Donna Smith, Maureen Jones, and Elizabeth Baker all responded, while Godwin Molokwu did not.
Their answers are below in alphabetical order, unedited.
Elizabeth Baker
1. How do you plan to find a
new superintendent given the strict superintendent salary cap?
First,
we need to describe the superintendent we need, and that’s someone who is the
“total package.” Our superintendent must
be an educational leader who is committed to rigor and opportunity for all
students. To achieve our goals, the
successful candidate must bring strong management and communication skills to
implement the District’s educational vision, someone who can build on the district’s many
strengths while addressing the shortcomings identified by parents in recent
public discussions. We need a strong
communicator who makes partnership with parents a top priority, and requires
district staff to do the same. But no
single individual knows everything. Nor
can he or she do it alone. So we need to
find someone who has many of the strengths we’re looking for, as well as a
consciousness of his or her shortcomings and an ability to leverage others’
strengths to meet our district’s needs.
The process to
select the new superintendent is already underway, and the next Board will make
the hiring decision. Presumably, all the
applicants are well aware of the salary cap and what their pay would be upon
acceptance. The district offers many
opportunities and challenges that will attract candidates who want to gain
unique and strong professional experience running a school district and who
want to be associated with our many great programs and aspirations. That being said, the process of finding the
‘right’ candidate, with the background and energy we need, may take more time
than we would like due to the restrictive salary environment created by the
salary cap.
2. What is your top priority
for the school district?
A
true partnership between the schools, parents, and teachers is my top priority
because it will address so many of the challenges that children and families
face, and it is a key component to ensuring that every student thrives. Much of the anxiety that parents feel about
their school and their children’s experience stems from the inconsistencies
from classroom to classroom, unclear management structures, an inability to
access services, and breakdowns in communication. Communication needs to be both meaningful and
mutual. Educational leaders in all our
schools and the district should be routinely asking parents “How are we doing?”
and learning from the answers. Moreover,
in the middle and high schools, we need to weave communication between parents
and teachers back into the fabric of life in our schools. Power School is a helpful tool, but not a
substitute for communication.
3. Why do you want to be on the
school board?
I
walked each of my children to school on the first day of kindergarten filled
with the hope and promise that every parent feels for their child, and the
trust that my child was entering a stimulating, caring environment where she
could grow and become a lover of learning.
My children have had some great experiences and excellent teachers who
truly understood them, both nurturing and challenging them. Like many parents, I have also seen obstacles
that stand in the way of great teaching and the vibrant learning environment
that we want for children in our district, including communication breakdowns,
low expectations, budget pressures, and the huge amount of work it takes, at
all levels, to roll out new initiatives.
I want to be part of the continuing process of ensuring every child is
valued and engaged, and that we have real communities of learners and
opportunity in our schools. We have good
schools and lots of talent but fewer resources than we’d like. It is critical that we are intentional,
coordinated and focused in both our policy-making and the implementation of our
goals. I want to help meet these challenges,
as we look for and maximize every opportunity to make our schools great and
maintain that sense of hope and promise that we have for our children.
4. What is your greatest asset
for the district?
My
professional experience has taught me to ask hard questions but, at the same
time, look for areas of common ground and bring everyone to a workable
solution. You have to give people space
to speak about the issues, consider information, and take in various points of
view. We need that space and that input
to make good decisions for all the children of our district. There are many stakeholders in the process of
educating our children, including teachers, parents, administrators, and
taxpayers. I’m used to dealing with
competing perspectives, listening and learning from different stakeholders, and
arriving at solutions that create effective outcomes to which all parties feel
they have contributed.
5.
Was the school
district reaction to the Tuscan security breach overdone?
Even
though the intruder turned out to be a reporter, the Tuscan security incident
was alarming to both parents and staff at the school. Everyone agrees that a safe and healthy
school environment is a prerequisite for great teaching and student
learning. So I think we should view the incident
and the ensuing discussion as an opportunity for our district to take stock of
what we are doing and develop educationally-appropriate preventive measures to
safeguard the well-being of both students and staff.
