Meet the Collin County Candidates

So tell jokes. So I'm going to tell a little bit about yourself, why you're running. There you are. Then you're gonna have we're gonna have questions that are gonna be asked, and we're probably just gonna go down a lot on like this, down this way, back this way, this way.

Everybody's gonna get to answer the same questions. 90 seconds for each of those questions. And then the dreaded or like to call them wonderful lightning round questions. So we'll do 12 of those. Those are yes, no ask questions. And we're gonna get to see how fast you can ask the mic.

All right. So two minutes. Uh we'll start with you, and you may uh introduce yourself and give your opening saying great, great. Hi everybody, my name is Serena Ashcrock. Excuse me. I'm really glad to be here tonight. Thank you so much for taking the time to be

here to be engaged. We need more parents, more families, more community members to be engaged in what's going on in our community. I'm a mom of three children. My son graduated from Kinney Boyd High School in 2021. He's pursuing electrical engineering. Um my two daughters are involved in the fine arts programs, the wonderful fine arts programs, the choir, the orchestra.

We're a big musical family. I sing on the Dallas Millennium Choir. Um, I teach piano and private music teacher. Um, I've been very involved since we moved to Texas 10 years ago. We knew that Texas valued faith, freedom, family, and education. And I've been involved in the community speaking and attending at board meetings for over seven years.

My first meeting, I remember attending when our uh superintendent and board was getting attacked for praying at convocation, and I was there speaking up and defending them. Um, my I have a PTO president, the middle school. I was a substitute teacher in the district. I love serving. I have a heart to serve a room mom. When prom was canceled in 2021, I mean organized parents

for a thousand students across our district to hold prom when the district canceled prom and we don't end up running the project graduation. I know how to organize, I know how to lead. I've been a realtor for 20 years negotiating contracts. Um, in the fall of 2020, when COVID shut down and we lost a thousand students, I organized a homeschool academy that grew to a hundred students with a classical

traditional education fine arts program, and we hired over a dozen teachers. I'm a solution-oriented person's educate all students in our community, whether they're public school or home school. We must support all the students and bring families together for our students and the rising generation. Um, I'm concerned because our enrollment is declining in our district families are leaving.

Well, prosper founders academy form deal have waiting lists. We can do better, and we will. Thank you. Well, good evening, everybody. I'm Jim Western High, online student. I want to tell you a little bit about me and some of the things that I think we need to work on and improve.

I've been here for 25 years. My wife and I came back from Indication with my son, 11% of cases, and a dog. And we set off with our international to build a better future for that company, where I became the recruiting manager for technical personnel. And volunteering when we were in Alaska, I was a member of both roadway clubs, and was the chairman of

the United Way campaign. a record of Coming back to the U.S., I was the Sunrise Rotary Club, or I was twice the chairman of Camp Riley. When we first got back here, I went down to Slovenus, Mexico with my church group, and helped rebuild and find a uh organisation and help those kids have a better life.

And I drew the short straw as a mechanical engineer. Unfortunately, I got to work on sewer system. But they needed that, and they needed us. I've been a member of the PTA. I've taken these kids down to downtown New Zealand. I judge their science fairs. We need to have more of those. I'm an engineer and a manager and senior manager.

Building teams and reconciling conflicting teams. And I believe those skills are very valuable for this school district and this school board. I'm passionate about making this board the envy of everybody and this district the envy of everybody. Joe might try to play six became ISC. Hello, I'm Stephanie O'Dell. Can you all hear me?

And I'm seeing reelection for place six, which means anyone in the Guinea at large position can vote for this. Can you hear me? Stephanie O'Dell PlayStation at large. I've served on the school board for the last eight years. If you'd like to know more about me, this is my website, Stephanie O'Dell N ISC.com.

And I would like to talk about balance and priorities. Balance. We have a balanced budget in the ISC. We have decreased your tax rate by 21% in the last eight years. We try. to pay our teachers as much as possible, and the majority of our budget goes to our teachers If the state in Boston would help, that would be

great. We also have great teacher morale, and so the last five years we've had the vote of the best place to work. That means before, during and after COVID, we were voted the best place to work. We can always improve teacher morale, but our teachers know they are supported and respected, and I will make sure

we keep it that way. Priorities, safety is always that number one priority. We have increased our school resource officers by gold. We've added more security cameras. We recently got a couple of grants, and we will spend that money on safety, and we can't tell you how we spend that money because that's a safety issue. Of course, academics is always something we are striving to

