 of University Women, AAUW. Tonight we have three of the candidates for the Shaboygan Area School Board. Christopher Domogosky, Mary Lynn Donahue, and Mark Mansell. Our moderator tonight is Mary Jo Mabrierti. Mary Jo has over four decades of experience in not-for-profit management and fundraising, and she was the Chief Development Officer at the John Michael Kohler Art Center at the time of her retirement. She also has many years of community service, including the Board of Directors at the Shaboygan County YMCA and the American Civil Liberty Union of Wisconsin. She is a longtime member of the American Association of University Women, and she has moderated several earlier candidate forums. Please welcome Mary Jo. Thank you, Julie, and thank you all for being here. We're going to start tonight by having each of the candidates make a three-minute statement, and I'll tell you what we want you to answer in that statement. When I tell you we're gonna, this is three minutes each, we are gonna start with Mr. Domogosky, then Ms. Donahue, then Mr. Mansell, and we will alternate alphabetically who goes first in the following questions. In your statement, could you please tell us what are your primary qualifications to be a school board member and what is the one best thing you can contribute to the Shaboygan Area School District? Mr. Domogosky. Chris Domogosky, I grew up in a family with six children and really part of the reason that I'm running for school board has to do with that, so my mother was an elementary school teacher as I grew up, and my father taught at the Technical College for more than 20 years. I followed through with that, and while I was still in Milwaukee, I taught at both Gateway and Fox Valley Technical College and in the Milwaukee Police Academy, so I have some experience teaching myself, but really some foundational impacts, I would say, in that it was impressed on me very strongly that the buildings blocks that we got through education really was our pathway to success, and so I believe that that is very, very important, and I would say that I think it's important to understand that two of my sisters are elementary school teachers at MPS, so I have a lot of experience with that. I've raised five children, four of which three have graduated from Shaboygan Area School District and once currently a senior at North High School. I'm also familiar with the schools from my employment. I've been in law enforcement for the past 30 years. The last 12 plus years I've spent employed as the chief of police for the city of Shaboygan, and so I think from that I have some unique perspectives on some of the issues that we face as a community and how they show up in the schools and some of the success that we can have in taking that on, and from that what I'm gonna say is one of the biggest issues that we have is that the schools are part of a larger system, and if that system is siloed, and the agencies and people that make up that system if they're not talking and sharing information, we don't have the success that we normally do, so I think it's very important that we do that, and I have a lot of experience from working as the chairman of the State Law Enforcement Standards Board and on other nonprofit boards of making sure that we're listening and getting input from everybody that's involved in aligning everybody and moving them in the same direction. I've also spent time as a volunteer coach for CISO, been involved as a mentor through big brothers and big sisters and been in the schools as a lunch buddy, and then lastly for the past 10 years, I've been a member of Fight Crimes Invest in Kids, which is one of five groups that make up a stronger America, and as part of that, I've spent the last two legislative sessions lobbying in Madison for support for early childhood education and quality childcare because I understand that the interventions that we make early in life really do make a difference long-term. Ms. Donahue. Thank you. My name is Mary Lynn Donahue, and I'm running for an open seat on the Sheboygan Area School District's Board of Education. To set the record straight, the contest is between me and Chris Damolgoski. Mark here is unchallenged, what many incumbents wish for, and Mark is a non-city seat, and so the contest that people will be voting on to make a choice is between me and Chris. Well, I grew up here in Sheboygan. I graduated from St. Clement's School and graduated from North High School, and like a lot of children, I couldn't wait to leave, and I left for a while. I went to school for a very long time. I worked hard, I traveled, which was great fun, and then I came back to Sheboygan in 1981, and it was the best move I ever made in my life. I came back as a lawyer, a legal services lawyer, representing low-income people in civil matters, and then I met and married this magnificent man who's in the audience somewhere, Timothy, oh, Timothy, of course he's hiding, Tim Van Akron, and we have two wonderful children, Michael and John Flanagan. We are all graduates of Sheboygan Public Schools. Tim is a graduate of South High, so it was a little hard for me, but we've made a compromise and we're all pretty happy about it. Like Chris, I've been a student and also a teacher at LTC in very interesting law schools in Bulgaria, Lithuania, and Poland teaching short courses. I did not make it to Ukraine, but I have a sense, just a sense of the horrible things that are happening there, as I'm sure we all do. So service to the community has been a key part of my life. The community gave me so much and it was my way of giving back. I was on the school board previously. I served on the Sheboygan Common Council, sitting down there for nine years, and on the police and fire commission. Learning how to work as a government person, as a government official really gives you a sense of how you need to learn to work with people, listen, and weigh competing views and competing values. I've also done an incredible amount of local board service. The Sheboygan County Head Start, the Public Education Foundation, the Arts Center, the Sheboygan Symphony, First Congregational Church, you name it. All of these organizations have made my life so rich and I want to give back. The one best thing about me, I would say, is I am a problem solver. In all the time and all the roles that I've had, I have learned to solve problems and I think that's one of the key strengths I bring to the race. Mr. Mansell. Hi, I'm Mark Mansell. I guess a little bit of my background is I grew up in Central Wisconsin, Rapid Stevens Point. I graduated from Stevens Point's senior high school, went on to college at UW Oshkosh, then got