Colleen Shaw

Colleen Shaw

Colleen Shaw was a candidate for Place 7 representative on the Lewisville Independent School District school board in Texas. Shaw was defeated in the by-district general election on May 6, 2017. Shaw withdrew her candidacy on April 19, 2017, citing personal reasons. While she no longer campaigned for the position, Shaw's name still appeared on the ballot.

Elections

2017

See also: Lewisville Independent School District elections (2017)

Two of the seven seats on the Lewisville Independent School District board of trustees in Texas were up for general election on May 6, 2017. In her bid for re-election to Place 6, incumbent Kristi Hassett defeated challengers Jon Hanna, Eric Parker, and Peter Rabner. Place 7 incumbent Tracy Scott Miller defeated challengers Shari Chambers and Sandra Weinstein. A third challenger, Colleen Shaw, originally filed in the Place 7 race, but she formally withdrew her candidacy on April 19, 2017, citing personal reasons. While she no longer campaigned for the position, Shaw's name still appeared on the ballot.

Results

Lewisville Independent School District, Place 7 General Election, 3-year term, 2017
Candidate	Vote %	Votes
Tracy Scott Miller Incumbent	54.35%	6,491
Sandra Weinstein	20.97%	2,505
Shari Chambers	14.94%	1,784
Colleen Shaw	9.74%	1,163
Total Votes		11,943
Source: Denton County Elections, "Cumulative Report–Official: Denton County–2017 May General and Special Elections," accessed June 6, 2017

Funding

See also: Campaign finance in the Lewisville Independent School District elections

Shaw reported no contributions or expenditures to the Lewisville Independent School District as of May 3, 2017.

Campaign themes

2017

Shaw participated in the following survey conducted by The Dallas Morning News. The questions provided by The Dallas Morning News appear bolded, and Shaw's responses follow below.

Why are you running for this office, and why should voters choose you over your opponent(s)?

“	We live in a dynamic and rapidly growing community of families who come here because of economic reasons and the pursuit of the best they can provide for their families. Families are looking for their best options for affordable cost of living while the availability of affordable family housing is on the decline in favor of high rent condos and the city has newly immerged food deserts. Families face many serious social issues that come from being under economic stress and it is the social contract of the schools to provide for the needs of all children when they are unable so they can thrive as students as well support the community as a whole with educational opportunities and interventions. Schools have the unique opportunity to affect the 'dinner table topics' each of our families face; from creating a safe neighborhood, making ends meet, having a healthy home life and fighting for a fair shake at a better future. To put it simply: Strong schools make for a strong community. I want to support equal education for all and transparency in all schools. Currently, there are in discrepancies in our district on which neighborhoods get to have their school improved, renovated or built. The district was concerned about appearing biased from the bond of 2008 which strongly favored the west side of the district which has our more affluent families, so the proposal for the bond this year was to address growth on the eastern side of the district. However, both bonds are favoring property owning families in better socioeconomic status than the center of our district, Lewisville itself. Now, of course, the bond this year has many well needed innovations and provides the resources we need to maintain our rapidly growing district. So my issue is not in opposition of the bond but in how it was implemented. Families who live in multi-family housing and in the middle of our district need our help the most will not benefit from our improvements as much as those who are more well off and pay property tax. It is our responsibility that every student gets to have that equal opportunity education to launch themselves into a successful future. We should innovate for the interests of all our students and not for the interests of the district to attempt to attract in more property tax from higher valued neighborhoods. Every student deserves equal opportunities in education and a fair chance at making a sustainable living.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

If elected, what two issues would you give the most attention and resources?

“	I would ensure that every student, regardless of where they live in our district, disability or economic situation gets to benefit from districts goals that every student graduates with college credit or the ability to make a sustainable living with vocational training. Also, I would focus our tactics based on well proven and unbiased research to improve student academic growth, school safety, urban planning, community outreach, drug abuse prevention and teen pregnancy. Many of these tactics are offered for free such as the I Love U guys foundation to protect from all kinds of violence including active shooter situations and targeted teaching strategies from Pratham/J-Pal.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

For non-incumbent trustees: Have you attended any school board meetings? If so, what have you learned about how a board member can be effective?

“	Yes I have. The school board is not only the executive to implement the day to day activities that affect thousands of students and staff but also an advocate for the entire local community. It is a unique opportunity to be able to put programs in place to address the needs of economically disadvantaged students as well as parents, partner with local outreaches to fill in the gaps for children in our community to provide their basic needs, lobby in the state legislature for the needs of our district as well as combat the conflicts of state level political interests that conflicts with our ability to support a rapidly growing community, and develop high performing extracurricular activities for students of all levels of ability.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

As you look around the country, what innovative ideas would you recommend for improving classroom performance?

