Name: Johanna Wright
Town:South Orange
Occupation: Retired/Re-directed
Past/Current public service:
SOPAC
Board of Governors, Current Responsibilities include: SOPAC’s Strategic
Planning, New Diversity Subcommittee, SOPAC’s Educational Initiative, Halley’s
Comet Foundation, Board of Directors Lauryn Hill’s Refugee Project, Montclair’s Rights of Passage, NJSIAA
Basketball Official’s Observer, What are your three top priorities
for the school district if elected?
What are your three top
priorities for the school district if elected?
Recruitment and retention of
experienced/qualified staff via professional
development.
Two-way, transparent
Communication.
Closing the achievement gap
for children who are Special, for children who are highly proficient, and
absolutely for those children in between both of these groups, our Middle.
How do you think Dr. John
Ramos has done in his first year as superintendent? What could he do better?
Dr. Ramos has made a noble
effort but there is certainly room for improvements. We are in urgent need of
creating an HR Committee (as exists in most NJ school districts) along with our
HR Department to recruit and then
retain qualified staff. We must maintain hiring practices that are in strict
adherence with the law.
Currently our Strategic Plan
lacks the transparent communication
required for its long-term success.
Additionally, we need to measure
it against a Strategic Plan which is known to have achieved excellent results, like the one used
in the Princeton School District. Then
we would have a strong monitoring tool to evaluate how well it is succeeding.
We must implement and
enforce solid anti-bullying practices in
this district, so that parents, nor students, nor staff nor BOE members are
bullied into doing and colluding by silence in cruel acts.
How should the district
handle the PARCC testing in the future if it becomes more of a mandated
requirement?
In the future, starting now,
we must join with other districts across
the State, to petition the State to end
the requirement for PARCC as a graduation requirement.
In the meantime, we need to
develop data analysis teams in each school and at the central office. With these analyses, we can change and/or tweak
curriculum for our students to learn and excel.
Our Chief Information Officer should not be the only person tasked with data analysis. We
must set curriculum goals based on our strengths and weaknesses, and this
process should involve teachers.
How would you help the
district improve its communication with the community?
One need only glance at the
district’s website and note when it was last updated. There should be a constant flow of
information from the central office to parents— utilizing various
communications modalities, even Twitter. And nothing beats old-fashioned word
of mouth. We must get out of the offices
and into the community to let parents know what’s happening in our schools. Our
focus should be on transparency. We need to have forums in the schools, from which to get
input and exchange answers and information back to staff and students.
There needs to be a survival
guide produced for students and parents so they know their rights. The Sp Ed parents did one this year. Our focus should be on transparency.
I encourage two monthly BOE
meetings per month at least until we have responded to parents on issues, while
implementing the normal work a BOE must do.
I would also encourage the
return of office hours with BOE members.
I would strongly encourage
that information from administration be
shared earlier with BOE members than it
is presently, and snail mail as well as e mail be sent directly to BOE members,
How would you help improve
the achievement gap?
Tiered intervention is
needed in the regular classroom. Being
able to teach a mini lesson right in that classroom is what is needed to close
the gap. Our youngsters who are push in
replacements and/or pull out
replacements generate the biggest achievement gaps in this category
because they are not being taught the skills needed. These students will get a different
curriculum all year long and be made to take the same test that everyone else
is without the modified test. They have
accommodations on PARACC, but PARCC doesn’t have a modified test. So you are always going to have that gap.
You should not have a
modified curriculum, and then have the children to take the same test. We need better supports put in place for
these students, right now we do not have the supports in place.
There is no magic bullet for
the achievement gap, however, I would
also seek a comparative district that has successfully closed the achievement
gap and implement some of those strategies here at home.
How do you see racial issues
in the district given the concerns by some African-American students at CHS
that assigning a police officer to the school would have been a mistake.
I attended the forum at the
board office where the consensus among students and parents was, that heightened police presence is not
the answer. Even our two towns’ Mayor
and Village President plus other elected town officials were surprised, as were
parents who planned to speak out in favor of having the police in our schools,
at what they heard at this forum. They
had to change their minds when they
heard the actual stories of what had happened in our schools when we had police
in them. They realized those, who had given them selective
information about the police in our schools,
had not given them true information.
Students and students’ parents
made compelling cases, based
on years of experience gained in this our school
district, against having police at
school. Some
alumni returned to relate their experiences when we had police in CHS. Some of those who returned were still
traumatized by their experience at CHS during those years.
The Office of Civil Rights
and the ACLU have each filed complaints against the district which states that
we have systemic racial issues, both in and out of the classroom. It is of great concern to me that we
celebrate the diversity of our two
towns, while failing to cope with that diversity in our schools.
(In our community, the racial issues and
training start early.)
Let’s schedule anti bias
training with BOE members, and other administrators and staff who have not been
afforded the opportunity to be trained.
How would you handle the
expected enrollment increases that are already sparking some overcrowding given
the budget constraints that forced the cutting of 11 teaching positions?
I want to do everything in
my power to see that our most experienced and dedicated staff members are
retained. We seem to have money for
consultants when we need them, but not for those who have demonstrated they
know the problems within our school system and how to fix these problems.
One solution is complete the
scheduling process ahead of budget time, so that we have a clear idea of the
personnel required.
Over the past few years we
have loss great teachers needlessly because of a delayed scheduling process.
Sometimes we fire teachers, only to advertise for hiring those same teacher
positions late in the summer. How many
teachers have we hired back this fall after cutting them in the spring?
This oversight occurred with both the Special Education staff and the
librarians.
What is your position on
contracting out services vs in-district staffing?
I am in favor of in-district
staffing for multiple reasons. In the long run, in-house staffing is more cost effective and management efficient— we
have greater authority over staff
members who work directly for the district. We are also more capable of
managing supplies when services are
in-sourced.
The most compelling argument
against excessive outsourcing is a
budget comparison with comparable districts who hire mostly in house.
For example, year after year, our maintenance costs are higher than comparative
districts and the State average. Even Sup’t Osborne learned, that outsourcing
should not be a continued practice.
Outsourced employees are
interacting with children day after day. When it comes to children, there is no
room for wrong oversight. We deserve
to know exactly who is coming into contact with our children. They are our most
valuable, and vulnerable resource.
Sadly, in the past there have been questionable hires, including
personnel with arrest records.
How do you think the
district handled the CHS baseball coach controversy over alleged HIB incidents?
The alleged HIB incidents
were handled poorly, from their initial reporting up to the present time.
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