Darien Election: Stacey Tié For Board Of Education

DARIEN, CT — Election Day is approaching fast, and a number of key positions in town will be on the ballot.

To help readers make an informed decision on Nov. 2, Patch has reached out to local candidates to share their views on a few topics.

Democrat Stacey Tié, 38, is running for the Board of Education in Darien.

Occupation: Child Advocate

Family: Husband - Ryan, Daughter - Evelyn (11), Son - Morgan (9)

Experience: RTM Finance & Budget Committee

Family in government: No

The single biggest issue in town is ______, and I plan to do this about it:

I believe that the most important issue facing our district today is the remediation of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our staff already do a wonderful job meeting students where they are when they walk into the building, but we need to continue to assess for missed learning, speech and language deficiencies and social-emotional gaps.

As a board member, I will make sure that our staff have the training, tools, and resources necessary to support them as they lift our children out of the crisis of the past 18 months. I will also collaborate with other board members, administration, and our community to let every employee in our district know that we believe they can do this work, and and do it extremely well.

Critical differences between me and my opponents:

As a member of the RTM Finance and Budget Committee, not only do I deeply understand the Board of Education budget, I understand how it fits into the rest of the town’s finances. I know how we can be fiscally responsible while still remaining one of the best high schools in the nation.

As a child advocate, and I have been trained to actively listen to multiple sides of an argument and find an agreed upon consensus that benefits all stakeholders. The marriage of these problem solving skills with my budget experience makes me unlike any other candidate.

Accomplishments:

I have dedicated the last seven years of my life to advocating for children. I began my volunteer work by becoming an Early Learning Program representative to the Council of Darien School Parents (CDSP)in 2014. As I learned the complicated nature of special education, I began to informally help friends navigate the system.

Realizing I had a passion for supporting parents and children, I undertook coursework to become a non-attorney special education advocate, and am currently working as an advocate at the Law Offices of Dana A. Jonson, LLC, where I advise non-Darien families. While working as an advocate, I continued to volunteer at CDSP, joining the executive board with roles as Special Education Chair and Budget Co-Chair. I also served as Co-Advocacy Chair on Darien Advocates for the Education of the Gifted.

In 2016 I joined the Representative Town Meeting and have served on the Finance and Budget subcommittee (F&B) ever since. My role on F&B has afforded me first hand knowledge of both the town’s and the BOE’s budgets. This unique perspective and historical knowledge inform my understanding of both the numbers in the budget and the reasoning behind new initiatives.

Additionally, my working relationships with so many other town bodies enables me to cultivate a collaborative budget process that helps achieve the superintendent’s vision while remaining fiscally responsible.

Other issues:

The pandemic has put everything we do under a microscope. Every issue feels like an emergency, and it becomes difficult to sort out the most pressing issues, but Julie Best and I have prioritized health and safety. We want to ensure a safe, positive school environment in which all students feel comfortable, wanted, valued, accepted, and secure.

When we say health, we mean both mental and physical health. That means, for instance, understanding how kids are struggling in masks and developing support plans to help them; assessing if needs are being met adequately at MMS and DHS; monitoring the level of Special Ed/SRBI rates of referral to ensure sufficient capacity; ensuring support for staff mental health, and tracking vaccination rates and positive case rates so we’re always ready to make decisions with our local public health experts.

When we say safety, we mean both physical and technological, safety and security. That means, for instance, regularly reviewing security systems and safety measures; maintaining impenetrable technology; revisiting the bus radius; and putting all required resources, tools, and and communications in place to create a secure environment.

You can see more about our platform on our website: www.julieandstaceyforboe.com.

What else would you like voters to know about you?

Julie and I stand for a student-centered approach, with successful and diverse student outcomes, realizing that higher education institutions are not the only or best path for every child, while still aiming for academic excellence. We believe in a partisan-free board where collaborative problem solving is key, even when people disagree. We believe in local control with active parent and community engagement.

We believe in positive school climates that ensure inclusion and belonging; we plan to model kindness and respect, the same behavior we expect from our children. We believe in helping our top educational experts do their best for our kids and schools, and emphasizing the importance of social-emotional learning as we know that kids with strong mental health and resilience are better able to learn.

Finally, we believe all this can and will be accomplished in a fiscally responsible way.