and welcome to a channel seventeen town meeting television tonight is our forum from the south burlington school district but i want to give you our number if you want to call in our number for those locally eight six t three nine six six now we're going to have a presentation done by these folks you see we have a very presentable group of students and adults here and they're going to give you an overview of the school budget and some of the questions that are out there i'd like to turn this over now to superintendent david young and what maybe you can do some intros in your started thank you howard so again my name is david young i'm the superintendent of schools and south burlington and joining me is john auburn our business manager year the chair of a school board are now and alex are two school board student reps who also serve on the school board so tonight we'd like to just walk you through our budget and then leave hopefully some time at the end for people ask questions and we also know that there is call an opportunity that's another way so again this is the self reliance and school district budget we're presenting for the eighteen nineteen school year some things that we think are important  objectives for a budget are that and again you see these on the bullet points on the screen that we want to be able to provide student opportunities and programs that are essential for our students to achieve our outcomes and what we often refer to as are district ends we want to be able to provide profession development services and activities to our staff to ensure that they are ready to meet those needs we want to be able to utilize data that allows us to make informed decisions and we also want to make sure our schools are safe to be and well maintained and so those are kind of the tenets of our our specific objectives this next slide is it is a busy slide but it's an important one i think we think that captures the education funding  picture for folks and i'm going to start on the top left corner here i don't know if my pointer will work but on the very top left actually it doesn't show is proposed expenditures again this is the amount of money that we're proposing to spend next year and you see the actual amount it says we're going up point five percent so we're less than one percent on our total expenditure the middle one is the estimated revenue this is what comes in to us from students who come to us from other locations are island students in georgia the next box and again that's up just a fraction the next is set by the state and this is what we call a property yield and this is down three point one three essentially when that goes down it means that local communities need to raise additional tax monies to make up that difference and this is in part connected to the governor's conversation specific to education funding the bottom right hand corner is the common level of appraisal this is amount again set by the state around how property sell in your community and so on sell pearlington it's just a slight downward change not not not significant but again just a little bit downward and then bottom left corner is what we eyes pupils in that is three point nine seven percent that's a positive thing that means growth is happening in our community of self reliant and it means that not just are seeded students it's also when you factor in like a high school student gets is a one point one three when you factor that all together we're close to one hundred additional equalised pupils and about sixty five or so actually seeded student so again this is important very center box now one that we want to focus on just for a second is our property tax rate not all of the figures you can't add them up or subtract them to equal point one point nine six but they are all factors into the determining that that number so our property tax rate would increase and sell pearlington proposed one point nine six percent just a little below two percent this next slide is kind of walks along that bottom left hand circle that i was just talking about on equalize pupils the top portion is the statewide totals and you can see all the way back to two thousand and fourteen through what's being proposed in the f y nineteen a little just less than two percent and for south burlington we're at a five point five percent so that's equalized pupil component this next one before i let some other folks talk here in just a second this is a busy busy slide the highlighted you read actually i think are the probably the things that will mean a lot to people but the first one is the total expenditure and you see over on the far right top corner point eight five if you walk down to the next red block the red red box you see our total revenue and you see that's up point zero four and then it's simple subtraction you take the twelve million minus subtracting that from the forty nine million and it brings it to the thirty seven six thirty five seven to two which is the amount that we request from the state and fund we divide that by the number of equalize peoples which were referred to in the previous slide and that comes up with a net ad spending per equalize pupil of fourteen thousand nine seven seven point six eight that number then gets divided by the equalized the property you that property when divided equals then the residential tax rate of a dollar fifty two then you divide that by the common level of appraisal i know that's a lot going on there and that's how it comes up to the dollar sixty one two or one point nine six percent increase on the tax rate david i would just want to remind our viewers that if you have a question please the number to call is eight six two three nine six six you can call anytime but we're going to try to get through the presentation before taking some e happy to get to the end an answer quickly so on that previous slide you saw that the per cent increase for the expenditure budget this year was point eight five percent about four hundred thousand dollars and the question might be well where did that four hundred thousand dollars come from and how we develop the budget generally is we we do what we call a continuing service budget which kind of maintains the existing programs that we have in the current year see what that's going to cost for next year and then make adds or subtracts depending on certain things that were happening in the coming year in there we come up with the the about four hundred thousand dollars we're adding this year to contingent teachers which are just in case we haven't romans that are greater than what we expect we have a little bit of money set aside to to add staff if we need to and one of our issues in in education these days is is behavioral response to students and we're adding a behavioral analyst coach this coming year and at a cost about sixty thousand dollars we have a slate of improvements that we're going to try to make t buildings in the facilities we'll get to that next but one of the ones that is in the operating budget if you will is repair the pavement a little bit at the high school middle school parking lot for about fifty thousand dollars we have two other  categories personnel seventy five thousand five hundred and other kinds of facilities work for forty seven thousand which brings the total to three hundred ninety two thousand dollars so that's the the nearly nearly the entire increase in the budget can be identified with these handful of items that one of the big items issue here is we try to keep up with facilities maintenance and construction repair of our buildings and grounds every year in this year we're proposing a nine hundred fifty thousand dollars bond issue that will handle fifteen or twenty different pieces  that we think need to be made to the facilities the biggest single piece of that is a restroom facility at the months and field the field has been operating without a restroom facilities since we built it and we're trying to provide three hundred twenty five thousand dollars worth of funding to build a restroom and training room there the other big item for this coming year is a library kind of reconfigur ation you may know that the city library operated in the same space as the high school library for many years and they moved out to the to another location this past year and we'd like to reconfigure that space now that that's gone now with some new furniture and some new bookshelves and that sort of thing so that's about one hundred fifty thousand dollars there's a whole whole series of of other improvements that we're making generally recurring items like refitting fire alarm fire alarm panels and enunciators doing work on the carpet and floor tile that wears out after a while  some key unlocks security upgrades those amounts make up the rest of the nine hundred fifty thousand dollars bond issue and that that project the tax impact of their privacy is included in the numbers that david mentioned earlier thank you john i want to spend a couple of minutes on the next few slides just talking about some of the notable budget items and then i'll talk a little bit about the impact of this proposed budget to taxpayers one of the key things in this particular budget is we have a reduction of about five hundred sixty one thousand from new health care plan implementation and the organization which is largely responsible for benefit plans for employees and employers introduce four new plans starting january of this year actively five which was approved by the governor and the legislature last year required a claw back of health care savings as a reduction to school districts from the general ed fund so even net of the claw back that south burlington needed to contribute in last year's approved budget and in this year's budget  there are savings that have been identified largely based on google as they should and premium reduction of five hundred sixty one thousand dollars we also have collaborated with the city on a solar project on the landfill in south burlington and both the city and school are benefiting from that so right now we've seen an expense reduction of about twenty thousand in our electricity bill as john mentioned several of the safety and security items that we've invested in and that total about two hundred fifty eight thousand were also we have a separate bond issue that will be on the ballot which really is a reflection of our facilities stewardship projects and that totals nine hundred fifty thousand the typical run rate for facilities project which is largely been embedded in the operating budget year over year is about four to five hundred thousand so this really represents a little bit of catch up for us as well as a reflection of the fact that all five of our siste facilities are over fifty years old at this