001testing testing all right i think it's just about time to get this started uh good evening everyone my name is vincent hessbrook and i will be the monitor the moderator for tonight's forum i'd like to start by thanking you all for taking interest in what goes on in the school and for coming here we're looking we're really looking forward to the answers you guys give i'd like to now introduce the panelists which will be asking the questions about in the back there we have jp leatherberry and taylor cuts uh over here we've got richard glidden kcu kyrie martin and harsh patel it is important to remember that everyone candidates and audience of this form is to provide the candidates with an opportunity to introduce themselves and show where they stand on important issues at hohs
002we will be following our outline as strictly as possible we have introductions prepare questions student questions audience questions and closing remarks please act professional wait until it's your time to speak and do not speak of other or do not speak of other candidates and focus on answering the questions uh this funny looking kid next to me is my good friend nash he will be uh in charge of organizing the time he will hold up these signs to indicate how much time you have left to answer a question uh once your time is up i beg you all to please stop your answer i really don't have me to yell at any of you all so i really don't want to wind up like chris wallace this evening all right we will start off with each
003cat candidate's opening statement which will be one minute each we are starting with mr westfall and the next candidate will be sitting on that candidate's left which in this case will be mrs berry so mr westfall whenever you're ready thank you my name is craig westfall and i'm the current hohs vice president and former clerk clerk i've had i've held this seat since october of when i was appointed and then reelected in april of 2019. i'm asking for your support to be elected to be re-elected to this position that i'm fully dedicated to my wife tracy and i have lived in hartford since for 19 years i have sons that are going to this school graduated and will be going to this school i'm fully dedicated to this this school i've spent a lot of
004time within it working as a school board member but also as a parent i've had lots of experience with working here and i want to let everybody know that i'm completely dedicated to this position and that i hope everyone will vote for me and that i'm re-elected thank you all right thank you very much mrs barry you are up next hello my name is heather berry as a parent i've collectively spent 39 years in this high school advocating for my three children during their educational journey my passion for education sets me apart from the other candidates i believe every student can be a success story students and their educational experience should be our number one priority ensuring every student is empowered to succeed it is in the best interest of our community to ensure we
005have successful graduates ready to succeed in any endeavor they set out to achieve i hope that you will vote for me on february 15th all right thank you mr jacket you are next hi my name is nolan jacket and i am a huhs graduate in the class of 2021 and as a student there i saw some issues at this school that i thought that i would be in the best possible position to change the first one being that in the classroom today across public schools across the whole country you're seeing them teach kids to memorize and that has got to be the biggest failure that the public school system can do right now because it disengages students it makes them not want to go to school and overall it just makes everyone's education so much
006more worse and the second thing is that as a student i saw so many parents who did not feel represented in this district and as a student i did not feel represented it is the number one job of a school board member to represent the students parents and taxpayers of the district and that is what i want to do and i am so excited for this because i really want to represent other people and i want to bring that back where i want to you know make it so you don't have to memorize it thank you mr jacket and next up we have uh mr loberger yes thank you hello my name is jonathan lobert first off i'd like to thank the students for organizing this candidate forum my wife and i moved to this
007community 17 years ago and we have twin boys that will be freshmen at huhs this fall i am a mechanical design engineer for a local hartford company for the past seven years for the past two years i have served on the board of the hartford area chamber of commerce last year being the its vice president i believe hoa hohs is an amazing school and i feel given the past couple of years the administration has done a pretty good darn good job that said i do have ideas that i believe can help both our kids and our community i'm running for school board as a parent as a taxpayer and as a person that knows what our local businesses are looking for thank you all right thank you mr wilbert uh mrs pride more you are
008next hi i'm tina pridemore i am semi-retired and currently work part-time in the community i moved here a few years ago about about seven years ago and i love this community i'm actively involved with the hartford lions american legions promised land church and i volunteer a lot i am currently serving on the huh school board i believe all health choices for students should be made by the parents and not the school board and its administration i am the only member to vote against the 12 million dollar referendum for the athletic field i believe we must first worked on improving our academic achievements and it's not fair to the district in taxpayers and retirees during this highly inflationary period to pay more taxes before any consideration is given to raising academic achievements thank you thank you
009mr pridemore and finally mr um all right thank you mr pride martin uh before we jump into the general questions i'd like to tell the audience if you haven't already you can submit your questions into the little box we have back there in the corner and uh to the people the millions of people watching at home you can submit your questions to candidate.forum huhs.org we ask anybody writing questions to just use basic common sense all right now let's get into the general questions uh there are five general questions in this part of the forum candidates were given the questions in advance the candidate sitting on your left will always be the next person to speak many students or sorry many people including our students don't know the duties and responsibilities of a school board why
010should they know more about you and the role starting with mr westfall okay this this is a very important role that requires dedication outside a regular school board meeting is this person involved in the community and school activities these all make board member an effective one being involved being dedicated as i stated earlier i'm an involved parent i get to know the staff and administrators because of my son's involvement at the school i'm at the forefront of information from the school being a parent and then also a board member i've had at least one son in this school for the last seven years and willed for the next four which will continue to give me that information and make me valuable this gives me a better understanding of the impact of the policies we approve
