website so you can go there and find wonderful forums on great work that's being done to deal with this so what's going to happen tonight tonight is just a forum it's not a debate we're only to be asking three questions of each of the candidates they will have three minutes to respond to the first two questions four minutes to the last question and now i'd like to turn the the evening over to our moderator katherine page a successful elementary school principal in columbia heights for several years and katherine will be our moderator and we'll begin allowing the candidates one minute to be able introduce themselves and to say why they're running for school board i want to welcome you all and thank the candidates for coming to we have eight out of dine candidates here this evening and i will just tell you what the questions are now the candidates are receive the questions in advance so they know what's coming that way ok the first question is how do you understand the achievement gap and what causes it the second question what needs to be done to end the achievement gap in st paul public schools and the third question what are the barriers to ending the achievement gap and how do you how do you propose to overcome the difficult questions kate will start here and please give about a minute tell us about yourself i'm feeling a little lonesome over here because i've got all this space you should come this way but you don't have to i don't have to  am coming to this this process with twenty five years of experience an early childhood education i spent most of my career in head start both locally and at the state i was they had starred state collaboration director for eight years and it worked with families i've worked as it in ministry and i've worked in those big systems so that's kind of a unique set of skills to bring i also am a single mom of three kids who graduated from the same paul schools and they are they are doing great despite you know that that childhood was just me i gave them lots of opportunities to be flexible and solve problems but the school gave them what they really needed to be my wife and i are proud parents of two graduates of our same public school systems they're both they're both out and doing well i'm running for our school board because i feel that we have to do a better job of engaging our community and bringing everyone together to make sure that our kids get the education that they deserve to succeed i have experience working in the  schools i've worked as a volunteer i've worked as a tutor i've served on many committees in sight councils and also for the past fifteen years been involved in the schools as the executive director of the sandy park community foundation  so twenty three years i have basically been involved with various members of the city and stakeholders and i have used the skills that i've learned to bring those people together to make sure that we have the kinds of communities my name scott risk of been a tennis teaching professional for forty years and also i work for seventeen years as a substitute schoolteacher and i didn't believe it when they said it be the hardest job you ever had but believe me it wasn't one of the hardest jobs i've ever had  learning to remind all of us here that the problems of the achievement don't exist in isolation they're not going to be solved with small minded ideas from small minded people it's going to take big ideas and one of the big ideas i want to throw right now is that we've got to end this war on drugs that is tearing apart the black community it is absolutely inexcusable that republicans and democrats alike are fighting this war on defenseless people ruining their communities and if anyone doesn't think that has a profound effect on our education they'd better think again this is absolutely ridiculous we've got to end this war against people because remember it's not a war against drugs it's a war against people we've got to stop it right now amos steve mark a z and i am a parent of two kids in the st paul schools i have a son who's a seventh grader at capitol hill magnet school and a tenth grader at central high school i live here not very far from that heloc you brown center here in the summit university neighborhood and i'm a lawyer by training i work at the state bar association i run the pro bono programs for the state bar which means i work a lot with legal aid and legal services programs connecting their clients to lawyers to take their cases because they can afford to pay when i was in practice i worked in litigation and i represented families and kids in special education proceedings before i moved to minnesota i lived were practiced in michigan and i represented parents and kids in a school desegregation case in western michigan so i kind of come to this for a few different reasons one i'm a parent and it's very personal when we bring our children to the schools every parent wants the best for their child regardless of where they come from regardless of who they are they want to know that they can trust the schools to do the best job for them we also have not had the opportunity at the building level at the district level to give the kind of input as parents and educators in this community members to the work that we need to do so this is a big topic i'm excited to talk about this with you we have a lot of work to do and we really need our community and gauged in this work good afternoon everyone keep hardie from your st paul board of education and i am excited to be here thank you katherine the league of women voters thank you grant in minnesota achievement gap committee and thank you jonathan and the leaders and staff here in this center named after a great community leader and connect it was one of the great community leaders and that is leaders i am a twenty seven year active and  member of the d f l party and that hasn't changed it was a difficult but a community decision that i'm still a candidate for the school board for the next four years i  committed focused on having every student who like my son andre successful sophomore the two year to have that opportunity that supports and that  i'm linda freeman and i'm going to read tonight to stay on track for time i'm running for school board because our public schools provide our children with whole opportunity and power and the school board provides me with a position to assure that all our st paul families have access to this i offer many years experience as a teacher and parent in our same poll schools and other progressive programs elsewhere i'm a licensed k six teacher montessori trained and my passion for education has led me to graduate work in this field my training informs many of the decisions i'll be making i'm very interested in early childhood education and i'll be  looking for input from our current programs and plans in this area as a parent of now adult children i've experienced the joys and challenges of schools through high school and college this experience has included steering committees site cohen cell and parent groups as a homeowner in frogtown for around twenty years i've been immersed in the struggle many of our low income children bring to their education i'm confident and prepared to weigh into the forward moving possibilities our schools whether their change or momentum very informative oh i'm sorry didn't go in there that's just the way we rehearsed it wasn't it of course good evening thank you for coming you're the power to make change in our community and the people that are watching this broadcast are the people that can make the change in our community it's a change that we desperately need to make and that's why i'm running not to embrace the status quo but to be the change agent that we haven't had on the board and we do have a guy that didn't vote to extend a certain individuals contract with us tonight he needs some help i'm that help i believe that miss silva drain should come to an end i think that our community cannot stand one more year two more years let alone three more years beyond the terms of anybody on the current school board that's why i'm running and i'm very excited about the possibility of making that change thank you ira thank you now children are achieving in school and what are what our kids from lower income and communities of color are doing i think the data this this morning that was released about the incomes of african american households in the