I want to thank the candidates for participating in today's important event we are recording today's Forum so please be sure to speak into your microphone the form will be available for viewing on the district's website later this week before I begin I will describe the general format of this morning's Forum candidates will begin with a 1 and a half minute opening St statement introducing themselves and articulating why they are running for school board that will be followed by response to a question that they have received ahead of time we will then pose two general topic questions for all of the candidates to answer next will be the lightning round whereby each candidate will receive two randomly drawn questions submitted ahead of time by our PLC members finally we will pose one final question to the candidate as time permits we will take additional questions submitted by audience members if audience members would like to ask a question we and we hope that you do please write it on the index cards that you received when you came into the room this morning there are extra cards available once you have written your question please hand it to either Alie Susan or Mary who will then give them to me questions can be submitted at any time during this morning's Forum we do ask that you please direct your questions to all the candidates rather than an individual candidate Ally and Susan and Mary will help sort questions to avoid duplication and our questions already asked throughout the Forum we will be rotating the order in which the candidates respond to questions I will be calling on candidates to answer in order to get in order to get through all of the prepared questions and allow for audience questions we will be limiting the response time for each question time allotments will be noted before each round of questions Christina Gleason is our timekeeper today and she will signal you with a green and yellow or yellow card to indicate how much response time remains when time expires Christina will hold up the red card given the number of candidates we have I ask that you all please buy aide by the time constraints so as to allow your fellow candidates to respond finally please keep in mind that this is not a debate but rather an opportunity for all the candidates to share their views with the voting public we will begin with an opening statement from each candidate recall that each of you will be given one and a half minutes to respond please tell us a bit about yourself and why you are running from for Schoolboard we will start with Lea Eva good morning um thank you for uh being here um this is a great um opportunity to be able to contribute and hear from all of you as the parents um I wanted to give back to the community that I grew up in um in 1979 my family immigrated to the United States from Iran and moved to Minnesota for my dad's business um we moved specifically to Edina because of the quality of the school systems I didn't speak any English and I was able to reap the benefits of this Crown Jewel of our city which is our school system um I went on and graduated from Idina uh high school went on to college and law school and now um as a corporate attorney we've returned to Idina so that we can raise our kids and give them the same opportunities that I was afforded I have three little ones at Highlands Elementary School um fifth graders and second graders I really believe that that um we have an excellent school system that um need does need Improvement but we have a great uh starting point to start from and I really want to be a part of uh contributing and giving back to the community thank you Claudia Carr good morning uh I'm Claudia Carr and I'm running because while I think our schools are great I would like to make them even better and just for your background information my qualifications are I'm Vice chair of the D Planning Commission I was recently appointed to the greater Southdale area work Group which is tasked with creating a vision for the Southdale District I'm a director on a national board dedicated to education and historic preservation I'm former chair of the ad Heritage preservation board and a member of the living streets advisory task force and I was co-chair of the and co-champion for the Recently ped Edina tree preservation ordinance to protect our trees during uh uh development uh I have two children in Normandale they're fourth graders and um I also happen to be a corporate attorney but I don't think being an attorney is a necessary qualification for this position what's really needed are leadership skills uh critical thinking the uh dedication and hard work and quite important equally as important is common sense that we need that as well I have endorsements from many City officials Mary brindle Anne Swenson Kevin ston I've also been endorsed by Education Minnesota the only non-incumbent to receive their endorsement so again I'd like to improve our schools by investing in our teachers promoting physical activity and Global competition thank you thank you Kathy Zella hi good morning I'm running for re-election for two reasons most importantly I'm passionate about education providing excellent education to our students is the very most important thing we do as a community and I want to make sure that we continue to do that in second for the next few years we'll be implementing all the puzzle pieces of our strategic plan and putting them together to build the next generation of Idina schools I have the knowledge the skills and a unique perspective that will help ensure that we do that right I have a really Broad and deep knowledge of our district uh I'm a graduate of Edina schools the old Edina before it split my husband and I have lived here for 29 years we had four children in the district so I have 24 continuous student years in the district and I've been an active volunteer at the site and District level for 26 years I also have the skills and experience the Board needs my professional background is as an attorney and I have extensive experience on nonprofit boards so I have solid experience in financial management policy development strategic planning and the ability to work collaboratively with groups with Divergent interests and then finally as a board member for the last eight years I've been in the trenches on all the issues that we're facing helping to keep the district financially healthy while at the same time we're charting a course for our future the next few years will be very challenging but I think I'm the right person to help guide us through that and make sure that we put all these puzzle pieces together right thank you thank you Amir garby thank you and I actually want to take a moment to thank the parent leadership Council it's really outstanding that you're hosting this an event and thank the audience we have so many people attending here in person and then those watching at home it's just fantastic that you're taking the time to be engaged here my background is not through the law it's actually first of all in the military I was an officer and a helicopter pilot with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and when I completed service I used the GI bill to study public policy I earned a master in public policy at Harvard and worked for the state of Minnesota on Mental Health reform on some of our civil commitments and what we're doing in the community I also have experience on public policy and government sector projects with the City of Minneapolis working on a veterans initiative called beyond the yellow ribbon the city of Boston on a police initiative especially the role police have in working with youth most specifically youth that are most prone to falling off of their high school track getting involved with violence and trying to see what we can do with them I also studied education policy with Harvard's Graduate School of Education in a course that had to do with intervention so I'm passionate about education I'm actually becoming a teacher myself now I'll be teaching High School science next year physics in particular and it's just thrilling to get involved with all the PO discussions and I believe I can make such a difference with those 30 students in my class but here on the board we'll be able to make that same difference districtwide and I think it's important to have someone who studied public policy in particular because what you learn first off is process matters and that's one of the areas where we really need to improve in our district the process of engaging parents and responding to them when they're concerned thank you thank you Sarah patoff hi I'm Sarah patoff and I want to also thank the parent leadership Council a group that's near and dear to my heart I ran for school board four years ago because of my passion for our schools our kids and the importance of a good education in growing a strong community and now as I'm running for reelection those reasons haven't changed I care deeply about making sure that we're delivering the best education that we can for all of our kids and that's why I want to continue to be an advocate for parents for students and for the community that we serve on a more personal not note I've been married to my husband Paul for 23 years and we moved to Idina 15 years ago because we knew this is where we wanted to raise kids because of the good education we have two kids an eighth grade daughter at Southview middle school and a fifth grade son at Highlands Elementary in my professional life I worked in advertising for 12 years and I've had the opportunity to stay home for the last 12 years with our kids but during that time I've been an active volunteer in the school Community I started my volunteer work at the family center being part of the advisory Council I've also had the privilege of being part of PLC for the last six plus years I've also been involved in groups like PCN the parent commun communication Network Highlands PTO South viiew volunteering the classroom and other activities and now I've served on the school board for the last four years and I want you to know I take this role very seriously as board members were asked to vote on important issue that affect issues that affect our kids and it's our job to understand the issue at hand and ask the questions that need to be answered I'm not a bureaucrat I want want to bring a common sense approach to discussion and make sure that constituents voices are heard thank you thank you Lenny Wallen Freeman uh thank you thank you for the PLC for hosting this I'm running for re-election to the school board because I believe very strongly in education and I believe I have skills that are important to be a board member my wife and I moved to Eda 22 years ago for the schools we have three kids two of them started in Edina went through the system graduated from high school graduated from college and are gainfully employed our third is in seventh grade so that means that I have been a parent of an Edina student for 20 years and hopefully for only six more years within n I've volunteered many ways with our kids I've coached youth sports soccer and baseball for so many years I can make a quilt out of all the jerseys I have in my closet I've also coached academic Triathlon been involved in Scouts daisies PTO 10 about 14 years ago I volunteered with the district serving on the finance committee and I served on three bird committees in my free time I'm an attorney so what that means is that I spend my days analyzing learning and giving advice those skills work perfectly within the district because what we want within the district is somebody who can analyze the information that's provided ask pertinent questions and provide constructive input I've been on the school board for the past four years that means that I've got experience with the finance I understand the the necessary that it's necessary to make prudent fiscal decisions and I have the background to provide constructive input to the district thank you thank you now let's move to the prepared question that you received last week you'll each have two minutes to respond as a school board member what specific actions would you recommend to ensure attainability of the district's All forall Mission we will start with Claudia Carr well uh if you're familiar with the all and all concept it's promoting equity which means all our students achievements are raised and