point and need those investments and john talked about the one hundred fifty thousand which is in for the library refit at high school and then several years ago the bond with  administration's recommendation approved a capital reserve fund in the voters approved that on the ballot we have maintained a three hundred thousand dollars balance in that budget we haven't added anything to that but at this point we're keeping that available for use as necessary and the intent was to smooth out some of the highs and lows in the budget as needed and the voters did approve that so as far as the recap goes if i can go to that next slide david think you were looking at a budget that represents less than one percent increase at the top line spend it's point five percent it's a revenue increase of point four percent the tax rate increases under two percent the one point nine six that david mentioned  versus prior year and that's primarily due to the decrease in the states that property a we also have had significant increase in the equalized pupils that have gone into that are spending it's not on this chart but our spending for equalize people is actually down two point seven five percent which is which is a great direction in terms of school spending in general we have a robust population of tuition students that come to us from the islands in fairfax  georgia that really bring a lot of value to our student population and allow us to leverage our overhead in our staffing as well so the impact of all of the numbers we've discussed so far which from a taxpayer standpoint is critical is really about seventy one dollar increase to the tax bill on an average condo in south pearlington and about one hundred four dollar increase on an average home in south burlington income sensitivity which a fairly  significant portion of our community participates in has actually declined from two point seven two percent to two point five three percent and although we have received most information from the state variables that are controlled those are subject to approval still by the legislature based on the demands that schools are going to come to in terms of general ed on which we've seen some initial favorable trending online if i can shift to the next slide i just want to present kind of a ten year history of tax rates and budget request in south burlington and i would highlight in this these numbers do reflect the fact that we've invested facilities stewardship or capital improvement into all most are actually most of these items up until this year districts and supervisory unions all do this a little bit differently but that run rate has been invented and those are for assets that typically last ten to twenty years so we think the bond that we're presenting to voters this year really reflects a more accurate accounting of investments that have lifetime asset lifetimes of longer than that ten to twenty years so what you see here is spending increases that average over ten years two point six six percent and tax rate increases averaging one point eight three percent and again you can see some movement over the year plus those are minuses and david covered a lot of the variables that go into that  think david you're going to move on to the enrollment piece so again this is this is just a snippet of come some of our core staff and so this slide represents our five schools and has a total on the bottom so you see the seven hundred eighteen in ro numbers and you can see we obviously talked about that increasing and then the course staff a hundred seventeen point one seven and then our current enrollment projected for eighteen nineteen is twenty four ninety eight began representing an increase and then our course staff currently plans as one sixteen point six seven slight down now that said as john mentioned earlier there are two contingent teachers currently in the budget and they may need to be deployed if they get deployed and are needed at any one of those schools then obviously that core staff number would increase by that number again this just indicates i think to the community that we're being responsive  to the resources that are needed at the time when our in rome and serve what will say our steady or slightly slightly increase let me just remind our callers because we have a couple more presenters if you some questions for this panel the number is eight six two three nine six six don't be nervous it's just a dialogue here but who wants to go first so alex but let me just say i what it's great having you know we have school board reps on our our school board and they have been very active and involved in conversation and recommendations what we have is some student outcomes and this is again district wide and they want to share a little bit about those  amazing programs including classes but also programs that provide different learning opportunities for it's one of which that i'm most familiar with is the big picture program i've been a part of big picture for two years it's a school within south burlington high school where students can really reach their full earning potential by taking advantage of their own learning and schedules and by doing this and participating in this program i've been able to pursue a variety of different opportunities that can really learn to the best of my ability one of these things includes my involvement with extracurriculars i am the founder of the gender and sexuality alliance club itself burlington high school and going through big picture allowed me the time to really dedicate a lot of effort into running this club and so that's been a really great opportunity for me i also pursue dual enrollment plus last year i took the film and television a studies class and i'm taking a gender and sexuality gender sexuality women's studies class so again with the picture and structuring my own learning i was able to perceive these amazing opportunities that i think in a lot of different situations i might not have i've also been accepted into u v l and i've been pursuing that post secondary  planning and attending colleges after high school and i know that south burlington high school really provides a lot of support when it comes to searching for colleges and going through that pretty stressful process and you can definitely see that reflected in our graduation rates and the rates of students that pursue post secondary education you know you're going to speak more towards the academic side of yes i mean as far as the academic stuff i mean i think it's really important play from a student perspective just understanding that south burlington is always top in the state as far as results go for us backs in the caps and that goes beyond the high school and in the middle school as well and for me personally what i really appreciate about the school was you know alex talked about the extracurriculars and how she has dual enrollment i've taken a lot of the honors programs and how they prepared me for the a p s and i look at our school and how they offer a variety of different classes and that's really special because all those schools might not do that and i know the teachers at our school have been above and beyond to help us i know this year i've just picked my classes for my final year and that's obviously kind of you know exciting and stressful and i know the teachers have been super helpful with you know like last thing like honors american studies how it's prepared me for a p english literature and those kinds of things and you know the juniors and seniors at our school that i get to know really well are doing super wat i think that's really important to understand and maintain because their school is doing really well and students are really happy here so yeah so alex and and i know both of you came from elementary in our middle school and maybe just a little snippet about where you came what elementary school and some of that experience yeah i personally came from chamberlain elementary school and  i know that school is really fun i love that experience and you know honestly though that school prepared me a lot for you know middle school because of like simple things like opening a log or and things like that i've just had to really st i had to really study support system helping me get through education helping me for you know post secondary plans and it's been really fun that's why i went to elementary school and you know absolutely seconding what you said i had a really great establishment for my education and my learning my teachers always supported me and i remember having also you know just like in high school having great opportunities to really establish my learning and to grow as a person and getting a process for developing budgets because i know in south pearlington based on moderating presentations in the past there's a very extensive timeline and you try to include a lot of people maybe viewers would like to know a little bit about this isn't just made up in your offices here you you really have a process so i think it's important to know that you know first of all our school board you know is is and is an important player to that again they're kind of the eyes and ears of the community and so providing me me some direction around what they think is important and again i think is elizabeth pointed out in our kind of tax rate history or increases we've been responsible so there's some app absolute direction that comes from the school board we've also had a citizen budget advisory group that john and i have been part of and that's been running for quite a good number of years they also provide another component of that and then i would say that the hard work as it happens between the administrators within the within the five schools in the central office it capital is eyes capitalizes on the information that we know we need to be looking at in improving source student data looks at requirements that we need to be  mindful of around the state or whether it's proficiency based or a personalized learning plan so all of that kind of factors into that to come up with a budget at the same time i would say that in some and some ways we're always trying to figure out what the state funding mechanism will be and when they yield significantly changes that may drive us to a different place and what we need to do because obviously we need to be sensitive to that tax rate increased and so if those metrics change a lot then we're going to need to be able to be adjustable to an appropriate tax rate so we'd love to see you know education funding a little bit more predictable in the future but we've been a district that's been very you know i think mindful of the of the impact to our tax returns payers and making sure they get again as you heard from the students what are the