Commitments from 2021

This is what I identified as things that I was committed to when I won in 2021:

 

Curriculum, Standards and the Classroom

The Germantown Way. Approximately nine years ago, the Germantown School Board voted to move beyond Common Core and not include it as part of its standard curriculum. 
 

As a parent of three and someone who has followed and learned more about our School District, what I have discovered is that the work that needed to be done to truly define The Germantown Way has not been completed. While there should always be a process of reviewing and updating the curriculum that is being taught in our schools, we actually need to do the work to define curriculum across all subjects and embed standards.  

Are we teaching the proper reading curriculum? What about language arts? Are what kids learning in science or social studies in 4th grade at MacArthur the same things that the students at Amy Belle or Rockfield? A parent who is curious about what their in-going 3rd grade child will be learning about throughout the year should be able to easily access that information on the District website.

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We need to define these standards so that we can ensure that our students, our children, are learning, are becoming critical thinkers, are able to ingest information and process it. We can then do a better job of measuring improvement over time, adjusting where necessary, and, in the long run, be able to help our kids score better on the ACT or better prepare them to enter the workforce depending on their career aspirations.

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Budget

Work to ensure that the likelihood of a large budget deficit that we saw in the fall of 2020 is minimized. The District requested and the people passed the referendum a few years ago to improve our school buildings. I believe that we should be taking a look at non-classroom related costs and work to minimize them as much as possible.

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In addition to the debt taken on as a result of the referendum, the School Board also elected to take on more non-referendum debt for additional work to facilities. I believe strongly that we need a hard stop for the foreseeable future of taking on any additional debt. Our fund balance has plummeted from approximately 25% to 6% (or less) this year. We need to get our house in order.    

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Improve Intergovernmental Relationships with the communities that make up the Germantown School District.

This is something that I felt was very important that I stressed in the Spring 2020 campaign and still believe it. Unfortunately, it does not appear that any progress has been made in the past year. For example, while the Germantown School District voted to reach out to the Village of Germantown to begin to schedule regular meetings, the lack of any movement forward is disheartening.

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Work to ensure that the Board becomes more transparent and accountable. 

Currently, all Committee meetings and Board meetings are lived streamed. However, only the Board meeting is actually published for consumption on-demand (there has been the occasional exception to that rule). Since only the "Cliff's Notes" version of what occurred in Committee meeting is presented during the Board meeting, those folks who were not able to stream the Committee meeting don't get the full picture of what was discussed and the amount of detail presented. 

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Effective communication and collaboration with the Superintendent, fellow Board Members, PTAs, Parents, Community Leaders, and other members of the Community.

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Commitment to the District's Success and Improvement.

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Advocacy for Germantown students at all levels of local and State government.

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