Meet school board candidates in 6 upcoming virtual forums

Upcoming school board forums will allow community members to meet, question school board candidates. Photo by Element5 Digital.

Meet the candidates in 6 upcoming school board forums

Delaware school board election forums kick off tomorrow, with six being held during the next two weeks so community members can meet their district’s candidates and hear their thoughts.

With only 10% of voters participating, organizers of the forums hope they will help increase voter familiarity and participation, particularly because they will be held virtually via Zoom. 

Here are the dates and times:

• Red Clay – Tuesday, April 26, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Capital – Tuesday, April 26, 7:15 p.m. to 6 p.m.
• Milford – Thursday, April 28, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Appoquinimink – Monday, May 2, 6 p.m. to 6:45 p.m.
• Caesar Rodney – Monday, May 2, 7 p.m. to 8 p.m.
• Colonial – Tuesday, May 3, 6p.m. to 7:15 p.m.

To register, click on any of the districts above to redirect to the registration page for that district’s forum.  

The forums are organized by 10 organizations, including ACLU Delaware, League of Women Voters, NAACP, and Delaware PTA. The 10 groups have coordinated to create a list of questions for the moderator to ask candidates. 

The forum is designed to be a conversation and not a debate. Candidates will not be going back and forth with each other. They will only have time to respond to the moderator’s question.  

The moderators will be a bipartisan individual, said Sade’ Truiett, director of advocacy and partnerships at First State Action Fund.

During the forum, Truiett and a colleague from First State Action Fund will be monitoring the Zoom chat box.

 If a community member has a question for a candidate, that person can send a message in the chat and the question will be reviewed and sent to the moderator to ask the appropriate candidate.

“It’s really important to attend the upcoming forums to know what the candidates are, what their platforms are, what matters most to them, and to make sure that as a community member, their ideas are in alignment with the vision of education that we have as a community for our schools,” ” said Truiett.

When we know better, we can do better, she said.

“The only way to be informed is to come out and hear what the candidates are saying and be able to ask them questions,” she said, “so that we can ensure that Delaware is always demanding and creating excellent education for our state’s kids.”