outcomes and the things that we want to make sure our students in our community again if you would like to call we do have a number and we're having callers yet but i'm hoping we get at least one the number is eight six two three nine six six and you're welcome to call and ask these folks any questions but if for some reason you see this on a replay  you have questions they can always call absolutely and we really anytime our scar website and this next page that i have on here you can go to our website and you can get information about you know making a contact there available information on our website school board members are there as well the other paper as it says is a great place a city website are in your report cards on there and the other the very last one on there is to the s b a dot org there's a nice informative video i didn't do it justice really walking through the financial piece it's of i don't know about eleven minutes or so long and it's really informative on kind of the the interplay of some of the data that's going on not just for south burlington but education funding in general so we would we welcome those conversations the other thing is we have we were supposed have a school board meeting last night but we didn't we have one on the thirteenth where i was welcoming folks there and then our next budget our next meeting would be on the twenty first we going to talk a little bit more about the bond and the first part of that meeting specific to some of the items that both john and elizabeth alluded to i want we have only a few minutes but i want to ask our students because given the time factor  what has being a student rep what have you gotten out of that what what or what have you gain from that and what are you able to take with you with that experience of being a student rep on your school board or in the school district if you've been on it for a while how long have you been a well i joined at the end of my junior year and it's been really an incredible experience i mean the reason why i was interested in joining was so that i could make a direct impact on my community and really stay involved in the issues that affected not only my peers in the school but also in the greater south burlington community it taught me a lot about you know public speaking and also really communicating with my peers and prioritizing the issues that i see in the student body and how you can accurately represent that and bring that to a board so it's been really been a really gratifying experience i know that i'm going to use what i learned throughout these years you know these past year at the school board you know yeah i think i joined actually just a couple months ago in the fall of this year which my junior year i joined mostly because you know self brewington has gone through a lot of things and student and i think is really important especially at a time when there's a bunch of different things going on not just insult burlington but with vermont and the changing landscape all across america so i really personally i'm really interested in that stuff and i know i have a lot of friends that are too so for me it was just really cool to be able to join the board and talk with everybody like my friends about what's going on informing them and this is a really cool opportunity to you know have which not many people do so for me it's just this as alex said that communication piece because i think that's really important well how did you get talked into it well for me i did last year we had a hines on the board and i talked to him a little bit last year and he kind of got me really interested and then i obviously contacted mr you know you know this  yeah i got it let's go have a do similar scenario actually a teacher came up to me and told me about the effort and he said like i do a lot of you know leadership work within my school so they said you know you'd be a great fit for this position is this or schools in general in the next three to five years or so what do you think we're going to be talking about briefly say and you can you can add this david but i think the overriding story is really cost containment and balancing the local and state quality of education it's really what communities want to support and what head of states want to prepare our kids for their next steps whether it's career or college and how we're going to fund them that's the broad story you and i and i would certainly second that i think you know it is a lot about what you heard both are now in alex talk about it's about those opportunities that we feel are critical and the worry is that when you have financial difficulties what's going to happen is you take away that many of those opportunities where there's clubs or there's classes and that's that's that's a significant change because then students become perhaps less interested in the course offerings and obviously then they're not as interested in pursuing their hopes and dreams and reading for that next step so you know i think the other the last part of that i would say about maintaining our facilities i think in vermont we also have to be mindful of how to do that and this particular is just trying to stay on top of some of the important upkeep to make sure i believe i appreciate that thank you so much folks it's always great to see you eat david every year and we appreciate so much and viewers you know were to go to now if you have any questions and on behalf of the panel here my name is howard would have been your moderator we want to say thank you and keep watching town meeting television thank you ho good evening and welcome to tail seventeen's town meeting television tonight we have we are going to do a discussion with the south burlington school board candidates for the three year seat i have next to me right here elizabeth fitzgerald and this is laura williams now this is a very informal type of thing although you only get about two minutes for each answer and there is a phone number of viewers want to ask these candidates any questions in this case if they call and we're going to give you the go to the call ok the number is eight six two three nine six six i want to start off with you elizabeth and this is for for both of you but we'll start with the incumbent why are you running again and what qualifies you for the position well this will be the sixth term i've run for howard and i finished twelve years on the board so far i'm running primarily because i've benefited from an education and i believe access to a solid education is critical to the current generation and future generations i i've served as a board chair for several of the years that i've been on the board and i  on a number of subcommittees and gone through a lot of board training but the issues that are facing public education right now in terms of funding of education as well as what local communities than what the state will support in terms of quality education i think really will benefit from some continuity on the board and i think south burlington residents can benefit from both the institutional memory i bring to the role as a board member as well as the students in our district so i'm interested in continuing that service so laura the same question have you then on the board before you do this or a first time i know this would be my first time ok so and i i want to be on board because i really believe strongly in public education and i'm a teacher so i definitely understand the profession and i'm a taxpayer community member and i'm a parent of two children one of whom is in junior at the high school and one of whom graduated last year so i'm looking forward to being involved in my community and and really really building community building that spirit there's been the relationship between the teachers association and the school board is has been a little rocky the past few years and also sometimes within communities so i'm looking to branch relationships build community or what are we talk with elizabeth was on for the budget presentation laura what is your feeling about the budget as well as the you know the proposed law and what it really thoughts on i have looked at the budget i and i will support the budget in march sixth and i have looked at the bond and i have a student who's a three sport athlete plus she was and i've been to it she went through orchard tunnel and the high school so i've sat through many a band concert chorus playing you name it and and i've been to many games at that field  and i believe that the actual structures of all these buildings need some care and attention and so i would definitely support that and right now in the months and field there are only two port a potties and i am just going to go on a limb and say it's really not sufficient i definitely support the bond and elizabeth obviously in the last presentation maybe you want to reinforce your position on the budget as well yeah obviously i do support the budget the again we're looking at kind of a topline increase of less than one percent and a tax rate increase of less than two percent i do think it's very responsible budget i think the district has a track record of really being prudent with taxpayer resources and although we've had some up and down years i do think this reflects the needs of of the facilities as well as the students in the programming so i do support the budget i think the administration has done an incredible job really combing through and really talking about deploying resources in a meaningful way that will benefit the end well let me keep going with that you know the political landscape out there the governor has put out a whole new no new taxes type of thing did that work in when you guys were working with the budget what are your feelings about the governor's proposal you know the budget development process is starts really back in september of the prior year so a lot of the governors guidelines as well as legislative activity doesn't really happen till a budget is actually approved by the board and is approved to go on the ballot so there's discussions ongoing right now within the house in the senate that would impact education funding and spending and one of the things that i would support is and i'm a taxpayer and i you know i like the idea of no new taxes and new fees but on the other hand i think we need to be responsible but looking at the timing of initiatives and kind of when they roll in so that we have a budget development process that really doesn't prefer preceded any of that activity and i know one of the things i would like to advocate for is longer term planning i'd like to look at a five year budgeting plan that could provide predictable tax fending for our community members it could define what the community is willing to support in terms