001i think we're about ready to get started welcome everybody my name is carla faust i am with the lodi optimus club i appreciate everyone coming tonight it is nice to see so many of our community members here the lodi optimus club has put on this forum for over 50 years so just a little background on it before we get started tonight the reason that the lodi optimist started this forum procedure for a number of our elections was for us to work in partnership with the high school to allow students to come in and be part of the electoral process so it gave them an opportunity to have community members come in and even themselves ask questions of our candidates so tonight normally we would host these at noon so that the high school classes could
002participate but with this being such a important special election we voted to hold it as a special evening forum tonight so we are live streaming this so if you like the way you look maybe they'll scan the audience and you can wave look at yourself later this will also be taped and put up on the district website for you to go back and review anything you would this evening i'd like to first thank the optimist board members that i believe most are in attendance this evening so the lodi optimist the current president is ann groves lloyd our vice president is tyler potter the secretary of our organization is bill hopp treasurer is al buddy and i am the current past president executive board members uh that are also serving terms with us are al bilzy
003bob gores chuck rodessel and diana carls without the board we couldn't do a lot of the things that we do in the community and what the optimist does in the community is hold three fundraisers a year one is our super bowl breakfast coming up next sunday the 13th it is a drive-through at retail lodi for twenty dollars and we have tickets out front you're able to get two breakfasts and enter into a raffle those fundraisers that the pig gross and one mother of the run are what help our organization raise funds that we give back to the youth in our community we support the insurance that goes through a lot of the sports programs we've supported the ice age the cross country team the girls volleyball team basketball team a number of organizations we've given
004over fourteen thousand dollars to the lodi pool which is near and dear to bob goers and ted gore's heart we gave ten thousand dollars to the athletic field uh up here at the high school which we're proud of as well we're not able to do these types of things to give money back to our community without your support so thank you if you've purchased a ticket or attended our events we really appreciate it and then i'll just do one more shameless plug as with any organization we're always looking for volunteer members to come and join us so if you're interested in becoming an optimist then please let one of our executive board members know we would certainly welcome any and all that you can give to us in which we give back to our community
005so once again thank you for coming our candidates that are here tonight i will introduce after i introduce our candidates we will stand and say the pledge of allegiance and then i will go over the format for the evening so i'd like to thank in they the candidates drew we put tags out and this is the order in would say drew's we have scott bilsey here this evening julie mckiernan nathan dennis bill whipperfurth and heather barron so first and foremost we need to thank them for stepping up and deciding to run to support our community so let's give him a round of applause [Applause] with that if we could stand remove your hats hand over your heart and toward the flag say the pledge of allegiance so so this evening how the format will work
006is that this is not a debate this is a forum and so we will be having you submit quite not submit questions but ask a question when your name is called in which i will have a computer here and you have it on the screen i believe the screen has already set up on the order so if it is your turn i will ask that you come to the mic state your name and where you're you're from carla files tom lodi and then i ask that you kindly ask a question please refrain from making statements and then the only other thing we ask is if you've heard your question asked and answered and you feel comfortable with those answers and it's your turn feel free to pass on your turn and let somebody else we'll
007get through as many questions as we can in the hour time limit that we typically give our forums so opening statements will start each candidate will have 90 seconds we have a timer and jeff lorenz in front one of our optimist members as well jeff will give them clues on when it's time for them to stop and move on when we go to start questions we will start with mr scott bilzey and he will answer the question that you've asked and we'll move on to each candidate does anybody have questions before we start on the format okay with that then we'll let scott start with opening statements thank you i would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself my name is scott bilsey and i am your candidate for change the answers you're going
008to hear tonight from me illustrate what i mean by change why change because i believe that the relationship between the community parents school board and administration is fractured i have i have observed that groups in our community have become very polarized to the point that it is difficult for them to see each other's points of view to me change means working to gain alignment between all groups in our community and to achieve our ultimate goal that being the quality education of all our students the changes i'm seeking will allow us to live the school district of lodi's mission to paraphrase a strong partnership of families community and educators to inspire students to become lifelong learners a bit about me i'm a lifelong resident of the city of lodi both my wife and i graduated from
009lodi high school our oldest son avery graduated in 2018 and our youngest son aiden graduated in 2020 which puts him in the first graduating class that had to go to virtual learning i understand firsthand the challenges that this type of learning presents to students teachers and families both emotionally and academically based on that experience keeping kids in the classroom safely is a top priority for me as i'm sure it is for many of you in attendance tonight thank you you ready okay uh goody good evening my name is julie mckiernan and i am running for reelection for a second term on the lodi school board i've been a district residence resident for over 20 years my daughter went to high school all grades through lodi and graduated in 2015. i have many extended family members
010that live in the district my niece will be starting 4k this coming fall and i attended montello high school i did not attend lodi i did spend summers here at my grandparents after high school i attended the university of wisconsin-madison i graduated with a bachelor of science in agriculture majoring in agricultural economics and dairy science with an option in business and industry and i currently serve as the board treasurer and chairperson of the facility finance committee i have work experience in financial analysis human resources and strategic planning i've been a licensed realtor since 1996 and i look forward to serving another term i believe in lodi and i believe that every student here can be successful nathan good evening everyone my name is nathan dennis originally from sun prairie i moved up here about 12
011years ago the longer i've lived up here the more i've fallen and loved this community it's extremely strong and very welcoming i have a son in first grade in the district graduate i didn't graduate from stealth but i studied engineering in stout i have multiple robotics certificates and plc programming running a landscaping company in lodi now the last few years have been extremely challenging and especially code affairs it's been struggling for my son and taxing on myself and many families in the community i'm here to try and bring back normalcy and change and restore confidence with our current school board that's where i'm at leave it at that thank you good evening i'm bill wipperforth standard operating procedure i graduated here my five children lisa jeremy laurel matt joel graduated here four out of 14