state is really disheartening because we seem to be going backwards but it's a complex problem it's not it's not a problem to be owned totally by the schools it is a community issue we've got systemic racism that  affects our our housing policies our health practices our our justice and law enforcement systems in all of those need to be addressed by the community but within the schools we've got  we've got children who come from low income i knew lots of them when i worked in head start they have they really do have fewer opportunities for for having access to healthy food to having a safe housing and health care they have fewer parks for physical activity and little exposure to nature access access to mental health services also limited they that in their homes they also have access to fewer books and fewer words and that that that's a disadvantage when they get to school and far too many of our kids are exposed to violence and other negative influences and their parents are doing the best they can they are working many jobs they are living with all kinds of challenges themselves and it's really hard for them to be supportive of their of their children and to be involved in their schools as well so when they come to school they're there and they're behind  and many of them have lost hope that's from that from what they see in their from what they've seen in their own families what the what what they expect is they're going to do to move into prisons they're going to move into the same things they've been seeing in their communities so so why bother and so i think that we are so our schools really need to have to be inspiring for those kids and to provide for vide  that the things that they aren't getting at home i think we need to start earlier with i mean really tell the person we need to start early with our children and families we need to start the minute that we that families are expecting their babies oh my gosh it's only  only thirty seconds left i didn't really fast we got to start early we got to support parents we have to we have to pay attention to kids health and we got to make sure there are schools allow teachers to have strong relationships with both their kids and their families how they do marry i still have seconds along to me i'm going to read it so that i try to stay within time as well first of all i don't think that there's a single cause to the achievement gap if there was we would have solved it a long time ago i think there are numerous factors involved ameri certainly mentioned some of those poverty emotional health challenges and health challenges homelessness and also very importantly the effects of institutionalized racism i've come to understand the concept  problem that she talks about it as an education debt and she compares the achievement gap to our national debt every year we fall behind or we don't but she she gets at the  deeper meaning of that which is the the cumulative impact of the deficits that we have every year as opposed to the the national debt part of me and so  she talks about the fact that we continue to work on small answers for the achievement gap when we need to really look at those larger underlying problems that contribute to this year by year by year deficit that we've accumulated i think it's i think it's clear that our school system has been in a long transition from one that was originally designed to assimilate european cultures to one that has tried unsuccessfully to integrate all cultures and i believe that the reasons for that lack of success have to do with again this focus on short term fixes and unwillingness to make foundational changes to our current system and the failure to understand the critical importance of honest engagement with students parents and caregivers teachers and our communities i do think that the district's policy on racial equity and the overall strategic vision vision for closing the achievement gap represent a promising start but i don't see the kind of detailed blueprint that i think we need to have to make sure that these important goals unlock the potential in all of our kids so what do i think needs to be done i think the first step is to acknowledge that the parent teacher relationship is all to any solutions we have teachers have to be supplied with the proper training and support as well as practical and implementable tools for the classroom i also think that we need to recognize that the parents are the first teachers of our kids and so they have to be partners we have to ensure that our curriculum includes accurate and balanced representations of all kinds of cultures and we need to teach the whole child and that means bringing back the arts that means physical education i also think we need to take a look at our tests we're trying to reach goals set by standardized tests do they really measure achievement for our kids do they measure the skills and abilities that they bring to school thank you very much good words from both of the first two speakers i too like to write i read what i wrote because i am a writer african americans hispanics native americans and agents have never been fully included an integrated into the society it's a national disgrace has to stop got to be included in ways that are subtle and blatant people of color have been cheated mistreated in viewed as inferior by many whites throughout american history to live in such a country is inherently and deeply dehumanizing and stressful that stress combined with a inhumane act democratic economic political and criminal justice system and justice is in quotes please understand that makes reaching one's potential nearly impossible for many people of color in nearly all measures of wellbeing and achievement from health to homeownership to participation in representation in the media to political representation to saving for retirement many people of color trailed their white counterparts it is true and now a man the achievement gap is part of this tragic reality because the achievement gap does not exist in isolation that cannot be addressed in isolation the broader failures of american society must be remedied specifically we must create a society with economic political and authentic media democracy we must always remember the essence of democracy the mission of democracy in the measure of democracy the dispersal and equitable sharing of power whenever and wherever people do not have equitable access to power a democracy cannot exist and so i think the all to mitt solution to the achievement gap is in a few infusion of authentic democracy in our society to create authentic democracy we must have full employment based on a co operative and public utilities model economic system we must have a reduction of the workweek so parents have more time to raise their kids and have a less stressful life we must also have a single pair health care system that covers everyone we're the only country in the world that puts the profits of the pharmaceutical companies and the health insurance companies before the well being of our fellow citizens it is ridiculous and i would say if this healthcare system somehow worked ok ok maybe i could accept it but it is the worst healthcare system in the world measured by spending and the outcomes of our health care system it is tragic america trails about thirty five other nations in the overall health of our people so i'll have more to say about what the source of the problem is and how we can  fix it in a few minutes here but my time is just about up and unlike some i want to run over well everybody before me has in some respects that part of the problem in the fourth person is a lot of people before you have said what you would like to say so i don't want to go on excessively but i do want to emphasize some of the things that happened we're dealing with a system which we've built in a lot of issues related to how people of color are treated respected valued dealt with in a humane way and we have a system that in our schools reflects what we have in our community so when we look at the achievement gap we also look at this from a deficit mentality that is actually not healthy we need to look at the assets that our children have and think creatively about how we work with the kids in our community and what the resources are that we have in our community to support children because we can talk about how we have constructed a system in our society that allows what we have in