 Hello everyone, I'm James Milan, welcome to this election coverage 2023 presentation of the school committee debate. Before we go on, I just want to say that we here at ACMI we work hard to put this together, but we are honored to do so. We have just two simple missions at ACMI, educate people around all things videographic and to provide value to our community and we think that this is doing so. Thank you for that or for listening and let's proceed. I am joined of course here in the studio for this debate by the four candidates for school committee this year. On my left is Paul Schlickman, and next to him is Liz Ekston, and then Laura Giddelsen and Jill Krajewski. Welcome to you all. Thanks for being here. I'm just going to quickly explain what the course of the debate will look like. We will begin with opening statements of one minute each. The order was chosen at random and it will be Laura Giddelsen going first and then Paul Schlickman and then Liz Ekston and then Jill Krajewski and that will be one minute each. Then we will proceed to two rounds of questions. The first round are four questions prepared and I will pull them out of that little drop and just ask each of the candidates starting with the first question being in the order of the ballot as they are seated and then proceeding on from there rotating through. The respondents will get two minutes to respond and then each of the other three candidates will have one minute of rebuttal time. We will proceed through those four questions and then the four candidates will each ask the others a question of their own choosing and then we will have closing statements and that will wrap things up. So thanks for listening, thanks for listening you guys and let's get going. We will start with opening statements and we start with you, Laura Giddelsen. Hi, I'm Laura Giddelsen and I am running for school committee because I believe passionately in advocating for all of our LinkedIn's kids to receive the best education possible. I am a mom of two, lawyer, town meeting member and advocate for social justice. I'm the secretary of the Pierce PTO and when APS told parents about the urgent need for substitute teachers, I signed up. I'm an active civic volunteer serving on Arlington's LGBTQIA plus rainbow commission and co-chairing the civilian police advisory board study committee. I'm also a leader of the Arlington chapter of mom's demand action for gun sense in America. As a parent and town meeting member, I have seen how important it is to have a well functioning school committee and I am excited to play a part in that hard work. My experience has given me the tools needed to work with my fellow school committee members to ensure that we support policies that are in the best interest of all of Arlington's kids. Thank you. Paul Schlickman. Thank you. I'm Paul Schlickman and I respectfully ask for one of your three votes in the annual town election. I have 37 years experience as an educator and 17 years on our school committee. I'm also a past president of the Massachusetts Association of School Committees. I'm running for reelection because I want to continue as part of our excellent team. It's an honor and a privilege to work with my colleagues on the committee as we provide an excellent education for our children. We have met many challenges in the past three years. We reopened our schools as we emerged from the depth of the pandemic. We hired a superintendent who led us through an excellent visioning and planning process. We opened the first two new wings of our high school. There are significant challenges on the horizon. I want to thank ACMI for this opportunity to join my friends on stage to talk about the future of Arlington schools and our vision for making our schools even better. Thank you. Thank you. Liz Exton. Hello. I'm Elizabeth Exton. Most people know me as Liz. I'm running for reelection to the school committee because I am proud of the work we have done over the last three years and I want to contribute to the ongoing efforts to improve our schools. I'm a public school teacher, a mother of two, and the current chair of the school committee. Over the last three years, we hired a fantastic new superintendent, brought students back into school during a pandemic, and celebrated the opening of the first wing of the new high school. In the next three years, realizing our strategic plan will require both experience on the school committee and the practical knowledge of a classroom teacher. The four strategic initiatives will require thoughtful planning, careful analysis, and fiscal decisions. We can improve educational opportunities for all of our students by focusing our work on those students who most need our support. I bring experience and public service and the perspective of a teacher and a parent to the school committee and I am eager to continue the work. Thank you. And Jill Kajewski. Thank you for having this debate and thank you to the other candidates for joining the conversation. I am Jill Kajewski, a high school teacher for 20 years, a union leader for 15 years, and a parent of children who will be in middle and high school next year. As we come out of COVID and are poised to fully occupy a brand new state-of-the-art high school facility, I am excited about the new set of district priorities which will guide us for the next five years. My experience as an educator and union leader will help to successfully implement and evaluate these priorities and I will use my connections as a parent to engage our community so that all of our children can experience the joy and excellence that our district embodies. Our town cares deeply about education and I will continue to build bridges between the school and our community that will enable a sense of Arlington pride for many years to come. I look forward to our conversation tonight and hope to show you my enthusiasm for the Arlington Public Schools. Thank you. Thanks to you all. On to the first round of questions. As I mentioned, I will be picking them out of the pseudo hat here and just a reminder, two minutes to the person that I direct the question to and then one minute for each of the other three candidates and we will rotate through. So