The following is a transcription of District 7 MCCSC school board candidates' answers to selected questions from the League of Women Voters forum on Thursday, September 25. (We have completed District 7 and will post the transcription of District 1 candidates' responses as soon as we can.)The forum can be viewed on catstv.net. We post the second set of questions that we transcribed at the beginning here, so they are not in the order they were at the forum.
On what the board should do to address the socioeconomic segregation of MCCSC students
Jeannine Butler: “Well, that’s pretty loaded. I will tell you that we have looked at this problem… I’ve been in this school corporation, I was in this school corporation for 25 years and ended it in 1994 and were fighting that problem in 1994. We’re still fighting that problem now.. and the schools that we’re fighting it in are the same ones that we were fighting it in earlier. There was a time at one point in time when we tried to redistrict and move some kids around and our community almost caused our school board members (and I wasn’t there ) but almost caused our school board members to be ridden out on a rail. It’s a very, very complex issue. We have put extra money in our schools that are 90% free and reduced, we have put extra teachers, we’ve put extra administrators, we’ve done a lot of things. We have Artful Learning that we think will be successful, we have the violin program that we think is successful, but, you know, it’s a conundrum. I don’t have the answers for that, and I wouldn’t presume to be able to answer that.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that the question that is helpful for me in this (and if you notice, I like to ask a lot of questions) … is why does any school in MCCSC have 90% free and reduced lunch? Why? That’s the question I would like to ask. And I’d like us to not just ask it and move on and say, ‘We have it. Let’s throw a lot of resources at it. Let’s see if that does it…’ But I would to ask those questions and then to say, ‘Is that okay? Is that okay that one school: teachers, staff, administration… that they all have to take the brunt of what comes with some of those kids and that population?’ I’d like to ask that question and leave it open for ‘What is best for the kids? What is best for the kids?’ and if that costs us time and resources, if that costs me as a board member to be run out on a rail, if that’s what we need.. What is best for the kids?”
On the referendum
Question: What do you believe to be the most significant issue that the MCCSC board will address in 2015 and beyond?
Brandon Shurr: “…I think the referendum and the budget, as others said before, is going to come up obviously again. And that’s an issue that we’re going to have to tackle. I think along with that issue is the issue of communication and transparency. Anywhere you look about the referendum, you all know what people are saying. You all know that people feel that they were duped, that something wasn’t communicated to them. So the issue of the referendum when it comes up, the way that I would like as a board member to deal with it, is to only support it if we are transparent, if we are clear, and if we communicate what it is that we would like to spend the money for.”
Jeannine Butler: “I think probably the most significant issue in all honesty is the financial situation that we find ourselves in. The state increased our financial base by one-third of one percent for 2015. Generally, you think that you have to have at least 2% in order to just maintain. The balance of that deficit will come from our operating balance which will lower our operating balance and lessen our ability to deal with emergencies.
“The second part of it is certainly the referendum. We passed a successful referendum by 63% of our people in this community saying ‘yes, we want to keep your schools as good as they can be.’ And as Kelly [Smith] indicated, part of it was staffing and we have used all of the referendum monies for staffing to increase the learning of our students. The last is teacher evaluation and we just had a meeting on Tuesday night and our teachers like it. ”
On librarians
Question: “I have a question here about certificated employees who are not teachers … in particular, school librarians. And also we have a question from the audience about social workers and whether it should be important to have more of those? In particular, full time librarians at all Title I elementary schools since we don’t now have that and have some half-time librarians. Is that something that the district should aspire to? How high a priority should it be? How would you do it?”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that’s a good question and I’d just like to focus on the librarians and the full-time issue of librarians. I think that librarians are very, very essential and important and as others have said, critical to the growth and education of children in schools. They’re sort of the cornerstone in a lot of ways to kids’ education. And I think… you take a Title I school and we talk about how reading is so important and how kids are behind and then we don’t provide a full-time librarian. That’s problematic to me. I would like our resources to go to places with full-time librarians where they’re needed. I think every school should have a full-time librarian. Obviously, I know, people can say, ‘How are we going to do that financially?’ Again, we need to ask ourselves, ‘What is best for the kids? What can we take away and what can we add on?’”