hired here in Sheboygan and had been here for the last 33 years and I essentially have no more ties to Central Wisconsin so I consider myself a Sheboyganite even though it's only been for 33 years. I guess some of my primary qualifications that I've always hung my hat on is that I'm the father of four children, all of which have attended their entire school careers in the Sheboygan area school district. My last one is a sophomore at North currently but then I balance that with having been a property owner during all those years also so I can balance the need for quality education but yet at a responsible price so I think that's a key component of one of my qualifications. I think the second portion was what do I, the primary thing that I bring in? What is the one best thing that you can contribute to the district? Well I guess I would consider, I've been on the school board for 15 years. I guess the primary thing that I would bring would be leadership and experience on the board. I'm currently the clerk on the board. I've served as the vice president on a couple of occasions. I chair the human resources committee currently and I've done that in the past. I'm a vice chair. I've been the vice chair in curriculum and instruction and I've been the vice chair on finance and I've also served on the facilities and recreation committee which are our four committees. So I know how this board operates. I know how the district operates and in the upcoming years we currently have two essentially brand new board members and we were expecting two more members and so we'll have four members out of the nine that will have essentially no more than a year of experience. So leadership and transitioning these new members and to continue to function at the high function that we do. I've always been impressed by the way the school board operates here. It doesn't seem to be like any other government entity. There's differences of opinions but there's always consensus and support between our members and I think that's a key ingredient in keeping the continuity of all of the past members and current members of this board and the way it operates. Thank you. School board candidate Susan Hine had a class tonight and is not able to be with us in person and I have been asked to read this on Susan's behalf. Susan Hine has lived in Sheboygan for most of her life. Susan earned her BA teaching degree from Lakeland College, now university, master's counseling degree from Marquette University and a doctorate in higher education organizational leadership from the University of Southern Florida, Nova. She is currently employed as a clinical therapist at counseling center of Sheboygan. Susan's family and her husband Daniel's family including their children are all Sheboygan area school district graduates. They are very proud of the district in the accomplishments their children have achieved due to the education they have received. Susan also volunteers her time with the Sheboygan service club and diploma dash with the Sheboygan public education foundation. Quote, I serve on the school board to support the district as it continues to engage all children in educational opportunities and preparation for their future. Quote, I am proud to be a member of the school board and of the commitment of my fellow school board members to provide excellent education to the district community. I am especially proud of our students, teachers, administrators and all staff members. I will remind the candidates of their three minute limits on the questions and we'll now proceed. And this is the first of several two part questions and we'll start this one with Ms. Donahue. What are the most important challenges facing the district in its responsibility for the education of our youth and what are your priorities for meeting those challenges? We've just come through a seismic time in our lives in the community and in the nation and in the world because of the pandemic. The pandemic has truly been a world changer. It has turned our world upside down and it's certainly turned the school district upside down. Our students came back in the 2021 school year and our teachers and staff and parents are working very, very hard to bring them back to where they were. I call it the new normal, but the new normal has to be even better than the old normal. Students coming back have spent a long period of time away from a traditional school structure. They have missed their friends. They have missed their community. And as they come back into the school district, we have special challenges to help them regain their academic skills and to meet the fairly significant mental health needs that students have. So I think those are extremely significant challenges but make no mistake, public education has always been challenging. There's, it is the foundation of our democracy and yet it brings in everyone and has many, many different masters to answer to. So within that realm of complexity and difficulty, I think priorities need to be one, bringing our kids back to the standards, academic levels that they had been previously. The district's report card indicates that there has been some slippage. Number two, I would say that we need to address the needs of all of our students. Remarkably, for someone like me who grew up in Sheboygan, 52% of our students are students of color. We are a majority minority school district, or should I say that the other way around, but that is another huge change and we have a loving and inclusive responsibility to all of those kids. And so we need to work really, really hard to ensure we have enough teachers, enough time, enough parental involvement, enough mental health resources, counselors, programs to really bring us back together into a cohesive and highly functioning school district, which I think we are even now, but there's, we can only go up. Mr. Mansell. Could you please repeat the question? Yes. What are the most important challenges facing the district in its responsibility for the education of our youth and what are your priorities for meeting these challenges? Well, we've got several priorities. Mary Beth hit on the primary one and that is getting student achievement back up to the levels they were before and trying to continue to improve upon that. But as far as issues that are gonna be going on, there's proposals to sell the property on the east side of Taylor Drive currently and to be able to determine if we move forward with that and how that progresses, unlike previous property sale, we certainly would like to see this be, go a little bit smoother than that. We're on the brink of needing new middle schools and that's gonna be