beginning with you, Paul Schlickman, how do you see the role of a school committee member as it relates to the larger community? The school committee is basically the liaison between the community and the schools. We take the community values and the community expectations and the hopes and the dreams of the community and bring them to the school governance. As you're aware, under the Education Reform Act, we operate as a board of directors. We hire a superintendent. We evaluate the superintendent. We set policy. We set budget. We're doing this all informed by the values of the community that elects us. We leave the day to day operations for the superintendent. It's not our role to interfere or get involved with the administration of the school, which is why parents and people who are concerned with the actual day-to-day operations of the schools and the community are best served by starting by talking to their local teacher, to their principals and working their way up the chain of governance. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. The role of the school committee member as it relates to the community is to be a voice for community members and sharing feedback from community members who may not always feel comfortable going directly to the administration. I think it's also important for the school committee to share the school's priorities out with the community so they can understand what the school is doing and how the community as a whole can support our schools, thinking about how we are budgeting and planning because everyone in this town contributes to the work of our schools and supports our schools. Thank you. Laura. Thank you. The role of the school committee is complex, but I do think one of the important roles is to act as a liaison between the community and the administration and to do that in a variety of ways. School committee members benefit from being present in the community and realizing what our community values and taking those values to the policies and supervision that we give to the superintendent. I believe that my experience being in the schools, spending a lot of time in Pierce where my children go and planning on if I'm elected, spending time in other schools gives me a perspective that is important to bring to the administration. Paul's right, our job is not to supervise the individual teachers in the schools, but it is really important to facilitate the two-way communication between our parents and our students and our teachers and the administration. Thank you. Jill. I think the importance of the school committee is having visibility in the community and knowing that the community can have a voice, and that voice may not be making policy, but that voice is certainly asking questions about policy, understanding policy well enough to ask the right questions, and being able to use an open meeting to inform the community. So having an understanding of who is in the community and what the community feels about the various issues is super important, and I think that can be done through many informal ways as well as some of the formal ways the school committee has. So continuing to have Saturday morning discussions and open conversations, but also just being out and about and listening to parents and community members and really seeing how our community can get the value we want from our schools. Thank you. The next question is going to be directed to Liz Exton. What is one lesson you've learned in the past year, either professionally or personally, and what will you take forward from it? Well, I guess I will share professionally, so I am a public school teacher, and I have worked in the public schools for the last 15 years, and the last three years have been incredibly challenging for classroom teachers, for administrators. The supports and the mental health challenges that students are experiencing are very significant. And so I would say one of the lessons that I've learned in the last year around that is that it is important not to give up on students, and continuing to believe in them and provide them with the supports that we think that they need. And if that doesn't work, to continue to change those things. And I think the reason that's a lesson that I can use in other ways is similarly the school committee may have gotten a direction that's not working and being able to make a change and pivot and do something differently to support our students is important. There you go. All right. Thank you. I'm going to stretch the timeframe there a little bit. A year ago, I was finishing up my work as co-chair of the police civilian advisory board study committee, which that work had been going on for almost a year. And what I learned from that process where we brought together stakeholders from all over Arlington, people who worked for the town, residents, and people who have all sorts of interest in what the workings of the police and how the police interact with the community, is how important it is to bring those stakeholders together, to go out and find them where they are if they're not coming to your meetings, and to use those opportunities to build a process to create something that hopefully will help make the town better for everyone. And we did that with PCABs. We ended up with a permanent police advisory board commission that was approved by a unanimous vote for select board and 92% of town meeting. Thank you. Jill. Hi. Sometimes the right choice is to pull back on a policy. And so what I learned this past year as we came out of COVID and we had teachers at my school that I teach at, very interested in a new schedule. And as negotiations chair, I listened. I gathered data. We had surveys. We had focus groups. And I found that people were all over the board around schedule. And what ended up happening as the result of the process is deciding that we could not go forward on a schedule if it wasn't going to meet the mission of being able to better serve all students. And so to be able to, at the end of a lot of work and a lot of data, push for, rather than negotiating a new schedule, but to negotiate a process to look at schedule a longer term, will better meet the needs of our community. I think this applies