also closing the achievement Gap and this has been a a goal and objective for the school district for quite a few years the first it was first studied in 2012 and in 2013 a report came out but I will say that we need to make more progress if you take a look at the uh achievement Gap there's a significant difference Asians are the highest then whites are close behind Hispanics drop down to a 60% level and then we have uh people of color people with English as a second second language and those at a a poverty level being at the 30% level and as a community we should find that unacceptable so what can we look at uh our school district is looking at a number of things right now I would like to focus on just two things one is uh getting the best te teachers studies show that having great teachers produces achievement results and one of my platform issues is that I want to recruit and retain the best teachers that we can we have to come up with Innovative programs to keep teachers here to train them to teach uh basically give them professional development opportunities and respect them for the learning professionals that they are the second area that we need to focus our attention on is birth to prek they say that most um learning is done between birth and five years old and that's where we need to focus our attention uh I know that our district is doing that we have number of talented people focusing the direction there and we need to really delve into that and do whatever we can that involves reaching out to parents as well as soon as a child is born teaching the parents learning habits getting their child to bed on time reading to your child every day those things that we come if we come from an educational background we know those are important thank you thank you Kathy Cella as board members our main areas of control are through strategic planning policy development and financial oversight and as board members we need to keep our focus on our mission of all for all as we are engaged in each one of those areas it just starts with a strategic plan although the mission of all for all has remained the same for the last several years the action plans that we develop to implement that mission are continuous being updated and refined and as those action plans come to the board for review and discussion we make need to make sure that we continue to include the all forall focus in everything we do from the design of our curriculum from the design of our curriculum Delivery Systems to the design of our new learning spaces to our pilot programs to our Support Services like special ed gifted and talented counseling and um advising mental health and wellness to our assessments to our professional development for our staff to our partner ships into our engagement with the community we need to keep our mission front and center as we evaluate all our action plans from a policy perspective we need to review all our policies through an all forall lens we need to make sure that our system doesn't have barriers that keep some students from participating fully in all of our programs do we have structural barriers awareness barriers access barriers time barriers Financial barriers we need to identify any barriers that exist and help develop programs that will remove or minimize them and sometimes the hardest part is realizing that the barrier exists because our policies and procedures often reflect the way we've done things for years finally from a financial oversight perspective we need to put our money where our mouth is we are reviewing and adjusting our budget on a continual basis what should we stop funding reduce funding and what should we start funding we need again to make sure that all for all and the programs that help us achieve that mission are a priority as we make our financial adjustments thank you thank you Amir garby thank you I think the heart of the question of what all for all means in our district gets back to the first question of what's the purpose of our schools and there's a wide view on this that vary greatly from making sure kids can succeed in a global economy getting a job and job skills to making sure they can express themselves artistically and figure out what resonates with them in the art world to being a good citizen do you understand the history of our country and what it means to be a Civic member and engaged or really just helping a child figure out where they belong in their social sphere if they want to try to take on more Civic engagement or if they feel more comfortable working from behind the scenes finding a place for someone in this world my answer to that is the purpose of education is to empower a child to dream to have the skills to achieve that dream and the confidence to believe they can achieve that dream and that gets to personalized education which is my specific answer we need to do more to personalize education in this District now that means that for gifted and talented there'll be some outstanding opportunities some may be project based some may be working with Professionals in our community engaging those Partnerships for those who are struggling personalized education can mean a wide variety of things it might mean more tutoring during school hours more access to help after school hours let's not forget the 80% of our children who are in the middle they're often the ones who are so quick to be forgotten they come to class every day they're turning in their homework it's not great good kid I can't really say that I've had more of a personal conversation with that child that's missing out on inspiring a child to dream and accomplish those dreams personalized education is so important and that also involves the parents and families we need to do a better job of bringing them in both to work with the schools and also to inform the board so often our district looks at families as people who volunteer in our schools who read books but they're more than that they're critical thinking individuals in our community who should be heard understood and engaged with and if someone objects you don't just listen and then vote you respond to each point of objection in turn to make sure a person feels heard thank you thank you Sarah patso all for all it's as simple as what it says it's meaning all of our students needs no matter where they're at and what it doesn't mean is all the same it is important that we use this filter in our work on our all forall work no matter what we're doing I believe the district's strategic plan and all of the studies that are in various stages of pro progress will help us continue to better achieve our mission from the birth to grade five study the secondary study gifted and talented special education Mental Health and Wellness Community Education and many more show the expansive areas that need to be address to meet our students needs my role as a school board member is to approve the plans that will allow us to meet this Mission and ensure that the district is doing it to the best of its ability I think there's three ways we can do this one we need to ensure that the district is setting measurable goals and continuing to require results-driven data that will guide decisionmaking for example as we work on closing the achievement Gap we need to review data and dig even deeper to better understand individual students growth and needs we also need to make sure that policies align with mission for all for all so we need to make sure that we have policies that will allow our kids in terms of personalized learning to have flexibility and lastly we need to get stakeholder feedback it's important that we continue to listen to students parents and staff and community that are affected by certain programs for example we'll be hearing uh we'll be hearing about the gifted and talented study in October and the next step in that study will be to engage stakeholders and make sure that the direction that we're going is right I believe by doing these three things we will be able to ensure attainability of the All forall Mission thanks thank you Lenny w fedman thank you there's a lot of things that we can do I'm going to try to touch on Six Things quickly so I support reaching out early to families and helping them understand the system and what we can do to help them I also support early intervention within the elementary school if we can bring our students in the elementary school up to grade level we're not going to have to spend time in the secondary level doing the same thing the other thing we need is continuity in programs so when we start a program we have to continue the program whether that is intervention ition or whether it is gifted Services we need continuity second I want to support programs that enhance personalized learning and I'll give you an example we have a program called Mastery connect what it enables the teachers to do is to put certain standards into a computer and then on a weekly or a day-by-day basis judge whether the students are at achieving what they're supposed to be achieving so this does two things if the student isn't achieving then the teacher can work extra with that student or work for other resources if the student is achieving more quickly then they can look for an enriched program third we want to get feedback from students so the high school does a comprehensive survey of every graduate when they leave the high school that survey is enlightening everybody should go read it we should do that survey at the middle school level because it tells us what the students are feeling what's working for them and what isn't working fourth we recently hired cultural Liaisons this is an important step because those people are going to be able to help us reach out to families that we haven't successfully reached out to in the past fifth the district is working with shiraki Holly he is an incredible educator on cultural awareness and again he's opening the district's eyes to things that we don't always see and so it gives us another lens and sixth we need to remove barriers to participation simple things like for example if you have a student that is in band or orchestra or football they have to pay an admission fee why can't we wave that admission fee for Stu for families that can't afford it so they they can go to those events and support their kids thank you thank you Leila Avala um I think that that um achieving the All forall Miss mission is is about access and it's about Equity um it's about meeting our kids where they are and getting them to where they need to be and personalized learning is going to be a huge um part of that everyone here in this room is um here to achieve the same objective is to have our kids succeed the 8,000 plus students in our um in our district and their families are really at the core of why you know we're even sitting here today um the personalized learning piece and I think of this and part of the reasons I decided to run is that this is a very exciting time to be able to have a say on the school board um the construction that's going to take place the curriculum changes that need to cater to each individual student and focus on the personalized learning piece is going to be huge and then aligning those goals and objectives with what the construction looks like and ultimately training our teachers which is going to be a huge um undertaking in and of itself they are excellent teachers but but you know we really rely on them heavily as a community to get our kids to where they need to be um that really to me is the key for achieving the All forall Mission um as a board having um the say in policy being Financial stewards of public dollars and then working working with the superintendent who is the chief administrator um who's at the helm of it all and having collaboration with parents um you know being able to work positively because ultimately we have to remember that we all have the same objective in mind thank you we will now pose two general topic questions each candidate will have two minutes to respond to each question our first question is Schoolboard members often have to make difficult choices about programs given limited budgets and resources what criteria will you use in helping make those difficult decisions we'll start with Kathy sah I think it goes right back to what we were talking about in our last question which is how will we support the All forall Mission and