School Board Candidates Give it Another Go in Chamber Candidate Forum

In what was the second of three scheduled candidate forums, the voters of Dixon got a further glimpse of the three candidates vying for two seats on the school board.

Much like the previous forum held last week, Wednesday’s candidate forum – sponsored by the Governmental Affairs Committee – touched on several issues facing the district.

Each candidate – including incumbent , basketball coach and businessman and local attorney – was given the opportunity for an opening statement. From there, the questions ran freely from moderators Dr. Peter Timm and Barbara Beckworth, as well as members of the audience.

Here is a sprinkling of the questions along with each of the candidates’ answers:

Q: As you are aware, the district is in Program Improvement. What approach would you take to address the situation and lead the district out of Program Improvement?

Gabby: “We have to design more intervention programs that helps identify those students that need the extra help. Not necessarily individualized learning programs but just maybe that extra help that they are not getting at home. Encourage parents to be more involved in their student’s education. I believe it’s going to be a combined effort of the school district identifying those students that need extra help and parental involvement at home.”

DiPaola:  “In order to deal with Program Improvement  ... We really have to deal with the groups that aren’t performing.  We have to make sure that they get a good education. We have to look at the subgroups. One of the subgroups is English-language learners. We have to help those kids especially at the kindergarten and third grade level (learn to read and write English). Program Improvement isn’t just about one group though; it’s about all the students. So we have to restore lab techs, library techs, reading assistants, classroom assistants, and class-size reductions. We’ve got to take on these issues that essentially this district worked against because of budget in the past.”

Garcia: “One of the things that for me in addressing PI will be the fact to engage the teachers and really try to understand what they need to try to help us move the bar forward. I think we need early intervention, I think we need more afterschool programs and I also do believe wholeheartedly in really trying to involve parents.”

Q:  You are aware that the district has a structural deficit, but also has a substantial reserve. How would you address this?

Garcia: “One of the things that I think is incredibly important for the board to address is what the core curriculum is. If program improvement is one thing we need to address then we need to address what those core curriculum items that we need to move out of PI. Having said that we need to determine what those costs are and look at what it is from a revenue perspective and if there is still a structural deficit after what we’ve decided what is core curriculum then we have to look at cutting other programs. As far as ending fund balance we have to be very careful. It is not just the structural deficit it’s a cash problem as well. We are having to borrow money every year just to make ends meet.”

DiPaola (after distributing prepared budget handouts) : “If I’m dying of thirst in the desert this year and I have a bottle of water I’m not going to put that water aside and say ‘Oh I can’t drink it because in 2013-2014 I’m going to need water.’ But as a practical matter we don’t have to worry about a deficit, we don’t have a deficit. If you follow these projections all the way out you’ll see in year 2013-2014 there’s no deficit, we are not deficit spending this year, we are not deficit spending next year, we are not deficit spending the third year. I went over all these numbers with the accounting department. I went over the budget completely. We do have the ability to partially restore some programs and services and we won’t turn the budget upside down.”

Gabby: “I believe that we are in a bit of a cash crunch here. I believe that our district is ... building-rich but possibly cash-flow poor and that’s because the structure, the way that the district received the money from the state. I believe that if we restore some of our programs we are going to have a lot less of the declining enrollment, which is really what’s affecting our school district in my eyes. Every time a student leaves our school district we get anywhere from $5,000 to $6,000 less per year. That’s based on the average daily attendance per student per class.”

Q: The feeling that you get when you attend a school board meeting is that you are not welcome. How can you make people feel more welcome to participate and believe in the school board.

Garcia: “But one thing that is imperative for a board going forward in any issues … whether you are on the ‘yah’ or the ‘nay’ of the decision – once a decision is made it’s imperative that the board acts as a team going forward. Because that tone that’s set by that board will permeate to the district office to … management personnel, to teachers, to classified, to students, to parents, to the business community.”

Gabby: “I think that our board in the past has not been very cohesive. I believe there’s been a lot of infighting amongst many of the board members and it’s kind of reflected out to the audience and possibly giving them the opinion that we are not very welcoming at the board meetings. I believe that that’s turning around right now. I think that our board … is more cohesive now, I believe we have more synergy, we are working together to solve major issues here. I believe that once we have the respect amongst each other then we’ll gain respect among the community members and they will feel more welcomed to speak at some of our meetings.”

DiPaola: “It has been too much of a power struggle, it has been too adversarial. We’ve made no progress in the last two years … there’s been way to much fighting, way too much hostility. All of that needs to end.  We really need to sit down and look at things in the best interest of the students. I think this board has to be more welcoming.  I think Brian (Dolan) has set the tone. I think I’d like to see the whole board operate as customer service.  I’d like for all of us to be 1-800-Customer Service. I’d like to see the community’s input and I don’t think that’s really happened that much in the last couple of years. That’s a big area we can improve and once we improve on that I think the whole dynamic of working together is going to help us move forward and make the right decisions.”