achieve. We partner with Collin College, and we have 27 certifications that high school students can receive when they graduate. They can get a job right when they graduate as a certified nursing assistant, an EMT, a school pilot, a student pilot, or a fitness trainer. Those are some of the idea the options. All of our high schools have an A rating by

the TEA. We have a 98% graduation rate. That means 98% of every freshman that walks to that door graduates. We want it to be 100%, but following COVID, I think 98% is pretty good. The state average is 90%. And McKinney has 33% of students on freedom to produce

lunch. A vote for me is a vote for proven leadership. Good evening, everyone. My name is Rachel Elliott. I'm running for McKinney ISD Place 5. My opponent's not here. She decided at social media everyone about a few hours ago saying that she was not able to make it,

but um, I wish she was. But I want to talk to you a little bit about me. Um, I'm a former vice president of my daughter's um PTA, and then also last year I was able to serve with McKinney ISD PDA Council, which governs the entire district of PTAs in McKinney ISD. This year I'm on JDW's social education for the entire

Collin County committee. And so I've really enjoyed working with other committees and councils, and um I'm looking to take that experience into the um school board. I want to talk a little bit about my platform. First off, safety first. One of the things that kind of really concerned me is when my daughter's wife was threatened in a cafeteria

here in McKinney ISD. It was a very um troubling time and a very um serious situation. But what I want to do is be able to create sound policy to take care of our kids and give them a give a peace of mind to our parents because they deserve that. Also, I want to take care of parents' voices.

Right now, there's an issue that they're being silenced, and parents have the rights to be able to have a voice within their child's education. I want to restore academic excellence right now. McKinney ISD is not an A-rated school district, we're B. We've got four elementary schools that are C rated. We get about two and a half pages, but now an ISD gets about 275 pages when the agenda becomes

public. I want to change that. I want to bring transparency. My name is Rachel Elliott. I'm running from the Kitty IC Plays 5. Thank you for putting this on tonight. Thank you all for being here. Um, a little bit about myself.

I am actually from Southern Louisiana. I grew up and I was raised in in Southern Louisiana in a large family. Um I have a large family of many sisters and one brother. Um we were raised to make sure that we had our faith instilled in us. We had perseverance and we made sure that you know

we always told the truth. So those are my book my pillars that I stand for. I'll always be honest and tell the truth. Um I have a little girl that's in second grade here in McKinney ISD, and um she started kindergarten at the height of COVID. So we had three weeks of being on a um

laptop, which was really fun to deal with seven Zoom calls a day with 17 five-year-olds. God bless the teachers because they put up with so much and they deserve so much credit. My main concern right now is safety. We it's not only, you know, the like you've all been people coming in. We've got to worry about what's happening in the classroom,

in the hallways, in the lunchroom. We have a bullying problem. I've had many parents contact me, not just parents, but I've had uh students actually contact me and tell me that nothing is being done. These students are being, they're the victim. They're not, they're the district is doing nothing. They basically are telling them, I'm sorry,, you you know

know, boys will be boys, it's okay, that kind of thing. We have kids that are suicidal, we've got problems We have got to take care of the mental health of our children and the safety of our kids. So thank you so much. I'm ready in the center for PS5. Hi.

Hi, I'm Amy Denkel, and I'm running from McKinney ISD place four, as is the centric. She just spoke a couple of times. I too am from Louisiana, so I feel like that's very interesting. Um, I've been on the board now for 12 years. I was a teacher for 22 years, the last 10 of which are here in McKinney.

Um I was doing my exit um interview for leaving teaching. I had said at that point, you know, I'd like to get on board at some point. I did find things for coming into the classroom that I thought were kind of a waste of money, and there were mandates, and I just said, what's you know, what's this, and I was told it's board approved.

So that was one of the reasons I decided to run for the board. A few years after our kids went to college, um, I was in my Bible study, and the ladies were like, hey, they weren't back for the board number. They said, Why don't you said you were gonna do this, why don't you do it? And I have loved every moment of it since then.

Um I do disagree with several of the things that have been said here. First of all, we are not shutting out any parents. That's a lot of rhetoric about that. In our meetings, we have um always have people come to our meetings. In the Kinney ISD, we have about 40,000 parents. Many, many of those parents are very, very involved., and

we do have an open door policy I'd like you to know in the past two years, we have had one parent of one McKinney ISD parent removed from the building because he had a method, and that's not allowed. He is still not allowed back on campus. We have had one person who was not removed by the police but was cited for inappropriate language.

He is allowed to go on campus. He just needs to let the principal know before. And we have had one person who is suing me and our head of security and three of our SRRO officers, and that is who's running against me, Brittany Hendrickson. Okay, we'll start down there again. I know it's hard to just pick one, but what is the greatest need facing MISC schools?

