Politics & Government

District 58 Forum: Question 4

What do you believe are the critical issues you will face as a school board member?

Rose LaRue-Slater
The hot-button issues right now are diverting  funds for use in technology in the schools—whether to take donated technology items from the PTA and equalize that out among the district. This is an issue that’s up there. I do personally think that it’s important: You can have Smart Boards & iPads in every classroom, and that’s not necessarily teaching technology. Kids need to learn how to type, use the Internet for research, how to use Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, Power Point.  How to use the computer to the best of their ability, as opposed to the different technologies and not items that are being used.

John Miller
It is  a recent hot-button, addressed at our last meeting a little bit. A lot of that was heated by comments taken out of context. One board member suggested that there are starting to be gaps from one school to next. Some PTAs have the ability to raise extremely large sums of money and others don’t. Some PTAs don’t believe in funding  capital projects and equipment and some do.

The suggestion was just to make sure that all schools have access to technology. It was never suggested by any board member that we take from one school and give to another. The idea is that everyone has access. Every school is provided a library or playground, but the PTA helps enhance the facilities and technology.  We have to make sure the schools provide some basic tech and other organizations can help enhance that.

Find out what's happening in Downers Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Doug Purcell
Technology will be an issue and it comes to back to what I think is the biggest issue in the future years will be the finances. How much money the district will get from the state of Illinois. Also what happens with (the Consumer Price Index), which is how much tax money comes to the schools.

Moving forward, my view is we’re caretakers of the district for a short amount of time and we have to look at a very  long-range view as to how we spend the money. Again, with the roofs or maintenance. What are we going to do moving forward, bigger picture. The biggest issue is how much money we’re going to have and how we can maximizing the technology with the money we have. What cuts do we have to make that won’t affect the children too much.

Find out what's happening in Downers Grovewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Elizabeth Davis (submitted in writing)
As a school community and board of education, we must first decide what is our vision for the schools and the children we serve?  Critical issues that may arise from this may include technology, curriculum, school facilites and obviously funding of any programs and/or improvements.  We will need to priortize what is important to ensure our children are ready for the 21st century. 

 


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here