Jeannine Butler: “Well, you talk about certificated employees… I will talk about certainly the media specialists are all certificated employees. They mostly, in fact, most of them were holding teaching degrees and teaching licenses and then become media specialists. You know, I would never say that media specialists are not important in our schools. In a perfect world, we would have maybe TWO media specialists in every school because I think they could serve our kids very, very well. We don’t LIVE in a perfect world and so therefore we have to make some really hard decisions. Our decisions are based upon population in the schools. Is that a good decision or a bad decision? I can’t answer that at this point in time. Those are decisions and conversations that we will need to have and I think we WILL have them. And I think that we will have to come up with what we feel is the right decision. Along with that decision will have to come, where do we find the money? And what do we LOSE or who do we CUT in order to have that?”
More on the referendum
Question: This question presumes that you support the referendum and so if that’s not the case, you need to go a different direction. What will you do to promote the referendum and how much time will you spend working on the referendum?
Jeannine Butler: “Well, you know I promoted the first referendum and the renewal of the referendum and I would like to use that terminology: we want to renew the referendum, rather than have a new referendum. And I will spend whatever time is required. School board members are by law not allowed to do some things but when it comes to walking the streets and when it comes to handing out things, when it comes to working the polls, those are things I did for the first referendum and I would certainly do it for the second referendum. We MUST HAVE this referendum. If we don’t have a renewal of our referendum, then what we saw four years ago, we will see again only worse. And we won’t be cutting just teachers. We will cut all media specialists, we’ll cut elementary P.E., music, and art. We’ll cut Honey Creek; we’ll cut Strings; we’ll cut everything. So we must have the renewal of this referendum.”
Brandon Shurr: “I will fully support a referendum. And I fully support a referendum that is, again, open, transparent, communicative to everybody to know exactly… I’ll support a referendum if we say, ‘This is what we’re going to spend the referendum on.’ So that when people vote, they know this is what the money goes towards. And I will work as hard as possible to make sure that those things that we decided, that the community also likes to be a part of in that process, of saying: ‘This is where the money would go and they support us.’ I will work as much as I can to support that and be behind that.”
On testing and opting out of standardized tests
Question: So this kind-of builds on a question asked before about testing, but I think there’s a lot of interest in that. And this is a more specific question about testing. We’re hearing a lot about parents around the country who are choosing to have their children opt-out of tests, opt-out of standardized tests. If that were to happen in Monroe County, if it does happen in Monroe County, what should the school corporation’s response be?
Jeannine Butler: Well, I think we have to encourage all of our students to take those tests. And I don’t disagree with Mr. Shurr that it’s a shame that our state has seen fit to impose these upon us, but I think we have to encourage all of our students to take it. One of the reasons for standardized testing is to be able to gauge where a student is and I think we have to be able to do that. We give standardized tests forever. When I went to college a hundred years ago, I took a standardized test that forecast how successful I would be in school. Now, it wasn’t right. But I took it. And the test said I would be in the low ‘C’ range. And I had a counselor who said, “Well, how come you’re making A’s?” and I said that I don’t have any idea. So... and we take SATs and they place kids in certain places. We take ACTs and they do the same thing. I would wager that everyone in this building or in this room who has ever been in any kind of a school situation took a standardized test.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think assessment is good when it’s appropriate. I don’t think we should do it just because that’s what we’ve always done for a hundred years. I think we should look at what is appropriate for our kids and I think that we need to ask the question: Why are people opting out? Why are people opting out? Why are their kids stressed out when they get home? Why are we putting more stress on parents when the kids come home? I think the questions need to be asked: Why are parents opting out? And we should ask those parents. Why is it that you’re opting out? And we will hear the reasons why and I think we can evaluate once we know what the issue is…or issues.”
On community collaboration
Question: Do you think there is sufficient collaboration between the MCCSC schools and community organizations and what do you think could be done to improve and increase the amount of collaboration among the schools and community organizations?
Brandon Shurr: “I work at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard as a volunteer coordinator and one, really a couple of neat things that happen… But there’s a group of special needs kids that come in from the program at MCCSC and they volunteer on a weekly basis. And that’s the kind of collaboration that I think is appropriate, helpful, and is very beneficial to both parties. Beneficial to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, beneficial to the folks who come, and beneficial to the staff around that see that. So I would encourage us as much as possible with the time that we have if we’re not having to focus on the tests, to be able to relax a little bit. We can’t collaborate, find out new things, get connected to the community if we don’t have time to do that. So if we could again, relax a little bit… as much as possible, slow some of that stuff down and see how we can get engaged in the community, I think it would be a great asset to children’s further learning.”