The Tuscan incident also underscored the need
for our district, despite our budget constraints and the myriad demands we
face, to always seek out and apply best practices. As we grappled with what had happened, many
parents understood the need for our schools to take short term action to ensure
safety while we assessed our infrastructure and operations to develop a better
preventive plan. For this reason,
parents could accept, in the short term, the restrictions regarding visits to
our schools. However, these rules have
not been applied with consistency, and some basic procedures that were in place
last year – and which were not controversial – may not be in place this year.
Further,
it is still unclear to parents what steps our district has taken to ensure that
we are following the best preventive practices, and doing so consistently from
one school to another. While we cannot
publicly discuss the details of our schools’ security plans, our district
should be able to share with parents, teachers, and members of the community
what we are doing to identify best practices and make sure we are taking
reasonable, preventive steps to ensure safety in all our schools.
6. What do you think of the
Columbia teacher’s arrest on under-aged sex charges and could it have been
prevented? If so, how?
The
safety and wellbeing of our students must be the top priority for our District. In addition to the prosecutorial
investigation, our district clearly needs to complete its own internal
investigation to learn whether and how this situation could have been prevented
and/or detected more readily, and look at the best practices of other school
districts for preventing and detecting abuse.
As
a parent, I am also very concerned about reports that many students seemed to
know about the situation and yet it took a considerable amount of time before
adults learned of it. Clearly we need to
reinforce with our children the importance of coming forward to report improper
or abusive conduct and seek help, whether for themselves or their fellow
students. But we must also empower them
to do so. While we may not know, or be
able to discuss, the details of the ongoing investigations, opening up these
channels of communication and empowering our students is something we need to
start doing now.
7.
What
is your view of tenure that makes it difficult to fire bad teachers and how
would you change it?
Managing
and developing staff is one of the superintendent’s major responsibilities, and
I would like this to be emphasized in the superintendent selection
process. The district needs to provide
more consistent teaching practice from school to school and classroom to
classroom. While we talk a great deal about differentiated instruction, we need
to equip our teachers to provide that instruction. The fairly new revisions to the tenure law
seem to provide both a more deliberate practice for making tenure decisions
regarding new teachers, as well as a clear standard and fair process for
removing ineffective teachers, whether they have tenure or not. I would like to see our district do more to
define and implement best practices developing new teachers and incorporating
professional development into the daily life of our schools.
Maureen Jones
1. How do you plan to
find a new superintendent given the strict superintendent salary cap?
The state-imposed salary cap will sunset during the
next superintendent’s contract and my understanding is that many legislators
are opposed to its renewal – we are not the only district who lost a
Superintendent to a New York district which could offer more money. So anyone
we hire has the prospect of a higher salary over the long term. Besides, money
is not the only thing that a good educator looks for when deciding where to
work. The kind of Superintendent we want
will be attracted to a district like ours because of its combination of
accomplishments and challenges.
Hiring the right person will be a challenge but I’m
convinced that we can if we take the time we need – possibly going a second
round if we’re not excited about anyone in the first pool of candidates. I am
particularly concerned that we might fall for someone who promises the moon in
a convincing way. I’m more interested in hearing from – and hiring – someone
with sober judgment, who will tell the Board the truth and even say “no” when
we ask for too much in too short a timeframe
2. What is your top
priority for the school district?
We need to challenge all students in every classroom,
every day. Where our district needs to
improve to realize this goal is by investing in capacity building for our staff
and developing teacher leadership in our schools, by reviewing the educational
effectiveness of our district’s special services, and by ensuring that all
adults display the consistent expectation that students can and will rise to
the occasion and become successful learners.
We need to ensure that there are adequate resources
in inclusion classrooms, proactive outreach to parents, a more streamlined
process for evaluation and classification, as well as clarity for regular
education teachers on the content of each student’s Individual Education Plan
(IEP).
Most important of all, however, is professional development.
We need more of the sort of professional development that happens every day, as
part of the regular school day because it’s part of the culture of the school.
We need to create structures that recognize our best teachers as teacher
leaders and leverage their experience for less experienced members of the
staff.
We need to be careful that the new evaluation and
accountability measures mandated for principals and program leaders to use,
doesn’t chill their ability to act as trusted instructional leaders for the
same teachers they evaluate.
3. Why do you want to
be on the school board?
