I'm a parent of four and have had kids in the Amity district since 2013 - and they'll be here until 2030! I've been a sports parent, an arts parent, and gone through both the 504 and IEP processes, so I know this district from a lot of angles.

I've served on the board for six years and feel I've finally got a good grasp on the nutty intricacies of what schools have to manage. I've been Treasurer for several years; chair of the new Communications Committee, and have served on the Finance, Curriculum, Policy, and Personnel committees. I was on the Ad Hoc Safety committee that had Amity's security evaluated and upgraded after Parkland. And I'm currently the board liaison to the CT Association of Boards of Ed, to keep people aware of state resources.

Professionally, I earned a PhD in American history from the University of Wisconsin; I have taught teachers in the masters program at UMass-Boston. I am also the child of a rancher with no college degree, so I understand the importance of public education preparing people for a good and productive life whether or not college makes sense for them.

I want to work on teacher retention. I want to make sure that any changes to curriculum maintain opportunity for kids wherever they currently are in ability. I want to be sure schools have good ventilation to help kids stay healthy and be able to meet attendance goals.

One of my concerns with Amity has been communication - with families, and more generally. I would love to hire a communications director - but file that under things that would be great to have, but aren't as important as teacher retention so aren't likely to happen soon if ever!

I'm the chair of the new communications committee and we held our first open forum this spring. That forum made clear that Amity needs to work on its grading [consistency], and the administration reports that they're working hard on that. We plan to hold a second forum in October. I want to work to resolve problems these forums reveal, improve communications from the school, and improve resources on the website so people can find the information they're looking for.

I have been interested in the evidence that high school students do better in school and get into fewer accidents with a later start time. If we get to a point where Amity has recovered from the pandemic and is in a good place with achievement and morale, I would want to investigate changing to a later start time. Right now, I think the district has too much on its plate to consider such a change.

We meet twice a year to discuss Dr. Byars' goals and progress with her, and then without her. The Board Chair then delivers our evaluation to her, both areas of strength and things we'd like to see improve. Each time, we want to see evidence of progress in the areas selected for improvement. It's important to consider not only easily measurable things like test scores and budgets, but also her leadership towards improved school climate, school / community relations, and student and teacher morale.

CT law requires districts to keep their budgets at least the same as the prior year except in some special circumstances that have to be approved by the Commissioner of Education. That means a decrease is a rare thing to see.

It would be terrific if costs came down - and some have, like debt payments, as Amity has been doing well at planning for capital projects. But our biggest costs are salaries, and our contracts include yearly pay increases well below the cost of living increase.

Staff are efficient and creative in bargaining to keep other costs down, but when our biggest cost driver requires contractual increases every year, eliminating positions is the only way to make a big difference in our costs. Amity has already been operating under a teacher shortage and it's wearing down our staff. I don't think we should cut positions and make that worse.

Our current finance staff are excellent and work hard to try to keep Amity's needs as predictable and stable as possible so we don't see violent increases one year and big dips another. I support keeping our increases as low and stable as possible, as Amity's administration have done.

This is one of those "it depends" questions. It depends what the problems you're trying to solve are, what's going on around you, and what you get for your money.

Right now we're facing a nationwide teaching shortage, as pandemic-exhausted staff leave teaching altogether. We are also, in CT, facing staff getting poached by Gold Coast districts AND by companies willing to pay Amity's IT staff twice what we can. Last year, Cheshire approved an 11% increase in pay over three years for its teachers. I was just told the average increase in contracts that have been settled so far this year in CT is 12% over three years. Amity is operating at 8.57% over three years.

If we want to be able to keep our excellent, experienced teaching staff at Amity, we're going to need to at least meet this average increase. I don't love costs going up, but you cannot have a functioning school without good teachers.

I would support increases aimed at retaining teachers, adding educational opportunities, and security and tech improvements that experts say we need. I would be more skeptical of things that are less central to educating our kids. It would be nice, for example, for Amity to have a pool for competitions and physical education, but when we are facing a teacher shortage, I don't think that kind of improvement is a priority.

The state determines what we must teach, and what skills the kids must learn. For example, this summer, CT passed a law requiring students to learn personal financial management to graduate. The class of 2027 - this year's freshmen - will be the first class required to take it.

The administration and teachers figure out how to get these things taught in the most cost-effective way possible. The Board makes sure the school is following state laws, and then stacks local goals on top of them. We all want Amity doing more than the state requires, and the district's performance in exams, competitions, and activities shows they are.

I joined the board concerned that Amity places an emphasis on college that may not suit all students. I've been happy with our manufacturing pre-apprenticeship program launched in 2019-2020, where students can carry up to 2000 hours of experience into their apprenticeships after graduation, similar to how AP classes can give students credits in college.

Amity is also working to prepare students to move quickly through college when they have a known career goal, planning to add nursing, EMT, education and paraeducator collaborations with UConn and SCSU. I support expanding pre-professional and trade opportunities for our kids, while also maintaining academic rigor and early advanced coursework for kids who thrive on that.

I hear the teacher shortage/burnout has caused some trouble having advisors for as many clubs as the kids want to have. It's something to keep an eye on as the semester gets rolling.

I think the Board should hire a good Superintendent and support them in hiring qualified staff. Experienced and trained media specialists should make the decisions about what a fully functioning public school library needs.

They took a long time making it, surveying community members, family, staff, having focus groups, working hard to bring together the ideas.

I believe it reflects our broader community's goals for the young adults we send out in the world.

No big problem moves from seeing the problem to solving the problem without time and bumps in the road. Dr. Byars joined our district just as 100 pained, upset students came to a board meeting to ask for better inclusion at Amity. I saw how much Amity staff cared that students were hurting so, and was personally at discussions about what to do to turn this around that lasted past 11pm.

This became Amity's priority... and then a pandemic hit. The district was in crisis mode, and now is in rebuilding-after-crisis mode, with concerns with learning loss, teacher shortages, and student and teacher morale. This means students and staff are trying to improve their culture while they face big challenges, and while people are feeling worn out. It has got to be ok for our staff to make mistakes as they work on this. It's got to be ok for our kids to make mistakes as they learn.

We can't make progress here if we expect perfection right out of the gate and perpetually. We can make progress if we give each other grace.

I support Amity's recent policy work on discipline and inclusion, and the staff training to do better as adults. As a board member, I would continue to check for progress on students' comfort and safety at Amity, as shown in student, teacher, and parent surveys, in reports from the students themselves, and reports from administration on their training and process of developing a better culture at Amity.

Meanwhile, I think parents suffered through Covid, wanting their kids to be safe, and for their kids not to lose important parts of childhood. It was hard, not to be able to control that. We all had different ideas on how to handle it. I think people have been upset, angry, and lost trust in people with different views, lost trust in the schools that had to balance everything and everyone.

To rebuild a sense of safety in our community for everyone, we adults have got to model not treating every problem as a five-alarm fire, treat each other with respect and civility, remember everyone wants their kids to be safe, happy, and prepared for success in life. We share goals, if not the same path to those goals. We need to allow our neighbors to take their own path to those goals, as long as they are not hurting other people.

And we need to remember that this is a public school, whose job is to serve EVERYONE. We can't do that when we try to ban books unless they're our own point of view. We need to have materials available to support every student, to make them feel part of the community.

Kids don't learn when they're feeling under siege or ostracized. Teachers have trouble keeping going when they feel under siege and attacked. Amity is a place for our students, staff, and broader community to work together to educate our children, not an arena for fighting national ideological battles.