 Hi, I'm Peter Demling and I'm running for re-election to school committee honored to have served for the past two and a half years. There's more to what I value than I can cover in a few minutes here, so please do see my website at demling4sc.org. So in my 11 years living in Amherst and sending three kids to our public schools, I've seen that the real strength of our schools is the people. The many devoted, creative, and kind teachers and staff working hard to meet the needs of our students every day. I believe the role of school committee and the public, therefore, is to support their work. So I'll talk about three ways we can do this, fully fund our public schools, fix charter school funding, and compromise on a solution to Fort River and Wildwood. So first school funding. Our state chronically under-funds almost all public schools and there's a great bill in process right now to fix part of this, but even if passed, we'll still receive less than what we're owed and far less than what it takes to meet the needs of all students. Fortunately, we enjoy strong support from our town every year, but it's wrong for the state to abdicate its responsibility and shift the burden to local taxpayers in this way. School committee should therefore take a lead role in advocating for the state to pay its fair share. For example, earlier this year, I proactively provided data and analysis to our state representatives that helped defeat the governor's proposal to cut reimbursement of charter school tuition increases. I also chaired the Amherst Pellum Regional School District Planning Board for more than a year, more than 50 meetings, public forums, letters to state boards, leaving no stone unturned in efforts to be as efficient as possible with our funding. I'm very grateful that our residents value investing in schools that meet the needs of all students and so I will continue to work to ensure our spending is efficient and our state funding is as robust as possible, which brings me to charter schools. It's not okay to educate some kids at the expense of all others. That's the core issue with charter school funding today and it's why Senator Cumberford calls it the brutality of a zero-sum game. And brutal it is. For example, if an Amherst student goes to Hadley Public Schools, it costs a flat fee of 5,000 a year. That's the state's school choice program. But if that same student goes to a charter school, it costs our district four times that. All told, 3.4 million lost last year at Amherst and Region. Our committee has successfully opposed local charter school expansions three years in a row. I stand with our school committee, Amherst Town Meeting, the MTA, the NAACP, and many others. Charter schools cannot be allowed to expand until the funding laws are fixed. So finally, Fort River and Wildwood. I believe our town understands the clear and urgent need to replace both buildings as soon as possible. The question is how do we accomplish this? And more importantly, what constraints are we operating under that frame what's possible? First, we have to minimize cost. Whatever the solution, the day will come when we ask all residents, most of whom don't have kids in schools, and many of whom lived on fixed incomes, to vote to raise their taxes. And we all know about the other capital needs. We therefore have to go through the MSBA, the state grant program, to help pay for this. Second constraint, we can't leave Fort River or Wildwood behind. Today, we sent two-thirds of our elementary kids to school in substandard buildings. That's completely unacceptable. Both buildings are long overdue for replacement. We can't let the situation go on indefinitely. The superintendent proposes to be done within six years, and I wholeheartedly endorse that as a requirement. A commitment to not making either Fort River or Wildwood wait indefinitely, therefore means one MSBA project, and one MSBA project means one building to replace both, which brings us to the final and most important constraint. We need to compromise. However you felt about the last building project, about half of the town disagreed with you, and with me. That should give us all a dose of humility, and a recognition that if failure is not an option on the next project, we're going to have to compromise to get this done for our kids. In rejecting our application last year, the MSBA asked us to demonstrate consensus to improve our chances of acceptance this year. The superintendent then proposed a compromise, supported unanimously by both school committee and town council, and strongly supported in public forums. One MSBA project, one building, 600 students, K5 or K6, and community surveys prior to binding decisions. I believe the divisions of the past on this issue are behind us, and I'm confident that our community is ready to see this done. Thank you for listening, and I'd appreciate your vote on November 5th.