 Good evening and welcome to ongoing election coverage by town meeting television. This is one of many forums we are bringing you in advance of local elections and town meeting on the first Tuesday in March, March 2nd 2022. Town meeting is traditionally where voters weigh in on local government, local government representation, municipal budgets, school budgets and local ballot items. All candidates on the ballot are invited to participate in town meeting TV election forums. Town meeting TV election forums introduce you to community decision makers and connect you with the issues that shape your local community. My name is Emily Brewer and I will be moderating tonight's Winooski school board forum. With us we have the current school board president, Tori Cleveland, who is running unopposed for a two-year seat on the board. We also have Allison Burlock with us tonight who is running unopposed to serve the remainder of a three-year term on the board. Excuse me. Now if you are watching this live we welcome your questions at 802-862-3966. You can watch town meeting TV on Comcast channel 1087, Burlington telecoms channel 17 and 217 as well as online at town meeting TV's YouTube page. With that said let's get started with opening statements. Each candidate has about a minute to introduce themselves. Tori we will start with you. Can you please tell us why you are running and what will be different for Winooski if you are reelected and as a follow-up to that why do you think you are running unopposed? Hi I'm Tori Cleveland and I've been serving on the Winooski school board since 2011. The reason I serve on the school board is I believe strongly in democratic societies and communities and even more so I believe in children and youth and I believe that their life in public education matters so much and there's so much promise that students this is where they begin their growth and becoming of who they are meant to be with their gifts and their brilliance and bringing it to communities. I also understand that public education while is a promise for our youth it is also ultimately an oppressive system an institution and I'll get more into that later but that is why I'm running to continue running and serving on the school board. Thank you very much Tori we will move over to Allison can you please tell us why you're running and what will be different for Winooski if you are elected and why do you think you're running up unopposed? Sure so I'm Allison I've been a resident of Winooski for almost five years now I grew up in Addison County. I am running because I think that the school is the center of the community and I really I desire a high level of service to Winooski and I find that the school board is one way I can do that and as far as why I'm running unopposed I think there's a continuum right now of people who are maybe feeling satisfied with the leadership of the school that feel like things are going well and so they don't need to run and then on the other hand people are really exhausted right now we're two years into a pandemic and people are tired so I'm looking to bring my energy there. Great thank you very much Allison and we will now move on to the question portion of our forum tonight we will stick with Allison and the question is do you support this year's school budget? Yeah so I've been a little bit of background I've been on the school board since July so I've been actively involved in the development of this budget. I personally think that this budget brings forth what's best for the school district in Winooski and the community bringing forth things like funding for transportation for students more than three quarters of a mile from the school year round and also supporting pre-k education that early learning and some very necessary operational staff for the school district in my opinion. So yeah I was involved in the development of this budget and I think that it's very much supported I think that it's important that we pass. Thank you very much Allison. All right Tori do you support this year's school budget? I do I'm excited about the investment in pre-k as I think most of us understand that early education is foundational for students to be together and to be learning together as early as possible with pre-k. I also am super excited that we are now going to be running full-year busing that is not something that has ever happened in Winooski and it is equitable to have all students and their families feel safe that children are getting to school dry warm and on time to school and that's the first thing we can do is get everyone in the door at the same time. I also support this budget because right now Winooski housing is selling over the appraisal and so our CLA has caused a lot more cost to our educational budget and also through our administration and particularly Nicole Mace we are we have been involved in the USDA loan a USDA loan that's going to save our taxpayers 34 million dollars over the course of the bond for the capital project. Our community approved a $58 million budget and the the loans that we were able to receive from USDA at a super low rate is going to save our community millions literally 34 million dollars over the course of the loan. Thank you very much Tori and we will stick with you and we will head on to the next question which is Winooski has been having conversations around racial justice and education what have you learned from these conversations? Well it's not just conversations we do have racial justice conversations happening within the school building but we've also been having robust conversations and more importantly action around anti-racism and our students a former alumni and students brought to us in August 2020 six to eight demands that can help us move Winooski to becoming an anti-racist district and we have six action teams that are functioning right now that are filled with community members, students, administrators, teachers to help our district move forward and being intentional and having an impact on race in our schools how we all learn and grow together in this and move what our former alumni believe to be true about how we can move forward in intentional ways with concrete actions in becoming an anti-racist school district. I was muted thank you Tori and we will head on over to Allison now. Sure so what I've learned from the conversations we've had is that there's so much there are so many unique experiences in our community that are really important to bring to the table when we're making decisions and so I've learned about the importance of that. It has also really reinforced for me that every human being every child in our school district deserves to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of who they are and I think that these conversations have really brought that forward to me and also some of the work we've done with youth and adult partnerships the learnings we've had there just with up for learning I found that very interesting and it's really challenged my sort of training in the workforce on how youth and adults interact so that has been really great and I can see how that will help with anti-racism work in the future. Thank you very much Allison and before we move on to the next question I would just like to remind folks that are watching out there in the community that you can call in and we will answer your questions live on the air at if you call in at 802-862-3966. All right and we will move on to the next question. Sticking with Allison and along those same lines do you support the passage