Cathy Piehl: 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://www.cathypiehl.comOffice sought: Indian Prairie Unit District 204 School Board (4-year Terms)Age: 54Family: Married, Husband Mike, three sons, Kevin WVHS 06, Dennis WVHS 09, James, Hill 8th grader.Occupation: Family Support Specialist for Project HELPEducation: BA in Psychology, Eastern Illinois University Masters in Social Work, Jane Addams College of Social Work UIC Type73 Certification School Social Work Aurora UniversityCivic involvement: IPSD 204 School Board, Parent Diversity Advisory Council, STEM - 204 Group Illinois Alliance PAC endorsement committee in 2010 and 2012, IASB liaison and Director at Large for the DuPage County Division Secretary IPSD School Board VP IPSD 204 School BoardElected offices held: IPSD 204 Board since 2008Have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a crime? If yes, please explain: NoCandidate's Key Issues Key Issue 1 To build a strong board and utilize my experience and leadership skills to: Establish respect and trust between board members and administration Ensure a strong collaborative atmosphere between board members Keep our focus on preparing our students for the 21st Century Workforce Make critical decisions on the forefront such as: Search for a superintendent Contract negotiation Establish new goals I am very impressed by the candidates that are running, and am confident that no matter the outcome of the election this will be accomplished, but I believe my experience, knowledge and leadership skills will help us move quickly through this development process. The community will be holding us accountable to the future of this district. We need to demonstrate with great leadership that we are doing our job with their interests in mind.Key Issue 2 To move the district forward and upward so we can: Ensure we have quality staff and administrationProvide adequate instructional support Ensure Technology and facilities can effectively support the implementation of the common core standards Initiate effective STEM initiatives, which will bring us into the 21st Century Continue our tradition of providing a compressive excellent education for our studentsKey Issue 3 By building upon strong community involvement we can: Utilize our community to effectively support our students Engage all families in navigating the American Education System Garner the support of our local business community to enhance our educational environmentsQuestions 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 a positive direction for our state if we are serious about properly preparing our students for the 21st century workforce. Our world is changing rapidly as we become a global community; we cannot continue to limit our children to success defined by multiple choice tests. According to the common core initiative's website (2010), the common core standards: Are aligned with college and work expectations; Are clear, understandable, and consistent; Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills; Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards; Are informed by other top-performing countries so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and Are evidence-based. Our children need to create, think critically, problem solve, collaborate and communicate well. The common core standards are geared to focus our instruction in this direction. Successful implementation of the common core standards requires intensive capacity building, professional development, and training for teachers, principals, and district level staff. Our administration has done a tremendous job in regards to putting the tools in place to help our staff through this process. However, rolling out new curriculum, along with SB 7 school reform which includes teacher evaluation that incorporates a student growth model, has made this more difficult to navigate, as our resources for doing so are spread thin. This is the concern of the board. This requires us to remain diligent in looking at our data; test scores, discipline information, graduation rates, school climate, and other assessments to know whether or not we are achieving our goals. This will be our challenge going forward. We have great leadership, but we are working with limited resources and personnel.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?Indian Prairie is a leader in preparing our students. However, this is not something we put a checkmark by and consider completed. Each year transition is re-evaluated and improved upon. In addition we have the curriculum, extra and co-curriculum in place that provides our students the competitive edge upon graduation. We begin with an award winning preschool program that prepares our students for Kindergarten. We end with comprehensive high schools with expansive opportunity in the Fine Arts to Science, to Automotive and Construction, to Engineering and Communication to Human services. These programs allow our students to explore fields upon graduation, at a 2-year college, and all the way to a doctorate. We offer 23 Advanced Placements courses which allow our students to advance beyond the high school level to compete at top Universities and Colleges, walking in with already earned college credit. We have partnerships which facilitate students wishing to pursue a career upon graduation in vocational-technical services at the Technology Center of DuPage, and in construction trades with Aurora East High School. In response to the business community's call to have high school graduates skilled and ready for work, our district has just recently become involved with an Aurora initiative called Pathways to Prosperity Project, which Dr. Birkett sees as an opportunity to help refine the skillsets of our graduates. We have also developed unique programs at our Indian Plains Campus that supports seniors with a credit recovery program and we provide a smaller learning environment for a number of our 9th 12th special education students. We have a reputation for consistently looking for ways to improve and enhance our students? opportunities. The current economic environment has not prevented us from continuing in this tradition, but in finding ways to do so that is affordable through good partnerships. It was a loss when we closed the very successful high school frontier campus, but we continue to offer our Dual Credit courses for our students, thereby giving them an opportunity to earn college credit from the College of DuPage before graduation from High School. We have and continue to be innovative and focused on providing an education that provides our students career and/or college opportunities. We may have one hand tied behind our back lately, but if I am on the board, we will not change that focus.