011for the district the board is the one that determines the policies thank you mr westfall impact your child's education uh mrs barry you are next thank you did you know the most important responsibility of a school board is to work with your community to ensure you are provided the best education possible decisions the school board makes should have a positive effect on your academic achievement knowing this i think you as well as anyone in this room would want to know more about the actions and outcomes of your school board i have played an active role in my students educational experience and i think that all of us on the school board are an important part of making sure there's a good education for every student that has graduated from hartford all right thank you next
012up is mr jacket is it working oh school boards do things like you know budgeting curriculum they they govern educational programs for schools so why they should know more about the role is because curriculum directly impacts students you should care about things that directly impact you and other everyone else in the district should care about it because it impacts their taxes with school spending so why they should know more about me is because you want to be represented you want to know who your school board members are because you want to know you know what they what their ideas on policies are and just get to know who they are and why you should get to know me more is because as a recent student here i know what actually goes on inside this school
013on a daily basis and what the life is like of a regular student more than anyone else on this stage and i feel like i'm in the best position to improve this school for students and more represent parents on the school board thank you mr jacket next is mr loberg thank you the role of a school board is to set policies and procedures of the school as an individual school board member i will be voting on those policies and procedures personal beliefs will influence these policies and procedures as they evolve my approach will always start with what's best for the students regardless of what's easiest or the current political noise thank you very much next is mrs pridemar hi the role of the school board is to work with their district and community to improve
014the students academic achievements and to be good stewards of the taxpayers dollars and we must be wise with this and again um academics we need our basic skills thank you very much and finally mr pridemore well this time i've turned my microphone on the most important role of the school board is to hire an administrator and we have an administrator here that's in his first uh experience with uh superintendent and so far like what i see thank you and realize also that everything from curriculum to policy goes through the school board as well unless we give up that right to administration or other entities within the school system we are in the final and responsible we are the elected officials here so we are responsible to the voters as well as the taxpayers of this
015community so saying that uh i'm done all right thank you okay now we will be moving to our second general question this time starting with mrs barry and ending with mr westfall how would you describe your budget priorities my budget priorities are quite simple based on common sense a school only has a limited amount of money to spend budgeting is one of the most challenging responsibilities of a school board member requiring the ability to prioritize the needs of the students staff and community to prioritize expenditures you must first seek to understand the budget before you can prioritize for the greater good thank you very much mr jacket my parents raised me to be fiscally responsible and that's what everyone should do including a school district and in recent years they have been especially with you
016know even the hall we're in right now they've been pretty responsible with their spending and that's what i want to keep doing right now is a very poor time to raise taxes with the inflation that we're seeing right now and my budgeting priorities would be fiscal responsibility and saving money that is the most important thing a school district can do for its community is to save them money thank you very much and uh mr loberg budget priorities should always be set and based on if they grow your investments the investment in this case is our kids our staff and our school facilities we need to make sure that we are providing a safe secure interesting environment for both our students and our staff thank you and uh this is bradbar my budget priorities would be
017to invest into effective educators so our children our students have the academic achievements they need to go on to their next career in life and finally mr pridemore my main budget priority would be facilities maintenance um it's very important that this building be kept up maintained and so far i think this building is in pretty good shape uh i'm also concerned about the amount of money set aside for raises the amount of money that's spent on athletics and technology advances technology advances so fast having been uh in electronics industry my whole career i know how fast uh technology changes by the time you read something in the textbook it's already out of date so you have to be very very aware of technology advances uh also the effect that it has on software and computer
018upgrades and things like that so those are my priorities thank you again we will now move to our third general question oh my gosh oh rookie mistake that's i'm just so excited i guess i'm very sorry sorry so a school needs to operate um within its means we need to control costs without sacrificing expanding our offerings and that's both to students and staff we we need to keep on the cutting edge of technology you know a good example is schoology well we we voted for schoology in january of 2020 before the pandemic before anybody knew what a pandemic was we had already issued purchase orders for that so that got us on the cutting edge of that that was money well spent as we obviously all know um we were able to make phases one
019and two of the res renovations in this in this building and that was within our budget these improvements that we made within the school were millions and millions of dollars this result this room in itself is a result of one of those improvements from the phases so we need to look at what we've done already and then how can we make it thank you mr westball once again i'm very sorry for uh skipping over you that the school does teach us to count to six that was just my mistake uh we will now move into our third general question this time talking about mr jacket and ending with mrs barry how do you plan to attract and retain good staff one of the biggest things you look for in employment is a really great work
020environment right so i think it's this is one of the things where it's really important to also represent teachers where it's you should work with your teachers to figure out what makes this the best environment to work in and because you know they're the ones working with it every day their opinion on that is probably the most important so working with them and also interviewing teachers to potentially work here to find out what makes them want to come to your school so it's all about working with other people to make it the best possible place for them to be is probably the most important thing when you're looking uh to attract and retain a great staff thank you mr jacket mr loberg thank you the pandemic has taught us just how critical teachers are to
