001increaser at Evergreen and like um nice to meet you John hi good okay yeah you should okay all right we'll give it another minute or so many other folks coming in yeah before we get started we're going to ask someone to please stand with uh Republic for which it stands one nation and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice Hall well thank you everybody for coming here this evening my name is Suzanne aquazabiorklund I am the PTA council president and we are the host of this evening's event it's an honor for us to be here this evening and Host this event to give everyone an opportunity to hear our candidates that we had here we have two open spots uh seats excuse me in the Scotch
002Plains and we have one open spot in Fairwood uh your candidates for Scotch Plains we have Nancy Norris Bower incumbent for Scotch Plains John Greenblatt Scotch Plains Stephanie suriano sariani excuse me incumbent Scots Plains we have Gary Morris family and you have Amy wigler and comment from Fallon and we have our moderator here Marlene from the League of Women Voters who's going to moderate the evening for us here the event is being recorded so it will be on the SPF Board of Ed YouTube channel channel um shortly apologize having the fire department and police at my house just recently kind of shakes you a little bit so we'll get started alternative to you okay well welcome everybody and um since the candidates have already been announced I'm just going to mention the fact that this
003evening's program is divided into three parts uh the first part of the uh candidates Forum deals with candidates opening statements each candidate will have two minutes to make an opening statement telling them a little bit about themselves and uh why they're running and things like that the candidates will see and you'll probably see too that's why I want to explain this at the end of a minute and a half they will see a yellow card the yellow card tells them they have 30 seconds left so this way they can figure out how much longer they need to speak and wrap up and um at the end of the two minutes they will see a red card that will signal stop but we are allowing them to finish their thought we're not going to stop them
004in mid-sentence but they can't Ramble On and On with that okay so opening statements we're going to start with the three candidates that are running for this for the two open seats in Scotch Plains and we're going in alphabetical order so first we have Ms Nancy Norris Bower okay thank you good evening everyone I've been a Scotch Plains resident for 35 years I am an educator who began as a kindergarten teacher directed a health education Museum and currently work in the College of Education at William Patterson University as the Director of professional development and school Community Partnerships and there I work closely with many school districts my bachelor's in master's degrees are from Florida State University I have two children who attended SPF schools from kindergarten through 12th grade both are attorneys one is an
005assistant U.S attorney and one is a privacy compliance manager with meta I've been involved in the community in a variety of ways I just want to highlight two of those for 13 years I served as a girl scout leader so that's close to my heart and my also my work with the SPF Ice Hockey Association getting that established and pay to play in our district the establishment of ice hockey is the first pay to play sport in our district provided a pathway for many other new and now very successful SPF Sports I'm running for re-election because I am committed to ensuring that our children receive the best education possible in the Scotch Plains van Woods School District I want to help ensure that the short and long-term goals and our strategic plan are realized the
006district is engaged in important initiatives involving Student Success including academics social emotional learning and equity um as a long-serving member of the finance committee I also want to help navigate the challenges posed by new housing and Staffing shortages balancing the needs of students staff and parents with available resources is always a challenge in addition I want to share my knowledge of new ways other districts are currently expanding Partnerships thank you okay next we have Mr greenblatt hi my name is John Greenblatt I am a Scotch Plains resident of eight and a half years I have two wonderful daughters one is seven and she's uh just started second grade and she is in Evergreen loves it so I'm uh hear the stories all the time and then I have a soon to be four-year-old who goes
007to the Christian Day School in town and the only reason she's not in the Evergreen system or the public system yet is because of the full day situation that she has there um I uh been just I'm just looking forward to you know going along for the ride and go and them starting their journey in the school district and wanting to take that Journey with them um so uh my in for educationally I have my bachelor's degree in sociology I have an MBA in industrial and organizational psychology so uh I know it's a mouthful and a lot of people don't know what that is but it's all about you know people and understanding um development and personality and how to build effective uh programs and processes around the people-centric programs and processes in terms of
008my work career I spent 15 years in corporate HR so I worked in Learning and Development I was an HR business partner I did executive recruitment so I was working for an I.T consulting company for a long time internally and externally building Learning and Development programs for them and working with clients in both the private public sectors doing that three years ago ironically a month before the endemic hit I made the conscious decision to leave my corporate role and do career coaching start my own career coaching and and coaching business and development business and part of that decision was being able to enable my wife to flourish um in her career because that she was taking off in her career and I wanted to be there as the primary caretaker for my kids as well
009and not uh put them in other avenues so a big part of why I'm running is because I'm invested in their education their development I'm the primary caretaker and I want to see them succeed as well as other kids in the district thank you and Miss Stephanie soriani hi I'd like to thank the PTA Council for sponsoring this event and thank the League of Women Voters and thank all of you for coming out this evening to learn more about the candidates and and the Board of Education the election this year um I'm a resident of Scotch Plains I've lived here for 16 years I have two children 10 and 14. one is here tonight and he attends Terrell and my daughter goes to the high school um educationally I I got my Master's in social
010work 20 years ago at NYU I am a licensed clinical social worker for the last 15 years I've worked as part of the New Jersey children's system of care which is part of the Department of Children and Families we provide care coordination for kids with behavioral and mental health needs so I tend to look at everything through a lens of of wellness and mental health one I've served I've had the great honor and opportunity to serve on the board for the past six years and just as Ms Bauer said I am really invested in the district strategic plan some things that I'm really looking forward to moving forward are continuing our work with diversity equity and inclusion I actually serve as the board's liaison to the truth racial healing and transformation Committee of which we
011have both of our Mayors and I'm the board representative just to move you know racial relations forward in our in our towns and our school um and I'd like to continue to work on you know mental health in our schools we've done a lot with bringing counselors into every school since I have been on the board and I'm very proud of that and continue to work on our facilities and infrastructure and I look forward for the opportunity to serve for another three years thank you and now we'll hear from the two candidates that are running for Fanwood the open seat in Fanwood and first we'll hear from Mr Mary Morris okay thank you so much for setting this up I think this is a an essential thing some towns and communities don't uh you don't
012even have the opportunity to see candidates so this this is huge um um I feel like the future the future of our country depends on education and um just to tell you well first let me tell you about myself um married my wife's back there uh 29 years been in the town for 25 years she would know the dates better than I would um uh we have we have four children all four of the children have made it through school um three of the four um actually all four went to Union County College and my one of my favorite accomplishments was I felt so unprepared as a parent my kids uh made it through debt free got their degrees and and their debt free and um by working really really hard and some there was
013some scholarship it's involved but they really worked hard to do this and by sticking with local schools and everything I think it's a really important thing to emphasize that with parents in the district how important it is um to stay within your means and you don't have to go to necessarily an Ivy League school the wonderful the wonderful thing is my daughter just like my wife has now on the path to becoming a teacher I think teachers are so vital and we need to do better to recruit and retain quality teachers and um I I like to I do like to brag my my daughter is one of the greatest teachers you will ever meet in your lifetime and I thought my wife was good but my my daughter has now surpassed her and I'm