of education funding and  new taxes is going to impact your community right well first of all i think we need a plan and no new taxes just sounds like a slogan to me and not a plan i can identify the plan and that and that statement and  what the governor he seems to come in at the eleventh and a half hour when hours and hours of work goes into a budget starting months you know and you know in beginning of the year or so right now i would agree with elizabeth i mean i i would really look forward to sitting down with legislators and legislators and the government having some substantive conversation about how we do this how do we get creative how do we have a new revenue stream we need to think differently because to me just no new taxes sure everybody loves that i just i don't know what that means is i would like some specifics on what he needs in terms of things like the things that you can't control things like health care you know those costs and  teachers are some of the healthiest people around and that i don't really think that they you know they use their health care really quite wisely and i think you know we probably need to get a little bit creative i know i don't have all the answers and i it but it is something that i have a great deal about and it's something that i would really look forward to speaking you know don't diving a little bit deeper into this issue so can actually get real some some real answers because it is it is a concern for all of us you know i am a taxpayer and i am i am also a teacher and i'm also a parent so i i come out this from all three perspectives and i thought about this a lot so yeah i would just bring my willingness to learn and i you know i agree we need to make some changes and i would like to be a part of that western that and that and that change elizabeth where do you think well specific to health care one of the one of the areas that i also volunteer for was to serve on the board of the high which is the vermont education health care initiative and some of the things that have been done on the board which had does have  any representation is really the launching of four new plans and that's that is an additional plan to pass plans which includes a parent child option which is a reduced premium for those folks that can take advantage of that plan in addition it's offered h r an h s a which are tax advantaged health savings opportunities that are either supported by the employer and or the employee and the h s a option is one that becomes an employee owned asset that they can take with them regardless of their employment status with the district or supervisor union so there have been some specific activities done within that non proof profit group that really has the mission of offering cost competitive quality benefits in general to the education pool within the state of vermont so those are some specific examples of where i have personally taken an interest and volunteered to work on those things that can generate some some cost savings and obviously there's a lot of work to be done in terms of the add funding formula hts self but that's where our board really has taken a leadership role in working with our legislators and kind of supporting or at least providing some guidance around those things that might help that so looking at the bigger the big picture of the district itself and the south burlington it's had issues in the paper this last year and various things but let's let's put those aside standpoint it's really cost containment and and really the quality of education that we want to support locally i think some of the areas that are our questions are really specifically you know when we deliver public education how do we meet students in terms of how they come to us we're having students come to us with a variety of needs whether it's students that have advanced opportunities for learning whether it's english language learners whether it's special education students kids coming from a trauma for instance in poverty so there are a number of social services that kind of found their way into the school system and i think we need to figure out as a state how do we start to address the needs of students and families within the walls of the school system without overburdening the the staff in the system that we have in place to deliver education i also think specific artist are going to have a need for a longer term planning and that includes you've heard a lot about the facilities planning but i think collaborating with the city and really looking at the city's taste and scope of development within the city of south burlington and balancing that with the stability our community really appreciates in the in the school system is a challenge and specific areas like the airport and noise levels affect individual school facilities but i think those are really the some of the high level initiatives that we need to focus on or you've been i want to ask you the same question you know given the fact that you've raised her children right through the system right and gotten a chance to really be a you know have been a part of the community all these all during that time were or do you see you now it's a given that there are picture of the things that you think are going to really are going to have the face of the district and your perspective as the board member could and bring you right here and that's that's an interesting perspective to bring in right so you know as a parent i well we've had excellent teaching all the way through i have been very thrilled with the education and i think the key to this really is excellent teachers and i because we see this are coming to us with a variety of needs and that's probably just going to to continue and i do i do see that as as something that we need to face in the future and i think you know cultural awareness cultural diversity i think to make the assumption that everyone feels welcome and is comfortable in our community is not the right one to make i would love to see a task force on racism and bias and really get out there think i would i really would love to have a community form where we talk to people of love to have you know being potluck once a semester where we bring all families together and i really can't stress enough how important it is to have teachers in the away from healing and that's the teachers sometimes the teachers the schools are the safest place for those kids to be so i would i really think you know training our teachers wow and making sure that they're well cared for so we can give the best education to the children walking through that was stores that's what i see is the most critical job that we can sell burlington has been lucky in the sense that you folks increasing the role of universes yet you know so you don't really have to have that issue you know that many districts are now where you just look around so parents in their building like crazy so i think p p people are moving moving year it's a great community and i think i don't i don't live with you know the numbers better than i do i know that there is quite a few twists in paying students students really want to come here to to the high school and i can and i also serve with a natural resources council for south burlington and and here we are we're trying to save our natural resources but we're building building and building so people are moving in because they want to raise their families here and that that's what i what i believe is happening that's great and elizabeth do you have any views on why you know south burlington is the anomaly here well well you know i think there's pockets of growth throughout the state i think it we've benefited this year and we've been relatively flat overall in terms of enrollment but i think the tuition students we have close to two hundred tuitions students down that come to us from the islands  fairfax and georgia i think you know we've really benefited from a stable population we've got about seventy percent of our community members though that no longer have children in the school system so i think some of what you're seeing is also turnover in homeownership in that regard and some of the work we do really though is if it doesn't necessarily impact in roman directly but we've we've done some pilots for instance we have a bussing pilot one of the issues we found with our neighboring district when you ski is they found that their attendance at school went down during winter months so we were able to come up with a no cost alternative to provide some bussing to their kids during the winter months and from what i hear those decisions the board role is not to get involved in running the district that's really a policy governance role and if that's something administration supports and the athletic directors support and it allows the kids who choose to participate in that sport to continue to have that opportunity i think that's great and that's a good example of i think what you meant we may start to see more throughout the state is districts collaborating with each other in a way that allows students to have those opportunities you want to have on to the your feelings of oh the football my son played football i was freshman sophomore year and i think it's great i'm sad that we've just lost the rivalry between south burlington and burlington and i also think in the kids want to play yeah so it's great that your communities are working together because i just want to remind viewers that you can call eight six two three nine six six and you can ask any question you one of these two candidates  and i'm so i'm i'm a teacher that that's that's my profession so i mean i understand the ins and outs of being a teacher and what that means and i'm also a community member and a taxpayer so i do pay attention to the budget and it's t it's meaningful for me and i am also a parent and i i really i really believe strongly in public education i've sent both my children through the school system and and i have questions for both candidates if that's allowed the first is for a little bit of that strolled in first i want to thank her for her service over the last twelve years and i my question for her is what else is important to accomplish my question for laura is how do you measure excellence in teachers and my my second question for laura has to do with negotiations and i don't know if we've had teachers on the board in the past but i'm wondering how that would my what else you know after even after twelve years i feel like i'm continuing to learn and i feel like the complexity of delivering the service the public and is has really only grown more so during during my tenure on the board i think specific to south burlington i think development of that master planning and visioning is