a significant amount of money. Currently, there's a committee, a citizen committee looking into the options and we're waiting for that to finish that process to determine how we move forward on replacing urban and replacing Farnsworth Middle Schools. There's no announcement made, but I would expect that the superintendent is gonna retire in the next few years and the most important job that the school board can do is hiring a superintendent. So those are significant things. Some of the other things that we're facing is just a lack of teachers and people going into the teaching profession. So being able to attract and retain teachers, quality teachers to provide the quality education to our kids is a significant challenge right now. We're also losing students, just the demographics, there's fewer kids. So fewer kids means we're getting less money in state aides, so we gotta try to make ends meet that way. We also are facing a challenge with the vouchers going to private schools, which was about, I believe, $4.3 million this year, which we then were allowed to tax to make that money up, but that's additional property taxes on everyone. I would say that the way the board operates and that I would see it is that we need to provide the resources and the support in the direction to the administration and to the teachers and the staff to be able to provide this education so that they know they're supported by their board and the community that we're just kind of the go-between between the community and the administration in order to make all these things happen. Thank you. Mr. Dalmugoski. So I think the other candidates did a really good job of laying out the issues ahead of us. I think the biggest challenges are just what they said. It's dealing with the pandemic and the impacts that has already had on our kids and on our community. And that shows up not only in the achievement level as been mentioned, but also in their social and emotional well-being. And so the school or the school district really has a bigger challenge other than just educating them. It's really making sure that they're well from a holistic point of view. And so as it's been mentioned, having the services in place and delivering the training to the right people and making sure, like I said before, that all the other system partners are engaged and aligned so that we're using the best of all the resources in the community, I think is extremely important. And so that means having an expert in place and having a CAT team at Health and Human Services that works with the school district. It means making sure that the programs that we have set up so when the police go to a house and see trauma going on that they can deliver a message to the school district so that the teachers know that some kid might be off the next day because of what happened in his or her life the evening before. So all of those things kind of go together. I think one of the big priorities needs to be not just getting caught up in today, as Mark kind of mentioned, it's being future-looking too so that we have the resources, both the physical resources, like buildings and things like that, but also the people resources. So teachers and counselors and treatment staff and also quality leadership in the school district. And then I think the enrollment issue, again, is a big issue. Both the issue that shrinking enrollments but also the issue that Mark mentioned about vouchers and the impact that can happen. So I think staying focused on really the great things that the school district offers and some of the work that passports have really done to do things like keep charter schools as part of the district so that there's options and pathways for every kid really is really, really important. And then I think as we're dealing with trauma and some of those kids that really have some difficult issues in their life, it's making sure that they stay engaged and in school and that might look different for different kids. So it might be going to different schools. It might be online, but whatever we can do to keep them and those families engaged. Thank you. We'll start the next question with Mr. Mansell. Would you support additional teaching assistance in classrooms with multiple special needs students? In addition, teaching assistants are currently paid $15 per hour. Would you support raising their pay to $18 or $20 per hour? Well, fortunately, I don't have to ask you to repeat the question. Okay. I don't know that I have enough information based on the question to really be able to address the answer. Am I willing to provide additional teaching assistants to a classroom for special needs kids? Absolutely yes, if they're needed there then we should have additional teaching assistants. But without knowing the need per se, it's hard to jump on board just saying that more people in that classroom is going to be beneficial or more beneficial. And the same with the increases, we just raised that pay to $15. I've always been an advocate for our support staff to have higher increases or higher percentage increases than our administrative staff or our teachers because of the inequity between what they receive, you know, a 2% increase on a $12 an hour job compared to a $80,000 high maxed out teacher are two different things. So in the other, I would have to say on first blush I would be supportive of increasing that more but I would need to balance that against the financial impact and our ability to pay. And we're, you know, if that would mean we'd have to cut something else, I'd need to have that full picture of that in order to, you know, approve something like that. But I'm obviously supportive of it. One of the challenges that we face right now are the increased private sector wages. So $15 an hour at the school district may not be enough to really make the ends meet for somebody else that could walk out the door and work private sector at $20 an hour. So we're in a competitive world. So we try to make the working environment and the reason why they're working for the school district, hopefully a little bit more palatable that if they're not making quite as much as in the private sector that they still would prefer to be working in the district because it's not always all about the money. Mr. Dalmugoski? So I would support the concept but I would agree with what Mark said and part of that is really looking at the whole staffing plan for the district and determining priorities and needs and determining where that fits in. So it could, you know, that what it could come down to based on the budget is are we adding teaching assistance or are we adding music teachers or are we adding school counselors? And so I think really without looking at the whole big picture and seeing where the greatest needs are and then prioritizing that and working from there, it's really kind of hard to answer the question but I think the general concept is yeah, we wanna make sure that all the kids have the resources that they need to be successful. Thank you. Ms. Donahue? 