012grandchildren are in the school currently cadence natalie isabel jackson so you might say i have history here i came on the board as a committee member not a board member in preparation for building the middle school and then i came on as a board member as we finished the school i helped build a high school from scratch i was off for a year came back helped put things together to build the current primary school i've been passionate about doing community service and i've had the chance to see people grow not just students but the teachers the administration and the board we really have a good board and we function at a high level and i'd like to continue yes i'm an incumbent board member i like the work thank you my name is heather barron
013formerly heather mcgrath my husband and i grew up in lodi and our two daughters are also lodi graduates and our two sons are currently in the district i feel that i can bring another point of view to the table the board is pretty lopsided right now on several issues and that's not good when you're making decisions that affects so many people being a business owner has taught me to be financially smart while also knowing that everything costs money being a mom in the district for quite some time now i have seen changes and have heard many different points of views over the years i have volunteered and seen all the work time and dedication that teachers put into our kids i've been very involved in coaching being in charge of different programs and youth activities
014and have seen the good and the bad of parents emotions and understand both sides i am always curious about things and i'm a fast learner i'm very passionate about lodi and love to be involved with as much as i can covet is a huge issue right now and i would love to see our community deal with covid better so that our children are not the ones suffering the most covet might have motivated me to make to pay more attention and want to run for school board but i'm excited to get more involved in non-covet issues too like crt equity school board transparency and the school budget i'm ready to be more involved in that and feel there is a better way to deal with those issues but i'm also excited about all the little things
015that make lodi great our kids are amazing and i want to keep them motivated inspired determined and feel they have a voice i want our teachers to feel supported and happy in their work environment i just feel there is a lot of separation between the school the parents and the students right now and it makes me incredibly sad i really want the school district to bring back that amazing feeling of community and i want everyone to feel heard and proud of our district thank you appreciate that candidates we will open it up for questions and the first person on the list is uh allison rowe so alison if you could step to the mic and state your name where you're from and ask me questions please it will start with scott bilsey will be the
016first to answer each candidate will have 60 seconds to respond good evening allison rowe city of lodi my question is do each of the candidates support the referendum and if not what specific actions will you take to ensure that the quality of education in this community is in no way diminished allison you might want to stay there in case i ask you to repeat that question thank you so the upcoming spring referendum i assume is what you're asking about there are two parts to that referendum i would say that i support the first part the part that is to essentially keep the teachers salaries to keep the lights on to keep programs in place that we are accustomed to having the second part is more the maintenance component of the referendum the referendum as it's
017going to be put forth is a six million dollar referendum the first part is approximately 3.5 million the second part is approximately 2 million i believe right now that families are hurting with the tax increases with covet with inflation i would support the first part of the referendum but i would have not voted for including the second part of the referendum julie uh yes i am for the referendum it is uh 5.98 million is what was passed i think it is essential in our operational portion of the referendum we have monies in that for increasing pay to our teaching staff and benefits we are finding it very difficult to compete with other school districts for staff right now we have several several positions that are open also as far as taxes the overall picture of
018the referendum uh the mill rate will actually be dropping by i believe 0.11 so we'll be under the 11 11 so it is essential that we pass the referendum because without that there are going to be measures that will have to be taken to balance the budget nathan yes i i've been having difficulty finding exactly where this money's going to be allocated according to the survey that was put out to the community the majority of people that i have spoken with did not receive the survey or it was came out as junk mail so it was thrown away myself included i wish i could have been a part of that so do many of the people i've spoken with in the community the providing more benefits and teachers increase in salary i think is very
019beneficial they've been wonderful so thus far in my experience i would like to know exactly where it's being allocated and how to say yes or no i support the additional 3.85 per year on top of the 1.7 current and bill between 70 and 80 of our operating budget it goes to pay people's wages and benefits and so the referendum which i've helped put together and i support 100 percent is essential enough in for for us to be able to pay our teachers our teachers are currently in the bottom third as far as pay scale in columbia county so that doesn't vote well for us to be able to retain them and if you're wondering uh how they're doing well we have some in-house measures by which we check to see where the students are doing
020and they were a little behind at the beginning of the year but they are at or above normal for this time of the year regardless of kovid so i'm really happy this is information we just got on monday night heather um one of the reasons i'm running for the board is because i want to be more involved and unfortunately before that i wasn't and i didn't really pay attention as much now that i'm getting into things more and hearing about the referendum what it's going to go towards um i do think it's going to go towards a lot of great things obviously the teachers salaries we got to keep them happy we need them to stay here we need the good ones to stay it's going to go to maintenance stuff that needs to be
021done i do feel when i'm on the board if i get on there that i will definitely be looking at every cent of where it goes because i have a feeling that there was some things that might have gone to things that a lot of people didn't know or maybe the board didn't even approve i have no idea but um i think we need to be maybe more of a penny pincher on certain things and stop um always saying well we need money for salaries when actually we're spending money on stuff that we probably don't really need thank you for your question allison next up is diana carls and the first one will be directed at julie to answer um diana carl's township of dane and proud optimist member so this is an optimist question
022what are you most optimistic about this district going into the future and julie we'll start with you i would say the most optimistic part about being a member of the greater lodi community since i'm also from dane is the fact that we have a very wonderful community going forward i think we can do better i think lodi can do better i know lord i could do better i know lodi can come together we need to make this a great place to live to work and to attend school and that's why i'm very grateful to be part of the community nathan that was also the first thing that came to my mind is the our community it's it's wonderful um we have many valleys that we stand together unfortunately that's why there's five of us running
