School Board Elections for Special Education Voices
===

Meredith Daly: [00:00:00] When we think about who makes decisions that directly affect our kids with IEPs and 504 plans, there is one group that is often most overlooked. Grab your cup of coffee. We're gonna talk about the school board election. 

Hey everyone, welcome to Special Ed, IEPs, 504s, Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC. I'm Meredith. I'm joined by a couple other board members. If you guys wanna go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Kelly Mayr: Hi, I am Kelly Mayer. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Hi, I'm Aleia Mastroianni. 

Tashia White: Hi, I am Tashia White.

Meredith Daly: Today we're gonna focus on Kelly. She is in the know. She's the one that was educating us at one of our board meetings. Hey guys, did you know there is an election for the school board this year? So Kelly, take it away. 

Kelly Mayr: Thank you so much, Meredith.

This is really a topic is near and dear to my heart. You are correct. It is a board election year and this year it is a majority election, meaning four seats are up. [00:01:00] There are seven total school board directors in our district.

The election is November 4th. But we will get our ballots in the mail starting on October 10th. So it's coming up quickly. 

Meredith Daly: Why should I care, who is on the school board and what do they do?

Kelly Mayr: It's confusing, right? They only have one employee, the superintendent.

They set policy. And follow up to see if, you know the policy has been followed, if it was successful. Policies can be written in a way that advocates for students receiving special education or mental health services. They are quite important and quite powerful.

Board ends, it's called. They set the direction of the district, the superintendent's limitation rules. That the superintendent must follow. They hold the superintendent accountable to those board ends. The superintendent has a job that is set within guard rails by the executive limitations.

These are all really important things that really don't get a lot of attention, 

Meredith Daly: Can you tell us a little bit more [00:02:00] why that impact our kids with special education services?

Kelly Mayr: they approve budgets. They look at the growth and decline, taxing measures charter school, renewals or something that come under their purview. They can make sure that policy is equitable and consistent in special education and mental health across all of our schools.

They can fight for special education students at charter schools through the charter renewal. Reporting and accountability to complaints. So that is one avenue if you are struggling that you can go to a school board meeting and you can make a public comment and you can email them. You can bring paperwork to share with them.

So there's a lot of things we can do. It's just, I think a lot of people don't even know about this avenue. So I think it's an important one to highlight. 

Meredith Daly: I agree. 

Aleia Mastroianni: And I'd love to jump in and say that our school board members are also human beings, so they come with their own lens and their own angle and parts of the education system that are incredibly important to [00:03:00] them.

And as much as it is their job to think about the whole district and right ends that meet and serve everybody also their viewpoint inevitably impacts what policies they make. I've appreciated every time; Kelly's fantastic at making public comment. 

Meredith Daly: Absolutely. 

Aleia Mastroianni: She's so wonderful and attends our board meeting.

But even if you go to a board meeting and make a public comment, sometimes you're bringing up something that the school board members were not aware of or they are aware of and want, and they can spend more time and attention. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and by going and talking to board members or electing board members who you feel like will look out for whatever your special interest is, and on our podcast, it's our kids who are neurodivergent or have disabilities or are served by special education and the viewpoint of the board directors really can impact the way they view special education and create budgets and policies to support it.

Kelly Mayr: And to add onto that there's often - the only [00:04:00] person they are interacting with is the superintendent. So they don't often have the parent perspective if we don't bring it to them. And they actually were incredibly helpful pushing to get these dyslexia screeners happening.

The directors really pushed the district for that, so they can certainly be an ally for us. And I would encourage- now to give a little bit of information if you would like to attend a school board meeting, the agenda comes out on Fridays. And you can see what they're gonna be talking about. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Where does that agenda come out?

Because real talk, I've never known where to find it. 

Kelly Mayr: Okay. So if you go on the school district website and you just put in the top board of education, it will come up with a calendar and you click on the, it'll say when the meeting is and you click on it and the agenda will be attached - you can see the agenda. And then you have until noon on the day of the meeting, meetings are on Tuesday, one Tuesday a month. Now. They used to be twice a month, but that changed recently, which we were surprised to hear. Yes. And so you can sign up by noon on that Tuesday [00:05:00] to speak at the meeting.

You can speak in person or you can speak virtually. So there's two different ways to do that. You can even just go to your first meeting and listen. 

Aleia Mastroianni: I see.

Tashia White: So you said at a certain time you have to register if you wanna ask a question. 

Kelly Mayr: If you wanna make public comments.

You can, you'll find a link. They have their own YouTube channel.

