Jennifer Shroder: Candidate Profile

Back to Elgin-Area Unit 46 School Board 4-year terms

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:BioQA Bio City: ElginWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Office sought: Elgin-Area Unit 46 School Board 4-year terms Age: Candidate did not respond.Family: Married with two children who went through the district.Occupation: Copy/layout editor, freelance editorEducation: BA from University of Illinois at ChicagoCivic involvement: Former PTO president at Channing Elemenary and Ellis Middle School. Member of Elgin HS PTO, on various church committees, editor of The NorthWest of Us computer user group blog, Vice President of Shared Harvest Food Cooperative.Elected offices held: Candidate did not respond.Questions Answers What is your position on standards-based grading, which has been controversial with parents, students and even some teachers? Did the district botch the implementation of this new system? What could it have done differently?With Common Core (standards for what each student should know by the grade they are presently in) being the law in Illinois, standardizing the grading system seems a logical follow up. This same standardization has already happened at the elementary school and middle school levels. There are seven guiding principles that are really hard to argue with and I have no problems with them. I researched this extensively with the help of a Citizens Advisory Council member and feel that it is the right direction to take, if implemented properly. I won't argue that it has been problematic. More professional development would surely have been helpful, as so many teachers have had problems, and fixing Infinite Campus to work with it would help as well.Are you currently employed by or retired from a school district, if so, which one? Is any member of your direct family - spouse, child or child-in-law - employed by the school district where you are seeking a school board seat?I have been a substitute teacher in the past, but I quit when I became a board member. I have no members of my household who are employed by the district.Would you support holding the line on tax increases since the district has emerged from deficit spending and has a healthy surplus of roughly $50 million? Explain why or why not.That $50 million "surplus" shouldn't give us a false sense of fiscal security. With the state of Illinois in the poor fiscal condition it is currently experiencing, I am not optimistic. The state keeps cutting the GSA (the money it pays school districts per student). We have had to make considerable cuts over the last seven years, and have yet to recover from them. That said, I am always looking for ways to save, and I do think there are things we can do to minimize the hit our taxpayers take on their property taxes. I have been researching ways to manage projects that improve our environmental footprint and lessen the cost of maintaining school buildings beyond just turning down the thermostat in the winter and turning off the lights at night. Looking into the future, the outlook from the state looks worse than ever. The state board of education is projecting that next year we could be down to as low as 80 percent of GSA and missing as many as two categorical payments, perhaps more. This could set us back as much as $30M. Under these conditions, making promises about future levies would be irresponsible. I still feel that our investment in our students is the best bang for the buck with the greatest return on the collective investment of taxpayers.Would you support a charter school within U-46? Why or why not?I have never liked the track record of charter schools generally. Typically they perform no better than comparable public schools, and sometimes worse and they cost more. All schools everywhere would benefit from 125 percent of the dollars a district has to spend on each student. But we are in very lean times and don't even have 100 percent for our kids, and this year the state only sent us 89 percent. If we take 125 percent for one school what does that leave the others?What budgetary issues will your district have to confront during the next four years and what measures do you support to address them? If you believe cuts are necessary, be specific about programs and expenses that should be considered for reduction or elimination. On the income side, do you support any tax increases for local schools? Be specific.I am a property owner in the school district and ache when I receive my tax bill as do many of my neighbors. Our current public education funding system causes us to rely far too much on local property taxes (a big, hot, confusing mess,) and with the fiscal crisis and political environment at the state level, I can see no legislative fix on the horizon. SB16 is only a bandaid. With this in mind, we have to be prepared for possible needed budget cuts in the future. Unfortunately, with 85% of the budget being people, someone always gets hurt in the process. The gifted program along with AVID, (Advancement Via Individual Determination, a program designed to support college readiness skills,) are two very expensive programs currently provided for in the district budget. Gifted is not mandated by the state, yet we have some of the best gifted services compared to districts around us. AVID is providing the support that some of our students need to be successful as future citizens and tax payers by preparing them for any post-secondary schooling they will need for today's job market. I don't see how we can get away without least looking at both of these programs, although I loath doing so. On the income side, as I mentioned in the budget question above, making promises about future levies would be irresponsible at best.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?I would like the district to change to a year-round calendar. Three schools used to have this calendar until Dr. Torres cancelled it. It is better for students to be on the year-round calendar, and data supports this. It takes six to eight weeks to get kids back to the point they were at when they left school in June, if they have eleven weeks off in the summer. It takes them two weeks to get them back to June if they have only six weeks off in the summer. Then students can have three weeks off in the fall, two weeks off at Christmas and three weeks off in the spring, with a few days here and there, which gives people the same amount of time off, just at different times. I loved this schedule when my kids were at Channing, and the teachers that I knew who worked in the year-round schools loved this schedule. I don't know how I could get the union or the administration to agree to make the change but it is better for the kids. We really can't afford to lose so much time reviewing and getting kids back to the spot they were at when they left school in June.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.I am very much surprised to say I really like the Pope.What's the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?I learned to stand up to bullies.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I regret not going on to graduate school when I had the chance.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Writing. I used to work as an editor for a small group of newspapers on the northwest side of Chicago.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Hard work gets you wherever you need to go. Nothing else works as well.