terms of wealth cumulation housing segregation lack of employment lack of safety and security to persist but our schools get this visited on them every day and so our teachers are the ones who are dealing with this every day and the most important thing that we can think about and one of the reasons why this persists in our schools is we have schools that are built on a model that doesn't work for a significant number for average of our children and we need to think creatively about how we're going to change that so when i think about the achievement gap and i think about who's coming to school every day i think about the kids who ride the bus with my sons every day my son takes the bus with a variety of kids from a variety of backgrounds and he goes to school every day with kids from different backgrounds that every day those kids sit next to each other and they're there to learn and our commitment should be there to help them learn and do the best that we can by them but what we have is a system that actually allows for a lot of differentiation in terms of the resources that we have in our schools so we look at our schools they're not equally resourced when we look at the teachers that are there they're not all doing the same thing and we have to think about how we can work with the schools that we have so that they're more reflective of the needs of the children in the community that are there you know there's there's not only instructional models that only inequities in the ways that our buildings are resourced they're the values that kids come with many of those kids who are coming to school are coming with such stress in their life it's almost as if they're in a p t s d environment and so how do we build in our schools the ability of schools to handle the fact that we've got children with stress and deal with the stress that they have that means we need to think of schools in a holistic way and we haven't thought about them in a holistic way and that's part of the reason why we get what we have in test scores the final thing i would say is we have to think broader than just test scores as the measure of value of our children and the fact that we focus on test scores is because of state and federal regulation it gives us a sense of some basic information but we need to think over all of our children and who they are as whole people so some of what was said before about the lack of music and physical education and gym and all those other wrap around of course work is one of the reasons why we have kind of focused  who don't pick up on the values that we have of our children after many years of observing interacting with youth with students prior to joining the school board and in a seven and a half years that i've been on the school board i firmly believe that the name of the gap is not achievement gap our students can achieve i've seen it and i know it the name of the gap for me is education equity gap that's what we've been missing in this country and in this school district the opportunity for students as my fellow candidates have named students from community of communities of color students from families with lower social nomic background students who immigrated from other countries of the learning academic english students are receiving various types of student each student special education services where that gap exists as education equity so what i want to address are these external numbers that we see in the minnesota comprehensive assessment m c a tests the gaps in reading the gaps in math the gaps in science these are gaps that show that the educational equity still is not being shared with all of our students as you know in this room this public education institution in united states was not created to bring success to all of our babies who come into the school building it's a euro centric system it's not a system that was made to be successful for slaves if it came free people is not a system that we've made to be successful with american indians who lived here before the euro centric people arrived it's not a fifth of those made to be successful for the latino or asian families and students who have a ride here in the past few decades so that's the work that we have to address and to be intense more intense about and to double down if we need to to knock down those barriers of success for all of our students all of our young leaders as i call them for that is the gap for me  belief and my expectation is that every one of our thirty two hundred teachers come to the classroom saying what else can i do to lift up every student who comes before me and i know to come to the table ready to do that in my belief in my expectation that every one of the thirty seven hundred other employees and same public schools wake up every day saying what can i do as i drive this bus as i serve food in the cafeteria as i clean the building as i walk in the family's being a clerk as i leave the buildings  they work in administration what else can i do to lift up all the students and this districts of they are soaring academic achievement for these numbers is the differences that we're seeing and the external measurement that steve was just talking about no longer exists those education equity gaps for that to me is how i define what the achievement gap is let's keep working to reduce those education provided i understand the achievement gap through data that's provided to the public so i see the achievement gap through our standardized tests that were established through the no child left behind in order to create a couple basic areas reading and math that are indicators of school success and could be looked out across the board throughout the united states well these tests were not designed to be in and rather a beginning it's important that hill middle school become choices for parents who are prepared to read data with an educated assumption that their children will get a safe smooth education of course we're not going to be able to suppress or test results and we don't even want to so it becomes our job to develop a same paul's school community that will work toward meeting the needs of all our children how do we do this with a strategic plan with pilot programs and lab schools that we can follow by acknowledging and analyzing parent choices and by marketing our schools to inform parents choices beyond the standardized tests we have a strategic plan to help assure  children succeed this plan to close the achievement gap right now has a focus on racial equity in spite of the focus and hopefully enhanced through this focus the district administration has told us that they continue to look for increased achievement for all children well i'd like to see some programs piloted followed and marketed as lab schools for instance i'm to happen to be very interested in early childhood education but i'm still trying to piece together the data and from asian available regarding the same paul's participation and analysis of its programs until we have preschools that our same poll community will want to send their children to we won't be able to access necessary money that for instance our gov was ready to hand over to us we have to inform the stakeholders and same paul about what our idea of a world class early childhood program looks like we need to assure that there's proper space available and we have to spread the word early childhood opportunities are indicators of school readiness and community acceptance it's the ideal place to narrow the achievement gap it's important that these schools are scrutinised with as much diligence as our colleges this is the most important place for highly trained experienced teachers with strong background in child development we must be diligent to vigilant about licensing in this area and this should not be an area where we accept pending licenses and unprepared substitutes our early childhood area is a perfect place to develop lab schools and the fish and close the achievement gap just one example again i told you that i think we need a new superintendent or an old newspaper reporter and i look for the facts and the facts really haven't been mentioned tonight i think we have to take a look back at what the gap is as measured news the news is that in maff for twenty fifteen the gaps at thirty seven percent in the black community of students in our schools it was thirty five from thirty two percent gap in twenty eleven to thirty one