critical which includes not only where we deliver that education but it also includes how we how we support a climate of growth for our students our staff our families their guardians and so forth and i think i think really building that  advocacy in the legislature and not hillier is critical i think there's a there's a host of elements that really build to preserving that quality education in south burlington and a lot of it really boils down to engaging the community it really  boils down to ensuring that we have the tricks that are measuring how our students are are performing and are we delivering on the ends that we've identified with the community in terms of how we want students walking across the stage at graduation well i'm a taxpayer i'm a community member and there is a long standing tradition in vermont of teachers serving on boards not in the community where they teach but in the communities where they live so there is no conflict there ok so that's  is they go through a fairly rigorous process and they're i mean everything from tests you have to take we are required to take x amount of credits per licensing period so our knowledge base is really deep and  measured by they can see the credits see the classes that that we've taken and then we're expected to reflect on that bring them back to our departments and share and this is all overseen by supervisors  and things like that they want to see that you are being innovative in in the classroom student outcomes is also a way to to measure teachers we give we g students fill out surveys and things like that and we get students and poet and then a lot of a lot of supervisory input as well from supervisors i mean it's it is a great question i mean sometimes it's really hard to know but when you walk into a school like south burlington you know it's there and people have their credentials to to really prove it and i must say as a parent i want my older son really i never thought he would take i had never thought to make it through high school and he did and i credit those teachers and my daughter also i really i mean for me looking at that i can only say i can speak as a parent that the quality is really an excellent you know the student serv that such an interesting idea so that students are able to give feedback to their teachers on how things were effective or whatever you want i want to ask you what do you as a school board member do you get a chance to really hear  about how teachers are you know that you waited or how you know what the how do you measure excellence you know we i mean the board does not get involved in any kind of evaluation but we do have the opportunity to support you know  n look at the policies associated with evaluations and i agree that we have it great teachers within south burlington and i also believe that we offer a really generous compensation package that includes benefits and wages that are supported by the community so i think the community has constantly reflected their value in our teachers our support staff our administrators and all those folks that touch the lives of our students and really add value to the education elizabeth this is your two minute no pressure i think that one thing i say is you know this is a this is a fairly small board it's a five member board and i think i'd also describe this words of working board each board member that has really come on to the board has brought some skill sets that have really added value and that we've been able to leverage in a non comp and source compensated way i too of aren't board members were newly elected last march and i think board continuity is is really critical given the landscape right now i know you know i would be remiss not to say i've enjoyed serving with  in particular the last two years that she's come up to speed on the board she brings a really incredible skill set in terms of her analytical orientation her communication skills and really her focus on the quality of education within the system so i really do support that continuity on a more anecdotal note what i think about when i think about the culmination of a student's experience in their thirteen years in our school system is it's pretty tactical each may or june the board is asked to sit down and sign diplomas and i was thinking about this the other day that in my tenure i've signed over twenty five hundred diplomas and when i do that aside from the fact that i regret having a very long name i read each student's name and often i know the stories of their families and of the staff that supported them specific teacher story specific courses experience they had whether they won the championship in sports whether they participated on the debate team whether they struggled with their education and it's very gratifying to get to that point and realized that the the community involvement and investment that went on to it for those students and the people that affected their lives so i look forward to just continuing to be able to sign those diplomas laura what do you think well first of all thank you to elizabeth i know that this is a really complicated and time consuming job and i do thank you it is it's it's a really important job important decisions get made and and as my child moves out of the system and i would love to have a voice in continuing this tradition of excellence and in south burlington and i would just reiterate i think i was talking about this before before the car called and that y do believe in public education i believe strongly in it and identify and i definitely want this to continue in south burlington and and as i said i'm a parent i'm a community member i and i i bring all types of perspectives to this that would make me make me a strong candidate and i also want to work on building relationships and you know between the school board and an education association i think that that's that's  really important at this point because i want south burlington to be in the news for the great things that happened in our schools for the athletics the arts big picture are now and alex were beautifully well spoken  their achievements and that's why i want south burlington to be to be in the newspapers for the excellent some of the students that we that i was going to say we teach but i don't what they teach i want to thank both of you this has been a great discussion and i don't think so going to be at all worried about this position so i want to thank our viewers you can find this again channel seventeen town meeting television or to give a plug for town meeting television come here all the time to get your evening and welcome to channel seventeen tell me even television tonight we are doing a kennedy form for south burlington the school district this is a two year position and i'm pleased to introduce our incumbent which make sure either maintain their position or become a member of the school board and i want to remind our viewers that you can call in with questions any time during this forum and the numbers it's six two three nine six six eight six two three nine six six call in any time we want we want your questions i always start with the incumbent bridget so wanted to tell the viewers exactly why you want to continue on the board i'll start with a little bit about why i ran for the board originally just to refresh everyone's memory maybe from two years ago there were three main reasons really why i ran for the board what i thought that i had skills and a background that would be helpful to the district in some way and i have a b a and an m b a and i started off my career in finance in new york and to finance in new york and in london and then transition from mainstream finance into mission driven finance where of finance with a purpose and using some of this finance skills to raise money for organizations that were helping to build assets and wealth for people in less developed countries and i thought some of those skills would be valuable to the school district the second reason was that after having been exclusively a stay at home mom for a few years and had always had this vision that i really wanted to be involved in whichever community we ended up in it was time for me to do that i was ready to do that i had a little more freedom to do that little more space and i started going to a lot of community meetings so i was going to city council meetings planning commission meetings a lot of different meetings to try to get a feel for what's going on in south burlington and the meetings were really resonated and where i found my passion really lay it was with the school board and there happened to be a position opening  and in fact in fleming who was going off the board was also i had a bit of skill with finance and business and his background it seemed like a good fit to sort of transition into that role i actually ran and opposed that year and  before that and he went into second grade and he's in our third grader at central school and i have a younger son freddie who will be a kindergartner god help everyone in south going to school district next year he will start kindergarten and i want to make sure that we maintain and improve the opportunities not just for my kids but for all the kids in south burlington and i'm running for reelection because as elizabeth said the the learning curve  is incredibly steep for a school board member there are a lot of different aspects that you have to learn about employee relationships finance all kinds of things but running a district and after two years i really just feel like i'm learning enough to really be valuable to the district  schools i'm a taxpayer in south burlington and i always had a sort of drive to be civically engaged at a higher level and i think that this would be a good opportunity to join the board as well as bring some perspective to the board of sort of the other side of things i think that administrative bodies sort of you know that there's years and i've witnessed this community has evolved and changed and i've kind of sat back on the sidelines for most of that time been involved in different situations not so much on the school board in the community but over the last few years i've kind of watched things kind of go the wrong direction in my thinking i thought the whole area last year of the two budget defeats of the futures contract negotiations which in my views wasn't civil of that should be we had a decision by the school board not to take sufficient input from the community on the marker so i kind of sat back and i watched this and i'm saying why is everyone  trapped into this why are we not civil why can we not have open debate involve every member of the community involve the citizens and really make sure that everything is not only transparent but accountable and when it comes