that is our strategic plan and that is our mission so those are that is the lens and the focus that the board should be using as we make our difficult fun decisions that we as I said before put our money where our mouth is and we support the programs that will help us accomplish that mission thank you Amir garby thank you let's get back to what I was saying about the importance of having studied public policy because process matters and the process through which a board makes a decision impacts how it's going to be received in the community you know a lot of the controversies that are in the paper and on TV now actually stem more from a process point of interview than anything else whether we talk about the calendar and Labor Day weekend or the recess or even the the referendum and how it was rolled out process is where the community really needs to be engaged right and so to make any decision whether it be about budget or even evaluating a program I would first make sure we have enough data so that people can make an informed decision one of the complaints I heard about the referendum was people felt like there was jargon given to them we need spaces that are appropriate spaces that are flexible SPAC that are relevant and it's hard to draw a picture of that so you're really voting on your trust for the board which is fine for some people but others would like to make their own mind especially when you're asking for their vote and in this case when we're making our decision all data available to the community is critical and then a chance for the community to engage the board not just add a microphone two minutes before the vote is taken with folks pretty much already made up their mind and they're just it's sort of a formality to hear what people have to say the mic but in a more engaged manner what the board has done outstandingly well right now is have committees set up that have a wide variety of representation but unfortunately that if you have parents down there maybe two or three those look to be nominal parent participations you need another separate process to engage the community as a whole and finally I would look to see what's about Excellence for students you know it's really hard in education sometime to make changes because some programs get set in their ways they don't come up for a review others well they're up for a review but it it's not widely communicated to the public which program we're talking about and why what are the pros and cons take some time to read some opets so it needs plenty of time which requires a systemic structure to engage people decision shouldn't be made any other way thank you Sarah patla I again would go back to yes is it meeting the All for-all Mission and then we often talk about when something leaves the system or comes into the system what's the balance there if something's coming into the system do we have the bread and depth to do it to the best of our ability and do we need to remove something else from the system but when we remove something from the system who is it affecting and what are the outcomes that we'll see from doing that and so we need to answer those questions and then when we're adding something is it sustainable can we afford it and who is it going to affect and what are the advantage will will receive from that and lastly again getting stakeholder feedback when we look at programs we need to make sure that we understand that the community parents staff students are involved in the decision-making process and help guide those decisions thank you Lenny Wallen fredman so when a new issue comes before me as a school board member the first question I have is what is the objective what are we trying to accomplish by this new initiative is there an issue that we're trying to solve or is this just an advancement of a particular program and so when you start start at that level then the next question naturally is so what did you consider what options were considered in going down this particular path what did you look at what did you reject in the in the perfect world what you get is you get sort of a high level view of three different Alternatives and and the pros and cons and you you can then see that the one that was selected is the best one now that's the perfect world and I'll tell you it doesn't happen all the time it doesn't happen very often but we do get through these first few stages certainly the next thing is if we're adding this and it's a cost then what goes out so what are we going to lose from our system if we add this particular project because I want to know I want to be able to weigh whether what we're adding is better than what we're taking away feedback is important parent feedback teacher feedback the idea of the feedback is not to see you know is there 100% Buy in but are we missing something is there for example the teachers can give us feed back and say you know you're imposing this new thing within the classroom it's not realistic so we need feedback from people in that regard and that would be the process that I would go through and trying to decide whether we want to adopt a new program thank you Leila Avala um I think it's a it's a great question because we each year have um less and less resources to try and achieve more and more um so being able to set priorities as a board becomes excruciatingly important and it's it's a model that that you know it's hard to look at in the long run because it's it's not necessarily sustainable in my opinion um I think that being able to prioritize is um you know what I do every day in my Prof professional career is is doing due diligence making sure that you're informed making sure that um as a policy making entity um the community is informed that parents have input in um in major decisions and prioritizing and and expenditures that the that the school district makes making sure that we can rely on our Administration to make those appropriate decisions based on the children's needs because again we're all here for one objective and everybody has their role in it um and making sure that there are clear lines of communication um that there are that there's due diligence that demonstrates need um there's data for people to be able to reference is all the those are going to be key thank you Claudia car well all the other uh candidates have expressed some great opinions and I don't know if I can add too much but I do I will say this when difficult decisions come to the board regardless of what they are we always have to look at our strategic vision and what is our vision to be the best schools not only in Minnesota but in the nation so what is being proposed we have to ask a lot of questions we have to ask what the cost is going to be we have to look at allocation of resources and we have to say how does this contribute to creating the best schools we can in the country we're going to need that because our kids are going to graduate and compete in a Glo global economy so regardless of whatever decision we make we have to ask oursel is this decision we're making contributing to that ultimate goal and that's what we talk about a vision educating for the future um again it's going to be difficult uh but that's what we have to do we're always going to be balancing the pros and cons of different decisions allocating resources but always in the context of a vision thank you thank you and the next general topic question for all of you how do we ensure engagement of all our parents and get effective feedback and input from them to school and District officials it's two minutes and Amir garby thank you and I've touched on this a bit so I won't try to repeat myself I will say that as a father of three children and it's incredibly important to me that I hear what our schools are doing to change and how things are coming up you know sometimes you feel you feel like there's just so much trust when you send your child on the bus every day every time you get a chance to hear from the district or give some information back it makes it a little easier to trust and you can trust a little farther and then the district can really start to do something that's representative of the whole community's dreams and hopes for the children my my mother was another example for me of how you become very involved in organizations and for her she was Raising me alone at the time my father immigrated from Morocco and their marriage only lasted a few years and so a lot of what happened with me went on her and she was working and it was hard to be engaged especially during those Elementary School years when it was all new for her but our district took the time to reach out to parents and brought them in and most importantly showed them opportunities that the school had where parents had to take some initiative to sign a child up or to provide some material some resources and by a certain deadline and from a certain Source it's so important that people feel that that information is clear to them because otherwise what you're going to see that fallof is on the parents whose children are most vulnerable and we've been talking about the achievement Gap but here's a real chance through communication with parents to do something about it to make sure that every child has an opportunity to participate and where there are resource constraints I like the idea of considering waving them or even better getting the community to Rally behind it schools Edina give and go with me Rodriguez does amazing things to make sure all children have access to our outstanding programs and as a board we should be trying to find more ways to do things like that and finally I just want to emphasize that when the board makes a decision and it involves parents that's not the end of the story and that there's followup and we know there's followup as far as our own internal Gathering of data and there's internal polling and reviewing and work sessions which are not open to the public we review some of those things but what about opening up more of that to the public after the decision is made thank you thank you Sarah patof I think engagement is sorry I think engagement is key we need to hear from community and parents and I think we've all said that and I've made that clear as part of what I really believe in and I think this happen happens at all levels it happens in the classroom with your kid's teacher it happens at a site level whether it's PTO or working on site councils it happens at a district level in organizations like parent leadership Council where you have an opportunity to sit at a meeting listen to the superintendent but engage with the superintendent and other District leaders and other parent leaders we need to make sure that our parents feel empowered to share their concerns whether that's with discontent or joy we need to be willing to listen we also need to encourage encourage parents to give up their time and talents and that doesn't always just mean money that's critical too to support the community but it's time it's intellectual resources that our parents have to share and we have great resources in this community I always want our constituents to feel able to engage yes there is a three minute time limit at the beginning of a board meeting but that's not the only way to engage us I think most people know that they can call us they can email us and we get lots of that type of Correspondence and for many of us it's stopping in the middle of Jerry's and having that conversation as you're trying to get dinner on the table it it's all ways of Engagement and I always want parents and Community to feel encouraged to do that that's our job absolutely we are elected by the people and that is who we are here to serve thank you thank you Lenny well and Freedman so the question is engagement of parents and effective feedback first of all I want to say I think we have an incredibly engaged parent group that's one of the strengths of our district is that our parents are engaged they are interested and they are participating so ways that we can make sure that we continue that for example school board members all act as Lea B to various schools I for one I'm the leaz on at the high school so that means that I attend not every but almost every single PTO meeting at the high school and every single site council meeting at the high school and I go to those meetings and I tell people I'm here to give an update