014telling you I can't tell you enough how wonderful it is every week to hear a story a success story story from her school so thank you and Ms Amy Winkler hi I'm Amy Winkler and um my husband and I moved to Fanwood about 24 years ago like a lot of our friends and neighbors we moved here in part because of the excellent reputation of the schools we knew this would be a great place to raise our family prior to having children I worked as a hydrogeologist and a project manager in the environmental field remediating contamination of soil and groundwater at Superfund sites military sites and various commercial and Industrial sites I was fortunate enough to be able to leave work to stay home with my kids once they were born since then I worked for
015six years as the administrative assistant for the religious school at Temple Shalom where I am a member and I volunteered in several different capacities in the community once my children entered the schools I joined the local PTA I served the calls PTA as chair of the Earth Day committee as a member of the mini Grant committee and a member of the nominating committee as well as volunteering for various activities like Book Fairs and field day and and things like that I was also a member of the Terrell and the high school ptas while serving on the school board for the last 13 years I have worked hard to learn everything I can about our schools and our students as well as about education across the the unit the across New Jersey and the country uh
016this includes taking advantage of training that's offered to all Board of Education members by the New Jersey school boards Association which has honored me with certified board member Master board member and certified board leader credentials the last eight years I've served on the board of social justice matters a local organization that works to eliminate inequity and to lift up diverse voices by fostering positive relationships among neighbors through education and advocacy I've also volunteered through my temple as well as other initiatives in the community I'm hoping to be re-elected to the board because I'm committed to serving the children of our community and helping them to reach their Highest Potential thank you and now we move to the second portion of tonight's program and that is responses to the questions these questions were submitted by residents
017of franwood and Scotch Plains they were screened by the PTO Council to avoid duplicates to avoid personal attacks and to make sure that the question has to do with the office sought that of being a member of the Board of Education each candidate will have one minute to answer the question all candidates will answer the same question and again at the end of 30 seconds they will see the yellow card indicating they have another 30 seconds of their response and then at the end of the minute they will complete their thoughts so um let's say mysteriani you're going to be answering the first question first and the question asks what do you think is the most pressing issue facing our school district okay it's hard to choose one I think they're you know as we
018move there are always many pressing issues that we want to focus on um I think teacher recruitment is going to be one moving forward um we try to think of innovative ways to pull in new teachers we're very fortunate in this District that we we have not been overly challenged but um there is a teacher shortage Statewide so I think that's something that we're going to be challenged with moving moving forward another thing is the expansion that's happening in our towns we've been proactively working on that with a demographer so that we can plan accordingly upgrading and expanding our facilities but that's something that we're going to have to work on moving forward um and just continuing some of the great work that we've been doing in terms of continuing to engage our community in
019thoughtful ways with the public schools continuing to consider issues of diversity equity and inclusion in our curriculum Staffing and policies thank you thank you Ms Winkler uh yeah I actually am going to mention a lot of the same things that Ms siriani just mentioned to me I think the three biggest challenges that we face as a school district right now are Transportation capacity of our buildings and Staffing Transportation has been an issue not just in New Jersey but around the country as there's a shortage of bus drivers there's also a shortage of buses and of parts to get to fix the buses that we have and we've been trying all sorts of interesting ways of addressing that school capacity is going to be an issue for us with a lot of the new development that's
020going on around the community and payment in lieu of taxes there will be additional students coming into our buildings which are pretty much at capacity now so we are working with tomographer in order to address that issue Staffing is the other thing is you've probably heard there's a teacher shortage in New Jersey there is there's probably a teacher shorted around the country now I'm sure the pandemic didn't help and we are finding creative ways to address that thank you Mr Morris as they said there's there's a number of pressing issues um one of the one of the issues that I've I've talked about recently in some board meetings was um security I think security is super important in the schools and we need to focus on making sure that our kids are safe currently in
021the high school they they do not have any type of badging system or biometric finger scan so literally in the morning anybody could be walking in who looks you know of age or whatever so security is is one of the things financial literacy I think is extremely important for kids to learn about taking out loans credit cards things like that um and the other thing that I think is interesting is social media literacy not just for the kids but for the parents I think it's extremely important there's a lot of bullying that happens out there and I I've seen a lot of things happen in just on our local Facebook page I'm sure you've all seen it thank you um yes so pressing issues one of the things that I did before coming here was
022I did send out a parent and Community engagement survey to ask them what some of the pressing issues of our town are and mental health learning loss Community engagement teacher retention did come up so I want to make clear that I'm a representative of the community and that's what I'm my pressing issues are going to be reflective of what the community desires and thinks is necessary when it comes to recruitment the good thing is I spent majority of my career in Recruitment and built programs for Global organizations on how to effectively recruit and retain Talent so I think just as important as recruiting our teachers new teachers is retaining our existing teachers because we've had some follow-up in our teachers so I think putting together engagement surveys understanding the Nuance of the profession and putting
023together the proper resources for them to to flourish I think will help retain those teachers the other thing is you know Community engagement so the survey was a big part of you know what I wanted to do because our stakeholders are our community and our students and our teachers so I want to make them feel like they they're represented in our decision making thank you and Ms Bauer uh I would focus primarily on Staffing as the first issue not just teachers although I work in teacher preparation so I'm very aware of the teacher shortage and honestly the poaching that is going on from District to District which is an expensive way of finding teachers but it's not just teachers it's also bus drivers substitutes our teachers who are having to work extra periods and that
024adds a lot of of stress to them as well so I think Staffing in general and and Staffing relates to our many areas of our strategic plan in terms of diversity for example we need to be recruiting teachers with diverse backgrounds and being able to retain them as well so I think looking at the big picture of Staffing um helps us in many areas of our strategic plan thank you next question Mr Greenblatt you're going first what changes will you work to achieve in the next three years so drawing off the information I received from you know talking to people within the community I think transparency effective Communications have been one of the key pressing issues of Mental Health Resources around that has been another pressing issue so I think you know leveraging our community
025leveraging stakeholders to understand you know what are the pressing needs um you know just to build platforms where people feel like they have a voice effective Communications leveraging our technology I worked for a global I.T consulting company for a long time so leveraging the power of power schools and other platforms to you know effectively communicate School happenings a lot of times things are found out through the grapevine building FAQs around busing and around our teacher retention so that people have access to information a lot of times a lot of the misinformation comes from where the source is and I think as a board and as a district we should get ahead of that and make sure that the communication is coming from the central source so it's not misrepresented thank you Mr Morris could you
026repeat the question sure what changes would you work to achieve in the next three years okay so one of the one of the things that I think is important is encouraging parental involvement um and and getting parents involved in in the education of their children is is extremely important the other thing that I think is also important is supporting families that may not have a two-parent household or might have a single family household we need we need to do a better job of connecting let's say stay-at-home moms who might be able to watch so-and-so's kid maybe create a parent helping parent uh uh website link where we could unite parents who have Aftercare needs before care needs and things like that quite frankly my mom my mom wow that was bad my wife was a