this year the american indian students know change thirty three percent yeah i think the other thing we ought to look at too is a measure that is on the department of education website called on track for success in two thousand and ten but the first year that miss silva had to answer for fifty four and a half percent of our students in this district  track for success in math by two thousand and fourteen that number had dropped by twelve point nine points to forty one point six and unfortunately in reading we have much the same story fifty three point three percent of our students were on track in two thousand and ten by two thousand and fourteen they were falling off the track eleven point eight percent less for a forty one and a half percent on track that's among all our students the other reason i think we've got a gap is we don't spend our money well we don't spend our money on our students look at the budget it's online i'm not making up the number it's there for you all to look at we have a number of funds the general fund being the baster fund for education here that doesn't include the buses in the food service and all the rest but it does include a direct allocation for students to their schools and here is the bad knows only forty eight point two two percent in the twenty sixteen budget will be spent on direct allocation to our schools that has to change we need to be spending much more then less than half less than half of the five hundred and twenty five million dollars in the general fund at our schools and i'll come back with an answer as to were i think we can invest that money wisely thank you thank you i will read the second question and then we'll go down and answered again the second question what needs to be done to end the achieving in same paul public schools thought i thought i tried to answer that question on the first row and that's why i ran out of time we have we have a lot of kids in our school who are living with stress and life is hard so i think that requires a different approach to education our if our schools look more like head start i think we would be more successful that means that we have to start early with our families we have to be working with parents as soon as their babies are born we need to make sure that their basic needs are met and that they their families are stable so that they can be supportive to their kids in their schools and when they get to school our schools need to embrace them as as full partners parents need to feel comfortable in the schools they need to know that their concerns will be heard that they are valued for what they know about their children and that they can be they can be partners with with their schools and in working with their children we need to make sure our instructional practices in our learning environments meet the learning styles and the needs of our children living with stress learning needs to be active exciting exploratory and fun and include a variety of ways to express themselves in arts and music in other ways they also need access again to health services in the schools mental health services and and even oral health service services so that they've got the energy to learn they need help and learning how to manage their own emotions being able to recognise emotions in other people and to see adults in their world as helpers that they can go to them when they need something kids who get to come to school need to know that their teachers like them they want what's best for them and they believe that they have the ability to achieve for many of them the teachers are the ones who are there cheerleaders them ones who really do believe in them and our schools need to do that so that that means we've got to have teachers and staff and leaders that come from the communities that our children come from they need to have people who look like them for their models and to know what's possible for them and we need a way of integrating those teachers into our schools so that they are ready for the challenges that an urban school district has to offer them that means in their in their higher education their teacher training programs they need some experience in working with our kids that come with with more needs with more challenging behaviors we need to figure out ways to get those teachers into our those teachers that come from those communities into our into teacher training program so some loan forgiveness programs scholarships other ways to get them into our schools i'm finally we need to have need to have a way to work with our oldest kid older kids when they're showing us that they're in stress and sometimes that behavior comes out as challenging and violent behavior and what it means is they need to be paid attention to and we need strategies for getting those needs that they're trying to tell us about  around the solutions and i think there is not the necessary degree of trust that we need to have in order to move forward together there been a lot of great programmes introduced over the past years unfortunately two or three of the most important were ganged all at the same time they weren't spaced out in sequence so that we could make sure that we were doing it correctly it's kind of  like so some of our kids who we don't find we're not really making sure that they're competent in their skills were moving them ahead we can't do that with these important programs we don't necessarily get a second chance as somebody pointed out to me one year for your kid that doesn't work is maybe not such a bad thing one year from my kid might be the end so we have to get serious about making sure that we have strategies for implementation that work i think that unfortunately the trust issue comes into play when we have teachers and and our staff at sites that feel and under supported and when they've tried to communicate what they feel is or is not working they've been they are under the perception that compliance has become much more important than an honest back and forth conversation and working together to figure out how to solve these problems many parents students and teachers feel disconnected disrespected these critical programs  approaches that might have led to real progress have seen an even success and i don't believe that there are measurements in place to really test the efficacy of the programs you can look at the results and again i have some questions about or m c s as to what they do test in terms of achievement but those numbers are down they've been mentioned we also have a declining population and st paul of our kids  kids across all cultures are moving to other districts or are going to charter schools or private schools if they have that kind of capacity forty eight percent of our kids that graduate from our public high schools need remedial classes in order to get a detour for your college so we have to have open and honest conversations at a classroom level and with community input we have to reconnect and reengage we have to make sure that there is a strategy developed by our communities together with input so that we can have a strategy that works and we have to try new approaches we can't be afraid to change the system from top to bottom thank you very much one of the things one of the things as a nation as a school district we absolutely have to do is a move away from this testing based mania i was fortunate enough to go to an alternative college in michigan called william james college who was at grand valley state university i never took one test in my entire college career what we did was project based education we would read write we'd offer position papers we defend our positions i think we need to move toward a project based education system rather than this many on testing also as i mentioned before we have to take a big look i mean we have to take a look at the big picture and the root causes of the problems as i it and i think we all know people of color have never been fully included in this society and so that's why i'm taking this opportunity here today we have to really take a serious look at reparations for black americans and one way i think that we can do that is you know just the african americans obviously were picking cotton as plays we've got to turn that around i think we can have an african american clothing company that supply all the students the shawl the shoes and clothes they need made from industrial hemp that's grown right in