The Republic conducted on-camera interviews with candidates in each of the three races on the ballot for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. board this November.
Voters are able to vote for candidates in all three districts. Early voting gets under way today. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Below are the interviews with district 5 candidates Leigh Britt and Tom Glick, along with a transcription of their answers, slightly edited for clarity.
Britt
Click here to watch the interview with Leigh Britt
Name: Leigh Britt
Age: 56
Occupation: Lecturer of Mathematics; IU Columbus
City of residence: Columbus
Educational background: BS in Mathematics Education, Virginia Tech University; master’s degree in curriculum and instruction, secondary math focus, IU Columbus; Taught math at Lloyd C. Bird High School, Chesterfield, VA (1990-1992); taught math at Columbus North High School (1992-1994, 2004-2005); adjunct lecturer/full-time lecturer, mathematics, IU Columbus.
Volunteer experience: Vacation Bible School; PTO at Parkside Elementary; Columbus North Band Boosters; Columbus North Athletic Boosters; Columbus Parks & Rec After Prom Party; Dance Marathon/Turning Point
Previous elected office held: None
Glick
Name: Tom Glick
Click here to watch the interview with Tom Glick
Age: 38
Occupation: Farmer, military service member
City of residence: Columbus
Educational background: BS in Sports Management, American Military University; Certified Military Instructor
Volunteer experience: Volunteer wresting coach at Central Middle School; volunteer with Pack 559 Scouts
Previous elected office held: None
Britt
Q: A large focus of BCSC and school districts across the state is on the foundational reading skills for 2nd and 3rd graders. How do you think BCSC is doing in helping those students along and how might you contribute in ensuring students have the best shot at passing IREAD-3?
Britt: “I feel that the efforts that they’re making are excellent. I was a participant as a Book Buddy, just as one example, and I never expected to have the interaction that I had with the child and the connection to this child—and I won’t name his name for obvious reasons— but it was a joy to be able to go in every week. In the first few weeks, he was just sort of ambivalent, and by about that fourth, fifth week, he looked forward to me coming there, and I knew that I had hit a moment when, just as children will, we were reading a book together and he just very lightly put his head against my arm, and I thought, OK we’re getting somewhere. And then his reading picked up— I saw the difference just with the one child what that one effort made. So that’s one example that I know BCSC is doing to improve reading. The other thing that they’re doing is our teachers are fantastic talents at taking everything that’s available to them and applying it into the classroom and giving these kids options. Many welcome parent volunteers— I was one. I was welcomed into my child’s K-6 classes for both of my girls. I was a regular there. I was even asked by a student if I worked there. Like, no, I don’t work here but I feel like it. I would work with kids and teachers welcomed the volunteering of parents to come in and work with kids, so being open to the community coming in and helping out — there’s another example. The new legislation for the science of reading. That’s more of a state thing, but the Department of Education is pushing (for) our teachers to be certified in the science of reading. I believe it’s an 80-hour program that teachers can participate in— sadly, (they) also have to pay for it and (do it on their free time.) And our corporation is encouraging the teachers in every way that they can, to encourage that access to that information. IU Columbus, for example, recently added a master’s program in the science of reading, so that’s a local relationship that BCSC already has with IU Columbus. And teachers can come there for that master’s degree to get that certification, and all of that certification time spent on that science of reading program can also apply to their PGP points, which are their growth points toward their license that they have to earn every five years. So, it’s a collaboration of a lot of things. Internally, they’re working with what they have locally. They have volunteers locally, community members, book buddies, parents volunteers coming into the classroom — that’s local. At the state (level), the state’s pushing the science of reading and BCSC is doing what they can to encourage teachers with that relationship that they have with their local university, to allow teachers to work toward a master’s degree, not just a certification, a master’s degree, which, in the end, can only benefit them because they’ll have that extra education. I’m sure there’s others out there. That’s what I know about.”
Q: What are your thoughts on Envision 2030, BCSC’s facilities plan?