023and the board being one that we are very divided but i am optimistic as a community we can come together and resolve the current issues at hand um our board and administration have worked hard to put the kids into a position to succeed and the best thing the shining thing about this school is the kids and how well they're doing when i started on the board we were ranked in the bottom third in the state as far as the other high schools and two years ago we were number 38. now that's not an accident that's opportunities and the success of our students not only here but when they hit college or real life so that's been that's as good as it gets have kids that can go out and be functional adults in our society
024i would have to say basically what's happening right now is all the involvement in our community people were upset about the board and now we're getting more voices out there we're going to hopefully get a little more balanced and people are going to feel they have a voice and i just think if we all just work together like we all want to i know we all do we all want the same thing which is the best for our kids and i just feel like we're at a turning point right now where that's going to start happening thank you for the question diana next person is bill welch scott i'm sorry scott [Laughter] i'm very optimistic about the community in which we all have chosen to live in i think we have a a great group
025of parents i think we have a great group of teachers i think we just need to get people on board that are willing to work with one another are willing to listen to each other's points of views and perspectives perhaps even be willing to compromise i think that we have an opportunity to provide a a great educational experience for all of our students i think we can tailor that experience and provide students with what they need to be successful i think that this will allow each student to achieve their goals both while in school and once they graduate from lodi high school and go on into the into the world thank you and scott was optimistic that i would call on them sorry about that um thank you for the question next up is bill
026welch and we will start with nathan as you know i'm bill welch and um i've lodi's been my adopted hometown for the last 18 or so years since racism is a major factor in our country's history and our current reality what are your thoughts regarding teaching our youth about racism that's a difficult topic um the teaching of the history of racism i think is a very important aspect that needs to be discussed teaching theory or a bias towards a certain group should not be discussed racism is a very hot topic in this country it's sorry i'm i'm stuttering here um i guess the main point i'm getting across here is i'm all for and our students should understand about the history of racism and what's happened we need to learn from it and not repeat
027history thank you um critical race theory was created in the 1970s uh lately it's become a political issue and to be honest with you i'm kind of not i'm not interested in that but discrimination or different forms of it have been part of our history forever the one mistake that we make is that we need to teach our kids how to think not what to think we need to teach them the history of where we came from not what to think about it the other thing we need to quit doing is look at our values today and go back and say somebody 100 years ago or 200 years ago was a slave owner it was a different time it was a different world we can't make a fair assessment on what people did 100 or
028200 years ago it's not fair i think we need to be more open about it it's kind of a shushed topic and i actually think it makes it worse um unfortunately racism is going to be here forever and it's been here since beginning a time and instead of trying to force it or say it's not around it is and we need to address it and we need to teach our children better and it's all skin colors it's not just one but we also need to teach it so we're not teaching our kids to feel bad about something that their culture did years ago so we need to be more open about it admit that it happens and just tell the kids and teach them that it's not right to judge anybody on their skin color
029their background their cultural lifestyle nothing and i just think if we're more open about it it's just going to be out there and kids are going to learn from very young age that it's not acceptable i think it's a valuable to teach students about others experiences i think we all have different experiences and if people are more open and aware of others experience it helps them to understand them better i think that teaching diverse topics allows students to grow and to mature i think that's an important component of attending lodi high school or lodi middle school i think that by appreciating diversity if we can understand others better and in the process everyone can grow and improve well i'm going to make this statement so i think we should be teaching and reflecting our accurate
030history and i also think we should take the r out of c r t it should be ct critical thinking we should be teaching our kids how to critically think you know talk about history think about title ix i didn't get to play sports before then so i mean there's a lot more to it than race i think we have a lot in our history where there have been other social injustice injustices that are not related to race and that's one that would be a sexist part of it so i think we do need to have diverse learning and we need to accurately reflect what our history has been thank you for your question bill next up is jack tatsell and reminder please state where you reside as well jack tassel town of lodi the
031school district referendum that was sent out the survey that was sent out for the referendum in the referendum survey there are many comments that came back with it and those comments show a distrust between the board and the community what decisions or actions has the board done to have so many people lose trust and feel the district is not transparent and how can this relationship be improved going forward bill this will start with you having been here for a number of referendums to build schools and other referendums for operating there's always some dissension with people generally it comes back to them not understanding what's at stake or what's going on 45 seconds already here we go oftentimes we get citizen input come to us and in that forum we do not get to speak back
032to the people directly but we have to answer back to them later and high high tenancy is that people bring misinformation now in the in between now and april the board and the administration is going to work hard to put out the details of what is in the referendum so that you have a full understanding for how it's going to work and why it is there some of it has occurred because i have to stop i just have a question actually is this an um about the referendum or is this the survey that went out to the parents about opening the school okay okay so your question is what is the board um i would just say that um i feel like if you're going to send a survey out you should probably listen to
033what the survey says otherwise there's really no point and a waste of resources they wanted our opinion and i feel like they really should have taken that into account more i'm not saying that you have to say do exactly what the survey says every time but they at least should have acknowledged it and maybe explained why they did certain things or why they've voted certain ways that's pretty much the point of us losing trust in the school and the board is because we say what we want and then they say it doesn't matter this kind of goes to my opening statement i think the referendum is just part of a bigger issue in that is people in the community feel like they're not being heard feel that their voices aren't being heard or worse people