18.3% of our students in the Sheboygan area school district are students with disabilities. It's about one in five students. State funding for students with disabilities has been, let me be frank, a disgrace. We are wildly underfunded for services for our disabled students and it's a crying shame. It really is. I wholeheartedly support looking for additional teaching assistance. They are a vital part of a classroom. I've been in classrooms, I've watched them and they're not only good for the child who is disabled but also for all of the students in the classroom. Now we started talking years ago about what a living wage was and it was $15 an hour. That's not even close now, that's not even close. So we need to support adequate and decent wages not only for our teaching assistance but for everyone in the school district. Now, how does that happen? How can we take care of that? Well, I suggest that we take it to our state representatives. School funding is still not back at the level it was in 2010 when there was a drastic and dramatic cut to public school funding. More funding was provided this year but that funding went to taxpayers, nothing wrong with that but there was zero increase per student in the Sheboygan area school district. No more money. There's something dramatic and there may be questions about the school funding formula so I won't get on my high horse to too high a degree but the school funding formula is broken and it needs to be taken a look at. Now the ESSER money, the elementary and secondary school emergency relief money and we're in our second phase as I understand it has been really critical. We've been able to hire 11 new teachers. We have four new school counselors. The problem is that that is, and I'm as Mark and Chris would say this is not sustainable because that money will be gone in 2024. So we really do need to be putting our thinking hats on but we have to attach our tongues to our brains and start talking to our legislators about the fact that they're, my prejudice here, there's truly nothing more important than the education of all of our students. We just need to be on it. So $20 an hour, absolutely. More teaching assistance in the district, absolutely. It's going to be one of the things that I am going to work on so hard once, if in fact I am elected. Thank you. We're going to start the next question with Mr. John Logoski. The district is currently considering proposals for the purchase and development of the 26 acre vacant property across from the Field of Dreams Sports Complex on Taylor Drive. How would you like to see that land developed? I would like to see it developed in the best interest of everybody and so I think there's lots of different stakeholders that are involved and really I can't give you an answer on that until I hear really what all of the stakeholders have to say and what the different viewpoints are and then really weigh that and so there's benefits for how that land could be developed that would benefit the school district. There's the city that could benefit in many ways based on the different developments that go up there. There's neighbors that live either across the street or some of them that live essentially on the same parcel directly there and so I think there's lots and lots of different stakeholders that it's important to hear from and then part of it really is the development agreement as far as what it brings to the tax base. So how does it impact just our everyday residents? How much money does it bring into the school district? How much does it bring into city taxpayers? So I think there's really a lot of different issues to look at. The city has many different needs it has housing needs and additional healthcare needs and so I think all of those have strengths to the proposals but really until as a school board member until I heard from all of the different constituencies and stakeholders I wouldn't be able to give you an answer about what the best use is. Ms. Donahue. I did attend a school board meeting where proposals, two proposals were discussed for the parcel of land. There was a proposal for some senior living. It did not seem particularly well developed or well thought through and then there was a very interesting proposal from Freydert Hospital or the Freydert Medical Complex to develop a clinic and small non-surgical hospital on site. The Freydert proposal was extremely well developed, very thoughtful would bring a pretty penny, I would say to the school district in terms of the sale price. Taxation for hospitals and clinics is kind of complex, some are taxable, some aren't but I believe that it is a really, it's the highest and best use for that property. Now, as Chris said, there are some issues because it borders right along, believe it or not, all of those wonderful houses that our students built. I think it's North 27th Street, I may have this. But when I was on the school board long ago, students built these wonderful houses up and down the street that's adjoining. How we treat those neighbors I think is very important. How they feel about the development of the proposal I think is very important. I do think it's time that that piece be developed. We all learned a lot from the controversy that arose across the street, both the city and the school district. And I'm pretty confident that the school district is moving forward in a real thoughtful way on it. I don't know what the decision is. From my perspective, listening to those two proposals, I clearly think the freighter proposal is the most sensible, just based on what I was listening to, not a deep knowledge. Mr. Mansell. Well, the update is, and I guess what I'm gonna be in support of is, is we took action last night to direct the administration of the school district to enter into contract or offer to purchase negotiations with freighter to move forward on the proposal that they had offered. This is still the infancy stages. There's a zillion hoops to jump through in regards to getting community input. The city is gonna need to get involved to do zoning changes and stuff like that. So this is far, far, far from a done deal. But on behalf of the school district, I believe the purchase price was $3 million. So that's a significant amount of income for that property and way above what the