And how would you address it in the next term? I would say continuing to enhance our safety. We have uh since I've been on the board grown our SRO force uh five times when it was when I got on the board, but I would like to see that as a program. We can continue to grow. Um, in addition to SRO officers for safety,

I think it's time we need to look at social workers in the schools. Our counselors are just not equipped to handle the mental health issues that our students have had coming out of COVID and just living in this atmosphere of you know cyberbullying and everything. I think we really need to consider having these mental health professionals on our basis.

If you ever need a question, repeat it, just tell me, okay. Will you repeat it one more time? I will. Um hard to pick just one, but what is the greatest need facing MISD schools? And how would you address it in the next term? Okay.

So besides the bullying, because I'm not I really feel like that's a pressing issue for our students' mental health right now. Um, I do believe our teacher routine is a problem. We are losing teachers left and right. Since January, we lost 29 teachers. That will January to March, we lost 29 teachers. That's not a good thing.

We're that's a problem. Um what we need to do is we really need to focus on our pain points. We have to talk to these teachers. They have to be able to have open communication with us and not feel like they're gonna be recommended or have any repercussions because some of the teachers are fearful. Um, they will my opponent would definitely tell you that

that's not happening. It is happening. I have parents coming to me, I have teachers coming to me. This is a problem. We have got to address this. Teachers are our foundation. If we do not have teachers, we cannot educate children.

It's a very simple common sense thing. Um, they are the they're the uh front lines for education. We really have to focus on having good educators and retaining them. Another thing we could do is we can look at you know the benefits. The benefits are you know from what I'm hearing, they're

not that great. We can we can definitely look at the benefits and go from that, go there and um sort of maybe. have more teachers come into the district Thank you. Same question, 90 seconds. Thank you so much. So I want to talk to you a little bit

about our kids, right? Because that's what we're here for. We're here for our kids. That's what I'm here for. My name is Rachel Elliott. I'm running for McKinney ISD Place 5. And I want to let you know each year my daughter comes home with one of the textbooks that you

all buy, buy because you guys are taxpayers. And look at it, empty. Our kids are being taught with apps that sometimes as parents can't have access to because after 307, when the kids are dismissed, the apps are shut down. I don't want to shut parents out. I want parents to be partners with our education. I want parents to be able to see transparency of

our curriculums that we're using to teach our kids. I want us to stop wasting money because it's part of us that we have to be a steward of this money. And we need to take care of it because we need to take care of our kids. Taking care of our kids also means we need to work smarter when it comes to providing a great education,

an excellent education. That's an A-rating education because all the other school districts that are surrounding McKinney ISB, they're A-rated. McKinney ISB is not. I'm upset about that. I have a little one within an elementary Very formative years. I want better.

I know we can get there. My name is Rachel Elliott Most important thing in our district is student safety, which has been addressed, and I we will continue to work on student safety every day and review our policies, update our policies. We're constantly checking out doors inside and out. To me, another of the most important things is teacher

respect, teacher support. Our teachers need to feel valued so they will stay. Again, we were voted best place to work the last five years in a row. We actually have the highest teacher retention rate in Collin County. And I have stats to prove that. They're not with me, but I do have it.

And I know our campus, when I go to campuses, elementary school campuses, they're like, they're like family. The teachers, the principals, they are like family. Ask your teacher friends how they feel. And yes, they'll have some complaints, but they love McKinney ISD. We have many teachers who graduated from our three high schools.

That is a great compliment. They want to come back to McKinney. They went to school here and they know this is a good district and then come back. So we want to support our teachers, show them respect, stop putting out misinformation. This book that goes home is for her to work on it home.

That's what that book is for. So I mean the number one issue is transparency and community involvement. I learned a long time ago. As a still learning and practicing principal center, served leader, that you must listen to people who must involve. Transparency. Where is our monthly safety book?

Transparency. Why? isn't the school of North construction managers funding the group Why was the architect put in place January 2021? The funding not approved, approved in January 2022. That is not good fiscal management. That is not good transparency. The curriculum.

Why don't we have a curriculum and planning review committee where you can partner with us and take a look at the things the kids are being taught? Why don't we have transparency? Why do we only have one minute to speak as a member of the community in a school board meeting? When I first started speaking, I got three minutes. Now it's one.