but more important I'm here to listen to see if you have questions about what the district is doing and provide you with information so Sarah is right yes we have a three minute limit at Schoolboard meetings but we have other venues where parents come and make contributions and talk directly you go to our website all of our phone numbers are listed on the website that is intentional and and I know I personally am a person that is reluctant to just pick up a phone and call somebody because I might intrude but if it's an important issue that's a venue so engagement is there oh the other way of the engagement is that we need to show we're receptive if if we have all these um trappings of Engagement but you don't feel like we're really going to listen to you it doesn't help and so I think that you need to know that the school board is listening that we are concerned about what parents have to say and that you should be involved now the other area was effective feedback I think the referendum was was a good example of that because we held work sessions with parents where we said here's what we're thinking about doing here are some ideas give us your feedback and we had all these sticky charts up all over the place where parents were giving feedback in almost any major initiative that the district begins we look for feedback as part of the process we're not perfect but we're trying thank you thank you Lea AA um I think this is one of those issues where it takes two to tango um um I I think having looking back at my school experience here at um Creek Valley and Valley View and edine high school parents are far more engaged now than they ever were um back then and and they're fortunate enough to have the access to the board the administration that I don't feel as though um my parents had for example um as a student um on the side of the board and the administration having committees soliciting parent feedback um holding meetings having regular um you know planning sessions and such that most people have already mentioned are key but as a parent and as a non-sitting board member I can say that those are only as good if you show up to them and there are many instances where you know our lives get busy our dayto day-to-day lives get busy and it's much easier to form opinions um um make um you know assertions based on information that's not correct and would only be um helped by actually showing up and voicing concerns and learning at these meetings and at these sessions um so in my mind it's take two it takes two to tango you know the board and the district are going to have their um times when they're soliciting information from parents but parents really need to provide that solid feedback in order to effectuate change thank you Claudia car well effective feedback from both parents and teachers is critical if we're going to have the best schools in the country you have to have it because parents and teachers are in the trenches they witness it every day when the child comes home and their teachers see what's happening in the school room so we have to listen to these stakeholders uh there's various ways of doing that um at the city level we hold regular public meetings anytime we're making even a minor change to an ordinance we have public hearings where people come to listen to uh what we have to say and we listen to more importantly we listen to what they have to say and I'll tell you it's extremely valuable there's also workshops that we create where we get involvement from the community and I know some of this stuff is going on but we have to continue to strengthen that involvement of parents uh we need parent feedback feedback at the board meetings uh I've been to a few board meetings and then and watch some on TV and there's some parent involvement but I would encourage more parent feedback at the board meetings as we make decisions um I also first of all value ex uh the PTO they're wonderful that's a wonderful resource for parents all the volunteer uh hours that go into that resource let's give them our support and strengthen that Resource as a communication device to get to both parents and teachers and then finally collaboration uh feedback just from parents isn't sufficient Fe feedback just from teachers isn't sufficient we need the collaboration of teachers parents District staff coming to the board discussing issues then we can make informed decisions thank you thank you Kathy C parent involvement and parent engagement really is a key to a healthy district and we're extremely lucky here in Edina that we have a very involved parent community and we have a very talented expert parent Community that's willing to participate but engagement as Leila said is really a two-way street it involves getting information out pushing it out for the community to have but it also involves having Avenues to get the input back in once the community has the information um to get the information out we need to provide the information people need when they need it in the way they want to have it and we all know that that's changing I'm 62 and my youngest is 21 and we don't get our information or make our decisions the same way and we need to realize that we have gener generational divides and decade divides and that we need to be very careful in how we push our information out and the the the methods that we use and we need it needs to be information not only about the district but we need to do it at a site level about what's going on at the site and it needs to be at the classroom level so parents feel that they're getting the information they need about their own child's progress and it also means making sure that parents who don't have English as a first language also are getting information in the language or in the way that they need it so that they can also participate fully in our district then it we need to have opportunities for people to give us input back and we try to have systemic areas to give the input back we have I think it's 13 or 14 committees that are district level committees that have community and parent members on them and the last time I counted and not all the seats were filled we have 94 parents community members and students that are on those committees we also have opportunities for people to give input back on uh issue specific things such as all the core planning teams as we're designing the buildings the elementary delivery system um but we all are also available at all times as Schoolboard members for people to just come and talk to us about anything that they care about we are as Lenny said all lisons to various schools so we show up at the schools we have our phone numbers out we have our emails out and we do want to hear from parents and hear what they are interested in thank you we now move on to the lightning round I will randomly draw a name and a question from the Bulls in front of me you will have one one minute to respond to your question we will then continue until everyone has answered one question at which point I will put all the names back in the bowl and draw a second question for you to answer again you'll be limited to one minute for your response first question is for Lenny Wallen Freeman what are the best ways to ensure Community engagement and involvement with the work of the school board well that question sounds familiar yes it does I'm actually going to stand with my prior answer which is you know attend our meetings call us when we have work sessions when we have uh re outreaches to the community participate in those understand most importantly that you're listening so when we come up with a proposal and people give us feedback we do respond to that feedback thank you Kathy Cella has the next question in your opinion what qualities are most important for an effective Schoolboard member the most important qualities for Schoolboard member are first to be a critical thinker We Gather we take in a lot of information you have to process it and think about it and um so critical thinking then the ability to ask process that information and ask question questions so that you can go from there and ask the things that need to be asked to get all the information on the table the next important thing is to be open to Divergent opinions and to make sure that all different views get on the table that you don't just run down the Avenue that makes the most sense to you that you're bringing diverse perspectives to the table and then finally it's working collaboratively once you've done the critical thinking you've asked the questions you've tried to get all the input on the table then you work collaboratively to come to a solution that everybody can live with and it's the best for the district thank you the next question is for Claudia Carr what do you think the future of early childhood education should be in the D Public Schools well as I mentioned before early childhood education is the key to achieving success for all children uh regardless of what background you have we've been promoting that we now have the full day kindergarten which is absolutely critical that was State mandated which was good um but there's many more things we can do we have the preschool activities but we also need to do Outreach programs for those families where they need additional assistance to getting their children to read to understand those things that are needed at a very early level so again um they say that Early Education and having the best teachers you can are the two key influences on success for a child so we have to continue to strengthen that program and support it with resources thank you thank you the next question is for Amir garby how can the district ensure that its mission and vision are applied consistently across all schools and programs yet still allow for individuals school program identities and cultures well I think one of the bigger points that vary between schools is certainly between the elementary the middle and the high school levels are empowering teachers because they go through so many different types of professional development that are age appropriate and you really need to give a teacher some leeway and some resources to try something new but then follow up and see what the impact was and see if this is something that should be shared widely or just have some lessons learned and in fact share out there with others how it didn't work whether it was because of children's interest in the subject or their approach to the methodology we need a little experimentation in the classroom and that actually requires more of a hands-off approach from from the board even from principles to empower those who are with our children some during the weekdays certainly some waking hours more so than parents we really need those people to have the flexibility to do what they need to do and secondly focus on the needs of certain groups and it's not always just the same divisions based on race but there are other differences too for example with girls in science there's often this impression that it's it's not for them why are you studying math there's a huge drop off in my Physics course there's only 10% women and with boys in elementary school there's a similar drop off thank you thank you the next question is for Sarah patoff what are your thoughts about the current daily start and end times of the elementary middle and high schools do you see a need for change in modifications and why well as a mother of a middle school student it's brutal I cannot deny that um unfortunately busing often dictates what we have to do with start and end times but I always have believed that it's very difficult for kids during those gentle difficult years of puberty to be struggling with being at school at 7:40 in the morning I do think the district does the best it can with managing a very tight bus system and a very uh fin finially viable bus system to get our kids there but I do think it's something we need to continue to explore we used to have the option of seeing our elementary schools because we have early start and late start in all of our elementary schools we used to take a look at switching those from year to year and it became apparent in time that we needed to find a system that was s that was sustainable and so we locked in to the system to the times that were on with not changing every two years but I do think we need to continue to look at this because