Jeannine Butler: “I believe that we need to look at many, many different ways for us to continue to communicate with our different communities. One of the best work sessions that we had—it was a community conversation—we showed our kids in various schools, working on iPads and computers and what they could do. I would guess there were fifty parents at that meeting. That’s the most parents we’ve ever had in my recollection, at a Community Conversation or a community meeting. We have regular community meetings. We have at least four a year. We need to continue to have more. And if our community would tell us what topics they would like for us to listen to and topics for us to address, we will do that.”
On a school board member’s relationship with the superintendent and with teachers
Question: As a school board member, explain your relationship to the superintendent and to the teachers.
Jeannine Butler: “You know, I do a lot of going to Indiana School Boards Association meetings and they certainly are our parent organization. It’s been drilled into me on a regular basis that the school board’s only employee, that we choose, is the superintendent. Now does that mean that we just turn the superintendent loose and say, you know, ‘Whatever you can do, whatever you want to do, you can do’? No. We listen to her. We have meetings. We give our input. We okay every person that’s hired, but we don’t make the decisions to hire teachers. That’s up to our personnel director, our principals, and our superintendent. And so we are a policy-making board, and we hire a superintendent. And then we expect that superintendent to fulfill our policies and to fulfill what’s best for our community.”
Brandon Shurr: “As far as with the superintendent, the relationship I believe is one of accountability and support. I also believe that it’s not one of writing blank checks for whatever it is that the superintendent would like, but making sure that they are accountable and we are actually representing the people who have voted us in. And that we are representing their wants and needs as well in the community and not just hearing… just the superintendent, but keeping that kind of relationship between the community, us, and the superintendent one that’s always in our ears. With the teachers, I know that we don’t have a role of hiring or firing, but how can we support them? How can we let them know…on and on… they’re supported. And if there’s policy decisions that we can help to let them know that they’re supported, that’s what I would like to do—to support our teachers because they’re the ones that are teaching our kids.”
On the longer school day
Question: We went from the shortest school day in the state to one of the longest (according to the questioner)—should that be reconsidered? Should we look at changing the school day to make it shorter and, along with that, there’s considerable research that indicates adolescents/teenagers don’t do real well early in the morning---should the board, should the corporation consider a later start to the school day for middle school and high school?
Jeanine Butler: “It has been our belief and I will stand by that belief that ‘time on task’ is very important for our kids to learn and so I feel that the longer school day has been very beneficial for us. In answer to your other one [question], should we change the times? We have discussed this every year I’ve been on the school board and so that’s at least 8 times….It’s a question that’s really difficult. There are all kinds of considerations. We’ve had our transportation people talk us about it, we’ve talked about it as far as fiscal responsibility is concerned and how much it would cost to do that… we’ve talked about how we can flip, how we can buy twice as many buses, and… I think it’s a conversation that we’re willing to have every single time…”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that a problem with the school board currently is we’re not asking some questions. And the question that I would ask is…Has it helped? Do we have research and evaluation that has actually shown that this has helped? Throughout this year… if we look at that over the years, has this longer day helped our students? The question that I have is that because it’s all about the kids and what’s best for the kids and if it hasn’t been proven to help the kids, then why are we doing it?”
The second part: “Of course I would love to consider following the research for later start for kids. I would like to ask again: ‘What is best for the child?’ And how can we fight to do what’s best for the kids? If we need to get more buses, if we need to change things around… We need to do what’s best for the children and if what’s best for the children is to change the school time, then I think we should look at that.”
On teachers and collaboration
Question: How can a school board best encourage a sense of professional community and create a collaborative work environment for teachers?
Brandon Shurr: “To my knowledge right now…teachers have to go through a process where they bring things that essentially just goes to the superintendent and I think it’s really hard to have a collaborative effort with the school board and the teachers when there seems to be no actual route for them to go directly to the school board. I would like to have not only a sessions for us to be able to have a place for teachers to speak honestly and to be able to speak in that way without any repercussions because I feel that there is a lot of fear of teachers’ that if they say certain things, that that could mean certain things for them and their future as a teacher… So I would like to be able to help create spaces and ask that question again: Why aren’t there channels for teachers to directly talk to the school board?”