of H.584 which would require standards in education designed to promote anti-racism in schools? Why do you or do you not support this bill? So I looked at this bill because I had not heard of it before recently and what I read in the short the short form of the bill was that this is not this is to designate schools as certified in anti-racism. I didn't read it as requiring anti-racism curriculum for example but the short answer is that because I could only find the short form of the bill I would really need to get some more information on the implications of the bill for our school district. However it was introduced among other people by our own Taylor Small and Hal Fulston who represent Manuski in Montpelier. So without understanding all of the implications of the balancing the full text I absolutely support moving schools towards being anti-racist. So I can make a pretty good guess that I would be in support of this bill. Great thank you very much Allison and Tori do you why do you support or not support this bill? Well I appreciate Allison you starting because that's I looked it up as well because I had not heard about it. I absolutely support Taylor Small and Hal Fulston and the work they've been doing for Manuski and the whole state of Vermont in the legislature. So I I too looked it up and I agree with a lot what you were saying Allison of it is important that we recognize the public education is an institution that was designed for haves and have-nots and they're designed on some anti-racist ideas and having having support for move us towards more anti-racist ideas and creating equitable places and learning and supports and interactions is incredibly important as we're all moving forward to dismantle some of the the oppression that has been inherently in the foundation of public education. Thank you very much Tori. Okay we will move on to our next question and Tori you will answer this one first. The question is what impacts has the pandemic had on learning for students in the Manuski school system and what would you do in your role on the school board to address or work with these impacts? I think broadly the pandemic has had an incredible impact on the learning of students across our nature and then so in Manuski this our sphere of influence is the stress and the stress on families the stress on students the being separated out being isolated coming back in missing like two years of sort of the the regular pace of education has had an impact on like there's been a drift away from regular norms of who we are together and us figuring it out we are we are in schools together as especially with adolescents building their own identity and they've been doing it online there's so many impacts I think what's most important about this is validating and acknowledging the stress and the sort of collective trauma that everyone's experience in the in this pandemic and moving towards more wellness and nourishment and pacing that honors what we're all going through so just shoving high academic rigor without allowing being together and and restorativeness of who we are together that that's going to be equal measure with academics also so that we can we can move through this all together. Thank you Tori and we will head over to Allison to answer this question. I really agree with all of what Tori has said and she says it so well but when I think about this this topic I think about the uncertainty that we've been in in the last two years people are worried about about their safety we're dealing with needing to flex what we're doing at work I'm thinking of staff faculty and staff at the school they're needing to flex what they do and take on new responsibilities amid shortages of staff and faculty they're implementing new technology on the like like over a weekend probably to go remote two years ago and so those are definitely challenges we've experienced and I've heard sound bites about test scores and similar to what Tori said I think okay test scores yeah but are our students safe and happy and healthy we need to worry about that first right and and that this is an unprecedented situation that's not just in musky it's worldwide which may fundamentally change how we live life going forward so we need to give ourselves some grace for things like standardized testing if our students are warm and fed and and happy and thriving then I think that is there like a baseline or a couple of the baselines of needs right so we just really need to give ourselves grace and time to to fully heal from what what we've experienced what we've gone through thank you Allison and we have a couple more oh yes say that again Tori that was beautifully spoken Allison thank you all right now we have a couple more questions left to go here I would just like to remind the community if you have a question for either of our candidates we would love to hear it um call us at 802-862-3966 and with that said we will head on to the next question and we will start with Allison and the question is what educational uh what educational reforms are most important to you and your constituents over the next five to ten years so the first thing that comes to mind for me is equitable funding to properly support the work that our faculty and staff are doing for the students in the community um for those following along at home what we've been talking about the um the weighting study for the last several years which is how pupils are calculated for the school district and how that factors into the budget and the legislature is currently working on a solution that that may or may not be good for runuski in the long run and I think that um working towards an equitable solution that so I'm going to say that we're equitable a lot but that equitably funds runuski school district is probably my main priority in addition to coupling that with smart spending like making sure that what we are spending our money on is the right thing um and and I think that that is not um not suggesting that's been an issue I think we've done a good job with that we just need to continue doing that thank you very much all right Tori um what educational reforms are most important to you and your constituents over the next five to ten years well I think everything that Allison just said about the people weighted study is huge around equitable funding for all students um which will benefit runuski community um and I mean I also wrap back around to the prior conversation around test scores what we're talking about coming out of a pandemic and how test scores seem to be most important to some people I just want to be clear that the amount of testing that we've done on students for over way over 50 years has never disrupted the inequitable outcomes of for students so if your if your life has been then touched by poverty disability and race you are more likely to go to prison than you are to get a good job and have a good career and that is across our nation and it impacts vermont in the same way so the educational initiative is to continue to redesign public education with students at the center with teachers at the center as we also know from decades of research that the biggest impact on students their learning and their well-being are teachers and so well-being and nourishment and pacing to thrive has got to become something that's important in educational initiatives and reform and runuski's gone through an educational reform phase where when we had this nely may grant for about seven years we had it in partnership with uh burlington and there was an