okay uh thank you for that question uh yes undoubtedly counselors um i think our teachers on special assignment will have a critical role to fill um with helping build those connections with students rebuild those connections um i know you know learning aids who are typically in the classroom for a couple hours pulling kids out doing testing working with them and it's been really really difficult this year and they've seen first hand or heard firsthand and in some cases by not seeing and
051hearing from these students because they've not been able to reach them i mean those are the real struggles that have happened this year and those are all things that we will have to address and what i'm pleased about is the early feedback from those who have returned to school in hybrid and it's been a very positive experience for them and the folks that have been engaged in that the middle school has knocked it out of the park at hazelbrook um you know teachers and and students alike right i mean i know there was a lot of concern about if kids could keep their masks on and keep their distancing and they really everybody has really worked together and i'm hoping that as you know everybody re-enter it's gonna be a delicate um re-entry um but
052i'm hopeful that as people get in there and we're back together and they have those school communities back together that it will it will be a positive experience and you know obviously we're going to have to to work with students to bring them back up to speed and i know that there's a lot of social emotional support that will be needed and even nurses if cova testing is still part of our reality in the fall there's just a lot to consider but absolutely have to provide those supports great thank you amy and octavio same question yes i wish i could add every one of us here have said um what we're all thinking we all want our kids back into school and having them back in the school part-time now has definitely helped transition our
053kids back um supporting our teachers can be crucially important especially even supporting our parents a lot of parents now who have lost their jobs because they've had to manage this interim schooling sketch that we have now we've been supporting them to give them time to be patient with our school district and our teachers and maybe allow them time to volunteer at the school district in the classes as they can that definitely will provide some relief some support definitely work on the social and mental support for our our kids i know that i've talked about summer school program it seems like a subtle way to try to make up some of the lost teaching time and get the kids back into school summer and then of course hopefully we can transition into more full-time support support
054support and patience i guess i can't say any more than what we've already said so thank you very much great thank you arcabio um zinnia back to you thank you dan um i again i'm so honored to introduce um emily fuantran who is our tualatin high school student board rep rep um emily what's your question yes events in the past year have reignited conversations about eurocentric exclu exclusionary curriculums that dismisses the experience of marginalized communities in social studies and english language arts classes similarly students have long talked about the exclusion of lgbtq plus content in health classes school board members get to approve curriculums if elected how will you ensure inclusive curriculums question and we will start with candidate marvin lynn please thank you um you know if i didn't know any better i would
055think that the students colluded with me to to ask those questions because there was a right in line with uh with sort of my line of thinking and you know when i talked about the um anti-racist lens right that that the district has already adopted and how we utilize that to really look closely at curriculum um we we are talking about building and creating opportunities for really um examining the exactly what emily said you know the extent to which curriculum tells the full story of history that is inclusive of of all the experiences of communities uh in oregon and across this country and we know that for the most part the curriculum across this country does not do that and so we have some corrective work to do in that regard and yes it must
056include understanding the experiences of lgbt plus students in the curriculum but also in the health curriculum i'm a big i'm a big fan of that i think that um there's a lot of misunderstanding right now around gender and gender identity and um and i think we could use um additional conversations in that area particularly as it relates to health and so um i'm very supportive of that area of work thank you and then now we'll go over to david hynus with the same question thank you so much for the question um basically we do have an eurocentric curriculum we don't know anything that happened um outside of europe and all of our curriculum we have different uh civilizations that invented um you know the like the mayans that invented the zero right i mean those
057are the kind of things that we need to decolonize our curriculum to go back to things that are two curriculum that is inclusive as well as the lgbtq representation in the in our health curriculum but the the problem here lies with yes the board approves the curriculum however parents are against some parents are against having this and having critical race theory taught in schools and until we can all get on board we're always going to be fighting uh against each other in terms of how do we best represent and acknowledge that we have systemic racist practices that are keeping our students unsafe and unseen in our in our schools and how do we um mitigate that how do we get rid of that and how do we come together so that we can provide the
058best education because the education that we need to give you is to allow you to think critically and allow you to think for yourselves and make up your own um your you know your own opinion but we have to give you all the information that is out there so that you're able to form your own opinion not just give you a um might i say whitewash curriculum that will um you know allow you to keep perpetuating the systemic racist practices that are in our system [Music] thank you david and now amy hi yeah what i found just in my own personal life is the more i get out and engage with people who are different from me the more i learn right i learn more about myself i learn more about my community i learn