027stay-at-home mom for much of the time and um don't laugh um she was a stay-at-home mom much of the time and she was able to help support the family by watching some other kids and and to see those families the of careers in those families flourish as a result of my wife giving them Dependable Child Care was huge thank you Ms Bauer in terms of changes one of the things that has been important to me all the time that I've been on the board of ed is more student choice and voice so that we can build leadership among our students so I would keep hoping to move us along that Continuum a pressing issue I do believe is something that Ms Winkler Ms siriani spoke of and that is related to the budget and funding
028for um uh increases that are going to be coming our way related to housing and the other thing is related to Partnerships I believe that we can do a lot more with dual enrollment with opportunities for students to be leaving with many credits who knows an AAA degree I think taking advantage of the expertise of parents which we do but we could do a better job of that as well thank you Ms Winkler hi yeah so can you repeat that question what changes will you work toward to achieve in the next three years thank you so some of the things that I would look forward to working on in the next three years are working toward meeting the objectives and the goals in our strategic plan which was something that the community came together to
029help us create incorporating more student voice system systemically into the work in all of our schools it makes the the work more authentic and relevant dual enrollment opportunities for our students uh teacher retention and growing our own crop of future Educators is really important and it's something that I I would like to focus on moving forward um and of course just helping our students to reach their fullest potential thank you and Ms suryani yes um thank you some of the changes that I would focus on are um again considering the expansion that's happening in our communities I think that ties in well not only preparing for expansion space wise but just considering upgrading some of our facilities and creating more Innovative learning spaces that's something that is in our strategic plan so kind of marrying
030that need with um with with some of those goals also considering how we might improve on our transportation maybe not relying so much on you know Contracting with with outside companies although um as as was mentioned earlier we have we're facing some limitations that are out of our control But continuing to try to think creatively around our transportation needs and and abilities also um focusing on you know some of the the family and Community needs as far as before care and after care we have discussed some of that um you know in Prior meetings so continuing to do that thank you next question Miss Winkler you're going first and the question States the Scotch Plains bandwidth School District's 2022 2025 strategic plans first goal is diversity equity and inclusion the objective is to increase opportunities
031to develop a district committed to diversity equity and inclusion through hiring practices of educational and support staff curriculum development and student empowerment how important is this goal to you and what concrete actions will you take to actively help our district achieve this goal this goal is important to me and it goes kind of hand in hand with our second goal which is to um believe to educate the whole child um I I think that uh it's very important for us to support the whole child our curriculum needs to have the the terms that that have been thrown around a lot recently is Windows mirrors and sliding glass doors we want students to be able to see themselves reflected in the curriculum but also the experience of others so they can understand those things um we
032want our students to develop critical thinking skills which I think is important for them to uh the the diversity of what's in our curriculum will help them to build those critical thinking skills and um I just completely lost my training I'm done thank you okay thank you Ms Bauer um it's a very important area to me personally and professionally and it's um I just give an example that um I was have become involved with a group called The Sankofa collaborative if you don't know about them you can visit their website but um uh and and through them I have learned many different things and and been able to share that with the network of schools that I work with professionally and for example we were just showcasing a new PBS movie called the price of
033Silence on slavery in New Jersey these are the kinds of things that need to be conversations in our schools and I do want to say that for our students all our students you know they have to be empowered to go out and change the world and we have to give them opportunities to be leaders here while they're with us thank you Miss suriani hey um the plan goal of diversity equity and inclusion is very important to me also as Ms Bauer said as a board member but also in my personal and professional life I'm a social worker so my day-to-day practice involves um you know looking looking at working with families to provide Equitable mental and Behavioral Health Care I also chair the curriculum committee and have had that honor for the past few years
034so when we review instruction materials new courses course changes we're always looking at it through a lens of diversity equity and inclusion I also volunteered to be the board liaison to the truth racial healing and transformation because this is so important to me um and and I've also it's very important to me that that all of our students have Pathways to all of our um you know courses AP courses talented and gifted programs and that's something we've done quite a bit of speaking about over the past couple years thank you Mr Morris okay when it comes to diversity I mean I think one of the key things to remember is you just need to love your neighbor right um it's it's a it's a very cliched thing but how do you want to be treated
035that's the way you should be treating other people by living that Credo I've seen it play out in my family and I I you allow everybody to feel welcome in a classroom there's no place for a teacher to disparage a certain group of people or anything like that regardless of what political party or anything like that it should be all are welcome and and respect children's ideas and and again diversity of ideas is super important as well we can't just be focused on on traditional diversity it's diversity of thought too which is so important for kids to encourage them to think and and and dream big thank you Mr Greenblatt um yeah so working in corporate HR I spent a lot of time building programs around this um I actually developed a program for hiring
036thousands of hiring managers across the globe on how to be um more um efficient in the talent selection and management process eliminate unconscious bias remove things like similar to me bias and uh also to be inclusive of who they Source in terms of candida pools I mean there's data that shows people that uh persons of color and women do not apply to jobs if they're not 100 fit when men do and we need to be more aware of these things so I trained people on that and how to Source from different Talent pools so when it comes to you know bringing on a diverse staff and and population I think those are some of the tools that I would use and then also just exposure I think one of the biggest things that have helped
037me with diversity is exposure to people of all walks of life all different opinions all all experiences and the more that our kids have exposure the more that they'll be accepting of others so first question asks do you support an inclusive sex education curriculum that educates all students of varying gender expression sexual orientation or biological conditions that exist outside of the typical definitions of male and female foreign [Applause] in this case um there's there's a why did I have to be first on this one I think I think when it comes to the the sex curriculum I think it's important that parents are involved in how their kids are are taught certain things and we can't be introducing things to kids at too early in age I've said this before you can never unring a
038bell you can't be teaching kids in in I don't even want to say this stuff with with the child present so I mean there's certain topics that just should not be discussed with children and I think it should be up to families to present those to um to their kids when they feel their kids are ready to receive it Mr greenblatt so yes a very nuanced issue um you know I've done a lot of research I've read the 66-page document that was provided to us from the state regarding the the standards and the curriculum um I think we just take a common sense approach I mean a lot of it I've read the 66 Pages a lot of it is good and beneficial um the idea of teaching kids that there are different types of
039family structures I I mean that's that's important because that's factual well-grounded information that will help them Thrive and and be open to different people in life so I think all of that's important um where I I do see a little bit of the Nuance in the in more abstract issues where you have social constructs where you know there's a lot of different belief systems so I don't know how much you should go into detail about that where you know that there's worldview can influence those things so I think a lot of dedication towards kids learning but also I'd like to see more parent workshops and engagement to educate them because if we want them to be the primary owners of sex education where a lot of people feel that way then they should be informed
