A school board candidate forum took place last Wednesday evening at Metea Valley in the auditorium to discuss each candidate’s stance on creating a better environment and learning system for the students in District 204.

Each candidate carried different views on how to make District 204 a better place. The forum gave an opportunity for community members to be educated on their potential school board candidates in hopes of the community members being reassured that each candidate is looking out for their best interest.

“We should continue forums like these because we can get a feel for what is expected to go on in our community,” junior Aakilah Cameron said.

Candidates Vasavi Chakka, Laurie Donahue, Cathy Piehl, Michael Raczak, Randy Sidio, Renata Sliva, and Susan Taylor-Demming began the evening with opening statements, each being two minutes long, which involved the issues in District 204 and what they can can do to help improve the schools and District and their past experience in careers.

Almost all candidates like Piehl, Raczak, Sidio, and Taylor-Demming stood on a common ground that budget was a recurring problem in District 204, and introduced new ideas to that they would possibly bring to the board. However, Renata Sliva hopes to create safe spaces for students, as she focused more on reinforcing their rights and freedoms in school. Chakka, on the other hand, claimed that a emotionally, physically, and academically stable environment should be assured in each school, while Donahue emphasized that helping students be even more prepared for college and vocational careers is essential.

“As evident by our achievement gaps new initiatives of technology and funding challenges shows that much more work needs to be accomplished, and I hope that you allow me to put my first-hand experience to work to make critical decisions,” Raczak said.

“We need to develop all areas to a child’s success not just one area; we need to make sure their physical and emotional needs are met in a safe environment. For example, we are using old models for school, which won’t be very cost-effective in the future and environmentally safe in the future. This can help close the achievement gap too, ” Chakka said.

“We should have a higher academic performance, but also we need a comprehensive offering of programs for students not only those preparing for college, but those preparing them for vocational careers,” Donahue added.

The floor then opened up to community members to ask questions through Twitter or on slips about their policies and addressed certain issues to get a better understanding on how the candidates will take action on these issues and improve them. Some topics that were discussed included class sizes, budgets, and having equal diverse opportunities in schools.

“I think we have to be supportive of our staff, administrators and students as they look together to collaborate in classroom by finding creative ways to understand what being in someone else’s shoes are like. We should strengthened the great staff that we currently have by recruiting diverse staff members that are a little more reflective of our students populations,” Taylor-Demming said.

“Student population or even size of the classroom can affect how well a students does in that setting. In the future, I hope we can move away from a cookie-cutter type of formula or teacher to student ratio and flexibility in how we are able to staff our buildings in front of our students. We have to be creative moving forward,” Piehl said.

No matter each candidate’s perspective on how to improve resources for schools, students, and the district, they all agreed in their closing statements for the night that they are here for the community, and are running in order to help make a change.

Students registered to vote will be able to vote on April 4th for the candidate they view as best fit for the role as school board member.