other two offers. We had put out a request for offer to purchase the property or develop the property. I can't remember the terminology, but we'd received three proposals, two of which were invited to present. The third one wasn't invited to present. So right now that's where the board has moved forward to pursue that. I believe the estimated property tax income would be about three quarters of a million dollars a year. And that's even with the reduced rate because of the hospital beds. Because it's gonna primarily be a medical facility and then adjacent to that portions of senior housing, including a memory care unit, which is drastically needed for this community. And I'm sure it'll still be filled the capacity and there'll still be need after that. But I guess that's where the direction the board gave last night after our closed session. And I'm anxious to see how that moves forward. Something needs to be done with that property because there are wetlands on there that continue to expand. And if nothing gets developed on there, might be a point where it can't be developed at all. And it wouldn't be much of an asset to the district or to the community at that point of just having a swamp land over there, I guess. Thank you. Next question and we'll start with Ms. Donahue. What kind of training should teachers, staff, and administration receive to ensure that all students are treated equally and that all interactions are appropriate for all students? Sometimes we think that if we treat people equally, we are treating people with equality. It's a really tough concept. I'm trying to choose my words carefully because it is such a complex question. So I'm just delighted to be the first to answer it. We need to ground our training and our orientation in the perspective that 52% of our kids are not white. There needs to be a full understanding of the diversity of the school district and the diversity of our community and the diversity of the world and how that impacts how children learn. Teachers need to have appropriate and powerful education to understand how complex and how difficult it can be to just an example, a friend of mine was a librarian at Sheridan School many years ago. A lot of Hispanic kids there and she was talking to them about how they were gonna decorate their mantles for Christmas and this child looked up at her and said, what's a mantle? Because we don't have mantles. So to understand that culturally children are different, they come from different backgrounds, they may learn it while all children learn differently, is tough. I know that the school district is investing in that kind of training for its staff and the education needs to spread out even beyond that. It needs to spread to parents and to the community to understand that we are a diverse and so enriched by that diversity community. So I would say the training needs to be thorough. It needs, I'm not aware what is happening now. I will learn, but it needs to continue or it needs to be started because that is the name of the game in this community and it's, to me, it's good news but we need to work in that direction. Mr. Mansell. Please repeat the question for me. What kind of training should teachers, staff and administration receive to ensure that all students are treated equally and that all interactions are appropriate for all students? Well, I guess I don't really, I guess I'm gonna just come out and say, I think that's a very loaded question. You're making a lot of assumptions there that people aren't being treated equally or fairly. Obviously, I think that any kind of training to make all of us better people and how to treat everybody appropriately is appropriate training. And the other half of that is, you didn't provide any options as far as what training is even available out there. So I can't make a choice of what training I would support without knowing what the options are and that would have to be something that I would need to get more information from. But I don't think we should all, I mean, and obviously all of us are different and all of us have different expectations between whether it's the staff or the children. And sometimes you have to treat people differently but still be cognizant of the differences and being appropriate and fair. I get that, but I just don't know. I think we're making some assumptions there that may not always be there. And I just don't know that that's fair to say that it's not happening because we, you know, I guess they'll just leave it at that. Mr. Domagoski. So I think that it's not an easy question to answer because of the, even the diversity of our teachers. And when I say diversity, I'm not just talking about race or ethnicity, but we're talking age experience and all these other things. So some new teachers that have just come out of college probably had some different curriculum that some more experienced teachers might not have had. And so they might need some classes that way. I think there's also a teacher that's been in the district for a long time might be much more aware of the resources available for both within the school district and within the community. And so I think there needs to be some base level and then on an individualized basis, some of that training plan would have to go from there. And it would include things like training on a base training, base level training on trauma so that they recognize what's going on with some of the kids who have been through traumatic experiences, the ability to identify that and refer to other resources within the district. I think obviously some type of cultural awareness or cultural competency or whatever it might be called depending on where you are and what's available, but the district could definitely identify good training that way. And it's probably things that should be ongoing because the community is always changing. And so we need to keep up with that. But I think really there's a number of different things that teachers need to be aware of just like anybody in the community does. And then depending on some of our jobs, there's different things. But I'm gonna go with that. So I think there's a variety of things but part of it is recognizing trauma and culture and how we can impact that and be positive with those things. Thank you. For the next question we're gonna start with Mr. Mansell. A recent accountability report which is required annually by the DPI and currently available on the district website showed most K-12 schools exceed or meet expectations. Two significantly exceed and one meets few expectations. How can the district help students close the learning gaps and how should the district monitor the