BISD FORUM QUESTIONS

I answered the following questions: 8, 10, 12, 18, 19, 21, 22, 24, 28
1) Integrity is a way of life. Provide specific examples of how you have lived with integrity
in your professional and private life.

2) What do you plan to do to prevent the same problems from reoccurring within BISD and
the School Board?

3) As a student who has experienced and seen a tragic flaw with education at my high
school, how will you make sure behavior issues, in schools, are not interfering with
academic studies for all students?

4) What regrets, if any, do you have of the way business was conducted by the past board of
trustees? If elected and serve what would you do differently?

5) What qualifies you to make policy decisions about education?

6) How will you make the district better? What changes will you make?

7) Which schools have the highest numbers of Spanish speaking students? Are their needs
being met?

8) BISD doesnt have enough bilingual staff, what would you do to attract more
qualified bilingual personnel? There is a problem district wide with attracting quality
teachers, particularly bilingual. I think signing bonuses should be offered to attract these
teachers. Perhaps we could partner with Lamar to try and attract and recruit possible
candidates when first entering college and help pay tuition fees for an exchange of them
working for the district for a contracted period, if they have the set grades outlined by the
district.

9) What are your thoughts on all the drug and alcohol abuse in our kids?

10) Do you support ESL and bilingual education? I support ESL and bilingual education in our district
because the ultimate goal of the Bilingual and English as a Second Language programs are to enable
our limited English proficient students to become competent in listening, speaking, reading, and
writing in English. If this is accomplished in both academic and social settings it will enable these
students to participate equitably in a diverse global society/

11) How would you help BISD students if you win, specifically those with special needs?
12) What is your opinion or position on limiting the number of students per classroom?
Teacher/Student ratio
I support limiting students particularly in classes where our focus is to reduce the
performance gap. Ii is not about the equal number of students as much as a lower ratio
where the performance needs to be strengthened.

13) What is BISDs ranking among other Texas schools of the same size?

14) What is the biggest change you want to make if you are elected?

15) What is your position on transgender bathrooms?

16) Sitting on the board, what is your stance on protecting both students and parents from
ICE entering school and terrorizing our undocumented community?

17) As a student who has had more than 5 teachers in a single subject during 1 semester, I
would like to know how you will assure every classroom is receiving adequate education
with excelling teachers.

18) To the Candidates in district 2: In other areas of the district the four year olds are
on the same campus as are the k-5 students in new buildings. In this part of the
north end, the four year olds are in an old facility at Lucas Elementary which means
those parents will have to be involved in two schools rather than just one, if elected
will you look into that situation? If elected I will make sure that this is a discussion I
will have with the superintendent and request that it be added as an agenda item for
discussion by the entire board. Unfortunately, in the north end of town our elementary
schools are at capacity and to add four year olds would mean having to add portable
buildings at each campus or a bond issue to add to each campus or build another
elementary campus to deal with the overcrowding.

19) It is believed by some that having paid parent coordinators on high economic
disadvantages campuses helps to get parents involved, if there is merit to this
thinking, if elected will you address this matter? Campuses in the past have had parent
coordinators at socio-economically disadvantaged schools for this very purpose. I think
there is merit to this position and if elected will look into why this practice was stopped at
these campuses. I suspect that it was an effort to cut cost, but if there is money available
to reinvest in this program it certainly needs to be reinstated.

20) If elected will you work on a plan to attract and retain highly qualified teachers in high
economically disadvantages schools?
21) How close are the school trustees to actually handling the money, do they write
checks and pay the bills? Trustees do not handle district money ever, Trustees dont
even prepare the budget, they approve it and have input, but the budget is prepared by
district personnel. Trustees do not write checks to pay the bills. That is all done by the
Finance team,

22) What is the difference in the role of the trustee and that of the superintendent?

23) What ideas do you have of how to make sure that all schools are equitable not
equal? The Superintendent has to know that this is a goal of the board and bring back his
plan to address each campus based on need and not enrollment. If it is a priority of the
board and the community, then the Superintendent will make it happen.

24) For those of you with children and grandchildren here in Beaumont, What
school/schools do your children currently attend? My grandchildren attend Bingman
Head Start Pre-K Center, Regina Howell and Martin elementary.

25) Mr. Dunn: Do you believe that school atmosphere plays a role in the student discipline?
If not why not, if so will you consider improving school atmosphere as a part of the
discipline process?

26) Mr. Dunn: Your platform is built on discipline. What do you plan to do to solve the
discipline problem that has not been tried already?

27) Mr. Reese: Critical thinking ability is an important trait for a public servant. Do you think
filing both City Council and School Board which is not allowed and a school district that
you do not live in exhibit good critical thinking?

28) Ms. Bush: What will you do differently this time if you are elected than when you
were on the board previously? This is the question that I have pondered in my head a
million times because everyone must know that I did not steal anything from the district
or I would be locked up like those responsible in stealing and defrauding the district.
The first thing I would do is ask more questions concerning finances rather than trusting
that everyone was trying to do what was right for the students. But this is hind-sight
vision now, knowing what I do. The only other thing that I can think of would be to have
pleaded for the community to come together sooner and that the diversity group that is
now committed to assist the community in building a better public school system, would
have been developed right after the 2011 election when the community was split by a
regressive voting plan. It is time for our community to taken steps to heal and understand
one anothers concerns and if elected I can be an active part of the healing and a voice for
many.