040and be able to to disseminate that information to their children as well thank you Miss duriani uh yeah I think your question asked do you support delivering the health and physical education curriculum in an inclusive way and my answer is yes I support delivering every content area curriculum in an inclusive way that considers every child in the classroom as long as instruction is delivered in a developmentally appropriate and educationally informed way which I think we always um you know have plans um in place at every level to to make those assessments from a Child Development and um educational perspective thank you Miss Winkler uh yes my answer to this question is yes um and I think the bottom line is in some of the statistics suicide is the second leading cause of death among young
041people and lgbtq youth are four times more likely to seriously consider suicide make a plan for suicide or attempt suicide um many of lgbtq youth who have who lgbtq youth report lower rates of attempting suicide when they have access to affirming spaces and having at least one accepting adult can reduce the risk of suicide by 40 percent in this group and I think it's really important that we that we teach the health curriculum so that they see themselves reflected there Miss Bauer my answer is yes I think it's so important that we are welcoming to all students and all families and I believe that in terms specifically of of this uh new the new changes uh that the state has mandated that the district's going about conversations related to those changes in a very thoughtful
042way and and I'm glad that they are that many parents have joined those conversations and but most importantly we have to to meet the needs of all students and All Families thank you next question Ms Bower you're going first the question reads students have missed critical learning during the pandemic several years later tremendous learning gaps are evident as a board member how do you plan to continue to monitor those gaps and provide compensatory education to general education students to close that Gap so there are a number of things that first of all I want to say that learning happens when it is based on relationships so I think um we we all learn uh when when we are in a welcoming safe space um and uh but in terms of academic the the losses I
043think you're speaking of academic ones so let me go there on the curriculum committee um we spend a lot of time looking at ways to support students who are need help the most and we put a number of programs in place and we will be continuing to do that we're still looking at the most recent data which we've just received and will be coming out soon but there certainly is a commitment to continuing the [Music] um Wonder wonderful learning opportunities we have here in Scotch Plains thank you Miss duriani um yes I think our district very proactively um started using assessments to help us um identify any you know students who needed additional help the map tests that we do provide very specific data in terms of which students in each class are you know
044need additional help are maybe approaching expectations maybe meeting expectations and classroom teachers are able to use that data collaborate with parents and make plans for um you know helping those students that might need to catch up and again the curriculum committee continues to discuss and uh um thank you Mr Morris yeah so obviously communication between the teacher and the parent arcade to see where there's needs and everything like that but um one thing that my my daughter did during the pandemic which worked out quite well was for kids in our church she just began allowing them to contact her and she tutored them for free online and she became quite good at doing that I think that would be a really awesome way to not even not just help younger kids but also to possibly
045encourage a child to become a teacher from all that tutoring and everything during the pandemic my daughter switched from being a nurse to now she's a teacher and so I think I think that's a great way to to kill two birds with one stone I don't know if you're allowed to say that anymore but yeah um we'll we'll say that so your recruiting teachers at the same time that you're you're helping some uh younger kids okay thank you Ms Winkler uh yeah I don't know that my answer will be a lot different from what miss siriani and miss power have said um but yeah I've also been on the curriculum committee uh for about 11 years and working with our um with our staff and and all of their professionalism they are focused on student
046achievement and it is something that we have been looking at is the data that's come back from the most recent round of testing and how we're going to address achievement gaps that we see and the the slide that we saw from the pandemic the slide is the same across the the state you know it's not something that's original to us but um but we have been very proactive about it with the maps testing uh so that we could get data to look at and as Ms siriani stated it's very specific to the students and to which specific um uh which specific no words not coming to me sorry but which specific uh learning things they are they are deficient in so green black um I'm glad that we talk about data and I did you
047know come across my daughter's map assessment data but finding data you know as it for on the district as a whole is almost impossible as someone as an outsider looking in um so that's one area that I can't speak to so although um the current board members have that data I have not seen anything um related to the district's performance or learning loss but in my professional careers of Learning and Development manager I mean I always did a skills Gap analysis when delivering learning programs so it was always about understanding where somebody was in their current profession where they were with their current skills and understanding you know what's the gap between where they need to be and where they are so and that's a very individualized process so that's the important thing is that
048we don't try a one-size-fits-all approach to our students we make sure that it's individualized for each student and we know that some students may have thrived during the pandemic and maybe learning remotely was better for them so we we just need to make sure that we're catering to the individual and and making sure that those plans reflect that thank you okay next question Mr rianni you're going first I have a question asks which specific board committees are you or do you hope to join what experience and skills do you have that directly benefit those committee's objectives thank you um So currently I chair the curriculum committee I'm also on the policy committee as well as um Teamster negotiations and um you know in the past we tend to to rotate some as well I've been
049in the past on facilities I've been on Student Activities um oh and I'm currently on community engagement as well and I think the reason for that is sometimes it keeps you know if we rotate new ideas come in New Perspectives but also you know there does tend to be some consistency I've been on curriculum for six years um and I have a particular you know interest in that area as well as Community engagement it was an important goal for me coming in as a new board member years ago to engage the community more um you know in communication in letting the community know some of the wonderful work that is being done in the district so we were able to make some progress in that area so I'd like to continue definitely with curriculum and
050Community engagement thank you Mr Morris um I would also say uh again if I were to be elected uh I would be interested in uh serving on curriculum and also uh Student Activities I think it's uh super important for uh kids to participate in things outside of the school my kids still get together to this day with kids that they played Rec Soccer with it's it that's where bonds are made you talk about diversity and things like that but I'm telling you there's nothing like kids on a track team or something like that on a relay team that's where bonds are made that last a lifetime and it's super important to uh to encourage that and again Community engagement I think we need to tell more positive stories coming from the school I have a
051next door neighbor who came through the the school system here he became the um the Ambassador the U.S ambassador to Guatemala does anybody even know his name probably not he's a spectacular individual and he lived next door to me right here in Fanwood well right there in Fanwood thank you Miss Bauer so um I've been on the finance committee since I was first elected um I became interested in the board because of the Ice Hockey Association and I thought I would find a lot of money and so I wanted to join Finance I didn't find the money but um I've been on curriculum and chaired it for many years and I'm currently also on Student Activities community relations and chair personnel and I chaired negotiations as well and we also also represent too many organizations
052so I do Garden State Coalition of schools where I'm the vice president I always am looking at these committees Through My Lens as an educator and and bringing to policy or different conversations uh things that I see happening other places in the state and and asking related questions about what we're doing and how we might or might not do things differently thank you Mr Greenblatt um so I'd say first and foremost closest to my heart is Talent so talent management Talent Development as someone that's worked in organizational development so hiring retention Employee Engagement staff engagement so building programs around that I've built surveys I've built engagement surveys I've developed leadership programs so just building the next crop of leaders and making sure that our staff is supported Community engagement so I've like I said I