intentional restructuring of the way we do education based on tons of educational research that students need to be in the center of their learning in collaboration with teachers in collaboration with administrators and superintendents it needs to be shared leadership and collective understanding about how do well we say this way humans are designed to learn we we learn when we're in a thriving environment and so that's going to need to be incredibly important in the upcoming years as we as we come off this pandemic hopefully it goes away right and we start to heal together thank you very much tori all right one more time i'm going to remind folks that uh we would love to hear your um questions thoughts opinions call in at 802-862-3966 we're getting close to the end we're getting close to the end here we've got about 11 minutes left we will for the next question we will stick with tori and the question is and there's two big questions here so feel free to answer it how you'd like but the question is what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the school and how would you use your how would you continue using your seat on the school board to address these issues and then as a final question what is your vision for winewski's education future which you already sort of just said but love to hear it some more yeah so all the vision part was what i was uh yeah speaking to around public education the high school redesign education redesign um my true vision is that people feel like they know they belong that there is wholehearted belonging in schools that is from which we all learn and grow um when we are seen and heard um you might need to repeat some of that other the part of other parts of that question yeah sure i'll uh the first part of that question was what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the school and how would you to continue to use your seat to address these issues probably one of the biggest challenges right now is getting through the capital project we took on a 58 million dollar bond that the community was incredibly behind us to redesign a building that the last time it was touched was like 1960s and we did it during a pandemic so we are hopefully the teachers and the students and families have been incredibly patient and tolerant of the disruptions of the capital projects as it's being built um we're moving into new spaces and out of new spaces as it happens hopefully it will be completed in the fall of 2020 um and then and then i guess the other big challenges are to continue um with our anti-racism work um with our restorative justice work with um connecting with community and families and making sure everyone feels that they are a part of and belong to this community and our school which is the heart of this community great thank you so much Tori and Allison for this final question um what do you see as the biggest challenges facing the school and how would you use your seat on the school board to address these issues and then as a follow-up uh what's your vision for Winooski's education future sure so as far as challenges i agree with what Tori has said and her answer i would add a couple things that i thought about um in the short run um staff shortages and the relationship between the pandemic and burnout of staff um teaching and working education is a caring profession i would say and burnout among caring professionals is just um also at a pandemic level right now so that's one thing i'm concerned about um how i would use my seat to help with these challenges is a little bit like higher level what i would say is that i want to encourage this the school district to fail fast which means take up on take up an initiative and properly monitor it so that if there's indication that it's not going to work we stop and we don't continue down a road of something that's not working so that's called failing fast um and and then it works the other way too where if we can we start down a road and we see like oh wow this is working we can keep doing it and so i think that's a higher level of way of approaching all of these of these challenges and my vision for runuski schools is really one where like tori says everybody feels like they belong everybody feels like um they we recognize the dignity within all of the students and all of the people in the community that are related to the school great thank you so much allison and that about wraps up all of the questions that we have for both of you and we have plenty of time for um both alice to hear closing statements from both allison and tori before we wrap up so um for that we will start with allison sure so i'll just talk a little bit more about who i am um we didn't want to do that too much at the beginning so i am a almost a five-year resident of runuski i did grow up in adison county um i am a product of public school education in vermont and i really appreciated what it gave to me and i would like to perpetuate that to other students particularly in vermont um i i am a quality and process improvement professional in healthcare which allows me to think about systems and see how things are connected and i'm also a statistician so i'm also good with numbers um and and i think that the group that we have on the school board right now is really collegial we work very well together we're making progress on on issues that come to us and i i just i really like the group we have and i hope we can keep it moving forward thank you very much allison and tori your closing statement i'm very hopeful um moving forward um into these new years um i've been a resident of runuski for 18 years i am from the south i was born in alabama and i was raised in georgia and um coming from the south has certainly influenced my perspective on um racism and equity and belonging and collective shared collective work to really see and hear each other for our inherent dignity and worth i have a vision for the school that um again around everyone belongs and everyone is valued and seen and heard for the gifts and the the brilliance that each and every one of us have to offer and i'm i'm i'm excited for the future there's a lot of work to be done and the work of the board is to make sure that we are monitoring our in statement which is the driver of all of our governance which is that all students will graduate college and career ready at a cost supported by our community they will go on to lead healthy productive successful lives and be engaged in their local and global communities and we have some work to do to make sure we are measuring that we are we are fulfilling our promise to this community um that our youth will thrive and grow and and contribute in their futures thank you very much tori and thank you very much to both of our candidates for participating in our forum tonight and thank you to our viewers for tuning in to town meeting tv's ongoing coverage of local community candidates candidates budget and ballot items you can find this forum and more at www.ch17.tv and don't forget to vote on or before the first tuesday in march town meeting day um march i have the wrong date here but town meeting day in march um early voting by mail is available and you can contact your town clerk's office to find out how your community is handling vote by mail and polls will be open from 7 a.m to 7 p.m and let me just get the correct date on that so our folks can be informed and can get out and vote the first tuesday in march this year is march 1st 2022 so thank you for participating in this forum and thank you all for watching