Activist Toolkit

1. What motivates you to seek this office? What skills, experiences, and perspectives would you bring, and why would those contributions be valuable in the office you are seeking?

I’m all about civic engagement. I’ve lived in Berwyn my entire life and I’ve always wanted to give back to the community that raised me. I have a bacheors in Political Science and I’m currently in my last semester in grad school working to become a Civics/History high school teacher. Everything that I’ve learned tells me that the best way to help my community and affect change is through being an elected official. I’ve been a substitute teacher throughout grad school, mostly at OPRF and worked summers through college at Forest Park day camp, eventually substituting for many of those same students In Forest Park District 91. I’m a true believer in public education and hope to teach in public schools one day as my career. The biggest thing that motivates me to run for this office is the students. Students need board members that think of their interests first and that’s what I plan to do as a board member. One of the most valuable things I bring to the table is youth. I’m 25 and understand technology, the student’s mindset, and what challenges young people are facing today. As someone who is currently getting a masters in education, I also have a solid professional idea of where education as a field is going in the near future. 

2. When in the past have you had to balance competing interests? What process did you use? What did you learn?  

As I’m 25, many of the best examples of me balancing competing interests are from college. While matriculating, I started and ran several clubs (the Theater club and Film club) was an RA, a student ambassador, student senator, model UN delegate and was involved in leadership roles in many other facets of that universtity. I’ve been motivated to seek out these types of positions to better the communities I’m a part of. Before college I became an eagle scout through Berwyn’s Troop 60. Throughout these experiences I learned that one of the most important traits of a leader is compromise. When compromise is necessary it’s important to keep the core values that you’re fighting for intact. When balancing competing interests I find it’s often best to focus on the things that the two parties have in common and build from there. I’ve learned that everyone has their own interests, thinks that they’re reasonable, moral and right, but the best rational work is done by people working for things or values larger than themselves.

3. What does transparency in government mean to you?  How would you put it into practice? 

Transparency in government means access and honesty. One thing that I’ve really appreciated about the pandemic is that it’s caused city government meetings and school board meetings to become more accessible by putting them more consistently on zoom. I’d like to see that practice continued permanently after the pandemic. I think one of the most unfortunate things in Berwyn is it’s lack of a local paper. With meeting minutes that are often dense, full of legalistic words and devoid of context, it’s really hard for the politically lay person to follow what’s going on in Berwyn. I’d like to see the board of education provide a summary of the meeting and the context behind what happened along with it’s meeting minutes. Transparency is more than openness, it’s providing the means by which people can understand. Transparency is one of the most important things that I keep in mind when dealing with anyone politically in Berwyn. I have always strived to be open and honest when asked any questions about anything. I believe it’s the citizen’s right to receive transparent answers from their elected officials. 

4. As more of our local discourse happens in social media, what is your view on how local elected officials should communicate with and respond to constituents? How will you engage with the breadth of the community, and not only those on social media?

The best way to engage with the community is to be accessible and involved in it. In a city of  more than 55,000 I’d say that I see maybe a hundred people regularly post on the various facebook pages that seem to me the nucleus of social media engagement in Berwyn. The largest of these groups has around six thousand people. Frankly, practically no one under thirty even uses facebook anymore. Only focusing on social media is not engaging with the whole community, often just the most vocal and visible part of it. Social media is a powerful tool and can do great things, but it does the community a disservice to believe that what’s on social media represents the community as a whole. As governmental bodies do engage with social media, they need to keep with the times and adjust their practices as social media trends evolve, utilizing different platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to engage with more of the population. The school board as a whole has the advantage of a built in invested constituency in the district's parents and communicating with them about what is going on in the district is both easier and a priority. I tend to believe that being involved, attending and volunteering at events, is one of the best ways to make yourself accessible to the community. I think that it’s really important for constituents to be able to contact their elected officials and talk to them in ways that are comfortable to them. I’m always open to talking to anyone in Berwyn about the things that are meaningful to them or that they’re worried about in any way that they want. 

5. What barriers do you see for community members who wish to engage with District 98? How would you work to reduce or eliminate those barriers?  

Translating district and school board materials into Spanish is a baseline of accessibility. Continuing to host board meetings on zoom will let people interact with their elected officials from home and lowers many barriers of engagement. I think one of the biggest barriers is interest, with important news stories constantly developing on the national and state level, local interest is often overlooked by the average person. Often the information is there, people just don’t think to look for it. We need to find ways to get that information to the community and make them interested. We need to work on making that information more accessible and digestible. 

6. What do you feel are the three biggest issues facing District 98, and how do you intend to address them? 

1. A huge issue is how to spend our money. District 98 is in a good place financially right now and figuring out how to use that success is paramount. Focusing on finding financially sustainable things that will benefit the students is the most important thing this board will work on in the near future. 

2. In the district 80% of teachers are white, students are 4.3 percent white. 93.5 percent of students are either black or hispanic. The board needs to do more to attract professionals to the community that reflect our students. We also need to do more to develop teachers in our own community. I know many people who have grown up to teach at their alma maters and that connection benefits everyone. It provides more invested teachers that have an easier time relating to the student population. 

