My response to the League of Pissed Off Voters Questionairre

Hello blog readers. I have no idea how many people are reading this but I wanted to make sure I apoligised to all of them for typos. This response was done quickly and could not be reread and proofed as much as I would have liked. Enjoy and respond if you see fit. Take care, Kevin Gardella
1. What experience, motivation, and leadership style will make you effective on the school committee?
The experience of working at Seventy-Five State Street prepared me for public service. Although I have been working and volunteering in Maine for years with various different non-profits my job at SFSS was the most formative. It taught me to listen well and make an effort to integrate other’s ideas. Constituents, parents, students, and school employees can expect to be heard when they raise concerns about their community’s schools.
My motives for seeking a service position in the schools are simple. I have always enjoyed opportunities to creatively problem solve. This position is perfect because I will get to serve my community and improve its educational system. My motives are quite simple really.
My leadership style seeks involvement and consensus. I listen to all opinions and ideas and ask questions when trying to find solutions to school committee problems. With this approach I will bring the ideas of my constituents to every meeting. This kind of representative leadership will put Portlanders back in charge of their educational system and hopefully inspire them to seek more active involvement.

2. If elected what would be your top three priorities? How do they affect young people?
a. My top priority is making school committee affairs more accessible to the public. Government on all levels needs to be representative. I will accomplish this by advocating for school committee meetings to move in-town. Having extra forums on focus issues where representatives listen to the public will heighten the school committee’s community presence. Tangible positive community interactions should be part of every Portland class’ curriculum as well. The impact of making meetings and education more accessible will hopefully be more of these positive interactions between classes and communities.
b. Schools are where citizens are engaged and educated in the value of local community. Schools are not just the largest expense item on a city budget and baby sitting services until kids turn eighteen. They are the place where kids learn how to become active community members. Direct community involvement through school is where this will start. Every student should have the opportunity to do some hands on volunteering in their neighborhood. The kind of education gets from programs that encourage community participation makes sense on every level. Communities and schools benefit when kids learn the reciprocal benefits of volunteering. Neighborhood schools therefore need to be kept open and treated with the dignity and reverence they have earned. When a neighborhood school is closed in a community like Portland the community is gambling with its volunteer base. People become involved first through their schools. When they go away from Portland then come back they will first go to their alma maters. If we begin shutting down historic and vital parts of the educational system down we will risk the vitality of Portland’s communities. Schools are the heart of a community.
c. There are some school services which could benefit from consolidation. Administration is an example of one such branch that needs trimming. I was happy to hear we would not be replacing the extra assistant superintendent. We should find creative ways to use city resources to maintain schools. The metro being used instead of a whole fleet of aging yellow busses is an example of creative savings. It would be nice to do similar things with janitorial services in schools. Consolidating city janitorial services with schools would save the schools and city some money.

3. Please talk about one positive and one frustrating change you have seen in your city and your neighborhood of the last year.
I have been inspired by the free passes the metro has adopted for a trial period. I was so inspired I went to the officials at the metro and SMCC where I am a student and put the idea in their head that they should cooperate and give free passes out at all schools. They have and I will get mine the next time I am on campus. This kind of cooperative and responsive transit system could alleviate the need for school busses in Portland all together. That is a huge savings. The bus drivers and assistants alone get over a million dollars a year. If we gradually shifted all bussing responsibilities over to the metro we could eliminate a whole lot of redundant services while making our city’s transit system better.
The gripe of the year for me would have to be from a lack of affordable housing in Portland. We are going to have some real challenges because no one with families is going to be able to swing the cost of living here. Putting in condos that are way out of the average family’s price range is really going to hurt our community’s diversity.

4. What other responsibilities do you have?
I am currently working at Seventy-Five State Street for thirty two hours a week. I sell my watercolors at Pine Street Studios. I am a nursing student at SMCC. Most importantly, I am to be the father of a little boy. He provides much of the motivation for me to help lead Portland schools.

5. Partisanship: How do you plan to work to alleviate some of the partisan tension that has developed on the school committee?
Although this partisanship has been largely the doings of the news media, partisan foolishness can be alleviated by integrative listening and seeking consensus rather than dominance when hearing other board member’s ideas. The most desired outcome when two diametrically opposed sides argue is a solution everyone is willing to support. Not holding onto wounds caused by arguments will lead to less partisan foolishness. Not forming alliances that seek to hurt or dominate opponents will help me be a positive and effective voice on the committee. I will not spend my time with only one party trying to figure out the solution to agenda items. Students deserve better and I will treat every board member’s ideas with respect regardless of party affiliation.

6. How could you make Portland schools more cost efficient and effective?
Utilization of assets Portland and its schools have will increase efficiency. Each student has talent, energy, and ideas which should be put to use in the community. Students and communities need to be empowered to enrich education reciprocally. A great example could be a bunch of students going to learn about history from elders in their community. The benefits of such programs are mutual as people who have lived through history generally enjoy sharing their experiences. Students will have a greater depth of understanding if they can learn what history was like to live. Cultivating this kind of relationship between schools and communities re-engages students with community assets. If I am chosen by Portland voters I will encourage programs which engage students and community. I see PATHS as being a program which does this well. I therefore will encourage further development of this program and other programs like it.

