CHRIS SABIN QUESTIONNAIRE

Name: Chris Sabin
Town: Maplewood
Years living in district: For most of 42 years
Children in district: 3 (two at South Orange Middle and one at Columbia)
Occupation: Senior marketing consultant and business development

Why do you want to be on the school board?

I am running for the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education because I firmly believe that it is possible to do better. We must dramatically expand our pool of high achievers and make it impossible to assume the level of the class by the color of the students sitting in the classroom. We must prepare all graduates for success in college, career and life. And we must do so while preserving the rich experiences we offer students in the arts, athletics and music.
I am running because it’s no longer possible to say that “I’m doing my part” by serving as a youth sports parent. It is clear that the continued vitality of our community depends on a strong and flourishing school system. We all need to commit to modeling the values of trust, respect and caring that we wish to instill in our children. We need to enable the school district to rebuild a bond of trust with the parent community. I am ready for that challenge.

What is your top priority for the district?

In the short term, we need to address some of the things that are the source of so much frustration for parents – placement processes, inconsistent treatment of their kids, lack of a clear chain of command for appealing what they feel are unfair decisions at the school level, school security – the list goes on and on. We need to do this because it is our obligation to do it and because it is the only way we will restore trust in the district. That trust is a precondition for some of the bigger changes we need to make.
Central to those bigger changes is the need to make engagement and relationships between teachers and students the foundation of everything that we do. 

How would you cut costs without cutting education?

There are still operational efficiencies to be found, in our use of energy (nearly $2.5 million), our busing (nearly $5 million) and our employee healthcare (in the $10-12 million range annually).
There are other aspects of district operations that need more scrutiny on a regular basis. I support technology, but have the sense that we spend and spend, without making good use of the resources purchased. If we don’t have a plan for how we’re going to leverage specific technology then we need to avoid making the expenditure.
One area where we need to avoid looking for cuts are the “specials”: art, music and physical education. These are the core of who we are as a community. It is a false economy to trim these.
A big, but hidden cost component is the money we spend on supporting students below grade level. If we do it more effectively and aggressively in the early grades, we will reduce the amount we spend in the upper grades. Universal pre-school would go a long way to ensuring that all students arrive in kindergarten with no skill deficits. But effective engagement with every child is also a key component to ensuring that children do not become disenchanted with school and lose faith in their own abilities.
The Board needs to improve its public budgeting process and insist, through its requested annual analyses, that the Superintendent explain publicly how he is going to meet the district’s legal obligations, comply with Board policy and meet the district’s stated annual goals. Spending needs to be aligned with stated priorities.
All of that said, we are not going to cost-manage our way to stress-free budgets. We need to re-double efforts to find outside partnerships and grants. More importantly, we need to build effective alliances with communities across the state to force the next governor and legislature to fully fund NJ's school aid formula, targeting 10-20% increases in our District's state aid for several years to come.

What is your opinion of Dr. John Ramos and did you support his hiring?

The Board engaged the community on what it wanted and then went through two rounds of candidates before selecting Dr. Ramos. The decision was unanimous among the eight members authorized to vote, and that says a lot. I have confidence that they made the best choice.
Some of Dr. Ramos’ initiatives appear promising and the Board must give him its unanimous support to enable him to succeed. Some of what Dr. Ramos is proposing is not new. We need to support him and his ideas with better follow through.
He has a lot of experience but is new to our community. The Board must help him understand both the hopes and fears that drive all of us. His proposed solutions must take into account the need to rebuild parents’ trust in our schools.

How will you improve district communications with residents and parents?

We need to do a number of things, including:
Establish leadership and accountability as a shared responsibility of the Board, teachers and administrators.
Rebuild trust by engaging families with useful, timely, complete, consistent and accessible information. We need to be more proactive and less reactive.
Expand information on the website, ensuring that it contains timely, complete and easily searchable information on a well-defined list of topics, with that list reviewed annually by the Board and parent representatives, including the elementary Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), middle and high school Home and School Associations (HSAs) and the Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC).
Support Dr. Ramos in fulfilling his recent promise that all inquiries from parents receive an initial response within 48 hours and that nothing slips through the cracks.
Empower teachers to raise issues with the understanding that their suggestions will get full and fair consideration up the chain of command.
Support parental "right to know" and make full transparency a top priority in communications regarding District policies, placement criteria and the academic and disciplinary decision-making processes.