Last meeting there were 20 speakers. That should have been a minute and a half. It was a minute. Transparency and involving you. You manage from here, but you leave from here. Is oh mean that's on. Oh, no? Okay, our biggest issue is families and teachers are leaving

our district. We've lost students year over year over year. We're on a constant decline year over year, and teachers are leaving. A good friend of mine, he's a teacher, left to homeschool for children. Another parent has two long-term studies for chemistry and English for her high school son.

I talk to teachers all the time. I guess I have a hundred twelve from my little homeschool group that serves about 100 students. I've talked to dozens of teachers. I know why they're leaning, why they're frustrated. I met a teacher taught walkwalkinging. who's look for a job at a grocery store in our district, and she's a principal because the dyslexia program is now a part

of SPED The SPED program is part of dyslexia, and they have no input in any of this say. I ask where do you go? We don't have anywhere to go. Okay. So for a year, so behavior issues are increasing on campus.

The teachers are not supported. Kids come back to class constantly. Um lost a lot of trust with families the last couple years. I'll tell you that I'm a doer, not a watcher. I'm a solutions person. For a year, myself and another parent spoke about the campus educational improvement committees that were not happening on our

campus. That is where parents, teachers, and staff and community come together for every campus and at the district level. They come together solutions oversee curriculum, budget, safety, and staff for every campus. It took us a year of speaking work meetings to teach this. Now they're happening in the campus and district.

So here it is. What is your position on the ongoing controversy regarding sexually explicit materials in class and in libraries? MISD. What should we done about it? Should I stand up again? You can sit if you like. Yeah, just stand up again for you.

Um this is one of the biggest issues when I go around, talk to families, meet uh people at the door. Of course, the messaging is do you want to ban books? That's one of the top issues. Do I want to ban books? And my answer is no, I don't want to ban

books. I am for high quality literature in our schools. The school board is the ultimate responsibility for the literature, the curriculum, the books we purchase, textbooks, the libraries. We set the budget, we purchase them. We need to have a process for how we purchase them. We need to know what we're purchasing.

It feels like a lot of this is happening, and we don't know. We don't know. I am for also simplifying the process that's in play that needs to be better right now. I am not for making demands that things have to be done right now. Because all of these things has caused nothing but division

in our in our community. I'm for solutions. I helped a parent follow the process. And it took for five months, it needs to be shorter, but she followed the process and she got her book removed to the middle school level. It was not appropriate to elementary level. It went to the board, and the board looked at

it and they agreed. They agreed this is appropriate for the middle school, not and that's what parents need to do. They need to be engaged. We should not just be reading excerpts and demand making demands. We should follow the process. Parents should be following those challenges and then we need

to simplify it, make it easier. And again, those campus educational committees are key. They need to be functioning and effective. So here again, we come back to principal centered serving leadership. I have great faith in the big old this community. Center upon the truth. I believe if we had workshops, review items like this,

including the curriculum planning review committees, we can work our way through this. It's not about process and procedural. As I said earlier, you managed to hear, but you need to hear. Okay? Critical race theory. I have studied in depth

Robin D'Angelo's book, White Virginity, and Louie Bauman's book. All right. My son is an adopted black baby boy with a white mother, who on the Army Condemnation method three times is retiring from the MP Corps. And cohort 290 and three other 300 text, that's due to his mother. We could have cared less.

And if you talk to him about I'm his oppressor because I'm white, and he's oppressed because he's black, look out. He wants nothing to do with it. It is a fraud, it is a scientific mistreatment of the data and the facts in Robin D'Angelo's book. Bad books. Critical race theory.

Pronounce all of those issues stem from an insular board that does not properly involve the community. Principal center and story leadership. Thank you very much. We can all agree that we don't want inappropriate materials in the curriculum or in the library. Oh man. We can all agree that we don't want inappropriate materials

in the library or in the classroom. There's a process, as Serena said, and the process works for library books. There is not inappropriate curriculum in schools. It's illegal to teach whatever Rachel Elliott says being taught in kindergarten. There's so much misinformation about what's really happening. Again, ask the teacher, ask a student.

We are doing great things here in McKinney. And I don't know why we're talking about critical race theory. That's illegal Government has to build on that. So let's talk about good things. We're doing a lot of good things because we have good leaders in the school board.

