i'm president of peters township p t a area council on behalf of the washington county league of women voters the peter township chamber of commerce and area council i'd like to welcome you to our twenty thirteen candidates forum if you all rise and join birch i too would like to welcome you this evening and thank you for being here i'd also like to thank the candidates for being here for without their cooperation we couldn't have forums like this let me explain to all of you the format will be using tonight the candidates will each have one and a half minutes to present an opening statement the order in which they will answer is the order that they're seated in this ballot order and we're using the republican ballot order because the governor is a republican and so the protocol beginning with the question then the person the position a first responder will rotate answers to questions will have will be a one minute time limit and closing statements will be ninety seconds there are timers up front to help the candidates keep track of the time the left to yellow cards when their fifteen seconds remaining in a red card will be lifted  when the time is up and the bell will ring and we just ask them then to finish their sentence when they see the red card i also wanted to something i didn't mention to the candidates as you know we're sharing microphones so if you can just pass that along and you know pull it back make sure the microphone is in front of you so that you'll be heard and  both on tape and right here some questions have been prepared or we receive in question from the audience as you know that you received a card when you came in and you can write a question on that card and people will be walking up and down the aisles to collect those cards any time during the forum that you have a new question you can ask for a new card to ask your questions over toward the aisle and then someone can pick them up and they they're being screened by representatives the league of women voters of washington county just in order to avoid duplication to be sure the question applies to all of the candidates and to try to cover a variety of topics though i know you'll be enthusiastic about some of the candidate's responses please hold your applause until the end so that we will have time to ask as many questions as possible and this will also help the program to be impartial at this time i'd like to introduce the candidates to you jamison hardy laurie cuevas rebecca bowman to smith david this and now will begin with opening statement and we'll begin with jamie thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here and i want to just first start by thanking the league of women voters and peter's township chamber area council for having this debate for me and my profession i'm not used to being given a time frame to speak so that's a difficult thing for me but i'll do my best and i just want to say that i'm very excited about the opportunity the potential to serve the district here at the school board township for thirteen years with three children and my wife as a parish pastor i've been in the community that whole time it's one of the things that is very important to me is the ability for the district to operate at its highest capacity and one of the ways that the district can operate at its highest capacity is having the financial resources to be able to carry on the work of the district and looking over materials for this debate in the consideration of the candidate i've noticed a very disturbing trend of deficit spending in the recent budget projections for the future i've noticed some severe deficits coming and my expertise is in that field and that was one of the reasons i chose to accept a canada c for this is also my position that we in peter's township have a fantastic group of teachers and it's important for us to support them by giving them resources to teach in the boards responsibility is simply to manage through the administrator these great teachers that we have and so i look forward to that opportunity as a potential board member  you're sitting here tonight it means you care enough about who would be elected to the school board to spend several hours of your time asking questions and listening to our answers and doing so you will hear my thoughts on the issues facing our district you also hear about some of the compliments in which i've been involved during my ten the board in addition i have provided my bio as a takeaway from this forum but let me take this time to tell you why i want to continue to serve the community as a member of the school board i believe the main focus of the school board should be the education of our children i've spent more than fourteen years dedicating my time and talents to the school district in the community schools are the fundamental place where we can educate our youth build character and thereby improve society the school board is fundamental in achieving those goals that is why i ran for the board four years ago and that is why i am running now volunteerism is not just something to which you pay lip service you must want to serve and spend the time it takes to serve to the best of your abilities and believe me it takes a significant amount of time to be a successful school board member i come to each meeting prepared i understand the nuances of the issues coming before the board in believe i can bring some knowledge to the table based on my personal and business experience our district is facing some tough decisions now hiring a new superintendent dealing our space needs and budget cuts and maintaining a low tax rate i believe the continuity of maintaining my board position is helpful in successfully resolving them i will continue to hold this district to the high standards that we all expect and i ask that you reelect me to the school board when you go to the  we are very blessed to be here tonight because it means we have the privilege and the right to elect those who spend our money this forum is especially important there are those who would call this an awful lection i would tell you this is an on election the people we elect this year are the ones who will touch your life and so this is a very important election in terms of your residency in the district there are those who would say they've been on both sides of the table for me the tables round i've been an employee of the district i've been a parent in the district i'm a property owner in the district i own a business in the district or district students i mentor district students i have project management experience so for me the table is round i bring a complete skill set to the school board if i'm elected what i have witnessed in the twenty years i've had a child in the district is that to some degree we are not using our resources to the best of our ability our standing in the state is dropping that's terrifying to me it's even more frightening me to me to discover that in terms of making the best use of available economic resources peters townships in the bottom half that's got to change and i would like to think that i can bring to the table the skills and the perspective to help the district move back up to where we ought good evening and thank you all for coming tonight first i'd like to thank the league of women voters chamber of commerce and the p t a area council for sponsoring this i was appointed to an m p position on the school board in september of two thousand and eight and reelected in two thousand and nine during my four and a half years on the board i have focus my energy on educational issues financial responsibility and attention to good policy development being on the school board requires a large time commitment to do a thorough job there is much research and back work that has to be done before you show up at a meeting i have put in that time and effort i have a bachelor's degree in education was a teacher for six years i also have an m and then went to work at a fortune one hundred company and product management this combination of background both in education and business has served me well on my time on the school board spending taxpayers money requires fiscal restraint a passion to find the most cost effective solutions while still providing the excellent education for our students that this community expects my three children graduated from peter township high school and we were extremely well prepared for college we have a wonderful school district here but we still can improve as we move forward school board must make some very important decisions hire the right person for the new superintendent determine building in facility needs and take action and provide the skills  students who need to succeed in the twenty first century thank you david of women voters of the p t a area council of the chamber of commerce for putting this event together i feel that it's very important for the residents of this community to hear from the people who be making decisions regarding their children and their tax dollars i've been a resident of this township since one nine hundred ninety one i've been a member of the school board since two thousand and four prior to that i served for many years on the zoning hearing board and maintain a relationship with members