it is more than just a financial issue it's our kids lives and their needs that need to be met thanks thank you the next question is for Leila aala even though the district has taken started to take steps to close the achievement Gap in EPS a gap still exists which steps do you think are most effective and which should be reconsidered um I think that again as I said before equity and and access are key um I know that amongst at least the elementary schools they have you know varying cultures in each school um various different times of types of communities but yet as a board um I think the board's job is to make sure that that there's at least Equity amongst all those varying cultures um so I think that um and I I guess I said this before but meeting kids where they are and getting them to where they need to be is really key to um to um closing that achievement Gap it's it's a question that many districts grapple with and I don't know that any of have been able to effectively um close it but I do know that the Administration has been working hard to um address those issues and and try to close the gap thank you the next question is for Lenny wall and Freeman promise won't this be a duplicate some districts are allowing secondary students to receive a waiver of certain course requirements such as Varsity athletes for PE credits or established musicians for Fine Art credits please discuss whether such a policy should be considered and how it would align with State graduation requirements in the district's educational competencies so that type of a program should be considered and at is being considered what we knew what we need to do is to make sure that we have the standards set up for the class that you want to move through so that if you can show Proficiency in a particular class then you should be able to sort of test through that class and get to the next one that's absolutely something we're working on uh PE is a great example because you know it would make sense for our Varsity athletes they have you know presumably met PE and shouldn't necessarily be using a credit for that they can go and and uh pursue other activities through other electives thank you the next question is for Lea a what is your definition of personalized learning and how should personalized learning be implemented um well I'll say this again for the third time broken record my uh I think personaliz learning really is is the emphasis lies in meeting kids where they are getting them to where they need to be um I think with uh with the Next Generation learning model um this is going to be something that's developed into in in the curriculum um what that looks like to me is really um training teachers to be able to um kind of rid themselves of the traditional standing at the top of the classroom lecturing um students execute based on the lecture wait for the next next instruction and looks more like um a more collaborative effort where teachers are able to spend more personalized time with each student there are school programs and resources to um have children participate in again um in a Equitable Manner and um and really it lies in being able to effectively train teachers thank you the next question is for Sarah Patwa what role do you think individual schools should have in discussions about adding more Choice programs for families for example another language immersion IB steam or stem actually as part of the birth to grade five study we are talking about adding steam or stem programming looking at IB and these are options that we're still exploring and then the next step will be uh choosing the type of programs that best fit that and then starting Pilots I think we need to look globally at a district level level can we take on another immersion program or another stem program or a specific program within a school and look to the programs that we've been running we have schools where we have CP in both buildings do we need to reanalyze how we're doing that would it be better to have our programs like in Normandale where we have the entire program in one building so that we can focus on it individually I do think we need to consider to look at these and again look at how other districts have implemented these and make sure that we're following best practices as we Implement if we look to implement these as well thank you Kathy Cella the next question is for you what do you foresee will be the most challenging issue for the school board in the next two years that's an easy one because the the most challenging issue that we have in the next two years is change we as we are implementing all the pieces of our strategic plans and as we're transforming all the our building spaces we're looking at a tremendous amount of change and we all know that change is very hard and it's something that's difficult to come to grips with um and we are going to have staff families and students that are all going to be at different levels of Readiness and comfort and ability to cope with change and so what we need to do as a district is to find ways to help everyone get the information they need and be comfortable with the changes as they're occurring and that means looking at Best Practices from other districts that have grappled with to change it also means making sure that we get enough information out about our um programs as we're implementing them that people get information at the front end they have time to ask questions they have time to process that information and they have time to give us input back so that at the end of the day we all are as comfortable as we are can deal with change realizing that not all of us are going to be comfortable with everything thank you the next question is for Amir garby please address your views on how the upcoming building modifications and Renovations will address safety without compromising the welcoming environment we've come to expect at our schools thank you I want to say there's nothing more important than our children's safety in fact if children don't feel safe they won't be able to learn to the full extent of their own abilities and that defeats our core mission of helping them grow to the person that they dream that they can be now there are some ideas I have about safety my background again in the military gives me some insight into what works and what doesn't first of all there should be buzzer access to any building that doesn't have somebody stationed right at the front door you shouldn't have to trust that people are good-natured enough to go find who they're supposed to report to I think that would have helped prevent this Intruder situation we had at South viw there was somebody who came in it was through a side door but there's just it's too easy even with with buzzer access on the side door without without any sort of monitoring to have someone enter our building and that's an easy fix in fact my church just put in that fix they started a preschool over their weekdays here and they thought we ought to have this because we have children here well we have children a lot of them and we ought to have it too and secondly I would look to outside consultation because some things won't be like what I've seen we're not going to have the military and police presence that I saw at Afghanistan schools but we need to make sure we don't do this poorly thank you and our final lightning question will be for Claudia Carr how will you balance the responsibilities of the school board along with your other personal and professional responsibilities well that's an easy one uh I do it right now and that's what I've done throughout my career I'm currently a full-time working mother I have two children I have a husband and and I also volunteer I'm the vice chair of the din Planning Commission I'm on the greater Southdale work uh group and I do volunteer work at Normandale in the past I've hosted intern families and I'm also an art Adventurer so uh we just have to balance this uh I don't see this as a problem at all and it's just something you learn to do that's the way we do it multitasking that's today's order of business and I don't see a conflict thank you thank you thank you candidates we will now take questions from the audience a reminder to audience members to submit your card in writing and give it to Ally or Mary do you want to read you can bring them here first question what is your position on playwork specifically and do you think schoolwide implementation is a principal or District decision generally how do you think pilot implementation in decision- making should be should take place in the district and there is one minute to answer this question Al can you repeat and to tell you the truth sorry can you do my repeating you know what we're doing well on time so I'm going to give you two minutes okay answer the question the question is what is your position on playwork specifically and do you think schoolwide implementation is a principal or District decision generally how do you think pilot implementation and decision- making should take place in the district three questions question yeah yeah but I think we can do it um I will start with a mayor garby and we have two minutes great well I'll even take some my time to to explain from my understanding playworks is a program where there's some structure at recess there are some recess supervisors who will host a game where this became more of a controversy in our community was the way it was decided upon rolled out the response to criticism and the bill now decided upon this was something that you know the board wants to to do some pilot programs which I fully support especially as somebody who loves public policy but one of the catches is you have to find programs that seem relevant for your student body this was a program that was initially made for urban areas that had little if any play space that was green play equipment and children were not really developing well during recess like our children are and secondly once you do decide on it the roll out most parents heard about this through the filter of a Fourth Grade mind came home and said Mom they canceled recess it's gym class obviously parents knew that wasn't the full story but why should they have to start hearing the story from from a child it should be rolled out in a more widespread way and then when criticism came in and some of it was an Oculus you know some parents it's really hard to figure out how to word what you're thinking and to approach someone on the board and say it and then to be met with this defensive attitude this dismissive attitude if it's a pilot program and you have no idea what you're talking about the way pilot programs work let me Define it for you we'll look at this in June that's the wrong message because process matters and people matter and we can't say how much we appreciate Community engagement and then shut someone down and finally the cost it's about 30,000 so far that's gone into training that we've paid to the play works and there'll be more money and it's not exactly clear if that's the best use of our our money and don't forget it's not just about being stewards which is a very important role of this board showing the community that we can be trusted with resources especially since we just raised 125 million we now is the time to show that we can be trusted with that huge checkbook but it's also about displacing other programs that don't get funded other training that doesn't happen professional adment that isn't taking place because we chose this program that concerns me thank you Sarah patof okay so our position on playworks and then pilots and how that all flows out I've read about play works you know to the extent that I have an opinion on structured play or not that would end up being a personal opinion and how I look at that in my life and my kids and I can't let that muddle our the decisions that go on at a district level you know in our family we have rules on how many activities we all participate and what we do because we value F family time but again that's just the way our family roles as for pilot programs I think they're important in the district to have pilot programs I do unfortunately think that this one was not rolled out in the best way possible I think we had clear communication breakdown from the start parents need to know when we're implementing a pilot program what's coming what the changes