to the school committee directly because being able to push back and stop is important. Okay. Thank you very much, Paul. The thing I'm learning this year is to emerge from these little Zoomie boxes that we've all been parked in and to start re-establishing relationships with other people. It's really difficult, especially doing the work of the school committee, to have relationships with the community and with your colleagues on the committee when you're restricted to Zoom. And getting back out, you're meeting a lot of new people who didn't even live in Arlington three years ago. And re-establishing the reason why you like your colleagues and you like the members of the community, it's much easier to develop that empathy and bond when you're able to meet in person. Thank you. Next question directed to you, Laura Goodison. What aspect of the Arlington public school system is most pressing at this time, understanding that there are many? And how would you address it? I think we're lucky to be about to embark on a five-year strategic plan that looks at a lot of the issues that are most pressing. The first one that comes to mind is the equitable access to education and the priorities that we see in the strategic plan, which mean looking at curriculum in a way that will work for all students, all learners, and understanding that when we do things in the curriculum and in the schools that make learning better for one set of learners, we make it better for all of the learners. One of the ways that we can do that is by supporting strong professional development for our teachers. And the other way, another way we can do that is by really living our values. We need to enforce or we need to talk about the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion from the time our kids enter, whether they enter at pre-K or they enter at kindergarten or if they enter sometime along the way, all the way through and only through infusing that into our curriculum. Are we going to grow the learners and future voters that will really take all of us into the next part of history? Okay. Sorry. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. I think in our goal of collaborative partnerships, the first thing I would like to see worked on is a building of trust with families. And I think particularly the families I've heard from are the families whose students are not making adequate progress. And I feel like what we can do is listen, provide a roadmap to how you access special education and other services the school provides, and work on clear communication throughout the process. The other operational types of things I think we could work on are looking at where we can help families feel more of a belonging. A personal thing there is for and after school care, continuing to build that, continuing to make sure it's available for those who want it. And I think the last thing to work on operationally is how do we attract and retain diverse staff? And what are the challenges to that? And how do we balance compensation versus belonging and staff? Thank you. Thank you. In the next superintendent's search committee, we did a series of focus groups. We did about 30. And one of those was in the Japanese language. But there was one consistent theme that came through, special education. The report was written that said responders and a broad consensus of those who participated in focus groups were clear that issues of special education need to be addressed as a highest priority for the next superintendent. Confidence and community members were consistent and specific about what they believe are systemic and structural problems that have festered for a number of years. Now the new superintendent in our strategic plan is looking to address this. But confidence and trust are lagging indicators. We still have work to do. And I think that one of the biggest priorities we have as a school committee is working together with the superintendent to provide her with the resources and support she needs to correct that problem. Thank you. Let's. An aspect that I think is very pressing is teacher retention. We pay our teachers here in Arlington 5% less on average than the town manager 12. As I said before, teaching in the last three years has become incredibly challenging. And we need to support our teachers in many ways, but number one financially. I think that another way to support our teachers is with professional development, providing teachers with choice in what they want to be supported and what they want to learn, providing teachers with the time to have that professional development, which is in our calendar. But I think we need to maintain that. And finally, we need to make sure that our paraprofessionals have the support that they need to be successful in the positions that they're placed in. They need to have training. They need to have support from teachers and other paraprofessionals so that we can keep them in our district as well. Thank you. Last question will be directed to you, Jill. And I'm glad it's the last one in a sense because your guys' commitment to the welfare of the students is very clear and obvious. So, how do you define a successful, and by successful, I mean one we could all be proud of, student experience in the Arlington Public School system? As a long-term teacher, what I value most in my students is whether they have a sense of belonging. I've seen that with my own children. When they feel like they belong in a classroom or on a sports team or in some kind of extracurricular activity, they shine and they enjoy and they truly learn more. So I think what we need to work on as a district is empowering teachers to make space, to build connections with students and to build a classroom community to bring students with different backgrounds and perspectives together. This takes time. This takes professional development and tools for teachers to have to help students engage with each other. This may mean taking a close look at the curriculum. How can you build in the space for students to interact with each other and truly build relationships and still have a rigorous academic experience? And I believe, and I believe this for 20 years, that this can be done. Time