of council and the police department i've maintained my law practice and have been part of the business community here so that my daughter and my son will have graduated from the peter sonship school district my daughter in two thousand and nine and my son this year are educators and administrators have prepared them well both for college and for life during my tenure on this board i've made some tough decisions regarding the use of public funds but i believe that all of those decisions were made in the best interest of our students i look forward to the opportunity to answer the questions the seeming and letting the public know my opinions on the important issues that we face right now would like to thank the league of women voters the chamber of commerce and peters township p t a eric council for providing this forum for discussion this evening i have seven years invested serving on the school board fourteen years volunteering in the community for years as p t a president as well as on several boards and community events i have volunteered for almost twenty years in this district and on this board with all of my experience including twenty five years of our own companies and managing through some financial times with our own companies i would like to say i am always prepared for ever comes down the pike and that's why i should be on this board i am not always prepared and that's why i should be on this board because i know that we spend hours and hours going over information that is sent to us from the administrators and the state we are making some tough decisions education is the law we must educate our children but besides that it's important to our economy in our community it is part of our cultural it is important to the community at large as these children become educated and respectful they contribute back to this community it also provides a pathway to employment and success for students which leads to the opportunity for a good life for our children which often comes right back to the community or at the very least i'm sorry my time ok regardless if the children are a small faction or they are considered a minority in a group or they are in a large group regardless majority minority whatever group these students are whatever their needs are they are important each and every single child and we much reach each and every one thank you thank you to the parties who made tonight possible and raised seven thousand books which generated two thousand dollars that was donated to the school for reading programs and it also allows librarians to put over three hundred books into circulation on their shelves person with the right ideas and ability to make this district thank you all right the first question will begin with laurie and the first question i have is what do you see as the big issues our school district will pay in the next five years several of our schools in the district particularly at the high school funding being it's also going to impact what we're able to do from a budget perspective with respect to this needs here in the district we're going to have to deal with those in the near future because numbers even though at the lower levels that are declining there is a bubble moving through the district that we have to deal with we also have to deal with continuing to increase our test scores because at the time  somebody mentioned earlier this year we actually dropped a few notches within the state but we have programs in place right now to deal with that starting at the elementary level so we can continue to increase those scores as they move through the district i think the biggest we're facing is meeting the needs of students across the spectrum we tend to have a philosophy in peter's township that we are lake wobegon and all of our children are above average that would be a lovely fantasy but it isn't that and i think just do a significant degree we are not meeting chill the needs of some of our students across the full spectrum and before anything else our obligation is to meet the educational needs of all of our children regardless of their situation and their needs i also believe that there is an issue with respect to our economically disadvantaged population we currently have three percent of our population approximately three percent who are reduced lunch and free lunch eligible  and we have situations where equipment is expected to come from home economically disadvantaged students can't meet so again our primary issue is meeting the needs of children across the spectrum  the biggest issues that i think we face number one as i mentioned in my opening statement is we have a current board has to hire the right person with the superintendent after that the next biggest issue in my opinion is determining building in facility needs the township hired a consultant to give an estimate as to what would happen to that popular even estimate about a number of growth issues but one of the things they did is they told us that if all of the property all of the farmland is built out to houses we could more than double our school population the developers can put up houses a lot faster than we can put up a school and nobody has a crystal ball so we don't know when our if those people are coming and yet we have to plan for it we need to improve our student achievement scores some of those processes are in place but we still need to do that and find a way for us to prepare our students with skills they'll need to live in the twenty first century clearly the biggest problem that we face is with the funding that comes into this school district where it's going to come from how much the state is going to cut it back and what we can use it for everything else falls in behind that the programs that we have for students the expansion we have for schools and the programs that we have two years ago we couldn't do curriculum because we just didn't have enough money but we've refinanced a lot of our debt it has given us a measure of flexibility but until the state fixes the pension problem which the most recent articles say they are actually looking at which surprises me we will always have that burden to look forward to as long as the funding is an issue we are going to be handcuffed in some ways but over the last year and a half we have managed to work around that and create some new opportunities for funding with that in mind we do need to make some changes to our academic programs now we're in the core curriculum and we have a lot of other things to deal with but it all depends on the supply of money thank you the critical issues in our district are the budget and behind that risk assessment crisis management and are approved projects david just said everything starts with money it's no different than it is in your own homes it's tight we know we don't know what's going to happen in this next year our pension crisis right now for two thousand and ten two thousand and eleven in the year prior to that we are paying seventy two percent more as our contribution into this pension we have lost our federal medicaid school based access program there they're taking those rain based reimbursement away from us and of course you know we know that the stock market is behind a lot of this it's very similar to what you're going through in your own homes everything we do and everything we want to do begins with money so that is going to be our biggest crisis dealing with that being creative trying to find other ways to get money and making great decisions  mean with them budget is an important issue so i will bring up some other issues that i think are important one of the biggest i think in our district has been the turnover in administration an essential office i getting stability there we're not going to progress anywhere with a long range plan on building issues for academics in addition communication i think is an issue  that communication is very important to me if you get the high school p c s a newsletter that comes from me we can expect parents to check the district website to see what's going on we need to get feedback from as the seven speaker on this i'll just say briefly i agree with lisa virtually in the entirety of what she said but i'm going to use a couple different words to describe the different the issues monetary as you've heard from the other candidates i believe that there's a fiscal stewardship problem with the board the past five years you'll see if you look at the budget that there has been a five million dollar spending above income which is a deficit spending the projections in the budget worksheet show close to twelve million dollars for the next four years simple principles of fiscal stewardship dictate you don't spend more money than you take in and the reality is that when you start spending more money than you take in you have debt servicing issues debt servicing issues compound  themselves i can tell you very pointedly that this pension problem is a real issue but it's not a district issue it's a state federal issue and it's not something we're going to be able to fix as a district individually and so please understand that while that issue is one of the most important issues we have little to say about it in the big picture we have everything to say