Jill Popelka (Place 2)

Question 1- As a chamber of commerce, we are interested in hearing what you think is your desired relationship for the business community and the Independent School District to work together and how might you help us achieve that relationship?

“Obviously coming from business, I care a lot about the talent that’s coming into the business community. I think that there’s really a great symbiotic relationship between our schools and our businesses. Our schools are providing talent for our business and our businesses have the opportunity to provide great experience for our kids. Intelligence has three parts- it’s diverse, it’s dynamic, and it’s distinct. We need to give our students these experiences. One way that we can do that is by engaging our businesses and our education system. I know we have a liason at the city, but I think that there are ways that we can do that even more deeply, to give great experiences to our students who are soon going to enter the workforce. My daughter in 9th grade is already at a place where she can contribute to the conversation. She loves sitting at the table and listening to things like that, so why not give her an experience in the workplace a few days a week to understand what it’s like to sit in a meeting, to have conversations, to make decisions. I think our businesses would be really excited about that because it would give them a taste of the talent they’ve got coming up. Our business leaders should have a lot of input on how our schools are run and the proposals that come to the board. As we make decisions on committees that give oversight to things like how our bond is implemented, that can engage business members and help them feel like they have a hand in creating our schools.”

Question 2- What makes you the best candidate to serve on the board of trustees?

“First of all, and most importantly, I’m passionate about our kids and preparing them for the future and I have the energy to devote to it. I’m very excited about becoming a board member and serving with a team, including our superintendent, to improve our schools. I’ve invested a lot of time as a parent, both in the elementary school level and at the middle schools, both things like field day and international day and all the events that happen in our school as well as just being a parent, helping with homework every night, and understanding the best way to use the technology that we have at home to support our kids. I also love talking to our teachers and understanding their perspectives and how can we make their worlds easier and how can we make their lives better and allow them to be more impactful for our kids. I was out to understand how the district really runs, so I participated in the Coppell ISD Ilead program that taught me a lot about school finance, about the governance programs and procedures about the policy that we run by, about our curriculum and how we manage curriculum. All of those things are very important to understand as you come into a membership on the board. I don’t have an agenda, I don’t have two or three things that I’m here to accomplish while I am here to serve. I just want to make great decisions for our schools and I want to be the best possible board member based on what I have to bring to the table.”

Question 3- Demographers project that we will have 29,000 additional students in the district in the next 5-10 years. What is your solution to address the increase in population and potential overcrowding in our schools as well as addressing aging facilities and infrastructure?

“Like many of my fellow candidates, I support the bond. I watched the evolution of this bond, I believe it was well put together, I believe it is prioritized well, and the people that worked on it worked diligently in the interest of our community. Interesting fact, today I learned that the Grapevine/Colleyville ISD also had a $249 million bond on the table, so it’s not unprecedented, it’s not something that’s terribly, terribly unusual right now. The fact is this is where Texas school finances is today, and it’s what we are required to do in order to make space for these kids. It was voted for unanimously by our board, and that says a lot. I trust the people on our board and I think they make good decisions. That said a lot to me as well. Community oversight is also important as we move forward with implementing the bond. I think there are some other things that we should consider. Beyond implementing those buildings, we have to consider how to engage all of these additional parents. That’s 29,000 kids, that’s a lot of families we also need to engage in this process, we also have to ensure that we have the technology to support all those kids. Part of the bond also includes improving our infrastructure, but beyond that, we also have to make sure that we are enabling the teachers. This is a big group of new teachers as well, and they are going to need to come into Coppell and understand the culture of our district and understand the expectations that we have, and ensure that they contribute well to make sure that these kids have the best possible education. I believe that the bond is necessary, and beyond that, we have some additional things that we need to address as well.”

Question 4- We are a very diverse community now, how will you unique the community behind our schools?

“So you know i think this is this is an important part of my campaign and why I am up here today and that is a big community conversation. I read a book called schools cannot do it alone and a woman named Jamie Vollmer wrote about how important it is that we have a very deliberate conversation between our communities and our schools and that we hear our communities and we understand the needs that they have, their concerns and also that we educate our community on where we are as a district and the needs that we have and the places that we want to go. That deliberate conversation is just like this forum except it’s more interactive. We have specific topics and we bring in people from different age groups and ethnicities and different political beliefs and it’s almost like extending the campaign. It’s continuing to do that as we do our jobs as board members and so that would be my solution.”