021our society and just being competitive in today's labor market isn't going to cut it especially with high demand teachers we need to ensure our teachers and staff have the kind of environment where they can fulfill the very reason why they got into education in the first place and that is to inspire the next generation the board does this first by starting from from a place of respect we the public can trust the teachers and our and the staff with our most valuable possessions on this planet our kids and we do this every year for the time that they're in school the board needs to work towards ensuring that all of the staff has a safe secure fun and interesting environment to work in we do that along with being competitive the next generations of teachers
022and staff will want to work here but it all begins with respect thank you thank you mr lobert mrs bragmark i believe that we need to be um to retain good teachers we need to pay them comparable to other teachers in the surrounding area we're not paying them i noticed as much but we need to pay those who are effective not those who are not effective and so i believe in giving bonuses to those that are doing a good job with their students thank you mrs pride more mr pridemore thank you i want to attract the good staff you have to have a good evaluation system to identify good staff uh if the staff budget is a fixed amount raises should be determined by the best performance by the best performers market conditions also must
023be considered the best job performers should be given the highest raises the days of automatic raises just for showing up for work should end and that that goes for everybody you know teachers administrators counselors they all should be held to the same standards so thank you all right thank you mr pridemore mr westball so one of the things teachers want or need is appreciation and how can they do their job better and more effectively one of the things is the new black scheduling which offers teachers fewer classes which helps to get them which helps them to get to know the students better if they know the students better they can then teach them more effectively this creates a self-satisfaction for both the staff and the student we have what's called oriole time it gives students
024the time to meet with their teacher for extra help this is a time where there's no other classes scheduled so this would be similar to like a teacher's office hours so any student can go and see these teachers so then that gives the teacher better rapport and how to better or more effectively teach it a student which gives them self-satisfaction appreciation you know is the school board showing appreciation by attending things things that i've done okay thank you mr westball and uh mrs barry attracting and retaining good staff can be quite simple what sets us apart to have good staff are all the things that they're not taught in school things that make you best in your profession dedication enthusiasm compassion and accountability you learn quickly who the good teachers are everyone talks about them
025their classes are always full these are the teachers hartford needs to attract teachers committed to every student's success teachers who don't quit and are willing to go the extra mile everyone who wants to work at hartford that's how you attract a retained staff you create an atmosphere full of energy enthusiasm where the outcome is the successful student body that is dedicated and a staff that is dedicated to making that happen great thank you going on to our fourth question we'll be starting with mr lobart and ending with mr jacket were there any concerns you saw that made you want to run for school board candidate thank you we see a lot of negativity in the world lately and hartford isn't immune to it as a parent and a citizen that concerns me greatly i'm not
026interested in political motivations nor personal aspirations i am interested in building bridges and seeking outcomes where all of our kids get a shot at achieving and achieving their dreams we rise when we help each other that is what motivated me to run for each motivated me was the dpi report card um this is something that we need to change it's 59.2 percent by the way um and that wasn't the only report card made on it so i just think that if we really work together that we could change this uh dramatically and be one of the better districts instead of one of the worst districts in this um area so and also the other concern was that i just think we need to let the parents choose about masks and vaccines and anything that has
027to do with health issues that really concern me that that shouldn't be any more a school board decision or an administration decision but a parent's decision and i'm also concerned about the crt critical race theory being taught in our ap classes uh that needs to be looked into thank you mrs pridemore and mr pridemore thank you my concern my best most concerning thing is again the academic performance uh every school surrounding all the high schools surrounding hartford scored anywhere from 20 to 30 points higher on the dpi report card yes thank you i don't think it's always been that way uh when my kids went through here hartford was a division one school meaning that they had a much higher population than they do now uh where did those kids go i believe a lot
028of them went to surrounding school districts like slinger maybe even to ask them depending on germantown depending upon where they live so i am more than willing to sit down with the administrators the teachers uh whoever is concerned about where us has fallen thank you mr pridemar and uh mr westfall my my concern was to continue making changes to our school that will make hartford union high school a destination high school we've completed the phase one and the phase two renovations in this school which included renovating all ten science labs we created new learning spaces to get away from the grid classroom setup this initiate initiated better learning over the typical lecture memorizing that we're accustomed to this started with this strategic plan which i helped develop in 2018 we need to continue to keep
029growing these new types of formats and that's through having good teachers and effective teachers i know that our report card didn't have the best number on it but also remember that was three years old and with covet we got that extra time we need to drill down on how we can improve our test scores with specific actions and specific goals thank you mr westfall mrs barry as i mentioned earlier i've spent 39 years collectively with three kids in the school system and it breaks my heart as someone who has a passion for education to see kids not enjoy going to school if they don't enjoy going to school they certainly aren't going to enjoy going to work and as a member of this community we don't need anybody that doesn't enjoy going to work and
030supporting this community for the betterment all in all i want students to be inspired to learn and if i can make a difference in helping students to be inspired to learn by sitting on the school board where i can make a difference i'm willing to make this commitment thank you mrs barry mr jacket yeah along with that the the academics and the student experience was a big part of why i ran and i believe that my perspective as a recent student who actually knows what it's like going through these classes and just sitting in a class where it just feels like the clock is ten times slower because all you're doing is being lectured and lectured has not changed in all four years that i was at huhs and granted while tekken classes got me
