Gilbert Public Schools Forum Candidates Support Repeal – Daily Independent

Four candidates for the three seats on the Gilbert Public Schools board endorsed maintaining and repealing the school district Oct. 21 at a candidate forum.

Shanna Murray, Blake Robison, Jesse Brainard and Rose Parker said they support the 15 percent repeal, which is on the November ballot, at the forum sponsored by the Gilbert Independent and the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce. A fifth candidate, Anne Stevens, did not attend the forum at the DoubleTree Inn by Hilton Phoenix/Gilbert.

Two other people on the ballot, Sheila Ughetti and Rhonda Page, are no longer running, as Ughetti died on Sept. 15 and Page withdrew from the race.

Murray said that as a public school teacher who feels the budget constraint in her work daily, she can’t say she doesn’t support it.

“I will also make sure that if I get on the board, whatever public funds are available, the tax dollars that go into education are spent in the best possible way,” she said. “And if I look at the budget and say, ‘we’re doing a great job,’ then I’m going to tell the taxpayers, ‘we’re doing a great job.’ That’s what the money is spent on, that’s why we need it.” And then that way they understand and they know and they can see the results of that.

Parker and Brainard said they actually campaigned for the repeal alongside their own campaign.

“The last time I was a student, we didn’t pass a budget override, and you could see it,” he said. “You can see the impact on the teachers. You can see the impact on students. We also had a lot of teachers leave during that time. My mother is a teacher in the district and as a family member I know the impact of budget cuts. My mother didn’t get a raise for seven years and it affected my family greatly.

Brainard characterized it as “nonsensical,” but Robison wouldn’t go that far.

“I think there are people who have sincere questions, who support education and want our children to have the best schools, who have sincere questions,” he said. “So I think it’s important to have these conversations about why repeal is necessary. And I think in those conversations we can bring people together and bring people together instead of dividing them, and I support repeal.”

Gilbert Public Schools does not have a bond in the budget, but candidates were asked about a March 2023 facilities condition report that showed $198 million in outstanding maintenance obligations that could grow to $1.07 billion by 2052. if not addressed.

Robison, who serves on the county’s capital planning committee, said he believes the county is being proactive in addressing it and it’s a matter of showing voters they are wise stewards of public funds with actions like the proposed land sale and seeking grants.

“Once we exhaust those funds and we still have needs, let’s go out and let the public know what we’ve done, what the needs are and what’s needed,” he said. “And I think when we do, we’re going to have the buy-in and support of the community.”

Brainard said the school facilities board is an option for some help.

“But right now the backlog is millions and millions of dollars,” he said. “So sometimes we have to take the community into our own hands. We care about our schools. We don’t think children should have leaky roofs over them and we think they should have safe schools.

Murray said it’s not that Gilbert Public Schools is doing a bad job managing its funds, but “unfortunately, perception is reality.”

“We have to make sure we’re doing the right things to earn everyone’s trust so they vote for these things,” she said.

Parker said he believes the last bond question didn’t pass because people didn’t understand it or how the money would be spent.

“I think there needs to be a way to express these terms to voters and our taxpayers so that they are simple terms so that they understand that their tax dollars are going to be invested,” she said.

Robison and Murray also spoke about the importance of communication in district affairs and using town halls as a vehicle to have more informal but more in-depth discussions with the community about their concerns than can be done at board meetings.

Mental health support was also a recurring theme, with candidates emphasizing the importance of school counselors and social workers in addressing the growing mental health challenges among students, with Brainard noting that students who are not doing well mentally will not good at school

Parker said students today are more depressed and anxious than ever and that you can’t pay her to be a teenager today with social media and cyberbullying.

“We need to provide the tools and resources for our students to know that their well-being is protected,” she said. “Sometimes they just need a space to talk to people, and we need to be able to hire professionals to deal with that.”

We would like to invite our readers to send their civil comments, for or against, on this matter. Email [email protected]. Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at [email protected] or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.

Tom Blodgett
Senior News Editor | Gilbert

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Meet Tom
Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022 when the company acquired the Community Impact Newspaper properties in the Phoenix area. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.

community: Since 2005, he has worked as a faculty member at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and is an editorial advisor to The State Press, the university’s independent student media. He is also the director of operations for the Gilbert 18U girls softball team.

education: Arizona State University with a BA in Journalism.

Random fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.

Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season ticket holder) and gloomy about other local sports (pessimistic fan).