 Hello and welcome to TownMeeting's TV coverage of TownMeeting Day 2024. This program is part of a series of forums we are bringing to you in advance of TownMeeting Day on Tuesday, March 5th. TownMeeting TV hosts forums with all candidates and covers the questions that you'll see on your ballot, introducing you to community decision makers and connecting you with the issues that shape your local community. You can find all of our forums at cctv.org slash 2024 or on our TownMeeting TV YouTube channel where auto-generated captions are available. On tonight's program we'll hear from two candidates running for the South Burlington School Board. These two candidates are Chelsea Tilling-Ast and Tim Warren. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. We've prepared a list of questions for each of you and you will have 90 seconds to answer each question. If you are tuning in live, we also welcome your questions in at 802-862-3966. And if you call in, we'll do our best to prioritize your question that we will screen calls to ensure that questions are not repeated. And we ask that you share your name, the town you live in, and that your question be directed at all candidates, not just one. Now let's get started with a one minute opening statement. So we'll start with you Tim. Do you tell us why you're running, how you're qualified to serve on the school board, and what will be different for South Burlington schools if you are elected? Sure. Thank you. So I'm running actually to fulfill a commitment I actually made to the board when they appointed me to a vacancy back in November. One of the questions they asked me was if I would be willing to fill out the term when it came time. And I said yes. And I think that was an important question for the board because they're certainly looking for continuity in its membership, right? And to avoid disruption if at all possible. So I've had an opportunity to be on the board for four months or so. I've learned quite a bit. The board's been great to work with. And I'm looking forward to continuing that. As far as my background, my qualifications go, besides the four months of experience that I've had, I actually have had, for the last 25 years, I've worked as a professional instructional designer. I work currently in the global healthcare arena where I design and implement training materials for basically a wide swath of learners and learning types and such. So that does give me some exposure to different training methodology systems, insights, that kind of stuff. I also happen to have five years of experience as a paraprofessional in the school districts here. Four of those were in South Burlington itself where I spent a couple of years in the classroom working with special ed students. And two of those years I actually spent as a director of a study support room. So eight periods a day I had kids coming in with a lot of different needs. And that was quite the learning experience. So I'm hoping to be able to bring what I've learned over the last 25 years in the corporate world around project management, working with people, working across global cultures even, in conjunction with my exposure to the local school systems. And not only that, I've got kids in the school. So I've got some experience there. And I hope to bring that to the board in a continuing manner. Thank you. Thank you, Chelsea. Yeah. So last time I was here running for the board, I had just had a baby six months prior to being elected. And I think entering parenthood has a lot of different aspects for different people. But for me, I was overwhelmed with a sense of modeling, volunteering for our community and stepping up. And then also just a responsibility for not just my children, but our future. It sounds a little cliche, but there's usually some truth and cliche. And I do believe our students are the future of our community. So that's why I'm running. I'm a Vermont born and raised. I grew up in Canaan, Vermont. And I'm a small business owner in the community. And to answer your question as to how am I qualified to run for the board? I actually believe that any community member should be able to be on the board and represent their view of the community. I try to represent young parents, business owners in the community. And I try to be an advocate for equity for all. So I don't necessarily have any professional skills that qualify me. But I do believe that a government of the people should be by the people. Thank you. Our next question is, do you support this year's school budget of $71.2 million and the associated tax rate, tax increase of 18.26 percent? And how would you address the challenges facing the state education fund and the impact on Burlington schools and taxpayers? And Chelsea, we'll start with you. Sure. So I want to say generally I support our school budget. I do want to say that like as of right now, the legislature is reviewing an amendment to Act 127, which is our ed funding formula. So our warned and approved budget is not actually representing an 18 percent tax increase. It's representing a 23.25 percent tax increase, which is enormous. And if you as community members would like updates on the budget, we're going to be discussing it around 7.30 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, February 21 at our regular school board meeting. My role as a board member, I support this budget for our schools because I know how important or how crucial these resources are for our district and I'm happy to get into that more as we talk. But I'm also, I think 23.25 is completely unsustainable and not fair to our taxpayers. So as a board member, I plan to work with our legislators and advocate that our ed funding formula, as it currently stands, is totally unsustainable and not working the way it was intended to work. So that's how, yeah. It did open. And I agree. I mean, when we approved or we warned the $71.2 million budget several, you know, at