look like and what the purpose and goals of the pilot are behind the program I don't think that was clearly communicated here and when criticism came unfortunately I don't think we've done a good job at responding to that criticism I've spent a lot of time as a board member listening engaging with parents and trying to understand what the issues are and then my job has been to work with the district and to listen to them and understand what their goals were I don't think we found that perfect Middle Ground yet it's no matter what the numbers are when we get the data back it doesn't matter if it's 25% or 5% I still think we have kids needs who feel like they're not being met during this time we need to find that middle ground and balance for all of our kids needs and I think that we need to remember always that we need to be transparent and that when we're being asked questions we just need to give clear honest information back explain the process explain how we got to the decision as Lenny mentioned earlier how did we get to this decision how did we choose this particular program to introduce this pilot and lastly I think in this case again like I said we need to find that middle ground and we really need to work un mending broken relationships I feel the anger and thanks thank you Lenny Wallen fredman okay so I'm not sure that the last two answers necessarily go directly to the questions but I think they go to the underlying issue so I'm going to try to weave both in um playworks was adopted is part of a broader program the Community Education adopted it was put into place to govern preschool before school activities and after school activities so when we talk about the cost of it the cost in terms of our resource recess pilot is a small piece of that 30,000 so that's one piece there and by the way I agree with Sarah that we could have done better on communication as a district I think that there are questions that parents have out there that have not been answered that as a district we need to answer I do think that it's an unfair criticism to say that the school board uh responded with a defensive attitude and said we'll deal with this in June I for one picked up the phone the day after the meeting and called people who spoke at that meeting and asked to talk to them I've talked to others after that meeting so no it is not met with indifference and by the way we didn't we didn't say we' deal with this in June what we specifically said was we need to move up the time frame of figuring out if this this is working and get feedback to the board earlier than the normal process so have we communicated this well not particularly now let's go to playworks which is actually the question so it works for some students it doesn't appear to work for all students so what that means is you adopt a pilot and you go through it and you see what the response is to the pilot are we going to need to make changes we may very well need to make changes but we have to see what works and what doesn't and if it isn't working for some of our students we need to figure out what is going to work for those students rather than continue with that NE that program as to that group of students um pilot implementations they should work by putting them in play getting feedback responding to the feedback an amount of time thank you Leila Avala um okay and I appreciate the perspectives of the existing board members because it's been eye opening to me um just to hear some more explanation on the issue um I think that um I can only speak from the perspective of a parent in the schools um I think that the program itself as I'll Echo what everybody else said it was very poorly communicated um and it appears to still be poorly communicated um I know I've spoken with a lot of friends who say that you know they've posed questions you know to District staff Etc and haven't been able to receive receive solid answers still um which I think is something that the that the district and the board has to own up to and again I'm saying this as a parent so um there's that piece of it and at the same time as a parent I want to you know we have the ground Jewel of adiz our school district I want to make sure that we have we give the administration and the board leeway to do things that are um potentially going to be good for our kids I want them to try Pilots I want to be Pioneers in the nation and the state for um different programs that are successful um I don't want to um provide feedback in a you know in a way or in a manner in a disrespectful way in order to impede that process because I think that's what really makes this District great um you know is there um am I interested in in getting some due diligence back again I'll go back to that theme on seeing the data why this is good why this happened happened um why it's in place yes of course um I don't know that we've you know actually received that clearly um is there room for adaptability to the program is there are there changes they can make to make it less of a um you know a lighter touch program versus you know things that that I've heard of course but I would like to collect some facts on it um in terms of okay I can't thank you Claudia Carr you know I've T I've talked to a lot of L of parents and almost every parent I speak to brings up playworks and their uh objection to it is that they believe that unstructured play is healthier than structured play and that our children have too much structured activities as it is during the day um I have a tendency to agree to agree with that personally I have a son uh I actually have two fourth graders I asked them what they thought about recess they go to Normandale uh my son doesn't like it as well he he's learned how to play dodgeball but he doesn't have the camaraderie with his friends where they would just go out and create activities for themselves whether it's pretending they're selling orange juice uh to playing other athletic games that creativity and spontaneity that's created from free play so uh but again uh if I were on the board I would uh certainly listen to all parent feedback I would listen to the result uh from the pilot study when they're finished and then I would make an informed decision based on what are the object objectives objectives of the pilot study what other possible options do we have given the parent feedback now I will say one thing uh students feedback was sought during a survey I do not ask my son whether he should have more computer time in fourth grade because he would say yes so student feedback on an issue like this I think is relevant but not necessarily determinative of the action we should take thank you thank you Kathy Cella first there's a lot of points I'd like to make first the $30,000 we spent on playworks was not as a re recess initiative the $30,000 was as training for our community ed staff training for the staff that does before and after school programs and summer programs to help them learn new ways and techniques to manage children in those kinds of activities um second for a number of years we've looked at different ways to manage recess to get more kids more active to get more kids to participate and not feel left out and to manage the discipline issues that always seem to spill back into the classroom and all that goes hand inand with our educational competencies of wanting healthy well-rounded children as well as our All forall Mission so the two pilots we did for recess were to manage those recess issues but leverage the training that the Community Education staff was already getting to give that same kind of training to the people who are going to be on the playground and that's how it started as a pilot program third we do pilot programs every year we do many many pilot programs every year probably I don't know 20 to 40 and that's the way we learn about how things work and we have procedures in place to say how we set up pilot programs and we try to follow those and because Pilots are pilots we tweak them and adjust them as they go on and we get feedback and and then at the end we take the metrics we evaluate them and see should we go forward with it or should we stop it should we adjust it what should we do with that and that's this is exactly that kind of pilot and fourth and most importantly in hindsight it's clear that there were parents who didn't feel they had enough information before this was rolled out to feel comfortable with it and that is not a good way to start a school year just not for parents or for children and as everybody said the communication wasn't rolled out properly and we need to learn from that because as I said before what's our biggest thing going forward it's change and this is one of the changes and we need to learn how to manage change and figure out how to do it better in the future so everybody feels like they have the information they've made the input and we can all Embrace change and do what's best for all our kids thank you okay we're gonna have two more questions will each of you will have one minute to answer the question um we'll start with Sarah patoff and work our way down do you feel there is too much this isn't the final oh Mir started last time oh okay sorry um one minute do you feel there is too much pressure on students in the ad school system to challenge themselves academically such as taking multiple AP courses I think pressure in a high achieving District kind of comes with the territory we're not only High achieving District we're High achieving parents and hence are our kids I do think there is a lot of pressure I think it's how you manage that pressure with yourself and with your children and making sure that you do what's best for your kids and your family for example in our family for our eighth grader we decided in middle school when she had options for for advancement in particular coursework we decided why don't you pick what is your biggest interest and stick with that I think that families need to make those choices kids need to make those choices of course course we want our kids to excel but feeling pressure I don't think necessarily is the best way for them to Excel and there's a lot of pressure just amongst the kids and parents themselves kids competing with who's taking the most of this or that and then the pressure that you get as a parent when your kids Choose Or Not choose to do the advanced work so I think these are decisions that we need to keep for our kids in our home life thank you Sarah Lenny Wallen fredman so there's no doubt that there is a lot of pressure on particular high school students if you go back to that survey that I referenced the survey indicates that 11th grade is just a huge pressure point for our our kids and the second thing that drives that pressure in the high school is time management in other words they haven't figured out how to manage their time and so what we need to do is we need to be able to continue to educate the students and their parents so that they know what's coming and so that they can make good choices you don't have to go to the high school and sign up for five years B classes you can go to the high school and pursue whatever it is that interests you so long as you meet the state requirements and then you can work on being educated on time management uh the High School site Council or PTO is offering a time management seminar that's worth attending there is pressure that's kind of a function of a school that achieves very well it's a matter of managing it and as Sarah said the family needs to get involved and set proper guidelines thank you Leila Avala I think um I have a friend who recently graduated um a couple of kids from ad high school and her comment was that the best part about the middle school and the high school is that there's something for everyone and you know her daughter was a star athlete Etc there was something for her her son was into drama he was in the in the drama club Etc um and she really really enjoyed that aspect I think um back to what Sarah was saying this is where parent engagement is a huge priority um as parents we need to buffer our kids from um you know and and be able to guide them obviously um into what it is that they are um going to be good at or what their hot spots are I think um taking advantage of those programs is key but I think parent engagement is really important to make sure that they're actually