to the budget sustainable so i kind of sat back and thought about this talk to a lot of people in my neighborhood first citizens and i kept hearing the same thing and a lot of times you ended up with a lot of discourse between some of our so when i looked at the expression on the budget when i've seen what's going on with the budget i also believe that we're not going down a sustainable road i think we can't keep taxing and taxing and increasing and increasing and unnecessarily spending and spending so from my perspective it's really looking at the budget it's really making sure that the administration and the i guess you would say the school board is held accountable but also to simplify things it's very difficult for the common citizen to be able to really understand that to your point but it shouldn't be it shouldn't be that difficult you shouldn't have to go to six seven eight nine ten meetings to understand what i'm not saying you have to know everything that goes into the budget but it should be more it should be more easily explainable and it's not you ask people what do you think of the budget everyone comes up with the same answer how much are going to cost me how much is my taxes going you know and that's not what  trying to do we want to make sure we have a budget that sustainable for everybody and so that was kind of my motivation experience i've i've been on boards and worked on multi million dollar budgets i have a master's degree out of what do you think about this year's budget especially when he's going to so what do you think about the budget and also the bond issue you know what you know how do you view that as a potential board member and as a community i know when the question came out says do you support the proposed budget and to me it's i don't support the presentation of the budget first and by that i mean the budget as presented and it sounds very good on paper we are going to have a point zero eight five increase in spending that would sound good but let's start really looking at some of these numbers point zero eight five is just on the budget of fiscal year nineteen versus fiscal year it seems like that would make sense however when you add the bond in it's still expenses a bond is expenses either way you're spending the morning so you had nine hundred fifty thousand dollars to this expense that we're going to spend and you get up to two point six so our expenses are really two point six percent higher not point zero eight five percent higher and i think some of that is where maybe the lack of confidence in the community to the school board is how things are presented if you don't dig a little dig a little deeper and you look at the spending now these are the projections that were put out the fiscal year spending for two thousand and eighteen is going to come in corning to the numbers three point five percent below budget that's a great job but then why are we comparing that budget to what we spend if we're going to go to fiscal might deem what are we spending to take that number and you're up to six point six percent accept but i think we have to make sure that we tell the community what we're actually doing what do you think either i support the budget as it's proposed i think that the current board did a pretty good job on that  support the bond proposal i don't think we can keep the issue of buildings and just upkeep of our buildings can't kick that can down the road so i think we have to act on that and  you know i think that's a clever way to do it i do think that the real savings and our financial situation will come about from what's going on in the class i think that that's really how we you know i can touch it in another question but i think thinking about money but not talking about how our classrooms are delivering  i think that david and the administration and all the staff as well as assistance budget advisory group to an excellent job this year it was a really tough year given what the district went through last year to balance wanting to maintain the quality and in some cases add some new initiatives that we really feel are necessary with keeping the tax rate as low as we possibly can and i think that they did a really great job of balancing those objective s i would focus more on the fact that our per equalised people spending is down two point seven five percent this year and that is mainly we were level and actually increasing in the number of students and yet our budget is very close to what it was last year and i would also say that i part of your other question was you support the contingent staff position absolutely i think keeping class sizes within reason elementary schools it's very important to get those kids a good basis to make sure that they still love learning when they get out of elementary school and they've had a good experience and i was one of the board members who really supported putting that contingent position there and with regard to the bond it's i t's a struggle for me to put it in lay person terms sometimes coming from finance background but it's a basic principle of finance that you fund assets with funding that is similar in term and these assets that we're talking about funding are assets of the community is going to use to help deliver education for the next twenty years and in some cases longer than that so i think that this bond is very prudent i think that putting everything through the operating budget basically charges today's taxpayers for things that are going to be used by future taxpayers and their children and to spread it out even the is a is a good principle and i think that we as a district are very careful with our long term stewardship plan and to step away from that  because we're concerned about budget issues in a given year would not be prudent down the road an example is if you if you don't do a roof for example but that research really in here but if you don't just pacific project in a given year it can lead to a bigger expense down the road and i think the we do and i feel like we're working i would love more specifics as to what the community would like to see we feel like we're being as transparent as we can i think john oben this year for example has done some great work in terms of he wrote two and a half page memo about what equalize pupils means you know it's a number that we get from the state that's based on data that we provide to the state that tells us basically how many pupils waited for things like english language learners and whether they're high school or elementary school students that number comes from the state and he did a two and a half page memo about how that's calculated and how we get to the tax rate and i feel like we've been very open and very transparent we last year  during the budget sort of crisis if you will as we were trying to get the budget passed even as a board stepped up and started doing a lot of communication you know element by element of the budget so there's really nothing that we're trying to hide we're doing our very best and we would love more input from the community on how we can be more transparent i think that's his point is that in some ways you know it is is it does seem complicated to you know that outside or even to the average citizen i mean i think that's what mike is trying to get across is there is there are in the board it's complicated from your end because the state's throwing you a lot of numbers and various things that go with it so it's challenging and i will say that  burlington business association which is a group of business leaders in south burlington because they wanted to know more about how education funding worked and it was a struggle even for folks that do business every day to understand that some of the complication maybe from our communication some of it is just that state funding of education is complicated it takes a while to understand it and it does take unfortunately going to meetings reading some of the things that we're putting out in order to understand that we're trying to make it as simple as we possibly can before i ask for your response i want to remind our viewers that you can call in questions you can tell we're working on a lively here eight six two three nine six six we'd love to get some of the so called in and give us  give us some questions mike how do you respond to that well i think couple point when you look at the when you look at the budgets and and i agree we have to care facility or facilities should be funded through a cap ex program or you can when i look at the bar on you know you got the three i think it's three hundred seventy five thousand dollars for months and feel that would be something that i could agree you could put into a barn three thousand dollars for key locks why is that not routine maintenance why haven't we been planning better in the past so i think when you when i look at that plan and i look at the gun ims and i know the superintendent in one of the videos i watch said he didn't i think by attorney they didn't have to reveal what was going into the i'm glad that they did that type of transparency makes it easier for people to understand where is this money going to go when you look at where this money is going you got five thousand dollars for carpet and tile but in the budget we have thirty five thousand dollars for for carpeting tile in the same building we've got locks we have things that really should have been planned better in the past and to just say now or we're going to have this bomb go out and i'm not saying they just made the decision i'm sure as well thought out but that's not good planning so we're sticking we're paying for things over twenty weighted one way another child's way to this way you bring it all together you come up with a number but again out in the community they're not looking at it like that they are very confused what equalised for people spending is per pupil cost and then what we're bringing for the taxpayers so what we're actually spending so you can look at that three different ways you can take the forty nine million dollars divided by twenty four hundred and change of students we have that's one way to say and that's where some people come in they say ok that's two thousand dollars per person you can look at it the other way and say how much how many students and we have and how much are we raising in taxes itself or only that which by the way isn't enough to even even pay for the teacher salaries and health care and everything else so ok that's how much it's costing us help growing and then you can do the whole you know equalize although we're going to get to you in just a moment i'll try to be quick one thing that i don't think the community would be too confused on is that treating teachers well creates a positive