053ran a survey with the community to find out their needs I'm part of my role as a consultant was always to bring together stakeholders so being able to assess business needs assess key stakeholder needs and our Learners needs and putting something together that reflects all of that and I worked for a global technology consulting company so just RIT leveraging and maximizing our power schools and building Central repositories for communications so being able to maximize our use of technology and and bring that to the next level and even help maybe on curriculum with around technology too for our students thank you and Miss Winkler hi yeah so I am currently serving on curriculum committee which I was on uh about 11 years uh policy is the committee that I chair I serve on the wellness and
054Equity committee as well as on personnel and I am the liaison to the Union County School boards Association where I attend meetings every month and bring back information about what's going on in other districts um also previously I served on the community engagement committee and also on shared services between Scotch Plains and Fanwood and the Board of Ed where we looked for ways to share services and save some taxpayer money I chaired the policy committee I'm kind of a policy walk so that works out pretty well for me thank you next question Mr Greenblatt you get to go first question asks with new housing developments being built please address how the school board will plan to support the education of existing and new students with anticipated overcrowding um so the unfortunate thing after digging up
055a lot of information on what's going on with the development and talking to um Tom straw who's the development um coordinator for the town is that a lot of that's outside of the board's control um what the population growth is going to look like and and what's going to happen with you know develop um over development and new students um one of the things that I I did suggest during one of our board meetings was maybe talking to our zoning board and planning board and seeing if we could put ordinances in place um where we don't see any more Ranch houses being torn down for three or four more houses to stem the over uh crowding of our schools to kind of limit our population growth but I think again it's it's going to be
056being Nimble with the budget and finding other areas where we can you know make concessions to be able to support the resources and the modulars that are going to be built to attach to the schools so just maximizing our budget and and resources and doing that across most effective way thank you Ms Winkler yeah so we are working very closely with the demographer as well as architect and other professionals to help us for planning for expanding our schools and to do it in the most cost effective way that we can based on the number of units we're looking at we're getting projections from the demographer for how many additional students to be expecting in our schools our schools are currently at capacity for the most part so we are looking at purchasing modular units it's
057more cost effective than trying to build whole additions onto buildings from scratch um I think that's about all I have to say on that thank you mriani yes I mean I have to Echo a lot of what Ms Winkler said in that the district is being very proactive to prevent any overcrowding um again we have been working with a demographer for the past couple years right now uh actually last week's board meeting two weeks ago I forgot word meeting was um the board did approve um the purchase of modular units and we are you know awaiting a report from our architect about um you know how to work those and other plans into the district to to prevent any overcrowding and allow for space for additional students it's Bauer um so I have to Echo
058what Mrs Winkler and Mrs siriani said our goal is not to have overcrowding that's why we're working hard um with the demographer and The Architects to try and make sure that doesn't happen and uh you know we we don't want to see overcrowded schools and planning ahead and we're fortunate that we are very careful with our budget here and Scotch Plains and that we are able right now to at least get started with this expansion of of these modular units within our current budget thank you Mr Morris I've been a long long outspoken critic of pilot programs in in Fanwood um I think uh it's it's a disaster in the making and that they'll always claim that there's not children moving in and everything like that and I my mom who passed away last year
059uh lived in Fanwood Crossing and I saw plenty of kids around there so the myth that kids are not moving into some of these apartments obviously if a couple moves in they eventually have a kid and so it's going to happen and as the economy shifts I think you're going to see a huge problem in there's a lot of kids going to private school where parents may not be able to afford to send their kids to the private school and there's going to be an influx coming back in I think we need to be uh start looking at other alternative ways of of of finding places to house kids maybe it's even in in some of the churches that might have Sunday School classrooms sitting empty during the week and they're only filled on on
060Sundays maybe it's something like that thank you next question Mr Morris you're going first question asks what is your position on njsla start strong and similar assessments quite honestly I'm not I'm not even familiar with that so I I couldn't even uh did you give me more of a description of that or that's it I gather these are assessments that students take to see whether they're at grade level or not grade level okay I agree with that but that's I think I think it's important to understand that the standardized testing yeah so so kids kids learn it at different rates I've seen it with my kids uh again I have 52 years of experience of my kids being in the school system I've seen you know in uh during the pandemic things happening um with
061my my daughter could do the online stuff my son could not um and I think you got to be very cognizant of the fact that people learn at different paces and quite honestly my sons when they got to college they became better students than even my daughter so kids learn at a different pace and I think putting too much emphasis on on on that stuff is is a lot of pressure on parents and kids thank you Miss Bauer I absolutely think we have too much testing in our schools and I think the unfortunately the standardized tests now like the NJ LSA Tongue Tied with the initials um are um they they don't correlate like we can't really look at the data and compare from year to year we used to be able to at least
062be able to tell more in the past and so we I just it's a snapshot in time and I think one of the things that our community recognizes is it's not all about the test anyway so yes you need the assessment yes we some kind of assessment but to spend practically the whole month of September doing testing it's crazy Mr greenblatt um so one of the things that I would say is the most important part of any assessment is consistency I mean if you're going to change the type of assessment or what's asked on an assessment then you have no longitudinal data to go off of so over a course of period of time you don't understand what the performance is of the student so I think just making sure there's consistency in testing um
063long-term impact I mean are these indicative of future performance basically what we're doing here in the schools is we're preparing kids for the real world and for the workforce so have these in from have these assessments really proven anything about you know someone's success in life and and down the road so I don't know if we have that look back data but that's always important um and then just making sure we don't teach only to the assessment making sure that teachers are teaching in different areas and making sure that the whole child is learning holistically as opposed to these assessments being tied to Performance which a lot of times happens and and that's why teachers will teach to the assessment and miss out on other opportunities thank you Ms Winkler I think that standardized testing
064has a place I think that it's it's important to get a sense of where things are at and be able to compare where we are compared to other places but I think that there's entirely too much standardized testing going on in in New Jersey at least I think that a lot of it is unnecessary and a lot of it is is really taking a lot of time and causing a lot of stress for a lot of students and a lot of instructors who find that they have to figure out ways around it or make up the the lessons that they want to try to teach around the ridiculous schedules that seem to drag on and on I'm particularly bothered with the start strong tests because I feel that these were tests that were intended to
065assess pandemic learning loss but they they like picked and chose it's like a like a condensed version of the regular annual testing that's done and they picked and chose certain standards to look at and just ignored others and the tests are really very the information is sort of spotty it's not it's not really useful thank you Miss duriani I do think that there is too much testing but I agree that it does have its place um and I think it gives the the district some interesting information um on how we are doing compared to the rest of the state as well as various demographic groups within our district and it helps us make some informed curriculum decisions moving forward in terms of um you know any any achievement gaps and and such um and I
066also just want to add to to since we're back to talking about testing that district testing data we are mandated to report that to the public and we do do presentations on district testing results and those those are on our website thank you next question Miss Winkler you're going first and the question is now on your position on social emotional learning what are some of your thoughts on how we can better support students in that area social emotional learning I think is very important for our students I think that it goes along with our second goal from our strategic plan about educating the whole child I think it's really important that our students feel comfortable in our schools and that they will they will certainly learn more effectively when they are um I think that
