4 questions: Leon School Board candidates on COVID-19 in classrooms, equity, starting school

School Board member and current Chair DeeDee Rasmussen is seeking re-election to the Leon County Schoool Board against a single challenger, Alex Stemle, a dean of students and athletic director at Deerlake Middle Schoool. 

Voters will decide the race for the District 4 board seat in the Aug. 18 primary. Only registered Leon County voters residing in Leon County Schools District 4 will cast ballots to decide between the two candidates in this non-partisan race. 

The winner of the August primary will assume the board seat on Nov. 17. 

Rasmussen and Stemle squared off in a July 16 online forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Tallahassee Democrat. 

To watch the complete forum and for a complete collection of coverage on the races, candidates and issues, visit tallahassee.com/elections. 

Back story:

• The ultimate Leon County, Tallahassee voter's guide to the 2020 primary election
• Leon County School Board, District 4: A voter's guide to the 2020 primary

Here are excerpts: 

Question 1

What are your thoughts on the state mandate that brick and mortar schools must be open?

Rasmussen: “If this were any other issue, I might say, 'Let’s go to court over home rule. Let’s question the commissioner’s authority.' But in this case, I think we would have a vaccine before we were able to complete that litigation that would be costly...We are regulated and directed by the Florida Department of Education. That’s where all of our funding streams come from. I’m not saying that money is more important than health and safety, I’m saying that if we don’t comply with their rules, they will not pay us, so we can’t pay teachers, we can’t turn the lights on...I would hope that our citizens would contact the Commissioner of Education and the governor if they feel we need to push it back what the allowable last date is right now...This has been a moving target, though. I have not lost hope that they will change."

Stemle: “We have to come up with a solution that gets our kids back to learning, and regardless of what format that is, and obviously we’re talking about two different formats here. We have the one-to-one issue, which I have some major concerns about 35,000 computers being imaged and ready to go and even more concerns with our workforce being trained and ready to go in a digital format. We already know that a big portion of our parents...are looking at the Digital Academy. I'm afraid that even more than that are looking to see how things are and are probably looking to retreat back if things don't change. We've got to develop that, but we've also have to have a place where kids can come that need it. When we talk about the slide of learning in the summer, we definitely have seen a slide in learning in the spring and so we have to come up with solutions." 

Question 2

Do you think teachers can add the policing of masks and social distancing to what they already do, and if not, how is that going to get done?

Stemle: “I think teachers will do whatever you ask them to, and they’ll do it to the best of their ability. I do have some concerns about how we are going to educate our kids in a format where we don’t see each other’s faces. One of the things that are important for educators and parents to understand is we have to be able to communicate with our kids and build trust and they have to have interactions that are really meaningful and engage learning. As we develop our plan, we've got to make sure that if we’re going to go with the policing of the masks, teachers can do it. They will do it, they’ll do whatever we ask them to, and usually for the sake of their kids and what they need. But I do have some concerns about coming back to the classroom and trying to police the mask issue." 

Rasmussen: "This mask issue is a difficult one, though I have been encouraged as I've been out in the community a little bit more than before I've been seeing an increasing number of children wearing masks and seemingly doing well. Of course, every child is different, every kid has a different reaction. I personally can't stand masks but I'm getting better as I grow more accustomed to it. It's not that big of a deal. But compliance will be an issue, obviously, and I hope (ideas such as) turning up the air conditioner, making it cooler in the classroom, having mask breaks that are socially-distanced — those are all the new elements of this new reality that we are in. And, as usual, we are asking the teachers to yet again take the brunt of this responsibility. And that is really an incredible lift for them in addition to the thousands of other things they have to do. We're in a tough spot...I think our teachers have over and over again said, 'Put me in, coach. I am ready to play. I will figure out how to have a hard corner for security in the event of a live shooter. I will figure out how to get through to my children.' But that face-to-face interaction, I worried initially, especially about little kindergarteners showing up and not being able to see their teacher smile at them for reassurance...But we can offer parents a choice. And if they're not comfortable (with in-person schooling) and they are able to have their child learn virtually, then I'm glad we have at least those choices available based on a family's decision." 

Question 3

What would you do to have in place to ensure equality in education for students, especially those who may not have access to today’s technology?