034in the community feel like the board doesn't want to even hear their voices look at what happened last month they got they knocked down your ability to come to a board meeting and give public input you used to be able to speak for five minutes it was unlimited as far as the number of people that come in if you wanted to have 30 people come in and talk for two hours that's what you're that's what you're here for you're voted to listen to the community members and people on the board what happened last month three minutes 10 people max why because we want to get to our board meetings quicker if we're on the board we have to give the impression or we have to be willing to listen to people in the community and
035react to what they are saying well i would agree that we have a disconnect in communication i think we need to find a way to improve that communication and come together i do not believe that it is the intent of the board to ever overlook items that are in surveys or or public input we look at everything so there's there's often times where i found myself quite quite frankly with the covid reaching out to people to get public input so i think there's also a misconception about what the board actually does and how we go about our work so again it's a it's a communication problem i mean i understand it from your viewpoint but i think we've we've got to find a way where we can communicate better could you repeat that question one
036more time please yeah um like i had mentioned earlier in regards to the survey many people didn't that i've spoken with him did not receive it or fill it out and the numbers that i found on the district website do not show how many people filled it out how many were sent out what was the return rate etc thankfully that not sure how many are familiar with act 89 but that will require financial transparency unfortunately that won't take effect until 23 24 school year i think we would have far less issues now if it was already enacted um yeah and communication with between the board and the community is very important and there is a disconnect thank you for your question uh next up will be leslie curtis and the question it will be answered
037first by heather leslie curtis ton of lodi my question is would you all be open to developing processes to increase the transparency to the public to show the emails the work sessions and the conversations that occur among the leadership and the board when deliberating before casting votes at the board meeting and if so how because this is currently important because it could appear as though possible open meeting laws could be being breached i'm so sorry can you just repeat it one more time would you be open to developing processes to increase the transparency to the public to show the emails the work sessions conversations that occur among leadership and the board when deliberating before casting votes at the board meeting absolutely i know as i say that and i'm not on the board and i'm
038sure that you know i don't know if there's certain rules i'm not going to pretend i know everything um i do know that like they you know they have a board email so that should be what they use to discuss everything obviously we're a small community we know a lot of people i'm sure they individually talk to people of their friends or whatever no i'm not open to having their phones and all that being bugged and you know checking that but absolutely i feel like everything should be open um we need to know what's going on i mean this is half the problem that people don't know what's going on is because of the closed sessions or you know things conversations that have gone around i know that there's been expenses that we have no
039clue of what has ever been even brought to the board so um yes i would say definitely we just we need more transparency so let's figure that out so a common question that i've been asked is why are you running for the school board this is why i'm running for the school board there are certainly items that are discussed in closed session that have to remain in close in closed session or that can't be discussed with the public in general so i hope that that would be understood but the vast vast vast majority of topics that are discussed by the school board can can be very transparent and communicate with with parents that's why i'm here i don't feel that that is is happening to the satisfaction of many in the community right now you
040know how would i go about doing that work more closely with parents listen to all perspectives listen to all opinions try to form consensus and be as transparent as we can because if you know what what we're thinking it's easier for you to understand the decisions that are made well we can always improve upon processes definitely would be willing and open to consider that but we do have a process currently on the board we do a lot of our work in committee meetings unfortunately those committee meetings are not videotaped but there are minutes to the meeting that are publicly posted in board docs and so just to give you a rough idea our facility finance committee meeting meets once a month and our meetings generally last two and a half hours almost as long as
041a board meeting so there's a lot of work and discussion that goes on in those meetings so i think that's that's part of the disconnect here by the time it gets to the full board meeting which then is videotaped that you're watching or may come to that may give you the perception that we're doing things behind closed doors but we are not uh i absolutely believe there should be transparency um especially into the age of technology i was actually trying to find transcripts of the minutes before this meeting to prepare i could not find even a video link on the district website and that's extremely unfortunate that i searched for at least a half an hour this stuff should be public the minutes and at the very least a link to get to this live
042stream and from the past i work with computers i i have trouble finding it so the average person i can't imagine and that that should change it should be easily dab navigated through the district's website um you're talking about transparency okay the working the nuts and bolts of our committees is where the work is done to pro to take to the board everybody is welcome to come there if they should choose there is a time in those meetings for citizen input they're not televised they are recorded but that's where we do the most of the work and it comes back to the talents of the individual board members as far as what we discussed in closed session when we come together for a regular board meeting we have to prep for issues that deal with
043people and their reputations and information that is critical to to people and we don't want to the last thing on earth we want to do is embarrass them as far as communicating with the board member uh my email is available miss palmer's always got it she always knows how to get a hold of me thank you and and most people don't they don't email me they see me in person and ask me thank you for your question uh next person is heidi password and we will start back with scott [Music] my name is heidi ashworth marshall i'm from town of lodi in understanding that the coveted circumstances were are unprecedented i would hope and pray there have been many lessons learned bearing that in mind do you agree with the decision for the elected school
044board members to delegate a hundred percent of their decision-making powers to an unelected unaccountable hand-picked medical advisory committee um can you put the mic down toward you a little bit maybe ask that one more time you don't worry thank you um in understanding that the covet uh circumstances are and were unprecedented i would hope and pray that there have been many lessons learned but bearing that in mind do you agree with the decision for the elected school board members to delegate a hundred percent of their decision-making powers to an unelected unaccountable hand-picked medical advisory committee i agree with the current board working with a group of medical professionals to try to come up with a plan to do the right thing for the school district of lodi i understand your concern about elected officials giving