031out of that a lot it still happens to way too many people and that in my perspective as a student i really feel can be the best positive change for academics at this school and another big thing that caused me to run for this was a representation as i mentioned earlier there were so many parents and students that did not feel represented and i want to represent taxpayers students parents every single person in this district i want to represent you and i want to hear other opinions on every any single issue that this board would face thank you mr jacket now on to our final general question we'll be starting with mrs pride moore and ending with mr lover if you were elected what would you do that would allow students to maximize their educational
032opportunities well first of all i strongly encourage students and their parents to speak with guidance and counselor and the principal to help and guide them to the many opportunities offered through hartford high and after graduation i just there's so many opportunities but a lot of times we as um students don't realize that and are not involved as as much as other students but need a little more guidance thank you mrs pride more mr pride more thank you maximizing education uh to me uh goes back to what's what is the purpose of a high school education uh how much do you know about your future before or by the time you leave this school uh are you going on to college are you going on a tech school are you entering the job market you should
033be prepared to do any one of those three and inside every student graduating has a clear picture of what job opportunities would be best suited for them which means we need evaluation for students before they graduate my personal story is that when i went out of high school in high school i had no idea where i wanted to be so i joined the military and that gave me a lot of discipline uh in my life and that's thank you mr pridemore uh mr westfall thank you mr westfall mrs barry i believe that after teachers the guidance counselors are an important asset to a student's successful academic journey a guidance counselor can maximize a student's educational experience by partnering with the students on their first day of school through graduation and beyond ensuring the student is
034academically challenged and rewarded for the post high school journey they choose a school's guidance office should have an open door policy for any hartford graduate regardless of the year you graduate our lifelong journey is about learning growing and developing to the best person we can be sometimes without guidance we can get in a rut a guidance counselor is a bridge between a student's academic success and their professional success beyond high school whatever that may be thank you mrs barry mr jacket to maximize educational opportunities this school does a really good job at opening a lot of doors for a lot of people to go into so many different things but what's not happening is student engagement where students get up in the morning and they dread going to school because they just do not want
035to be there because they're disengaged and right now that's the biggest thing that needs to change right now is the student engagement because we do have so many great opportunities for students to go do great things but so many of them don't take advantage of it enough because they're just simply not engaged right now and right now the environment in the classroom of just sitting through lectures and lectures is just simply not cutting it it's not working and that's the biggest thing that needs to change and as a recent student i feel like i can work with students and parents so much better than anyone else to create a much better environment for everyone to grow in thank you mr jacket and finally mr laubert thank you huhs is an amazing place i am blown
036away with all the opportunities that are offered and i'm excited for my boys to experience it i want to provide the students with a link between their education in the workplace for instance a student that would expect a student would expect to use a certain amount of math when they're learning to become a machinist though throughout the jobs experience they'll learn that those english lessons are important too you have to be able to communicate to be successful in the world i will push for those real world things to happen uh thank you candidates and panelists you'll now be moving on to the next section of the forum bill this will be the student questions we got a bunch of questions and narrowed it down to the five that we thought were the most important like
037last round each candidate will get one minute to answer until moving on to the next again we'll start with mr westfall and end with mr pridemore what are your opinions on covid protocols and at what point would it be good to add more or less restrictions i think that we need to analyze each opportunity in each scenario and make sure we're making the best decision to keep the school open and that's a multitude of things and in how we've evolved in the last you know couple years i think everybody knows how they can mitigate this pandemic thank you mr respond mrs barry we need to do our homework research and follow the true science less restrictions better decisions and honesty and truth supporting the decisions that we make thank you mrs barry mr jacket so
038as a student here last year to be completely just blatantly uh honest with you even while they had a mandate here kids didn't wear their mask rights they took them off at any single opportunity they could and it made wearing masks basically completely pointless because of how many people misused them because they just simply hated the mandates and mandates really also haven't worked that well and i want to right now represent what parents and students want because as a student i could clearly see that many students didn't want mandates they were against them and they thought it was a bad idea and i see so many parents today who also still remain that they do not want mandates and they do not want to mandate things like mass and you can do that while keeping
039the school open too so right now uh mandates don't work as a student there like they simply you know just don't wear mask right and simple things like that and i want to be a representative of this community and what their beliefs are right now that is no mandates thank you mr jacket mr lobert i think we have to um go back to what is our goal our goal is to keep this building operating and keep kids in the class that's that's our goal so before we take off any options i think we need to keep everything on the table listen to the listen to the best uh health experts out there when we need to thankfully right now things are starting to turn and so hopefully this is a moot point but we should
040always keep our goal in mind and our goal is to keep kids into the school and keep them in the classes thank you mr loberg mrs pridemore um the mask mandate i i'm so against i'm i'm i'm surprised that we went as long as we did with the mass mandate with our school but anyways i just it's ineffective they have no science it proves it it protects anyone and so i think we we've learned the hard way by it took us a while but you have to really you have to do the research and listen to true scientists on these uh masked menus i'll never support it again i think it hinders uh kids from learning right thank you and finally mr pridemore thank the you protocol has been used in the past is dead