Meredith Daly: Yeah, I just looked it up on YouTube. 

Kelly Mayr: Yeah. And hopefully we can link that in the show notes. Now just know when you're making public comments, you're not asking questions. They will not interact with you. That is a time for them to hear from you.

So they will just listen. If you had, papers that you wanted to highlight and you wanted to bring copies for all of them, you can do that, but they're not going to, it's not like a back and forth. 

Aleia Mastroianni: And you only have two minutes. So there is a timer. 

Kelly Mayr: You have three minutes. Unless a lot of people, and sometimes there's issues that are contentious. And there'll be a lot of people that sign up. And if that happens, you will receive an email saying we have cut the time down to two minutes, or even 90 seconds, I think was the worst one I had.

So I tend to write my public comments at about two minutes. I don't like to rush. It's a little nerve [00:06:00] wracking standing up there and so I wanna talk slowly. And I know there's a good chance they'll cut it down if it's a really contentious topic. 

Meredith Daly: How do we learn more about these candidates that are running?

Kelly Mayr: Oh, great question. There is a forum coming up on September 29th, and that is a student led forum, which is very exciting. And so the students are running it and they're asking the questions. It's gonna be at the Legacy campus starting at six o'clock on September 29th, and I encourage everyone to come to it or to listen in.

It will be live streamed. But that is a great way to hear from all the candidates. It'll be all eight. I, full disclosure, work on school board campaigns and there are four candidates that I am supporting. And one of the reasons I'm supporting them is they have a combined 33 years of educational experience much of which is in special education, which is near and dear to my heart.

So there is an administrator that is running. And there is a former [00:07:00] school counselor, mental health provider who happens to be an adult with a physical disability. And so seeing that, I do think the lens at which she sees the world is super powerful and one that we've maybe been lacking on the board prior to now.

There is a parent who has a child at their home who has dyslexia and requires special services. So I think all those perspectives really help, craft, the way they set policy, the way they set the agendas the direction they take the school district. So it can be really powerful. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Absolutely. We like to say here, we always want special education to be in the room. We wanna be at the table. Kelly does a great job of getting special education out there and in front of - we're so thankful to her for speaking up so many times in front of our board of education to just help put us in the room. And I don't think it's even necessarily a bad thing that sometimes people just don't have the special education lens.

Because until [00:08:00] you've experienced it, you don't have to think about it. And I'll tell a tiny anecdote that I got from lovely Kelly, which, we were at the Legacy campus , it was brand new, it was opening up and they're still fixing things and whatnot. And we were noticing that the motion sensors on the bathrooms didn't open and the doors are really heavy and her daughter has a physical disability and she would not have been able to open that door in any way, shape or form or get out, and it made that place entirely inaccessible to her. She was able to talk to 

Kelly Mayr: the administrator from Legacy, 

Aleia Mastroianni: the administrator from Legacy, and get that fixed. But for me, it really opened my mind - that I hadn't thought about that lens, that, oh my gosh, this, she couldn't even access that.

And it helped open my brain up, and that's why I love us to be in the room, always. And obviously there's diversity just among us and our kids' disabilities, or with our kids' differences. And having as much representation as possible is just fantastic to help other people [00:09:00] join, get on our bandwagon and see the world through a slightly different lens. 

Kelly Mayr: It is one of the reasons I'm so excited of the potential of having a school board director with a physical disability. It has really stretched us when we're working on these campaigns and looking at every location, we have a forum or we have a house party. And if someone is using a wheelchair, how do they get into that? How do they access that? That is something we always should have been thinking about, but honestly, we weren't. So I'm just super excited about it. 

Meredith Daly: That is very exciting. Is there anything else that you wanna share with us about these elections and what we should look out for? 

Kelly Mayr: Ballots will be hitting your mailbox on October 10th.

You're gonna start seeing signs up in the community. You'll see decals on the back of cars that might have names on them. I will tell you, educate yourselves. You can go on a website called Douglas County Parents and they have all the links for the candidates, websites themselves - come to an any opportunity, come to a house party, come to a forum, really [00:10:00] ask your questions.

We wanna make sure these are the best people that will represent our school district. 

Meredith Daly: Are those forums posted on the website? You just 

Kelly Mayr: Yes. Douglas County Parents. We have a calendar on there and they, all the forums should be on there. 

Meredith Daly: Thanks for joining us if you want to learn more about DCSEAC, you can find us at dcseac.org. If you have more questions or suggestions send 'em to info@dcseac.org. Thanks for joining and we hope you join us for future conversations.

Bye. 

Bye. Bye.