feedback loop  turn gives better results better performance they can in their class or the climate in the schools improve the classrooms or they're able to do all of the things that they do with the sort of magic in their step differentiate provide a rigor robust curriculum work with struggling learners deal with some of the students who are dealing with trauma and move those students along  and you know rise in what is it a rising tide lifts all boats that's what treating the teachers well will do for our community and it's it's the investment that hasn't been made by the current board and i think that that investment is going to save us cost that's going to save us if you look at the d m g report which came out from the agency of education or did an article about it this week it talks about special education costs are  sustainable and we need to start doing the things that we need to be doing to to minimize those costs and encourage folks to go ahead and read that report if they can but it's really the the single biggest thing that we can be doing in caller with respect to an audit i am not sure that we were specifically requested by the community not at the school district budget is heavily audited by both state and auditors every year i mean down to the line item it is it is scrubbed i have i've worked closely with denton who works in the business office and is responsible for responding to requests for information for those audits and i work with her and other matters and and this is a very well audited budget i would say with respect to the rebranding it was discussed and several board meetings we did get a lot of community feedback the  rebranding we felt the administration gave us the recommendation that the rebranding was what was right and order to build community especially within the high school we have a very changing high school and and we felt that based on what we were hearing from the administration and what we're hearing from both sides of the community we had to make a very tough choice we understand that people were very tied to to the old moniker and we felt that the best interests of the school district as a whole really served by going through the challenging time of changing that name and and we felt that we did give the community a say through the normal channels through board meetings and their ability to not even close to the same type of reasons but it made sense personally speaking rebel's wolves the name itself not attached emotionally attached to any of it i understood the argument i think the argument t change in him was valid i think every student should feel safe i think every student should feel welcome i think every parent should be proud that they go to south burlington where i had a problem and i wrote this was published in the free press and i did write to the board is the process you did have seven hundred plus residents taxpayers asked the school board to at least discuss the issue and form it there was a motion made it wasn't brought up so there is difference between listening and acting so you could sit in the audience and say what you want at the school board but nobody was it didn't feel like anyone was really decision was made they were going to do it and that's not a fair process that's not a process that led to civil disagreement it led to accusations that led to things that are not really reflective of south burlington so i just think they mishandled that particular issue i think the board should've had a second how to destruction and if they decided not to bring it to a vote fine then that would be their decision but not to have actually have that discussion and be on record and not for bridget and the rest of the members to second that motion i think they mishandled it and i think they did a distrust of those members of the community i do want to remind our we still have plenty of times you are so if you want to call in a question like the like the incident did you can call eight six two three nine six six and we'd love to have your questions i want to change the flavor here a little bit and go to like bigger picture stuff statewide contracts for teachers fire what do you think to me i  i think that that's sort of a big that's a big idea and logistically it sounds like a lot of work for you know i think that there's there's revenue and changes that we can do at the local level that are that would be more efficient use of our time so you're feel like you still need to have that kind of local to be able to nuance locally yeah things like and when you talk about the contract like contracts with staff these are these are things that have been negotiated for decades you know in their compensation packages and and south burlington look a lot different than like hyde park you know so to  just go state wide with it sounds like it would you know i'm not sure that would be fair for for everyone and i don't know what do you but what do you think i to sort of so agree with with tyler on this one i think that a state wide contract for teacher teachers ignores what's happening at the local level and as tyler said different communities have decided how to compensate teachers according to their needs and their resources i also feel that i come from a union household as my mom still a union member she's a nurse my dad was a mechanic and he was he brought in the teamsters union to the place where he worked and it's a very basic principle that unions are brought and the that employers should have a right to negotiate with their employers and the state is not directly employing these teachers the district is and there needs to be a dialogue between the teachers in the school districts directly i think  and it's there's just a one size fits all approach for the varying districts our district is so different than a tiny rural district is northeast kingdom say then and they're different from their neighbors and i just don't think that a state like contract would be appropriate nor would it solve the problems i think that we would be trying to solve with the state i can't really think well i think to two different points i think in regards to health care statewide contract i think that should be looked at i  think really for four point number one is it cost effective by putting the teachers in ministry into one big pool there may be a way to save money to have better negotiations and better health care i also believe that a sta contract if we were to look at that we can't deviate too far from what we've already promised our teachers i don't think the teachers should be penalized and solve burlington if they decide you know if we decide to go to a state wide contract for health care because this is something that we've been promised and we have contracted with our teachers thirdly i think if there is a cost savings that the cost savings is reflected back to south burlington and then hopefully to the south burlington taxpayer so i think if you can achieve that then it's a win win situation for everybody it's a win win for the teachers it's a win win for the taxpayers as far as state well contracts for the teachers on health care present and i believe in local control i believe that we should be able to negotiate with our teachers issue or have their it's not necessarily a fair a negotiation it's very difficult for the school board was not being paid to do this to get out there in front and stand up i think they did a remarkable job i give my hat off to the chair and the school board what they accomplished this year i think it's a very difficult position to be in because you're fighting an uphill battle you are fighting a union you're fighting a state you and your fight you somehow the  of a sudden when when union may get involved and again it puts people at odds with each other where we should be have a have a civil discussion we should have in my opinion we should have the best pitchers we have to be able to afford to pay that you know bridget keep it on the statewide level for a little bit when the when the governor says no new taxes and you as a school board are saying what do you know how do you interpret what comes from the state like that i think that no new taxes is kind of an oversimplification simplification of a very complicated topic how we're funding education and i think as elizabeth brought up before we're not only funding education we're funding social services that are going through the schools or funding so much more when we're talking about funding education and i also think it's sort of it doesn't make sense to write off the possibility of a new tax if it's replacing an old tax or restructure somehow how we're funding things if that is a more efficient way to do things that might be the right way to go so i think that is is just a little oversimplification of what's going on at the state level frankly and i think that that's not to say i do see that we're going to have pressure from the state level for the foreseeable future on school budgets that is just something that is a fact of life and it's a fact of being on a school board or we're trying to run a school district and we have to figure out always how we can most efficiently deliver the highest quality education here tyler what do you think yeah i agree with bridget i think that it's a big oversimplification of the issue i think that it's crazy to think  you know new taxes or fees but figured out you know in the feels like he's not sensitive to some of the real needs in communities around you know that you know opiates are a big deal there's a lot of folks living with trauma that you know first day of kindergarten or coming in the little lesson and experiences and readiness for for school so you know to tell school boards to this and i think it's a it's a nice statement i think in and it is an oversimplification but i think the point is bigger than i think the point the governor is trying to make is that we can't afford to keep going up up up and up and there's got to come a point where and where we just have to look at what we have and make do so i think his point was to challenge a school board challenge municipalities challenge the citizens challenge everybody that you know what we're not going to we can't afford to keep charging more and charging more and charging more now but i support that now because the number one i think and this was a surprise to me even though it's probably not a surprise to anyone here is that only kids are receiving t think the perception of cell phones as we can afford everything and we can't we can't afford everything so as a receiving town from what i understand even if there was level funding we would be ok but the question is down the road what happens we have to be able to to take care of our facilities take care of the teachers take care of