Jeannine Butler: “We have, when we got the longer school day, we were able to institute a time period every Wednesday morning for our teachers to work with our Professional Learning Communities.. That has been very successful as far as our testing scores are concerned and the longer school day has been very successful as far as our testing scores are concerned. We do have collaboration within those buildings with the teachers at each grade level and in the high schools at each subject area level. Our principals are involved in those professional Learning communities. We as school board members are NOT because in all honesty, it’s not our prerogative to sit and tell our teachers how to teach. It’s our prerogative to try to support them and to try and find the financial means necessary to do that. We have a very strong union in the MCCSC and I think we listen to their leaders and each of those schools have representatives for that union. So I think we have a lot of conversation with our teachers.”
On the purpose of public education
Jeanine Butler: “I believe that public education is here to educate every single child that we have. Not just in the MCCSC, but in the entire nation. That’s what our public education system has done historically and I believe that’s where we are and I believe that’s what we have to do. We have to deliver good citizens, we have to deliver students who have gained some knowledge and some capabilities to have jobs, we have to deliver students who are good citizens and we have to make sure that our students across the nation and specifically in the MCCSC know what the 21st century learning skills are and that we are able to deliver them for our students. That’s what public education is.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think public education is for all kids. And I think not just for all kids to raise them into who they can be and what they can be in our society for our own purposes, but how can we love them? How can we show them that they matter? How can we be a place for teaching kids and raising them up so that they look at the needs of others around them? And obviously I think we need to educate kids so that they can get to where they want to go in their future, but we have these kids for a certain period of time where we can mold them and shape them and tell them what’s important in the world and the life around them. When I look at a school like Fairview, my daughter-- I see that she cares about other people because of her teacher telling her day in and day out: ‘You are important and these kids around you are just as important as well.’”
On standardized testing
Question: There’s a perception that the ISTEP test and other standardized tests are leading to much classroom time being devoted to test preparation. As a board member, what are your feelings about the use of class time… the use of standardized testing and would you support a resolution for or against the use of standardized tests?
Jeannine Butler: “I’m not a real proponent of all standardized testing. I understand what the law is. The law says we will do the ISTEP in grades 3-8 and we’ll do end-of-course assessments [ECAs] in sophomore English and Algebra. That’s what the law tells us we have to do and so therefore we will do it. Do I like the fact that our teachers feel some stress about having their students pass ISTEP? No.
Would I support a resolution? I was against the resolution that was brought before the board a couple of years ago because it dealt with teacher evaluation legislation and most of that information was not exactly accurate.. For example, it said that we rely heavily on standardized tests: Not true fully. Approximately 33% of all teachers would be required to use ISTEP data on teacher evaluations…there were lots of miscommunications and misinterpretations on that and that’s why I did not support it.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think it’s problematic when my 8 year-old that’s in 3rd grade comes to me after school and seems to know exactly when the tests are going to be months ahead of time. Why does she need to know that ahead of time? Why does she, an 8 year-old, need to know that in four or five months she’s going to be tested on things? To me, that seems a little bit absurd. It seems a little bit ridiculous that a stress is brought upon her on something that’s coming up for a long time and this is her first year being tested. So I would like for us to find places where we can push back, find places where we can begin to resist for the sake of our kids. I don’t like this just rolling down and laying back and saying: ‘Let’s just see what happens, we gotta do it.’ There’s gotta be a way that we can push back. There’s gotta be a way that we can find where we can talk to things, where we can make changes, for the sake of our kids.”
On parent involvement in policy making
Question: In what ways do you think the board could include the parent community in policy decision-making?
Jeannine Butler: “I think that we ARE the policy decision-makers as far as the school corporation is concerned and as far as state law is concerned. That does not mean that we should not listen to our constituents. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have committees that talk to us about policies. We have a lot of committees that go on within our school corporation—some dealing with finances, some dealing with certain policies, some dealing with longer school days, some dealing with the school calendar, which are all things that we had to deal with…We have had a lot of conversation with a lot of people and I would hope that we would continue to do that. You can’t have too much. You just need to always remember that you have to listen to what they say and then, in the final run, you’re the one that has to make the decision.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that… this is something that’s true to my heart. This is something that is one of the reasons that I am running for school board… because I notice that good friends and parents of mine that came to a school board meeting and to discuss and to be open, and the next meeting there was a little bit of shaming going on about how could they come into this meeting as emotional and charged as they did. And to me, that is not truly listening, not truly hearing and I think there needs to be more of that. Sometimes I feel like the discussion has already happened, the decision has already been made and I think parents feel that way as well. So how can we truly listen, truly hear and see it reflected in the decisions made? And when we seem them reflected in the decisions made, if parents can say ‘Yes! That reflects us! You heard us!’ I think that’s when we’re in the right place.”