7. What is your view on Portland school closings? What factual and ideological elements go into your decision making process? How would you proceed with consolidation.
I would not consolidate any Portland community schools. Consolidation incentives for Maine schools do not make sense in school districts in the Greater Portland area. The governor’s plans to make our schools more cost effective and efficient may make perfect sense in areas more rural than Portland. Savings in transit and administration in these areas may very well be worth the sacrifice of our historically important educational centers. We need to understand the value of local walk-able schools in cities however. These are our community centers. They need to be treated as such. We should go out of our way to make them sustainable. I will not cooperate with efforts to close neighborhood schools. This is an example where creativity should be used to approach a problem. There are more options than just renovation or closing. We live in a densely developed area. High schools could put classes in nearby buildings. Additions could be made to existing structures. The people interested in consolidation do not have any factual basis to prove that building a new giant school will save money at all. Our neighborhood schools are community centers.
We need only look at the effects of consolidation on schools in rural Maine to understand how devastating school closings can be. The overwhelming opinion of schools being consolidated was that it was a last resort and should have been avoided. Most communities went with the consolidation plans proposed because their superintendents had been spending lots of money planning mega schools before the public was invited to discuss the matter. These consolidations saved money from budgets to continue to pay the salaries of middle management in schools. Again I advocate more money being spent at the point of learning. If this is done there is no need to close local walk-able schools. Taxes for education should stay at or very close to the student. The more people involved in management and non-education related schools business the more waste we have in our budgets.
Maine schools have been encouraged through state initiatives to increase their efficiency through consolidation. There is no reason to believe that consolidation will increase the effectiveness of Maine schools.

8. What priority in school finding would you place for Portland’s new expeditionary learning high school?
After spending an afternoon talking to the expeditionary learning high school students at the creative economy summit and viewing their work on public access I am convinced that this program should be encouraged and supported. Engaging students in relevant topics of discussion has lead Portland schools to new levels. We should continue to offer and expand these programs as long as they continue to produce such excellent results.

9. How can we increase the number of high school students furthering their education?
We can encourage Portland high school students to view learning as a lifelong process by making their studies and efforts relevant. Isolating students in schools and not making their work visible is an excellent way of discouraging their continued studies. The expeditionary learning programs are a fine example of this kind of interactive class.
Another excellent way of encouraging Portland students to continue learning is by presenting them with affordable opportunities to do so after they graduate. The colleges in our city are great but I think we as a host city need to start asking for more from them. They get tax breaks, write offs, and general privilege. It is time they start making college affordable. The ideas I brought up regarding multi-general learning can be employed here as well. Kids who want to learn how to edit film should be paired with elderly people who want to record some bits of wisdom. There are assets for free, available in our town, they are just untapped.

10. What is your philosophy about early childhood education?
Preschool is fine to offer, I would rather keep my child at home. I think sliding scale child care providers can take care of the need for this. We as practitioners of education should not make preschool universal. It should just be an option. We need to support parents who want to keep their kids at home too. A great program we have let slide repeatedly in Portland is day care and preschool services run by the elderly at assisted living places. This kind of multigenerational preschool should be developed much more than it has been thus far.

11. Do you think there is any particular reason why Portland residents are removing their kids from Portland schools?
Portland schools will continue to experience this until the Portland city council starts making sure families can afford to live in our city. Portland needs to encourage economic diversity. That includes age and familial diversity. There is no reason why a family should not be able to afford a home in Portland. Allowing developers to build new condos while families are forced out by high rental rates sets Portland schools up for lower numbers of enrollment. The school board has a voice and should exercise it on this issue.
Parents are reluctant to send their kids to Portland schools because they are not invited into the schools. If we offer more opportunities for involvement fewer parents will pull their kids out of school. Parents will not remove their kids from schools they are personally invested in.

12. What experience do you have with disabled, multi-cultural, and ESL populations.
I have worked and volunteered with all of these populations. I worked with Goodwill, Youth Alternatives, Woodfords Family Services, and Portland Center for Assisted Living. I served and worked alongside people who were disabled, from different cultures than my own, and spoke other languages before English. Because my work has brought me in close contact with these populations I have a good idea of what presents challenges, and what resolves those problems. The main fault of the system again is the perspective students are viewed from. Disabled people, people from different cultural backgrounds, and ESL students are assets to our school systems. We have viewed them as liabilities. Now we need to use all of our cultural assets more than ever. Portland schools should teach this cultural value through cooperative integrative classes. There are classes which should not be mixed. A student struggling with English should not be expected to master other tasks taught in English. We should use our schools assets. Technology has the ability to put all three of these populations on a more level playing field. If a student is struggling to learn math in English they should have access to computer services in their native language so as to be able to keep up with their work. Making Portland High School wireless and outfitted with translation programs would be a good use of resources.

