Candidate forum Review
The school board candidate forum was an event on October 14th where the school board candidates (district 2-7) were interviewed by Mavis (3rd), Oliver (7th), Zara (8th), Evelyn (7th) and Natela (8th). The events went in this order: Intro (Evelyn, Oliver), rundown of the event (Mavis, Charmaine who is the MC for the event) and then the questions were asked by all the volunteers. The school board election is coming up right around the corner on November 4th.
The candidates that showed up were, Kathleen smith and Sarah Clark (District 2), Joe Mizrahi and Laura Marie Rivera (District 4), Vivian song and Janis’s white (District 5), Carol Rava and Jen LaValle (District 7). Each one of these candidates has a day job as none of the school board directors makes any money from the position. In District 2 Kathleen smith works as a data scientist at Microsoft, Sarah Clark works as a director of policy at the Seattle Metro Chamber. In District 4, Joe Mizrahi works as a union representative for UFCW 3000, Laura Marie Rivera was a Educator of 20+ years and a Nonprofit founder of Seattle Spec Edu PTSA. In District 5, Vivian Song works as a Finance professional, Janis White works as a Disability Advocate and founder, all youth belong: Trial lawyer, Fidelity. In District 7, Carol Rava works as a vice president of Education Grantmaking, Ascendum Philanthropy, Jen Lavallee works as a product designer, TEK Systems; Co-Founder, Billion Dollar Bake Sale.
The Intro was done by Oliver and Evelyn and welcomed the Candidates and the attendees and then also explained why the event was happening (to engage with the community and ask important questions). In the intro they acknowledged that it was on the land of the Salish people and then proceeded to introduce the MC (Charmaine). Charmaine proceeded to thank everybody for coming to the event and then introduced the candidates. Charmaine then explained the format of the event. Mavis then proceeded to explain the rules of the event.
After the intro the questions started. The first question was asked by Zara about mental health for Sarah Clark in district 2: “School can be stressful, how can SPS make sure students have real support for there mental health. Not just academically but socially and emotionally too.” Sarah said that we need more communication and help in the classroom. She also said we need more programs to support students. Kathleen was asked the same question and responded saying, she said that we need more community in are schools, she also said we need more funding for the school counselors. After Zara was done with the first question Natila asked Joe: “From lock downs to natural disasters students and teachers practice safety drills all the time, what will you do to make sure schools are ready for emergencies all the time and to make sure students are safe when they are learning. “Joe responded saying, we can do simple things to make sure are school is safer, also make sure that students feel welcome and are mentally safe along with psychically safe. Next, she asked the same question to Laura, and she answered, she said that the policy and the practice makes a big difference, and she says a personal experience where she was very worried and scared and worried. She says that she trusts are educators and trusts what they are supposed to do. The next question was to Vivian song from Oliver saying “how will you make sure that we have more lab time instead of just going on computers and clicking on screens” and Vivian said, that we have various organizations that are willing to partner with the schools and says “I am committed to finding these partnerships and making sure we leverage them for are students”. The same question was asked to Janis and she said, we need to provide strong curriculum to give great academic outcome and for the board to listen more to the feedback.
We have a interview with one of the volunteers named Zara. (O) “what was your favorite part of the forum” (Z) “I think my favorite part of the forum was just being up on stage, and the pizza afterword’s”, (O) “What was the most stressful part?” (Z) “Talking” (O) “I agree”. (O) “Do you think it was fun, why or why not?” (Z) “It was very fun because of all the things I got to do, I got to meet new people and do new things, and I got some brownie points”.
The Blaine forum was held on October 16th by the Blaine PTA and it was for, engagement with the community. The Blaine Candidate Forum was a fun and informational event that every Blaine student should have gone to.