can be perceived as a cost, but I do believe that when students have a connection, they ultimately learn more and they ultimately take a better experience. So I would hope that this, as a part of our district priorities, and when we discuss equity and excellence, that building in curriculum and professional development along belonging really matters. As a professional, I've worked to bring in a ninth grade program where students are in a cohort and are able to do interdisciplinary work together. We teach explicitly collaboration skills. And that is the kind of experience that I would like every student to have everywhere. And I would hope to be able to support through the policies and programs presented in Arlington Public Schools. Thanks. Thank you. Paul. I look at the school climate, walking through the high school. I really find that the climate in the high school is superb. Students get along well with each other and it's just a calm, relaxed, positive learning environment. I look for engagement. And I'm also looking for that sense of belonging. And this is where we have an issue that needs to be addressed. When we take a look at student surveys, we see that there are five focal groups that we're targeting in a strategic plan. Students who identify as Black or Hispanic, the LGBT, QIA plus students, multilingual learners, and families who don't speak English at home and low income students. Their sense of belonging is reflected in our surveys is below the school as a whole. And that's sort of an urgent need for us to address. I would agree with the other candidates that students need to feel a sense of belonging in their classrooms and in their schools in order to be available for learning and to engage in the work that we are asking them to do. I think that one of the ways that we have started to work to support that is eliminating fees for elementary music and high school athletics so that we can give more opportunities for more students to participate in those extracurricular activities because that's another place where students can develop peer relationships which will build their sense of belonging connecting with other adults in a school building which builds their sense of belonging and having developing relationships. And finally, I think that we really need to work on ensuring the quality of our actual buildings, so the environment, the lighting, the air. So I agree with my fellow candidates that the sense of belonging is really important but I do think that before a sense of belonging comes a sense of safety and that we need nobody is going to learn well in a community that they don't feel safe and they're not going to feel like they belong in a community where they don't feel safe. And so if we can get both of those things I think then we can create a sense of joy in learning which is what I really want all of our children to get to. So I think we do that by helping kids reach their full potential, by helping kids understand that who they are matters and who their identity is matters and when things come up that make them question whether they matter, responding in a very strong way, which I do believe is something that we do well in Arlington and do better now than we have in the past. Thank you very much and we are on to the next round of questions now. My work, such as it is, is done and now you guys are going to take over. We will start, I'll just remind people you have 30 seconds to ask the question and then each of the respondents has two minutes to answer and then finally the person who asks the question gets a one minute rebuttal and then we will move on to the next question. We will begin with you posing the question Paul. Thank you. Most of our work doesn't take place at our formal business meetings. It takes place in subcommittees and liaison assignments. Please describe the assignments you would like to have if you are elected on April 1st. Liz? Well, I have previously chaired the community relations subcommittee and I would like to continue to do that. I think that engagement with the community is really important and I started some of that work previously with the with the Saturday school committee chats and based on feedback we've expanded those to have them during the week as well so that other families can participate but I think the work you know now that we can get back together in the community I think it's important to think about having those in person as well. I also think it's important for us to have conversations with the community around things like the calendar, the literacy program that's developing. I also as an educator I'm very interested in the curriculum instruction assessment and accountability subcommittee. I think that we're doing a lot of work around curriculum around MTSS, around literacy, around heterogeneous grouping at the high school and I think the perspective of a classroom teacher and someone who's in a building with students but is also a parent of children in the Arlington schools brings the perspective and can ask the questions that we'd like to hear from the information we'd like to get from the administration in order to get that information and it has been an honor and a privilege to have been the chair for the last year. It's worked very hard and worked very closely with Dr. Holman. I will be passing that torch along but that was a role that I also very much appreciated and was honored to play. Thank you. Thank you. Laura? This is a hard question to answer because I don't think any of us would be up here running for school committee if we weren't interested in all of the work that the school committee does. I will confess to some of my nerdy policy background and the fact that I have watched a lot of the budget subcommittee meetings over the last month or two and I have learned so much about how the budget works and how the budget really helps us live the values that we talk about so much. Our budget subcommittee is well populated by experienced school committee members. I don't know if there would be a space but it is something I'm interested in. In terms of liaison, like other people have mentioned, I think one group of families and students who are people who really need to be