045the appearance or giving the perception of delegating 100 of the decision-making process to an unelected group of individuals but i i applaud their effort on trying to get as much information as they can with the overall goal of trying to do what's best for these students and to keep the students and staff safe as it pertains to covid my top priority if i were to be elected to the school board would do everything would be to do everything in my power to keep kids in school in person learning first of all i'd like to say that the decision decision making powers is not we are not relying on the medical advisory board we can still change we we can still agree to disagree with what they say we still have the power to make a
046motion and second and vote against it if we if we choose to get enough votes okay so i'd like to put that out there but when we found ourselves uh at the beginning of covid with absolutely zero direction we put this together we want to hear from experts so this is one piece of our mitigation we have other experts we call in our hvac people to talk about filtration and airflow so we seek other experts than this medical advisory board so we are doing everything we can to keep the kids in school keep everybody safe keep enough teachers in school to teach i guess i i question where and how this board was picked um i'm not for the board hand picking them without the input of parental guidance or board or public input to
047the board covid wise i think should be a parental choice not forced on by the school district there's i do want to see our kids to remain in school and i would ideally like to see them without masks however remaining in school is top priority to me but again i don't want to see a health board elected by the school board without public input we seek out outside guidance from businesses to help us manage the school constantly so this is really no different but understand this remember what i said outside guidance we have the opportunity to talk to them to communicate with them any of these businesses to ask questions and to make the decision ourselves they do not make the decision we do the other concept you have to understand is it's really important
048for us to keep kids safe and healthy because in order to learn that's what it takes covet has really well it's obviously the first pandemic any of us have ever been involved in although when i was a kid we had to deal with polio and now you get shots and about half a dozen shots before your child ever gets to kindergarten as part of keeping them safe and healthy [Music] a board is supposed to be balanced so if you're going to have a medical advisory board then you need medical professionals that have different opinions on different things because no matter what people say there's experts saying all different things about covid so if we're going to have doctors and all them come in then we need people that are having different views so they can
049discuss and give us the best advice when you're hand picking professionals that are saying what you want them to say and then you're saying we're making a decision based on that well yeah okay so i if if we're gonna use a medical advisory board then yes i think we should have public input on that and we should get them elected if it was gonna be a quick pub like just you know oh i just want your opinion on something quick fine but this medical advisory board has been in process for a long time now so i think it's time if we're going to actually have an official board of some sort then we need to elect them or at least have public input on it thank you for your question next up we have patty
050and the question we'll start with julie get this down low enough i'm patty herman i'm in the city of lodi it was mentioned earlier that the board has gone to limiting the amount of time for public input at board meetings prior to that i know that there were meetings that went on until 11 30 or later which is not a time when i think we can expect anybody to be making the best decisions and they have hard decisions ahead of them during those periods so what are your thoughts on how we create a balance so that people are heard and the board is allowed to accomplish the rest of their very important and very packed agenda well i would like to just say for instance we have rules here this evening i have 60 seconds
051to answer this question so i recently went to the school board convention and i served on the delegate to vote on the policy and resolutions and if you wanted to debate you had three minutes so i don't i don't think the changes that we've made in our policy are unreasonable what we are trying to do is here hear as much relevant public input as we can at every meeting if i i believe the new policy we've all also written in i mean we can change that if we have a meeting where there are a lot of people that have more public input we can make a motion and vote to continue public input you know that's the intent we want to hear from the public we would like the public to stay on course though
052to what's on the meeting agenda that the other thing i i don't want to see a limit especially as of late for example in this room i don't know how to approximate 60 people if everyone's given 20 minutes no this would go until 1am you know in smaller meetings 10 people why was it okay for five minutes before and now we have to limit to to the three or two that they're suggesting the public input is of utmost value and that's what the board is to represent is really the public teachers the students and public input is extremely important the limiting they're trying to do right now is i don't find acceptable thank you the policy that you're talking about if allowing people five minutes was put into place in 2018. we found it to
053be unworkable what we wanted is to hear a lot of people's voices what was most important to them not get a 10 10 pages that they had written the other things that we put into place is we situated people so that they gave the municipality that they're coming from not their address because we didn't want to put them at make them uncomfortable put them at risk we are interested in hearing from our students our employees our taxpayers if you're outside of that scope it has no value to us in citizen input i tried to go over and explain the the reasoning for all of the decisions all of the pieces that went into the policy and i did communicate with a number of people from around the state some people some boards allow notice no
054citizen input some allow one minute i know it used to be five minutes and i thought that was perfectly adequate um and unlimited speakers and yes it would be hard for a board to sit and have to listen for that long but that's what you're elected for um you are expected to listen to as much input as you possibly can and if it got to a situation where we did have to go super late in the night i mean i'd be fine then fine let's schedule another meeting the next day if it's really going to be that hard on them but we need to hear from everybody and give them five minutes i feel is adequate you you can listen for five minutes without dozing off people can get their point across and we just
055need to hear from everybody that's exactly what we're here for for the kids and the community too and the parents it's everybody so we need to hear from as many people and if you're making people happy you probably won't have to hear as much so i i appreciate the the question that that you're asking but to me it's not a race to end these board meetings you're elected to listen to people in the community and public input is one opportunity that people have to see face to face to that person that they're speaking to and make sure that what is important to that community member is being heard you can send an email off but you never know if that's going to be looked at as far as other school districts not having public input