And I know there's things we can fix and things that we can improve, and we can do that with your help. We want parents to partner with us, not come and yell at us. Rachel Elliott, Nicky I see, place five. Ah, so Stephanie mentioned about look. Here's the digital, here's the paper book, the digital versions

available, K through five. And if we turn here, we're gonna see positions. I'm sorry, I'm an elementary um parent. I don't believe positions should be taught to young as kindergarten. So I'm gonna read about a policy that Stephanie and Amy signed into on April 10th, 2022. Prior to any material being selected for inclusion, a library

material shall have been read, reviewed, and recommended for inclusion by the district level library supervisor or an individual that's designated that supervisor. If you if more support andor resources are needed for this review, the board may improve the engagement of cooperative of other Texas public schools and rely on the recommendations of that cooperation. So here, currently, we have 103, 153

explicit books. Here are two current board members. They're not doing their job. It's time to vote in all. My name is Rachel Elliott. I'm ready to care about her. Keep your hands to yourself.

This is not a good idea. No, I'm not. Don't touch. Let's just uh see we're gonna get through this. Same question. Put your position on the ongoing controversy regarding sexual explicit materials in class and in libraries, the MISP, what should be done about it?

It's a very simple answer. No, it's it should not be in school at all. Um age appropriate content is what I would like to have in schools, and my tax dollars be used to pay for age appropriate content. Um we need to quit stealing our kids' innocence. These kids, their innocence is gone. It's it's just really unfortunate because you can't this over

sexualization of our children has gone so far that this is another reason why parents are pulling their children out of schools, is because it's gone too far. It needs to stop. There are policies in place, however, those policies probably need some changing. I have um often said I would love to see parent committees in the libraries.

Whenever these books come in, have a group of parents go through them, give them a review, let them say yes or no, or hey, this one might be a little questionable. Let's pass it on to the library and make sure that this isn't, you know, this is age appropriate We do not need to have this kind of materials in our libraries or you know available for our students.

Thank you. We have made a couple changes to the library reconsideration policy lately. I the only thing I'm going to agree with here is that it is difficult to find the form online. I have helped parents do that. I would like you to uh think back to the fact that we have lost over 500,000

American lives so that we are not Nazi Germany and we do not ban books. If you have an issue with a book, you have an opportunity to read the book and have it reconsidered. Banning books is against the law in the United States of America. What I would like you to realize is about 99% of these.

Thank you very much, moderator. The vast majority of the books that people have issues with are in our AP curriculum, and that is set by the college board. If a book comes up for review and it is going to be on an AP test, like the one that uh Miss Hendricks read an excerpt out of, that book will go into the teacher's classroom library because we've

got to prepare the kids for this test. I mean, it would be unfair to have them take the test and not be prepared. I also like to say the bit about speaking for one. minute instead of three I would love it if the state would go back to only letting our taxpayers, only letting our parents that they change that law.

Yes. If elected in your case, re-elected. How do you plan to control your superintendent, particularly when they tell you that they are the expert on issue and you are not? Um I take exception to the question: control your superintendent. Superintendent has rise to that level of the job because they are an educator and this is their job.

Our job as a board is to set policies and procedures and to hire and equip the superintendent to run the district. If necessary, the board also then fires the district the superintendent. Control the superintendent is the wrong way to look at this. I think that's kind of a ridiculous question.

The superintendent is the expert on educational issues. That's why they were hired. I think we need to have some open conversation, set some goals for the superintendent, and establish that that open line of communication. We need to be able to measure those goals and have them set. We need to hold them accountable.

That is the board's job is to hold them accountable. That is really what it is. Um we need to collaborate with them, and we need to, you know, have those open conversations. and see how we can work together as a board to make this um district the best it can be Thank you. Now, Carlinker, would you do me a favor and come

join me and sit here? I believe she's already touched my property twice, and I've already asked her, wouldn't you come and join us? Because I believe she struggled. So let's talk about the superintendent. So we just got a new superintendent. We had a former one, and he had a contract that was renewed in December of 2021 to receive a

salary of $365,000 a year. Our governor of the state of Texas receives a salary of $300. So we have a brand new superintendent who is now being paid $35,000 a year. One of the first things that I want to do when I come and win my seat, is I want to come and talk to each of the board members.

I want to work with them and see what's going to work so we can all work together for this with the superintendent because that's our job to hire and fire the superintendent, and also oversee the district. You know, one of the biggest um qualifiers that makes me the best for this seat is I'm a parent. I'm a parent in the district, I'm a parent that is connected with other parents and teachers, and I want

to create an excellent beginning ISC in all of the state of Texas. So vote for me, Rachel Elliott, you can either see, please five. The question was: how would we control? the superintendent Yeah, the question is in your case, if re- elected, how do you plan to control your superintendent, particularly when they tell you that they are the expert on an issue

and you are not? Again, control is not the right word. There are seven school board members and a superintendent, that's eight. We function as a team of eight. We work together for the battle match all students in the district. So, and the superintendent does hire and fire the superintendent,

the school board does hire and fire the superintendent as our job. So we also approve policy, budget, and things like that. Um the the process the process works. What we do works. Oh, the $300,000 thing. Um I don't know how many people that have a

fortune 500 company that have 25,000 people they supervise, actually 27 when you have teachers, um, make $300,000. Well, they make a million dollars or more. And our superintendent making $300,000 just run the school district, that's a deal. But there are surrounding districts that are smaller that are paying more for those superintendents. You can check that.