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?For the 2013 14 fiscal years we are looking at $2.5 million deficit spending for the first time since we went to All-day kindergarten. The board recently agreed to this because we understand the necessity to equip our classrooms with the technology needed for the 21st Century Classroom and because these improvements are in direct need to manage the mandates from SB 7 for creating the data we are expected to provide regarding student growth and teacher performance. The recent announcement of a CPI of 1.7% for 2012 (down from our projected 2%) will again limit the resources we will collect locally in 2014. We have cut approximately $40 million from our budget the past 4 years. The current push to shift the pension cost from the state to the local districts, if it comes, (but more likely when), will again negatively impact the budget. Therefore, we recognize that using the fund balance is a temporary solution and not a long-term answer to the budget crunches we are facing. However, we will have some choices in our approach to handling the shortfalls. We continue to look at expenses that have been increasing substantially. One major expense that we are currently looking at is the cost of out-of-district-tuition? for some of our special education students. The increase in low income families may be a correlating factor to an increase in anxiety and depression and other mental health or disability issues among our students. I am and continue to advocate for more community involvement of our service organizations to address some of the needs of our more challenged students. As a community we need to help de-stigmatize mental health and disability labels and ensure proper care is available. If we can get supports to our students locally and early enough, we may avoid the expensive alternative of out of district tuition costs. As far as program reductions, when faced with budget cuts in the past, we have consistently looked at ways to cut outside the classroom. We have tried to impact the least number of students, and be conscious if there were similar avenues for the experiences outside the school walls. I am sure this will continue to be our parameters. Another difficult issue is that we have postponed facility maintenance and improvements for the last several years. I believe the time has come to do a complete facility assessment so we can be proactive with maintenance and address buildings that need critical updating. We put this assessment off 5 years ago as one of our first cost savings measures. I think we can explore partnerships with our local business community in supporting our efforts to create more optimum learning environments for the 21st century. In the immediate future, the question will be whether or not the board chooses to only look at cuts or do a combination of steps so as to impact our students? education the least. Combining savings, minimal cuts and some deficit spending, (as more than 67% of school districts in Illinois are already doing) may be the least painful option. The short term borrowing we would incur could be minimal compared to the impact on our students. In the long run we have a more complicated picture with too many uncertainties. We need more certainty from Springfield. The Pension reform issue is a huge question mark. Depending on how Springfield decides to roll this out, and to what degree the local districts take on this expense, will impact our budget to varying degrees. We already struggle each year as we are left guessing the amount the state will approve for education funding. The board will need to wrestle with determining our needs for the future. We will need to set a timeline in place for meeting those needs, and we will need to weigh the costs, and price of not moving forward. When the community has the facts, and trusts the board and administration, we will see if they share a vision for improving the educational opportunities of our students.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?As a trustee of the Indian Prairie school district, I believe that my role is to ensure we have the administration and teaching/support staff to provide the quality education we demand for our students. I have voted in favor of 3 contracts since being appointed to the board in 2008. In each contract we have been able to negotiate concessions in terms of benefits and customary salary increases, such as adjusting step increases, which have resulted in 3 contracts costing the district less than the CPI projected for that year. However, these last two contracts were ratified by only 60% of the teachers. With the suspected cost shift for pensions coming to the district and talk of pension reform that includes the teachers increasing their contribution 2%, (they already contribute 9.4%), continuing to remove benefits during our next contract negotiation could severely hamper our ability to have a ratified contract. We have also worked to encourage our more experienced (and expensive) staff to retire, thereby reducing our higher wage earners. Of course, this practice only contributes to the issues the state is having in meeting pension obligations. We also need to be conscious of what surrounding districts offer in total compensation packages. It would be unwise for us to drop much further in the competitive range. I hope our surrounding districts begin to look at the concessions we have already bargained, as I do not see many options left for District 204, if we are to maintain our quality workforce.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?A contract is set up to ensure you have a satisfied employee. Bumps came into existence because educators were historically underpaid compared to the workforce in private industry. This may not be the case any more for some of our teachers, but administrators compensation is rarely at the rate of top executives of companies with a workforce of nearly 3000. If we want quality administrators to work for us, we need to remain competitive in their compensation package, if that means a higher salary over the years and no bump, that would be fine with them, but the bumps have actually saved the local district money. Our current superintendent has a contract with less than the typical 6% increase for the last two years, and she agreed to the terms. She is well worth it. Even if the cost shift comes to the local districts, this practice would continue to save the district money in the long term. If bumps are addressed in pension reform, it may actually create a situation where we need to increase salaries over the entire length of their career in order to remain competitive. The biggest issue with bumps is explaining the phenomenon to taxpayers. Therefore eliminating bumps would save a headache, but not much more.