Deby Dato: Candidate Profile

Note: Answers provided have not been edited for grammar, misspellings or typos. In some instances, candidate claims that could not be immediately verified have been omitted. Jump to:BioKey IssuesQA Bio City: WaucondaWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Wauconda Unit District 118 School Board (4-year Terms)Age: 51Family: Husband David - 27 years Daughter Emily - 25 Son Ben - 16Occupation: Semi-retired, HomemakerEducation: Wauconda High School graduate Robert Morris University graduate - Medical Assisting College of Lake County - Early Childhood EducationCivic involvement: Wauconda Lions Club Village of Wauconda Holiday Walk Committee Wauconda Community School Dist. PTO Wauconda High School Boosters Carmel Catholic High School Boosters Carmel Catholic High School Hockey Wauconda Fire DepartmentElected offices held: Wauconda School Board - 16 yearsHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Improving education in our school district without relying on property taxes to support this effort.Key Issue 2 Getting our legislators to understand that cutting school district budgets every year, delayed payments to our school budgets and using education as their platforms when they run for office is not working. The State of Illinois is responsible for school districts being so dependent on property taxes to fund our education. I would like to see our state legislators meet with their local school district leaders on a regular basis to discuss what WILL work.Key Issue 3 Always providing the quality education our students deserve. Our school district continues to improve our state testing scores with less money.Questions Answers What do you think about the shift to the common core standards? How big a role do you think the board of education should play in setting the curriculum for students and what ideas do you have for changes to the current curriculum?The common core standards are another change that was implemented to judge how our students are learning. It's very difficult to put a set of standards out and expect it to work for every school/every child. I agree you have to have standards in place as a measuring tool and a bar that must be reached, but understanding that you can't measure every student the same way for obvious reasons needs to be considered and applied to the results of the standardized testing.How satisfied are you that your district is preparing students for the next stage in their lives, whether it be from elementary into high school or high school into college or full-time employment? What changes, if any, do you think need to be made?I believe that we are preparing our students in Dist. #118 to achieve their goals as they reach adulthood. We do exit questionnaires to our graduates to see how their high school education prepared them for college life and life in the working field. These results continue to tell us we are on target with "life preparedness". I would like to see more programs provided to parents that help prepare them for the growth of their child. There are so many families where both parents are working full time and it would be nice to be able to provide them with programs that answer their questions of raising a teenager, how to prepare their student for high school classes that get them into the college of their choice, etc.What budget issues will your district have to confront and what measures do you support to address them? If you believe cuts are necessary, what programs and expenses should be reduced or eliminated? On the income side, do you support any tax increases?We are faced with budget issues every year. The most recent issues that are significant are the cuts to our special services budget and transportation budget. As a way to save money we have taken back many classes that were originally taught by SEDOL. This has saved us money and more importantly provided a better education to our special needs students. Cuts to the budget are sometimes necessary in order to provide the quality education our students deserve. When we go thru the budget process we look at absolutely every corner to make sure we are spending frugally. Our school district employs some of the best educators who have the dedication it takes to educate our students. Because of their dedication, these same educators took a pay freeze in order for our school district to provide a fiscally responsible budget and still provide our students the quality education that we've always provided. Tax increases should be used only as a last ditch effort. You must make sure that you've made all the necessary cuts to your budget before you go looking to the tax payers to provide the necessary funds to balance your budget. Increasing property taxes is detrimental because you steer people away from moving into our district because the taxes are too high. Helping our local government bring in commercial and industrial growth is more important and makes our community more desirable to move into.As contract talks come up with various school employee groups, do you believe the district should ask for concessions from its employees, expect employee costs to stay about the same as they are now or provide increases in pay or benefits?Again, our district was blessed with our staff taking a pay freeze when they knew we didn't have the money to increase their salaries and benefits without impacting education. Employees of the district deserve benefit increases as they increase nation wide. I feel salaries should increase when the employees provide confirmation they have achieved the expectations set forth in their reviews and the test scores of our students reflect increases.If your district had a superintendent or other administrator nearing retirement, would you support a substantial increase in his or her pay to help boost pension benefits? Why or why not?Considering the fact that school districts could be absorbing the costs of teachers pensions because of the states budget crisis I think this is an area that must be reviewed very closely. You can't just increase someone's salary because they are up for retirement.