I want to serve for several reasons: Number one, I want
to be a voice on the Board for all those families who are less able to advocate
for themselves – families for whom English is a second language, families of
children with special needs, families
who may be struggling to make ends meet.
The district needs to become more effective at engaging with these
families, making our district easier to navigate; being helpful in whatever way
is necessary to make them feel a full part of the school community.
Number two, I want to serve because I’ve seen – in
one district after another – how hard it is to get this right and because at the
same time I know that we as a community can get it right -- but only if we’re
willing to listen to one another, to learn from one another and support one
another in a joint effort to sustain our great school system. I want to make
that dialogue happen.
Third, and most importantly, I am committed to transforming
the way we support and train teachers. Good teaching is the foundation for
everything that we do.
4. What is your
greatest asset for the district?
A lifelong interest in helping children with
special needs led me to become a speech language pathologist and now it’s
motivated me to run for the school board.
I want to make sure that every child is challenged and nurtured every
day no matter their starting point or their
abilities.
I’ve worked in many districts and observed several
approaches to making schools successful. I know how hard it is for teachers to
handle classrooms of children with disparate needs even as they’re asked to
master new curriculum and instructional approaches. But I also know that
teachers can do it when school districts are well organized and have strong
instructional leadership. As a Board member, it will not be my role to get into
the nuts and bolts of how our educators do their jobs. But it is the Board’s
responsibility to see that the schools are well run.
Drawing on my experience, I want to bring a sense
of reality to the Board’s discussion of how schools work, how long it takes to
improve them and the most sensible ways to measure school effectiveness. As a speech language pathologist I know that
listening, observing and placing one’s self in the other person’s shoes is the
way to connect. I believe the Board
needs to do this better; to understand how its goals and decisions impact
children, their parents, and staff members trying to get the job done in the
classroom. I hope to help the Board fully consider all these perspectives as
part of its decision-making process.
5. Was the school
district reaction to the Tuscan security breach overdone?
I’m not sure I understand this question – are you asking
whether parents and staff overreacted or the district administration did too
much in response. I think the answer to both is “no”. Parents worry about
safety and, unfortunately, there have been too many attacks in schools around
the country for anyone to say it won’t happen here, however slight the chance
may be.
Our first and top priority for our children should
always be safety. We can’t make our
schools perfectly safe but we should make them reasonably safe. That means that
we have to have plans, policies and procedures defined, and we have to make
sure they are followed all the time. What happened at Tuscan – while it turned
out not to be a real threat – is a good example of what Elizabeth and I mean
when we say that there is sometimes a gap between the goals and policies in
Central Office and the day-to-day life of our schools.
Did the school district move fast enough to implement
new plans, procedures and facilities to meet our safety and security needs? Probably
not, but the problem is not necessarily a lack of effort or a lack of intention.
In my view, the district is always trying to do too much at once and that
results in a lot of things not getting done well or in a timely fashion. That’s
why I’ve repeatedly said that a key strength of whoever we hire as a
Superintendent must be the ability to say “no” when the Board asks for too
much, too quickly.
6. What do you
think of the Columbia teachers arrest on under-aged sex charges and could it
have been prevented? If so, how?
We are all appalled that this happened and wonder
why it went on for so long before being uncovered. We need to make our middle
and high schools more personalized, so that students will feel safe confiding
in other adults at the school when one of the adults starts exhibiting
problematic behavior. And we need proactive efforts to talk to students about
all the challenges they might face on the path to adulthood and the best ways
to respond to them.
7. What is your view of tenure that makes it
difficult to fire bad teachers and how
would you change it?
In the old system, it was in fact possible to dismiss
ineffective teachers but the process took too long and cost way too much. The
new law strikes the right balance between a district’s needs and a teacher’s
right to due process when accused of underperformance. The new law also
provides for a tenure renewal process that is more problematic. In and of
itself, requiring that teachers have to periodically re-certify is not that
threatening to most teachers. The thing that I’m concerned about is the impact
that the new teacher evaluation process is going to have. Using test scores as
part of a teacher’s overall evaluation makes no sense – there are too many
external factors that go into children’s performance on standardized tests beyond
the classroom teacher.
Donna Smith
1. How do you
plan to find a new superintendent given the strict superintendent salary cap?