these building take care of the buildings and grounds i don't know how many of the been in the total gym for as my daughter plays on the basketball team i travel around the communities it's i don't want to say it's embarrassing but it almost is i mean you can't put the parents in you can't put the kids and you can't have their peers watch their kids play basketball because there's no room you go to almost every other school and go to williston go to browns river and you have areas and better gyms and better facilities so does that sound great sure do i think it's probably feasible no but i think it's putting that out says hey there's going to tom a time where died ceiling and let's start thinking about it now i want to remind our viewers that you can call eight six two three nine six six and we're expecting another call so we've all had one so far so let's get another one and  s i want to ask kind of a general question about where everyone thinks we're going in education right now where are we what are going to be the issues that south burlington with will face in the next teachers and our board members and folks in the community who are frustrated about some of the communication and some of the challenges that we faced i think we're going to be able to close the achievement gap for some of our more marginalized populations and we're going to remain that shining beacon on the hill have cut the achievement gap thing have how do you those types of things happening well i think that south burlington has a great teacher that positive climate in the staff and construction you know i work myself i work in burlington and we've been dealing with a similar thing and south burlington doesn't have a toxic climate and i think  that you know that's great but those things can lead that direction thank you for your vision of the future what water as a school board member what do you think you're going to face the next i think it's changing the commute is changing i think as a school board and as a school board member i think making sure that we have the best people in place i'm not going to be an expert on education and what exactly is best for this student or best for that student i don't think that's my role i think we have to make sure we give the give the teachers the tools to do that i don't want to be that person it's on the board and call the teacher up and said well why are my very well i think the taxpayers treat the teachers very well but you also have to balance that with what we can afford when we look down the road so i think that's a balance that we have to make there the future of education when i look i look at my daughter she's thirteen she's on the i pad she's on this how they do their homework today the new math etc that comes with technology technology got to be involved with that and maybe there is cost savings down the road we you know we talk about student teacher ratios now with all this technology maybe we can put twenty five kids into a classroom with one teacher and they all have their different either their i pads or i don't want to promote anything particular and we can teach better that way because that's what they're doing i mean my daughter at home there they're all on not feasible you now have two years on the board what have you learned in that two years and how do you see the future coming now that you've you're not there you were like these guys two years ago so what have you learned what perspective do you bring now with two years and where do you see it with the issues in the future all of our energy and resources in south burlington really i look at it all in the framework of our ends and just to refresh everyone's memory is just the top of our of our policies are the what we're trying to achieve for the students of south burlington one a disposition for lifelong learning to academic proficiency obviously three personal development for citizenship and i see two sets of potential challenges through that framework and one is internal we have we have had continuing challenges with ns metrics are we meeting those and are we achieving what we set out to achieve  measure that is how to measure those things because some of them are kind of hard to measure exactly and so one thing that we need to continue to work on is and we refine a little bit short now is is are we meeting the ends and how do assess students and  achievement i am working right now on the director of learning hiring committees so our current director of learning has decided to retire and i think that person really drives a lot of assessment they drive a lot of curriculum development that's a very important role within the district and i'll be working next week to help interview candidates for that that will then be passed on to mr h and i think that once we understand where we're succeeding and where we're maybe not we do need to have a wider discussion the community of what's important to us to have in the curriculum and how we can best achieve those schools and then once we've decided what we want as part of the curriculum we need to make sure that we have the facilities and in the teachers and the other resources in place to actually  child situation is changing so fast we can't even really prepare students for jobs right now because we don't know what they're going to be we need to be able to prepare very flexible learners yes where are we going right and then changes in the city i think can i don't even think i really need two minutes but i'll have to talk longer what you would expect from me really is someone that represents the talks players but also wants to get the best for their kids and it's i think almost all of us would say that but i really believe that we could go in and challenge some of the budget numbers make sure that we are spending the money to make sure people are countable when i look at the budgets again there's money that just seems to shift not in the overall budget you know and i will work out line item by line item to make sure that i understand  so that i can answer those questions to the community that will be my main focus there i have to balance because i have a daughter is that what she went through orchard it was phenomenal the teachers there i can i cannot say enough about what my daughter experience at and at tuttle i see the same thing i don't see it so much this is a question of the teachers and their ability it's a question of south burlington our ability to afford everything we want to do and we're not going to be able to do that you know if we keep going down the road people you saw what happened last year now maybe that was a anomaly in some form but it also struck a chord with a lot of citizens it struck a chord with me that we got to do better we've got to be civil we have to have these discussions we a teacher's contract in two years and sit down and say what is good what is bad what can we do how do we pay for we can look at our facilities we've got to take care of our facilities and we can have the greatest teacher in the world if the roof is leaking who cares so we've got a plan for that and i don't and i think we have to be transparent i do not see the budget as presented to go back to that as transparency i see that as a little bit of a shell game well we're a point away five but we're going to spend six point six more i mean let's just throw it out there if we have to raise the taxes  raise taxes and justify it you know putting things twenty years down the road makes makes little sense to me so i will work hard for the citizens and i work hard for the children and i support our teachers yeah i would say that we as a family just feel incredibly blessed to be in south burlington and we chose it in large part because of the schools when we moved here we've been here for eight years now and are hoping that this will be where we live forever and and we've been very very pleased with the quality of my older son's education and i do still see opportunities for where it could be improved and i hope to be a part of doing that i feel like we have just a wonderful community within the schools and we really support each other as families and the teachers have been just incredible and with regard to some of the challenges that we're seeing like elizabeth would advocate that we would continue to work with the state to see if we can get some longer term guidance from them as opposed to every year everything shifting and not knowing what the state factors are going to be in our budget because i think that creates a lot of the confusion and a lot of the feeling in the community that we're not being transparent you know why is that in this year our budget is only going up point five percent but our tax rate is going up two percent whereas last year we had a bigger increase of the revenue line and we managed to get a tax cut those are things that are coming from the state and i think that we could probably as a leading district really work a little bit more with the legislature to see if we can advocate for some of that but just in general i really enjoy the work  chamber and there's a lot of things that are happening so far above what's happening on the ground in the schools and i think that that shows in the repeated  impositions strike a few years ago that teachers are feeling like they're not getting their needs met they're they're being told your opinion doesn't matter your conure part of this conversation doesn't matter anymore this is these are your working and the wages the increases that the union asked for were modest modest reasonable wage increase so i think that the lack of respect with the people on the front lines who are delivering day in and day out phenomenal academic programming is is a concern for me and i'd like to see that change and i think my presence on the board would give one teacher a voice to add to the mix and that's why i'm running well i want to thank all three of you i think the bravest thing people can do right now is to run for for office locally or whatever i think this is what we need is people who want to engage in the process of having a voice and making a difference and all three of you are just great i really appreciate this been a great  also want to remind our viewers that channel seventeen is not only available on channel seventeen but you can also find us on the web you can find us just by googling town meeting television and all of our forms are available there you can go back and and listen again or see the ones that you've missed and i want to thank all three of you for being here tonight i wish you all good luck i know that south burlington is going to be well served by anyone that runs because you guys have the right place so thank you viewers and please say tonight is channel seventeen for future election forms