our state providing good jobs in our city and in our state good high paying jobs and we can have a school right at those factories that make the clothing that we all need i mean look around every wearing comes from halfway across the world makes no sense at all we're burning fossil fuel to do this and we're exploiting third world labor of people of color over there we can make everything we need right here and again one of the ways to do that i strongly believe in reparations for african americans tough to know exactly how to do it but again i would support the african american clothing cooperative what i would call also white rich americans have had at well over a century to provide our energy in this country i call for the african american energy cooperative i am positive they can do better than the rich white guys have been running things for over one hundred years and all this will trickle down to our students because when you've got parents that are working hard and bringing in good money i think it's going to really help that student feel like he's got a place in the society again like i said i worked for seventeen years with students and it was tough seen the kids five six seven years old come to school filled with anger and i don't think it was that me or other teachers i think they looked around and kids are smart they know that society has given them is cheating them they know what ok and so we got to stop this cheating of our especially the african american kids in a spandex too i mean all people of color just got in the short end of the stick i'm a former competitive athlete and one of the things that i always liked was fair play we do not have fair play in this country until we do until we get rid of these clowns that are running in washington you know we're going to keep struggling with the same problems over and over again and i'm sure the black people here don't have to say oh this is a new problem you know being mistreated no man it's been going on for centuries we've got to stop it and we can do it with the school board i think we can we were limited as a school board but our ideas are not limited we got to have big ideas on the school board things i'm glad said the school board because i want to kind of put the focus back on kind of the job that we're being asked to do which is i think something that we have to think about the role of the board and i think that starts with a board that is connected to the community committed to closing the gap and willing to set expectations for administrators staff and students this means that the board sets a clear number of defined goals clearly articulated goals and outcomes for the district with the expectation that the board is going to hold staff accountable for progress and our decisions on staffing curriculum resources have to be in alignment with these goals if something isn't working we look at why and we decide how and what needs to change and if you look at the work that the district is doing and you try to find where on the website the board has committed to specific outcomes it's really hard to find that doesn't work in holding the board or the district accountable so we need to get real about the commitment that the board is making to the community and the leadership that the board is providing to the district to do this but the district things to nice to think a lot more creatively about how it's meeting the educational needs of students and involved educators families and students in the process of determining how the schools can be more effective if we are supposed to have strong schools to support strong communities are those schools organized and supported around the needs of our students and the communities that they serve what can we learn from some of the successful schools that are outside of the st paul public schools and what are those practices that we can use in the schools what are families students and community members asking of their schools how do we look at supportive services for students so that they reinforce teaching and connect students and families and a holistic manner and i'm thinking in terms of a city wide promise neighborhood in addition to college readiness what connections can the district facilitate so that we connect students to employment opportunities such as buildings trades so that they can graduate career ready the board also needs to be the rallying point for the community commitment to close these achievement disparities the district's current equity work with educators and district staff and leadership is a starting point but there is a lot much more work that needs to be done and in addition to the public schools employees our schools need coordinated support from other sectors a lot of the work has been started to do that and it has to be more coordinated and more citywide numb talking about corporate nonprofit faith based neighborhood community organizations that can support this work every parent caregiver and community member in the city deserves to believe that their schools are excellent where a long way from there and a lot of places in this city and the board members have to recognize that we do not whoever it is have all the answers but we have to be part of a process and facilitate a process that taps into the wisdom that exists in our community not only in the minds of the folks in three sixty not only in the minds of the board so that we can actually move ourselves in the right direction sadly in the years i've had a chance to have conversations with school board colleagues from around the country in my service on our board on the house over boards of education in conversations around the twin cities in minnesota and competition with in st paul we haven't found those magical solution to eradicate in the education equity gaps but i do believe there are some practices that we are we have in school district right now and that we can attend to three over the coming years that will help eradicate number one i firmly believe every one of our thirty nine thousand students need to be reading  grade level it is a basic education right every one of our students have it gives them the confidence it gives them the ability to comprehend what they're learning and given those critical thinking skills and give them the coolness to be excited learners in our school hey i got this i can understand this piece of literature my teacher gives me this math assignment math problem by my teacher gives me i can understand the sciences i'm learning i can understand history all the content area and i know our teachers are working hard to help every student able to read at grade level and beyond to excel and that along with education assistance and teaching assistants and others who provide an intervention for students in need help but to me that's number one because once that happens i believe our students are going to or to achieve that life achievement academic achievement they see students like my friend a grandson to me and who had a terrible life of yvette father was killed became a student who wasn't a good learner who was a good behavior in the classroom disruptive of events found an adult actually through freedom school one of our program to help students gain that love of learning a love of reading connected i now want to learn i want to become a better student and move on and now is that special student successful learner because of that i know that's how our teachers all of our employees all the adults in the community can connect with our students that's going to help address eradicate moving from there to helping students to be excited about learning that's part of this person lifeline through technology that we have happening in the school  if it did a better job of informing and marketing to our public aware but with a lot of searching of some really good programs that we are working on the schools that are very happy happily working on what they are doing and  informing the achievement gap is not just about the students now this is very sensitive but it's also about the parents and the teachers ability to bring the parents to the table who have not had positive experiences with schools themselves so this can be achieved through awareness which i believe we're already working on but we need to be vigilant with the work that's being done and make sure that it's continues our perception of an achievement gap can be a barrier so one teacher recently