By Rudi Keller- Columbia Daily Tribune
February 22, 2018
Columbia Public Schools should consider ways to provide universal pre-kindergarten education, school board candidate Teresa Maledy said Wednesday night during a candidate forum.
Maledy, chairwoman and CEO of Commerce Bank’s central and eastern region, is one of five candidates seeking two seats on the Columbia Board of Education in the April 3 election. Speaking at a forum organized by the Columbia Missouri National Education Association, Maledy made the her expansive proposal in answer to a question about how much the district should do to provide early childhood education and close the achievement gap between demographic groups.
“The difference that early childhood education makes is just huge and I have lived it,” Maledy said.
The other candidates — incumbent board member Christine King, medical technologist Tyler Lero, retired teacher Susan Blackburn and retired assistant superintendent Ben Tilley — all agreed with Maledy on the importance of early education but differed in their approaches.
Tilley said he wanted to improve the Parents as Teachers program to bring learning into homes of poor students earlier than they would receive it in a pre-kindergarten program. An expanded pre-kindergarten program creates new problems because children that young can’t ride buses alone, he said.
“Transportation for parents in preschool is non-existent and we have to dig and solve that issue so boys and girls can get to preschool services,” Tilley said.
King said she would like to have full-time pre-kindergarten classes but said the cost would be daunting. Lero said the issue needs a strong community discussion.
Blackburn said her biggest concern is fitting the program to the student. “I want to make sure we have instruction that works for every child in the district,” she said.
Wednesday’s forum at Paxton Keeley Elementary is the last step in the union’s process for making an endorsement before the election. Prior to answering questions before the audience of about 50 teachers, the candidates met one-on-one with the union’s political action committee and answered questionnaires about themselves and their campaign.
The union will hold a meeting for all member teachers Thursday, if school is not canceled, to vote on the endorsements, said Monica Miller, chairwoman of the political action committee. An important point for the candidates they like will be whether they have put together a viable campaign, she said.
The question that must be asked, she said, is “if we are going to invest in you, how seriously are you taking this campaign?”
The questions asked Wednesday sought the candidates’ views on issues ranging from lobbying for more funding to whether the district should place armed guards at schools in response to the Parkland, Fla., shooting that left 17 students and teachers dead.
Several Columbia schools already have resource officers — police officers assigned to the building — but none of the candidates said more guards were a good idea. Lero also said he doesn’t support putting more guns in schools.
“I don’t think the answer is arming teachers with guns or having concealed weapons in schools,” he said.
King also said she opposes additional guards or armed school personnel.
The district has taken many steps to add protection, including video monitoring, automatic door locks and protective films on windows, Blackburn said. It is the board that must decide the policies for protecting schools as it does for all other school issues, she said, and reviewing current protections with an eye to increasing safety is a good idea.
“I am up for exploring anything,” she said.
Maledy praised the reaction of the students and said she hopes there will be a day when there are no worries that a shooter will enter a school.
Worries about a school shooting are constantly with administrators, Tilley said. He also worries that a person set on violence is difficult to stop.
“You will never come up with every scenario that someone might try,” he said.
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