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School Board Candidate Jaimie Von Schoen
| Name: | Jaimie Von Schoen |
| Office: | School Board |
| Term of Office: | 1 |
| Years Resident: | 6+ |
| Contact Info: | Phone - 603-943-4707 Email - Jaimie@vonschoen.com |
| Website: | https://www.facebook.com/vonSchoen4MerrimackSB |
| Offices/Community Involvement: | Merrimack Lioness Member since 2017 |
| Why am I Running: | As a parent of two Merrimack students, I have learned a great deal, especially this last year, about the struggles and strengths of our school administration and staff, as well as the role and responsibilities of the School Board. In my experience, there seems to be a disconnect between students, teachers and staff, administration, and school board. Many basic areas such as teacher tools and communications do not seem to use standards. I believe that given business experience combined with my knowledge of many different school systems, I can be an asset with helping our school district achieve excellence. |
| What do you plan on accomplishing while in Office: |
I hope to ensure fair and equal access to course offerings regardless of students being remote, concurrent or 100% in class. Ensure that standards and best practices are used for tools such as PowerSchool and Canvas. Clear and concise communication to be delivered to parents and student consistently. Provide transparency regarding the actions, feedback, plans of the board as well as budget items. I want all public comments and concerns to be addressed during school board meetings and placed as agenda items to remain until resolved to ensure the voices of teachers, students and parents are heard. I want to help parents and students understand what help and options are available for students to be successful including easily accessible information so when a need arises, students and parents know the best course of action to take and who to contact. My focus is to first help fix some of the basic issues and ensure these are improved upon to help our students be successful. |
| Candidate Statement: | By saying "How can we?" instead of "we can't because..." is the best approach moving forward. Being able to understand problems, quickly analyze and pivot when needed is key to success. Learn from mistakes, change course if necessary and keep the ball rolling. I hope to get involvement from everyone, including parents, students, teachers, staff, administration and school board to help concur obstacles achieve excellence with transparency and accountability. |
| School District Articles Below were questions asked of the candidates running for School District Positions |
|
| Article 2 Accept Gifts: |
Yes |
| Comments | Saves time not having to approve every donation that is received |
| Article 3 Support Contract |
Yes |
| Comments | Support staff is an important part of our district. |
| Article 4 Spec. Mtg A3: |
Yes |
| Comments | Necessary to call a meeting if article 3 fails. |
| Article 5 Ventilators |
No |
| Comments | While I understand there is a need for updated ventilation, I am not sure that the due diligence was done to ensure that the proper system is to be installed and that the proper cost evaluations were done. It is my understanding that there was only one supplier contacted, which is a current supplier. From what I understand, the exit clause only benefits the supplier and not the school. I believe that proper evaluations should be done for such a large investment to ensure the best option for everyone's health and safety while being fiscally responsible. |
| Article 6 Disband Budget Committee |
Yes |
| Comments | While I believe this committee was formed with the best intentions, I believe they do not have necessary authority for some duties. My understanding is that the budget committee does not have the authority to request additional information regarding details to the items within an expenditure. It is also my understanding that they receive the budget after they school board finalizes the budget and the process for them to review adds 4-6 weeks to the budget process whereas they have minimal influence on changing items on the budget. As an example, the majority of the budget is "contractual", therefore they were only able to reduce the budget by $5000 for 2021-2022. |
| Article 7 Budget |
Yes |
| Comments | This is the proposed budget and is less than the previous year (default budget). |
| School District Non Ballot Questions Below were questions asked of all candidates |
|
| Question 1 |
What is your stance on travel and quarantine policy? Do we make up our own school
policy or do we follow what the CDC and DHHS has a current policy and keep up to date
with them.
|
| Response: | We should follow the DHHS guidelines. This was already decided and being updated and I agree with this decision. |
| Question 2 |
What is your stance on continuing the REAL academy for those who cannot safely
return to school or choose not to until there is a vaccine for children.
|
| Response: | The REAL academy in my opinion should be continued for the remainder of the year, for consistency only. If there is a need for a family with health concerns next year, I believe the concurrent option would be the best option because the REAL academy does not have all the course offerings that the concurrent and in school options have. The REAL option is limited in offerings and requires additional staff and costs that are not necessary with the concurrent option. If students want a remote learning experience with additional course offerings, there are other options such as VLACS (Virtual Learning Academy Charter School) among others. |
| Question 3 |
What is the role of the School Board and what differences do you see with their role
versus the role of administration?
|
| Response: | The school board should set the vision and goals for the school district, as well as hold the administration accountable for results. The school board should consist of members with different experience to ensure "out of the box" thinking but also be able to function and work together as a team. The administration should identify needs, develop policies and regulations, and manage day to day operations and the Superintendent should hold the staff accountable along with providing leadership. |
| Question 4 |
What are your thoughts about full-day kindergarten?
|
| Response: | Already in place since 2018. |
| Question 5 |
What are your thoughts on college and career readiness?
|
| Response: | Have a policy to ensure that we have course options that will allow for a variety of disciplines enabling college and career readiness. There must be proper evaluations and student tracking throughout middle and high school to ensure the students are on the correct path matching their post high school goals. This should not only be limited to traditional instruction but vocational programs and ELO's. |
| Question 6 |
What are your thoughts on Vocational programs and how would you improve the
programs what we have now?
|
| Response: | This is an area that can be of great value as a college alternative, and we need to ensure Merrimack is providing these options. There are great jobs and careers that our students can have aside from college degrees and we should be offering as many opportunities as possible for them. |
| Question 7 |
What are your thoughts on ELO's (extended learning opportunities)?
|
| Response: | I believe that ELO's such as internships and apprenticeships could be a great option for students in addition to other career readiness options. Allowing independent studies and online learning helps students obtain as much knowledge as possible prior to going to college or other vocational training after high school. Dual enrollment options can also be greatly beneficial and allow for students to potentially save money on college credits. Merrimack offers many options currently and we need to ensure they remain and evaluate if other options could be beneficial. |
| Question 8 |
Do you find value in benchmarking us against other districts and if so, how?
|
| Response: | Yes, in addition to other criteria, it is important to look to how other schools are performing in comparison. We should not only evaluate our test scores, college readiness, drop out rate, graduation rate, etc, but also see how they compare with schools of similar size, enrollment, median income, budget, etc. There is a state ranking system and since colleges and universities use the rankings, I believe it is important to use them as well. We should also use this to evaluate our budget. For example, if we have a higher budget but much lower ranking based on certain criteria, we should evaluate why and how to improve to ensure best utilization of funds for excellence. |
| Question 9 |
Please share your thoughts on how Merrimack is currently doing working with
students who have additional and special needs, and if you see any changes that should
be made, etc.
|
| Response: | I believe the role of the school board is to ensure that all departments including student services to achieve their goals. Every student has individual needs and I believe the outcome is also quite different based on their needs and experiences. |
| Question 10 |
If there is a budget cut, what would you cut first?
|
| Response: | By evaluating the needs of the school and looking for areas to reduce costs that have least impact on the students' education. |