2018 Dexter School Board Candidate Forum
At
the forum on Monday, October 15th, each candidate was asked two of the
following questions. I was asked Questions #4 and #7. Each candidate
was asked different questions from the others. Therefore, none of us
answered the questions the others had. Below are my answers to all of
the questions provided to the candidates for the forum.
Q1: What do you think are the primary responsibilities of a
school board member?
A1: The school board is equivalent to the board of directors
for the district. As such, a board
member works as part of the board and is not to get involved with the daily
operations of the district.
Responsibilities include:
- Hire and evaluate the Superintendent (who runs the daily operations)
- Adopt policies and curriculum
- Set District Goals and Objectives
- Plan for District Facilities
- Adopt the budget
- Advocate for education and listen to the community concerning their educational needs, wants, and concerns
Q2: What principles should be applied to issues that come
before the school board?
A2: I have used these principles and questions to guide my
evaluation of proposals that come before the board:
- Does this help students?
- Is it in the realm if district responsibilities?
- What are the impacts on resources: staff, financial, and facilities?
- What are the criteria to evaluate success?
- If it is successful, how are we going to sustain the program?
- If it is successful, can it replace something that becomes obsolete?
Q3: What things are DCS doing well?
A3: Dexter is blessed with a strong school system and we have
many things going well for us.
Including, but not limited to:
- Solid fiscal management
- Good staff relationships – builds a collaborative environment that allows us to accomplish a lot
- Strong student performance
- Good community relationships and community support
- Good facilities for the students and community
- Strong college prep path for high school students
Q4: What are the biggest challenges facing DCS regarding
education for district children?
A4: Dexter is fortunate that we don’t have major issues
facing us like many districts do. There
are some challenges we face and opportunities that we can work towards. A few of them include:
- Applying and implementing new innovations and programs within our existing resources or trying to find additional resources to do so while at the same time not breaking what is working for us
- Properly supporting the continuing increase in students utilizing special needs programs, including needed staff. Without proper support there will be a lot of strain on resources to meet everyone’s needs.
- Providing support for the emotional and social stresses within the schools
- Keeping screen time down for students as new programs are implemented – we don’t need to exacerbate the problem with kids spending too much time on electronic devices
Q5: What things should be priorities for improvement? What, if any, things should be eliminated?
A5: For the most part, I think the priorities should be
towards providing opportunities to help each student be successful in the path
that is appropriate for them and thus be properly positioned to succeed upon
graduation. I think these items are
important:
- Improve opportunities and options for non-college bound students, in addition to the consortium classes currently available
- Applied hands-on opportunities such as engineering technology programs for the high school and middle school
- Look for opportunities in the earlier grades for flexibility to give kids an engaging educational challenge for their individual level
- Look for and strengthen partnerships with other entities to help deliver innovative programs
- Continue to improve upon communication and services – build upon some the communication programs recently implemented and find ways to make key information available to parents (e.g. real time notification of late buses).
Q6: DCS currently receives $179 more per student than we
received in 2008-2009. This school year
is the first time we have increased above 2008-2009 levels since 2008. What will you do to address the problems
schools face with stagnant state funding as they try to meet the challenges of
serving EVERY student?
A6: Even if funds increase, I anticipate that there will
always be more demands and wants than we have resources to meet. There may be items that have foregone funding
in the past that become important to address.
We need to make sure we attract and retain high quality teachers and staff. Updates will be needed to learning
resources. Innovations and new programs
will be desired. These will have to
balanced and prioritized as to where we spend our budget. Finding external partners, resources, and
grants that can be used to help with some of these needs will be
essential. However, we also have to be
careful of the long-term availability of these funds when leveraging them for
on-going programs.
Q7: What do you think is/are the biggest legislative issues
facing DCS?
A7: Being on the school board the last couple of years has
been eye opening on how much the district is constrained by state and federal
requirements. In particular the state
legislature has a large impact on the district with regard to:
- Funding. In the last several years a lot of money from what had traditionally been a K-12 education fund is now diverted to pay for state higher education institutions. If this hadn’t happened there would have been a lot more resources available to the K-12 districts.
- Continued churning on state standardized tests and curriculum requirements. Changing the state tests makes it difficult for any district to baseline and analyze trends in their student performance. Changing curriculum requirements makes it difficult to plan for new programs.
School boards working with the Michigan Association of School
Boards can advocate for better policies and help legislators understand the
impacts on local districts.
Q8: Social media has reshaped communication. If elected, how do you plan to manage the
impact of social media regarding district issues?
A8: Social media can be a method for the district to be aware
of community opinion and needs. We also
need to make sure that the policies we have concerning social media are
examined periodically to make sure they are keeping up to date with the
developments in the social media world.
This includes providing clear guidelines to board members, administration,
and staff on how to use social media for district purposes.