Britt: “It’s excellent. So, I’ve looked at it and the Envision 2030 program took a lot of vision. Obviously — envision. They’re looking to fully renovate Schmidt, Northside and Smith coming up. They’re currently in the process of wrapping up renovations at the Richard L. Johnson Care Center where we have our youngest busy-bees and our youngest preschoolers. Parkside was just completed — it’s beautiful. My children attended there, and that school was built in the ‘60s, and I remember when my children attended, they had jobs in the fifth and sixth grade that when it rained, certain kids were assigned the five-gallon buckets to go down the hall to find the drip spots, to catch the raindrops so that Mr. Moe could empty the buckets timely. That’s not a problem anymore. And the school was renovated with good thought, good intention, teacher input, architect input, so I was pleased with that, just from what I’ve seen down the street from my home. We’re looking at a new elementary school, and that seems to be a hot point right now. But that new elementary school, in my opinion, is absolutely needed. We have nearly 1,000 students packed into Southside. It’s a great school, no doubt about it. We have neighborhoods across the street from Southside whose children attend that school. There are children who live across the street from Southside who don’t attend Southside because they have to get on a bus at 6:30 a.m. in the morning in the dark, and they’re bused to another elementary school because there’s no room left at the end, so to speak. So while our population’s not increasing as a city, what is happening is our population is shifting to the west of town for young, new families. Our three-bedroom homes are out there. They’re across the street from Southside, there’s just no more room left at Southside. So the new location is also excellent. It’s up 46 in between ABC Montessori and the Westside Community Church. It’s a beautiful, beautiful property, I drove by and just took a look. They’re presented at the school board meeting a floor plan that they’re happy with, they’ve named a principal, they have teachers already identified who are all contributing to how they want the layout of this plan to look, while working collaboratively with the architect. Just that team approach is great. And what I love that our school board is doing is our school board has put competent people in place, and they’re standing back and allowing them to go figure it out, make the decision without nosing in and deciding for them how it’s supposed to go. So I’m a huge fan of that new elementary school, because I don’t think five-year-olds need to be on a bus at 6:30 in the morning in the dark, when they can go to a school that’s within a reasonable distance from their home. And in the meantime, too, we can take Southside down from a small city of 1,000 students to something that’s a bit more manageable, while building into another school and creating a capacity for both schools to still grow as the population moves west of town.”
Q: Do you think that teachers are being compensated adequately? What can BCSC do to improve teacher retention and recruitment?
Britt: “Adequately? We’re never going to compensate teachers adequately. When we stop having bake sales for schools to be able to run themselves appropriately, and we’re not running bake sales to buy a fighter jet, for example, it’s never going to be adequate. But what we can do is we can encourage teachers to stay in our corporation, and we can value what they do. There was a referendum in 2020 and before the referendum, our teachers were making below the state average. Now since the referendum, on average, their salaries have increased by over 9%—around 9% give or take depending on what teacher is what with salary— and those teachers salaries having increased by 9%, well when the referendum ends in 2028, the question becomes alright now what? What do we do now? The referendum, just last year alone, brought in about $9.1 million and of that $9.1 million, around two-thirds of it went to teacher salaries. That’s the 9% figure I mentioned. In 2028 when the referendum ends, we’re going to naturally be met with what do we do now? And in my opinion, the referendum that’s coming up in 2028 to the school board, whether you agree with the referendum or not, whether you as a voter will vote for it or not, it’s your job as a school board member to prepare the verbiage to go on the ballot for the voters to decide. This should not be left up to four rogue school board members to decide for the voters. 61% of voters said yes to the referendum, we want to compensate our teachers. We need to give the voters that opportunity again in 2028 and let them decide. The amount of the referendum may not be the same, but we absolutely need to leave it to the voters to decide. It’s not up to the school board to decide. Our job is to write the policy, write the verbiage, and then let the voters decide. I think it goes without saying I’m in favor of the referendum. I did vote for it in 2020. If it were presented to me as a voter in 2028, I will likely vote for it again. As a school board member, my intention is to make sure the verbiage appears on the ballot for the voters to decide.”
Q: The board has devoted a sizable amount of time in school board meetings during the past 10 months to the accessibility of certain library materials. Do you think BCSC has the correct policy in place for addressing these concerns and would you like to see anything additional be done?
