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Show The Park Record A-10 Dentist passes oral exam bubba brown/park record Marielle Pariseau, a former dentist and volunteer at the People’s Health Clinic, helped design a toothbrush and flossing device that doesn’t require toothpaste or water. She hopes to use the toothbrushes to bring a supervised brushing and flossing program to Summit County schools. With new kind of toothbrush, her aim is improving health By Bubba Brown The Park Record When Marielle Pariseau was a dentist in Canada, she started a supervised tooth brushing and flossing program at a local school modeled after an initiative in Scotland that has drastically reduced tooth decay in the country for decades. She quickly found, though, that putting two dozen students together and giving them toothpaste and water was a recipe for disaster. The program didn’t last long. “When I asked the teachers later what it would take to make a program like this work, they told me, ‘If you can make it work with no tubes of toothpaste, no spools of floss, no running water and no spitting, we’re in,”Cirque she Eloise said.H Trib.pdf 1 2/1/2017 Five years later, Pariseau, now a resident of the Park City area and a volunteer at the People’s Health Clinic, is trying again. Over the past few years, she worked with students in the Park City Center for Advanced Professional Studies program at Park City High School to design a disposable toothbrush/ flossing tool that doesn’t require water or spitting. The bristles of the brush, which are designed for children but can be used by anyone, are pre-pasted with xylitol, an FDA-approved compound that is proven to reduce bacteria that cause cavities and safe to swallow. “We designed it in children in mind, especially for ease of use in the classroom,” she said. “But you can take this in the console of a truck, a purse, anywhere to be able to brush and floss after meals that we consume away from home. It’s time that we let brushing and flossing out of the bathroom.” While Pariseau intends to sell the toothbrushes through her company, TeethFirst, she is also aiming to get them into 2:27:04 PM the hands of as many local chil- dren as possible. She is seeking to raise $40,000 through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter, and if she hits her goal, she hopes to partner with schools to put a supervised tooth brushing program into every kindergarten class in Summit County. The goal would be to provide simple oral health care for students, especially those whose families can’t afford dental insurance. And if the program in Scotland proves to be an accurate example, it could dramatically reduce cases of tooth decay, which afflicts a large percentage of children and comes with a host of negative effects. “If we start putting a system like this in the schools, then all the kids get to brush at least once a day for the correct amount of time, under supervision, and they also floss,” she said. “And they learn to do that as a routine. That is what is going to change the dynamics of oral health.” For information on the Kickstarter project, visit kickstarter. com and search Marielle Pariseau’s name. Continued From A-9 UEA president mental problem of what we’re facing here in Utah, which is providing adequate funding for our students and schools.” That’s why the UEA has thrown its support behind the Our Schools Now initiative, an effort from several of the state’s business leaders to get a measure on the ballot in 2018 that would increase taxes to fund education. If passed, the measure would raise state income taxes seven-eighths of one percent -- a 17.5 percent increase to the current 5 percent rate -- to generate $750 million annually in new revenue for education. Matthews said such a windfall would allow for the types of pay increases that would keep new teachers in the profession -- currently, nearly 50 percent of teachers leave within five years -- and would fund programs that would make a measurable difference in classrooms. Wed/Thurs/Fri, February 22-24, 2017 Many Republicans in the Legislature have spoken out strongly against Our Schools Now, such as Rep. Tim Quinn -- whose district covers Park City -- who said levying such a large tax increase would harm taxpayers and would not grow revenues in the long run. Matthews, though, said the Legislature’s current plan to increase education spending by raising the weighted pupil unit (WPU) by 3 percent, equaling $90 million, doesn’t scratch the surface of what schools need. She said district superintendents around the state have been adamant that a 2.5 percent increase to the WPU -- the mechanism through which the state funds public education -- is the minimum needed just to keep schools operating. “When you talk about 3 percent on the WPU, that only gives a half of a percent to really come into play to address anything else,” she said. “If we had a 5 percent increase on the WPU that only went to salaries, it would take us five years to get to the national average. And by then we wouldn’t be at the national average.” Matthews is also skeptical of efforts to change how current education monies are allotted. For instance, S.B. 80, sponsored by Sen. Lincoln Fillmore, a Re- publican from Jordan, would take some money that would normally go to more well-off districts, such as the Park City School District, and give it to poorer school systems that don’t have a prosperous tax base. In Matthews’ view, though, no district in Utah is funded well enough to spare any money from the state. Instead of cutting the pie differently, she said, lawmakers should increase the size of the pie. “Simply to take from Park City to redistribute across the state doesn’t address the fundamental problem of there not being enough resources going into our schools,” she said. One legislative effort that has drawn the UEA’s support is overhauling the controversial school grading system that raises the ire of many parents, teachers and administrators each fall. H.B. 241, from Rep. Marie Poulson, a Democrat from Salt Lake City, would do away with the current grading system, which is based on SAGE test scores, and calls instead for evaluating schools on a number of factors, ranging from graduation rate to the amount of advanced programs offered. “It’s all of these different aspects,” Matthews said, “instead of a grade that is based on a test score that happened one day.” park record file photo Heidi Matthews, a former Park City school librarian who is now the president of the Utah Education Association, says increasing school spending should be the top priority of legislators. Instead, however, she’s disappointed by what she sees as a lack of urgency to address a “crisis” of funding. |