041as far as i'm concerned we had a an unwritten rule of three percent of either staff or students that were cold and positive that would set off an alarm that would cause the school board to convene in session and determine our course of action masks are harmful even the cdc admits that they have not been effective in preventing the spread of colvin regardless of which type it is definitely against vaccine mandates what is not told you in the press is the fact that many people suffer side effects especially young people as yourself you don't know what the long-term effects of these vaccines are going to be thank you candidates moving on to our second panelist question mrs barry will be starting how do you plan to stay in touch with students parents and the community
042when making decisions that affect them that's easy i know a lot of people i talk i get feedback and i am open-minded i look for feedback i look for input i don't make decisions in a silo i know students parents and in the community i volunteer and i think it's really important to get different perspectives from all different avenues different ways that people think and i don't know just you got to be active you got to be getting feedback before you can make effective decisions thank you mrs barry mr jacket so just eight months ago i was on that football field over there walking across the stage graduating i know a lot of kids that still go to this school so staying in touch with them for me is actually really easy because i still
043talk to a lot of them and over the course of just the last month and a half or two months of my campaign so far i've actually met a lot of parents too who have also been really great to talk to so i've built a lot of connections with parents and i still retain a lot of connections with students which will allow me to stay in touch with them really really great and so i really do believe i'm in the best position to position to stay in touch with students and to stay in touch with parents just because of how many people i still know in this school because of how recently i've graduated which is really a great strength to me thank you mr jacket uh mr lobert um well i have two students
044or will be two students right out there in the crowd right now also uh you have to be in the community you have to be present and at the various events and as part of the chamber of commerce i attend a lot of events so i get to talk to a lot of people business leaders people that are just employed at the different businesses and uh so you you gather your information that way um also obviously you get email and whatnot but i would say largely it's just got to be in the community thank you mr loeber mr pridemore hi i'm involved with the community and community in many different ways i work here i volunteer here i talk with parents i'm on social media and try to connect with people through that way and
045um so and i i'm a people person so you're not gonna hide me in any in any house or room whatever you want to say thank you since pride more mr pride more thank you the way i plan on communicating is participating in uh pto meetings um things like that the sporting events and remember one thing though that communication goal goes both ways we as elected members of the school board want to hear your complaints if you have a problem at school whether it's somebody stalking you or somebody doing something that shouldn't they shouldn't be doing you can anonymously call your student school board member and file a complaint with them and let them take care of it it's also good to copy the administrator honestly that he knows what's going on in his own
046school in case he hasn't found out yet so that's very important as one teacher thank you mr pridemore uh mr westfall so first off i'm a parent so that automatically makes me engaged with staff um whether they like it or not but through teachers conferences and having a past student a current student and a future student i've interacted with a lot of staff but also as a school board member you know doing things like the day of service the pancake welcome breakfast that we did and multiple lunches that we do to show appreciation to the staff within the building the other thing is my involvement within the community i'm very involved in boy scouts i'm one of the leaders for our troop and at st hillian's i'm an active member of the st killian church
047i'm also a trustee on the jack russell memorial library board i'm very involved in reading reading is a very passionate thing of mine also i'm on the monarch library board system which overrules all the libraries in the four counties thank you mr westfall continuing on with our third panelist question mr jacket will start how will you utilize the new outdoor facilities to benefit not only the students but also the community second world question how will you utilize the new outdoor facilities to benefit not only the students but also the community the new one that's the new outdoor facility well that's that's uh assuming if it gets passed uh i mean if it gets passed then you allow the athletic clubs or fiat classes to just operate independently i suppose you know like the football team
048or soccer team they all do a pretty good job of maintaining themselves i believe i'm not quite you know up to date on like the fun again kind of stuff in the way that they're run you know by coaches and things but uh you know giving them new feels will obviously be really nice for those clubs and it'll really you know give them a lot more opportunities to have more up-to-date fields like you see around the county and other places so i mean assuming that if it does pass it just gives athletic clubs and fire classes a lot better of an opportunity to you know do a lot more so thank mr jacket mr lober well assuming it passes and and i do support it um as just a regular tax payer and i support
049it but assuming it passes uh i think kind of goes back to um for a community that the slogan always was at hartford high school it was we are hartford we are hartford with an outdated athletic facility and tennis courts that have severe cracks in them so i think new facilities are gonna show a little more pride in our community right in our school and i think the uh the option of having it open to the community to use for walks or using tennis courts or uh track or some of some of the soccer clubs i think that's a fantastic uh way to to show pride in our area and um also utilize it further thank you thank you mr lobert this is pragmar well if it's if it passes i'm assuming that we're going
050to um have events there and do special events or have you know other because i'm not involved with too much of the sports um tennis is about the only thing i know about a pickleball but i'm assuming we're gonna have other people use that property and i don't know if we're gonna rent it or lease it or whatever to make some money off of this towards this or anything so i don't know like too much about it just know it's expensive oh all right thank you mrs pragma mr pridemore i'm gonna be a little pessimistic most of the people i talk to the taxpayers especially are not in favor of spending uh 12 million dollars in a referendum where our academics need more attention and uh if i'm wrong i'm wrong but um obviously uh
051if you offer to the community uh use of the facilities and i i can't imagine what uh what the general public is going to do on a football field or a soccer field but certainly a tennis courts would be a benefit to the public so in that regard i would i would be optimistic that would be good use as long as the people paying for it do not have to not only pay a tax to use it but pay a user fee or something like that unless the school is trying to make it thank you mr pride so i think this would have a significant benefit to the community we would do things similar to what they're doing to the for the grade school kids and middle school kids for strength and speed with the