Britt: “I’m very satisfied with the policy. As I recall, the policy number is 9130. And so that everyone knows, that policy didn’t just show up on the books last year. When I started teaching in Bartholomew County at North High School 32 years ago, we had that policy on the books. So if a parent came in and said, I’m not comfortable with my child reading this material, for example, then the school would allow the teacher and the parent to come up with a compromise. In every memory that I can recall from 32 years ago, there was never a time that it had to go beyond the teacher and the parent. Later when my children attended North High School, I remember having a conversation with a friend. She was unhappy with one of the AP books that had been on the AP list for English—I don’t think it was W131, but it was the AP course. And one of the titles in the book was not to her liking. She went to the principal and she wanted to book taken off the list. And he explained again, this is something that you can do with your teacher and then he redirected her— which I appreciated very much that the principal redirected the parent to work it out with the teacher. But what she wanted was for none of the students to read this book. She was just opposed to it. We had just a private friend conversation, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m OK with the book. It’s on the AP list. I’m OK with it, I’m OK with my kids reading it.’ And we had a friendly back and forth about, well, don’t you think this. and don’t you think that. And I said, ‘No, I don’t. But I respect that you do and there’s a policy in place for you to say, ‘I don’t want my son to read the book.’ So she went through with that and her son was given an alternative assignment and my child was allowed to read the book and that was the end of it. I never thought another thing about it until last year, when it feels as if we’re revisiting something. We have proactive policy in place, it works. If a parent doesn’t want their child to read something, they are directed either to the librarian if the book’s in the library, or they’re directed to the teacher if it’s a teacher assignment, and a parent and a teacher or a librarian can have the conversation and there’s another alternative for the child that’s found. That’s a very good policy. It allows parents to parent their own and does not allow parents to inflict upon other parents and their choices. So I’m a fan of the policy, I think policy 9130 works. The reason why it came back up in the legislation last year was because the legislation said we’re going to add a few little things to this that include timelines. The one thing our policy lacked previously was a written timeline. It was never a problem, but it wasn’t in writing. So the school board last year readdressed it and said, we’re going to add the timeline as per the state, because that’s one of the jobs of the school board, is to remain compliant with what the state says, and that’s what we did. You’re right, there was a lot of time spent on that. What I understand (of) opponents of the policy is they are looking for an opt-in only policy and I’m a better fan of an opt-out policy, because I think that it infringes less on the general public and the majority of the general public than a policy that wants every book to be decided if your child can read it or not and you must opt-in to a policy. I’m not a fan of opt-in, I think opt-out is the better way to go because it infringes less on families, on parents and their own personal decisions.”
Q: In recent years, school board races and school board meetings themselves have become increasingly charged at times. How would you work with others that may not agree with you on a specific subject?
Britt: “I’ve been attending these school board meetings now for a year, almost a year-and-a-half. All of them. I think I missed two because I was home visiting my mom, but I listened. And when I listened to the meetings, I realized that’s the solution to bringing civility back to our school board, we have to listen. And I find when meetings are the most contentious and the most charged, it’s because individuals are planning what they’re going to say next instead of listening to what’s being said. So I think as a school board member, I would have to go in with no agenda and I have to listen. Oftentimes, the electricity in the room is because the side that’s speaking, who’s the most charged, feels disenfranchised, doesn’t feel heard. And that’s one thing I’ve learned as a teacher over the years, that often times the tears from a student have less to do with the assignment and they have more to do with the fact that they don’t feel they’re being heard. That’s going to be a very important piece to bringing civility back, is not raising your voice. Just coming to the table and being willing to listen and take a deep breath before you speak. I think that’s the number one thing we can all do.”
Glick
Q: A large focus of BCSC and school districts across the state is on the foundational reading skills for 2nd and 3rd graders. How do you think BCSC is doing in helping those students along and how might you contribute in ensuring students have the best shot at passing IREAD-3?
Glick: That’s been the biggest transition for this year, specifically. They had a test last year to kind of get a baseline and see where we are growth-wise in the state and it seemed overwhelmingly and surprisingly better than expected based off of what we saw in the past years, especially rebounding from COVID-era issues. One of the biggest things that I’ve said from the get-go is education and everything starts at home. I sat there and watched last year, a parent talked with one of the kindergarten teachers because their child was struggling, and after talking with the teacher and everything’s, well, you’re also not working with your child at home. So there’a a parent-teacher partnership here that goes along with education that needs to be reestablished. Now as far as a school board member, how do you do that? That’s very difficult and it may be really idealistic and almost an impossible idea, because as a school board member, how do you encourage parents to be better parents? I guess set the example, would be my best thing. And it’s not just reading, it’s all pieces of education, whether it’s math or writing. One thing that I’ve seen—my kids are both fifth and sixth grade— and Chromebooks are a big issue with that and a lot of people argue against the use of technology and how it may or may not hold kids back if we don’t expose them to technology, because we’re improving technologically at an exponential rate, and it’s, well, we don’t want to leave them behind but— I mean, I think you’re a little younger than I am, but we aren’t really struggling. Granted, we grew up with it, but there’s a lot of programs that are going back to paper and pencil and that I think can help improve your reading and writing skills. Because I look at my kids handwriting it’s, ‘Holy cow, this is atrocious.’ I remember when I was in school, even just homework, spelling tests, and spelling homework or vocabulary, we had to write each word five to 10 times. And it was also encouraging too, because when I was there, we had a test on Wednesday as a practice to kind of see where we are baseline, and if you got 100% on that, you didn’t have to take the final test of Friday. So you got a little free-time to yourself. Not saying removing Chromebooks 100%, but we need to start limiting the use of Chromebooks in schools, especially at the elementary level to give us a good baseline. And one thing I’ve learned through this campaign is a lot of our AC programs, the higher accelerated programs, are pulling themselves away from using the Chromebooks and going back to baseline. So if it’s good enough for the kids that are achieving greatness or testing better, why are we not trying to work with the kids that are struggling? Because a lot of times this technology can be a big distractor.