On what the board should do to address the socioeconomic segregation of MCCSC students
Jeannine Butler: “Well, that’s pretty loaded. I will tell you that we have looked at this problem… I’ve been in this school corporation, I was in this school corporation for 25 years and ended it in 1994 and were fighting that problem in 1994. We’re still fighting that problem now.. and the schools that we’re fighting it in are the same ones that we were fighting it in earlier. There was a time at one point in time when we tried to redistrict and move some kids around and our community almost caused our school board members (and I wasn’t there ) but almost caused our school board members to be ridden out on a rail. It’s a very, very complex issue. We have put extra money in our schools that are 90% free and reduced, we have put extra teachers, we’ve put extra administrators, we’ve done a lot of things. We have Artful Learning that we think will be successful, we have the violin program that we think is successful, but, you know, it’s a conundrum. I don’t have the answers for that, and I wouldn’t presume to be able to answer that.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that the question that is helpful for me in this (and if you notice, I like to ask a lot of questions) … is why does any school in MCCSC have 90% free and reduced lunch? Why? That’s the question I would like to ask. And I’d like us to not just ask it and move on and say, ‘We have it. Let’s throw a lot of resources at it. Let’s see if that does it…’ But I would to ask those questions and then to say, ‘Is that okay? Is that okay that one school: teachers, staff, administration… that they all have to take the brunt of what comes with some of those kids and that population?’ I’d like to ask that question and leave it open for ‘What is best for the kids? What is best for the kids?’ and if that costs us time and resources, if that costs me as a board member to be run out on a rail, if that’s what we need.. What is best for the kids?”
On the referendum
Question: What do you believe to be the most significant issue that the MCCSC board will address in 2015 and beyond?
Brandon Shurr: “…I think the referendum and the budget, as others said before, is going to come up obviously again. And that’s an issue that we’re going to have to tackle. I think along with that issue is the issue of communication and transparency. Anywhere you look about the referendum, you all know what people are saying. You all know that people feel that they were duped, that something wasn’t communicated to them. So the issue of the referendum when it comes up, the way that I would like as a board member to deal with it, is to only support it if we are transparent, if we are clear, and if we communicate what it is that we would like to spend the money for.”
Jeannine Butler: “I think probably the most significant issue in all honesty is the financial situation that we find ourselves in. The state increased our financial base by one-third of one percent for 2015. Generally, you think that you have to have at least 2% in order to just maintain. The balance of that deficit will come from our operating balance which will lower our operating balance and lessen our ability to deal with emergencies.
“The second part of it is certainly the referendum. We passed a successful referendum by 63% of our people in this community saying ‘yes, we want to keep your schools as good as they can be.’ And as Kelly [Smith] indicated, part of it was staffing and we have used all of the referendum monies for staffing to increase the learning of our students. The last is teacher evaluation and we just had a meeting on Tuesday night and our teachers like it. ”
On librarians
Question: “I have a question here about certificated employees who are not teachers … in particular, school librarians. And also we have a question from the audience about social workers and whether it should be important to have more of those? In particular, full time librarians at all Title I elementary schools since we don’t now have that and have some half-time librarians. Is that something that the district should aspire to? How high a priority should it be? How would you do it?”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that’s a good question and I’d just like to focus on the librarians and the full-time issue of librarians. I think that librarians are very, very essential and important and as others have said, critical to the growth and education of children in schools. They’re sort of the cornerstone in a lot of ways to kids’ education. And I think… you take a Title I school and we talk about how reading is so important and how kids are behind and then we don’t provide a full-time librarian. That’s problematic to me. I would like our resources to go to places with full-time librarians where they’re needed. I think every school should have a full-time librarian. Obviously, I know, people can say, ‘How are we going to do that financially?’ Again, we need to ask ourselves, ‘What is best for the kids? What can we take away and what can we add on?’”
Jeannine Butler: “Well, you talk about certificated employees… I will talk about certainly the media specialists are all certificated employees. They mostly, in fact, most of them were holding teaching degrees and teaching licenses and then become media specialists. You know, I would never say that media specialists are not important in our schools. In a perfect world, we would have maybe TWO media specialists in every school because I think they could serve our kids very, very well. We don’t LIVE in a perfect world and so therefore we have to make some really hard decisions. Our decisions are based upon population in the schools. Is that a good decision or a bad decision? I can’t answer that at this point in time. Those are decisions and conversations that we will need to have and I think we WILL have them. And I think that we will have to come up with what we feel is the right decision. Along with that decision will have to come, where do we find the money? And what do we LOSE or who do we CUT in order to have that?”