about the realities of how we spend our money specific stewards of this community the next question will go first to rebecca and i do one is they also if you ever need to repeat  question sometimes by that is that price then you might forget exactly what the question was feel free to ask me considering and several of you have preferred to this this issue considering that plan peters two thousand and twenty two predicts more than two thousand additional students in the district what course of action do you propose for the district to take there are two aspects of the question that come into play one of them is one for the citizens there is an issue with state funding planning that requires that we are to be in trouble before we can build a new school which is just goofy so it's up to us as citizens to get into the state government process and get that address on the local domestic side things we can anticipate we can adjust i know when my older son was here he was a sixth grader in the middle school building we do have some ability because the population is not across all of the grades we do have some flexibility to look at the population of the schools to keep it is even as possible so that our student teacher ratio does not get out and those are the kinds of anticipatory things that a responsible school board thank you there are a number of issues surrounding this that are unknown so the ability to potentially build a new school for instance the high school or renovate takes such a long period of time will require we have so many state regulations that we have to go through and yet there's no guarantee that we would fill it with the students i have to say that my experience with the high school is that i went back and looked at the population of high school was renovated in two thousand the year i moved here thirteen years ago there are three hundred and fifty thousand and sixty more students in that same building that's the same shape and size it was in two thousand and that's an issue that we really need to deal with thank you i have read the report that this question is part of i can't say that i agree with all of the numbers that we have projected that there will not be a dramatic growth and you've got to look at a lot of factors the the economy that we're dealing with right now does not lend itself to two hundred fifty houses being built every year i mean we have projected students going from forty three hundred to forty four zero six by twenty nineteen that wouldn't really provide an impetus for me to spend one hundred million dollars on a new high school if we do start to get in a situation where we have gro we're going to have to deal with a lot more than that high school we're going to have to deal with possibly more elementary schools another middle school and maybe the sensible thing is to have another high school because if we're going to have two thousand extra kids do we build a ten percent bigger  we build a twenty percent bigger and then we get overcrowded at the end of that time period there's a lot that's going to have to go into this but just having a knee jerk reaction and spending one hundred million dollars because every other community around us has i think is wrong the some of the data does show some things for it and it's interesting that it's always interesting to look at and you have to be aware of it you have to be prepared for it and i think that's the key thing i think we need to be prepared for what ever happens we don't know what really what's going to happen hopefully the district will grow i think the district will grow i think all of you in the audience are hoping and believing that our district will grow we have to be ready for that but how fast would grow and how broad where we'll be able to respond where will we want to new school will be able to rebuild where the property is on the other side of town over toward me should we need to build over there where these are things that we can't control and by the way even though finances are important we have to be prepared for what ever the state gives us we can't control it but it will be dropped in our lap and we better know what to do with it reassuring our bond is created it brought us more money and we will do the best we can with the funding that we have it's a creative way sometimes you do find yourself needing to spend more money than you're bringing in it's the way of life and we're ready for that thank you everyone has raised a lot of west and what we have to understand is what we have today is a long range plan the seven people sitting a board should get together with community members to have citizen advisory committees where we talk to gather we have communities that have experts in their fields that have connections to industry and have answers that we have not even thought about but when we come together as a community we can solve problems together that seven or not or fifteen simply put proactive leadership rather than reactive leadership is the call for the topic that's being discussed i happened to know personally a farmer in peter's township who is under negotiation right now to sell his property which will add two hundred fifty homes now whether that actually happens that's up you know for the seller and the buyer and that whole thing but proactive leadership would say we look at the reality of the potential growth we look at the reality of the future growth and we we make the decision based on the facts as we have them and when it comes to how we deal with those resources i have to say and and i'm going to be a broken record on this topic because i am direly opposed to any philosophy that simply says we need to spend more money than we take in you will be unsustainable very quickly if you do not remain fiscally sound in your in your practices of spending the reality is for us in this township there is a potential for significant growth if we are not proactive and we are reactive we will be hind the eight ball and i don't believe will be able to catch up when a report quite shocked to see the growth in the school district that was projected in any of the scenarios that was presented there it is scary and we need to have a plan to make sure that we're prepared for this in the future but folks also need to understand that as a school board we have state laws regulations that we have to follow in order to do anything in response to this where we have tax raising caps if we have to go down that path we have debt level restrictions on how much debt you can actually borrow we have timing issues you can't build schools based on projections you actually have to see the people in the district all students are going to come in at the same level if you're going to double our population you're not bringing in four thousand kids in kindergarten and you can stagger the building of the building you're going to get in at all levels we already can't support increased students and all of our schools we're not talking about building one building we're talking about building five space  the school responsibility has multiple parts but when i worked in private industry fiscal recent you had far more control over your budget than you do as a school board member almost seventy five percent i think it's seventy two percent of our budget is celery and benefits and that is all controlled by contract then twelve percent is contracted services utilities so we get down to when you add in our debt service you have down to less than five percent of the budget is things that we are spending on the operating budget now not a capital budget but textbooks of equipment anything like that so the concept of fiscal responsibility in my opinion is a little bit different in private industry than it is in this kind of public so being fiscally responsible yes i would agree in the erie it means not spending more than you take in but when the state cuts eight hundred thousand dollars out of your budget on a year you have nowhere to go thank paraphrase the the goals that we have set for ourselves our job is to provide students with the opportunities to excel in academics in extracurricular activities subject to the resources provided by the community two years ago when we were strapped for cash we didn't cut teachers every district around us laid off people we took a different tack and we didn't buy books we didn't do curriculum writing we kept the teachers in place and made the priority teaching our students keeping class size where it should be and saving as much money as we could there there is no pot of gold for us we have to work within those parameters but at the same time we can't cut programs to the bone and do away with music theatre things that people would say are unnecessary they're not math and science so being fiscally responsible is providing those services to the children without becoming a burden to the community this is really not that not that different than when you are in your houses with your children and you're explaining to your children that they've got to plan and budget and do the do the best they can with their allowance and you can you can cut in your own home but you probably don't want your children really to know you really don't want them to notice you don't want them to feel  as adults