052weight room that we completed in our phase one of the building renovation we would do things like use soccer tournaments we can have up to three different fields as we've explained in multiple school board meetings the benefits of this we'd be able to do track events track tournaments we'd be able to hold sectionals regionals at this facility these facilities that we were going to improve on we'd have baseball softball tournaments all of these things that we're doing affect the community and these are going to benefit local businesses because you're going to bring people from out of town into hartford and what are they going to do they're going to go eat they're going to go eat dinner they're going to go they're going to go out to restaurants they're going to grab something from the
053grocery store or the coffee place whatever they want to do those are all going to be benefits of plastic space thank you mr westfall and finally mrs barry i think more than ever right now we need community so for the second part of the question benefiting the community getting together posting music events fundraisers coming together whatever it might be fill in the blanks leaks for adults to get outside and do things with the facilities as far as the students hosting extracurricular events i see so much of the particular sport where you become part of it but there's not that other angle of utilizing it for extracurricular and hosting tournaments yes i agree bringing more activity and betterment of our community to support businesses all right thank you mrs barry moving on to our fourth panelist
054question mr goldberg will go first features of hhs set apart from other schools can you repeat that again what features of hhs set it apart from other schools ah um well we have we've had a tradition of a lot of kids with a lot of pride in their school again we are hard for it the other thing that we have is we have a fantastic offering it's crazy that you can go and get your cena you can go and get your emt you can go and get some basic machining welding uh accounting this is fantastic this is this is something that i never dreamed that high schools could have and so i think that that we offer those things and then we have a great staff that is the instructors for those classes is fantastic
055i think that's what really sets us apart thank you mr lowbert mrs prideboard yeah i love all the opportunities they have here at the school here i think it's wonderful um the cna i mean i saw that in class and i just think that's you know great that that the students are able to do all these different things and and to see what they would like to do in the future if they really like it you know so they can go to something else then maybe you want to go to college then or maybe you want to go to tech school or welding or whatever anyways thanks all right thank you mrs bradmore mr pridemore thank you um hartford high school does offer a lot of opportunities in many different fields of endeavor i was
056here when they added the new shop area and uh the local industries uh really took advantage of that a lot of projects were created here at the high school that actually went on sale and were sold by by those classes so college prep courses also would be a good thing to have that i'm not sure what we offer at the current time but anything that will allow students to advance here at the high school in preparation for college the automotives uh here are important too there's a drastic shortage of automotive technicians in the world today so all these thank you mr pridemore uh mr westfall um oh thank you mr westfall this is barry i think one of the greatest features of hartford high school as i compare it to my educational experience in my
057high school is we can come from so many different backgrounds and still succeed in our high school education the features are numer numerous the opportunities are numerous i think we've got a great shopping grounds and great options i just think the only thing that makes that feature not as good as it can be is direction and guidance to help the students get on the right path that's going to make them successful thank you mrs barry and finally mr jacket yeah so probably the biggest thing that does set the school apart is they're really great tech ed lab they're tech at hallway they have so many great classes down there and they have so many other you know different pathways that students can go down a lot of great opportunities at this school and they really
058do and i said that earlier tonight that the school opens so many doors for students that they can go down for their future uh but again it's all about the engagement you gotta get students engaged so they can fully maximize those opportunities and really do something that's great for them and for their community thank you starting out our fifth and final panel question will be mrs pridemore even though nonpartisan school boards have become a political hot seat over the last year how will you remain neutral and fair to represent all students and not to favor one side well um first of all my biggest concern is academics and um you can't go to the left or right with that it's just a b c or d or f or i don't even know how they
059grade anymore but so that's the biggest thing that i would uh promote is just that we would really improve on the academics so it's not a political thing academics so thank you mrs pride more mr pratt more thank you uh being on a school board really is is a nonpartisan i mean it's that's why we don't register as republican democrats libertarian or other so it's really all about the kids uh we are here to educate kids to get give them the best opportunity once they leave this high school uh partisan pollocks that politics may should not enter into any decision making being a conservative person i am very concerned about how much money we spend and how much respect we have for taxpayers and so but that all that partisanship was out the window once
060you get sworn in as a school board member thank you mr pridemore mr westfall so i think one of the ways to do that is to evaluate the information or feedback that you receive from parents you know the district itself our constituents and and my own research in itself to how to make the best decision and not be influenced by you know a certain party or a certain outside lobbyist that doesn't even live in our community i mean why why are they influencing the decisions that are made on this school board and they should not be that this is our school and we should dictate the policies within it and not let outside influences whether that be a specific political party or a lobbyist group of some kind and how can we make the best
061decision for these kids and as a parent that's my number one priority thank you mr westfall mrs barry regardless of your political affiliation one plus one will always equal two no matter what it doesn't matter what side you're on doesn't matter the color of your skin it doesn't matter your background or where you came from this is america we all need to make sure these kids are educated well so that they can be successful americans our country is going downhill because we don't have well-educated kids being successful in our communities one plus one equals two regardless of your political affiliation thank you mrs barry mr jacket i said it earlier and i'll say it again because it's that important is that the job of a school board member is to represent its community that doesn't