learning progress of students in schools that do not meet expectations? Well, we're always monitoring that. I think there's significant plans in place right now by our curriculum instruction department for making those improvements and implementing those improvements. There's a lot of collaboration between the successful schools and the ones that need improvement more. And obviously it's through testing and just that I'm drawn a blank on evaluating the children to know where they're at and being able to have a team effort to identify those weaknesses and how to improve them like through reading interventionists or reading specialists. And there's a lot of development going on right now with in our curriculum and instruction area to identify best practices that are helping those kids the most. And there's a difference between teaching the higher end kids versus the kids that are needing to get caught up. So there's a variety of factors that go into that but I can assure you that the curriculum and instruction department is feverishly working on all that. I mean, we get reports out on that all the time and it's happening. Mr. Dalmugoski? So I think it's really paying attention to it is the number one thing. And so some of that is already going on. You can see that in the reports at the school board meetings. It's making sure that we're developing the resources for those that are lagging behind specific things such as Mark talked about, about reading interventionists but it's also after school programming, summer school programming. It's understanding that kids are individuals which I think most of our teachers understand very well and they have different learning styles. So it's adapting some of the teaching to those individual learning styles and making sure that the resources are there and available. And I think it's making sure that kids aren't left behind so that those kids are struggling. We're making the early interventions before they get too far behind. And then we deal with all the other emotional and psychological problems that come in that hold kids back because they don't have confidence and their self-esteem is down and we have to deal with all those. So I think it's making sure that we have the resources and programs available, making sure that we are engaged with the families so that the parents are engaged and sometimes I understand that that can be very difficult but it's really taking those extra steps to make sure that we are keeping them engaged and involved so that the kids are getting the support that they need. Thank you. Ms. Donahue. So when we talk about accountability and accountability reports, it's often characterized as the districts or schools report cards. And I would offer to all of you the interest of looking at those statistical reports that are on the DPI side as well as on our own school district site. The school district does okay. About 63% of our students meet expectations but we need to put it in the framework of accountability tests and testing. It's been said that you can predict what a child's test score is going to be in a direct relationship with the number of square feet in the student's house. In other words, poor kids have a harder time scoring high on standardized testing than children whose parents do better. Those tests are very important but they are only a piece of the picture. And so I, from what I have been able to read and to observe and to question, our school district is hyper-focused on making sure not only that the kids do well on tests but that they're actually learning all of the things that they need to learn to be good citizens in the world. There have been times when the emphasis on testing has been, I would say almost destructive to learning because the intent of teachers and the fear of students all relates to standardized testing. Important, I am not in any way suggesting that we shouldn't do them but we need to understand the whole student, what the student is involved in. As Chris is saying, where does the student come from? What resources does the student have at home? What can we do within the context of the school district to involve kids? Just go to the SASD website. It is a wonderland of programming and interests and ways that we challenge and involve our kids and the community and our parents. So I think the district, as Mark said, is laser focused on making sure that we meet expectations but my expectations are a whole lot broader than just what you find on a standardized test and I think that is the case for the district as well and I think that's the direction we need to go. Thank you. Our next question and we will start with Mr. Domulgoski. What are your views on school vouchers and the proposed expansion of the voucher program being discussed by Wisconsin legislators and how do you understand the effects of this proposed legislation on future support for public education and on taxpayers across the state? So I would tell you that it's complicated so that I support parents having a choice and the ability to decide what's best for their kids and so I would say from that point I'm not against vouchers for private schools. The problem that I have with vouchers is that often if we don't do a good job in the school district we lose the best kids and that's a bad way to say it. Those with the least challenges to private schools and so I believe that the district has done a very good job compared to other districts about keeping some of those options in the school and that's really the strength of the district as I've said before is that there are options and pathways for everyone and so as long as we focus on that I believe that we can keep enrollment up and keep people engaged in the district and the kids in the district which will bring those public dollars to us. I can just tell you from my own experience, growing up I went to Catholic schools. My kids started out in private schools but ended up going to public schools in the Milwaukee area and when we moved here, somebody from the community that I think very highly of even called me up before we moved and said let me tell you about all the private schools and what your options are up here because that person knew my background of growing up and the fact that I had gone to Catholic schools and I said well one of the things that really attracts is the shabuigan is the strength of the school district and so that's where we're planning on sending our kids and as I've said we're very pleased with the education that all of our kids have had and so I'm not necessarily against vouchers, I support parents having choices and I believe that it's our responsibility as members of