suggested that we referred to it as an opportunity gap that calling it cheve gap just positions the children to feel like they're not achieving and that it's their problem when it's our problem now we need so there's just a variety of things and i've heard many of them that i strongly agree with but we also need community based students supported classrooms and i think we're moving in that direction a bit in our district you know hearing from our students our children lose out on authentic community opportunity when special ed and gifted and talented children are removed from their general education classrooms to access their services that's now doesn't have to be necessary there are children of course who need opportunist to opportunities to distance themselves but are gifted and talented children must have access along with their general ed classmates to a highly trained teacher prepared to teach a rigorous program with the tools that he or she needs without having to go elsewhere for it our general education program should just be strong teachers have difficulty providing individualized learning our i pads look like they'll be a support to this but our students also needed dolls who can give them attention as they need it it financially possible additional classroom support pas well there is no magic at three sixty colburn but let's move on from that let's move on from that in addition banner a former reporter i my second job after being a reporter was involved myself in community action got kind of odd tough reptile lately here and the are joining twin city neighborhood of minneapolis but you know those programs and we talk about the war on poverty and some of us decry the the war but i would say the war really wasn't ever fought but what i learned working for community action and i was a deputy director of the agency i work for in florida in a rural community was that our program was dependent on what the people in the community wanted us to do with the money that we were writing the gra for for job training for transportation of medical points whatever it might be for whatever age group we were serving whatever the problem was the people to find it i want to ask you to reflect are who was it that told us we needed who was it in the community that told us we needed to have a million dollar plus pacific education group arrive from san francisco to straighten out our community and instead create the kind of discord that we've had over the last five years in our schools the behavior problems that have been complained of by teachers the discipline problems that have been complained about by parents and teachers because we have to embrace some new thinking about people's behavior in the classroom that we haven't had before who in the community asked for this i would submit we have one man any other hands we have one and we have two men three four ok well you know what there were a lot of people that never got never got to participate in that decision superintendent still has been running a top down administration and administration where she decides in a board rubber stamps what the project is that's the reality and the reality is that that has not worked as i previously presented the numbers both from the state to you know we and from our own test scores it has failed and it has failed each year by just a little bit more we've dug ourselves in a hole we have to get out and one thing voters need to do because this is your community this is your school system folks we need a change at the top because really the only decision that this board gets to make in terms of hiring is who's go service the superintendent and the lack of transparency the arrogance the arrogance of the board to hire her for three more years is beyond belief it's a political sweetheart contract that frankly we need to eradicate last question question number three is what will you do to to overcome the barriers that you see within the achievement gap and you will have four minutes to answer that question staff to define the the barriers that put that in the front so we've all talked about the systemic racism in our community and i think that's a huge issue that we can't overlook and our schools need to be involved in the it is still woefully inadequate we really need to have family home visiting programs are the programs need to be working with really young families and and working with the the family home visiting programs in the health department to make sure that all families are good that need that kind of support are getting it so that kids get a good start our childcare programs are also unfunded in there are lots of kids who are who don't have access to child care and they're at home with these neighbors and people who don't necessarily know how to care for them we've got to figure out how to get make him more accessible the before and after school programs are are also needed and the coordination between the community programs in the schools need to happen so that kids can get support wherever they are seems like another barrier is that the lack of teachers that come from our communities of color and i think i think that can be resolved in a couple of ways one we need a we need a culture in our in our schools that supports teachers right now we have some distrust going on between teachers and ministration and what what we really need is administration teachers working together to to be focused on the vision and to be pulling together so that our kids are getting teachers who are happy to be there and  gauged we also need to look with a look at those teacher training programs as i talked about before we need to our teachers need better training so they know how to handle kids who have extra extra challenges at home  also resources are also needed for those teachers to be able to develop relationships with their kids that means we've got to look at maybe smaller class sizes in some of our schools even smaller than then we negotiated in the contract maybe we need more teachers in maybe we need to be teachers in each classroom we definitely need more home visiting so that teachers can get to know their families and then we did we need resources for support services but i think one of the really the biggest barriers in ours in our schools and in our communities is that we don't necessarily think very big when we talk about about education reform we often talk about just doing more of the same and i think it's time for us to start thinking differently about what kids need and what we can do for them and to start being a little bit more imaginative a lot more imaginative and not let limited resources and some stink and think and by some of our leadership to hold us back we need to we need to do what is right for our kids and make sure that we're not losing any of them  apparently answered this last time i guess i was out of sync with the questions but let me reiterate that i do think trust is important and i think that as i said earlier  we have to be able to support the key relationship between the teacher in the student in the classroom that's where all learning happens and when we and it's there's an urgent need  no one needs to wait or wants to wait but we can't let that urgency overpower a strategy that will actually see sustainable success because when we hurry when we when we want to protect when we want to try to be patronising sometimes what happens in the in the people who suffer are those kids they're the students they're the ones who are put in situations where they're not comfortable where they're not learning where they're not understood and where they feel out of place and we have to make our schools places that welcome our kids in our community  i think that that's perhaps the biggest barrier when you look at a big program it's a top down approach it's it's easy i think just to imagine that there is going to be a large organisation that saves us all with the answer but what it comes down to is us what it comes down to is the communities working together to make sure that our kids get the education they need and i agree i think we have to be bolder i think we need to look at different ways and different systems of education but it has to start with the children and the teachers in the classroom that's where we have to put our focus and that's where we have to put our support and right now our system fights that if there's innovation in our district it tends to go somewhere