059more about other people who haven't lived my experience so to that end you know the more we can expose and elevate and shine a light on different voices and different stories right the dominant culture tends to get they have the loudest megaphone and gets to tell the loudest stories right so it's always as we evolve and as history passes and as time goes on you know we're uncovering these stories that haven't been told that need to be told and i do believe that there needs to be a balance and we need to build more of that in right and i i feel that uh the best approach in this so for parents who maybe are wary of this and i've had inquiries you know my best approach is just to keep listening and asking questions
060and what i have found in my experience when people are pushing back it's coming from a place of fear and so the best way to combat fear with anything is just to maintain an open dialogue and talk about it and make sure we're very clear about what we're talking about and what we're not talking about because as we've all learned in the last year there's a lot of information out there and it's not even necessarily all exactly what we're proposing so i would just advocate having open and honest dialogue being very transparent and working to again elevate and tell different stories and make make our curriculum and our community be more reflective of who our students are and who our community is next candidate is octavio and history is one of my favorite subjects and
061i i do look forward to seeing some corrections in some of our past of this country because there's been diverse people with diverse backgrounds who've who've made this country who we are and so i'm so looking forward to seeing those curriculum examples that we want to look for to implement and we don't know what those are yet there's a lot of misunderstandings of what those things are going to look like but i'm definitely open and willing to understand to change some of these curriculums when it comes to the sexual education i don't know yet i am a supporter of the lgbt community and everything about them but i do want to give parent choice when it comes to this um there's a lot of parents and there's a lot of different children who are at
062different levels and i'm still yet to see the curriculum myself um i want to look at it i want to i want parents to look at it openly so that they can decide whether they want their children and then what age they're at um to be taught by the school district when it comes to special education some children need it much in others and so i am definitely open but i'm open to seeing the curriculum that has yet to be presented and i'm looking forward to that process thank you davio and our last candidate on this question tristan well i love this question and i have experience in curriculum writing so this this is a fun one for me to answer so i think frankly we probably could do an overhaul of a good portion
063of our k-12 curriculum and i would even be so bold as to consider looking at our pre-k um curriculum as well we know that we have um ethnic studies coming down the pike in the next few years um that will be introduced and if i had my way and if i could really make this the big priority i would say that ethnic studies were simply part and parcel of every course offered that is just a strand of mathematics science it's just interwoven in every single um discipline that kids are learning from the very beginning of school i think then um in addition to that baseline education that offers those multiple perspectives and voices um then we can offer additional required strands of courses so you can have black studies indigenous native studies aapi studies latinx
064studies um and then really dive deeper into those so we really have this wonderfully rich and broad understanding of the people that are represented throughout the world and certainly in our own community um i think that when we look at that and how we do that there's several ways and we know that we can adopt new curriculum we can add on to what there is i think we would take a look at what we have now we find staff members of color we find the teachers that are teaching this we find culturally responsive community stakeholders we talk to students we really gather around all of those voices and figure out what needs to be fixed in terms of the health part frankly i think that the i a lgbtqia 2 s plus group does not
065need to live just in our health curriculum that is an identity of people throughout history and so that really can be incorporated in all of those studies as well and it doesn't have to be a standalone um health topic those are people and so we can really weave that in as well and i think it is critical as are the other topics um to our our health education curriculum that is time thank you thank you well we have actually gotten through all of the questions that we had prepared and so with that with the time that we have left what i'd like to do is give each one of you candidates the opportunity uh for another two minutes just basically say anything that you want and uh and give us some of your final thoughts
066um before the election here in this forum so with that we will go ahead and start with you david gracias i am running against two very strong female candidates and i appreciate them very much um i appreciate that i can bring to the table my lived experiences i can bring to bring with me my experience in education i can bring with me uh my experience as a community member my experience in business and so all of that goes hand in hand with um making sure that i am the best board member that i can be for tiger taulton and also knowing knowing the community and being part of the community i used to be a teacher in tiger taunton and so um a lot of the i still know a lot of the parents in
