 Hello and welcome to Town Meeting TV's ongoing election coverage. This program is part of a series of forums we're bringing you in advance of Election Day on April 9th. Town Meeting TV hosts forums with all candidates, introducing you to community decision makers and connecting you with issues that shape your local community. You can find all of our forums on Town Meeting TV's YouTube channel where auto-generated captions are available. On tonight's program we'll hear from Gretchen Bates, the uncontested candidate running for a seat on the Essex-Westford School Board representing the town of Essex. Thank you for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. And so we've prepared a list of questions and you'll have about 90 seconds, like I mentioned, we'll try to stick to that as much as possible so that we can get through as many as possible but if you're tuning in live tonight we welcome your questions. You can call us at 802-862-3966 and if you call in we'll do our best to prioritize your question and we will start tonight with a opening statement. So Gretchen, if you could please tell us why you're running and how you're qualified to serve on the Essex-Westford School Board and also what will be different for the school district if you're elected. Terrific, thank you. I'm running because I believe in advocacy. I grew up in Vermont. I am a nurse and I think I got my start kind of in advocacy, not just with nursing but also my children went to Saxon Hill School when they were young and so this was a school where parents participated and had a strong voice in how the school day was shaped up. I was very used to being in the classroom and that just kind of bled over into my, when they went into the public school system. I also have been a school nurse at times including in the Essex School Districts as well as the Burlington School Districts so I've been able to really be inside the school and see some of the challenges that the teachers are dealing with, the kids are dealing with the social dilemmas that they're struggling with as well as the impact of their day and the programs on the kids. I've believed strongly in the power of voice and so at times when my kids were in public school and I wasn't pleased with something that was happening, I would work to collaborate with the leaders in the school and when that collaboration wasn't successful I'd pull parents together and we'd sit down and have a conversation deeply so I'm used to that kind of forum and I really believe that the school board is the same kind of, we seek to collaborate first and then provide strong voice and guidance of those around us next so I think those are some of the aspects that I bring to the school board and coming in. I've had experience working in a non-profit as a vice president of clinical operations and so I'm used to working with boards, I'm used to working with challenging budgets and with rules and regulations in my current role I work with rules and regulations related to hospital and hospital systems so I'm really kind of, I believe well positioned and have a lot of deep knowledge in my past to help pull from. Wonderful thank you so much Greshan and we'll keep it moving right along here and the next question is something that has kind of been universal across a lot of towns throughout the state. So the Essex Westford school district has proposed an fiscal year 25 budget of 97.8 million dollars with an estimated tax increase of about 20.79% in Essex town. Do you support the school budget? I do support the school budget. I think what's challenging is that our community is voting on the number. What I don't support right now is the proposed cuts that had initially been proposed at the teacher level and so the way that the school was proposing to operationalize that budget was a challenge for me and something I was standing up and speaking out about at meetings but what now that the school board has warned this budget and the school board chose to adopt this number at this time I do believe that if we don't support this budget as a community we are going to see a reduced number and that reduced number has the potential to have deep impacts to our students that I don't believe we want right now. Now this next question continues off of that which like you said the community is voting on a number. Now if the community votes to not pass this budget where would you look to reduce expenses to propose a smaller budget? Yeah I think that's really challenging right because I don't think we have all the information we need to be able to say these are the places to reduce. I am a strong advocate for keeping the teachers at the hand of the student. I want to see direct care providers for direct care teachers educators kept in place. I strongly advocate for that. I think there's also a real great opportunity to ask those who are directly serving our students what's working and what's not working. Take a look at the items that aren't working and reduce in that area. The great challenge is that we have many school buildings that are in need of improvement that we haven't been talking about so much recently. I think that's going to be a real issue for us coming up. But I truly believe to impact our students the greatest we need to keep those working directly with the students in place. Now this next question also kind of touches on what you were just saying. What do you feel is the biggest challenge facing Essex Westford schools and how would you use your seat on the school board to address this issue? Yeah I really do think the biggest challenge facing us is going to be how we spend our money. I do think that we have a number of buildings that are failing that is going to be a massive decision from our community and I hope to be able to bring the voice of our community in to help us make those decisions on the school board giving guidance to the district on how to spend that money and what buildings are we keeping and renovating. What buildings are we going to say your life is done and we need to apply a new strategic plan to really come up with building health. I think that's going to be one of our greatest areas. I also think it's ensuring the health and wellness of our students from a mental standpoint. We know that our students don't do well academically when they're struggling mentally and emotionally. And again keeping those teachers in place helps our students they're kind of our first defense in keeping their mental health intact and understanding exactly where they are mentally. Now I'm I we do have a question about student mental health and I will skip down to that briefly just so we can stay on that topic. How can Essex Westford Westford schools best support student mental health needs? Yeah I think the best way to support it is by keeping those working with the the students in low numbers so that we can really have our finger on the pulse of how our students are doing. It's really difficult to do. Think about increasing class sizes and expect teachers to really have an understanding of which students are struggling which students need more supports. I also think there's important power and a great need for students to see themselves within the school system right. And so we talk about kind of meeting this optimum number right. But optimum numbers do mean that the students see diversity and the diversity needs to be within our libraries within our teachers