More on the referendum
Question: This question presumes that you support the referendum and so if that’s not the case, you need to go a different direction. What will you do to promote the referendum and how much time will you spend working on the referendum?
Jeannine Butler: “Well, you know I promoted the first referendum and the renewal of the referendum and I would like to use that terminology: we want to renew the referendum, rather than have a new referendum. And I will spend whatever time is required. School board members are by law not allowed to do some things but when it comes to walking the streets and when it comes to handing out things, when it comes to working the polls, those are things I did for the first referendum and I would certainly do it for the second referendum. We MUST HAVE this referendum. If we don’t have a renewal of our referendum, then what we saw four years ago, we will see again only worse. And we won’t be cutting just teachers. We will cut all media specialists, we’ll cut elementary P.E., music, and art. We’ll cut Honey Creek; we’ll cut Strings; we’ll cut everything. So we must have the renewal of this referendum.”
Brandon Shurr: “I will fully support a referendum. And I fully support a referendum that is, again, open, transparent, communicative to everybody to know exactly… I’ll support a referendum if we say, ‘This is what we’re going to spend the referendum on.’ So that when people vote, they know this is what the money goes towards. And I will work as hard as possible to make sure that those things that we decided, that the community also likes to be a part of in that process, of saying: ‘This is where the money would go and they support us.’ I will work as much as I can to support that and be behind that.”
On testing and opting out of standardized tests
Question: So this kind-of builds on a question asked before about testing, but I think there’s a lot of interest in that. And this is a more specific question about testing. We’re hearing a lot about parents around the country who are choosing to have their children opt-out of tests, opt-out of standardized tests. If that were to happen in Monroe County, if it does happen in Monroe County, what should the school corporation’s response be?
Jeannine Butler: Well, I think we have to encourage all of our students to take those tests. And I don’t disagree with Mr. Shurr that it’s a shame that our state has seen fit to impose these upon us, but I think we have to encourage all of our students to take it. One of the reasons for standardized testing is to be able to gauge where a student is and I think we have to be able to do that. We give standardized tests forever. When I went to college a hundred years ago, I took a standardized test that forecast how successful I would be in school. Now, it wasn’t right. But I took it. And the test said I would be in the low ‘C’ range. And I had a counselor who said, “Well, how come you’re making A’s?” and I said that I don’t have any idea. So... and we take SATs and they place kids in certain places. We take ACTs and they do the same thing. I would wager that everyone in this building or in this room who has ever been in any kind of a school situation took a standardized test.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think assessment is good when it’s appropriate. I don’t think we should do it just because that’s what we’ve always done for a hundred years. I think we should look at what is appropriate for our kids and I think that we need to ask the question: Why are people opting out? Why are people opting out? Why are their kids stressed out when they get home? Why are we putting more stress on parents when the kids come home? I think the questions need to be asked: Why are parents opting out? And we should ask those parents. Why is it that you’re opting out? And we will hear the reasons why and I think we can evaluate once we know what the issue is…or issues.”
On community collaboration
Question: Do you think there is sufficient collaboration between the MCCSC schools and community organizations and what do you think could be done to improve and increase the amount of collaboration among the schools and community organizations?
Brandon Shurr: “I work at Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard as a volunteer coordinator and one, really a couple of neat things that happen… But there’s a group of special needs kids that come in from the program at MCCSC and they volunteer on a weekly basis. And that’s the kind of collaboration that I think is appropriate, helpful, and is very beneficial to both parties. Beneficial to Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard, beneficial to the folks who come, and beneficial to the staff around that see that. So I would encourage us as much as possible with the time that we have if we’re not having to focus on the tests, to be able to relax a little bit. We can’t collaborate, find out new things, get connected to the community if we don’t have time to do that. So if we could again, relax a little bit… as much as possible, slow some of that stuff down and see how we can get engaged in the community, I think it would be a great asset to children’s further learning.”