and parents in the household or caregivers you want to manage that money without your children really knowing how tough things really are and that is in a line with what we do on the board and what what we have been doing we don't want our students to feel like their programs are being cut we need to be creative with our money right now and that is why we we did the badri issue that is being creative with our money getting our money to work for us and fiscal responsibility in this town means that when you go to your local trying to go you better be able to explain to whoever asks you about your most recent fiscal decision that is fiscal responsibility in this community people want to know thank you whoever wrote this question should be applauded i i think this is the heart of what you see up here with some of us in disagreement is fiscal stewardship and fiscal responsibility has to do a lot also with long because if you don't have enough money to carry on the work down the road you can't provide your students with the proper programs or equipment to do such my doctorate is not in religious studies because i'm a pastor my doctorate is in business administration in my dissertation is about without the resources to provide our teachers what they need to teach our students we will not be able to increase the academic prowess of our kids or the standing that we have in the state and i think it's critically important that this issue gets dealt with because all i can look at is what's happened in the past in what's projected to happen in the future and i'll continue to remind you five million dollars over the last five years of deficit spending and a projected twelve million dollars in the next four years in deficit spending we will not be around to teach our kids if we don't watch ourselves something you're right when you're fiscally responsible you look around at what you have and you find creative and innovative ways to make use of the resources you have available to you i would tell you we are one of think well my thoughts on common core is that it's the federal government's next step after no child left behind it's another bad idea it concentrates education in reading and math and we are going to be forced to test to reading and math we're actually going to be dumbed down in our curriculum if we follow the federal guidelines  the federal government will have a hammer over us and over the state money if we don't comply with them i feel it's a very bad idea i think that as as we were teaching down to no child left behind we'll have to do that again and i for one think we spend far too much time teaching to tests and not allowing students to learn in a twenty first century way where it would be much more give and take between them and the teachers and this is just a bad idea but something apparently we're going to have to live with if we want to keep getting funding from the state thank you i actually agree with what my fellow board members and and those who are running for the board ha currently said the common core is also an alp just bring up something different going to be very stressful for teachers and teaching to these tests in math and science only is not going to give us the well rounded student that we are trying to graduate here in peter's township school district i feel like it is the boss who buys the typewriter that the secretary uses now and now i'm showing my age when i say typewriter but i think you all get my point i don't think there's any place for the federal government to decide what we should be teaching our kids and and and i'm i'm just hoping something happens and there's a major change in a lot of things common core would be one of them thank you environment in which to teach so that they could teach in a way be allowed to differentiate instruction and to the way to do that i i agree with a lot of what's been said i disagree with the common core when i taught the middle school in saginaw michigan it was always my philosophy to take the gifts and talents of the students and draw out their gifts and talents to help have them use those gifts and talent to the best of their ability and to follow the common core philosophy would diminish a teacher's ability to do that you don't create is the hallmark of innovation and one of the things about this country that has always been true is we have a lot of creative people and i think this curriculum this this concept of the common core will stifle creativity and then in turn that will stifle innovation and i think it's it's it's not productive for education but once again i hearken back to the fact that this is something that's not in our control directly that is to say depending on how we deal with the funding issue whether we take the federal funds or not some of this is out of our control we have to be proactive to to see that reality and then to respond to that reality as as i've heard others say the common core standards were dropped in pennsylvania in july two thousand and ten and we have to have implementation in math and english standards are vague in broad they're going to require younger students to learn more at a quicker pace garden will be more important in skills used to learn kids used to learn in second grade are now going to be pushed down as early as kindergarten you're not implementing it but i would like to think that our district will take our students outside the door in the first place i'm afraid that the common core is like so many other things the federal government does sounds good and i don't see that this is going to help as everybody here has had you know giving details on specifics we have that we don't have now we're going to have our not going to have the legislature and the governor the governor cannot make up their mind and even the federal government so each time we have one of these new initiatives the schools are left in a position of spending money and time and ultimately in my opinion it doesn't serve anybody well thank you coursework i think that first of all we cannot create courses if we don't have students who want to take them so over my seven years that i've been on this board what i have noticed is the students gear us toward what they need and what they want and of course we provide that i remember three years ago we were talking about organic cam and we were just talking about there were a few students according to high school three or four years ago who may have considered that last year we had those students high school students at a board meeting asking us board organic camp and we filled think we had two classes of students with organic chem so the students and the culture will drive that for us i think by attrition other courses will become less attractive and that's typically how it works we can we can make it happen we can tell by the enrollment we can tell where the students need to go and of course we also guide the students in a direction based on what we feel we that they need so there's a little bit of both thank you have on line firing teachers have to be given an extra planning here period if they agree to teach that on line so we're also learning teachers who could be teaching another subject that this topic actually lends itself tremendously to creativity and innovation that is to say how we handled the problem that exists and i think what was previously said is exactly right you know if you have a body of students that show interest in a certain class that providing them that class and i think this concept of online education has to be dealt with that it is something that can be a very blasted thing to help expand academic programs and it has a lot of success to it i say that because my doctorate is from an online university and i work harder in a four year doctoral program online than four years at seminary in a residential education program because everything that you do is in writing you have to be very concise with what you say you can't use verbal skills you have to use written skills and you have to think out what you say more thoroughly and so i think to adapt to the new environment of technology and the issues that we have fiscally  providing classes and whatnot to deal with this stem programs this is one way now we're bringing them into the district next year one of the overriding issues with having more stem classes or the space needs for group project work how do you bring the disciplines of math science and engineering together to work on projects can't take advantage of the resources that are available to us in terms of meeting these needs the other thing we need to do is get the community in there to help the students understand how important skills are i'd like to hear us say we've got students clamoring screaming for resources and employers are screaming for it too and kids don't realize that i read with many of the things that have been said about this and i too am a strong proponent of stem even though i am not an engineer two of my children are software engineers and i've seen what's available to them in terms of jobs and it looks great so the question is how do it's more or less of in my opinion a push through through i agree we need more stem education at the high school but i think it needs to start with fun science and fun