067the district i still know a lot of the parents through my kids and so i want to be doing this for not only for my kids but for the marginalized students that i want to represent as well as for all students because as an educator that is you know that is what i believe in is i believe in students and that's what i want to do um [Music] uh okay well thank you thank you um and now uh we'll give the floor to amy zuckerman thank you thank you uh what i bring is i think a sense of balance right we i feel that a board should represent all constituents all families in our district i have a history of listening and engaging and hearing stories and making sure that decisions that we make this
068is whether it's business or personal are not dissonant with what we're actually trying to achieve right so having a list of priorities and and saying the buzzwords and talking about the topics is one thing but unless we're actually implementing them or we understand what that looks like and just to make sure that we're not we don't have blind spots right so if you have a board that's all aligned in one area you don't know that you're not missing some important perspective that hasn't been brought up yet and that's part of representing even people that you disagree with and i think that that is a strength of mine and it's what you know several people who urged me to run and you know just having my father was a was the superintendent of the school board
069at centennial district when i was in elementary and middle school so you know i guess it's just in my blood and serving and being part of the school community is something that's very important to me and this is just the next best way i know to get involved and help advance our students and make this a great keep this being a great district thank you great thank you amy okay uh your two minutes octavio thank you i think that there are moments in time when history is going to be made and this i think this is that moment our district has become very diverse and it's time to have a board with a diverse representation we need dads on the board we need moms on the boards we need professionals not just educators um to
070be on the sport we need to represent and mirror our students and this is that time where representation matters we have a lot of educators on school board and then we have educators who are wanting to be on the scooper which is fantastic there's a place for all of us but i do feel that we need to have a greater diversity especially dads and right now we don't have any dads on the boards and uh hopefully we we get more parents in there more professionals and dads and that'll hopefully help our school district with with better decisions thank you great thank you uh tristan your final thoughts thank you and i just want to thank our student leaders again the ones that are here tonight and the rest from the tiger tulton student union for
071really just doing so much of the work especially in the last couple of years um it's made huge huge change happen and that's really exciting um i think that um as a you know an educator yes i also have a strong history in this district um wearing many different hats and that has allowed me to build a lot of community relationships um that i've been able to form over the years and so i think that will really help when we're looking at um stakeholders for different projects figuring out who we need to talk to um what action to take on some of those action items that we would use for our strategic plan um i also think that having female voices on the board is important for our students that identify as female when we're
072looking at things like um free period products and bathrooms and sexual assault reporting it's critical to have that lived experience as well um i also think that moving um those anti-racist and hate speech policies into action and those actions that are felt and heard and seen by students every day it's great that they're there and it's huge steps that they're there and now i want to make sure our students feel those and we know that there are students that like david touched on um really thrived in our distance learning because they weren't having to deal with some of the issues that made them feel unsafe at school and so looking at those and making sure that we address those those concerns as well especially through the lens of the anti-racist and hate speech policies thank
073you again great thanks tristan and your parting thoughts marvin yes uh first i want to thank all of you for this engaging session but also want to thank the members of the of the current board as well as staff and others and student leaders who have been so supportive of me um i think i'm the only candidate who has the distinction of running uh unopposed and so um i look forward to hopefully serving on the board in july and i just i look forward to the collaboration i look forward to being involved with other parents with other educators with other folks who really care about what happens to kids in schools who care about the overall direction of the school and and doing what we can to make a difference i really believe that community
074leadership is important and so i i just look forward to the opportunity to support this school district at a high level and again i'm eternally grateful for all the generosity and kindness that everybody has shown me so far thank you great thank you and with that our forum comes to a close so many thanks to all the school board candidates for sharing with us this evening and thank you for your service and as we like to say around the theater break a leg for this uh this upcoming election thanks to everybody who joined us tonight and for your support of our schools and i look forward to the day when i can see you all in person in my lobby so with that margie bring us home yes can't wait to see your theater productions
075on behalf of the foundation for tiger tualton schools thank you to the candidates for stepping up for education it's a big investment and we appreciate it and thanks to our very amazing students for participating in this important forum and you're very well thought out questions and finally thanks to the tiger tualton community for your ongoing support of our students and our schools and if you've already sent in your ballot thank you if you haven't there's still time please vote this is a very important election and we wish everyone a wonderful rest of your evening