within our students themselves. And so I'm not sure that adding one or two students to a classroom to meet the optimum number really improves that diversity. I think it's more about keeping the power of those those differences intact and celebrating those differences rather than not celebrating or not having students be able to see themselves within their community in school. Absolutely. Now we'll jump back to we have a question here about neurodivergent students. How can Essex Westford schools best support those students? Yeah. I think the best way to support it is number one through research and understanding what are the programs? What are the ways that we develop the best outcomes for neurodivergent students? I think number two it's making sure they see themselves in the community. It's ensuring that they understand being neurodivergent doesn't mean that you're right or you're wrong. Doesn't mean that it's good or that it's bad. It just means that you are a human being in our culture right? And so I think making sure they see themselves in this community and they see reflections of themselves in this community. I think also ensuring that they have the supports that they need and that they're getting you know success in those supports. Great and this is a little bit of a different question here but it relates to public safety. How do you think the school district can ensure the safety of its students and teachers in our schools and in the community? Sure. I think that that's a challenge for any community anywhere right now right? Absolutely. You know we I currently work within a hospital system and we even see those challenges within hospital systems right? The key I think really though is having a pulse on what the students are doing and again I drive back to that message of it is the direct care it is the direct teaching it is the people working directly with the students that have the pulse on that. That really helps us to understand what students are dealing with in their homes where they are emotionally will never be able to safeguard against every possibility right? But I do think also talking not just about what a culture should be but also ensuring we're demonstrating we are walking the walk right? We're showing what a what a non-harassing culture looks like right? We're showing what it means to be a community that celebrates differences right? We can't just have policies that only drive towards that but we also need to be able to demonstrate that in our actions. Yeah absolutely and and kind of in a similar vein here in terms of well-being a big question in schools all over the country lately is teacher well-being and retention and 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? I think the morale is suffering right now. I am I I'm not sure that it is just indicative of the school system. It I think is a little bit of where our culture is right now and so I do think that the school board's obligation is really to help drive the policies and the desires of the community. Thus we need to be if our community is saying our most valuable asset is our teachers and good teachers then we need to be helping to drive that message with our school district and it is the power of the school board to be saying we need to put these different policies in place to ensure that our teachers know our community number one backs them number two sees them as our most valuable asset and number three really is is having conversations with them to hear what they're feeling would help them stay within the district and help draw new teachers into our district making us kind of the most desired place to work. And we're coming up on the end of our forum here but we have time for a couple more questions here. This one's in terms of language access. How can the Essex Westford School District meet the needs of students and family whose primary language is not English? Sure. One of the wonderful things that I learned about through the school board meetings was really that we have a program where after hours we're taking some of those people who are employed with our school district who English isn't their primary language and we're giving them English classes and so in that way we're helping students who English isn't their primary language by impacting their parents right who may be working within our school system. You know it is really through those kinds of innovative programs that help to improve learning improve education and also help to keep people within our community who English isn't their primary language. I also think again you know I'm a strong advocate of going right to the people who need need the support to understand exactly what they need. I think sometimes when we have a real high level view and we can assume what people need. So I think there's also great value in going directly to those students and saying what is it? What is it within your community? What is it within your home? What is it that we could provide? And as a school board looking at whether that's something we would have the ability to really encourage our district to move in that direction. And this final question has to do with measuring success and you know there are many reasons why this might be the case but last year standardized test results suggest that the proportion of Vermont students proficient in math and English decreased during the pandemic and has not made significant improvements since. That being said how do you measure the success of the school district? Yeah for myself personally I measure the success of the school district through how many students are graduating and going into a trade into a college into a career pathway that they are proud of. That's how I really measure the success. I think we also do need to look at standardized testing but we need to look at it as across the nation and we need to look at it comparably we can't take it as a single snapshot. I think lastly you know we know we have never been through an experience like we have been through this past pandemic so we don't know what is the expected time that we think our students grades will will rebound. We are seeing still impacts from the pandemic within hospitals and health systems even today that we're unanticipated and I think we really don't have a kind of a measure of what we think we should be seeing after a pandemic with our students grades. Well Gretchen thank you very much for speaking with us tonight. Before I wrap up is there anything else that you would like to let folks in your community know? Yeah I would love our community to really be as deeply involved in decisions within the school board as possible. I think that's one of the things that I really will be striving to do with my role is kind of talking to people and hoping to bring the voice of our community forward and not just the community members that align with my thoughts perhaps but also all community members thoughts and so hopefully people will feel that they can reach out to me that they can share their thoughts with me that I'm able to listen and able to bring their thoughts forward. Well thank you so much and thank you to our viewers for tuning in to Town Meeting TV's ongoing coverage of local candidates, local budgets and ballot items. You can find this and many more forums on Town Meeting TV's YouTube channel and don't forget to vote on April 9th. Thank you for watching and sharing Town Meeting TV.