listened to and we need to pay a little more attention to our families whose children have special education needs. So I would really love to be the liaison to CPAC. I spent a lot of time talking to families with kids with special education needs over the last couple of months and I think that we need to build communication and trust in particular with that community. And then I think lastly I would say that the Curriculum and Instruction Committee, I've been excited through my work with the Rainbow Commission to be a part of the work that has furthered our new health and wellness curriculum to be inclusive of students of all genders. And it's a place where you can see how Curriculum makes such a difference in what we were talking about before in terms of students' feelings of safety and belonging and then that leading to what they really all deserve which is joy. Thank you. Jill. I would be most interested in working with the Curriculum Assessment and Accountability. I believe that it is really important to have a process when bringing on Curriculum. Particularly I'm excited that the Arlington Public Schools is investing in a new literacy curriculum. Kind of because I like the idea of how do you roll out a curriculum? How do you help engage teachers in the process? Allow teachers to value the change rather than resist the change. And I think having a union member as well as a teacher on that committee would be helpful in having that engagement. I have developed my own curriculum in my profession. I've developed a program which engages ninth grade students. And I have tremendous experience. I also have children who have been through the public schools in elementary school in Arlington, will be at the middle schools and at the high school next year. And I think having that wide experience would be helpful on that committee. Like Laura, I have heard from many CPAC parents. And I actually started this journey saying like I understand special education because those students have been the students I've worked the hardest to engage in the programming I've done it in my profession. And what I realized in this process is I needed to listen to the Arlington parents. And listening to what they had to say, I really think there are some things we can do that are cost effective and could help bridge some gaps and build trust. And I think we can work really thoughtfully to make a roadmap for students and families to access a special education process. And I'm grateful that Desi several years back came up with the idea that we have CPAC and we have this way that students groups can work together around special education. So those would be my two committees. Thanks. Thank you. And Paul, your response. Thank you. I love the energy and the commitment of the folks who answered the question. I've been chair of the policies committee for the past couple of years. And I think that's a good place for me because I've worked in central office for many years. So I understand just sort of the nuts and bolts nitty gritty of how the system is supposed to work and the day-to-day operations of the district. I've also worked in curriculum a lot. I've enjoyed doing that work. I've done budget work before. It'd be fun to do that again. It's all good, wholesome, fun work. A couple of things off the sheet. I've been spending a lot of time working with the transportation advisory committee. It's sort of an unofficially is on because I've been very concerned about schools on school crossings and children being able to walk to school safely. And one thing that I've done consistently has been a delegate to the Mass Association of School Committees Delegate Assembly every year where we've brought resolutions from Arlington to make schools better. Okay. Thank you. Your turn to ask a question. So as we all know, there is a finite budget for the Arlington public schools and for the town of Arlington. And so I'm wondering how you will help to build support for an override campaign and what you see as your contributions to that work. Thank you for that question. I was a, I did volunteer during the last override several years before I had kids in the schools, but because I saw what an important, how important it was to get that override to build our new high school. And so I, whether I win the selection or not, plan on being involved in whatever efforts there are in the future to help continue funding our schools at the level at which that we need them to be funded. And I think the way that I can best contribute to that is that I am, I talk to people all the time about these issues. I'm out in the community. I'm in the schools. I serve on other town committee committees. I'm a member of town meeting. And I think all of these experiences give me the depth and understanding for how important it is that we do the work that's necessary to fully fund our schools. And also understand that this is hard for people that we are, that, you know, financially it's, it's a sacrifice for many people, but that we will all benefit in the long run from having students who receive the kind of education that I know that they can receive in the Arlington Public Schools. Thank you. Jill. My foray into this was working on the Build Arlington's Future campaign as a pricing captain. And the high school override for the building was kind of the easy part. The harder part was the override for the operational budget increase. And at the time, we really had to make it clear to town members that school enrollment had increased and that we couldn't operate under the same budget. And I think what was most important to me is to have a clear message and a clear positive message. We were proactive with that campaign. We were thoughtful. We had a sense of if we pay now, here's the cost versus if we pay later. And I think it really, being proactive really far outweighs a negative and last minute proposal. I think we want to tell the town we need to maintain excellent programs. We need to attract and retain diverse staff. We spoke earlier of the difference between the teacher pay in Arlington and some of our nearby communities. And we also need to be able to add support we're needed, including things like social workers and coaches and