“	Technology and additional classroom tools tends to be a large focus in many school districts as a means to improve student learning. This strategy can be quite costly and the returns on student improvement are not as effective as in class interventions. I am a strong believer in the tactics of the Pratham/J-Pal partnership and study. This tactic has been administered all over the world from schools here in the Metroplex to the poorest neighborhoods of India that have 3 or 4 students to a desk and lack any text books. The issue is that in any particular classroom, you have students who are severely below grade who may or may not have additional support at home, students who are on target to be on grade level and students who are exceeding the grade level. The old adage of "teach to the middle of the class" severely hurts the under level students who need more targeted instruction and limits the potential of those who excel to expand their capabilities. J-Pal has the students to be divided into more homogenous sections within the class based on their prior academic performance. This creates opportunities for targeted instruction to support their academic growth in a very statistically significant way. Going forward, we should base our strategies on scientifically significant results from studies on education from all over the world, not just in the U.S or industrialized world, so we can look past any political bias and simply do what is best for our kids.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

Given the current funding structure, how does your district meet the academic needs of its low-income students? Are you willing to ask voters to approve a tax increase to create or expand these programs?

“	We have a great preschool in place that offers a half-day school program tuition free for students in need and English learners funded by federal grants. Preschool is also offered in Spanish to the students who need it to be ready for kindergarten. Tactics that I think is vital is in-class interpreters for our elementary English learners and in-class breakfasts which have worked wonderfully for our students at Hedrick Elementary. Unfortunately, the district has planned to tear down Hedrick Elementary which serves in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood that half of their students are English learners and not rebuild it. I am severely concerned about insuring that these students still get access to the resources they need while being bused to 4 other elementary school, as the district has planned. The costs of having to maintain the same standard of interventions across 4 campuses will continue to accrue in additional staffing and transportation for years to come. I believe in putting our resources in the communities that need them the most. I think that we should rebuild Hedrick Elementary and not put the fault of a poor presentation onto the futures of our students in need. I would be willing to advocate for an additional bond, not only to ensure the community around Hedrick elementary has a school designed to meet their specific needs, but also to expand the higher education and vocational opportunities within the schools of the city of Lewisville. The district has great ideas and innovations for the eastern side of our district to help kids graduate with enough college credit for an associate’s degree and on our western side of our district our schools outperform the entire state. The middle of the district, Lewisville itself, serves mostly working class and lower middle class families who came to our city for economic reasons. We should not hold a bias in our district of implementing programs and innovations towards our more affluent neighborhoods who own homes while students who live in neighborhoods of multifamily housing don't get to enjoy the same opportunities our district offers. Every student, regardless of economic background and location in our district should be able to benefit from our goals of students graduating high school with college credit and vocational certificates.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

Many districts are exploring creative ways to save money or shift costs to parents and students. What creative measures would you favor or oppose and why?

“	I think if we focus on using strategic teaching methods that are backed by scientifically significant results and community activism training that is offered by highly effective nonprofits for free, that can keep our costs down on additional purchases of technology while improving school outcomes and safer school environments. I also propose that we could approach local major employers to partner with us in creating vocational training and internships. This would give students the opportunity to learn vital workforce skills and the companies an ability to hire qualified workers for the gaps in their workforce. In addition, I would want to explore the possibility of the partnered businesses to donate to the district on a nonprofit basis in order for them to benefit with a tax deduction. This would highly incentivize companies to participate while keeping our goal to provide effective vocational training to all students fiscally sound.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

The state has adopted an A through F accountability system for district and campuses. Do you favor or oppose this system and why?

“	I oppose the A through F system due to the inaccurate depiction it has on students' academic growth. The A through f grading system is flawed in a way that schools who are making TEKS goals and shown growth in students' academic achievement can still receive a failing grade. I am strongly opposed to standardized testing because it drains resources away from insuring that all students are on grade level and limits the opportunities of being able to have creative interventions for students who need additional support.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

How would you assess the district’s efforts to improve graduation rates and increase the number of students prepared for college? What further improvements would you advocate?

“	I do support the districts move to include more dual credit and AP classes being administered in the school. Currently, there is an on campus college credit center planned to be implemented in The Colony High School. My main concern is that the college ready and dual credit programs be equally available across all of our schools in the district. Another concern I have is to insure that these programs are tuition free, which other local districts have charged students tuition for classes at the same rate or higher of our local community colleges. Also, we have to make sure that we provide great college level instructors and certified teachers for our dual credit programs. The District of Innovation plans (DOI plans) that the state has allowed us to use exemption waivers to have more local control and address our opportunities to develop targeted strategies to support the academic growth of our students. However, there are certain exemptions waivers that do have my concern in how it may affect the quality of instruction, one being the ability to hire someone to teach who is not certified or alternatively certified. The district has accepted this waiver and would only use it on the grounds that certified or alternatively certified teachers could not be found and the uncertified candidate would have to be approved by the superintendent. I believe that this waiver should not be used in our college equivalent courses since it would not be on par with the quality students should expect of higher education.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

What schools in your district have been particularly effective in getting every child up to grade level in reading and math?