Q: What are your thoughts on Envision 2030, BCSC’s facilities plan?
Glick: I have a lot of negative thoughts as far as the project goes. I think the design that we’re going with is not appropriate. I think that it’s increasing safety issues and increasing distractions. I’ve talked with a lot of teachers. I’ve been through Parkside, that was one of the main reasons I decided to run, was I walked through Parkside in May and saw what we’re doing and just the equipment that we’re buying. It’s not built to last. It’s almost like walking into an IKEA and getting the cheapest of the cheap stuff— it’s going to break. The desks they have have pull-out plastic drawers that are already breaking and so we’re going to have to figure out ways to replace that and just long-term expenditures that we just aren’t really planning for there. As far as Parkside goes, they spent the last two years without a gym because they quartered it and had four classrooms in there to reduce the burden on costs. I spoke with Superintendent Phillips about this as well, because I asked, we’re planning on doing renovations on all of our schools — why would we not get modular classrooms for these children? And he said, well it’s a matter of infrastructure and added cost. When, in all reality, we’re not doing multiple schools at one time as of right now. The other case was, we have limited space, which limited space-wise, we’re talking Schmidt and Lincoln are the two that have the limited space that you can work with. And even Schmidt has a giant grass field behind it. Yeah, kids are going to have to go in and out of the school, but when you’re talking about maintaining a gym class, that is very important, at least to me as a coach at Central and then also as a fitness trainer in the military. These kids need to exert themselves, they need to have that release basically and exposure to physical activity. Now, when I asked what do the kids do for gym class? Nice days— they go outside, which is awesome. Cool, fresh air, they’re open to sunlight, vitamin D, everything like that is great. However, inclement weather, I mean we just spend the last four days dealing with torrential downpours from Hurricane Helene. So now the kids are going to go outside and maybe in wet shoes and everything and have to deal with wet feet all day. Or at least you can go and play the playground a little bit. The other piece of that is when you look at four classrooms in one gym, the walls that they put up were roughly 10 to 15-foot barriers, so sound and everything still transferred over and it was a massive distraction, when you have four classrooms in one room, and on top of that, you’re dealing with climate control issues as well. Two years ago, my wife called me and said, ‘Hey, I need every fan that you can find.’ And so I (went) through my house and I found four fans, took them to the gym and it had to be 85 degrees in that gym. And so climate control in a gym, it’s not easy. And now you expect your students to learn, when they’re dealing with excessive heat, they’re going to be struggling, not going to be paying attention. They’re antsy, they’re sweaty, they’re hot, falling asleep, for that matter. What I do know about Schmidt because they’re the next one on the list, they have basically made it into two-quarters and a half. So they have half a gym is gym class, the other one-quarter is music class, one quarter is art class. Last I’ve heard, they’re still struggling to get art supplies for the art classes. And you’re also trying to sit here and teach your classes, whether it be music, art or anything, and you have gym class going on, screaming, yelling, everything, or music blasting over the wall for art class and they’re struggling. They can’t concentrate, and just some of the decisions that we made as a whole for this 2030 project, it’s not functional and it’s not acceptable. In all reality, it’s not feasible. When I walked into Parkside for the first time, the first thing I noticed were the new glass windows that they had knocked out concrete walls to kind of replicate what your door is. And similar thing, my first thought was, as a military guy, risk management, threat management, threat assessments, it’s like man, isn’t one of the