Suzyn Price: 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: NapervilleWebsite: http://suzynfor203.comOffice sought: Naperville Unit D203Age: 43Family: Married to Derke Price, two children, Nick a sophomore at Naperville North and Annie, 7th grader at Jefferson Junior High.Occupation: Vice President for Advancement at Illinois Mathematics and Science AcademyEducation: B.A. in English and M.A. in American History, Southern Illinois UniversityCivic involvement: Board of Education, 2003 - PresentNaperville Education Foundation, Saybrook Garden Club,Elected offices held: District 203 Board of Education, 2003 - PresentHave you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 Our current economic circumstances have evidenced the enormous importance of fiscal integrity. By maintaining productive relationships with our unions and transparent financial reporting, we have negotiated contracts that have ensured the financial, and thus academic, strength of our school district and have avoided the upheavals and interruptions of staff layoffs and severe program cuts. Maintaining that financial integrity is critical to the strength and quality of our schools.Key Issue 2 We have conducted a review of our special education curriculum and will hear the results in February, and we will have a change in leadership in special education. Response to Intervention (RtI) was rolled out in the past three years and has created challenges as well as opportunities for teachers, staff, students and parents. As we move forward, we need to ensure that we meet the needs of every student with high quality education and appropriate and effective intervention, whether they are academically talented or struggling academically. We must take the opportunity provided by the review and leadership change to strengthen special education and learning interventions.Key Issue 3 I am a strong advocate for high quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Recent news has put a spotlight on the strong showings on internationally normed tests by students from China. However, even educators in China recognize that doing well on tests is not an indicator of innovative, inquiring minds, but of rote learning. Our curriculum does and needs to continue to teach students to think creatively, solve problems and be life-long learners and we have got to use that approach to develop a passion for STEM learning from an early age with inquiry-based teaching.Questions Answers What makes you the best candidate for the job?As an active member of the Board of Education for eight years, I have the most experience of any current Board member and have deep knowledge of the strategic, financial, academic and administrative issues the District faces. As someone who is in education professionally, I know how schools can innovate and succeed. I know what good leadership looks like, and how to partner with our community to ensure that we continue to provide the strongest public educational opportunity for our students at the greatest value for our community.Do you support retaining teacher tenure rules that make it nearly impossible to fire teachers?Teacher tenure does not make it nearly impossible to fire teachers. District 203 has fired teachers every year I have been on the Board of Education. What we need to do is ensure that evaluation accurately reflects teacher and administrator performance so that we can appropriately assess quality. A greater challenge is seniority rules that put more emphasis on job persistence than on job performance.Do you support merit pay for teachers?As part of the NUEA contract last year, we established a committee made up of administrators and union leadership to review professional development and performance metrics that would help us refine both evaluation and our classification ""steps."" The goal of the committee's work is to establish more effective evaluation of teacher performance and to ensure that continuing education pursued by teachers actually strengthens their teaching skills, rather than just moving them up on the pay scale. Merit pay has not been proven to be an effective performance enhancement method, while improved professional development and strong evaluation methods have.The district has managed the current financial storm without slashing jobs and deficit spending. How do you ensure that stability will continue?District 203 has managed to maintain fiscal stability with sound financial practices that include excellent forecasting, lean budgets and prudent contract negotiations. We continually seek win-win negotiations with our staff that result in balanced and fair contracts that allow the District to both recruit excellent staff and at the same time serve the needs of our constituents to keep taxes low. We have also relied on the sound advice of our financial advisory committee, which is made up of leaders from the community who bring tremendous experience and wisdom to help us establish sound financial parameters. We have also had the strong leadership of experienced staff who provide excellent counsel.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?We have conducted a graduate survey this year, the results of which we will hear in the month of February. This will give us a good sense of how well prepared our graduates feel, which is always a valuable measurement of educational efficacy. District 203 has a consistent curriculum review cycle with which we work to ensure that our curriculum is preparing students for a constantly changing world. Even then, we know that we are educating students for careers that don't exist yet, and we hope that we provide them to be lifelong learners capable of adapting to ever-evolving expectations. That said, I don't think we should ever be satisfied with anything we do--education must not serve to satisfy, but to challenge and grow and to nurture a restless curiosity.