062matter if you're on the left the right center up down forwards backwards whatever you listen to everyone's opinion uh so anyways uh but yeah you represent the community you don't favor one side and you get everyone's opinions anyone's opinions matter and academics itself is not a political issue academics is academics not political you're there for every single student because you want to make every single student's experience better you want to make every single teacher's experience better every single parent's experience better no matter what political ideology they are this we want to improve every single person's experience in this district and that's what being a representative on a school board is about is representing every single person thank you mr jacket friendly mr lover oh well that's a tough one because we are we do live
063in a very partisan world now and how do we sort through it how do you discern from one opinion versus another uh you're going to get as a school board member i'm assuming you're going to get various opinions from all different spectrums it's the trick is to discern between it and say okay how is this opinion going towards our goal and our goal is to get our kids to be as fulfilled and as on a good enough path to uh to achieve their dreams so you have to balance it with that you have to discern between the noise and what's the real concern you thank you mr loberg uh that is it for the general questions the following questions are from tonight's audience each question is meant for all the candidates and once again you'll
064have one minute for your answer mr pridemore will answer first okay talk more about your formal education you have when addressing multi-million dollar budgets my formal education i have a bs degree in electrical engineering from marquette i graduated in 77 when the students were still warriors in terms of the budget uh i believe you need to get the best bang for your buck you have to look at both sides of any spending uh to weigh the pros and the cons there's there's no two ways to deal with issues like that so if there's a cost benefit ratio that's positive then you support it if you have a negative cost benefit ratio then you reject it simple as that thank you thank you mr pridemore so i have a bachelor's of science from uw platteville industrial
065technology management um it's given me a lot of experience in the world more on the sales side of it but in that regard you're always looking to what's your strategy to overcome cost issues which is i.e a budget also my past experience in scouting at least 10 of those years i was very active in creating a budget for our group and then following through on it being on the high school for the last three almost three and a half years i was active in all of the budgets that we've been through including being part of the student of the teacher negotiation uh committee i also um being on the jack russell memorial library board we have budgets that we have to answer to the city on those are the things my experiences that have given
066me the background with with working and overcoming some of the budget woes that we're seeing thank you mr westfall this is barry i have a ba in business management and an mba in strategic planning i have managed multiple million dollar budgets in my lifetime and i think the most important thing about managing budgets especially multi-million ones is accountability a lot of people stand there with their hands out i want this i want that and when you give it to them you need to go on the back end of it you know it's easy to give money out i can spend money real easily but on the back end i'm held accountable for that spending to turn into something to make it the execution of it successful so um that's my background okay thank you mrs
067barry mr jacket my educational background is i have a high school diploma from hartford union high school and in a couple months i will have a technical diploma in the electrical program at nwtc but i also want to include this in educational background because it's probably more important for budgeting is my parents back there and they probably taught me more about financial financial things budgeting saving money than any single person out there any other class out there they taught me more by far and they're the most important people in teaching me about finances and being fiscally responsible so really they are by far the most important people in that and i also did take a lot of financial classes at hhs which also did help but that's probably my that's my educational background with the
068finances so thank you mr jacket mr lobert um i have a bachelor's of science in mechanical engineering i've worked on projects that were fifty thousand dollars and i've worked on a project that was half a billion dollars um so quite camping and i tell you most i didn't learn um i learned from my parents uh similar to mr jacket uh there i grew up with uh eight kids and uh well grew up with one of eight kids in a house and my dad and my mom built a house without taking a mortgage out when i was in high school and my dad was just a blue collar worker my mom was a stay-at-home mom and so i learned how to manage a dollar there and it worked the same when i was doing or a
069half a billion dollar project thank you thank you mr loberg and finally mrs brian moore well i i went to school matc wct and i trained as a healthcare provider in cna and also i worked in the ministry and trained in two different ministries to work as a minister for hospice care and for cancer patient and psychiatric patients and i really never worked with the financial part of that so that's a little different when you're working with the dying but i i do respect the taxpayers and their voice and i also believe that um it's gonna say something anyways that the education isn't just as important and i have to listen to both sides of the spectrum there judging how to spend money thank you mrs pridemore and for our final question of the night
070we will start with mr westfall the voucher limitations end in 2025. school choice is popular across politics and all ages what are your plans or thoughts to help hartford thrive so the first thing is to make hartford a destination high school so that people don't want to leave or they want to stay here so we need to continue to do and expand the offerings that we have and hartford's a unique high school and the fact that less than 50 of the kids go to college so are we continuing to find and fill the needs of the other you know the other 50 or 40 51 are we we need to continue to do those things make make hartford a destination high school attract and maintain good teachers you know we've already launched the block scheduling
071this gives students of the ability to take a lot a wider variety of classes and you're not locking yourself into your first semester of school throughout what your rest of your life is going to be we have to continue to grow on those things that we offer right now thank you mr westfall this is barry i think it's pretty simple we just have to walk the talk so if we say we're great we've got to be great we've got to have great graduates if we say we have great things to offer and we plan to do x y and z when it comes time to bringing a student in here we're going to promote it we've got to give them and deliver x y and z there's too many times we talk the fluff and
072we don't deliver so when you deliver you become the school of choice and then everybody wants to come here and then there's no longer the opportunity to have school choice because we're maxed out that's where we want to be thank you mrs barry mr jacket i forget to turn that on every time to make uh huhs a great environment to attract students to come here or to make parents want to send their students here by making this school a great environment and the way that happens is collectively you know working with parents and students and teachers and taxpayers on what they want to see this school look like so and that's one of the biggest things i think has been overlooked at least as long as i've been a student there is what the students
