For our 2019 Voters Guide, we emailed school board candidates a set of 18 questions on professional experience, local priorities and general issues. We have included those questions and the unedited responses. We have noted when candidates left questions unanswered. We have also provided links to candidate websites, campaign funding reports and other local media coverage when available.
Any questions or suggestions should be sent to: whitmancowatch@gmail.com
CANDIDATE BACKGROUND
Running against: Susan Weed
Social media: Facebook
PDC campaign funding: Ficklin 2019
League of Women Voters survey: Vote411.org
Other recent coverage:
Moscow-Pullman Daily News: Weed, Ficklin vie for Pullman School Board post
League of Women Voters of Pullman: Candidate forum video
QUESTIONNAIRE
What is your current occupation or job title?
Outreach Director
What other memberships or affiliations would you like to list for voters?
(Declined to answer)
What professional effort or accomplishment are you most proud of and why?
I completed a graduate degree while being the full time mother of four children. I think the reason that I am most proud of that accomplishment is that it inspired some of my friends to go out an follow their dreams.
What is your overall vision for the school district?
I see a school district where everyone is working together in the best interest of the children that we serve.
What do you think your district does well?
Our school district is a really good one. It is part of the reason that our family chose to move to Pullman from the east coast. When I think about the students who attend school here, the majority of them will be successful after graduation in whatever they choose to do.
How would you encourage recruitment and retention of quality teachers and staff?
I think that it is important to recruit and retain teachers with teaching experience. We seem to be hiring quite a few brand new teachers. While it is awesome to have new faces who have just learned new techniques in teaching students, it is often difficult for our teachers to meet the demands of an over crowded classroom and providing needed mentoring to our new teachers. I would encourage the district to widen the net, and consider hiring a mix of experience levels. I think that by considering the emotional work of peer mentoring imposed by hiring teachers with less experience, we will be able to retain more of our really good teachers.
What are your highest priorities for capital or infrastructure investments?
We need to find a way to reduce the overcrowding at Lincoln. I spent the day there with one of my kids recently, and there are so many kids in a room that teachers are spread thin. In fact according to the principal it is so overcrowded that they have had to ban girl’s from carrying even small purses because it is a fire hazard.
What programs or initiatives do you think need improvement or additional support? Why?
I think that we really need to address some of the problems within the special needs program. Recently the district had an independent review of the special needs program in our district. The report showed quite a few areas of concern. While the report indicated that overall the district was in compliance with special education law, several of the suggestions for improvement seemed to infer that there were some potential problems with compliance.
From my own experience I have found gaps in this program, where children fail to receive services that the educational team have deemed appropriate.
Many regional school districts have had to make significant budget cuts in recent years. If you had to make similar cuts, where would you encourage administrators to start and why?
I think with all large organizations I would encourage them to start from the top. I would also encourage them to really think about what is a needed service in terms of education. I think that we could find ways to cut costs at the district level, without reducing the quality of education in the schools.
Do you feel the school board is responsive to staff and community concerns? What, if anything, would you change?
I do not feel that they are responsive. The process for giving constructive criticism is difficult to access. I would like to see a process in place that help families, staff and community members better articulate their complaints, and then direct that complaint to the appropriate person. I would also like to see a system for anonymous complaints, especially for compliance issues that an employee may not feel reporting for fear of reprisal.
How would your rank your expectations for the school district’s transparency on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating a discrete approach and 5 indicating a proactively open approach?
Two
Do you think the state should remove the cap for local school levies? How would you personally balance the district’s funding demands against the community tax burden?
The purpose of the cap is to make sure that the district is using those funds as the community intended. I would support removal of the cap, however I would like to see an accounting of were the money is going. For the enrichment levy, those funds have a specific purpose and should not be used for anything else.
What is your position on charter schools?
I love charter schools. I have a family of diverse learners, and I love the idea that there are public school options that can give a child a different learning environment with out an out of pocket cost, and with the same oversight as a traditional public school. I also like the ability to govern a school at the school level. This could offer more freedom for teachers to try new things with students.
Would you support making union negotiations open to the public? Why or why not?
I am in support of making union negotiations open to the public. The decisions made in these meetings impact our children’s education. I think that they public needs to know what those decisions are and why they were made.
What steps do you think should be taken to improve student safety? What is your position on active shooter drills and other similar exercises?
As a community we seem to be more focused on school shootings and gun violence than ever before. We can lock the doors to keep people out who may want to harm our students. I do not think that this is the biggest threat in our schools. Everyday there are students in OUR schools who are emotionally abused by their peers. Some of our students long for a safe space inside our schools. They want a place where classmates won’t call them names, or throw things at them. They long for a place where they can relax and just be safe. I think that we need to redefine what safety means in our schools, and address all of those safety issues.
Personally, I think active shooter drills tend to scare students. This is not something that needs to happen to make our students safe. As a parent I support locking the doors to the schools. I think the way the schools are set up anyone could just walk in a disrupt a school, if the doors are locked we can prevent that from happening.
How do you think public education has changed most since you were a student?
I remember going home with my teacher after school. I was in awe cause she had a real house and I lived in a trailer. Our teachers were a much bigger part of our lives back then. I think that is not the same anymore.
If you could wave a magic wand and instantly change one thing about your district, what would it be and why?
Every kid in our area would really have access to the same quality education, and that teachers would have what they need to really give every kid what they need to be successful.