the start of the year, we were, we did that under the auspices of the funding mechanism that Act 127 provided at the time. And I don't think the legislature really understood the implications. And when they did, they sort of moved the goalposts on us. And I think it's important for the community to understand that at the time, you know, the base budget the administration presented us was about 69 million. And the way that Act 127 worked at the time prior to H850, which I believe they're probably going to pass, is that we had a range of anywhere from 64.5 to almost $71.5 million. And regardless of where we came in, the budget, the tax rate would have remained the same. So, you know, you look at the base and I really supported the base because it had a lot of good things in it, a lot of student-facing positions of staff that were directly working with students. It had monies, you know, contractual obligations, but it had monies for school safety improvements. It had money for a particular literacy program that I really support. So there was a lot of good stuff in the budget. But again, the legislature is sort of moving the goalposts on us at the last moment. And we're left to kind of pick up the pieces. And I agree with Chelsea. I'm not sure if we can go forward with that type of a budget at this point. And, you know, considering now they're moving to more of a linear approach where before, we were almost disincentivized to lower the budget because it didn't gain us anything. As a matter of fact, it cost us. So now we have an opportunity to revisit the budget. And if we can bring it down and reduce the tax rate, I think that's the appropriate thing to do. As far as how to fix the funding formula, that's the, you know, that's the Holy Grail right there, you know. I mean, I believe in equal opportunity in the state. I don't think there's anybody that I know who doesn't support that, but the formula has problems. I believe one of the key components of the formula that has to be addressed is the common level of appraisal. We work very diligently with the administration. And I know the administration works very hard to present us with an equitable budget that we think the community can support. But we don't really know what the tax rate's going to be until the state tells us, here's your common level of appraisal. And that can throw our whole tax rate and the prospects of our budget out the window at the last moment. And we really don't have insight into that until just before we have to approve and warrant a budget. So that definitely is a factor that has to be, that has to be dealt with at the state level. Thank you. For our next question, what is the biggest challenge facing South Burlington schools and how would you use your seat on the school board to address this issue? And Tim, we'll start with you. Sure. Which single issue or which one? You know, there are several and I think these will come up again and again. I believe our facilities are definitely an issue that we have to deal with at some point. There are just a number of reasons why we have to deal with it, right? You know, the funding formula, of course, is a major issue because, as Chelsea mentioned, I think as we progress through the next few years, we're going to see continued budgetary pressures on us. And it's sort of being pushed at the local level to fix it. And we really don't have a lot of levers that we can pull to do that. One, however, one, a couple of issues too, I will mention if I have the time. One that I feel particularly strongly about is I don't want the discussion around or the issues of the facility and of budgets to overshadow the fact that we're just barely out of the pandemic years. And we have students who still need significant support from health and wellness to just reading just the basics. I mean, these students still need a lot of help. There's significant gaps there. And my fear is that as we year to year, we start to move away from the pandemic. We still have this bubble of students that we really need to focus on and support. And that's important to me that we work with the administration to ensure we continue to get metrics on this that we can work with, that we understand and help us be actionable to continue support of these kids. The other issue I will just mention quickly that I really feel strongly about and this is an important one is how we can best have community engagement. This is an ongoing issue, I feel. Schools are sort of the lifeblood of the district, right, of any community. And if you think about who wants to move to a school or who wants to move into your town, the first question they ask is what are the schools like. But it's so hard to get people involved. And I will confess, I've been one who over the years has left the hard work to others and reap the benefits with my children in the school system, which is one of the reasons I'm here. So, you know, I think it would be who of us as a board to find better ways to communicate. And I know we try to do a lot. We're sort of restricted in what we can do as a public body. But that's something that we really need to ensure we're able to engage the community when they're ready to be engaged, not just when there's a budget vote, you know. Thank you. Go ahead. I mean, Tim spoke very well to the issues. I'll just piggyback and say I think facilities are a huge problem or a big issue that we need to work on. The state, the agency of education submitted a report of a state assessment of school facilities and infrastructure in 2022 that sort of looked at the depletion of facilities in every school district in the state. And South Burlington ranked the 11th highest of need out of the whole state. So there's also currently no state mechanism for building funds or for infrastructure. So I think trying to figure out what is our path forward with facilities is one of the pressing issues for South Burlington. And I think that's