Jeannine Butler: “I believe that we need to look at many, many different ways for us to continue to communicate with our different communities. One of the best work sessions that we had—it was a community conversation—we showed our kids in various schools, working on iPads and computers and what they could do. I would guess there were fifty parents at that meeting. That’s the most parents we’ve ever had in my recollection, at a Community Conversation or a community meeting. We have regular community meetings. We have at least four a year. We need to continue to have more. And if our community would tell us what topics they would like for us to listen to and topics for us to address, we will do that.”
On a school board member’s relationship with the superintendent and with teachers
Question: As a school board member, explain your relationship to the superintendent and to the teachers.
Jeannine Butler: “You know, I do a lot of going to Indiana School Boards Association meetings and they certainly are our parent organization. It’s been drilled into me on a regular basis that the school board’s only employee, that we choose, is the superintendent. Now does that mean that we just turn the superintendent loose and say, you know, ‘Whatever you can do, whatever you want to do, you can do’? No. We listen to her. We have meetings. We give our input. We okay every person that’s hired, but we don’t make the decisions to hire teachers. That’s up to our personnel director, our principals, and our superintendent. And so we are a policy-making board, and we hire a superintendent. And then we expect that superintendent to fulfill our policies and to fulfill what’s best for our community.”
Brandon Shurr: “As far as with the superintendent, the relationship I believe is one of accountability and support. I also believe that it’s not one of writing blank checks for whatever it is that the superintendent would like, but making sure that they are accountable and we are actually representing the people who have voted us in. And that we are representing their wants and needs as well in the community and not just hearing… just the superintendent, but keeping that kind of relationship between the community, us, and the superintendent one that’s always in our ears. With the teachers, I know that we don’t have a role of hiring or firing, but how can we support them? How can we let them know…on and on… they’re supported. And if there’s policy decisions that we can help to let them know that they’re supported, that’s what I would like to do—to support our teachers because they’re the ones that are teaching our kids.”
On the longer school day
Question: We went from the shortest school day in the state to one of the longest (according to the questioner)—should that be reconsidered? Should we look at changing the school day to make it shorter and, along with that, there’s considerable research that indicates adolescents/teenagers don’t do real well early in the morning---should the board, should the corporation consider a later start to the school day for middle school and high school?
Jeanine Butler: “It has been our belief and I will stand by that belief that ‘time on task’ is very important for our kids to learn and so I feel that the longer school day has been very beneficial for us. In answer to your other one [question], should we change the times? We have discussed this every year I’ve been on the school board and so that’s at least 8 times….It’s a question that’s really difficult. There are all kinds of considerations. We’ve had our transportation people talk us about it, we’ve talked about it as far as fiscal responsibility is concerned and how much it would cost to do that… we’ve talked about how we can flip, how we can buy twice as many buses, and… I think it’s a conversation that we’re willing to have every single time…”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that a problem with the school board currently is we’re not asking some questions. And the question that I would ask is…Has it helped? Do we have research and evaluation that has actually shown that this has helped? Throughout this year… if we look at that over the years, has this longer day helped our students? The question that I have is that because it’s all about the kids and what’s best for the kids and if it hasn’t been proven to help the kids, then why are we doing it?”
The second part: “Of course I would love to consider following the research for later start for kids. I would like to ask again: ‘What is best for the child?’ And how can we fight to do what’s best for the kids? If we need to get more buses, if we need to change things around… We need to do what’s best for the children and if what’s best for the children is to change the school time, then I think we should look at that.”
On teachers and collaboration
Question: How can a school board best encourage a sense of professional community and create a collaborative work environment for teachers?
Brandon Shurr: “To my knowledge right now…teachers have to go through a process where they bring things that essentially just goes to the superintendent and I think it’s really hard to have a collaborative effort with the school board and the teachers when there seems to be no actual route for them to go directly to the school board. I would like to have not only a sessions for us to be able to have a place for teachers to speak honestly and to be able to speak in that way without any repercussions because I feel that there is a lot of fear of teachers’ that if they say certain things, that that could mean certain things for them and their future as a teacher… So I would like to be able to help create spaces and ask that question again: Why aren’t there channels for teachers to directly talk to the school board?”
Jeannine Butler: “We have, when we got the longer school day, we were able to institute a time period every Wednesday morning for our teachers to work with our Professional Learning Communities.. That has been very successful as far as our testing scores are concerned and the longer school day has been very successful as far as our testing scores are concerned. We do have collaboration within those buildings with the teachers at each grade level and in the high schools at each subject area level. Our principals are involved in those professional Learning communities. We as school board members are NOT because in all honesty, it’s not our prerogative to sit and tell our teachers how to teach. It’s our prerogative to try to support them and to try and find the financial means necessary to do that. We have a very strong union in the MCCSC and I think we listen to their leaders and each of those schools have representatives for that union. So I think we have a lot of conversation with our teachers.”
