I attended the LAC Legislative Candidate Forum last night. There were ~16 candidates and ~70 attendees. The diversity and similarities in answers were fascinating and pretty well along party lines.
How to improve funding? (ie need to prioritize education funding, improve accountability, repay shifts and stop borrowing from schools, etc) How to close gap? (ie teach parents to be better parents, improve accountability, early education, more school for at risk kids, smaller class sizes, etc)
After about an hour, they broke us into small groups by District. This was great because it allowed us to have some more direct face time with our particular candidates. I am in District 43, so mine were Sarah Anderson vs Audrey Britton, and Norann Dillon vs Terri Bonoff. Since I love psychology, it was fascinating watching the 4 candidates interact this close to the election. You can definitely tell the stress level is pretty high, and they are on edge. The good news was that there were no wrestling matches, though that would have been interesting. It also reminded me that I will never become a politician. (ie too much soft talk to avoid alienating some constituency)
Some hot topics discussed in the breakout were tenure, bullying laws, how to get kids ready for kindergarten, etc. Though Terri is much smoother and more experienced than Norann, I found Norann a refreshing change from the typical politician and she will likely get my vote. Audrey was way too passionate about passing additional anti-bullying laws for my taste, I’ll stick with Sarah. I am sure that they are the GOP candidates had nothing to do with my decision. (wink wink nod nod…)
More thoughts?
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3 comments:
Sorry that I didn't see you on Tuesday John.
I thought the 16 candidate beginning of the forum (1ST hour) was BAD and a waste of our time. More questions from the taxpayers in the break out sessions would have been better in my opinion.
The SD 45 break-out session had 6 candidates, so less questions were able to be answered.
Also, the LAC questions were not tough enough for me.
It was interesting to see who didn't come!!
I'm sure I would vote for Sarah Anderson, but I thought her opponent won the two question opening round.
I really liked Audrey Britton, she seemed experienced and professional. However, her very passionate response that we need more anti-bullying laws turned me off. I am not sure when the schools became responsible for so much more than teaching.
Parents: If your kid is getting bullied, track down the other kid's parents and fix it. If it is real serious, call the police !!! Not the Principal !!! There is probably a law being broken, and that is the business of the police, not the school.
I heard one of our Principals was spending time trying to deal with student issues that were ocurring outside of school hours and not on school property. The perception was that since they were both students, somehow this was the Principal's responsibility. Let me see... Should the Principal be ensuring classes are running smoothly and effectively? Or ensuring that little Billy doesn't get ripped on Facebook after school hours?
So you can see why Audrey probably will not get my vote... We need more personal responsibility and fewer laws, not the other way around.
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