073want and the students opinions and what they think would be best for this school i think that's been the most overlooked thing but to make this a great environment where people want to send their kids and uh where students want to go to high school to make it where they want to go to you got to look at everyone you really do and i know it's a really hard thing to do but you actually have to have more open-mindedness towards reaching out to students and not making them come to you or reaching out to parents and not making them come to you thank you mr jacket mr libert um well i think it in two parts uh first part is we we do what we can for our staffs for our staff our teachers and
074encourage them to inspire the next generation and then we really double down and develop the community connections program and where we're where students here in the high school can get real job shadow or internships or co-op experiences out in the companies that are in this area and when they go out there uh other people that got kids maybe in other schools are going to start to see that hey wait a second this kid goes to high school and he's also working here um you know maybe i want that for my kid and i think that's that's how we would bring people and back into hartford thank you thank you mr lilberg mr pridemore the number one thing i hear from a lot of people that live in this district and have their students going to
075other schools is because of the lack of academics here so i just believe we really need to work in that area and i know we can i wouldn't be here um so and i just believe that we work on that everything else will just fall into place thank you mrs pride more mr pridemore well the voucher program has forced public schools to be more competitive and we have to look at what other school districts are doing to see uh if we can raise the price to that level or surpass that level as to what they are doing in their schools what that competitive nature does is force us to be better uh teachers staff up and down the line if we're going to be a destination district then we have to be better than some
076of these voucher schools that are out there now which are typically smaller but they do fill a niche so someday the vouchers will be statewide and the all the caps of the employment or income will be removed and that let's thank you mr pridemar and uh finally tonight each candidate will have one minute to make his or her closing statement we will start with mr westfall thank you first off i wanted to thank everybody for coming and those are watching on youtube i've lived in this in the city of hartford since 2003 so almost 19 years my wife tracy and i have we bought our house here and we continue to live here we're actually neighbors of the high school i have three sons one that was a 19 graduate one that's a junior and
077one's an incoming freshman next year also taking a couple classes here now i'm a strategic thinker strong in a group setting not afraid to ask tough questions and i'm an involved parent i'm approachable and i can be seen at many different high school events throughout the area whether it's the musical a concert a sporting event i'm an active and engaged member of this community my passion is helping our youth with the best experience possible both in and out of school i'm on rece thank you mr westfall uh mrs barry i'm a hard worker dedicated and willing to do what it takes to get the job done i'm not a quitter i'm a problem solver my children endured endured challenges during their educational journey i didn't give up on them and i will not give up
078on the school i'm not running for the school board to gain notoriety i'm speaking from my heart when i say i truly care about students and their education as a hartford school board member i can be held accountable accountable for what i stand for please vote for me on february 15th thank you mrs barry mr jacket i'm running for uh a couple really simple but really effective reasons the representation of students and parents to make this a better environment for all of them to be trustworthy and transparent with every single person in this district my perspective as a former or as a recent student of this school high school to improve the classrooms and to get students engaged and to stop the the use of memorization which just disengages students from the classroom for all
079those reasons i feel like i'm the best candidate for effective change for positive on this stage right now and i really hope that you will vote for nolan jacket on february 15th for the hohs school board for the different perspective that i can bring to this board to achieve great things thank you mr jacket mr loberg thank you again uh students of huhs and mr walters for setting up this forum and thank you for all that attended in person and online we have a great school we can make it better i will work with the administration to continue to be good stewards of taxpayer money i will continue to push for opportunities for our kids in and out of our community i will be an empathetic listener to all of those that have real concerns
080and not just whose loudest i am proud as a father to send my boys to huhs and i appreciate your support thank you thank you mr lilbert mr pridemore hi i am honored to have been on the school board for the last three years it's been quite an interesting um board to be on and i'm grateful for the parents who are involved with their children's education i love seeing the parents involved and i fully support parents having the right for their child's health choices and they have transparency in the classroom and to know what's being taught and what textbooks are being used it's imperative we work as a district to improve our academic achievements we can be the school that has been the worst in the area to the highest academic achievers this can be
081accomplished or i would not be here running again thank you mr pridemore and finally mr pridemore thank you again uh let me go over a few things that i wasn't able to give in my opening remarks but uh during my 34 year career as an electronic design engineer i was awarded four patents in electrical design i served ten years in the state legislature i took every education committee assignment that was offered my last committee assignment was education reform i'm a member of the vfw the american legion and alliance club right here in hartford we do a lot of community sponsored efforts including raising money and donating on scholarship funds we ourselves seen and i both have what we call the pride more freedom fund which is awarded a 500 scholarship to one of your graduates
082last year uh my dad's a small small business person i grew up thank you mr president russia's trade and uh yeah mr fraim i'm very sorry um i guess i have to say thank you a couple more times tonight before we finish up i'd first like to thank the candidates you've really taught us that when we can put our heads together we can come up with some creative ways to earn nhs hours and it was really fun being here i'd like to thank my friends for coming tonight especially amaya who came here on one hour's notice and finally i'd like to thank the audience there were a ton of people in the cafeteria last year and it is so legitimately great to see this many people here and i assume there's millions more watching at
083home so thank you all very very much have a good night [Applause]