We have a great superintendent, he's gonna do great things, and we have great incumbents on the school board. So I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna talk to you a little bit now about management and not leadership up here. The way you control anybody who has an assignment is through what we call vision, mission, goals, objectives, and standards for the fionashal study.

I believe that the superintendent, a third of his payout to be at risk based on metrics. in. If you look the website of the school district, what the provision and mission works if you use the words If you don't have things you can measure that you want to meet in years ahead as your vision and a mission that incorporates those and enables you to get

there, you don't have any control. You don't have any management control. It's not so much about controlling the person as just about controlling the work. That's how I did it. That's how I learned how to do it, and that's all all my mates as senior managers did. It's simply a matter of agreeing on the tasks at

hand and how you're going to measure performance. And by the way, I don't think our superintendents have had any goals or measurables for years. Now, in conjunction with that, I want to connect with that individual and reach wherever else I need to go into this organization, wherever the facts lead to create harmony and forward progress of what? Meet our vision with our vision and our goals and

objectives. It is not rocket science. Joe West, place citizen ISD. Yes, you know, I'm actually looking forward to working with Mr. Pratt as a board trustee. My husband and I met in Mr. Pratt just a couple years ago during COVID with some

serious issues. He listened to our concerns. He offered some advice and solutions and ways that we can work together. When the board works together to set proper policies, procedures in place, they have lots of input from the community, the teachers know they're valued and respected. So much can happen.

And as you can see, we need connection, we need collaboration. We need to work together in our community. Our kids are watching, we're absolutely capable I have unique perspective. I have built a school in the last two years, hiring teachers. The homeschool community is a huge community.

We supported that community. My kids are in public school. We need strong public schools. We have chosen public school for our children. We have fantastic fine arts programs, dual credit, AP, wonderful, wonderful programs. But it requires the teachers often tell me, Srina, you are a visionary.

You are a visionary. You listen to us. We work together with parents and teachers. When they know they have a voice, they're part of the decisions, everything will change. But that requires leadership. We must have leadership. We must ask the questions, work together, and have leadership.

And Sashcroft, you get to go first again. Here you go. If elected or reelected, to your cases. If elected, what has to happen for you to consider your term success? That's a good question. What has to happen to consider my term of success? When I can step down four years, eight years, and

feel like we have stabilized enrollment, we are premier district. People are coming to us. Think about the explosive growth we've had in the kingdom. I've been years of experience in real estate, brought families here. They're looking for a better environment, is one reason we moved here 10 years ago. I had to raise $100,000 to operate a school where

we came from. For a librarian, a fine arts program, a nurse. We have raised $100,000 when I was the PTO president at the elementary level. We moved to Texas because they value education. We have wonderful families leaving here. But once again, they're choosing Founders Academy, they're choosing Corn Dale and they're leaving here.

We must restore trust. We must have a solid foundational math and language program in an elementary level. We do have, we do choose curriculum. The team says we have to teach this, but we choose a curriculum, how that content is delivered. We can write our own curriculum like Prosper is doing for language and reading.

Strong mouth and foundation program and earlier years get back to classical. Did you know Plan YC is exploring classical school? This is what parents want back to the basics. And once parents are coming here and they want to be part of the community, that's how I'll know we did a great job. How I know that we have all been successful in

terms of media cards, when our safety incidents have gone down, when our measures of open records requests have gone down, and we now know we're more transparent. When our teachers stop leaving, we lost 400 since the beginning of last year. That's a 23% turnover. I know from my business experience, we start to panic at 5% or 10%.

You have got to fix that, and you've got to fix the retention and get these teachers who want to stay. So it's by measuring performance by getting the superintendent on track by creating transparency by managing our money better. I don't like the fact that we fund more 20% contingency. You can't do that in the business world outside state

and business. So all those things center up on having a vision and a mission, goals and objectives, and measures of performance for the district, not just the superintendent. So what line are we successful for quarters? Yes, like in your next term, if you're re- elected, what would you consider? What has to happen to you to consider that term

a success? We would add continue to add more AP advanced license classes. We'll have more dual credit classes here at Colin College. That means parents will save a lot of money on college classes, or kids will have credit, college credit. We will have more certifications. We are going to add a drone class next year.

