Democratic Women of Bernalillo County APS Candidate Forum

Today at the UNM Law School the Democratic Women of Bernalillo County held a very well attended forum for the APS Board Candidates. The candidates were given two minutes to introduce themselves to the ladies and to tell why they are running for a position on the school board. They then took two questions from residents of their districts. Due to time constraints and the number of candidates, members were unable to ask more questions otherwise the forum was a great success. Perhaps in the future the forum can be broken up into districts so as to allow for more time for each candidate to answer questions from members.

The issues covered were:

To hold an independent external audit so as to determine if policy and procedures for capital expenditures are being followed. To determine exactly what the priorities are for the current budget and to determine if they are being met by the current budget. On this issue most candidates felt that a quality education for our children should be the major priority.

How best to provided hot lunches for all APS students and then determine how best to collect money from parents or provide support to parents who cannot afford to pay their students overdue lunch bill.

How best to measure student achievement and to reduce the level of student dropout while still providing a high level of education for students of the APS system. What would be the best policy to prevent troubled students from derailing the educational process while still ensuring them a quality education and support classroom instructors at the same time? Some candidates floated an idea of paying teachers a higher rate and not making unrealistic demands for a class which took these students out of regular classrooms.

How best to achieve a system that provides for transparence government while still staying within the limits of the law. With little discussion in public view and no major input allowed from working parents clearly the current system needs improvement. Some candidates felt strongly that team work should not mean a solid wall that does not allow for parents and voter to have real input into important decision that affect the children’s education of this city.

These issues have been of much concern to the voting public and the parents of current students within the APS school system.

When questioned about the possibility of dividing up the school system into two the candidates questioned in district 5 responded by saying that more studies need to be done before they could give an informed answer to that question.

All in all the forum did cover the candidates very interesting responses to the questions raised by the Democratic Women of Bernalillo County and the new president said that she hopes to get the group involved in local governmental issue more in the future.