math and elementary projects that the kids work on with it you know were bought ics are something that just really lights their  enthusiasm and by the time to get to the high school they'll be clamoring for this because if kids by the time they get to the high school they either know they like science or they don't like math or don't like math and they've just closed off the walls to that i really believe we can help this by being innovative by two using some online things free source online khan academy has tons of stuff out there so we have to get them fired up at elementary level during my term on this board i've been lucky enough to be on the joint committee at the western area career in technology center where stem is the thing the mechatronics program the theat the three d printers the things that are available there are the things that our students don't take advantage of enough we have a look this year to new courses in the technology education department introduction to stem and architectural engineering too and i've been pushing for years and i'm pushing hard this year to get mr burns a three d printer which he has been begging for for five years and will give the kids an opportunity to use that technology on a practical basis but we have the facilities we have western area as a resource we don't use the nuff there's got to be a way to get the kids involved even if it's a class after school and that's one of the things that i have tried to do for years it's never been been put together properly but now with their adult education programs it might and i think it gives us an opportunity to give these kids practical hands on engineering experience the next question will go to the and you're beginning to touch on this topic coverage education meeting and regular board meetings most of the concern secondary education elementary education k through thick provide the critical foundation for our student what opportunities do you believe exist through education at the elementary level well at the elementary level i think it's important again i'm going to stress the environment in which the kids learn those this topic is somewhat near and dear to my heart because of my wife my wife is a professor at pitt in early childhood education and she just came back last week from new york doing a presentation on creative play learning and this is a forward thinking kind of new age kind of cutting edge elementary education philosophy and it's nothing new i have to tell you but it's something that i think in the elementary school it brings more excitement to the children and i think look if you turn a child off elementary education you turn them off for their almost entire life and i've been blessed in my own personal life with loving to learn and i think that goes all the way back to when i was in elementary school with my teachers who made learning fun and so if learning is not fun as a young child it certainly will not be fun as you grow through the educational  already launched a program to look at different ways of delivering that curriculum to children of that age it's a transition period between three and middle school you're trying to take them away from one teacher classrooms to a fourth grade classroom where they may have different teachers getting them through sixth grade where they're going to have different teachers for every class of the middle school we are addressing these issues to have some more programs developed to be able to bring up those test scores in the once again bringing the community into the classroom is an important way to reach kids to make math and science exciting when you work with kindergartners first and second graders story problems are cool because they the issue to life by the time you get kids in four three six graders they all think story problems are stupid just give me the formula figured out well the fact of the matter is life is full of story problems it's one story problem is so as long as we can get the community in there so the kids keep see real life application for what they're doing they're going to find math and science and any other kind of learning exciting i go into the schools for national engineers week the teachers  are the children off of me at the end of our forty two minutes together they are to be talking to someone who can show them how the skills they're learning in real life we do bicycle problems we do explosion problems we do things that the kids are really excited about doesn't matter boy girl doesn't matter underlying capabilities we need to take advantage of the resources to make math and science exciting for  i taught second grade for two years in first grade for four years i have to tell you that one of the most exciting things you'll ever see is the light in the eyes of a child when they realize that those little squiggles on the page represent a word and they begin to read at that age they're just like sponges they want to suck up all this information they're excited they're not they're not the way they are a little bit older and that's part of the thing is i somebody else said before you have to catch them when you're they're young to turn them on to education i don't know the answer is it we have to hire teachers who have a different philosophy is it we have to do in the service of the current teachers to help them step outside of the box of this is the way i've always done it and would how do we get teachers because it's all the key is on the teachers to do i know they're told to differentiate the learning i don't know the answer to this this is something that we certainly need to research because this is the key in my opinion this is the key to us moving forward over the past few years we've worked very hard to maintain reasonable class sizes all of the schools we've responded to the parents that have come to meetings and we've moved teachers around to keep it as small as possible we've started the spanish program in the elementary schools right now we're in the process of writing new curriculum at those schools and probably the most important thing is you talk to parents about our elementary schools they love them pleasant valley was a national blue ribbon school they are they're doing so many things right that there are a measure measuring stick for the rest of this country and i think we're doing a great job with these kids the test scores prove that and the teachers that we have are gifted at that level they love their jobs they love their kids this community couldn't be in better hands with the teachers that we have at those levels and thank you i think that we need to catch our kids when they're young we need to get them interested and engage in learning and academics when they're young we want them to come to school with excitement we don't want them to be running around the house while you're chasing to get the bus in peter's township but pretty good at that we're doing pretty good but this board has never ever rested on its laurels and we won't do that now one of the things that we have brought over the years as david mentioned this is world language last year in our education in the students presented us and showed us how to use some of these new educational tools that did make learning fun and then within six months we lost a million dollars from the governor so i we were so fired up about that and so were the students and we will get fired up again we do have watts of things we can bring to our kids and we will continue to do that i'm not sure exactly what the answer is now either but i know that we will find out what the answer is and we will be creative and we will keep these young kids learning and being excited to grow thank you the next question will go first and there were a couple of questions came in about student grade school in high school i went on to get a double masters in a doctor's degree test scores do not dictate what young people will do as citizens of this country so let me just start by saying that however to deal with the question i think that there is an ebb and flow that happens and that the best way to deal with test scores in my book is to hire the right administrator who's going to support the principals we're going to support the teachers to do the job they've been called to do the vocation that they love and the skill set that they've been blessed with i think one of the biggest problems when you start to see school districts have test scores at depth is there's this big red flag that goes up and we've got to make major changes and we've got to do a bunch of things i say get out of the teachers way supported ministr support the principals and let the teachers teach that's what they're hired for that's what they do best and i don't think board members can do a better job as i mentioned in the previous district the school board to get in there and decide how that's going to happen it's the teachers and administrators and their perceptions and their ability to find tools where they make that happen and i would also point out  lower the administration is looking into it the board isn't doing it the board said please look into this and give us some information tell us what you think you need to do in terms of testing other than say testing lori mentioned several i put them