No kids are excited about that. We will improve our graduation rate because one year it was 98.6%. We will continue to strive to improve our graduation rate. We will have teachers that will flock to be in the king. You know, there was a pandemic. Teachers are leaving nationwide.

It's a crisis. It's not just here in the county. Again, we have the highest teacher protection rate in college calm county. Teachers want to be here. They graduate from the power high schools and they want to be here. And we will continue to have smart students, great teachers,

great leaders, and we will continue to be an excellent district that people look to and brag about. Good evening. Thank you guys so much for being here. You guys can be anywhere else, but you guys are here to care about the community. And that's what I want. I want more community, more parents, and taking care of

our teachers. For an example, my daughter's fifth grade class. Last year they had four teachers. Four teachers. They dropped down to three teachers because they couldn't hire a fourth. It wasn't there. And now one of them is out on paternity leave

and they couldn't get a substitute. So now they have only two teachers for the entire fifth grade class for an entire school. She has 42 kids in one class. We've got to take care of our teachers. We've got to take care of our students, and we have to take care of our schools. That's what I will find in success after my four

years. Because you know what? Kids are schools, our community, and matters. 62%. I want to see that go up. I want to see that our eighth grade math students can master math and at a higher rate than 13% across the board.

Academics needs to be our focus, and we need to educate these kids so that their career college military ready life skills would be great. Um, we need to bring back uh critical thinking and um you know just get back on track with the basics. Our kids deserve the best education that they could possibly receive in the Kenny ISD.

And so I've I've strived for academic excellence, bringing it back to an A and keeping it there, maintaining it there, talking to the teachers, collaborating with the C the A uh elementary school, the schools that are at an A and the schools that are in C, collaborate with them. Find out what they're doing at the A-rated district that we're not doing it the C rated district instead of

just blaming it on the um free lunch children because that's that's what my opponent is doing. She's blaming it on the kids that have free lunch. That's why we are a B rated district. That is absolutely absurd, and that has to stop. Every child is sorry, every child can learn. We just need to focus on that. Instead, I'm gonna tell you what I would consider a

success. When we moved to McLean, McKinney was the only school district in North Texas that had all their kindergarten. They have always valued early childhood education. I think it's time for us to bring in pre K. I think the state should pay for pre K, especially with the way inflation is working families need help with

this. I I think that would be a great thing, and I would consider that a success. Right after I got on the board, there was another board member who was a retired baby guy, and he and I worked together to get JROTC at McKinney High School. I think that is such a successful program.

It is expensive, but I would like another branch of the military at North High School because we have room at that high school. That's the high school that when we renovated, we have made it so the wall can come around at one end and we can add another way. I think I would consider that a success. I would also like to see us become a people

where instead of judging little children who have only been alive for six, seven, eight years on a standardized test. We use our standardized test to tell the teacher, the student, and the parent what that child needs to learn next. It's absolutely ridiculous that we are judging entire schools and entire school districts on standardized tests that little children are taking.

We're both from Louisiana, we can pass the baton. So these are the famous, infamous language questions. I have 146 of them. But Derek told me I can only ask 15. So I encourage the audience to pay close attention to the answers to these questions because they can be super revealing. So we're just gonna go this way, this way, this

way, this way. Alright, we just are sharing the mind. That's perfect. Alright. Ready? Do you support the right of teachers to voluntarily be armed and trained at school No.

Yes. Yes. No. Absolutely. Yes. Trying to give you guys a time back, so let's uh hopefully. Um again, yes, no, more pass.

You can pass. Just go for their explanation. Will you oppose any budget that is more than two and a half percent annual increase, which is the state trigger for a local election? Will you oppose any budget that is more than a two and a half percent annual increase, which is the state trigger for local election?

Yes. Yes, pass, yes, yes, pass. Do you believe more funding necessarily results in better educational performance? Yes. Yes, absolutely not. That's not a yes, no work thanks.

Do you believe that school bonds should be broken up into grouped categories similar to the way city bonds are divided up? Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Do you believe that merit pay for teachers will result in retaining more good teachers? No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes.

I'll not just ask questions Should MISD hire an external auditor to ensure reporting of accurate financial data and expenditures to citizens? Yes. Yes. You can do that. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Should MISD remain in TASB? Yes. No. No. Yes. No. No.

Should ISD races, yours, move from nonpartisan to partisan, knowing that HB 221 is being considered a committee right now? Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes.

