Name: Dorcas
Lind
Town:
Maplewood
Years living
in district: 12
Children in
district: 2
Occupation:
President &Founder of Diversity Health Communications, LLC
Why do you want to be on the school
board?
The talent,
vision, and passion of parents and educators in the SOMSD is powerful and far
reaching. Our public schools and associated communities have the potential to
serve as a role model of academic excellence for the state and the country. I
am prepared to contribute my professional and personal skills to support the
district enter a new era, and thrive under the leadership of our new
superintendent, Dr. John Ramos, who encourages all of us to think about how to
prepare for a world yet unimagined.
Growing up
in NYC, I attended public elementary schools and experienced significant
barriers to my academic growth and achievement. In the fifth grade, I was
fortunate to have an Assistant Principal recognize my potential and guide my
journey into a prestigious private school which allowed me to blossom and
engage on a dynamic and rewarding educational journey. While I am deeply grateful
for this experience, I have always held a fundamental belief that the young
people of our nation should not all have to be “lucky” or “in the right place
at the right time” to receive a stellar education.
I chose to
become part of the Maplewood/South Orange community because of its diverse and
inclusive heritage, and am committed to investing time and resources to help
contribute to a high quality, effective, and responsive public school district
that meets the academic and developmental needs of all students in our two
villages.
What is your top priority for the
district?
Our district
has been plagued with various issues around access and equity. When there are
districtwide dynamics that inhibit our students from reaching their fullest
potential, it hurts all of the children in our community. We also struggle with
incomplete, ineffective, and sometime contradictory communications. Different
schools have their own processes and approaches to engage parents and guardians
in the everyday functions and activities of the school. However, critical
pieces of information, including but not limited to budget details, district
and school level policies around special education and placement, and decisions
around testing and leveling procedures and measurement, are often complex and
buried within district documents that are inaccessible to parents who want and
need basic and clear information to support informed decisions on behalf of
their children. Given this context, my priorities for the district include:
1. Effectively shepherding
implementation of Superintendent Ramos’ Access and Equity policy across all
schools in the district
2. Identifying a fiscal approach that
will address the $20 million deficit without diminishing quality education in
the classroom, in the art studio, in the field, or on the stage.
3. Delineating a plan for how the
district will manage the 20% increase over the past 10 years in elementary
school enrollment which serves as the development pipeline for our two middle
schools and CHS
4. Identifying a clear path forward for
Seth Boyden and district plans for redistricting
5. Establishing a district wide master
communications plan to ensure transparency, accuracy, timeliness and access to
all relevant district news across and within district schools.
How would you cut costs without
cutting education?
The first
step in cutting costs is to have a clear understanding of what they are and how
they add value to overall learning in the district. Clarity of budget
allocations and spending will enable the board to identify where costs can be
saved, where there is over spending, and where there are gaps to be filled. One
of the ways to enhance learning is to effectively utilize resources that
already exist in the district. This is especially important as the district
struggles to address a daunting $20 million deficit. There are a few opportunities
for cutting cost without jeopardizing learning:
1. One approach to increasing learning
and increasing opportunities for greater educational access is by identifying,
hiring and cultivating teachers with dual certification. Teachers who can be
nibble and move fluidly between language arts and special education, for
example, will offer greater mastery of the skills needed to manage inclusion
classes and reduce the need for additional training and supplemental
professional development classes
2. Along these dual-certification lines,
athletic coaches have tremendous influence over students. There should be
support for content teachers to become coaches or co-coaches within the
district. For example, some districts in the tristate area support content
teachers from math, science, and language arts to obtain certification in
coaching sports as a supplement to their academic subject certification. Such
an approach supports the belief and evidence that students are engaged and
succeed in school when they experience connection and relationships with
teachers and coaches who follow them from the classroom into the field.
3. External consultants have been a
tremendous drain on district resources and do not always deliver the
“solutions” that lead to the best results within the district. These range from
curriculum and training consultants to legal consultants hired to address
issues of access and equity that we fundamentally should be getting right
without their intervention simply by following the law. There are numerous
talented and qualified specialist and administrative leaders already within the
district who, in collaboration with the Superintendent and the board, can
identify issues and develop informed action plans to address and solve district
wide problems.
What is your opinion of Dr. John
Ramos and did you support his hiring?
The hiring
of Dr. John Ramos was the right and wise decision for the district. In his
short time as superintendent, Dr. Ramos has astutely observed that our district
spends a lot of time reacting to issues which can often be the cause of
conflict and adversarial exchange. I share his vision of working in a proactive
vs. reactive mode in order to allow for purposeful planning and execution. Ramos’
focus on service and fostering a culture of learning vs. a culture of schooling
aligns with my personal beliefs about how education should be managed.
Specifically, I support Ramos’ view that the district must:
· Agree on core competencies and how
they are measured
· Effectively assess what outcomes
matter most
· Identify mandates tied to funding and
those that are more flexible
· Ensure that all students are being
challenged and engaged in order for them to reach their fullest potential
· Ensure teachers across the district
have what is needed to effectively engage students in learning that leads to
new ways of thinking and increased innovation in and out of the classroom
How will you improve district
communications with residents and parents?