help in, include all our students in learning. I also feel that it doesn't, it can't just be an override for one time. I believe we have to bring our community into the schools. We have a beautiful new state of the art high school and being able to make that high school available for our town is really important. I have seen schools that have students present and teach to community members. And those give our students authentic experiences. Students are able to teach biology to senior citizens or teach art to other elementary school kids. And being able to have people come into our schools and see our schools and see the value of what they're paying for has a long term gain. Thanks. Thank you. Paul. Thank you. $291 million is a boatload of money. And we asked the voters to go and support us with the debt exclusion to build $291 million high school. And it passed by a three to one margin. The reason why that happened was we engaged with the community for a lot of years explaining why the high school needed to be rebuilt. We brought forth the facts of our accreditation being jeopardy. We showed pictures of the high school. So by the time that got on the ball of people was saying, well, it's a lot of money and it's going to cost me a bunch of money in my taxes. But of course we need to do it. It was sort of basically a known fact that we needed to do this. And that's what we need to do. We need to make sure that the community understands the situation we're in. Similar to the work that Jennifer Seuss did when she was on the committee to convince the community that the solution to our overcrowding problem moving through the middle school level was to take back the Gibbs School. So I think what we need to do is have a consistent message so people just intuitively understand why an override is important. And I think the teacher quality is really a key to this. When we're hiring new teachers, housing costs have increased 56% in the past six years but teacher salary is only 22. And we're forcing our teachers to live further and further away from our lengths and they're having long commutes. And if they're commuting out from the other side of 495, they're driving through lots of towns that pay better than we do. So imagine having a shorter commute and earning a couple of thousand dollars more. Concord Carlisle, they get $6,200 more. $5,900 more in Burlington. So this message has to be consistent. If we're going to maintain teacher quality in this district, we need a lot of money to go and raise our salary scales. Thank you. And Liz, your response. So I think it's important to consider that only about 20% of voters in Arlington have school-aged children. And so our outreach needs to go beyond the beyond the schools. At the same time, a large percent of our budget goes to our schools. And so it's really important that the parents of school-aged children are doing the bulk of the work to pass an override and be on the ground reaching out, communicating, knocking on doors, getting out the vote, even though the money is going to support many of the town services. At the same time, the schools are a draw to Arlington. Families move here for the schools and they stay. As a school committee member, communicating the needs of our school to the voters and rallying community members to support us is an important role in an override campaign. And finally, we need to demonstrate that we keep our promises. Thank you. Laura, your chance to ask a question. Thank you. What do you think are the most important ways the school committee can support the mission statement goal of being an equitable educational community where all learners feel a sense of belonging? So I think the first thing we need to look at is understanding who feels like they do not belong. And how do we collect that data? I think people have been surveyed out in this world in general. But when we pick up in a survey something about a group, what's our next step? How do we connect with them and listen to them and really understand what the issues are? I think once we know the issues, I think we have to design solutions. I don't think designing solution is the end. So when we're looking at a program to make class size more equitable, what are the outcomes of that program? Do the outcomes of that program actually in the end make those constituents feel like they belong more? And I think being really careful to have it sit around and fester and not actually work for many, many years is a concern that I have. I think that we need to empower this to happen in the classroom. I think that I said this before, but there is space, or there needs to be space for students to make connections. We need to adjust to their teachers, but students to make connections to other students both in the classroom and on the fields and in the arts. And so I think we've worked in that direction by having fee-free athletics and activities, but we need to continue to grow and continue to look at whether those activities meet the needs of students. And so I think we need to make sure that those activities meet the needs of other groups of students. Do we know that we're including those students? Thank you. The group that I worry about most are the multilingual families of second language learners. Because that's just as important. But unlike the parents of special ed students who have an understanding of our political system and know where the leverage points are, second language learner families generally do not and find our school culture to be different than what they experience growing up. I've worked in districts that are primarily second language learner districts or have a second language community. One of the challenges we had when we did the superintendent search, we wanted to do outreach to people we don't normally talk to. We wanted to go out and find second language communities, immigrant communities. We wanted to find folks from different religions. Being Jewish myself, I know that there's no structure in the community where we're often going to seven different synagogues and surrounding communities to try to pull together something. We weren't able to find community groups organized around other immigrant groups or other religious