Rasmussen: “I am very pleased that we were able to execute a contract to acquire one-to-one devices, but let me hasten to say: The technology we’re acquiring, COVID-19 was an accelerator for that, it wasn’t the reason for it. We've been long planning to try and get to a place where we could have one-to-one technology that the district could support because we were sort of piece-mealing it before. Now, with every child having a Chromebook, which is limited specifically to Leon County Schools' content and it's encrypted and protected, every child will have a device that will be their new textbook set, for example, and their ability to access all the content and submit their content. The kids are pretty tech-savvy and they'll catch on pretty quickly. I do agree that the platform that our instructors are having to learn is a new one to them...It's not really intuitive, but it's not insurmountable. I do wish we had more time."

Stemle: “(Rasmussen) did mention we have several schools that have already gone one-to-one and unfortunately because we didn’t have the leadership at the board, we had a lot of the community, PTO programs, people at other schools had to use their funds, schools had to use their funds to find ways to go one-to-one. That was a need we’ve had for years, it's not something that just came up... That decision to not pull the trigger years ago is what’s really caused us to have what the superintendent called a ‘mess’ on our hands.  What we're missing right now are the resources to pull this off and get the kids back to school. If we had done a phased implementation, really looked at what our inventory was, we could have found that solution... And one of the main issues that I hope to bring to District 4 is we hear a lot about Title 1 schools, but we all know that we have students that are vulnerable at all schools. So when we make decisions to feed (students) at Title 1 schools, unfortunately, we are forgetting about a lot of students that are in the District 4 schools... not all the kids that go to District 4 school have everything that they need. So when we make some decisions at the School Board, we need to make sure that we’re not just talking about schools at Title 1 schools, but we’re talking about all kids that may need that extra support.

Rasmussen rebuttal: "Just recently we voted last budget cycle to put in additional money for kids for field trips and the emphasis was on Title 1 and I said, 'wait a minute, we have poor children at every school.' So we came up with a formula to distribute that money to make sure that children who were on free and reduced lunch at every school had a proportionate share of those funds... On the (topic of) one-to-one (technology), I would respectfully disagree." 

Question 4

How do you balance privacy requirements and the safety of kids? Who gets alerted when a child is positive for COVID-19?

Stemle: “Obviously, that’s something we have to solve and that’s one of the big questions our community has is: Will there be notification if a child or their teacher is exposed to this?... When we talk about putting kids on buses, I have first-hand experience with buses and many of the buses in District 4 are stacked three-deep on each side and when a bus driver is driving down the road, they’re not worried about checking on the mask. I am very fearful that we're going to get into a situation where we call in the health department to come to do some (contact) tracing and help us, but at the end of the day, we’re going to find out that we have a lot of kids who took those masks off and an adult didn't see them...We have to have a plan for that...We need to communicate and do better at making sure they know what it looks like when we return to schools and have an honest conversation... "We have a lot of questions our community is looking for and it comes back to the safety of their kids. We've got to come up with a plan and it's got to be presented to our community rather than later so we can reduce this fear and get our community back to school when they are ready to return."

Rasmussen: “The laws and the statutes are pretty clear about the role of the department of health. We are educators, we are not health experts, so when it comes to the tracing and the notification of people and all of those things, we have to rely on the department of health, which is their area of expertise. The rapid testing that Florida State and the University of Florida are doing right now... we are hoping we will be able to tap into that through Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare...I have been a little frustrated, honestly, with the inability — We’re in uncharted territory so I’m not trying to be hyper-critical, but it is frustrating for me. I keep asking for a decision tree or module that outlines our protocols, exactly what's going to happen. I think parents want to know if a child in (their) kid's class tests positive."

Stemle rebuttal: “I keep hearing Ms. Rasmussen talk about hypotheticals and what-ifs and hoping that we have a vaccine and hoping that we have rapid testing and our community is looking for a plan now and they're looking for something that works for them now. I hope we can get there sooner rather than later...But if we don't engage the people on the front line, those parents and those teachers, we're not going to come up with a solution that works."

Rasmussen rebuttal: “I probably get 1,000 ideas a day and I appreciate the fact that some people may be frustrated with our inability to give specifics. But I would just, with all due respect, remind everybody that we are in an unprecedented time and a crisis. And we are all, all across the country, every school district in this country, every state, trying to figure this out, trying to do the best we can, given the legal and moral obligations that we have."

CD Davidson-Hiers is an education reporter for the Tallahassee Democrat. Contact her at 850-631-0958, or CDavidsonH@Tallahassee.com. Twitter: @DavidsonHiers. 

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