056or having a minute i don't care we've had five minutes here in lodi i think five minutes is reasonable this new policy is in essence trying to decrease what the board has to hear from community members and i think that's wrong i will sit here until one in the morning if i'm elected and i will listen to public input because i think everybody should be hurt this in essence is keeping people from being able to speak their mind at a board meeting that's how i view it especially on important topics and important issues when we turn out a lot of people to listen to public input and there are meetings where there is no public input but when it's an important issue i'm gonna listen thank you for your question next step is going to
057be monica and the question we'll start with nathan monica simpson town of lodi would you support a policy that would prohibit the district from joining politically minded organizations such as the dane county equity consortium just so i understood or heard you clearly the first part of that question again please would you support a policy that would prohibit the district from joining politically minded organizations such as the dane county equity consortium i do not support this school district joining any sort of political group via left right however whatever side no it should be a non-biased school district and heading in the direction one or the other that's not acceptable i do not support that thank you bill um your question seems to come back to something where we were seeking information you have to understand that
058we're a group of adults and we can filter out that information once again i'm not really interested in the political part i'm interested in doing what it takes to position our kids to be successful earlier in the evening we were asked about the crt and i tried to make the comment that we need to teach them how to think not what to think and our adults our board our superintendent and administrators are certainly in that category but to create a policy that you're talking about would be to prevent the group from getting information i could not support that i am against the school being part of any political groups if you want to seek advice from a certain group then you need to seek advice from the other side of that spectrum um we need
059to make it the same so um i'm sure you know i want politics to stay out of the school but there is there's going to be classes that address it and that's fine we need to talk about it i'm not saying we're going to ignore the whole subject but we need to take both sides we don't need to just lean one side and teach that or go with that or be part of that if you're going to sign up for a certain group then you go to that other and you get information from the opposite spectrum and hear both sides and that's critical thinking right there too you're offering both so that's what i would hope lodi would be part of i would be for keeping politically charged issues out of hours of school i
060want to tailor the education of each individual student to meet their needs not every student has the same plan for after they graduate from high school and i would want to provide our staff our counselors our teachers services that they need to be able to meet the goals of each individual student so that they can be started on a path to success and for keeping politics out of school and teaching kids what they what they need to be successful and what they need to grow well i do believe it should be nonpartisan just like board members are nonpartisan so with that i would say that it is again getting back to we need to we need to teach current history and we need to if it you know for instance in the high school level
061uh if they are talking about a current event we used to have current events in high school way back when i was in high school so you have current events you talk about both sides so that would be my envisioning of what should take place also that teaches critical thinking that's all i have to say thank you for your question the next question will be uh jess and bill will be the first answer jess jockey town of lodi we've talked about surveys and following parents advice my question is really about how the board will process difficult decisions we send surveys out and it's not followed and i would like to know what your thought process is how much those surveys matter to your decisions thanks for the question we hired a company to help with
062that because to be honest with you with uh covet and all of the other challenges with trying to get help we kind of lack the labor to do some of these things as far as what we're looking for we're looking for trends from the majority of the people as i said earlier you're always going to have some people that are ecstatic and they think that to do whatever is being asked is fabulous and you're going to have people that don't think it's so fabulous so we're looking for trends what's the mood of the community now we did not get all of the information from the survey that's still coming that's we're going to have access to that pretty quick in one of our committee meetings i would imagine but um i can't remember the exact
063number i think we had about 300 people return survey thank you i would assume that surveys and public input would be a huge part of the decision-making process we are elected school board members are elected and people are trusting you to make a decision in their best interest so we need to definitely hear from that as far as the survey that just went out recently i had heard that it seems like not all the results were really put out there as much as they could have i was a little lopsided and that also brings me back to possibly the place that we hired to do those survey results might have been a little bias and i also feel like it seems a little interesting to me that we have to spend money to have someone
064look at our survey results but anyways that's a different subject but yes i believe if i was on the board i would definitely want to see all those survey results and all public input to hear what people's thoughts are i would use survey results to help impact the decisions that i would make as a school board what i wouldn't use survey results for would be to give the impression that i'm listening to the community and then act on my own accord i think that it's valuable information to help get a perspective or a pulse of what the community feels about a certain topic and it should be used to help make decisions based on typically the majority of what the responses are so there there's uh i want to say the community survey for the
065referendum there were several pages of comments and i took the time to read through pretty much all the pages and you get a common theme of what's going on and i think that's kind of what bill was alluding to so that's one piece of our information we use um you know there's there's a lot of other pieces to the puzzle so you know when we do take surveys we are looking at them we do read the comments or at least i do i read through everything um but it's one piece of the puzzle and so with with covet and i think maybe you were referring to the the masking surveys right yeah and everyone's talking about the referendum so you know back to the masking surveys back at the beginning of covid um there was
066a lot we didn't know about cobot we thought it would be over for instance right now and it's it's not so i have to stop um surveys are very important the number that bill brought up to me only 300 to return is extremely alarming to me that there has to be i guess i'm not sure the exact population 3 300 people plus and not even 10 were returned how can you even make an assumption off the community's input on those that low of a number surveys are very valuable um hopefully on that low of a return rate the current board isn't going to use those numbers as their sole decision making process thank you for your question next up is heather and heather is the first to answer this question all right please be with