Should the board increase to two meetings per month to avoid late actions?

The current challenge of the existing meetings is their structure. The meetings are already too long, which discourages participation from the community. In addition, while Public Speaks offers an opportunity for members of the community to be heard, there is often no follow up or clear action steps from the information shared. Importantly, current rules prohibit Board dialog with the community during official Board meetings. Listening to the community should not just be a courtesy, but a greater opportunity for constructive dialog with the Board that contributes to achieving District objectives regarding the education and safety of our children.
I would recommend another approach to Board meetings, which would preserve the spirit of Public Speaks, while allowing the Board to focus on conducting monthly business in a more effective manner. For example, perhaps a separate public forum could be created to take the place of Public Speaks that would allow for true discussion among Board members and the community.  These ongoing meetings could be topic-driven as a means to better coalesce and track concerns, with clear guidance on response. Such a structure could facilitate better engagement with parents, while leaving the regular Board meetings to more efficiently conduct business.
In addition, the existing Board meetings need to have a more structured approach to creating tight agendas and tracking of Board business and progress.

What would you do to reduce the number of standardized tests for our students such as NJ ASK and PARCC?

While we don’t want kids being “taught to the test” at the expense of aligning with a more robust curriculum, we also need to maintain some degree of standardized metrics that will allow us to understand how the District is performing. We also need the data to understand if we are failing some children who may be falling through the cracks.
With that said, it is important to remember that high-stakes tests are just a snapshot of a child’s performance on a single day. We cannot rely on these tests alone to make decisions about the placement and performance of individual children. We need to take other factors into consideration – such as the body of a student’s work – in making decisions that impact individual evaluation and placement.

How would you change math placement in the upper grades?

We need to do more to ensure that children are receiving the grade-level fundamentals and competencies in elementary school and that they have the necessary foundation for success. This is a critical starting point as we consider math placement. In addition, we need to consider a student’s overall body of work and not only look to single tests to determine which math class is suitable for a student.
Limited evaluations effectively “cap” a child’s opportunities by not taking their overall potential into account. Children – at all levels – need to be positively challenged and supported to grow and improve. When placement decisions are made on test scores that may miss the cut off by a few points, we risk demotivating and disengaging students. This has damaging, long-term effects that begin well before students reach the upper grades.
Through broader measures, we can better assess placement that will allow struggling students to receive the necessary academic supports and the positive challenges for students who can do more. 

There have been many complaints about team coaches being dismissed, how would you make sure fairness is exercised in such hiring’s and firings?

In many cases, coaches are mentors, as well as teachers, for students. They have the opportunity to engage with students over a shared interest of sports. It is important for the District to ensure that the coaching staff have a vested interest in the community and mission of the high school and that there is consistency in how they engage with the students and their families.
The administration and coaches need to have common and broadly shared expectations on engaging with students and their families. This includes guidance to make sure the coaching staff is uniformly and consistently communicating with individual students and parents regarding the objectives and activities of the team, as well as the overall athletic program.   
Apart from personnel issues, I want to add that coaches can play an important role in facilitating access to athletics in cases where families may need to pay fees to participate. We need to provide the coaching staff with direction to ensure that they are all empowered to find ways to improve access so that any child can participate, regardless of ability to pay.

Anything else you want to say?

I’ve spoken to a lot of parents over the years and frequently hear common themes.  There is lack of trust that the district can consistently meet the needs of our kids. There is frustration that the District is not making progress fixing problems that have been around for years.  There is a feeling of a lack of transparency regarding decisions that impact our kids. There is a concern over school funding.
I’m a parent and understand that the unifying theme across the district is that we all care for and want what’s best for our kids. Our overall objective as parents -- and in this district -- is to provide our children with a quality education that will prepare them for future success.
To paraphrase Horace Mann, “Education is the great social equalizer.” The challenges that we grapple with in Maplewood and South Orange are many of the same issues that families deal with around the country.  We won’t be able to fix our problems in one day and there are no silver bullets, however we have a tremendous opportunity to come together and build on the positives in our community and across our schools.
We have the desire to improve access for all students. We have the desire to close the persistent racial achievement gap. As a community, I believe that we have the tools and capability at our disposal to come together and make the necessary positive changes,
But if we want to make progress, the Board needs to take a different approach. We need to build a more effective Board that will operate with greater accountability to deliver on the key District priorities and achieve educational excellence for all.