067social emotional learning is uh sort of thing that teaches children how to regulate their emotions um and how to uh how to you know use your words sort of thing instead of acting out physically um it's the sort of thing that teaches them social skills for getting along with their peers and it's the sort of thing that can help them to develop better uh Mental Health thank you Miss uriani yes as a social worker I tremendously value social emotional learning I think our kids are under a tremendous amount of stress in school and outside of school so I think it's it's so important we have social and emotional learning curriculum from pre-k all the way up Pre-K is Al's Pals we just recently talked about it in in curriculum committee um and you know along
068with social emotional learning we we have a whole bunch of other things that support Children's Mental Health from the Student Assistance specialist a new director of counseling and wellness bringing ubhc counselors into our schools and and expansion of effective School Solutions Mr greenblatt um so yeah so I I do agree that there are various aspects of social emotional learning that are important and I think part of it it stems from us creating the stressors on our children um I think the world has become much more complex I think we've driven that complexity and I think we we are creating some of those um outcomes that we're trying to solve now um so I think it's important that we we take a look at that but also I think it's important that the right person is
069teaching the child the right thing so expecting our teachers to be mental health professionals or counselors or psychologists or clinical psychiatrists I think you know a professional development in those areas are helpful for our Educators but I think we may we have to make sure we have the right resources going um and and educating and helping our kids in those areas I think that it's important that you know we don't put too much stress on our teachers and over expand what their knowledge base is as well so is Bauer I the social emotional learning is obviously key actually I think it's a baseline for um the rest of learning but it's the framework in which we live right and so um we need to think about the supports and the pathways that are going to
070help our our students flourish have self-confidence um and um and feel good about themselves and certainly we have a lot of things in place in the district that are age-appropriate across all grade levels to try and support students and it's important that we're supporting teachers to you know you you can't do good if you don't feel good and feel good about yourself and so we want to support all members of the community our students our teachers and um I think we're all in this together Mr Morris yeah obvious obviously mental health is a huge huge issue in this country and and um you know depression and things like that and I really think it's important to keep in mind of you know the types of books that the kids are assigned let's say for for
071summer reading over the years we had some books where I I could feel that my my kids were um affected by them in in a really negative way where it was almost like a depression and and reading books about you know uh a dad murdering his wife by pouring boiling water on her maybe for social emotional learning is not the best thing and and I think we gotta really be careful I have a brother that's adopted 17 kids out of foster care you can't imagine the atrocities these kids have seen and then they're going to read a book about a a you know a um somebody abusing their their their uh a mom I I just I I just can't even imagine what uh you know is going through we need to lead with empathy
072and put ourselves in the children's shoes thank you next question Miss Bauer you get to answer first several school districts in New Jersey have holidays such as and I apologize I'm probably mispronouncing this holiday aid aid Diwali and Lunar New Year included in the school calendar will you support inclusion of these holidays in the calendar and if yes what steps would you take to include these holidays if no how do you justify excluding the diverse growing population of our district I certainly think it's something that the board should look at and should can consider that's on a policy level um and um the calendar we we don't decide the calendar we review it the administration makes recommendations um but I think we need to respect again all cultures all religions and I think it's an
073important thing for us to talk about Mr Morris yeah I I also agree that uh you know various holidays are important um I think one thing that I think would be really helpful um I know at work we have what's called a floating holiday um if you will so if you had a you know a holiday that may not be as well known or um out there that that you would be able to take that so in that uh vein I would think you would you would want to have something what I would call a homework certificate where you could get out of doing homework or something like that where if it's let's say it's a Jewish holiday or or a Muslim holiday you you present that and you're allowed a certain number of those
074uh during the year to give a kid a break so he can celebrate uh you know uh religious festivities or or whatever with the with the family Miss Winkler yes I I do believe that it's important to respect everybody's uh diversity in the community and everybody's holidays I think that as a school district in New Jersey where we are bound to the the 180 day requirement that our students must attend school 180 days and we do have a very diverse population in the community with a lot of different holidays and I think that it may not be realistic to have all of them as days off for the entire student body but I do think it's important to look at these these days and see what we can do and what we can't and what's
075within our our ability I think that certain days like the this past year we chose to have school on Juneteenth even though it was declared a holiday in the state I think that it was really important we decided to focus on it much like we did on Veterans Day where we brought in our teachers brought in lessons about Juneteenth so they could teach about it and I'd like to be able to do that with other days as well if we can't actually take them as days off thank you Miss uriani I do think in the interest of diversity equity and inclusion that we do need to look at all of the holidays that all of our students celebrate and think about how we might be able to alter the calendar to honor those holidays I
076know that we have gotten this feedback um not too far back in the past and I believe that it's something that our wellness and Equity committee is looking at Mr greenblatt so yeah I do think um that we should demonstrate that no um holiday is more important than others um and that everybody's religious and cultural values are important and and share equal um weight um so I do think that we can be creative around allowing those that celebrate those holidays to take the day off and then maybe have a makeup day or find creative ways to make them uh to allow them to make up the work they missed on that day if we can't offer a full day off to the whole student body um and then I did see a recommendation at one
077point that there should be no tests or homework on the days following a holiday um which I believe I think the board mentioned that they agreed with that policy in one of the meetings so I think you can consider that for the day after those holidays as well so thank you okay um next question Mr rianni gets to answer it first considering the diversity within our community lack of child care and the current study supporting changing starting times school calendar teaching methods how will you keep help keep Scotch Plains van Woods School District at the Forefront of education and leave behind the system that doesn't fit current day lives of benefit that benefit the students yes that's a great question um I actually over the past few years we've really been thinking and talking about
078how we use time and what's most efficient and effective for our students um a couple of years ago we did go to block scheduling which was really an innovation in our district [Music] um in the high school which involved you know some of the there was a lot of research there was a Committee involved there were visits to um other districts that had successfully implemented it and so I and and now it's up and running and so yes I do support looking at at times start times for schools for various ages and um continuing in a very thoughtful and research-based way to look at at time in our district Mr Greenblatt can you repeat that sure considering the diversity within our community lack of child care and the current studies supporting changing start times school
079calendar teaching methods how will you help keep Scotch Plains Family School District at the Forefront of education and leave behind a system that doesn't fit our current day lives that benefit the students so there's a couple of areas that I mean you could address and that will help for that I mean I know Aftercare before care is a huge issue I know we have a contracted relationship with the Y maybe somehow bringing that in-house also finding creative ways to you know staff our Aftercare programs better so maybe even offering additional incentives to our current teachers and our staff members to provide Aftercare resources and and um to parents that need that also I'd say you know staggered Bell schedules I think has been floated around across a lot of different districts so maybe staggering the
