 Hi, I'm Allison McDonald, and I'm running for Amherst School Committee. I moved to this area with my family 15 years ago, and we chose Amherst for its vibrant community and its reputation for great public schools. Our two sons have both attended Fort River School, and our older son is now in the middle school. The diversity of students and the quality of the teachers and staff have made their learning experiences truly special, yet the teachers and staff's ability to overcome the poor physical environment is not sustainable, and the challenges faced affect not just Fort River or Wildwood families, but our entire town. When families choose other schools, through choice, charter, or private education, or pick homes in other towns, the fabric of our community is frayed. I've spent my 20-plus year career in marketing and communications working hard to understand the needs and desires of diverse groups, and leveraging that insight into creative, financially sound solutions for stakeholders. With your support, I will apply these skills in helping our school committee address the key challenges facing our town and schools. Here are the three key challenges that I see that we need to address urgently. One, the crumbling infrastructure of our elementary schools. Two, our changing enrollment demographics and overall decline. And three, building broad community engagement and outreach, which in many ways is foundational to addressing the other two challenges. Last year, we turned away $34 million in funding from the state that would have helped us address our deteriorated and outdated school buildings. We were divided on the specifics of the plan, but we were united in our ultimate goal, to provide high-quality learning environments and to support the educational achievement about children in our community. But our schools are still crumbling around our kids today. Just this month, the heavy rain not only brought the usual buckets and trash cans to collect dripping water inside the schools, but collapsing ceiling tiles in a closed library disrupted learning for many students. This is not the top quality education experience any of us want for our kids, and it needs to be addressed urgently. It also impacts the decisions of families on where to live and send their children to school. This in turn contributes to the second priority, which is a decline in enrollment as well as changing demographics in our student population. From July to December, I served on the district's enrollment working group so I could better understand these challenges in our elementary schools and to help the school committee and administration develop options for addressing these challenges. There are multiple facets to the shifts that we're seeing, including the growth in English language learners, growth in the student population from economically disadvantaged families, as well as an overall decline in our enrollment. The enrollment working group developed several creative proposals, including one proposal for dual language education that is generating a lot of enthusiasm in our community, and that together can help address the issues. We as a school committee will need to explore and develop plans to act on the strongest ideas quickly. But neither of these challenges, infrastructure, or changing enrollment can be successfully addressed in our community without the third priority of building broad community outreach and engagement in developing the solutions. This is where my skills and experience will be especially helpful as a member of the school committee. Through my career in communications and marketing, now at the Hadley based non-profit Venturewell, I've developed the listening, goal setting, and solution finding skills that will help ensure that all voices are heard, all concerns, hopes, and ideas are brought to the table when crafting solutions. We all want our schools to continue to provide a great educational experience for all kids in our community. With your support, I will work hard to ensure that happens through solutions that leverage the voices of everyone in our community and that we can all get behind. Thank you.