else it tends to go to charter schools or it's not organized and measured so that we can build on it and find out how those things are working and implement them in other places but we have to open things up to be able to let people who have creative ideas and people who have those relationships and people who know those kids we have to make them a part of the conversation and and that's what i mean by saying to turn the system upside down it has to start there rather than up here saying here's all the money we have here's the big program you figure it out down there we have to get in the schools and let the kids and the teachers and those parents and our professionals work together to make that happen so trust is the key to that community building is the key to bringing trust back into that we have to be able to sit down together get it done thank you i fully realize that the school board members have very limited power but again that doesn't mean we have to have a limited thinking and let me draw on something from my experience of seventeen years working as a substitute teacher and this happened over and over again and i think it's indicative in reflective of the approach our leaders the leadership class in this country has the public problems those of us that live in minnesota know that in the middle of winter you get to put on warm pants and shirts and sweaters and let me tell you it's so many times i walked into a classroom coming from outdoors ten degrees i walk into the classroom it's eighty two degrees and i'm thinking how can we have a society that can't even properly heat and t shirt in the teachers or the principal's answer was always this open a window turn on the fair that's what we do in public policy states there's problems that we should be able to foresee there's problems that we should be able to foresee and take care of before they happen such as repairing and boilers that are fifty years old and of course break down or overheat or something but for whatever reason and i think it's moral and intellectual incompetence and indifference on the leadership in the leadership class at the highest levels that permits us prohibits us from solving our problems in advance i'm sort of glad to hear rain so much because it made me start to think and this is typical but what goes on with all public policy particularly in schools we we spend our time the roof is leaking the roof is leaking and we spent our time are going about you know what buckets should we use should we give the school kids raincoats or should we give them on braless and not things to think fix the roof man i mean roofs need to be fixed every twenty years or something we can't figure out things in advance our leadership has our leadership class in this country has zero for sale and really probably zero interest because whether it's silver always waged a very cruel war on poor working class and middle class people and of course people on the bottom rungs of socio economic ladder which usually turn to be people of color they bear the price of they bear the brunt this callousness of our leadership class and again i realize that as a school board member you can't really do anything about the united states congress but we can at least raise the issues it's inexcusable the conditions of our public schools the physical plant of the public schools it's inexcusable these crowded classrooms we have to dramatically reduce the size of the class the class size and we can do that by hiring more teachers providing  more jobs and let me remind everybody this is not a poor country we are in an incredibly wealthy country the deficit comes in now with how much money we have the problem comes a total lack of democracy in this country and determine how our great wealth is used circulating taxed and taxed i mean it is ridiculous we've got to start again looking at root causes that's the only way we're  solve all of our problems including that gap is let's begin to think of the root causes and one quick one quick mention again this we've got to all band together to end this war on drugs that is devastating in our urban communities and people of color and i think that will be a big help to and helping to end the achievement ga there were when we're looking at barriers to getting the work done to reduce the achievement gap i think we have to get real about what it's going to entail to actually get the job done and i think it takes a combination of focus from the boards and in the board being willing to make some hard decisions but also understanding that there's a moral imperative to do this work because they we need to address the fact that we have the disparities that we have and we can't wait because we can't keep losing more and more generations of  kids but we also have to move beyond some zero sum thinking which is i think part of what inhibits our ability to actually get effective people take the perspective that what we have to do is if you have yours i can't have that you can't have that because that means somebody else doesn't have it so we need to be thinking in terms of how we increase our capacity to do the work and that means that we look at the resources that the district has they're not endless and make some choices about how are go align using money and staff and facilities with the goal of reducing the achievement gap and then at the same time look at how we can increase the capacity of our system to do this work and when i'm talking about is leveraging all of the resources of our city and that means community groups philanthropic groups corporate resources the human capital of volunteers and mentors in the community because the bright person to work with the child may not be the classroom teacher it may be someone in the community who can relate to the child in a much more real an organic way and we need to be able to bring the full value of those relationships into the classroom to move the needle in a coordinated way and the other thing is to think about the level of cooperation we do have with other local government agencies higher ed institutions we are rich in st paul with a lot of resources but if we want to make this happen we need a board that is willing to say this is a priority for our community we as the representatives of the city of st paul know that this is important to our community and we want to be in front of everyone trying to make this a community commitment the other part of this in the end this is something that john had just talked about before is is when was the last time the district came to the community and said what do you want from our schools what is the thing that you want to see happen in your child's school and how can we make this happen there's a level at which we have to move beyond this expert model of how we make decisions around education to incorporate more people of our community in the process the level of disconnection that i hear from people when i talk to them as we go door to door and for people who say when they don't have children in the district well i don't have a child in the district so i don't know if i have authority to say something about the schools every person in this city whether they pay property taxes through their home or whether they are a renter or they are just walking in the streets has a stake and one of the biggest barriers that we have to making moves on the achievement gap is the sense that we don't collectively share this responsibility to every child in the city so if we're going to make the move to actually attack the achievement gap we need a board that is willing to come to the community and say work with us help us tell us what we need to do to work with you give us the teacher give the teacher some authority to be able to give the input that she or he has so that they can talk about what they need to be a successful and i think we have to move beyond the sense of hopelessness that often happens when we talk about the achievement gap because it's been so attractive bill for so long the sense that we can't do anything about it so we just have to kind of live with it we can't accept that status quo collectively we can't not hold our schools accountable our teachers accountable our parents and our families accountable and ourselves accountable for the fact that this is happening in our community but we need to be real we need to be authentic about our desire to change it and we need to be concrete about the things that