The two candidates vying for one available seat to represent Warren on the regional school committee each spoke about their desires to positively change the culture and outward appearance of the school board, along with their own priorities should they be elected in November.

The discussion was part of a forum held by the League of Women Voters of Rhode Island held at Warren Town Hall last Thursday evening, sponsored by East Bay Media Group and moderated by its general manager, Scott Pickering.

Reasons for running
Hazard, an electrical engineer and 20-year resident of Warren, said that his top priority and reason for running relates to the school district’s curriculum and academic output.

“My number one thing is the curriculum. We have a school system that's failing. We're failing in math, we’re failing in English, we’re failing on everything across the board,” he said. “I've talked to teachers at the high school who have said ‘I’d love to teach this topic now, but I'm being told by the administration I can't teach it until February.’ That's a problem. What we need to be able to do is empower the teachers. Let them teach the students the way they should be taught at the time they know is proper for the students.”

Kyle Jackson, who has spent over 20 years working in higher education, currently as Manager of Instructional Technology and the Learning Management System Administrator at Rhode Island College, said that he was inspired to run after seeing how the committee has behaved in recent years while watching meetings remotely, leading him to feel frustrated by it and seeking to change that culture.

“I think there's a lack of communication, accountability, respect, transparency and unprofessionalism…If I'm elected, I would work with my fellow committee members to reset as a committee and work collaboratively collaboratively as a team to change the current negative culture of the committee,” he said. “Over the past couple years, it seems to me that there's been a lot of micromanaging by the school committee. We have hired experts in the administration and they should be left to do their job.”

Hazard agreed that the culture and behavior of the committee needed to change.

“A lot of what we’re seeing in the world right now is a lack of respect,” Hazard said. “You see that in the behavior of the students. You see that in the way that sometimes the school committee has behaved itself. And so what I would like to do is, in addition to making sure we foster the right environment for the students, I want to make sure that I bring it an amount of respect and accountability to the school committee.”

On students, equity and inclusion
When asked their opinions on the importance of promoting equity and inclusion within the school district, Jackson said that getting an accurate definition of those concepts understood among the committee members was a priority.

“I think first, school committee members need to be on the same page of what the definition of ‘equity’ is,” he said. “I think there's a lot of misinformation out there about what that is and, really, what it is is we're making accommodations for disadvantage students to succeed.”

Hazard said that equity was about providing equal opportunities for everybody, not about trying to attain equal outcomes. He said that kids needed to be allowed to express their feelings, but that the district itself must be more careful about appearing to favor one political position or agenda over another.

“Last year, there was a mural put up,” Hazard said, referring to a Black Lives Matter mural that was painted at Mt. Hope High School. “And I know that there are people that did not agree with that mural and it probably should not have been up, unless you're going to allow for an opposing group.”

When asked specifically to opine about what grievances the students themselves might have about the actions of the school committee and the district, both candidates said that students have voiced frustrations that they aren’t being heard or considered when decisions are made.

“What I gathered from that was that they feel the relationship between the administration and the students is divided, and even a little bit more since Dr. D [Deb DiBiase, former principal of Mt. Hope High School] was removed as a principal. And they also feel that their voice has not been heard by the school committee or taken into account, or their perspectives,” Jackson said. “There's a lot of conversation about bad behavior in the district, and behavioral issues. But the behavior of some of the school committee members has been disrespectful, divisive, hubris and unprofessional, in my opinion, and the committee must be modeling the behavior that we ask of our students.”

Absenteeism, and preparing students
When asked what could be done about high rates of absenteeism among students and teachers, Jackson said he believed that numbers were unrealistically inflated during two years that were beset by a global health crisis.

Hazard said that the problems regarding absenteeism went deeper than being an outlier due to COVID. He said the district had to commit to more stringent standards on attendance, complete with more clear consequences for tardies and absences.

“If we set up a system where they know if I miss this many classes, my grade will be affected, or if I missed this many classes, I'm gonna be, you know, not allowed to do X Y or Z, you'll start to see better attendance,” Hazard said. “They'll start to realize education is important.”

In terms of how students are being prepared to enter the world, Jackson was praiseful of the district’s approach to addressing mental health concerns and through their new approach of utilizing multi-tiered systems of support over more traditional punishments for bad behavior, such as suspensions. He likewise said the expansion of pre-K was a good step in the right direction, as are the pathways being implemented for career and technical education at the high school.

Hazard said that he believed students needed better instruction on critical thinking.

“I know we have a critical thinking portion of our curriculum, but I think more of that is, instead of critical thinking, it's challenging thinking,” he said. “What I mean by that is they're being taught to challenge the status quo, challenge some of the environment.”