Dover 2023 School Board candidate Carolyn Mebert

Name: Carolyn Mebert

Education: Ph.D developmental psychology

Occupation: Retired professor of psychology

Political or civic experience highlights: Dover School Board, 2002-2011; 2016-present

What would be your top three priorities if you are elected?: Getting the best curriculum in place to meet the needs of all learners.

Closing the achievement gaps that exist among our students.

Continuing evaluation of budgeting to ensure careful and responsible allocation of funds.

A major task that we might face in the next term is hiring a new superintendent. Dr. Harbron is currently on a one-year contract. I think we would all be delighted if he chose to continue beyond that. However, he may decide to move on and that would leave us with some big shoes to fill.

We are also looking at the development of a new strategic plan and I am hopeful that we can facilitate that process with data that identifies the strengths and weaknesses within the district.

How should the school district handle requests to remove books from the library or curriculum?: Book challenges are a new phenomenon in this district and I think we have handled them well. We developed a policy detailing the steps involved in addressing the challenges and forms for challengers to complete to register their concerns about the challenged material. Teachers, administrators and community members are all involved in a committee to determine if a book should remain in a school library. We would follow the same procedure if the challenged material were part of the curriculum, but that has not happened, yet. Responding to a challenge is not a job for a single individual. We do rely on the expertise of our librarians, but also value the experience, knowledge and concern of others who have served on the review committees.

What should the school district do to ensure the continued safety of the school community?: School Board policies contain quite a few that deal with safety issues at various levels. There are policies concerning bullying and harassment, including Title IX violations. There are also policies addressing school wide emergencies (e.g., Policy EBCA, Crisis Prevention and Emergency Response Plans), such as …”acts of violence, threats, natural disasters, fire, hazardous materials, medical emergencies, and other hazards…”. The policies include response plans, coordinating agencies and, as appropriate, drill schedules and procedures.

School Board members are not present in schools on a daily basis and can really only establish policies designed to enhance or maintain the safety of our students and staff. As individual citizens, each of us can choose to support groups that work toward violence reduction.

How, if at all, would you work to strengthen the district’s mental health and wellness efforts for students?: We have approved funding for more mental health professionals in the school.s. Some of us, including the Superintendent, have been involved in the development of the Dover Mental Health Alliance, which has a focus on youth mental health and suicide prevention.

A major problem in the state and elsewhere is the lack of availability of mental health workers. I am not as confident as I’d like to be that we can fill the social worker and psychologist positions we have open.

How can the school district succeed at recruiting and retaining high quality staff?: We’ve actually done a pretty good job of retaining high quality teachers. More than half of our teaching staff is at the highest step in their experience/salary schedule. Still, we should be at least at the state average in teacher and paraprofessional pay. Attractive pay and benefits are necessary to attract new staff. We just signed off on new three-year contracts for teachers and paraprofessionals. I think that both of those contracts reflect our understanding that we need to move those groups forward in pay and benefits, as well as the groups’ understanding that there are limits to what we can offer.

This article originally appeared on Fosters Daily Democrat: Dover 2023 School Board candidate Carolyn Mebert