On the purpose of public education
Jeanine Butler: “I believe that public education is here to educate every single child that we have. Not just in the MCCSC, but in the entire nation. That’s what our public education system has done historically and I believe that’s where we are and I believe that’s what we have to do. We have to deliver good citizens, we have to deliver students who have gained some knowledge and some capabilities to have jobs, we have to deliver students who are good citizens and we have to make sure that our students across the nation and specifically in the MCCSC know what the 21st century learning skills are and that we are able to deliver them for our students. That’s what public education is.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think public education is for all kids. And I think not just for all kids to raise them into who they can be and what they can be in our society for our own purposes, but how can we love them? How can we show them that they matter? How can we be a place for teaching kids and raising them up so that they look at the needs of others around them? And obviously I think we need to educate kids so that they can get to where they want to go in their future, but we have these kids for a certain period of time where we can mold them and shape them and tell them what’s important in the world and the life around them. When I look at a school like Fairview, my daughter-- I see that she cares about other people because of her teacher telling her day in and day out: ‘You are important and these kids around you are just as important as well.’”
On standardized testing
Question: There’s a perception that the ISTEP test and other standardized tests are leading to much classroom time being devoted to test preparation. As a board member, what are your feelings about the use of class time… the use of standardized testing and would you support a resolution for or against the use of standardized tests?
Jeannine Butler: “I’m not a real proponent of all standardized testing. I understand what the law is. The law says we will do the ISTEP in grades 3-8 and we’ll do end-of-course assessments [ECAs] in sophomore English and Algebra. That’s what the law tells us we have to do and so therefore we will do it. Do I like the fact that our teachers feel some stress about having their students pass ISTEP? No.
Would I support a resolution? I was against the resolution that was brought before the board a couple of years ago because it dealt with teacher evaluation legislation and most of that information was not exactly accurate.. For example, it said that we rely heavily on standardized tests: Not true fully. Approximately 33% of all teachers would be required to use ISTEP data on teacher evaluations…there were lots of miscommunications and misinterpretations on that and that’s why I did not support it.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think it’s problematic when my 8 year-old that’s in 3rd grade comes to me after school and seems to know exactly when the tests are going to be months ahead of time. Why does she need to know that ahead of time? Why does she, an 8 year-old, need to know that in four or five months she’s going to be tested on things? To me, that seems a little bit absurd. It seems a little bit ridiculous that a stress is brought upon her on something that’s coming up for a long time and this is her first year being tested. So I would like for us to find places where we can push back, find places where we can begin to resist for the sake of our kids. I don’t like this just rolling down and laying back and saying: ‘Let’s just see what happens, we gotta do it.’ There’s gotta be a way that we can push back. There’s gotta be a way that we can find where we can talk to things, where we can make changes, for the sake of our kids.”
On parent involvement in policy making
Question: In what ways do you think the board could include the parent community in policy decision-making?
Jeannine Butler: “I think that we ARE the policy decision-makers as far as the school corporation is concerned and as far as state law is concerned. That does not mean that we should not listen to our constituents. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t have committees that talk to us about policies. We have a lot of committees that go on within our school corporation—some dealing with finances, some dealing with certain policies, some dealing with longer school days, some dealing with the school calendar, which are all things that we had to deal with…We have had a lot of conversation with a lot of people and I would hope that we would continue to do that. You can’t have too much. You just need to always remember that you have to listen to what they say and then, in the final run, you’re the one that has to make the decision.”
Brandon Shurr: “I think that… this is something that’s true to my heart. This is something that is one of the reasons that I am running for school board… because I notice that good friends and parents of mine that came to a school board meeting and to discuss and to be open, and the next meeting there was a little bit of shaming going on about how could they come into this meeting as emotional and charged as they did. And to me, that is not truly listening, not truly hearing and I think there needs to be more of that. Sometimes I feel like the discussion has already happened, the decision has already been made and I think parents feel that way as well. So how can we truly listen, truly hear and see it reflected in the decisions made? And when we seem them reflected in the decisions made, if parents can say ‘Yes! That reflects us! You heard us!’ I think that’s when we’re in the right place.”