Turnover at the Board of Ed
The Board of Ed's reorganization meeting last week brought change, not only through the installation of newly elected members Margot Embree Fisher and Sebastian Rodriguez, but also through a new leadership slate for the body. With the help of Fisher and Rodriguez, Dr. Henry Pruitt and Dr. Ardie Walser displaced Judith McKay and Dr. David Diuguid as president and vice president, respectively. The 5-4 vote broke entirely along tenure lines, with the five newest trustees overruling the wishes of the four longtime members to maintain the status quo. Does this signal a new direction for the BoE? While there were a few hints here and there during the campaign that certain of the candidates had made common cause with one another and that existing members clearly preferred that incumbent Barbara Ostroth win reelection, it was not readily apparent to most voters exactly what was at stake. Those who carefully examined the pattern of endorsements and the names listed in various campaign adds might have deduced something about the preferences of certain insiders. However, as there was no overt call by the victorious candidates for a refocusing of priorities or a new direction on the school board, it is as yet unclear to us outsiders whether a new faction has formed or whether the majority now held by newer members signifies much of anything for the future.
In the aftermath of a bland campaign that granted the victors no clear mandate to do much of anything, it remains to be seen whether the imprint left on the Board leadership by the newer members will translate into bold new steps on the policy side. At this point, the only thing we can be certain of is that a few different names will grace the glossy newsletters in our mailboxes.
posted by Teaneck Blog @ 9:55 AM
19 Comments:
This change matches the one at the Council. The old guard that has been responsible for much of Teaneck's problems through lack of responsibility with tax dollars is now out in both domains. Pruitt and Walser are the most responsible members from the old school board and will no doubt lead the way in curbing unnecessary expenditures.
Instead of the usual empty words. perhaps you could give us specific examples as to how Pruitt and Walser have shown themselves to be "the most responsible members from the old school board."
Lets hope that change works to better the education of our children. That is all i ask for...who what where...it does not matter. The kids are the barometer.
I understand that the new leadership is expecting average SAT scores to increase by 10% and the school budget to decrease by 10% each year that they are in the saddle.
LOL!
"I understand that the new leadership is expecting average SAT scores to increase by 10% and the school budget to decrease by 10% each year that they are in the saddle."
I don't know where you get your understanding, but I think it's bogus. I can tell you that at a cottage party I attended for Pruitt and Fisher, there was NO mention of anything remotely like this, and Fisher specifically said that she was not out to cut the budget.
Pruitt did repeatedly say at this event that the current board was not aggressive enough in telling the superintendent what was expected, that in fact, the board largely accepted what the superintendant told them, letting him set policy. He further said, however, that Czeterko could do a good job if he was told what was expected of him. As Pruitt said, more thank once, "Czeterko knows how to count to 5", meaning that he wants to keep his job and will do what the board tells him to do.
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Whoever you are that has a grudge against Monica, try to remember she is on the Town Council, NOT on the Board of Education. That is the topic for this post...
I think that it is wonderful that Dr Pruitt will be at the helm of the new board. In contrast to incumbant board members who defended and even lauded the status quo, 3 years ago he had the courage to highlight the "achievement gap" and make tackling it one of his campaign positions. The ACT initiative has shown inital positive results, but it will take strong leadership to make sure that the trend continues.
On the budgetary front, the Board has its work cut out for it. The Board pulled out all the stops to get the tax increase under 3% this year and still relied on a dramatic increase in outside aid to stay under 3%. Further, when you cut capital spending by 50% it has a way of catching up with you. I hope Dr. Pruitt leads a genuine review of the budget and makes real cuts in ways that won't hurt the classroom experience.
Finally, the teacher's contract is up at the end of the year. At about 60% of the budget, something has to change for the district to be able to stay under state-imposed caps. Hopefully, the new Board will show the leadership to address this issue as well.
Pruitt may take credit for "educating" the board on the achievement gap, but the truth is he joined a board that was already taking steps to address the issue.
Hey -- don't forget that Al Gore invented the internet.
Oh puleeze -- Pruitt is NOT solely responsible for the ACT Initiative, this was identified as a major focus by unanimous support of the Board 4 years ago, specifically led by Dr. Diuguid. Pruit just joined in while knowing the planning for development of the ACT Initiative was underway. He certainly contributed to the dialogue and discussion, but all 9 Board members joined in this effort with the superintendent and staff. (Even Dr. Noguerra said that closing the achievement gap should not be the top priority, but rather the focus should be raising the achievement levels of all students.)
As for the budget, the Board of Ed has kept budget increases to less than 5% for over a dozen years despite flat state aid (until this year) and escalating benefits, transportation and special ed costs. Can the Town Council claim as much? What about this year's County budget?
Finally the Board made major inroads in the last contracts for all personnel in raising the co-pays for prescription drugs. This resulted in a significant budget savings in the benefits area this year and contributed to a lower budget increase. If you're going to criticize, at least acknowledge what has been done right.
mskj
When your spending is in the top 2% of peer distrcits year in and year out, you are not doing much right. It is time for the Bd to study other neighboring districts who seem to be able to maintain educational performance at least as high as Teaneck's with significantly lower per student spending rates.
As to your point about the co-pays - are you serious? "Major inroads"? Per p.45 of the contract, co-pays rose from $0 to $5 for generics and $5 to $10 for branded drugs. I'd say that plan beats 98% of the health plans of most town residents. I only hope that a majority of the newly constituted Board will not also view this as a major inroad.
Before you dismiss the savings resulting from a $5.00 increase in prescription co-payments, you should consider determining the actual savings to the district. Considering the wide spread practice in both the private and public sector to use co-payment increases to lower the premiums for prescription plans, there may just be some financial benefit. Using the small cost savings per prescriptions to belittle the change is disingenuous at best.
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Tom, at least MSJK might not have known the facts. You don't let the facts get in the way of your defending the Board. Do you seriously believe that a $5 increase actually meaningfully impacts prescription drug usage. Would you or anyone you know not get a prescription because it costs $5 instead of nothing or $10 instead of $5. Keep in mind, none of these teachers are minimum wage workers.
Let's play this out. The median teacher makes about 60K. The first year of the contract wages rose 4.3%. For the median employee, that $2500 in year 1. Let's assume that the median employee and his family gets 100 prescriptions filled a year (seems like a lot, but let's go with it), that's a major concession of $500 a year. Yep, the Board sure made major inroads their.
One more thing about the glory of the co-pays. Even though salaries under the new contract are rising at 4+% a year, benefits as a percentage of salary rose from 21.8% in the final year of the last contract to 25.2% in Year 1 of the new contract and 27.2% estimated for next year. We're not heading in the right direction on this.
Anonymous your analysis is as usual totally meaningless. The problem with this post and all your posts is that they are not about gathering or disemination information.
Arguing with the facts I present by saying it is because I am defending the school board without saying anything that disputes what I say is as dishonest as bringing in other statistics which are not relevant to what I said.
There again you quote a set of numbers with no attempt to analyze or understand what they are about.
More than dishonest it is boring. Before leaving you to this thread, I will point out that I never bring up the finances of the board which seem to obsess you. I merely respond to your posts.
Education is not about your taxes!
Actually, Tom, if you read my posts at 9:25 and 9:33, you would see that I proved the negligible impact of the co-pays several different ways. You don't argue with my fiscal assertions because you have nothing to argue with. Finally, poor spending practices harm not only taxes but the quality of education. Think of the programming and class size we could afford if our costs were more in line with other districts.
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