LIVERMORE FALLS — Three candidates are running for two, three-year terms on the Regional School Unit 73 board of directors at the annual town meeting April 23.

Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Fire Station.

Incumbents D. Robin Beck and Phoebe Pike, and Roger Moulton are seeking to represent the town. Each was sent a questionnaire on topics related to the school system.

Post COVID-19, do you think education, attendance and activities have bounced back from before the pandemic or have improved since?

Beck: In some ways, yes, RSU 73 has come back from two very long years in a COVID pandemic. Activities that took place prior are back and well attended. Trips to NYC and Europe are on the books for students, sports are back up and running; wrestling is being introduced at the middle school next school year. Education is improving. Everyone from students to parents and community took a hit from COVID. That said, since the pandemic, our math scores have
improved districtwide 10% with only 45% of student’s average or above just after we began school full time to 55% now. Even better are reading scores! We have jumped from 47% average or above to 60%! Are we there yet? No! I do not have attendance numbers but I do know that truancy is an issue. This is not just a school problem, but also a community problem. Parents and community members need to work together with the schools to better the education of all students.

Moulton: I do not feel that education, attendance, or activities have bounced back since COVID. It’s easy to find the numbers proving they have not. It is understandable, yet still unfortunate and we need to work on that. I do think the district is working on attendance issues already and seems to have made some progress there. I read that bullying was one of the top reasons for absences in a recent study. My main goals are bullying down, test scores up, and politics out!

Pike: The pandemic impacted our district, but it has not impacted the fire our educators and community have for education. There have been significant improvements to our technological aspects of education, providing students with access to essentials, as well as expanding our programs to address the needs of each child as it arises. These needs are everything from providing food from the pantry for students to bring home, winter jackets to stay warm, and more. Our school has different clubs, sports, and activities available, and we are expanding those consistently.

Do you think schoolchildren have caught up with their education or exceeded education goals?

Moulton: Test scores show that children haven’t caught back up and certainly not exceeded their goals. I am very concerned about student proficiencies when they leave our district so this is a concern/focus for me. I plan to look around the state at schools that have rebounded well to see what methods or practices they have used to get back on track. That, as well as successful programs that eliminated or greatly reduced bullying in other districts. I know we have a core of quality educators, so we can do this!

Pike: Our teachers and staff have done a marvelous job working with students to meet them at their level and bring them to the next step in their learning journey. There are always areas for improvement, which is why we invest in professional development to ensure our teachers have adequate training. Each classroom has children with diverse backgrounds, mental and emotional development, and our district is finding creative solutions to help each child. We want our students to be curious about the world, confident in themselves, and how to navigate life after the classroom. Students have returned to our district as teachers, which speaks volumes about the wonderful staff we have.

Beck: I believe, with the test numbers we are seeing that, yes, they are catching up. Are they there yet? No. Moreover, I do not believe that getting back to the prior scores before the pandemic is enough. Our students need to exceed those scores.

We also need to address the mental health needs of the students in this system. This includes the issues with bullying. All of these issues take the entire community to address; schools, parents, and townspeople. As a school system, we are limited by state laws in what we can do to address the entire bullying situation. We are dependent on the rest of the community to raise their standards to decrease the bullying issue in our schools.

There are positive changes that can be made to our state laws but must be done through our state legislators and cannot be done through the school board.

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