Will you add performance on respect to what we're not on topic? No. Yes. Okay, should the ISD, should the ISD be able to spend school tax funds to lobby the legislature? Um. No.

No. No. No. No. Are you the most qualified candidate in your race? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. I am the new Barbara Walters. Here's the question that that means up to. Is your opponent qualified for this position? Is your opponent qualified for the position which is right? No.

She needs to retire. That's not this one. This is ridiculous. And no and no. No. No. I'm going to pass. Okay.

We are now going to let each of the candidates do a 90-second wrap-up. Say whatever they want. Again. We'll start with you. Um, Dennis Cash Ross. That's right. Yes.

Thank you so much for coming tonight. For everybody that's been participating tonight, running a campaign is not easy. It's grooming work. Um, we would not be doing this. I would not be doing this if I did not have a desire to serve, if I've not been serving our students, our teachers, our families for years.

I pushed aside my real estate career the last couple years and have been working on solutions for education troubles for the last several years. Um I feel I'm the most qualified. I have children in the Kenny I see at the Kenny Boyd High School. I see what's going on, I see what they're going through in the district.

I see, and I work with teachers, I work with students every week. I teach Texas history twice a week to a group of fantastic students. I want to see improvements in our district, more recess time for our students, more opportunities for field trips I see solutions. These are workable things we can do.

Unfortunately, we've had so much division the last couple years. We need leadership. We need solutions. We need somebody who can connect and bring people together. If we go down this path that we're continuing on, we will see continued declining enrollment. We'll continue to see more teachers lead. Change is needed, and I feel most people feel like

that change needs to happen, but we need no right change to bring leadership on our school district. I've got experience in that should be. Thank you so much. Serena Ashcraft, running from McKinney IC school states at large. So folks, I've got over four decades of management leadership experience of senior management in three industry sectors. I've worked overseas, I put teams together and reconciled significant

conflict with teams. Go on my website and look at Carrie McHale Reid, CEO of Carrie McHale Reid Associates, and let her tell you how I deal with people and people problems. We have fundamentally lost 400 teachers. We don't have a good safety management program. We don't have a handle on our cost of 253 million dollar budget, 150 million, 60% of that is an

instructional services, 24 million in maintenance. Part of my career was cutting maintenance costs and turning up many maintenance organizations, and I can tell you yours sol softventness in my entire budget. We have to do it on a zero-based basis. We have to improve the curriculum by involving all of you folks. As a principal. center and server leader, I will listen

to you, I will hear you, and I will recover your good ideas in us moving forward All of these problems occurred tonight, and my own opinion stem from that one thing. Lack of transparency, lack of inclusion, lack of listening and hearing to the people. The oldest graduated from AM, and she did well, and that's why I went to school.

The youngest is graduating next month, no more college payments, and she's graduating soon of good law. Yes, I'm writing, but McKinney schools prepared my girls and many of your children for the future for the world. And so we have great schools here. And people keep saying we don't, but we do. And if you have a question, please ask me. You can reach, you can email me, or you can

message me on Facebook, and maybe I'll see it. We don't get paid, and that's gonna help. You know, this campaigning, whoa. So as security is the number one concern. We have a security team, we have security, 1500 security cameras, we are on top of security. Stephanie O'Dell. My name is Rachel Elliott, and I'm ready from the

AIC phase five. I'm talking about facts. Facts. Black and white facts B rated school district is what we're dealing with right now. We've got to take care of that. You know, I am actually the first woman in my

family to get a four-through. I am proudly say that. My brother has a bachelor's through master's and a doctorate. My dad has a good master's and a doctorate, and one of his um masters is from Princeton from Ivy Lee. I want Ivy Lee to look at our beginning ISB. I want more for our schools.

I want more for our kids. I want more for our community. We have got to collaborate. We've got to listen to the community. We've got to take care of our kids. Our kids are the next generation. We've got to take care of them. Thank you.

Vote for me. Rachel Elliott. Place five. Thank you next week. I want to clear up a little bit during my closing statements. Um, my opponent has constantly said that I have a lawsuit against SROs.

I don't have any factual allegations against any SRO or any police officer in this lawsuit. Minor against her in her own capacity. I have a First Amendment, right? Against a lawsuit against her because my rights were taken at a meeting. That is what's going on with that. I am not, I don't have any factual allegations against

any police officers at back of the blue. I have many people in my family that are definitely police officers. I have a lot of friends that are police officers, and so I just want to clear the air on that because apparently that's been going around quite. a bit We have 23,000 children in this district, plus well 23,000 plus children in this district that need us, that need

our voices, they need us to protect them. They need us to stand up for them.