into different categories because are these state mandated or federally mandated tests that got put together by who knows who and it seems that is not really helpful to the kid who's taking it but the p s s s which is mentioned at the high school which is like a practice test it's an old p s a t or things that are very valuable to our high school students this is how they can get a lot of scholarship money if they take the p s a t their junior year and do well so there are things that many of our high school students have not known about in the past and so i think that having the district pay for that having them take it all at once is a way to well clearly will will support this board has always supported the administrators but is this really a big issue for this community if we had dropped from seven to two hundred i might have a concern but if we're dropping from seven to fifteen are we really worried about that recently there was a school district the tied their test scores to raises for the teacher so cheating resulted and some of those teachers are going to be going to jail is that really what we want  we've all experienced the agony of our kids studying and being prepared for these tests i don't think it's necessary if we have a severe drop in our students scores that's one thing to look at but i have never viewed these as an important thing as long as we are still passing enough to get the funding from the state do we really need to spend all the really valuable instruction time they could be getting just to make sure they pass this thank you i do agree that the p s essays are not something we can simply focus on but i also know that most parents actually do they actually do unless you're sitting on the border able to attend the meetings all the time and coming together cation meetings you're not really understanding and looking at things from where we see them on our side of the table so we do have to be responsive to p s essays and actually we are i sat on the assessment committee last year with the high school  one of our one of our candidates laurie brought up that we're looking at our elementary in the fourth and fifth grade level i don't know what's going on over there i really don't but we'll figure it out that's our job that's what we're doing we're currently doing that now and we will be around handing out goodies that doesn't work either it's very important we have a superintendent who understands where we're going as a community and his own voice well it's going to sound like a broken record here but yes that the reason we need the right person is for those same reasons we can't have a micro manager we can't have a lost in space person we can't have people who are oppressive to their employees we have to have someone who has management skills who can bring forth the strengths of the other administrators and the teachers so that everybody is on the same page working toward the same goal you can't have somebody who's stabbing people in the back because they don't like to work then so yes i mean the current board is where you are very hard and with getting applications from people who we hope we can find the skills to do have the educational back and understand budget understand special ed understand negotiation because we have a teacher's contract coming up next year there is a lot of pieces to the puzzle and it's not easy to find but i think with all the goals that we've talked about tonight are only going to be reached if we find that right person and right now we're blessed to have  imperial here is our acting superintendent and he describes himself as a servant leader he's a public servant he has responsibilities to the community to the schools but he also has to lead his staff his administrators and his teachers that's what we need to fight this interview process has been difficult we have very few resumes that have come across that we've we've been able to review we've only done three interviews to date we have two more tomorrow night hopefully we will find that right person but it's critical to the future of this district that we find a person that will be here for a long time that will make the changes that are needed and will do the things that we've talked about tonight to make this the number one district in this area and to thank you first of all i think there's a lot to be said for moving s up within the district in the in this position i love that idea love the idea someone that's been here for a long time more fairly long time and has worked in different factions of the district and understands that of course it was an open process and i wouldn't want to speak about anybody in particular i won't do that but i do think we do have some people in here that if not now probably in the future could move into that position now that all being said this is a tough community and we have some tough times right now and so it is worth the investment on the front end to give this district and all of you for your children your students and those who are moving in here in the future somebody who can really roland here and go full steam ahead this is a this is a tough position and i think that of course when you have dr empiria and he's fabulous at what he's doing you feel good and you know you can take your time and find the right person and that's what we're go that person is next door or it has to be a person that is going to have some expertise and a good track record and it has to be a person who is going to compare our  future to the last five years some of the best books i've read are business management books jack welch former c e o of g e jim collins the author of good to great they all agree getting the right person on the bus will only allow you to drive the bus in the right direction and be the most effective if you don't have the right person you are wasting your time and causing great a great deal of conflict with staff and current administration i will also say that good leaders lead from the front not from behind i think the next superintendent has to have the confidence that they can make decisions were a vocal or a a small majority of the board doesn't use their position as a board member to threaten them to do what they want otherwise they won't get another contract that is it it's inappropriate behavior and it's wrong and the reality is leaders need to be left alone to lead within a certain parameter and frankly why do you have a superintendent if they're not going to be allowed to lead leading happens out front never from behind great military leaders don't ask anybody to do anything they're not willing to do themselves and i just think that without the right person you're never going to have that in this district specifically or in any district in the state  it obviously there are several types of board communication the sunshine laws of the state of pennsylvania for bid us are having five of us in one room it discussing any school board business unless it's a public meeting so there are we are allowed to have one another to discuss something that may have happened in a meeting but there are certain limitations there's been discussion in the past about the team of ten and that means the nine board members and the one superintendent who often ties things together communication amongst board members sometimes instead of emailing back and forth which we don't often do sometimes it goes to the superintendent and i would argue that this communication amongst board members if you have a superintendent like thank you joe he has really been very helpful in that because he facilitates that and that's been different than some of my other experiences  it's extremely critical that the board trust each other matters that are confidential that are talked about in executive sessions have to stay there we have to have an opportunity to exchange ideas on personnel or litigation issues that we know are not going to leave that room the communication when you have a difference of opinion everyone is allowed to have their own opinion it makes for a good discussion every once in a while somebody will change their mind but if they don't that's what the voting process is for we rarely have a unanimous vote on anything and i think that's good for the system so as long as everybody gets the same information gets we get a friday packet with all of the things that are going to be discussed next week and sometimes confidential things that have happened in the district as long as everyone is on the same plane with the information you can make your own decision you can hash it out in the back room or you can discuss it in public whatever is necessary but there has to be trust once that's lost and you can't trust people to keep things confidential then communication will stop you i am currently in my third year to can university pursuing a degree in organizational leadership so if you have an hour i can tell you about this i am also in my second year as board president and i can tell you how many hours and hours i spend on the found to the point where sometimes i'm talking to a board member at night i'm actually fall asleep i am tired of my own voice on most days and it pays off this board needs to be informed they want to be informed you don't want anyone feeling like