Despite the salary cap, the district already has
received quite a few applications. In
view of that, I am certain that we can find a superintendent who meets the
criteria set by the Board. The more difficult
question is how to retain the superintendent for any length of time, if the
salary cap continues. I am hopeful that
the state legislature will refuse to extend the cap when it comes up for
consideration.
A number of people at the search fora have
asked for a superintendent who is a visionary and I agree but in the sense of
being able to view all of our district’s challenges and address them creatively
and strategically. We have a number of
new initiatives and programs being implemented in the district and a history of
just plunging ahead without appropriate evaluation. We are in the process of implementing IB at
the middle schools, the Common Core, PARCC assessments, and TeachNJ procedures,
all while facing a looming deficit. This
‘visionary’ therefore needs to have a number of strengths that can help meet
these challenges, not the least of which is how to manage the budget.
I think the superintendent also should have a
good understanding of the teaching profession and be able to provide the
appropriate support for teachers during these challenging times. There has been a lot of turnover in the
district, including the Maplewood Middle School principal, superintendent of
curriculum, Jefferson School principal, IB coordinator, and a new principal and
assistant principal at the high school, so a strong skilled manager is
definitely needed.
We will be asking quite a lot of the new
superintendent and we should take our time conducting the search, so as to
bring in the right person.
2. What is
your top priority for the school district?
At practically every
superintendent search forum we heard the same comment from parents, that their
children are not being sufficiently challenged.
If elected, I will insist on challenging
classes for all students. We must
prioritize solid professional development in differentiated instruction for
elementary and middle school teachers, so that the needs of all types of
learners can be met. We want to make
sure that we are providing appropriate support for students with special needs
in our district. I also want to ensure
that at the high school, access to AP and honors classes is expanded and that
the process and requirements for entering those classes is more
transparent. Students who are eligible
to be placed in honors or AP classes should not be prevented from doing so
because of scheduling problems, lack of course offerings, or inadequate support
from the Guidance Department, which should be encouraging students to register
for classes that are appropriately challenging.
3. Why do you
want to be on the school board?
I have wanted to run for the BOE for a long time, but
did not believe I could devote a sufficient amount of time and attention to a
position on the board until now. I care
very much for our community and our schools and believe that I can make a real
contribution to the district by serving on the Board of Ed. I can be a consensus builder, something that
I think is sorely needed, and help the Board and the district move forward,
meeting the many challenges we are facing at this time.
4. What is
your greatest asset for the district?
I think my greatest asset is my experience in the
district. I know
our schools inside and out as I have put my 3 boys through our K-12
schools. During that time I have held
leadership roles in the PTA, HSA and the PTA Presidents Council. I participated in district search committees
for administrative personnel and on the Strategic Planning committee as well as
the Task Force for Equity and Excellence.
I also have advocated for students and parents, spearheading two
different parent groups that challenged the district to maintain challenging
coursework at the middle schools. My leadership and experience in the district
will allow me to hit the ground running if I am elected to the Board.
5. Was the
school district reaction to the Tuscan security breach overdone?
If you mean that installing additional cameras and
other security measures was overdone, no, I do not believe so. The safety and security of our students must
be of paramount concern and any improvements to our systems that can be made
should be made. The false alarm at
Marshall School, which revealed inadequacies in security training and
communication both within district and outside the district, demonstrates the
fact that we must remain vigilant in ensuring that our policies and procedures
are the best that they can be for our district.
6. What do you
think of the Columbia teachers arrest on under-aged sex charges and could it
have been prevented? If so, how?
Since I have no direct knowledge of the case, I cannot
answer whether this situation could have been prevented.
7. What is your
view of tenure that makes it difficult to fire bad teachers and how would you
change it?
Actually, the state legislature has already made
significant changes to tenure law with the enactment of TeachNJ. The law now provides for a 4-year
probationary period before a teacher or administrator can obtain tenure. Teaching staff must now be evaluated and if
found not to be performing satisfactorily, must work on an improvement
plan. Tenure revocation procedures have
also been greatly simplified. As a
district, we must make sure that we implement the procedures correctly and consistently,
so that any actions taken are upheld on appeal.
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