Meg Sima: Candidate Profile

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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: LisleWebsite: Candidate did not respond.Twitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Meg Wurster SimaOffice sought: Lisle Unit District 202 School Board Age: 48Family: Husband, David Sima18 y/o son, Andy Sima16 y/o son, Nick SimaOccupation: AttorneyEducation: Bachelor of Arts, received 1991, University of Illinois, Champaign-UrbanaJuris Doctorate, received 1994, DePaul University College of LawCivic involvement: Village of Lisle, Planning Zoning commission, 4/2014-9/2015Lisle CUSD 202, School Board member, 9/2015-presentLisle CUSD 202, Vision 202 facilitating team member, 7/2013-7/2014Lisle CUSD 202, Wilde Field Lights Committee chairperson, 2012Boy Scout Troop 99, committee chairperson, 2012-presentCub Scout Troop 99, leader, 2006-2012Lisle Band Parent Organization, Cabaret ticket co-chair, 2016-present, raffle commitee, 2014-2016Lisle High School fall play/spring musical ticket senior night committee, 2014-presentLisle HSO senior banquet committee, 2016-presentElected offices held: Lisle CUSD 202 School Board memberVillage of Lisle, Planning Zoning Commission memberQuestions Answers Why are you running for this office, whether for re-election or election the first time? Is there a particular issue that motivates you, and if so, what is it?I was apointed to fill a vacancy on the Board in September, 2015. I feel strongly about the work that we have accomplished during my time on the Board. I would like to see that work continue. Particularly, we have made great progress towards building a new, state of the art learning facility for our pre-k through fifth graders. This new building will provide an excellent environment for our youngest students to grow and develop the knowledge they will need to move forward. Additionally, Lisle has a growing population of students from lower income households. It is imperative that we ensure that the many needs of these students are being met so that they are able to succeed and achieve to their utmost potential. We also need to ensure that our program is challenging and offers opportunities for all of our students' skill levels. Our students are not "cookie cutters" and have wide ranging skill sets. What works most effectively for one group of students will not work for all students, and the challenge is to gear our program to meet the needs of all students.What do you think about the process for measuring student success in your district? Is it adequate? What changes, if any, do you propose?Our district typically measures student academic success through standardized testing, specifically including the Northwest Evaluation Association's Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), and now for the first year, the SAT (previous years utilized the ACT; the change is due to the state's changeover from ACT to SAT). Our students also now take the PSAT test, and beginning this year will take the Performance Series tests; the Performance series tests will be used to measure progress of our lowering performing students this year, and next year will be administered to all freshman. Additionally, the Advanced Placement tests aid in the monitoring of our higher achieving students' performance. Having this wide variety of tests offers a good opportunity to assess student learning via multiple methods and at different stages, and I believe this offers adequate opportunity to assess student success. In particular, the PARCC tests are considered to be very rigorous tests. Although we have been using the MAP test for some time, this is only our second year of PARCC testing data and will be our first year of SAT testing. Hence, it will take some time to gather sufficient data with these newer tests. I believe we need to allow time to develop this data prior to making any changes to our monitoring tools for measuring student success. Finally, we monitor social emotional learning through a screening tool, which I believe is adequate.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 purpose of a school board is to establish district policy and initiatives. The School Board should not be directly involved in setting the curriculum for the students. Curriculum should be determined by the qualified, professional administrators and educators who have the requisite training and skill set. Changes to the curriculum should be made by those same professionals based on current teaching methodology and practices, as well as the specific needs of our students. Such curriculum changes should be reported to the Board, but the Board should not substitute its judgment for that of our professionals, the administration and staff. The Board's job is to ensure that competent people are hired and retained to make those decisions for which they are particularly qualified. Our administrators and educators work together on a continuing basis to assess the current curriculum and make changes as needed, based on student growth and progress.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 or fee increases?Our district's financial status is currently quite strong. Due to prudent financial planning, the District is able to maintain our current budget while also undertaking the building of a new pre-K through fifth grade school with NO increase in taxes to our stakeholders. I do not support an increase in taxes or fees at this time. I do support the reissuance of bonds when our current bond obligations are paid off in 2018. The reissuance will allow us to build the new school without the need for a tax increase. Due to our District's strong financial health, I do not believe that budget cuts are currently necessary. We have sufficient resources at this time to maintain the high level of programming that we currently provide to our students without the need for cuts or increases. We continue to be able to offer a multi-faceted program to our students that includes fine arts, athletics, and increased advanced placement classes. I would not want to see cuts made to any of our programs, nor do I want to increase the burden on our taxpayers. There is value to taxpayers in maintaining a strong school district, but I am aware that raising taxes would pose a hardship for many of the district's residents.What role can and should school choice play in your district? If Congress or the state approves a voucher system or other means giving students broader choices among public and private schools, how will that affect your district? What is the appropriate response for the board of education of a public school system?I don't believe that school choice is a significant issue in our small district, where all students attend all four of our district's schools, progressing from Kindergarten through twelfth grade. There are no other public schools to choose from in our district. If a voucher program were approved by Congress or the state, I do not believe it would have a significant impact on our district. I believe that the parents choosing one of the private schools in or near our district, which are primarily religious-based, do so primarily for other reasons not strictly academic. I believe that those parents would make that choice regardless of the availability of vouchers and I don't believe that a significant number of students would switch to private schools simply because vouchers were available.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?A rigorous academic program is essential to our students, but it is not the only important issue. We also need to support social-emotional learning for our students, particularly in our era of tech-savvy kids and cyberbullying. We need to ensure that our students have a safe environment in which to learn, each and every day. We need to ensure that the needs of our lower income students are met, whether through a school breakfast program or 1:1 technology so those students have the same access to technology as other students. We need to continue to offer, and increase, our extended program, including summer school programming, to identify and address the needs of students who are struggling academically and may be lagging behind their peers. We need to continue, as we have been doing, to offer more honors and advanced placement classes, to continue to challenge our brightest students. This will ensure the continued success of our students and the growth of our district as a whole.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.I have to say that Pope Francis is truly inspiring. He is humble, caring, and lives simply He lives what he preaches every day.What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?My father taught me that I could do anything my brother could do. It was a powerful lesson for a 6 year old.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?My time working in abuse neglect in juvenile court was immensely fulfilling in some ways. I would love to work with those kids again.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?English was definitely my favorite subject. As a lawyer, I have to do a great deal of writing, and English definitely helped.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Above all, be kind. You never know someone else's path, their hardships. Be kind and you will never regret it.