080Bell schedules to help alleviate some of the busing concerns that are facing our community um and and child care too as a whole just you know making that more needs based and so you know increasing equity in that way where you know people that need it are at the Forefront of it so just being able to you know make some of those operational changes and could could be helpful and then you know understand with other Nuance that surrounds it Miss Bauer um so um as Ms sariani said we've been looking at time in a number of different ways and um I think one of the ways that we were also thinking about time was with regard to not only just before and after care and how we're currently doing that um and and the current
081options but but also thinking about high school students and and the timing of when they are getting to school their needs for Sleep the challenges we have with sports and and other conflicts we want to make a change with that so there are many different things related to timing that we need to continue to look at and as Ms suryani said you know it's important to look at the research and the data and as well as our community Mr Morris I'm all about alleviating pressure on parents I had four kids uh we did it all with uh I coached soccer going to games doing all these things we need to do what we can to alleviate pressure from parents so one one thing that I think would be cool is to have a carpool app
082uh just for you know uh the schools another thing that I I've been kicking around this idea um uh is is gym classes we could theoretically Outsource some of our Gym classes to some of the local karate clubs the Rec Soccer have the kids get permission then they could possibly use um the gym at the end of the day as a study hall where they could do their homework and everything like that where kids could then tutor each other and help each other you know uh doing their assignments I think it's I think we got to start thinking uh really outside the box maybe outside the school to figure out ways where maybe maybe we could even help some of the local businesses that have been having a difficult time time you know karate place
083down the street it would be really helpful for them as well to encourage people to do that instead of going to a traditional gym class and Ms Winkler uh yeah I think that use of time as as was mentioned by everybody here pretty much is an important thing that we do need to look at we have been reviewing different ideas for before and after care options as it's something that we were talking about potentially looking into in the past and it's something that we have been looking at particularly as uh as options have gotten tighter within the community what are the things that are possible things that we can do for that we also um as as Miss siriani and Ms Bauer mentioned we moved the high school to a block schedule to try to
084alleviate homework and to be able to have teachers dive more deeply into their subject matter with the students I think this has been really successful so far I think that we've gotten a lot of positive feedback about it and we are looking at if it works that well then we may look into possibility of moving it into our middle schools as well thank you that brings us to our final question for this evening and um Mr Morris do you get to answer it first it asks how is a school board member do you think you can bridge the gap between the community and the school administration to make meaningful change and progress forward in the next few years yeah I I think a lot has to do with communication and openness and transparency um I'll
085be quite honest I was upset about the the situation with them bringing in uh Dr Joshi I did not think that was an appropriate thing she wrote a book called White Christian privilege I don't think anybody would have stood for somebody who wrote a book called uh White Jewish privilege or black Christian privilege I don't think anybody would have stood for that and so I think we have to be cognizant of everybody in the community no matter who they are and make it a welcoming place for everyone thank you Ms Winkler can you repeat the question or how is a school board member do you think you can bridge the gap between the community and the school administration to make meaningful change in progress forward in the next few years um I think that I
086think that there's a lot of places for uh for greater communication between the administration and the community I think that the I think that we've been moving in that direction in a lot of ways I think that we have when it came to questions about the sex ed curriculum we opened up focus groups for parents to come in and discuss it with our with our Administration so that we could move forward collaboratively and in creating the curriculum that we're going to use in the schools I think that when it came to issues of diversity and Equity our wellness and Equity Committee created a racial Equity task force and brought in different groups from the community different stakeholders as well as our students to try and have those sort of discussions collaboratively I think that there
087are probably lots of places where we could do these sort of things with focus groups we brought in different parents and different professionals from within the community to to help us work through our covid plans thank you Mr greenblatt um yeah so a big part of you know what I base my uh my principles for running on our you know in community engagement and being a representative of the community and I think I got to remember that throughout if I was elected throughout my tenure as a board member is that I serve the community and I need to keep my my fingers on the pulse of what they want and what they need things that I thought of that might be better serving the community and the board's relationship are accessibility so right now we're
088recording this but we're not live streaming this um and that's the same that's true of board meetings it's very difficult for parents to make it to a board meeting at eight o'clock on a Thursday night or Tuesday night so having a live stream where there's live interaction would be great creating a central repository for information distribution so we get a lot of emails from Swift we get Facebook you have Twitter you have the PTA sending out emails so anybody that's worked in the professional world knows that there's things that out there are systems that are out there that you know you can centralize community give users access to it where they'll be alerted to anything coming in and it's a central hub for them to to look at information so I think that's those are
089a couple of key items thank you lower I actually think we're very fortunate in this District to um have uh responsive principles and I honestly um I think the same can be said for our superintendent um returning calls and emails and so forth and I just say that based on my experience in other districts that we're very fortunate here in Scotch Plains and but on the community relations committee we did a lot of we we've surveyed the community we had focus groups we've worked very hard to try and improve the communications it's an ongoing effort but I think we've made progress thank you I'm Miss suriani I think there's always room for growth I think we have done a lot over the past few years in terms of bridging that Gap and a lot of
090it does have to do with communication um our our community engagement committee reconvening um just occurred a couple of years ago to work on a lot of this um since we've we've started a newsletter a few years ago we didn't really have a social media presence for the district now we're frequently communicating out through Twitter um you know things that are happening in our schools and Community um so we're thinking about the ways that people want to communicate and what's accessible for them and trying to to access them in those ways again as as Ms Winkler said we're also trying to invite parents to the table to weigh in on key issues that did include bringing in various people who had strengths in certain areas during the pandemic to weigh in on the district's pandemic
091plans to join our wellness and Equity task force and in addition we included all 130 I think it was around 130 people who wanted to be part of the health education focus groups we they were part of able to be part of that thank you thank you this brings us to our third portion and concluding portion of the evening and that is the closing statements each candidate will have two minutes to give their closing statements again we have the two candidates running for the one open seat in Fanwood and Ms Winkler you're going to be going first with your open with your closing statement thank you um so I Envision a school district where all students feel welcome and valued and contribute positively to the school community and where parents are Partners in the educational
092process bringing a broader perspective to the work I also Envision all of our students graduating with confidence in themselves and with the skills necessary to be productive members of The Wider world it is my goal to help all students reach their Highest Potential individual board members cannot act alone our power lies and our successful collaboration with each other and the administrators in the past I've been proud to work with the board to bring full day kindergarten to our schools and to support Arts integration anti-bullying efforts enhanced security measures increasing mental health supports and other initiatives in our classrooms moving forward I hope to work with the board and administration to bring an expansion of our facilities in the near future and implementation of the community generated strategic plan having students participate in our strategic planning