an outl we need to work as a team we're not going to work as a team if we don't feel like attain so i'm very passionate about communication as far as differences we've had some heated discussions it's been it's been good it's been good it brings about an excellent decision it makes you really think and if you have to back up your your vote then you really start to think about your answers so we've never had a problem with that and being board president i i actually enjoy it even though it can be exhausting thank you stephen having not been on the board i'm not sure how they communicate with each other between the board meetings so i see the communication at the meeting if i were on the board one thing that i would want to do is definitely be respectful of others respect their opinions they've done in life and they have to trust that i'm not going to speak about those things it's taken taken and i take it very seriously but more than my own taking it seriously they have to trust me that that is the case so i totally agree that trust is the key but i also would say this that there are instances as human people when trust is broken and trust can be repaired to contrition and repentance and i think there is responsibility on both parts on both people when trust is broken to repair that relationship and repair that trust so that that clear communication in the future can still continue without a doubt trust is critical and if there is no trust between fellow board members there will never be me or if you're not on the board how would you get out or gather information about the various buildings and what is going on there could you read the last part of that the first part was about how we receive back up documents and there's a tremendous amount of spend a weekend reading through it the other fridays we get something called the we can review which is from the superintendent gives us all sorts of information about what's happening in the different building successes problems concerns that several pages long and that keeps us up to date on what's going on if there is a safety issue if there is a bus accident if there's something along those lines we'll get an email or a phone call right away so the board is aware of those things in terms of gathering other information anybody who has been a board member and walked into the things and he said this well collecting the information again we get information every week we get a lot of information at the various meetings but we also of course get e mails phone calls run into people on the street my son brings things home to me the worst thing i think you can do with that information though is immediately pick up the phone and call the building principal that's not our job typically what i will do with that information i will call the board president maybe call the superintendent if it's something that's critical and pass it down the chain that way i learned a long time ago that the principals do not want us to micromanage their business and if we have suggestions for them there is a path to do that in the proper way and not try to serve their authority and i've tried very hard not to do that and to leave it to the administration so that our job is to set policy and guide the district not to run the buildings on a day to day  basis thank you of course as you all know we get our friday pack and it's just filled with wonderful information and typically that information will come out eventually at a committee level meeting or at a regular board meeting unless it's confidential information or safety issue that it's all going to get out to the public we are we get information all the time of what's going on so we have a super and an acting superintendent who make sure that we get that information and we would expect that from the ne superintendent as well for us to try to do anything with information that we get from someone else say out the go or wherever we happen to be at the gas station which we get a lot or phone call that information needs to go directly to the administration the superintendent needs that information and then we we watch it happen it would be an h r nightmare for us to try to get involved as if we were managing the district we're not managing the district that would be a dangerous thing i currently sit on a board of directors of one hundred thirty million dollar nonprofit institution here in western pennsylvania and every month we have what education and one thing about having board education that i find so invaluable is you learn best practices from other organizations across the country and in pennsylvania one of the things that needs to be remembered about a board member's role is there is only one employee at the board has responsibility for over and with and that's the superintendent therefore those communication should be regular they should be they should be clear and they should always go through the superintendent regarding concerns as as dave has said you know the first call would be to the superintendent i think it's it's very very sketchy at any level to receive information from somebody in the in the store or even your kids and then try to immediately act on it you know as as a parish pastor i get a lot of information about things are going on and i can not just react to them it's just wrong it's wrong and i think my fiduciary responsibility as a board  member would be one of working directly and only through the administrator and then also understand that when you talk to people in the in the store and the restaurants and whatnot that a lot of the communication can be skewed by emotions and other things and so take it for what it's well first of all from the the tone of the question i don't believe we have ignored our facilities we have taken steps to stabilize the pyrite problem at the middle school we have a lot of laundry list of repairs that are going to be made this year but as to the pleasant valley field and possibly the high school field i think those are very necessary again we are here to offer our students the best educational and extra curricular facilities that they can they can have and in a day when students spend all of their time on the internet and immersed in social media the teams that that exist in our schools give them an opportunity to interact not just from a physical standpoint but from a social standpoint and giving them a facility where they won't be injured they they can have fun they can learn they can be part of a team i think is vitally important the pleasant valley field was a safety necessity if you had ever been on it when it was grass it was a disaster and something had to be done there one of our responsibilities as board members that you can find online the very first ones actually represent the public interest the common good the common goods an interesting thing because it seems that for a lot of people the common good is whatever's working for them sometimes and in their house whatever's working for their students we reach these kids through all sorts of ways some of them academically some of through sports that opens up both academics and sports and all the actors extracurriculars opportunities for these kids that they might may not otherwise have regarding sports we have had something like seven or eight kids this year sign up who are going to college on scholarships i know of kids whose parents could not have afforded to send them or who students would not be interested in going would not even go if we didn't reach them through that venue it is important and as far as a pleasant valley feel it's actually beginning to be a safety underlying obligation is to educate and that's as you may or may not know i am the only current board member who is a candidate who voted against the when the investigation was started we were given a lot of information about all the teams up there and how they worked in games and at the beginning of the process i was in support of putting turf down there so that they could have a field that was usable for a long time when we started moving toward the gold plated field started moving away i didn't think we already knew that the residents up there were going to be unhappy about the lights and the sound i know the parents and the kids like to have loud music to dance  all the things they're doing up there but we knew it was going to be a problem from the beginning and that's why i disagreed with it i have nothing against athletics i think it's a wonderful program a great outlet for the kids but we're not an athletic facility where a school district and i think our money needs to go focus on education and provide athletics with out making such an expense that it cuts into other capital projects that we needed to do thank you i'd like to have one more question and then have the statement but i know that's going to put it a little bit after nine o'clock  being discussed and for many reasons what you unfortunately i wouldn't discuss here i actually i don't believe it would be appropriate to comment on that at this time but at the administration has the time to comment and anybody in this room my children to hear on you know sex education in a classroom setting and i didn't get a copy of the books and i did read them and i would say there were