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Michelle Schmidt: Candidate Profile

Central Unit District 301 School Board

Back to Central Unit District 301 School Board

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.Twitter: Candidate did not respond.Facebook: Michelle M SchmidtOffice sought: Central Unit District 301 School Board Age: 50Family: My husband David and I live in unincorporated Elgin. There we live with our two sons, Matthew 11 yrs old, a sixth grader at Prairie Knolls Middle School and Michael, 10 yrs old, a fourth grader at Country Trails Elementary School. We are a family that enjoys sports especially when our children are playing. We are actively involved in the CDBL (baseball), CYFL (youth football) and BBBL (basketball) D301 athletic feeder leagues. At anytime you will find our family playing or supporting our sports teams either at the games or within board meetings.Occupation: Elementary School TeacherEducation: I hold a Bachelors in Science, Early Childhood Education from the University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana as well as a Masters in Arts, Reading Education from Concordia University, Chicago.Civic involvement: I have been involved with the Country Trails Elementary School PTO for four years and have been a committee chair for three. This experience has helped me to be actively involved with the school staff as well as strengthen my communication skills among our school families. With my children both being actively involved with in our districts own athletic feeder programs, I try to help those leagues anyway that I can. I currently am a committee chair on the CYFL board. This too has strengthened my communication and organization skill.Elected offices held: NoneQuestions 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 am a first time candidate running for a seat on the D301 school board. What motivates me to be a member of the School board is my personal dedication to education, students and teachers. I would like to be the voice for our youngest school community members and those that mold them. We are a small district in comparison to many that surround us. District 301 should always strive to be one of the best. I would like to take my own background of being an educator along with the expertise of other district educators and help to bring the rigor of teaching and 21st century learning for our students to a new high and prepare them for college and career readiness. I believe that our district has many expert teachers that can help make this happen. They need a voice on the school board to execute their beliefs and ideas.What do you think about the process for measuring student success in your district? Is it adequate? What changes, if any, do you propose?If by measuring student success, you mean assessments done to determine academic growth, I am aware of the M.A.P. (Measures of Academic Progress) test which only measures math and reading and the PARCC assessment which measures the grade levels common core curriculum standards. Both are reported to parents but at different times. The M.A.P. testing can be an adequate measurement only if the areas being assessed in mathematics and reading have been already taught to the students. M.A.P. testing if used correctly can be and should be used by the teacher to determine next steps for each student. This could include re-teaching or moving on with learning. The PARCC test is still very new to schools. It is an overall assessment to measure how students can exhibit their learning of the Common Core Standards. Although I am a proponent of the Common Core Curriculum, it is not an adequate measurement of student success, at least not yet. The biggest downfall of both is that these assessments are both done on the computer which can create a completely different barrier or challenge for some if not many of the students which then may not be successfully measuring their academic knowledge. I believe that assessments to measure success need to be both formative and summative. Sometimes that means having district committee created assessments in order to measure success evenly throughout all the school/grades in our district. This is something that can be reported to parents more regularly.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 board of education's role should be to understand a given curriculum and be able to determine if it is preparing our students for college and career readiness and only then shall they make an educated decision when voting on its approval. The issue I have is that curriculum is not the expertise of our board members. The setting of the curriculum should be set by those who are executing it; experienced teachers and specialists not the board. As a potential board member, I think that the curriculum should be revisited often to determine if changes are needed or should be made. I believe that a thorough review of what is currently being used should be a focus. An examination of how the curriculum has impacted students' learning as well as prepared our high school students for college or careers should be considered. Were the students' growth meeting or exceeding our Core Curriculum expectations or are we falling short. Are our high school students getting what they need to attend the colleges they choose? At that time questions about our curriculum should be asked. I believe a committee of grade level and specific subject area teachers are the ones to lead that mission with administrators from the district.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?I believe that a future budget issue that our district will be facing is overcrowding in our elementary school and possibly our middle schools as district enrollment continues to increase. I would need to be well educated as to what options we as a district could manage in order to prevent this from happening. Some ideas would be adding on to schools that have that ability or to the extreme of looking into building a new school. At this time I am unable to talk to cuts to programs or expenses that should be reduced or eliminated. I believe that a district needs to be smart in their decisions that require funds to support projects of any kind. Every possible avenue needs to be explored before throwing out the possibility of tax or fee increases to the 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?School of choice can play an important role for parents in our district. Today many families have dual working parents and childcare can be a significant challenge. In the event that a family member or childcare provider lives near an in district school other than the families districted school, they would have a choice to attend the school closest to their childcare. Should this ever occur in our district, I believe that all schools/principals have the ultimate decision of granting or not granting this parental request. There may be special circumstances within a given school where having, for example, an extra student in a given grade would over enroll a grade level causing overcrowding or potentially having to open another classroom to prevent over enrollment in a given classroom/school. This and other such circumstances would need to be examined before granting this request.There is a potential for a voucher system to affect our district monetarily depending on the amount of families who would choose to use it. That education tax money that once was the districts would be no longer.I think as a school board member an appropriate response could be that that we are a strong district and continue to strengthen our curriculum by providing classes that challenge and prepare students for college and career readiness.What other issues, if any, are important to you as a candidate for this office?Our district is growing quickly. I am concerned about the potential overcrowding in elementary school classrooms. Our district has recently asked D301 residents to vote on a referendum to complete the second phase of a two phase improvement project to our only high school which passed. My concern is that our elementary schools may be in need of improvements and possible expansions in the near future and I wonder how this will be done in a timely manner.Please name one current leader who most inspires you.Pope Francis inspires me to only take what you need. Treat others with respect and lead a simple life!What is the biggest lesson you learned at home growing up?The greatest lesson I learned growing up at home was to be an honest.If life gave you one do-over, what would you spend it on?I would want to go back to my 30's and relive my life again, exactly how I did the first time.What was your favorite subject in school and how did it help you in later life?Art was my favorite subject. It has taught be me to be a creative thinker in life and teaching.If you could give your children only one piece of advice, what would it be?Always do your best in everything you do. Excellence is not being the best; it's doing your best.