biggest issues that we face school shootings? So what do we do? Just pull the blinds and hide is all you can do, but even the blinds don’t black out the room. These are the things that we’re making decisions on and wasting money on. Most of the classrooms at Parkside, specifically, have what I call an egress room. It’s where their cubbies are, because if you’ve even been into Parkside, it used to be all the middle where you had coat hangers and everything like that. Well, they reduced the size, the physical size of the classrooms, which is another issue for me. I’ll talk to that in a minute. But, when they put the cubbies in between two classrooms, and those are probably about the size of this room. Also in those rooms, they blew out all the big, massive bathrooms, so each classrooms has its own bathroom now or they share two. Those are supposed to be your hiding rooms and egress rooms under threat. But we also, in turn, decrease the size of a classroom for already overcrowded classrooms, so now you’re just strangling these teachers and these kids by reducing their space. And then bathrooms, I break it down all the way down to you as a custodian. These custodians now have to clean roughly 24 bathrooms, approximately, instead of cleaning, say, six bathrooms, maybe that you have room to operate, maneuver. Then just what they did with the cafeteria, so the cafeteria still leaks. That was one of the main concerns with the infrastructure and architecture that they have right now. And so they addressed that, that was the first thing addressed, well it still leaks. They took out all the tables that would all fold-up and had the attached benches or seats, and they replaced it with tables and chairs. Now, a pre-K, kindergarten, first-grader, even all the way at the sixth grade, they’re not going to push their chairs in. They’re not going to sit properly. And so you have the staff sitting there, maneuvering in and out of this chaos, trying to maintain the school. If I were a custodian in that, I’d probably end up quitting because it’s all these added man hours. Because now, they have to put these chairs on top instead of just being able to fold a simple table and move it out of the way. And so that goes to that functionality test that we are failing. I saw it on Columbus Man the other day, where they’re talking about one of the things BCSC should invest in, as far as school safety, and it’s a little piece of metal that jams behind the door and it’s nearly impossibly to break through. That’d be a good idea. We have a giant glass window here and the door’s glass as well. None of them are bulletproof, none of them are safety— these are the things that I’ve looked at. And I understand Envision 2030 is important, I do understand that we need to renovate our schools and get them back to standard because they are old. That’s fine, but let’s do it fiscally responsibly. Let’s do it functionally responsibly. And that’s one thing I’ve actually had a conversation with certain teachers regarding the proposed new elementary school out west of town, was it’s going to be $65 million at a baseline, and that’s including the architecture fee that Cummins is covering, which is $5 million, so $60 million to the taxpayers in funding the grants. When we look at that, one of the first things that I was told that the principal who’s been tagged with that responsibility of that school—which is kind of crazy, they’ve already picked somebody— but the first thing he said was it needs to be functional. Because I understand that Columbus, yeah, we’re different by design, we’re about architecture and looking fancy and everything, but like I said when I was interviewed with the CEA and just like a parent that spoke out last Monday at the school board meeting, we can build all this stuff that looks nice on the outside, but when we’re failing on the insie and we’re applying money where it doesn’t really need to go— my basic thing since day one is aesthetics don’t breed education, they don’t develop education. And just because something looks nice doesn’t mean that it’s really going to make us better.
Q: Do you think that teachers are being compensated adequately? What can BCSC do to improve teacher retention and recruitment?