3. The biggest issue facing District 98 and all school systems is obviously the pandemic. We need to develop safe plans to deal with Covid-19 for students and teachers. We need to accommodate those who can’t safely be in schools, both students and teachers. This is hopefully a once in a lifetime event and we need to work through it together, remembering that the health of the community is the most important thing. As the pandemic progresses, the plans and reactions to it are constantly changing. I listened the morning I typed this to a news podcast (The Daily) that talked about students beginning to be vaccinated at the earliest, five months from now in July. We need to encourage the vaccination of all workers in our schools, especially substitute teachers, who not only transfer from classroom to classroom daily but often from school to school. As a district we need to protect against potential superspreaders like these specific workers. We need to be able to accommodate both students and teachers working from home. Students using Zoom, and Teachers having classroom monitors in their room as they teach from home if they need to.

7. How do you define equity? Have recent events and discussions in the larger community informed or changed your thinking? 

Equity is different from equality in that instead of treating everyone the same, people are helped differently based on their individual needs. People in Berwyn come from a vast variety of life experiences and situations that require different things from their public services. All government bodies need to take history, priviledge, and disability into account when trying to provide the best equitable services for all people. As we go through what many people are referring to as the “Third Reconstruction” the national, state, and local reactions to the movement have reinforced my understanding of how far we still have to go in reconciling with our past and working towards a better and more equitable future. 

8. How do you plan to solicit feedback from people who may be experiencing this community in a different way than you? What barriers do you believe may exist in this process?

People in Berwyn come from all different backgrounds and have different valuable perspectives that they bring to the community. I think that it’s most important that elected officials be accessible to the community and open to the different opinions that people may have. I think board listening sessions are a great way that the board can solicit feedback. Some common barriers are time and travel. Some people may not be able to attend school board meetings or meet people during normal hours, these people need to be accommodated. Some people may find it difficult to travel to school board meetings or other events. This is a great reason to continue streaming these meetings on Zoom.

9. Name an influential Berwyn community member. How did this person’s influence change Berwyn? As an elected official, what do you imagine your influence will be on the community?

Outside of any politics, Scott Lennon seems to be one of the most involved people in all of Berwyn. he’s engaged on social media, attends practically all events, where he often volunteers his time, work, and expertise. He goes out of his way to make himself accessible to all his residents and has a great connection with the city. That level of accessibility, and commitment to the community is something that I strive to emulate if I become an elected official. I appreciate the passion that community members like Marisol Brambila have brought to the table in mobilizing the community on issues that they care about. The active engagement that she brings to the community is more than admirable and something that I want to incorporate into my own life. I decided to run for the board because I heard that there were open seats and that someone needed to step up. I think that with my background and passion for education I can be a good volunteer to represent my community. 

10. Educational and business leaders have begun to use a "cradle-to-career" framework when talking about education. Please discuss the role of District 98 within the “cradle-to-career” framework.

The cradle-to-career framework is especially important in Berwyn with our many low income students. It focuses on building neighborhood level systems to provide students with health, social, and educational supports from birth onwards helping them with community support into more fulfilled adults with better qualities of life. I’ve read a lot about making schools' role in the community more central in residents' lives. I believe that schools are perfect entities to partner with the city to provide a location for more social services. Making schools have the capacity to be a “one stop shop” for many families would drastically improve student’s lives and their access to existing services. We also need to continue to encourage the pursuit of high education. While student loans are a nightmare, having a degree is still often one of the most consitent signifiers that improves quality of life in any number of ways. Probably the biggest thing that I endorse is focusing more on civic engagement and financial literacy in student’s curriculum. Fostering an understanding of how government, especially local governmnet, works and how they can get involved allows students to be active agents in their community. This, and a more robust understanding of financial literacy can drastically improve student’s lives in the long run. 

11. What lessons learned from the implementation of remote and hybrid learning during the pandemic do you believe will be applicable going forward, even after the pandemic abates?

I’ve learned that technology will be an even more integral part of every classroom going forward and that teaching in schools is essential to education. Talking to many students I’ve heard many times that they’re grades have improved during the pandemic but they’ve learned absolutely nothing. I know some students that wake up for their zoom class, log in and then go back to sleep. With this huge educational stress test, I think that technology will now be more effectively utilized in every class from now on and that those sections of our educational system will be forever improved. The pandemic put great amounts of responsibility and stress on the backs of teachers, asking them to do impossible tasks for little thanks. I think that Covid-19 has really emphasized how much we rely on teachers and the difference that it makes when they’re not able to do their jobs as they’re meant to. We need to listen to teachers and trust them regarding their needs and how much they can feasibly handle. If we put too much on the backs of teachers, the education of the students is drastically hindered.

12. Special education is mandated by federal law. How will you set up structures to ensure ongoing concerns of families engaged with special education are addressed? What do you believe are the biggest issues facing families and children with special needs, and how will you work to see their needs are met?

I’ve heard really positive things about the district's special education programs talking to the people of Berwyn. I’ve also heard some extremely negative stories about students not getting the support that they need to succeed and in some cases, having to go to other schools. On the board I want to make special education a priority. One of the most important things is working to match students with the need to one on one aides that are fluent in Spanish. I’ve heard from some parents that there is a shortage of such aids and that their child was struggling. On the board I’ll do my best to assess the situation the district is in with special education and focus my efforts where it needs the most improvement. I think one of the most important things is extending resources to our lower income constituents to get them the IEPs and differentiated programs that they need to increase their chances of success. 

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[The above answers were supplied on 2/19/21.]