one of the things that we need to do with that and also just Act 127, you're going to hear it at time. And again, that's one of our biggest jobs as board members right now is advocating for that Ed funding formula to change. Thank you. Yeah. For our next question, how can South Burlington School's best support neurodivergent students? And Chelsea, we'll start out with you. Sure. I'll first say that supporting neurodivergent students is really important. It's an equity issue. It's an opportunity to sort of educate people in a way that I was not educated when I started out for the board. So board members, it's not their responsibility to assess, to implement curriculum or to figure out how well curriculum is working. It is our job to follow the data. So my undergrad is in microbiology. I'm a big data person. As a board member, it's our job to look at the quantitative data, the qualitative data, and ask the questions, is our curriculum supporting our multi-tiered systems of support, which is the education model to support all students for who they are and how they learn and not just force students into a box to learn, you know, like a factory model. So as a board member, just asking questions, being aware, employing our superintendent to make sure that operationally our students are supported and listening if the community is saying our students aren't supported. Thank you. Tim. What she said. And I agree. You know, as a board, you know, we do work under policy governance, so it's not like we can individually impact a lot of change. But one area, and I think you spoke very well and I agree with everything you said, one particular aspect that I would like to make sure we focus on too is ensuring that we get help for neurodivergent students at the youngest age possible, right? I think it's critical that, you know, we, if we have to focus resources someplace, we're doing it, say, at the K through 8 levels. Not that everybody doesn't need help, but sometimes we have to make choices. In the earlier, we can work with students who are neurodivergent. I think the better success we're going to have with them later on and set them up for success through the ensuing years, and that's where it's probably most cost-effective as well. So, you know, there are a couple of aspects to that. It's ensuring, you know, first of all, that the teachers have the resources they need, not just the training, but do they have the right resources in place? Do they have access to the right people, right? Sometimes it may be difficult. You may not, I mean, we ask a lot, we ask a lot of our teachers, and sometimes they may just not know or even recognize that there is an issue. So, you know, it's important that they have access to the resources they need and that we are, you know, continually focusing on those levels to ensure we're really reaching them at that young age and setting them up for success. Thank you. Now, let's shift gears a bit to public safety. So, how can the school district ensure the safety of its students and teachers in our schools and in the community? And Tim will start out with you. Sure. Wow, you know, nothing like asking small questions. You know, I believe, you know, the school district works very hard to adhere to Act 29, which is the law around school safety and such, and I believe that South Barongton does do a very good job with that. I think they have strong communication with our local emergency teams. You know, they diligently do practices, and you know, and we actually had presentations this past year from the principals in each school that walked through what they do, how they do it, and I believe there was even a forum. You know, there were some parents who had brought concerns about safety to the board, and I wasn't on the board at that time, but I was, Chelsea was, and they actually reacted. They responded to that. They did have a forum. I didn't attend it. I hope, I believe it went well. So, it's that kind of communication that's important to maintain as well. Again, we said this already, but facilities are a key issue here. I mean, we're dealing with schools that were built in the early 60s, and they just weren't designed with the kinds of issues that we face today from a safety perspective. So if, you know, we're putting Band-Aids right now on the safety problems we have at the school where, you know, we're trying to fund a new intercom system, right? You know, that's just something that we shouldn't, you know, be worried about at this point. So I think one of the key things we do have to look at is not in addition to facilities because it's the right thing to do, but it's a safety issue as well. Thank you. Yeah, very well said, Tim. I think as a board member, what I can do to help with public safety in our schools is to encourage people to pass the budget. So we have line items in the budget that include facilities upgrades, as you mentioned, like the HVAC system, and also implementing a visitor management software that's, like, appropriate for today's day and age. And then we did just have a safety audit with our local law enforcement, and they made some recommendations about ways that we can improve safety, and that's all included in the budget line item for safety. The other thing that we can do is to make sure that we're from a policy standpoint, giving our staff the support that they need to be preventative in their efforts. So I think a part of Act 29 is a behavioral threat analysis, which is a more preventative measure of assessing school safety and school climate and trying to take a restorative approach to potential public safety risks ahead of time. Thank you. Yeah. For our next question, it's about mental health. So how can South Burlington Schools best support student mental health? And Chelsea, we'll start out with you. Sure. Again, really big question. And what is the role of a board member versus what's the role of our amazing staff? As a board