faiths. Making those kind of connections it seems like we are going to need to build it because they don't occur naturally within the community. I'm not sure how we're going to do that, but the superintendent search process made me really, really cognizant of the fact that we have to find some different way to reach the folks that we're not hitting right now. Thank you. Liz, two minutes. I think an important way to ensure an equitable educational community where all learners feel a sense of belonging is to make sure that students see themselves in the curriculum, that we provide a variety of ways for students to access the curriculum. There are many ways to show what one knows and I think it's important and I see that in strategic priority one, ensuring equity and excellence that we're going to make sure that students are able to access their curriculum and show their learning in a variety of ways. I also think it's really important for students who already feel a sense of belonging to understand how their actions can impact other students in our schools and understand what they can do to be more inclusive and to support other students in feeling that sense of belonging. From a community perspective, I think that ensuring that we have before and after for families so that families feel a sense of belonging in our community and supporting continued free lunch is another way that we can continue to make sure that everyone feels a sense of belonging and there isn't a stigma around needing being eligible for free lunch or needing free lunch. I think there are a lot of ways in which we can continue to support this discussion statement. Thank you. Laura, your response, one minute. Thank you. I think we know a lot about who feels like they don't belong and a lot of that information has gone into the strategic plan and so I think keeping our focus on the four focal groups that are emphasized in that part of the strategic plan that Liz just mentioned which is students who are low income college learners, students with IEPs and BIPOC students is incredibly important and I think we do this by supporting curriculums that teach and show the importance of treating everyone with respect just like Liz said and taking into account the learning experience of all types of learners and I talked earlier about one example is the re-evaluating curriculums from the perspective of gender inclusivity but I think there is more work that we have to do in that context. I also think the school committee should support expanding the capacity of the diversity, equity and inclusion office. And last question of this round, it goes to you, Joe. In just a short time, three of us will be collaborating together as members of a team. What do you value about each of the other candidates in the race? I have to say I have really enjoyed serving with Liz Exton although it took me almost two years to actually meet her after she was sworn in because we were all in those Zoom boxes but I can say as a group all of the other folks who are running right now I was fortunate to have coffee with the two people who were seeking a seat for the first time and the commitment, the knowledge, the passion and care and the preparation that they've made to make this run just been spectacular and the thing that I value most in a school committee colleague is somebody who's going to do the work is to pick up the load because it really is an intense job. There's a lot you have to do to make this a success and the question isn't about the time because we never all agree all the time we have some four to three votes sometimes we're in agreement 100% that doesn't matter what matters we're all working together and sharing the load and contributing to the process of making the school committee work it feels sort of like Thanksgiving dinner and that if there's a divorce or somebody leaves the family and we have somebody new coming and we're going to be redefining relationships next month when we have a new member on board and these are good people and they're going to fit in and they're going to, I'm really confident we're going to really have a good committee moving forward. Thank you. I think it's it's a challenge to the voters I think this year to make a decision I think that there are four very strong knowledgeable candidates who care deeply deeply deeply about the Arlington Public Schools and all want the very best for our schools as the newest current member on the school committee I've learned a tremendous amount from Paul particularly as he mentioned around policy and operations he knows the legal aspects of the operations of the school committee very well his institutional knowledge having been on the school committee for such a long time provides the entire community with a really great perspective and understanding of where things were and how far they've come the new candidates Laura and Jill I'm so impressed with how much information they have sought out in the last six weeks trying to learn even more about the school committee about the priorities about how it operates understanding all the nuances of the budget and you know I think that again as I said the commitment to our community they've already shown that and so I know that going forward they will continue to support our community in a lot of different ways thank you thank you well I began to start to think seriously about whether school committee was in my future in the summer of 2020 when I watched school committee meetings with Liz and Paul in the zoom squares as we prepared for my oldest child to start kindergarten so in a time of great uncertainty and you know constantly evolving information and knowledge and changes and recommendations I watched seven people who clearly cared very deeply about how my entering kindergarten was going to experience their foray into Arlington public schools and I saw how important it is to have a well functioning and collaborative school committee and I'm confident that whichever of the three of us end up on school committee in April that that will continue my work in town but as on town on town meeting and in other bodies has shown me the value of volunteer leaders who understand how things get done and how