Foster's 2021 Questionnaire Responses²

View the 2023 Foster's Candidate Survey by Clicking Here!

What do you see as the top three issues facing the district, and how can the board address them?

1. Equity and Education - Rochester students deserve to have access to high-quality education. We need to ensure that every child has what they need to be successful. 

2. Family and Staff Involvement: The School Board should act in the best interests of the students. The School Board's goal in policymaking should be keeping Rochester Schools raising the bar, not settling for mediocrity, and ensuring the Rochester School District's vision. For this to happen, families and staff need to be an active part in policymaking decisions. 

3. Accessibility: School District's communication and information sharing are not reaching the staff, families, and community members. I believe that different methods work for different families, and it is the district's responsibility to find a way for every staff, family, and community member to engage.

How, if at all, would you work to strengthen the district’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts?

To strengthen Rochester's diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, the school board needs to understand the school district's tracking methods in grouping students according to their perceived academic ability, IQ, behaviors, or the schools within schools currently in place in the Rochester School District.

These tracking methods encourage a sort of separation, teach students nonverbally about inequalities and maintain a system that marginalizes students through policies and budgets.

The Maintenance of Equity in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) Grant ensures fiscal opportunities to invite students, families, and staff into the planning to provide flexibility in the educators' approaches and students to learn from each other. 

How, if at all, would you work to strengthen the district’s mental health and wellness efforts for students?

The district needs to acknowledge our discrepancies in practices, policies and the bare minimum in related service support staff. 

Research demonstrates that students who receive social-emotional, mental, and behavioral health support achieve better academically, are more likely to turn toxic stress into tolerable stress, show resilience, build capacities in planning, monitoring, regulating behaviors, engage in school, and be available for learning.

Including recognizing the staff's high level of daily stress, inadequate resources, workload, paperwork, fear of advocating for student needs, and lack of input into their classrooms contributes to staff burnout and the high numbers of Rochester's job openings.  

The American Rescue Plan (ARP) Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER III) Grants provides the district an opportunity to build an equitable, responsive, and sustainable infrastructure for students and staff.

Resources to Learn More About Tracy Walbridge

Foster's 2021 Candidate's Questionnaire