by Pamela Powers Hannley
Blog for Arizona was well-represented at the Tucson Unified School District (TUSD) candidate forum, sponsored by Drinking Liberally, last night. As Dave said is his post earlier today, he was the moderator. Sitting next to him, I filmed the entire forum, and, of course, nearby was the "Father of Drinking Liberally Tucson," Mike.
The evening was cordial. There were no outbursts from the candidates or the audience of about 35, which included current TUSD board member Adelita Grijalva.
Unlike Dave, I'm not going to offer candidate critiques, except to say that we disagree. What I am going to provide is the candidates' unedited voices in a series of videos. The first one is attached to this post below.
Dave (and audience members) asked several great questions on a wide range of topics including Mexican American Studies, TUSD's budget, teachers' unions, school closing, administrative downsizing, and many more. Each candidate got one minute to answer each question, plus a 1.5 minute opening and closing statement. If one candidate directly critized another one, the defendant got a 30-second rebuttal. As a result, Kristel Foster and Betts Putnam-Hidalgo gave Dr. Mark Stegeman and Miguel Cuevas a few extra minutes over the course of the evening.
After the jump, watch the candidates' closing remarks.