think what you need to do to get things done and also who understand what it is they don't know and what I will say that these three other candidates know that I don't know is they've all been classroom teachers and I am the only person here who hasn't been a public school teacher and I look forward to learning more from fellow school committee members who can bring that perspective while I bring my perspective as a lawyer and someone who studied policy. Thank you and last word to you. Thanks for sharing I wanted to say to Paul I really have appreciated your long term commitment to education in both Arlington and the state of Massachusetts your work with the mass association of school committees particularly around moving the high stakes aspects of MCAS is admirable. Liz in 2020 you inspired me as a teacher running for school committee in the middle of a pandemic and part of my decision really is thinking of you as a mentor or an inspiration I also admire the work you did in Brookline this fall while you're negotiating the Arlington contract to really support those teachers in Brookline who did not have the same fortune that the teachers in Arlington were having and Laura I really do appreciate your volunteerism around Arlington particularly because I have children at Pierce your work with the Pierce PTO supporting our teachers and children and you are the communication person for Pierce and the communication is great. We have to cut you off there. And that does it for the rounds of questions and leaves us with just the closing statements which will be one minute each and I will tell you that the order of the close is Liz Ekston and then Laura Giddelson and then Paul Schlickman and then Jill Krzyewski so beginning with you Liz. Thank you to ACMI for hosting this debate and my fellow candidates for a great discussion. I hope you heard tonight how committed I am to the work on the school committee both what I have brought to the committee and what more I can contribute. In closing I want to remind you of my priorities. First I want to support the implementation of our five-year strategic plan. Second I want to continue to work on improving communication specifically for those just joining the Arlington public schools and to foster better transitions when children move from one school to the next. Finally I want to support parity in teacher pay. I will use my experience both on the committee and as a teacher to ensure we can continue to recruit and retain a high quality staff while keeping our tradition of responsible budgeting. It has been my privilege to serve on the school committee for the last three years and I hope the voters agree that I am the right person for this job and return me to a seat on the school committee. My name is Elizabeth Ecksten and I ask for one of your three votes on Saturday April 1st. Thank you Laura. Thank you. Thanks so much to ACMI and my fellow candidates for this discussion. I'm running for school committee because I know from my own experience as both a parent and long-time advocate for social justice that when elected officials support policies and allocate resources in ways that make it easier for every child and adolescent to access education, they change lives for the better. In 2023 Arlington schools are well positioned for success. We have a relatively new superintendent are close to finishing our beautiful new high school and we are poised to launch an exciting five-year strategic plan. That said, there is a lot of hard work ahead of us. This will require thoughtful policymaking that prioritizes equitable access to learning and providing support for our teachers to do the best work possible. I want to be a part of that hard work. I'm Laura Giddelson and I'm asking for one of your three votes for school committee. Thank you. Paul. Thank you. I'm running for re-election because I want to work with my colleagues on the school committee and the community to find solutions to the challenges before us. The challenges are significant but we are smart, strong, determined and we will emerge with even better schools in an even better town. If you want to learn more about me and the issues, I invite you to visit my website www.schlichtman.org You will also find a link to the websites of my friends who are sharing the stage. They deserve your consideration for one of your three votes on April 1st. I want to thank ACMI for the opportunity to speak to you today and thank you for listening. I'm Paul Schlichtman and I respectfully ask for your support and one of your three votes on Saturday April 1st. Thank you and Jill, I'm sure you're tired of hearing this but the last word is yours. I am proud to live in a town where I can sit here as a teacher alongside three other individuals who care deeply about Arlington and value its public schools. As I developed COVID policies in the town where I work, I realized that I wanted to transition my leadership skills to support the town where I live. I threw my hat into the ring because I believe I have the skillset to become an effective member of the school committee. Now, as voters, you have a choice. Arlington citizens value public education and our school system is well positioned to move forward and strive for equity, excellence, and belonging. What you the voters now must consider is which candidate has the educational experience to move these priorities from policy to practice. I ask that you consider the combination of my role as a parent, as a teacher, and along with my role in union leadership and allow me the opportunity to help the Arlington Public Schools work towards achieving these priorities. I would be honored to have one of your votes on April 1st. Thank you. Thank you very much and that will wrap things up. I want to thank the four candidates for the generosity of spirit and the thoughtfulness and the rigor with which they took to this debate. It really has offered great content to the Arlington community. We appreciate it and we appreciate you running, period. This is the school we're finishing up here. The school committee debate for 2023. Thanks again to Paul Schlickman, to Liz Exton, to Laura Giddelsen and to Jill Krajewski. I'm James Milan. We'll see you another time.