member, I think making sure that we have a dynamite person in the role of the director of diversity, equity, inclusion, anti-racism, and social-emotional learning, which we do, Ms. Monica DeRochers is absolutely phenomenal, and she's an important piece of helping to create all the curriculum as well as supports for our students. And then additionally, making sure we have resources for our mental health counselors and our health teachers, just making sure they have all the resources and are able to help our students with the needs that they have. From a board role, we can also support needs by being aware of the monitoring reports and assessments that we have that they're telling us we need in our district specifically and not just taking, you know, a garden-variety approach. I believe we're also implementing Panorama this year, which is a comprehensive and sort of actionable view of each student. It has survey feedback that includes the lens of staff and family, and it's designed to support social-emotional learning as well. I think it's going to be a really great assessment tool for us to be aware of what our mental health needs are in the district. You have more detail than I have, so... I've been here a little longer. It's not a lot longer, but a little longer. I'll just share really quickly. When I ran the study hall, the support group that I did a couple of years back, I recognize quickly, and I'll share, my degree was in German studies, so ask me how that prepared me to run a study support group, and I'll tell you it probably didn't. But one thing I realized very quickly was when students came into that room, they came in, this is my analogy, with two backpacks, one I could easily see and one that was what I called the invisible backpack, and these were all of the issues they came in with the anxieties, the fears, all of that, and that was really the backpack to focus on. And my one rule of thumb in that room was that everybody had a right to be there, everybody had a right to feel safe, feel welcomed, and feel respected. And what they didn't have a right to do is make somebody else feel unwelcome, unsafe. And I've sort of taken that lesson to heart over the years, and as I sit on the board, and I agree with everything, Chelsea just really laid out the details very well and some of the great things that are happening, but I feel one of the most critical things the South Burlington School District can provide is that safe, caring environment for the students. Not that we're holding their hands and everything, we need to ensure that students in the district know they are supported, they are appreciated, and they're welcomed, and nobody has the right to make them feel unwelcome. You know, that said, access to the right services at the right time. I don't believe that mental health issues and crises happen overnight, and these are the things that we need to be able to get access to on an ongoing basis when the need begins to arise and not just when there's a significant problem. So, thank you. Thank you. So, last year's standardized test results suggested that the proportion of Vermont students proficient in math and English decreased during the pandemic and has not made significant improvements since. So, how do you measure the success of the school district? And Chelsea, we'll start with you. Okay. Again, what's the role of a board member? I'm just gonna keep coming back to that. And to measure success, we need good assessment data or we need good data that we can follow. We need good assessment tools and we need administration and staff that can implement the curriculum that is deemed fit for our students. So, we just need to be able to assess our qualitative and quantitative data and decide what's... Where are we right now? Where do we want to go and what's the best way to get there? And it's just a continual process of evaluating how what we're trying is working. And does that answer your question? Yeah, okay. Over to me. Sure. And it's a great question and it's interesting that we pick math and English, right? Because, you know, I think traditionally, as we look at traditional learning, we say math and English and those are often used as the barometers as we compare ourselves at the state level. We compare ourselves nationally and even to some extent globally, right? Well, my kids are better at math than your kids. Your school's clearly failing. What we need to be aware of is, what do we really want to measure? And I think math and English are definitely important. I think those gaps are going to take a few years to overcome and I certainly, like Chelsea, you know, we all have a certain role on the board, but we have to defer to our professionals who this is their job and we review that data and act on it as we can. But I really believe that, you know, success is more than just how are we doing at math and English and it's careful. We have to be careful about what we choose to point out for success because that's going to drive the behavior and there's the rule of unintended consequences and we want to be very conscientious of that and not drive behavior that actually is detrimental in the long run. For me, I wonder, you know, as we look at our ends for the district, our ends really are very clear. We need to prepare our students for their next step, right? That's really what I think our success measurement should be in the long run. It's important to understand math and English as they progress, but are we really preparing them? I know students are supposed to have a personal learning plan and I've had a daughter who prepared one, went through the district. I have another couple of children in the district. I don't hear a lot about them now, but I'm curious, have we talked with students who exited the system and talked to them about their personal learning plans? Have we prepared them? I mean, they're really, if you think about it, our customer and did we do a good