“	Hedrick elementary has been great at serving our students that come from working class families and are learning English. They make sure that the students have the resources they need in the classroom to help them succeed to be on target for their grade level. Therefore, I want to ensure that the students have continued support for their futures while whether to rebuild their school building hangs in the balance and they would be bused to 4 other schools.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

How would you assess your district’s current school choice efforts, and what changes are needed?

“	Our district has proposed a very comprehensive District of Innovation plan that allows the creation of a college equivalency center and flexibility in lessons plans. The push for school choice by the state and federal government takes away the responsibility of schools to be accountable for their performance and opportunity for schools to use tax payer resources as effectively as possible. This puts the responsibility of ensuring a child is in a quality school with certified teachers from the schools and for the government to efficiently fund them, onto the parents who will have to pay more in school fees and taxes in the long term to make up for the negative social impacts programs like these create. I believe we should keep that responsibility on the schools where it belongs. Unfortunately, despite our continuing efforts to fight the state for the funds our local tax payers marked for our public schools that are transparent to charter schools that are privately held corporations that do not ensure students receive a quality education, may not favor hiring certified teachers, waste tax payer money and parents have no way of know about any of it. So, it is our mission to make sure that our schools are always the right choice for parents.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

How would you assess your superintendent’s performance?

“	He has a very thorough background on all levels of education and has always been very closely tied to this community. I do stand behind his efforts on supporting comprehensive special needs education and activities like special Olympics, bringing in higher education opportunities to our high school students and leading the charge against putting our educational resources on standardized tests rather than quality classroom instruction. However, there are some serious cases of safety and transparency that I believe should have been addressed differently. No student should have to go to federal court to make up for how they were handled unjustly as a victim of sexual violence and had staff discourage the student as well as the parents to seek their full legal rights while being denied their ability to continue their education in our district. I think we really need more effective interventions on preventing all types of violence and managing investigations as a neutral 3rd party between the accused and the accuser while involving the legal or social authorities as needed. We have to advocate for the safety and wellbeing of all our students equally. I believe if he needs to have much strong guidelines and concise measures when it comes to handling staff that leave students vulnerable to harm. We need to work harder to end and prevent all types of violence; sexual, physical, emotional, bullying and abuse. We need to let every student know they are safe here and when something happens that harms them on or off campus, we are their advocate for help.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

Where do you stand on the importance of early-childhood education? Would you support increasing class-size ratios at other grade levels in order to introduce or expand pre-K?

“	I am a very strong advocate for early education, especially to English learning students, those with disabilities and economically challenged. I cannot stress enough the importance of having that additional supportive baseline for every student to come into kindergarten and have additional support through 2nd grade via parent outreach and academic intermediation for students who start to fall behind. It is our responsibility to make sure students are successful early on by addressing their additional academic needs and not fall through the cracks leaving them to continue to underperform through the rest of their education. In response to expansion, I would look into as many grant opportunities available to allow for even younger students to attend with our consistent standard of younger grades with a smaller class size. Augmentation to require larger class sizes at our youngest grades should always be avoided and the school board would be responsible to allocate the resources needed for that vital early intervention.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

What resources are lacking in schools in your district? How could the district deliver services in the most cost-effective manner?

“	I think that one of the areas of opportunity for the district is improving the efficiency of the school board's communications. Next school year will be letting out later than other district because of the delays of the board being able to come together on proposals and has negative impacts on the students as well as upsets parents since they don't know what to expect. I propose the board use additional group organizational communications before board meetings between board members that would be posted to our website to support transparency. Board members only being able to work out problems or propose ideas over just a couple hours a month can cause for serious errors such as poor presentations that result in elementary schools not being rebuilt and leaves innovations that could be effective if implemented on time off the table. Better communication and preparation creates better results.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

In what ways can your district’s communications with parents be improved? Likewise, how can parental involvement in your district improve?

“	I think it's great that we have a parent/student portal to help families keep track of their student's progress. however, many of our families are in economically challenged situations. I would propose offering the low tech option of having a sealed letter a student has to hand deliver to the parent that they would have to sign for and return to the signed page to the school. This would ensure that more parents would have the important information in front of them and more likely to respond since it's presented in a very personal manner.	”
—Colleen Shaw (2017)

See also

• Lewisville Independent School District, Texas
• Lewisville Independent School District elections (2017)

External links

Suggest a link

• Lewisville Independent School District
• Twitter account