we're going to do to make it happen one of my biggest disappointments as a current board member it's been the fact that not all of our students are civi at the level i know they're capable  some of our students who have achieved it are thriving in our school system we have many who are doing that but it's not happening for all of our students and for me indeed the barriers to that education equity the true equality for all of our students are ones i've been working on and that i will continue working on over the next four years most of the barriers are environmental factors that affect public school specifically and public the adults in this room are knowledgeable dolts in our school district we need to step outside of our box thinking that we are going to be the ones who primarily determine how best to educate our students on what works best for them and we need to listen more to some of our students but it's tuesday john and and the rest of the board will be introducing a proposal that will be voting on to increase student voice in the school district communicating with the ministration communicating with  belief and expectation of our students i know each of the employees come to school saying every student in achieve can be highly successful but i want to make sure that we don't see certain students because they look a certain size physical ability because they speak a certain way because of any factor that they can only make it this high you know we see every student be able to make it this high that we set that expectation and that atmosphere of hi high achievement you're going to be successful you can make this happen another barrier that i have had a chance to address and found funded mandate that we talk about economics and budget and we have i have a chance every february to go speak with the minnesota delegation of senators and representatives and their home their work home in washington and i've talked with represent a client he gets it after leaving the house education committee and i talk with senator franken he a fair opportunity to be tested i hear from principals from schools that have to start their testing months o i'm concerned that the standardized tests are really showing real evidence across the board  i'm concerned about our teachers our teachers have so much power and we need to be sure that we're access appropriately licensed teachers we need to be working with the colleges that may not really  be providing us with teachers with a bachelor's degree who are really prepared to meet the needs of all of our children i would i would say for myself i there was a lot that i wasn't prepared with until i got further training  we want to be sure that we're measuring what our community desires for our children so yes it's it's good to have the measurement  know with the rest of the united states and you know about reading and math and we hope that that makes some kind of sense to base things on for our students  nt but there's so much more that than simply reading and math and it needs to be you know teaching to the whole child  children read data can they read music and we also i'm not seeing it it's probably happening but our communication i feel is soul limited so bad but i would think we would want to be assessing our student achievement after high school i keep seeing with early education we want our children to be reading like their fourth graders and with our high school children we want them to  working like college students or already making their millions saw and it concerns me that we perceive our children in that way and not in their true developmental stages where they can be high achievers but i see i see children tried as adults for crimes that that's almost the same thing to me we need to see our children as children and support our children as children and support our teachers to provide rigorous expectations from our children play again you know i think really the the change agents are certainly the voters that they're going to be giving an accountability rating to each of us and to perhaps the superintendent and the board as they currently are constituted but there's a greater accountability and that is that the change agents who you teachers who you folks that are work and in other capacities in our school system have in your hands and what occurs to me in terms of a modest proposal that i'd like to offer is that the st paul public school system actually a y the system the school system mr hardee and others supports what they propose and here's what they propose that there be a counsellor for every two hundred fifty children i have to tell you what the number is and same phone but i'm going to based on the thirty seven thousand you get it gets a little worse if we go to thirty eight whatever number you want to pick but four hundred thirty five children per counselor we've got if you look at the site at least and when i looked at it there were eighty five that's not enough we need to treat our students with some respect we need to bring some professional guidance to their career early on not not waiting until the third grade when they've had a problem reading you know i live over on the east side i'm about four houses off o ave on cooke down below maryland they they say i live in a tough neighborhood well you know i've been there for twenty three years and i've seen a lot of children come and go a lot of children age and  graduate as well but you know i think i see a lot of busy parents parents that are working two jobs where there are two parents in the household and i think those parents could do with some help and that's why i'm running because i live on the east side and there's a lot of poor people on e side we've got one school board member that's over there you've got a map here that i'll save for another night but if you look at the past school board members the current candidates for the board and the current board gosh if you don't live in como or highland you're pretty much out of the school board game well i'm here to tell you that people on the east side are getting a little tired of riding in the back of the bus we are going to vote on november third and i believe that democracy still is a good good system i went to the magn carta u s constitution day celebration before i came here tonight over at the history center with governor dayton and just a skilled day from the supreme court and you know if we want to hold on to that document the united constitution we better start training some of our students to wimp or race some individual power in their lives to give them the character that it's going to take to run their life but you know what they're going to need some support from people that know how to you know because short to them because on a an age when you don't have a lot of money you know home yet you need a little extra help and there is help out there but we need some people to steer folks in the right direction we need to give our students the goals that we give ourselves when we do what go to the doctor and get a medical plan to lose weight i don't have to go but we also do that with retirement planning we do all kinds of planning in america but the one thing we could spend some money on and there's plenty of money believe me out of that seven hundred million dollar budget i can find the money and we're going to hire sixty three new guidance counselors because we ought to be at least at the minimum recommendation of two hundred fifty students per guidance counselor what else is better to spend money on i'd rather spend a million dollars plus that those folks at the pacific education group took back to san francisco on hiring some people looking to get our students our future citizens who will be voting who will be working hard for a long time into the college of their choice into the vocational college of their choice into a job training program white wire we offered some of those job training programs what do we do some of that work at the school system there's a lot of things are oh i'm sorry i'm sorry we're all yet fun yes i want to thank all the candidates and i want to say that your answers were very interesting thoughtful and informative so thank you all and thank you for coming but again i want to think the how the q brown center i want to think s p n n for being here i want to think the league of women voters again thank you to all the candidates and thank you to our moderator katherine p