067me this is a little bit of a long-winded question state your name and where you're from i'm sorry heather schilling and i am from the town of lodi thank you so the wisconsin department of public instruction testing shows academic skills skill levels declining for several years in lodi to the point where 62 percent of our students test below grade level in reading and writing and a full 67 percent test below grade level in math do you feel it is a responsibility of the current of the school board to assure that at least basic academic skills are achieved by most students what will you do to make sure students achieve basic educational competencies that is wrong yes i mean it's the school and it's education so the board definitely needs to be part of that whole
068system i think sometimes schools tend to focus a lot on the higher end kids they are the ones that make the test scores look good and you know they might be the ones that really want to go to college and do all this and and we have the kids that you know school doesn't always click for them or you know they don't have maybe the skills you know so their test scores aren't as great and i think sometimes those middle of the road or and actually middle of the road might even get a little more forgotten than the very lower end students and we need to focus on everybody not just the higher or the lower we need to focus on everybody and figure out what works which obviously would be involving the teachers we
069need to talk to them they're the ones in the classrooms every day with these kids and that would be something that we need to listen especially to parents and teachers on what works for their kids and not just make a decision on what looks good on paper i certainly do i think that the board needs to provide teachers and school staff the tools that they need to be successful i think that board the board members need to listen to the teachers when they tell them that they need these tools to be able to better meet the goals as far as educating students i think the dpi scorecard has pointed out some areas as far as what would i specifically do to try to help with regards to answer your question i think the dpi has
070recently provided a scorecard and there are some areas that they have pointed out that we have an opportunity here in lodi to improve upon mathematics in the middle school reading with our with our younger children so that would be an area that i would focus on as a board member to try to address your question your issue your concern um so let's go back to was it 2010 act 10. lodi had to cut a curricular curriculum director position we rehired for that position two years ago dr carl's is nick carl's has been with us for two years so we are aware that there are some gaps in reading and mathematics that's what happens when you do not have a curriculum director and cannot pay for one we are on board we have there have been
071a lot of systems put in place already particularly at the primary school where we are doing actual live assessments so it's it's it it's not the testing that they do that gets reported to dpi they're actually doing live assessments for every student to bring them up to the level they need to be at i do believe the board plays a part in this role however it's primarily the teachers perhaps there's some bad exit we need to [Music] okay we're still going yeah maybe just leave it off for now um yeah perhaps there's some bad eggs in the group of teachers that may need to be replaced the in what i've experienced my you know my sons in first grade the teachers that i've had up to this level so far have been spectacular i can't
072speak for higher grade levels personally as i haven't experienced that yet in regards to my child and the dpi level was low and that if it's low that's that's a major issue that i want to see addressed and board does pay a place primarily the teachers though that's why i'm sorry i got i got a i slept on ice the other night and i think i tore a ligament so my knees killing me right now i apologize uh julie did a really good job answering this question it makes it difficult to follow up but um in 2000 or when governor walker came in and he and the legislature did act 10. they really they cut a million and three quarters out of our budget after we had done our annual meeting for the year so
073we had to cut an administrator the director of curriculum was one of the things that kind of fell by the wayside we knew it was a problem we've tried to go back and correct it but oftentimes people turn around and they say well you're top heavy on administrators and yet we're looking at trying to get balanced kids to be successful the other things that you have to understand is when it comes to the dpi is that some kids when they get the pressure of however many sheets where you got to put dots on do not test well we've figured this out and so we've tried to figure out strategies to change that and make it easier for them to test thank you for your question we actually have come to our time allotment we have
074time for one more question before we'll go to uh closing remarks after this question i i will ask if the candidates would like to answer a couple more questions but otherwise we after uh melissa has her question we are at our time limit for questions so melissa we'll let you come up and ask a question and it looks like we're back with scott as the person to answer i'm sorry do you state your name and where are you from thank you could you ask me that again i'm not sure i'm understanding the question uh completely i think it got turned off use that one no i could hear you okay i'm just trying to understand the question better because i'm not familiar with what you're asking me so if the school is looking at an
075anti-bias bias policy what attributes are important to include in such a policy to you what would you include in an anti-bias policy i i'm not i'm not i'm sorry i'm not familiar with with the anti-bias policy that you're that you're asking about no i'm asking like if the school were to make an anti-bias policy what would be important to you to include in such that in a policy such as that no that was a bad question sorry well i i i don't think there's any necessarily bad question i'm just i'm trying to uh again because i'm not familiar with sorry with what you're asking me is it okay if i just interject a little bit i would appreciate that i apologize i know i already asked my question but the the school is currently looking
076at an anti-bias policy that is um used to help teachers in the classroom so they know subjects that they can teach about can't teach about such as politics in the classroom so that's currently happening in the school board and we are just wondering how what people what attributes what policies people think should be in that anti-bias policy that the school develops for the teachers does that make more sense well i've mentioned previously that if i was on the board my goal would be to try to keep politically charged topics of curriculum out of out of the school district was still allowing for our students to receive a tailored education and an education that does allow them to experience different perspectives to learn about different groups of people and to widen their educational experiences i think
077that by allowing that that would help to produce well-rounded students and and kids and set them on the path for success moving forward once they're finished with high school and i apologize for not better understanding the question that you're asking me initially so i would like to say that first of all this kind of dovetails on making sure that every student feels welcome and is is feeling safe in our school system to be able to learn and that would actually be more of the social emotional or sel learning because they have to feel safe before they can actually learn as far as the anti-bias policy again it should be it should be neutral talking about both sides and also helping to cultivate critical thinking oh i'm glad that they are implementing anti-bias policy as all
078at all teaching platforms in my opinion should be non-biased not directed towards any one way or the other exactly speaking what i would want to see not discussed like scott i brought up politically charged topics i don't want to see it left or right for example all teaching platforms should be non-biased in my opinion that's what i got thank you the basis for our policy and that may be too broad for some people is race color creed sex and religion but our kids our people and our people are very diverse and so they do not all fall into categories that people are comfortable talking about anymore particularly when you get to things like sexuality that kind of thing and yet it's real and we need to have people be comfortable enough so that they can