the school board to give parents those choices within the district and so that's what I would work on doing. Thank you, Ms. Donahue. So the school voucher program started in Milwaukee, expanded to Racine. It is now a statewide program. It currently has income limits in other words not all parents are eligible for vouchers. The proposal before the legislature now is to make all parents eligible for vouchers no matter what their income level. The problem with school vouchers is and we need to understand that as Mark said, in the last school year within the Shabuigan area school district and I believe there are five or six private schools that enroll voucher students, $4.3 million was paid in school vouchers. What we need to understand is that came right off the top of the Shabuigan area school district's budget. It was not a separate expenditure made by the state. So what was given to voucher parents was taken away from public school parents. I agree with Chris that parents should have a choice. I grew up in a public, in a private school, which is St. Clements, which is why I can write pretty well and Sister Natalia, my eighth grade nun, who just died at 91, but was a friend of mine through life. It was a wonderful education in some respects and other respects, there's a reason I don't do math. I fully respect and my parents sent us to St. Clements. It costs $25 a year by the way. So that really, it was before the dinosaurs, but not that far before. School vouchers, if we're going to do it, if we're going to give parents money to send their kids to a private, almost always but not always, religious school, it needs to be a separate expenditure that is separately voted on by the legislature. So that in Shabuigan, for example, 44% of the students who are in private schools are receiving school vouchers. If that limit is lifted, I don't know how much more money will be taken away from our school district, we can't afford it. We truly can't. So again, I think we need to speak to our legislators and say, if you want to support private schools, that's fine, give parents that choice, but it needs to be a separate expenditure. Mr. Mansell. Yeah, still sorting my thoughts out here and I may end up surprising some people that actually know me fairly well. I'm not a big fan of vouchers. I just think inherently there's a problem. I obviously support parents options and choice to go to a private school, but I just, I have a real difficult time taking public funds and shooting them to a private sector school. If I don't like the Sheboygan Police Department, I want to hire Joe's Police Service. I want my $5,000 worth of my property taxes to go hire that. That doesn't happen. This seems to be the only public service provided that people can get their money out and go and take it to a private organization. The other thing that it hasn't come up yet, but what about the private school that ends up being extremely controversial for whatever reason it might be? And now you're going to be taking public funds and putting it into ideology that might go against everybody's belief system. I just have never really been on board with it. Like I said, if the state wants to come up with a different way of funding it that doesn't impact the funding for the public schools, let them create their new monster that way, but it shouldn't be at the expense of funding the public schools. Next question, we'll start with Ms. Donahue. How can the district adapt curricula to reflect the changing needs of the workplace? I think that may be one of your only one-part questions. And I really appreciate it. The school district is doing some really remarkable programming. I remember as parents, we all want to send our kids to college. College is very expensive. Sometimes it leads to a great career path. Sometimes it leads to debt. We need trained and skilled workers who don't necessarily pursue a traditional college route. So what do we do in the school district? The Red Raiders program at both north and south is astonishing. The cooperation and the involvement of private businesses in our community to fund and to equip, really, laboratories with educational equipment, equipment that kids can use on the job is amazing. The other program, which I think is amazing for information technology, it's called College Here and Now. So children, students in high school at both north and south can take classes in technology at the high school that count towards an LTC associates degree. And then when they graduate from college, they can go to Lakeland and complete a bachelor's degree in another two years in information technology. I mean, the innovation that you see not only in these two programs, but really just across the district, I think is really impressive. So we need to continue to do that and look at different ways of how do we connect what our society's needs are with our students' abilities and inclinations? We need students to be good citizens, but we need them to be able to make things and repair things and think about things and make this a better world. So I think the school district is on it and I applaud those efforts. Mr. Mansell. I was gonna say it's already happening. It's referred to commonly as college and career ready and we've even developed our own report card which is much more accurate and useful than what the state accountability is and the state is actually moving towards that because what we're needed to do, we need to have these kids that are planning on going to college prepared to go to college and be successful in that. So I think there was years ago, there was too much of a push for just everybody should be going to college and now we've finally recognized that we need to develop a workforce, more of a blue collar force and we have partnerships with Lakeshore Technical College along with Lakeland University for various programs and developing careers. We've got certification programs through LTC. We've got kids graduating that are certified welders. We've got CNAs. I wish I had the whole list in front of me but it's impressive and it's on the website. I'm sure we could find it but it is very impressive and I would think in I guess kind of jumping back to that accountability score, not all of our kids are going to college and we can't expect them to be scoring in the 20s on the SATs or the ACTs and exceeding expectations in reading and math. I mean, it would be great but we need them to be able to graduate and function and I guess one of the new things that we're teaching the kids is personal finance now too which I think is an important factor not only so that they're prepared once they walk out the door and one of the things