appropriate for the child that want you know that's thinking about engaging in them thank you Claudia Carr oh to the answer the question yes there is too much pressure on our students uh I don't know if you've seen the Ted Talk it's by Sir Ken Robinson and he's giving a talk about how our schools stifle creativity but he talks about what we call a full body education and he goes you know kids go to school and we expect them to come out with as professors you know that's all they are thinking about is intellectual education but there's so much more to being healthy human being whether it's dance whether it's music whether it's art and so I think the schools have a responsibility to emphasize full body education let's get well-rounded people coming out of the high schools not just focused narrowly on necessarily uh getting the best grades always because that may not be suitable for a child or necessarily even getting it to College um so it's a parent responsibility as well as a school responsibility and we need to take a serious look at it thank you Kathy Zella yes unfortunately there's pressure from families there's pressure from our community we're a high achieving community and there's pressure from society at large and we can't magically wave it away I think and I've had four kids go through the high school so I understand that firsthand I think though that with our focus on personalized learning we have the best opportunity to try to start managing that because personalized learning is looking at multiple Pathways to get to the same place that for every child they have a pathway to get to where they need to be and that we're flexible about that the other point of that is that part of personalized learning is engaging students and families to be motivated to manage their own learning and if we can authentically and realistically roll that out so that our students feel there are multiple Pathways and we're flexible to get to where you need to be and you can manage your own learning hopefully that will help take away some of the pressure thank you Amir garby thank you know it's important to remember that AP classes are only a portion of what our children are learning and how they're growing while they're in high school so much of childhood now is outside of the of the traditional classroom and that's of course Sports and other clubs but also things outside of the district entirely participating in Boy Scouts or in your church my mother had us doing respit care where we care for development disabled children over the weekends for 11 years incredibly Developmental and it's not something that the district had a hand in doing and as an eagle scout I can say that that organization helped transform my life again outside of the traditional classes where there's worry is if someone's starting to take on too much not getting enough sleep or time for imagination and creativity and Discovery you know and you know it's hard as a district to have a policy about that but what we can do is offer some professional development to our coaches and our teachers to help them recognize what anxiety looks like in an unhealthy manner in a child where they're not just reaching for a goal that's audacious but they have a mentality of perfection that's dangerous we can do something to intervene in those cases and support children no matter which direction they're trying to go thank you thank you we got some more audience questions um and this will be um a one minute to each of you we'll start with Lenny the district is currently evaluating the school year calendar what factors do you think should be considered when establishing the calendar should year round school be considered for EPs and what is your position about starting school more than one week before Labor Day do you want me to repeat repe okay so do do oh we're going to repeat the question the district is currently evaluating the school year calendar what factors do you think should be considered to establish the calendar should yearound school be considered for EP s and what is your position regarding starting more than one week before Labor Day okay so in terms of the calendar state law says that you cannot start school before Labor Day unless you have a certain level of construction so the first cut through this is do we have construction would it benefit us to start early for the construction we believe that if we start early then we'll get lower bids and an earlier jump on construction that's step one once you've got step one done the next question is all right is that good or is that bad for the kids because we're not going to start early to save money if it's going to harm the kids so then we take a look and say is this good for the kids and what we find is at the high school there's been an absolute benefit I've had many parents talk to me who said they opposed the starting early but then it was great because the first semester ended by winter break if we can have a calendar that ends by winter break all of a sudden that pressure question we talked about the kids get a two-e break from the pressure School becomes more manageable instead of ending School ending the first semester in late January so they go on winter break and they spend two weeks anxious about their finals thank you Leila aala um again I can I can only speak as a parent faced with this um the factors I think that should be considered I think most importantly is um to solicit feedback from the community and from the parents everybody is going to have a different answer nobody's going to be happy but um if you can sort of get a sense of what what works for ma the majority of the families in light of the state um statute restrictions obviously that that Lenny just talked about um that would be uh the most helpful um year round school and altering you know starting more than a week before Labor Day um those are things that I would want more data on um more data points to see whether um um there is um more success in students if they have year round school maybe the entire month of August off I know a lot of European countries have that model um and it's something that I I definitely think should be looked at because we we know we are a progressive School District but um would need more data points thank you Claudia car well what factors influence the calendar well two factors Student Success and uh creating the best teachers that we can whatever we do we have to look at those two factors and decide what changes to calendars what impact that would have in those two factors uh year round school well my husband's English and unfortunately he can't vote in this election so I I've lost one vote already but having listened to my husband talk about their school system they do have a year round school system where they have six weeks off and then they go back to school another six weeks off we need to take a look at what the best schools in the country are doing doing and what the best schools in the world are doing as far as time in school and what's being done in those school hours to make a decision on this issue I think we should look at it and then finally the one week uh starting one week before Labor Day initially I was opposed now I'm in favor of it reason why it Fosters teacher collaboration and that is critical for our personalized learning thank you thank you Kathy C the whole calendar issue is part of looking at time differently and we know that to have flexible learning to have personalized learning to accomplish Next Generation you schools we do have to look at time differently um the factors first of all then year round school there are a lot of studies that would show that that's better at this point that's a big stretch for a school district in the United States so I don't know that we're ready to like jump into that one yet the factors that need to go into planning a school calendar are first what's best for students and what's best for Learning and that's always got to ground us and so that's when we have a calendar committee right now that's made up of Staff Administration and parents and they're working on a two-year calendar that's going to come to the board in October or November so that we can all look at that and as most of you know we just sent out a survey that staff parents um and community members can take about what their preferences are for calendar and that's an important factor to take in as we plan our calendar um and the starting before Labor Day as Lenny said part of that is a legal issue to look at first but I think that if it helps us manage our semesters at a and put them at a better break that's a great idea thank you Amir kby well allow me to stand and say year round school is a bad idea for a din I'm somebody who appreciates new ideas but that is not what our students need summer is for family it's an incredibly developmental time for children in some ways that we don't even understand the play they have the clubs they're in the trips they take camps it's amazing and that's not true for every student in our country it's it's a sad fact that some students in our country lose knowledge over the summer and they're not even in a safe place over the summer and some schools for example there are schools in our own State you walk into a fourth grade classroom and you know most of these children will not graduate they need some extreme ideas and maybe they need to look to something like this but we don't we have outstanding resources for our students in this summer and access for those who do struggle to achieve those financially access programs that exist summer is for family parents are our primary Educators they matter so much there are a lot of good ideas we should look to and as someone who studies and loves public policy I'm all about that but let's not start by hurting our children's educational opportunities in the summer thank you Sarah patso well have having been on the school board during my first term and going through the first pre-labor day start I have understood that this is a huge issue in our community first of all the question was around what factors do we need to take a look at I agree with cathie Kathy it always goes back to what's best for learning but that's not what the law is telling us the law allows us to start before Labor Day based on construction we do have those things going on and we can use that but it also we always have to have the filter of is it good for students though so there's other factors that we look at it's when do the holidays fall knowing that Labor Day is a constant moving Target so this year it's not as painful as it was last year when Labor Day was the 1 of O the 1st of September versus the 8th of SE excuse me the 7th of September so we're constantly looking at the holidays meaningful breaks I agree with Lenny's comment that we heard from the high school that actually having the semester break at the winter break was really helpful for students all of these factors need to play into our decision-making well that was a fast minut so much we have another audience question given the limited resources of the Dina Public School District can you comment on if how you believe the district can capitalize and even leverage Partnerships with local organizations and local businesses and there'll be one minute and we'll be starting with Lila Avala how the district can leverage and capitalize Partnerships with local organizations and businesses okay um sure so um and again as I mentioned before every year um the district is asked to do more with less and less and it's not really um in my mind something that's sustainable a model that's sustainable in the long run um and I think that it's going to necessitate some creative ways to generate revenue from um other organizations and will necessitate Partnerships with other organizations in order to um raise that Revenue um um again I think that because we have a great community of parents who are heavily engaged um who are connected who um many of them were raised here um as I was uh we have the ability to form effective Partnerships and and I think we should definitely look at more creative ideas thank you Claudia Carr well I think we can have very effective Partnerships with businesses and that'll contribute not only to Career Development for the older students but also learning opportunities uh why not uh work with companies that have uh science backgrounds