079learn so that's what our goal is we seek to understand each individual student and that comes through our teachers so that we can put them into a position to be successful in our school and beyond um i would say the number one thing is to leave politics out of the classroom um also just in any current events um leave the teacher's opinion out of things altogether which has got to be really hard that's part of the reason they're amazing i had a lot of high school teachers that i never knew their stance on a lot of stuff and it talk about kids feeling safe is you need to if the kids know your opinion on something that's not going to help them use the critical thinking my daughter actually had to choose one time writing
080a paper about abortion if she wanted to choose what she believed write about what she believed in or worried about what she knew that the teacher believed in and that's not right so obviously there are classes that we need to bring debate and politics in and that is even more of a challenge for a teacher they need to bring both sides with still without sharing their opinion and obviously no teacher should ever judge anybody on their background cultural lifestyle skin color nothing based on those things because no matter what those things are everyone is different thank you i i think this is probably a great place to to stop that we're over our time uh allotment as it is once again i want to thank the five candidates here this evening the election is on
081tuesday february 15th four candidates would move forward out of the primary into the general election then which will be held on tuesday april 5th so once again thank you for your time we appreciate it they will each get 90 seconds on a closing statement and we will go reverse order and start with heather i also want to thank the optimist club for doing this too thank you i just want to end tonight expressing that i'm going to be all in if i get on the board i'm not just going to claimed i'm not going to claim to know everything and i won't be perfect i'm ready to be thrown into the unknown but won't forget my principles and beliefs i will not conform into someone that i can't be proud of and i won't back
082down on important issues i saw the damage that kova did to my senior last year and unfortunately still seeing the suffering of the kids on a different scale today anyone that knows me knows that i care immensely for our district's children and i will always be their number one advocate i also realize that those great minds in our district's classrooms are being shaped and developed by our teachers and i want our teachers to feel the pride that they should for doing such an honorable job and not have to worry about the everyday politics that is often being thrown at them i want the parents to feel confident with sending their children to our district and know they are in great hands i want the community to know where all their hard-earned money is going towards
083and be proud of our district's accomplishments i'm going to listen and learn put in the time and all of my effort to make the best decisions for our district i really hope and would be honored to have your vote for my seat on the lodi school board i'm would i appreciate you coming tonight it's obvious it's as important to you as it is to me i'm passionate about doing community service yes i have done it for a long time i like to see putting people students teachers administration and yes board in a position where you can watch them grow it's fun it's very rewarding and there's another payback that comes also when these students go out and become adults they'll be the ones that you're counting on to fish you out in your time of
084need a couple of years ago we had the misfortune of having a fire in my territory when everything uh to calm down all the firemen were standing around and they came over to talk to me and they all called me by name and i'm kind of like uh help me out here who are you well i'm so-and-so and you were there when i graduated and i'm so-and-so and i'm kind of like hey guys that's great but you're all men now the people that graduated with kids and i appreciate you stepping forward to help me out when i when i need help so i've had the chance to watch people grow i would like to continue as a representative of you and look forward to hearing from you in february and april yes thank you all
085for attending um this is a quite overwhelming turnout the vast theme that i've gathered from this community is that we want change and i am a voice that will deliver that if i'm elected i'm here for our children teachers community and want to bring positive future for our children and set them up for a successful future the especially now are extremely difficult and i'm willing to take that challenge on and without backing down and hold my ground i'll hopefully get your vote in february thank you very much i would like to first thank the optimist club for hosting this forum i would also like to thank everyone else for participating and attending this event as we look towards the future of lodi we need to envision how we can make our community a better place
086for everyone to go to school work or live we need to envision a better lodi that adapts to change embraces the future our students are counting on this successful schools create successful communities i would just like to thank everyone tonight again and please go out and vote on february 15th thank you i would like to take this opportunity to thank the lodi optimist club for hosting tonight's event i would also like to thank everyone who attended tonight both in person and online it is my hope that you are able to learn more about what each candidate stands for please keep in mind that there are numerous important issues facing the school district of lodi it is my hope that community members and parents will keep this in mind when casting their votes you may disagree
087with me on a certain issue but i'm hopeful that we can find common ground on other issues so that you can feel comfortable and confident voting for me this is not a single issue election as mentioned in my opening statement i'm a candidate for change why do i believe change is important at this point in time it's because i am very concerned that there is a disconnect between some on the school board and community members as well as parents i've seen what we can accomplish when we all work together for a common goal take the stadium project as an example by listening to and working with community members the school district was able to build something that now benefits many members of the community least of which are kids without community input i'm not sure
088we would have what we have today i'm hopeful that we can return to that type of cooperation again in closing please get out and vote during both the primary and general election even if you're not voting for me of course i hope that i can earn your vote over time thank you all again and please do not hesitate to reach out to me with thoughts or questions i honestly thought there'd be a lot more discussion of covid tonight and i'd love to explain where i stand with regards to mass covid and my plan for getting masks off the kids when it's safe to do so i know i've gone over my time i also want to thank my wife dory who's sitting in the back row because i would not be here doing this without
089her so thank you thank you again everybody for attending and as scott has said i would hope that the candidates could stay around and possibly answer some questions one-on-one or that you might be able to collect their email information from them if you want to contact them directly so it says a lot about our community how much you care that you're here this evening so on behalf of the optimist thank you have a wonderful evening [Applause]