Recent
efforts to improve communications from the district have been encouraging. I’ve
spoken with families throughout the two Villages and many have experienced
positive uptake of the Let’s Talk online tool developed to solicit feedback and
offer key stakeholders a place to express ideas, insights, complaints, and concerns
about what’s not working, or compliments about things the district is getting
right.
The larger
issue I have observed is the lack of a master communications plan that outlines
the how, who, when and why (or why not) the district communicates about
critical issues. Currently, communications are piecemeal, with traditional
letters, emails, web posts and mobile texts used to communicate everything from
the resolution of the civil rights investigation to whether or not there will
be a school closing due to inclement weather. Parents do not have a clear
understanding of which communications are district or school level, and PTA/PTO
organizations deliver communications inconsistently across schools in the district.
One of my main objectives, if elected to the board, would be to drive
development of a master communications plan that focuses on:
· Increasing transparency and access to
all district policies
· Establishing and supporting consistency
and timeliness in district responses to community inquiries
· Standardizing district communications
across issues and topics
· Creating templates and procedures for
school level communications to reduce inconsistencies in how different sets of
parents receive information based on which school their child attends
· Identifying key channels to
disseminate information more aligned with when and how parents need to receive
it
· Eliminating the black hole where
fundamental questions about logistics, disparities and challenges such as:
o
“My
child has an IEP but continues to receive limited intervention or accommodation
even after I have spoken to the teacher and the principal several times.”
o
“It’s
90 degrees in my child’s classroom, when will they install an air conditioner?”
o
“There have been 3 fender benders during
drop-off in the past two months. When will there be traffic support and real
interventions for better school drop off/pick up plans?”
o
“My
child participated in an intensive summer program, worked with a tutor and is
ready to try a more challenging math class, how can he (we) make this happen?”
…do not get
lost in the system, fueling further frustration and hostility across the
district.
Should the board increase to two
meetings per month to avoid late actions?
If I am
elected to the board, I would first assess the current processes and procedures
that are in place to determine the underlying causes for late actions that have
occurred. There are several critical questions that need to be addressed. For
example:
· Why has the once-per-month schedule
been inadequate? Are there current behaviors or dynamics within the board that
are hindering effective collaboration and decision-making?
· Is access to critical information
cause for delays in decision-making?
· Is the board resourced properly as
far as a divide and conquer approach in order to present, assess, debate and
act upon issues in a timely fashion?
· What are the consequences for late
actions?
After
assessing the context in which late actions have occurred, I would then suggest
moving to a pre-read scenario where all board members have increased
opportunity to review topics and presentations in order to best utilize
discussion and decision making time during monthly meetings. If late actions
continue to occur, I would support a reevaluation of the board schedule.
What would you do to reduce the
number of standardized tests for our students such as NJ ASK and PARCC?
With respect
to testing, the role of the board should be to identify those mandates that are
tied to funding, and help clarify “mandates” that are more flexible and have
lesser impact on allocation of district resources. In
collaboration with the Superintendent and school leaders, the board should lead
the effort in determining the appropriate amount and level of testing and assessments
in which students should participate, with the least amount of time and
resources spent on teaching to – and preparing for – unnecessary, unproductive
and sometimes harmful testing.
How would you change math placement
in the upper grades?
A student’s
ability to perform and excel in mathematics should not be contingent upon how
she tested twice during 5th grade and middle school. For the majority of students, excessive standardized
testing creates stress and anxiety that distracts from deeper learning and serves
as a disincentive to pursue further topic exploration. This rigid approach rewards early and
skilled test takers and punishes a wide range of students including those who
may not have reached their potential early on or have limited access to support
that would enable them to be better test takers. I would actively work with the
board to identify alternate approaches to math placement that do not follow the
rigid leveling system that categorizes students well before they have the
maturity, opportunity, or access to fully realize their math potential.
There have been many complaints about
team coaches being dismissed, how would you make sure fairness is exercised in
such hirings and firings?
Athletic
coaches in the high school setting play a critical role in the educational
experience of many of our students in the district. Coaches serve as models for
values and behaviors and can often be the gateway to further education and
increased participation in organized, collegiate sports. Whenever there is a
complaint about the manner in which a coach is conducting him or herself, steps
should be taken to investigate the complaint through internal and external
means in order to ensure all sides of the matter have been sufficiently vetted.
It is absolutely essential that student’s experiences must be acknowledged and
respected AND that individual coaches do not experience character assassination
while open investigations are underway.
Recent
policy attempts to address differences in coaching “styles” has caused much
frustration and clouded the issue of appropriate and legal behavior. The board
must serve as a fair and neutral entity and make hiring decisions based on indisputable
evidence of exceptional coaching skills, and a track record of integrity – and
firing decisions based on the absence of these factors. If elected to the
board, I would encourage the most rigorous assessment of both students and
coach’s actions and behaviors to determine if and when a coach has crossed the
line, and whether specific intervention is required.
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