Glick: That’s a great question. I’ve actually talked a lot about this myself and I’ve talked to a lot of teachers about this too. In terms of teacher retention, there’s a discipline issue across BCSC and really across society as a whole. And it’s not just BCSC, but that also goes back to our first question that you discussed with the reading, is we need parent engagement and parents teacher proper behavioral skills. I spoke with one of the behavioral health providers a few weeks ago that works with BCSC, and she told me that roughly kindergarten to third grade—it starts to decrease as you get older— but most of your issues are in kindergarten, first grade, and some of second grade. And yeah, you’re still going to have some rowdy kids as they get older, some of them just won’t learn, but a lot of the behavioral things is they don’t know how to act in that environment. And so it starts at home, and Sam Ison has been very vocal about this as well, discipline starts at home. Respect starts at home. And so in terms of adequate compensation to teachers, one of the big talking points right now between the three that are backed by CEA, to include CEA is a possible referendum extension. And so one thing that isn’t discussed in that is the fact that BCSC since 2018—and this is actually on tape from Monday’s school board meeting— where Dr. Phillips actually admitted that since 2018, they’ve been moving money from the education fund to the operations fund. The education fund is the fund that we get our teacher pay from the state. And so they’ve been transferring money for six years now. It include this year, I think it’s between eight and nine million that we are transferring over to the operations fund. The referendum piece, when they brought that up in 2020, they sold that purely as helping teacher’s pay. Teacher pay is roughly three to four million a year of that incurred cost. Even if we decrease how much we’re transferring over to the operations fund, we still have leftover $5 million that we have to play with. The baseline teacher pay is roughly $61,000, I think the high-scale, off the top of my head’s roughly 81 or $82,000. And then, once you throw the referendum bonuses in there. You don’t qualify for a referendum bonus until you have five years experience. That’s something I had to explain to a teacher who I’ve spoken with, because she was in support of me, but she’s a union teacher. And so the CEA, the teacher’s union, had sent out a text message, and now they’ve resorted to phone calls, of regurgitating the same thing over and over. ‘If you don’t vote for the other three, you could lose up to $15,000.’ They were very, very clear not to be held liable for what they’re saying. Well, you have a teacher who’s part of your union, who’s only got three years experience, four years experience, and so you’re lying to that individual because that individual immediately thought, ‘I could lose $15,000?’ So she things that she’s going from $60,000 to $45,000. She doesn’t understand that she doesn’t even qualify for a referendum bonus. And so this is where leadership in positions need to be very clear and transparent about what’s going on. I’ve explained this to multiple people now to include, if you go to my campaign page I weigh it out, what’s going on with teacher pay and referendums. As far as where we are in compensation, I do think that $80,000 is very competitive here, especially given the place that we are now. Do I think that we need another referendum? No. Do I think that we can maintain the current status that we’re at with referendum bonuses to equate the pay scales? I think we can maintain that and we just need to stop wasting money and transferring from an education fund to operations fund. And like you said, we’re spending $300 million on the Envision 2030 project. That’s all operational costs over time. And so with that, what we’re not talking about is that estimated $200 million in interest that’s going to be incurred by the 2030 project, on top of that $300 million bond. Now, as far as teacher retention goes, like I said, there’s a discipline issue that’s going on in the schools, and right now, a lot of the teachers don’t feel like those people who should be making disciplinary action decisions are not holding up their end of the bargain. There’s a lot of issues where teachers are coming forward, they’re speaking out. They’re saying, hey, punish this child or give this child consequences because of their actions, because they’re not learning from them. And then you have people in those roles that should be doing the disciplinary action, giving them a light little smack on the back of the hand. And those are some of the more undisciplined kids. And then you have the kids that are disciplined, that do something stupid, say something wrong, use a bad word, and then they get hammered. So there’s a double standard there as well. The biggest thing is teachers are leaving in droves, and it’s not about money necessarily. One other conversation I had over the summer with a teacher was, what’s the biggest thing that you would like to have? And this teacher said, ‘I need help, I need a TA.’ And what hasn’t really been discussed was, so last year we lost federal grant funding for TAs across the US as a whole, if I remember right, but in particular, BCSC. And so we lost TAs in the corporation. So when I sat down with Dr. Phillips, I asked are we going to find a way to bring TAs to the classroom? His statement to me was— no, there’s no room in the budget. And on top of that, there is no empirical data to show that TAs in the classroom help with academics. That to me— either he is completely disconnected or he’s just not listening to his teachers and his staff. My wife is a TA at Parkside and so when I told her that, she about blew her lid, and along with all the other TAs that I know, just sitting there like, we work very hard. We are very dedicated and all the teachers that they support, probably could not do anything that they are able to do, or would struggle to do what they’re able to do, without the help of TAs. But I even asked that teacher, I said, if I can’t get you a TA, what about more money? She said, I don’t want more money, I want more hands, I want more eyes. I need help, even if it’s just a TA for a team. Because this is a middle school teacher. One person for, I think a team is five classes. I mean, one TA spread across five classrooms is all they were asking for. And the average TA makes roughly 13 to $20,000 and we can’t find room in our budget to support our teachers like that? And I’ve known teachers who left his area, I know teachers that are teaching in surrounding areas, and they’re laughing at BCSC for the decisions that we are making. They couldn’t be happier to leave and that’s very disgraceful.
Q: The board has devoted a sizable amount of time in school board meetings during the past 10 months to the accessibility of certain library materials. Do you think BCSC has the correct policy in place for addressing these concerns and would you like to see anything additional be done?
