Interviews with the Media
I'm transparent about where I stand on the Issues and how my experience and leadership can help solve school problems. Thanks for taking the time to read my interviews and learn more about me.
Sleepy Hollow resident Laurie Parman is a candidate for a seat on the Community Unit School District 300 school board.
“Teachers are burned out for many reasons. Among these reasons is the constant changing of reading series, information platforms, testing instruments," Parman, a retired teacher said. "These constant changes produce teacher exhaustion and make them like ‘first-year teachers’ every couple of years. Eventually, this shows up in the student outcomes.”
Dr. Laurie Parman - Candidate for District 300 School Board
The 3 most important issues for Laurie are:
ACADEMIC FAILURE
The complete failure of District 300 to prioritize the academic mission of the School District. Only 27 % of students in District 300 can read and write at grade level. Only 26% of students can compute at grade level.
HARMFUL, TIME BUSTING, IDEOLOGICAL INITIATIVES
K-12 Initiatives have been creeping into the district for decades. Only now are we beginning to see the harm in them. First of all, they have eclipsed the academic mission of the district. More harmful than that, they are not studious pursuits, they are ideological thought parading as curricula. As recently as August 9, 2023, the District 300 School Board voted 7-0 to remove the teaching of World War 2 in favor of five electives. Among those electives: American Resistance, Genocide in America, and so forth. This train of thought is suitable only if the district wants to turn our students into America-hating militants.
THE LOOMING TEACHER SHORTAGE CRISIS
On the District 300 page of the Illinois Report Card, I found a chart representing teacher absences for the last few years. In a period of time preceding COVID lockdowns, 30% of District 300 teachers were absent 10 or more times. In 2022, that number rose to 50%. Some would shame the teachers and say, “This is terrible!” I instead ask, “I wonder why this is?” I did some checking with the teachers I know in the district, and found that teachers are burned out, demoralized and ready to quit. They do not want to call a boy a girl, and they do not want to be reprimanded for making a mistake with it. They do not want to teach the looming Sex Ed curriculum, so many plan to leave the profession.
The most pressing issues facing our (board, district, etc.) are _______, and this is what I intend to do about them.
The most pressing issue facing Community Unit School District 300 is the failure to prioritize the academic mission of the district, which is to teach children to read, write, and compute at grade level. Before COVID lockdowns District 300 scores were shocking. Only 38% of students could read and write at grade level, and only 36% could compute at grade level. After the COVID Lockdowns we have no words for our academic performance since we have already used the word shocking. In 2022, only 27% of district students could read and write and only 26% could do math at grade level. This is absolutely unacceptable, and should be the most pressing issue, but these scores are tied to two other issues, so I must mention them.
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In the absence of academic success, there is a constant effort to push various ideological k-12 initiatives into the curriculum, such as social emotional learning, comprehensive K-12 sex education, and Critical Race Theory. To this I say, "When district scores reach 90% in reading, writing and math, come back and talk to me about adding something to the curriculum." Until then, we simply do not have the luxury of the conversation.