13. How would you work to increase diverse constituent participation in school committee meetings and public forums.
Move the school board meeting into town.
Personally inviting people to be my guest at meetings and forums.
Give educational incentives for student participation.
Encourage parental and community involvement with free transit to meetings.
Open informal discussions before each meetings to get the shy talking.
Make school board meetings more interactive with net and phone access live.
Eliminate all meetings that are not open to the public for any reason other than confidentiality.
Aim for administrative transparency.

15. In high school I was considered creative and involved

16. What do you think about the MEA results.
Tests are expensive. I believe in teachers and principles. When they are empowered, and their students are listened to we as administrators will not need such expensive assessment tests. The amount of time that is spent not learning so we can give such tests would probably make up for many of the faults such tests are able to point out. In my opinion the test makers do not teach anything important to a learner. Their value is therefore, minimal. Many colleges and workplaces are rightly acknowledging the ineffectiveness of testing. Teachers and principals have the real wisdom about this and they should be listened to. Personally though, I think standardized testing is just another way school funds are diverted from the point of learning. I have never learned from taking a test. There is very little on a standardized test that a teacher would not have picked up on. If we give teachers the chance to assess need we will not have to administer these expensive tests. Parents should be able to have their kids tested but it should be optional.


17. What is your opinion of the new metro program to transport middle school and high school students?
This program should eventually replace all the yellow busses with the exception of sports team transit. The metro should have been the Portland school transit system long ago. I have been advocating a free ride system for all students and hopefully all riders eventually. The yellow busses should be phased out and the metro bus service used exclusively. Drivers from the yellow busses should be given jobs monitoring and assisting the metro while they adjust to having kids on the bus. Eventually parents and volunteers should ride the busses while kids are transported to and from school. Metro service should be expanded to include the new demand placed on it by consolidation of our cities current transit system with redundant routes. In order to accomplish this the school committee is going to have to cooperate with the city council. I am ready to do this and have been talking to metro officials about ways of making this work already. Peter Cavanaugh has expressed interest as has the director of marketing for the metro. We could all win from a scenario such as this one.

18. Do you have kids and are they in public schools?
I will be a father in October. He will attend Portland’s schools. They are filled with talented teachers and brilliant programs.

19. What is your solution to the drop out rate in Portland?
Making important issues public and seeking public help to solve the problems will help us curb dropout rates in our schools. Using our net creative problem solving ability will tap into our community’s resources. Mentor programs with students and community members, especially shut-in Portlanders would be a fresh new approach. I will encourage programs that involve community members in the trouble shooting needed to curb drop out rates. Support from willing and able community members should not be underutilized. It truly does take a village to raise a child and our city would do well to remember that. There are villagers out there who would love to have a visit from a teen who needs someone to talk to. I can think of about a dozen excellent role models whose days would be greatly improved by visits from teenagers. I know for a fact talking with these individuals has stopped more than one teenager from doing something they would live to regret.

20. What are public school’s responsibilities in confronting current issues like sex ed., underage drinking, youth obesity, and tolerance.
a. Sex education should be taught by trained professionals. These sex educators should be teachers who received extra education on the topics surrounding sex education. Recently the possibility of saving money by having teachers who have students for other classes was brought up as a way of freeing up some extra funds. I would oppose any cuts of this kind.
b. Underage drinking should be a topic covered in health class from a health prospective. There is no evidence that the programs employed such as ADAPT and Dare were effective. Employing parents help in designing working intervention strategies would be worth while. I personally believe kids who abuse drugs and alcohol are telling their parents they have too much time. I think a steady schedule of volunteering would keep most teens out of harms way.
c. My idea about having walk-able neighborhood schools is a step in the right direction. Obesity is only the tip of the “health problem iceberg.” Our horrible dietary and lifestyle choices are catching up with our kids in the form of diabetes, hypertension, and a variety of metabolic abnormalities. Making physical activity a daily part of our kids education by preventing the use of cars to and from classes is a good start. Discouraging kids from driving period is an excellent way of getting teens off their duffs as well. Public transit is nice because it often leads to walking. I have been using it as my primary form of transportation and actually have come to seek it out as a way of relieving stress on hard days. Kids can be encouraged to do this as well.
Schools should be encouraging good relationships with food rather than trying to keep kids from making bad food decisions. We all struggle with the donut versus the apple scenario. By not allowing the donut scenario to happen in the schools we are helping kids make the right food choices. The same goes for exercise. If we encourage physical activity to relieve stress rather than waiting until the stress becomes a behavior issue kids will learn the relationship between physical health and mental control. When we endorse learning models in schools that sit small children for hours at desks we are setting those kids up for failure and poor physical health.
d. I love what the principle at Deering did when the reports about harassment came in. Rather than hiding it he put it out in the open. This is a great approach to eradicating intolerance. Bring it out in the open and cope with it.