Glick: I was actually just talking about this over the last week, because last week was apparently named by the American Library Association National Banned Book Week. I actually shared by feelings and everything that I talked with the teacher’s union about. One of the thing’s that they asked me, in particular, was a very open-ended question: if someone brought a book to you as a challenge, would you ban it? That’s how they asked it. And I kind of laughed at it, because what kind of book are we talking about? There’s no substance there. How can I even address that? Because it was kind of a silly question. Now, if we look at the books that have been challenged in the past, whether it be Push, which I read, and I can actually say that I enjoyed the story. Do i feel like it’s suitable for a school-aged child or a school-aged student? Not particularly, and there’s this idea wrapped around that if you suffer trauma and you read about trauma, it’s going to bring you out of your shell. And in reality, that’s not true. You’re going to regress. You’re going to shut down. And if nobody’s paying attention to you and watching how you are interacting, seeing that you are now withdrawn, they’re not going to be able to push you into talking through this issue. And so with that, I do believe that our librarians are doing their best. Yes, there are books that are slipping through, like Push. One of the other books that was challenged was People Kill People. Both these books have very explicit rape scenes and very explicit language. Mark Niemoeller kind of pointed out that if I can’t walk around a school saying bad language, or walk around with a shirt saying F this, F that, or C word — something inappropriate, then why are we allowing this type of language in a book? I think literature is very important. I think that reading is very important, which kind of goes back to things that I’ve discussed, is I don’t think that we should be removing content from libraries. I honestly think that these challenges to these books are actually bringing more attention to them than they’re already getting. Push has been in the library for 15 or 16 years, roughly, and maybe checked out once a year, if that. People Kill People has only been checked out maybe twice, and it’s been in since 2015-2016, roughly. And so these challenges, I think, are bringing more attention to these books, and now you’re going to have kids that are sitting there, well what’s in this book? I do think that parents need to be again engaged with their child. I’ve had talks with BCSC personnel, and even Dr. Phillips brought it up during the meeting, what was it three weeks ago where Push was discussed, that there is a policy. There is a plan and action, that if parents don’t feel that there’s something in the library that their child should be exposed to, then they can challenge that, or say my child, please do not allow them to check that out. And from what I’ve understood— my mom is a former library assistant at East so I’ve actually leaned on her a lot and I’ve also talked to historical librarians and so I’ve done a lot of analysis on this— there is a plan of action that is there and I do think that is acceptable. Now, would I like to see a book like Push or People Kill People have parental consent? Absolutely. That could be something added by the school board, because until people and parents understand what Destiny, which is the program that we use for our libraries, until they understand what is in our libraries, because there’s an issue there people don’t know what’s there, and so until they know what their children have access to, to actually have a discussion and lead their children through these horrific scenes where it talks about pulling the diaper off of a child and having their way with them, or discussing a man raping a 16-year-old boy, 15 year-old-boy — like these are some of the things that kids are going to sit here and it’s like, whoa, what is going on? And they need guidance through that. And that’s where parents need to be engaged with their kids. And some people may call that segregating, but in all reality, what’s the difference of not allowing Playboy, Playgirl, and other explicit material in a school library. I’ve said this from day one too is in terms of what is in our libraries, I think that there should be a process to challenge. There is. Now, I think that the process may be a little bit skewed, because under state law, if there’s any sort of reference to educational value, then it has a place in a library. Reading through Push, I can kind of see where there’s some education value to it, but I find it to be a little overly explicit and unnecessarily explicit. I thought it was kind of interesting that when it was discussed at the school board meeting, some of the people who were advocating for the book to remain had no idea it was a fictional book. People were surprised in the audience and so it’s kind of interesting to see people advocating for something that they themselves haven’t even read. And Jason Major actually took a giant leap of faith by reading that final excerpt discussing the diaper situation at the school board meeting. Now he did change a lot of the language, but just to see how people reacted, to include adults, adult males, reacting to the language that’s used, and just the depiction that’s in there. We always talk about our imaginations is one of the most powerful things and what does a book do? It gives you words and you yourself are going through the process of imagining what the book is telling you. Your brain is the one detailing all this stuff and so that’s why I think the parents need to be engaged. Parents need to know what their children are reading and are exposed to because they need to be able to talk through that. Now to that, I’ve been told that you’re talking about perfect child syndrome, where my child’s going to open up to me and teenage kids aren’t going to actually have that conversation. And I mean, that is a valid counter argument to that. But as a parent, you have to try. You have to try to be engaged and you have to try to lead your child to become an adult. And some of the content where people on the other side of the aisle are saying, we need to remove this book, we need to ban this book, which banning a book is not even the right term, because just because you pull it out of the library, doesn’t mean that you can’t find it in the public library, you can’t find it on Amazon or anything like that. So it’s not really banned. The people that are advocating against those books, they have a right to be upset that there’s a lot of explicit language and everything. But my talk with them is, and it’s been talked about is, even though the story is fictional, there’s a lot of truth to it. Because these things do happen. And until we actually do talk about them and bring them to light, do we actually try to advocate for those people who are suffering? And it builds a little empathy, I think, over time. Bottom-line is, knowledge is power and unless we’re discussing something that may be uncomfortable sometimes— as I tell my kids — you need to become comfortable being uncomfortable. And sometimes that means putting yourself in a position that you don’t necessarily want to be in, or talk about a topic, or read about a topic that you don’t want to know about.