093meetings last year ensured that the work was both authentic and relevant I have been and will continue to be focused on finding ways to incorporate student voice into our decision making I'm looking forward to having our new student board representative at our next meeting tomorrow I'm dedicated to incorporating student voice systemically into our work and in all of our schools I'm also focused on finding ways to implement dual enrollment so our students can earn college credit during their High School experience another area I will focus on this coming year is teacher retention and what we can do as a district to ensure that we hire and retain the best teachers for our schools I want to thank the League of Women Voters as well as the PTA Council for organizing this event and thank you
094to everyone for for watching and I hope you'll consider voting for me thank you Mr Morris boards are like families right um not everybody agrees with each other not everybody thinks the same you talk it out and you figure out the best way forward there's one thing with with the current board set up there's not enough dads and that's reflective of our society on the whole right there's just not enough dads out there so win or lose I'm a dad who's stepping up to volunteer I've volunteered it's in the DNA of my family okay whether it be boxes of Hope at Evangel Church feeding people during the pandemic it was my family and a few people realize this we were the only family packing those boxes for weeks I was taking days off from work
095to do that that's the heart of our family we live to serve other people my daughter you know tutoring kids during the pandemic keeping in touch with kids first from Sunday school for church that's what we do and I want to instill that kind of volunteerism throughout the community I also think it's important that kids not be looked at as a failure if they don't want to go to college I think it's in we we over emphasize the pressure on kids I I had a rude awakening when my my third child quit college and quite frankly what's that oh did I say third you can see my wife is telling me fourth child uh man that is so lame I'm gonna hear about it so again he found a different way he found his way
096in social media um and and and he's made a career of it and so so we can't we can't put this pressure on our kids and one of the reasons I I emphasize Community College it takes the pressure off parents and these days when the pressure's off the parents the kids are happier and everybody gets along and it works out and so that's that's one of the things I want to emphasize whether I get on there or not I'm going to speak to this all the time and I'd love to come in and talk to parents about sending your kids to Community College to save money it works and it and it the training is incredible thank you and now we'll hear from the three candidates running for the two open seats on the for
097Scotch Plains and first we'll hear from Miss suriani thank you I want to thank everyone for coming out um I appreciate this opportunity I'm very proud to have served on the board for the past six years and I'm very passionate about continuing to serve for the next three years a couple of weeks ago we found out that the results of this District's Cusack audit um in Cusack they rate the district on many um things from from governance and boardsmanship to um to operations and um the result was that we were ranked overall as a high performing District I'm proud to be to call myself leadership in a high performing District I am the product of a top-notch New Jersey public education I truly believe in public education and I believe that we're here for um
098for the students and the community um I I have been proud over the years to to be on the community engagement committee where I truly do believe that we have improved our communication with the community and our engagement of the community I've been proud to have supported the development of some unique positions in this District such as the Director of wellness and counseling the Arts integration Specialists and operations and special projects manager um and I've I've been proud to have been the district's liaison to the truth racial healing and transformation committee and continue to move forward the district's diversity equity and inclusion goals and I look forward to working on other things you know in the coming years such as discussed modernization and expansion of facilities improving and innovating instruction which is always a goal
099and continuing to focus on on Transportation before care and after care and other community needs thank you Mr Greenblatt I'm sorry I I want to Echo mriani's thank you to everybody for attending and for hosting this um I think I find myself to be in a very fortunate position in life where I can dedicate time to my child's development and give back to the community it's been a long time that I wanted to do it um I worked uh full-time for a consulting company but I also ran a career coaching business on the side and a couple of years ago I was able to lead my full-time job to focus on my own business and unfortunately that was a month before the pandemic hit so that was an interesting time but thankfully I was able
100to pick up the bulk of child care but what it did open the door for me was to be able to start you know once the pandemic subsided to give back to the community and get more engaged so I've been able to participate in more PTA events volunteer at the Episcopal church and be involved in my daughter's education and uh and my other daughter who will soon be out of daycare her education as well and that's why I wanted to be a board member too because my kids are just starting their journey and I wanted to be able to influence that I wanted to be able to give them a quality education and help make decisions that affect how they develop and grow but also be able to do that for others as well um
101in my work life I'm working as a consultant and working on different state projects and I worked with the Department of Child Care Services in Massachusetts and the state Healthcare change in Florida I was able to go into a business learn about what they do understand the nuance and help them be more effective and efficient so I think that's something I could bring to the table and today in my business now I work as a career coach and I help people with resumes and career development and coaching from all walks of life my clients are you know just starting off people from low income people that have are Executives at financial services companies so it's it's all over the Spectrum but the one thing I am dedicated to is helping them and making sure that
102they Thrive and succeed and I think I could bring that you know to our children as well thank you Ms Bauer so I would like to begin by thanking the League of Women Voters and the PTA Council for sponsoring the candidate forum tonight as I said in my opening statement I'm running for re-election because I'm committed to ensuring that our children receive the best education possible art my my daughter and my son received a strong Foundation here and it led to successful college and careers and serving on the board of ed enables me to pay forward the opportunities that my children had and ensure that all children in our communities have the education that they deserve it is important to me that in Scotch Plains van would we continue educating our children to be knowledgeable
103and successful leaders within our community I'm currently the only active educator on the board having a variety I think is really important social workers scientists accountants we have a variety but I do think it's important to have the perspective of an educator as well um and um as I had mentioned before you bring a unique lens to curriculum policy personnel and so forth my involvement in the community including on the board of ed have reinforced my belief that we live in a very special Community committed to our children I know in the recent demographer's report even though our birth rate is not climbing we have increasing enrollment here because I think everyone wants to come to our schools I think the turnout and your all of you being here tonight reflect that commitment to our
104children so thank you for coming and being engaged and with your support I hope to continue to represent Scotch Plains on the board of ed thank you and this concludes our program I'd like to also thank the candidates for their willingness to come before the public and express their views on the issues that are important to everybody I think they deserve a round of applause [Applause] I'd like to thank the audience both here and the ones that we'll be watching on the YouTube station because they want to take an active role in participating in the electoral process I do want to remind voters that when you see your ballot that board of education candidates run across the bottom of the ballot the board of education is nonpartisan so you'll find them across the bottom realize
105that in New Jersey and here in Union County there are three ways of voting you have either received your mail and ballot if you want a mail-in ballot there's still plenty of time to receive a mail-in ballot and vote by mail and Ballot or you can drop off your ballot in one of the secure boxes in the county two early voting is going to be starting on October 29th and it runs through November 6th you can vote as a Union County resident in any of the seven sites that there are in Union County um the times are from about 10 o'clock to eight o'clock except on Sunday where it's ten to six and then of course there is election day November 8th polls open at 6 a.m and close at 8 pm information about voting
106if you need any forms where the voting polls are for early voting because that's different than the voting election day where you have specific polls that you have to go to is available on Union County votes on the computer so thank you again and good evening [Applause]