i'm happy to welcome sue smith she is one of our candidates for the peters township school board so i'd like to start with a question about you what is great what the strengths do you bring to the role of school director thank you very much and thanks the league for inviting me to this interview my strengths i believe are my background i was an elementary education major in college graduated with a bachelor's taught school for six years and then went on and got an m b a and worked in business so i think i have a very good combination of skills in knowing something about teaching in the school systems and also something about business which is a very important aspect of being a school board member especially in a time of tight budgets and absolutely in a time of tight budgets important decisions need to be made and i think one of the most important things that school district school board members need to do is to be fiscally responsible and that is something that i clearly believe i have done and i hope people will take the opportunity to look at my record and see how i have voted on some of the monies that we have spent ok what are your priorities as a school board member my priorities in the five years i've been on the board and also going forth is always number one education i think sometimes some board members have forgotten that we are a school district and the number one reason we're here is to educate the students which i believe means focus on academics there's no question in my mind that extracurricular activities provide excitement and passion interest to the kids whether they're work in the t v studio or they play on the football team or everything in between that is something that makes school come alive to them but i think it's really important for us to help the students understand their families understand that past high school there's college pass college and there's the work force and you need to study hard so that you can think forward to what you're going to do after school do you have any particular concerns at this time about the direction of the school board or about any any other issue no i would not say it's a concern i would say it's a great hope i'm thrilled with our new superintendent so far i think she has made wonderful moves she's brought in a new person we are still we have one position left in the district central office to hire and i think she dr french is doing a great job of building a collaborative co operative team of people who are ready to move us forward and one of the particular concerns of the league of women voters is public participation in the political process at all levels including at the local level and in school districts what do you think do you think the school board is the appropriate place for the public to bring their concerns and if so does the school board or would you as a school board member appreciate hearing concerns from the public absolutely but it's a multifaceted answer number one many times people believe they need to come to our third monday of the month voting meeting to express their concerns about a particular issue and they are certainly welcome to do that but the major work of the school board happens at all the committee meetings so we have education committee buildings and grounds we have  policy we have finance and that's when it's a more informal situation and people are really encouraged to come to attend to focus on whatever aspect that they're interested in we also have  history of attempting to bring the public in for we have several years ago we had something called the vision committees and the word went out you know and this is the one key piece that i'm not sure if there isn't a way for us to improve on the communication to the community at large the district has many email lists and so e mail would be blasted out to everybody on the list saying we are looking for people say we're working on health and safety if you or your position in your profession you have some information some help to us please come and do that or if your or working on curriculum to has to do with science if you're a scientist if you're a mathematician please you know if you have time to volunteer to help us with the committee we look for that and we encourage that and we really appreciate that import the one question i have been thinking about is are we reaching out beyond our regular committee meetings which is education finance policy buildings and grounds those are all on our website if you go to the website and you look on the bar on the right hand side there's something that says school board and if you click on that then you get a dropdown menu and you can look for the meetings as those meetings and it will be updated i think as soon as the board chooses a date for a meeting so you can look for it there they're also posted at the buildings but i know a lot of people don't want to drive to the building to see so i think the website is probably the something i can bring back to the superintendent and the rest the board and say ok if it's a large meeting like our voting meeting sometimes things are in flux right up until the end whereas if it's something like the buildings and grounds or education sometimes those agendas are really finished long before the afternoon of the meeting so that's a good point and i will bring that back some community members have expressed a concern to me that there's not a  great deal of public information about the long range planning that the district does and so there's no real and by the time the information is out things have already been pretty much cast in concrete and they wondered if there's a way to find out when that is going to be discussed at the beginning level while we have the comprehensive plan which the state has told to change the name it used to be the strategic plan and now it's a comprehensive plan and we are moving forward t and interestingly enough you should ask fortunately i'm not sure this will be broadcast before the election but there is a meeting at the end of september the september thirtieth the education committee meetings the administration will be talking about that but there is information on the congress has a plan on the website and if somebody is really interested in getting involved early on they can always call the district offices and ask to speak to the assistant superintendent dr carter because are asked to speak to the superintendent and even one of the secretaries i'm sure who answers the phone may be able to point them in the right direction to get some of the information and get involved if they really want to volunteer on that ok good i'd like to touch a different topic that you already introduced by saying your priority is the education of students how do you approach funding decisions for flood ix me personally or the board as well so i can see you personally well i guess i have to go back to some of the votes that were taken on upgrading the field the field that was done up  and also the new turf at the high school when the p v field was first approach with a board of source approach i said well yes it's clearly you know it's either hard to cement when there's no rain and it's a mud field when there is i can understand the need for a turf up there so that it's usable on a regular basis but what happened it started off as well we're just going to put down turf morphed into and we need all the bells and whistles and very expensive scoreboard and concession stand and bathrooms and all the sudden it became a very expensive project that i eventually voted against because i thought that we were not spending the money wisely to give you an opportunity to tell the voters why they should vote for you ok first of all i think one of my major strengths is that i have great attention to detail if you have ever watched any of the school board meetings you see that i am often the one asking detailed questions about policy which is one of our important functions i'm also very hard working i spend a lot of time in working on the projects reading all the information that we get from the superintendent so i i ask you for your vote because i have always attempted to represent all of the constituents in this town not just friends of mine thank you very much for speaking with us and