and that are uh materials based science companies work with them to have science days at our schools 3M has visiting wi Wizards only once is a visiting wizard uh visited Normandale and it was at a carnival we have to take advantage of our companies and utilize all the knowledge that they have to contribute to our schools and they want to do this because they want to create good students also uh computer programming let's get Pro uh companies in that know computer programming our students are not learning computer programming you need that if you're going to work for a company like Google Amazon the biggest companies in the United States they need that and they need to start learning now and getting excited about that let's use these business contacts that we have in Aina to create that learning environment and uh our health care services here we have a Regional Medical Center let's use that to introduce our students to health care services and careers in that field thank you Kathy cah one of our big three goals from a financial standpoint is to look at new sources of revenue because we have very little control over where our income comes from and I think the statistic is over the last 12 years we've lost 9% against inflation so we need to look at new sources of revenue and we need to figure out how we're going to fund the students who need access to things that we don't have in our budget and we can't really provide in our budget and that's where we need to focus on our Partnerships and there there's two kinds of Partnerships we have groups that are closely aligned with our district but aren in't our district like pto's and give and go and um the Ed fund and booster clubs and we need to work better with them to F to work cooperatively as their funding things to understand what they want to fund and what would work in align with our programs but then we also need to work with outside business organizations to provide new source of St funding in things like stem and steam and Robotics if you go to other schools you'll see some of the marvelous things that their businesses and industries the equipment and the time and the expertise they've donated to those schools to help those students and we need to do that here as well thank you Kathy Amir garby thank you yeah this question started on finances I don't know that I like merging our partnership conversation with our finances because I think they're separate we are stewards of our our City's resources but Partnerships are about Excellence for students this is something we do because we want to teach our children what they can become to show them what they can dream to Aspire to become this is especially important in our our community we have so many professionals and if children can just see what everybody else is doing they can go beyond the same basics of you want to be a teacher or a police officer maybe an astronaut there are so many amazing opportunities and some of them take years of thought you know what kind of engineering or field would you like to get in you want to build something do you want to work with technology my family was just at the works Museum in Bloomington and they had a day with dozens of women scientists and engineers and people involved in technology showing children what they did they brought in props it was fantastic and I remember specific days from when I was young when Outsiders would come in our classroom it makes a huge difference especially if you have someone who looks like the child a woman who's a scientist or an African-American Or Hispanic professional who says what do you want to be you can do it dare to dream thank you thank you Sarah Poff I think this is important and as Kathy mentioned it is part of our uh strategic plan this is a great way for us to tap Our Community Resources that are deep and they and with finite resources in the district it's a way to to ex stretch those limited resources it also gives us a access to Career professionals and the knowledge that they bring that can show our kids what it's like in the workforce and the resources that come with them examples like Kathy was saying of technology and things um and also working with Incredible organizations like the Adina Ed fund and give and go where we can directly help students cap the resources that they may not have access to and also allowing Dina Ed fund to help Advance work that's going on in the district and individual classrooms thank you Lenny Wen Freeman so we have a policy that we're actually working on as a school board that relates to Partnerships because Partnerships are critical to Our Success whether the partnership is the parent organizations that Kathy talked about that contribute greatly to our district whether it's out outside businesses that I've seen other school districts have utilized to donate machinery for Project Lead the Way whether we have professionals that we leverage who come in my wife has come in and give s given given talks on brain and surgery and I know of many other professionals that come into our community and give lectures and I know somebody that used to arrange all that um we also have Partnerships with other schools so that with Hopkins when shiroi Holly was invited to work with Hopkins we as a board went over and sat with their board and so we're leveraging both the businesses the professionals as well as other schools because other schools are doing similar to what we're doing thank you we will now move to our final question of the morning each candidate will have one minute to respond to the following questions question what do you consider to be the two biggest successes for R Dy and public schools in the last year we'll start with Claudia car Carr the two biggest successes well I I will say this I think that other than the recent playworks Fiasco as I would call it I think the Adina school system does a fabulous job of communicating with parents again I'm a working mother I have limited means of getting information about our school system and I think they do an absolutely wonderful job of communicating via email the phone messages that superintendent leaves us when there's a school day that's off because of snow I think they do a fabulous job of communication and second of all I think that um again I think our teachers are are a success I have been so impressed with the quality of our teachers um they take time to individually meet with me discuss the uh challenges that may be facing my child or what they need uh or what they are their successes and so again I think think that our success is our teachers they continue to be and I want to continue to invest in them thank you thank you Kathy cah I think two of the most important things we've done during the past year first passing our referendum I think that was just a critical key thing for moving forward we now have $14.9 million to upgrade the security in all our buildings and to transform all of our school buildings into um learning spaces for the next century and for the next generation of be learning and if you've seen the plans that are already coming out of the high school and now are being worked on the grade schools it is phenomenal it is amazing I would say everybody go out and look at those because those are wonderful and that will change the face of our school district and then secondly I think the work that we've done getting all our studies our birth to grade five our six to 12 gifted and talented advising and counseling health and wellness special ed all of those studies into a position where we are now ready to implement the learning and the recommendations for those studies and as um Dr Dron likes to show it's always balls in the air and we're at the point where we're going to be catching them all and putting them all together and I think that is tremendously exciting thank you Amir garby thank you what matters most and what has been a continued success is student outcomes graduation rates measurable scores like test scores and gpas have been as high as we expect and that's something that's encouraging and I also think we've done a great job as a city and particularly this current board in making progress on personalized learning and it's so important because you want every child to believe that they can become what they want the American dream is for every child and every teacher every principal every staff member at every school believing that every child can learn and that's something that we've made great progress on and it's incredibly important for closing the achievement Gap and also for helping those who have a path that's maybe a little different and they're looking for someone to inspire them and say that you can do that and I can help you get there that's personalized education now moving forward the way to make more progress on personalized education is to involve parents as primary Educators and as primary guardians of their children and to involve professionals and other partners for our district to help kids go the next step in accomplishing their life's goals thank you Sarah patof well I could Echo what Kathy has said but I'll hit on a couple different things one of the things that I think we're working really hard on is our professional learning communities for our staff and for our teachers and I've had the opportunity to sit on the review process for that the last two years and hear the teacher feedback on the value that they get from having time one-on-one in small groups with their colleagues to help review the work that they're doing to help them better in educate individual students and I think that the time that we take with our late starts and our early releases four times a year has been of Great Value to our teachers and I think it's a success for the district and second is work our continued work on personal Iz learning and we're not done with this process we're still learning and looking at other districts and best practices but I do think it's critical work that we're doing and ex success that we're continuing to identify that it's not just putting kids into boxes but it's letting them identify their talents and work towards their strengths giving them that flexibility and I think that's another success for the district thank you Lenny Wallen Freeman so I I could Echo Kathy and act I will uh each not always so each year we have great academic success and we didn't get to the point of having academic success by standing still and we're not going to continue to have academic success by standing still so the passing of the referendum was huge it is a milestone it enables us to reform our physical plant and if you go and look at the high school if you go and and see what the plans are to change all these cinder block classes with no light into spaces that have light that will come in that will have workspaces near it it it is an incredible transformation the other area that we've had great success in Is the participation in and the progress that we've made with the core planning teams the secondary study the birth de grade five study we have had people spend countless hours working on those projects and a lot of volunteer time and a lot of success thank you Lea EV um having spent time in those cinder block classrooms with no windows um I'm I I I too think that the one of the biggest successes has been getting the referendum passed um getting the opportunity to transform these old buildings um update security both very key and topical issues in today's world um are huge and then and I would also Echo what um most everybody else has said which is the beginning phases of the Next Generation learning model the amount of hours that parents and teachers and and the Administration has put into um the beginning phases making sure that it's successful um it's a great collaborative effort which is always very positive thank you we have come to the end of our candidate forum I want to thank each of the candidates for taking the time to join us this morning we greatly appreciate the opportunity to learn more about each of you and we thank you for your willingness to serve the Diana Public Schools I want to thank the audience for attending and for the parent leadership Council for hosting this event finally as a reminder the recording of today's Forum will be available on online at www.ed schools.org in a few days thank you and remember to vote on Tuesday November 3D thir [Applause]