Candidate: Cynthia Nevison
Office: Boulder Valley School District Board of Education District C
Website: http://cynthiaforbvsd.com/
QUESTIONS FOR CANDIDATES (200 words maximum for each response):
Are you the parent of a current or former BVSD student? Please let us know when your child attended BVSD.
“I have 2 children who have attended BVSD since they were in kindergarten. Both are currently in high school, as a freshman and junior, respectively.”
What motivated you to run for BVSD Board of Education?
“I am running as a concerned mom, who witnessed how children suffered during COVID,who wants to bring balance, reason, research, and transparency to education decisions. I’m a capable and well educated person who can listen with genuine respect to a wide range of opinions. I’m concerned about declining enrollment, both due to the high cost of living in Boulder County and due to parents purposefully pulling their children from public schools. I also bring an important science-based perspective to the table. In particular, I am knowledgeable about health and have done pro bono research for many years on the increasing rates of chronic health conditions and disabilities among children, which is an issue that is having a major impact on public schools.”
What do you see as the major issue(s) facing the school district? Please list five issues in order of priority, and give a brief explanation of why the issue matters.
“1. Children’s mental health. Kids are suffering from social and developmental delays after COVID and need support and a return to normalcy.
2. Parents deliberately leaving public schools. Last year, kindergarten enrollment declined to only 89% of county births 5 years prior, a 6% drop from the historical average. BVSD needs to ask why, and it needs to listen to and heed the answers.
3. Declining birth rate leading to consolidation of classes (with attendant ballooning class sizes) and threat of school closures. BVSD voters have generously supported high property taxes, effectively forfeiting state school funding we might otherwise receive. Ironically, our generosity is contributing to the unaffordable housing situation for families with young children.
4. Critical shortage and high turnover of special ed teachers and paraeducators. BVSD is unable to meet the needs of all its students due this shortage. Schools need more resources to properly support these kids and to start addressing why childhood neurodevelopmental disorders are increasing.
5. Achievement gaps. 75% of white students meet benchmark expectations in reading compared to 38% of Latinos. Students who do not meet this benchmark by 3rd grade are 4 times less likely than those who do to graduate high school.”
Do you agree with BVSD’s decision to make a $32,500 settlement with a family who alleged that the district’s equitable discipline policies constitute discrimination against white students? Please explain why or why not.
“The decision seems to be reasonable but I’m not familiar enough with the details to second guess the settlement.”
Emergency department visits for sexual violence among Boulder County teens doubled from 2020 to 2021, then again in 2022, according to data from Boulder County Public Health and reported in Boulder Weekly — do you agree with how BVSD has responded? Please explain why or why not.
“BVSD has worked to educate students and has made it easier for students to report sexual violence. It has also worked to improve the culture at Fairview High on this issue. Several of the experts quoted in the Boulder Weekly article say that they aren’t sure whether sexual assault has actually increased (from 11 reports in 2019 to 22 reports in 2021, and on track to be 22 again in 2022), or whether students are simply reporting it more due to BVSD’s education efforts. It’s not clear that this is a crisis situation, but certainly the reporting trendshould be monitored. I’ll add that I think that BVSD should be doing more to protect students from sexual harassment on their way to school, e.g., by adult men in homeless encampments surrounding Boulder High.”
What BVSD policies would you change, and why?
“I would encourage a reduced dependence on Chromebooks in BVSD. The heavy use and requirement of Chromebooks for turning in homework, for example, makes it difficult for parents to regulate screen time and creates a screen dependency that is not healthy for children.
I am also concerned about BVSD’s decision to remove school resource officers (SROs) from its schools. While I share the concerns about the school-to-prison pipeline that led to their removal, the outcome of removing SROs was recently proven to be dangerous. Denver was obliged to reinstate SROs in its schools after two administrators were shot at East High School. The student safety policy cannot be based on wishful thinking. What tragically occurred in Denver cannot be allowed to happen in Boulder. We need to prioritize protecting our students and consider other means for addressing the disproportionate discipline issue.”
What BVSD policies do you support, and why?
“I like BVSD’s commitment to academics and its strong performance in this area compared to other school districts in Colorado. I support BVSD’s efforts to close achievement gaps, e.g., through its disproportionate funding model in which schools with greater needs receive extra funding. I also support BVSD’s efforts to prepare students for post-secondary school success, through technical education and programs like Grad Plus that place students in internships in the community. Finally, I appreciate BVSD’s effort to introduce healthier food and a salad bar into the school cafeteria – I volunteered for a time in the school lunch program when my children were in elementary school – although I am concerned that the quality of the food may have declined since we moved to the state-funded lunch model. “
How will you engage with community members?
“I will read letters and email from constituents and listen to public testimony at school board meetings. I am also willing to meet in person with members of the community who request it. I don’t have a good sense of how much correspondence school board members receive. I personally have written a number of letters and never received a response so it’s possible that the volume is overwhelming. It’s also possible that incumbent school board members have ignored parents. I never will. I will at minimum keep track of overall themes in the email I receive and try to address concerns during board communication, even if it is not possible to respond to each individual email.”
What makes you the best candidate to serve on the BVSD Board of Education? Put simply: How do you stand out against other candidates?
“I am the only candidate who can appeal to voters across the political spectrum. I alone have pledged not to defer unquestioningly to unelected public health officials going forward but rather to provide scientifically-informed oversight. Health officials put an unfair burden on children, who were at very low risk, in their handling of COVID. In particular, theirprolonged school shutdowns did not adequately consider children’s overall mental and physical health. As a result, trust in our public schools has eroded. Close to 1.5 million US students left public schools in the last few years and it’s not clear if they are returning. This is happening in BVSD too, exacerbating the already serious declining enrollment problem we have due to birth rate demographics. We need more balanced voices like mine in public school leadership. Otherwise parents will continue to pull their children out, statewide funding measures (like proposition HH) will not be successful, and the downward enrollment we are seeing in BVSD will continue. I agree with Abraham Lincoln, who said that public schools are a place where children of all backgrounds come together and are essential for perpetuating our democratic republic.”