job. What are their thoughts on that? So that's a measurement I'd like to see. I do want to say, you know, it's important to focus on math and English like I've said, but, you know, another measurement of success, and I don't think this gets a lot of play sometimes, is how well we in Vermont are and include everybody. And that's a really hard thing to measure, right? You know, but I think in Vermont there's a lot of inclusion and making sure everybody is, you know, has the opportunities. And I will tell you from a success perspective, that is a great, it's just a wonderful thing to see. And to me, that's an important measurement that we can't lose sight of. Now, on that inclusion, how can the... how can the South... how can the South Burlington School District meet the needs of students and families whose primary language is not English and Tim will start out with you? Yeah, I'm going to confess, this is a really excellent question and I'm going to say that I believe we have mechanisms in place where we have translation services and other supports, but it's one where I'm going to defer to the administration and would support budget requirements or needs if they did come up. But again, I'm not an expert in this and I'm going to have to at this point say, I really don't have a great answer for this question. So Chelsea, I'm going to punt to you and hopefully you're better. Yeah, just a little bit more time on the board. We know our demographic in South Burlington is changing and something that's really exciting is for FY25, this will be the first year that all five of our schools are eligible for Title I funding, which will really help us with interpreters and language supports interventionists, which I think we're calling interventionist something different now, but I'll get there. Also, our current budget has a 1.0 FTE for a multi-lingual FTE full-time equivalent for a multi-lingual coordinator, which I think is the way to support our English language learners and from a board level just trying to help our community understand why our budget's so important. Good answer. Now, what do you understand to be the current level of morale in the district and what is the role of the school board in retaining good teachers and support staff? And Chelsea, we'll go to you for that one. Sure. I don't want to pretend to have a temperature check on our district based off of a few conversations. Board members aren't really, it's not in policy governance, it's not our role to be checking in with teachers and support staff to hear how they're doing. We know that it's not unique to our district that our teachers and staff are, you know, we know behavior, student behavior challenges are up since the pandemic and this change in the ed funding formula, I think is creating reduction enforced roof rumors and so I think probably teachers are stressed about, you know, if this budget doesn't pass, am I going to have a job and that's not good for morale at all. So, I first want to say that I think our teachers and our staff have one of the most important jobs in our society which is helping to educate and in some ways raise our future community members at the board level ensuring our policies are predictable and are working efficiently and effectively I think is a huge step in the right direction as well as making sure our systems are running as expected. I think when things don't go the way that our staff expect them to go that can create some distrust or insecurity or just frustration when they're already under a lot of stress in their jobs. So, making sure that we're doing everything we can to have expectations clear and systems running the way that they're expected is the best way to retain good staff and boost morale. Thanks, Tim. Yeah, this is a really good question. I think we expect so much of teachers and over the last couple of decades it's gotten even more challenging with a lot of the issues that go on. So, this is actually going to be a really important aspect of what we focus on as a board because we're going to run into an issue in the next 5 to 10 years where we don't have applicants. Statistically, nationally what we're seeing is a tremendous decrease in the number of people who are obtaining education degrees and going into the field and it's understandable. This is the one area where we receive a lot of focus from the community, political issues, safety issues and very few people want to get into education at this point. So, this is something that I think as we look at the health and well being of the teaching staff is critical for us to focus on. That said, pay is obviously an important thing. I believe in South Burlington we do compensate well everything can always be better but that's an important aspect of ensuring that we obtain and retain good staff. I also want to make sure that we give teachers the room they need to teach. Again, we ask them to be to some extent mental health experts. We ask them to watch all kinds of things and you're right, the behaviors in the classroom. All of this stuff can lead to a stressful environment and it's important that we ensure that that's as minimal as possible. The final thing I'll say and we've heard this before I'm going to go back to facilities. Right now in South Burlington we're asking our teachers to teach in classrooms that don't have heat that in the springtime and the fall are almost unbearable from a heat perspective. The working conditions in the buildings right now can be challenging and I don't think we have people who are eager to come to the classroom to be in a room that's difficult to be in. This is another aspect when we talk about facilities for providing an environment that teachers can be successful in as well. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in to Town Meetings TV ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budgets and ballot items. 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