that going back that we need to be proud of for this district in how we are able to continue to improve educating our students is our absentee rate is below the state average which is good because the kids aren't going to learn if they're not in school. So that's one bonus and then the second one is how do we grade ourselves as a district and that is our graduation rate and our ability to have these graduates prepared for their next step whether it be college or career or military. Thank you. Mr. Dalmugoski? Yeah, I think they all hit it right on the head and it's really important that the school district continues to do the things that it's already doing and staying connected with our businesses, with our chamber, with our non-profits and offering the things that they do both the different pathways. So the pathway programs that we talked about with LTC and Lakeland, the Red Raider program, the mentoring that goes on, the opportunities to job shadow, one of the real, when I look at my kids or even when I look at myself, the kids that are really successful and it is different for everybody but those that can really figure out something, the earlier they can figure out what they think they wanna do and have that goal really keeps them focused and gets them so that they are prepared and follow the right path. To have a career and I get it, it doesn't work that way for everybody. Some of us take this circular path where we think we wanna be an accountant and we go to school for a couple of years and figure out, yeah, no, that's not it. Then we take a left turn and try something else until we really figure out what that is. For my youngest son, he was tired from school and needed a break and so he did what Mark said and went into the military and he's in the Marine Corps and now has some job skills and some ideas what he wants to do so he's gonna be moving forward that way and so that break was really helpful but I think it's having all of those connections so that we are able to equip and give the opportunity for kids to do things like shadow and mentor and have the tools and the programs available so that they're prepared for the workforce when it gets to be that time. And even the entrepreneurship is such a big thing so having the opportunities like they do in Sheboygan with Jake's and the connection now with Lakeland and some of those things, it's really just amazing and so I think we just need to stay connected and not forget that. Thank you. We do have another forum following this one so in the interest of time, this is gonna be the last question of the evening for you school board candidates and we are gonna start with Mr. Mansel. What would be your key proposals that you would suggest for overall improvement of the Sheboygan area school district? I don't know that I have anything to propose. It's always been our priority to continue to improve and if you take a look at our five-year plan and our quarterly updates on that, every June we have a June planning session where we come up with the goals and identify what we wanna accomplish during this year in the district and it's broken down into a variety of things. So it's already happening. I guess there's nothing new that I can propose to say that we can make it better. Mr. Dalmugoski. So my key proposal would be that based on the impacts of the pandemic and just the way that society's gone, we've lost some community and we really have such an amazing community here with so many great resources in that that we really double down and try to build on that community again and create more engagement with parents in the schools. I think that's so important and I don't think that we have the strong PTAs and things that we've had in the past and so that building community and the key is the schools are really one of the key assets in our neighborhoods. So taking advantage of that and using our school district really to the greatest advantage that it can be to the community. Our schools are really a social, economic and cultural driver of this community and so investing more in the community and that connection with the community would be my primary proposal. Thank you, Ms. Donahue. So number one, we need to continue to advocate for more funding for public schools. We need to continue to build a relationship with the folks in Madison and as Chris said, they need to understand in more significant ways than they appear to at this time that a strong public education system is what powers the state forward and of course that extends into the university system. I believe Mark spoke earlier, I think it was Mark, about the schools that will need to be replaced. We needed to be thinking thoughtfully about how we maintain our infrastructure, how we fund it. The school district from a borrowing perspective is in pretty good shape, but borrowing costs are borrowing costs and how do we do that? And do we take it to our community to say we need new middle schools, we need to be thinking through where we're gonna be educating our kids. Right now, my understanding from, just from attending school board meetings is that the ESSER funding, the federal funding that has come because of the pandemic is really and truly a lifesaver for the school district in all sorts of ways, but primarily one of the larger uses is for recruiting teachers and teaching staff and how do we maintain those teachers? Teaching used to be a truly rewarding profession, it is still a truly rewarding profession but I believe it has a whole lot of challenges that for example, we're in present when my kids were at grad school or at urban. How do we, what is the pipeline that we build to make sure that we have highly qualified, wonderful teachers for our kids as well as teaching assistants who need to make $20 an hour and staff? Working on mental health, the school district through its pace program has connected with Lakeshore Community Health Center and other providers to actually provide mental health workers for our students. There's a, and talking to the staff there, there's a huge waiting list for these counselors for us because our kids need help, need mental health and so I think that we need to continue to work on that pipeline as well and to fashion a vision of what our really good school system would look like with healthy, mentally and physically healthy students who are taught by well paid, engaged and dedicated staff. We're there in many ways but I think we've got a whole lot of work to do. Thank you all very much for being here tonight. We are going to get reorganized and the forum for the County Board Supervisors candidates is going to follow, I believe, starting at 7.30. Thank you.