things in those books that i would be uncomfortable that when her child she looked around her sex education class to take her to but she did not see or hear that with her philosophy and i think that's the difference of the decision making process just like we do in every other subject i was told this question might come up i was hoping we get done beforehand but nonetheless i answer i have three children i teach biblical standards when it comes to sexuality i teach fourth or seventh graders in my confirmation class i do not hide from the subject i think parents who believe that they can keep their children protected by not teaching them and by not allowing the school to teach them risk having other students teach them faults misleading inappropriate unnecessary things sexuality is no different than anything else in life it should be taken on with the same openness as every other educational topic out there and i think the concepts of having to opt in by parents to choose to allow their students to stay in the curriculum protects any student and any parent who feels their child should not be taught and for anybody to raise a bunch of this when that provision is in place as far as i'm personally concerned is unnecessary if you want to protect your children opt out but also understand that there are consequences to said this is an opt in program we've been teaching some of these programs for years we recently changed over the past few years and in many new program out of the three hundred fifty more children take that were when there are there isn't a necessity to answer every question every child should ever ask those children's questions need to be answered in the sea responsible and appropriate way so i would say there's a n abstinence level of education that should occur and every person with student contact should be equipped to answer the questions that the children have and they should feel safe think it suddenly became called sex ed because it makes a better headline than human growth and development but the the program has been taught her a long time the teachers have been trained to teach that the administration has laurie said  you cannot imagine how many hundreds of hours over the last several weeks trying to address every single question but in my mind when all is said and done as lisa said the programs should recommend should follow the wishes of the community at large and when i see the numbers that show half a dozen kids out of three hundred fifty parents choosing to not have their child take the program that tells me that we are following the wishes of the community going forward it's in cycle to be revised this summer parent the at a public meeting parents were told that they are welcome to attend and i think we got an email from a parent who said  great suggestions why don't you hire one hire can pay for it why don't you invite child psychologists what we've got doctors in this community would let a number of professionals in the field in addition to the parents who have their own personal feelings we have some professionals and that's the way i think we should be going like like every other program and in the school district we have always sought out parent input we've tried to get opinions from various groups on this particular issue this program has existed for years and like everything else has changed a little bit and it's the changes that have caused most of the problems recently the parents do have the right to opt out and maybe the opt out provision should be better maybe there should be a way that they can opt out without their perception that their child will be singled out by the other students but the program is necessary the program has great value always has and it will continue to be developed to to suit the needs of the community and the district opportunity to be here i appreciate this forum and the ability to articulate my position i'm a firm believer that when you hear any candidate say things about statistics or facts that you understand where they're coming from to point out some of the budgetary facts i took them off of the peter township website school does it website the budget outlook that will give you the twelve million dollar deficit and then also the budget history these two documents are from the peters township website so i quote those only as a matter of fact not it is something that i created let me also say that i do believe in my heart on the candidate to help the district with the fiscal problems that it faces i am the candidate to help the district through the difficult fiscal and economic times that it's facing now and we'll face in the future difficult decisions need to be main to remain fiscally sound and i believe without fiscal stewardship we will not be in a position to be able to react to any of the issues of building of grounds of curriculum of anything so i say again i look forward to the opportunity of serving on the school board and i also want you to know that it's critically important to me as i said previously in an answer that integrity be one of the main things that a candidate has because if you don't have your words and i have refrained as best i could from using any kind of biblical quotes but i will use this one because it applies let your yes be yes and your no be no and let your word be known and don't go back on it and i intend to be that candidate for you thank you parent teacher i specifically waited until i no longer had a child in the district before running for school board because if you're a good parent there is an inherent conflict of interest if you have a student in the district of so i specifically waited until he didn't have a student in the district so that i had no other polls on my heart and dealing with the district thank you for coming out tonight taking the time t hours of listening to our opinions but i want to thank you for considering voting for me i hope you will this has been a very interesting four and a half years for me  husband says i work forty hours a week on this but i really don't but i do spend a tremendous amount of time and i think it's very important that those people who are stepping up to be calm board members who haven't been board members before i understand the depth of the  amount of commitment that you have to make i believe that we should focus on education i believe i have been fiscally responsible my record i run on my record i am also not someone who's afraid to stay state my opinion i try to be respectful of all the other board members at all times but i am not afraid to disagree with them and i think that's a very important attribute because if you just nod your head and say nothing no one knows what you're thinking and then when you vote sometimes it's a surprise so thanks again for coming and please vote for me on may twenty first well there is no doubt the chiefs seen a great difference of opinion regarding how each of us would face the challenges that are sure to come in the future for this district i believe that there must be a balance between the services we provide to our students the educational and extra curricular opportunities way we make available to them and the cost of those programs to the community we're blessed with great educators that leave their mark on the students a pass through this district we're also blessed with parents that care passionately about their children and that education it will be our job in the future to make sure we can continue to provide the guidance that will allow these children to move on and be successful in whatever area or vocation they may choose i devoted a great deal of my life to public service and i'd be honored to have your vote that would allow me to continue down that path a little further once again thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening and share my thoughts and opinions with the community and please do not hesitate to contact i would like to thank everyone for coming this evening and for giving us an opportunity to share with you our pinions and our thoughts of where we may be why we have made decisions we've made the past and where we will be going in the future in peters township we are not going to stand still we are community that is going to grow and we are going to floor it in order to grow in florida we have to work together as a team we have administrator we have a great board we have teachers and most importantly we have our students i've been serving on the school board for seven years i'm in my second year as board president and i am still learning and growing in this position we have critical challenges that will impact our teachers and instruction the only reason someone beats should be serving on this board of school directors is to make a difference in the lives of children and that's why i'm on this that is why i want to continue to serve on this board i truly enjoyed serving the community in this capacity and i'm asking for your vote so that i can continue to serve you your children and the community thank you i hope you had a chance to get a glimpse of  respect i welcome feedback and ideas from others and believe that it's absolutely necessary to reach the best results for the seven people up here will not always have the best ideas and solutions and the