Q: In recent years, school board races and school board meetings themselves have become increasingly charged at times. How would you work with others that may not agree with you on a specific subject?
That goes back to basic to just basic civility. I mean, we have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. People who disagree, guess what? That’s your human basic right to disagree with me, and it’s also my basic human right to disagree with you. And we have to understand that not everybody’s going to be on the same terms. Now to escalate that to being overly vocal, disruptive and threatening? Or where we think that there’s going to be an issue, where we have to have increased police presence— like we need to clam down. And that’s something that I’ve seen running for this position is, it’s been nasty and it’s been nasty since day one. There’s been a lot of hate spewed from both sides and it’s not the candidates themselves, really. It’s the individuals who are supporting other candidates. And one of the biggest issues I see is social media as a whole. Everybody on the keyboard can say whatever they want, even if they don’t feel it or mean it. I’ve had multiple conversations with people that I already know are in favor of my opposition, that are 100 against me, even though they don’t even know me. They don’t even know what I stand for and I didn’t even really put myself out there. And so it’s kind of interesting. Luckily, that’s kind of cooled down a little bit, at least against me. I know Sam Ison’s gotten a lot of play time on Columbus Man and on her page as well from haters, and I know Whittney Loyd has as well. People have really left alone Nikki and Leigh and myself, I’m not really out there. And David Theile has not necessarily been attacked. I do know though, in terms of on my page, there’s people that are asking me questions that really have no real interest in what I have to say and they’re only there to be disrupters. But from what I know, I am the only one that’s not pushed people away. I stand up to it, I face the opposition, I face the challenges and we need to have a conversation about it. And if you don’t agree with me, let’s find a common ground here and that way, I understand where you’re coming from, you understand where I’m coming from, and you have to be open to other people’s ideas because if you’re not, then what? Why are we talking? We’re just wasting the oxygen at this point or wasting keyboard time, because a lot of these conversations or conversations on Facebook are just circular logic, and only concerned with really sharing what they wanted to share and only want to make their point without listening to you. And so even in some of my heated arguments, I’ve actually still refrained from blocking people, even the tough questions. I do know that there was one individual who asked all six candidates the exact same question regarding Envision 2030 and four of us answered him, two of them, two others, blocked them and ignored them. And to me, that was very telling that you’re really not open to a challenging question. And why would you not way to expose yourself and expose your thoughts on an issue, especially if you’re going to be someone who may be making policy decisions. What are you hiding, basically. But in terms of keeping order, one thing that I do in the military is I sit on a lot of staff boards and decision boards, planning boards, that get a little heated at times, especially when people disagree with topics or planning decisions and it’s a matter we got to keep a cool head. We need to have open discussion, and it’s a matter of just taking control of the room and understanding that there are certain civil responsibilities that we have, especially as adults, to act civilly, to sound redundant. That’s the thing, if you’re going to act like a child, I’ll treat you like a child and you can go have a nice exit. I’ll see you Tuesday or whenever and we can have an open discussion off the topic, but if we’re there for business, we’re there for business. If you have an opinion, I’ll listen to your opinion and we can have a discussion about it, but be civil. I said a lot there but to get back to main point, that’s the thing — we’ve lost our sense of our moral compass, really. And we’ve lost our sense of civility, and more importantly, I said this multiple times in the interview with the teacher’s union, is we’ve lost our sense of community and it’s really sad.
