Five candidates will run for three seats on the WW-P school board in this year’s elections on Wednesday, April 27.
In West Windsor, three candidates have filed for two open seats on the board. Incumbent Richard Kaye, of Coneflower Lane, will seek re-election. Dana Krug, of Ellsworth Drive, and Scott Powell, of Cambridge Way, will also run for election. Incumbent Randall Tucker did not file to run for re-election by the March 8 deadline.
Incumbent Alapakkam Manikandan, of Ashford Drive, will face challenger Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz, of Dogwood Drive, for one open seat in Plainsboro.
The News gathered information on the candidates as well as their opinions regarding fiscal and educational impacts to the district. Below are profiles of each candidate, which include answers to 11 questions (see above right) posed by the News.
Questions for the Candidates
1.) Which issues have compelled you to run for election (or re-election if you are an incumbent)?
2.) Why do you think you are the best fit for the job? What are some qualities/experience you bring to the table?
3.) What do you think are the three most important issues affecting the school board today?
4.) In these trying economic times, what specifically will you do to ease the burden of the taxpayers in the coming years? What are some ideas that you have to save money?
5.) List three areas of the budget you would cut first. Why?
6.) List three areas you would cut last or not at all. Why?
7.) Some residents and board members have opposed the projected tax increase because it is higher than 2 percent (even though there are exemptions in the 2 percent cap). How do you respond to them?
8.) Some residents have also accused the district of increasing its debt service tax levy by creating a Capital Reserve in the 2009-’10 budget year to pay debt service, which allowed it to bank the cap for future years. Some residents also complain that not enough surplus is being used to offset taxes. Where do you stand on the issue of budget surplus? Explain.
9.) In the past, have you had any experience in dealing with budget challenges, either professionally or in another capacity? Please explain.
10.) What are some non-financial areas of school board business that you would like to improve?
11.) What is one thing you would try to change if elected?
West Windsor
Richard A. Kaye, a resident of West Windsor for 12 years, moved to Village Grande when he and his wife retired to be near family and the university.
Kaye grew up in New York City. His father was a corporate operations manager, and his mother was an executive with a major electrical services company.
Kaye is a retired educator with a 44-year career as a teacher and building principal. He served 25 years in the South Brunswick school district. He earned his bachelor’s from Queens College. He has two master’s degrees — the first from New York University and the second from the City University of New York. His wife, Judy, is a retired technical recruiter.
Kaye has served two terms on the board (six years) and served on the administration and facilities committee. He is currently the chairman of the curriculum committee.
Kaye leads a Great Decisions Program at the Evergreen Forum in Princeton and volunteers at the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen and Dutch Neck School. Within Village Grande, he serves on the Clubhouse Committee and has led the Sunday Movie Club and Current Issues Discussion group.
1.) As an educator, I bring a specific perspective not often found on a Board of Education. The district is implementing major transformations of professional supervision and evaluation of staff, analysis and use of student achievement data, and technological capacities for teaching and learning, I want to continue to support those initiatives as the foundation for moving the district beyond its current excellence. I know how to balance student, parent, staff and community wants and needs, against limited resources. My family ingrained the concept of serving, making a positive difference in the world, and returning a measure of what one has received. Membership on the Board of Education allows me to do that.
2.) This is answered above.
3.) Maintaining the current outstanding profile of student learning success in our political and economic climate requires improved communication of what we do, the results we have achieved, our commitment to fiscal responsibility, and the impact of each proposed change. Our future oriented focus must be on developing all students as competent 21st Century learners. Rote memory must be replaced by the ability to problem solve, gather and assess data, work in collaborative groups, and be a self directed learner. Maximizing the fullest potential of each individual requires that we eliminate all existing achievement gaps and move all learners beyond the generalized expectation levels set by the state.
4.) The community needs to understand what we have accomplished: a leading district in New Jersey, with a per pupil cost below the state average. I propose a broad community conversation reviewing all school operations, considering the direct effect on students, quality of program, safety issues, ease of implementation and cost effectiveness
5.) I present no preconceived personal or political agenda of cuts, rather a decision making process involving all of the stakeholders. I recommend we examine how additional shared services might reduce overlap expenses? What if we did not exceed state guidelines for transportation? Might we better serve all students if were to restructure the middle school schedule to better utilize staff and program time, begin group music lessons in grade 6, and consider a district pattern of k-5, 6-8, 9-12 schools?
6.) Decisions that would increase class size must be the last one on the table. Children who do not receive consistent, appropriate regular feedback, fall behind and get lost. We must provide funds to educate children with specific learning needs. That cost must not negatively impact upon the resources available for the general population. We have to carefully provide funds to maintain our capital facilities valued in excess of $200 million. Preventive maintenance saves money in the long run.
7.) Numbers can be used to paint many pictures. We are within the legal limits of the required cap. The data shows this board has maintained a below-state-average per pupil cost, kept tax increases minimal, equalized the per pupil cost for residents in each of the two townships, provided tax relief at the end of the past years, continued a AAA bond rating, kept all promises regarding debt payments resulting from the referendum, survived huge last minute cuts in state aid, and maintained a conservative emergency fund. That is fact!
8.) One must understand the formulas and parameters that the state imposes on school budgets. If you move too quickly to use surplus, you can put the district in jeopardy in future years, when state aid may be further reduced or emergencies arise and there is no surplus to use. Then you face dramatic reductions in instructional program, negatively affecting all of the young people in the system. Short term and long term plans must be balanced to deal with the known and many yet to materialize new realities.
9.) In my career, I planned and implemented two major referendum and capital school construction projects. I was responsible for the development, implementation, and accountability of 32 annual budgets.
10.) We must improve the communications process, receiving and giving messages. I would create a bi-weekly televised program, Spotlight on Our Schools, to increase understanding of what public education is all about, showcase accomplishments, and open dialogue about each of the operations of the school system.
11.) The issue is not to change, but reinforce what we are doing well, and determine what we need to do better to increase our successes. We should always focus on how each of our decisions is connected to the Strategic Plan of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Public Schools.
Dana Krug, a resident of West Windsor for 15 years, moved to the township in 1995 because of its proximity to the train and commute to New York City, and the highly regarded school system.
Krug grew up in Bergen County. Her father is currently the professor and chairman of molecular genetics and microbiology at the University of Texas at Austin, and her mother began her career as a New York City public school teacher but later became a patient advocate and a health educator. Krug earned her bachelor’s in international (comparative) area studies, focusing on Russian and Latin American studies, at Duke University. She also has a master’s of science in nonprofit management from the Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy at the New School University in New York City.
She and her husband, Stephen Lichtenstein, who is a financial services industry CFO, have three children attending WW-P Schools. One is currently an eighth grader at Community Middle School, and the second is a fifth grader at Village School. The youngest is a kindergartener at Dutch Neck School.
Krug is a community volunteer and parent. Her professional background contains more than 18 years in marketing, communications and project management, as she worked for the New School University in New York as an administrator as well as for Dow Jones as a marketing manager.
Currently, Krug is the co-president of the Community Middle School (CMS) PTSA; a PTA member at both Village and Dutch Neck schools; and a class parent at Village School (she has been a class parent at Dutch Neck). She also volunteers at Dutch Neck and Village, helping at Science Day and other school events. She is also the vice president of the Friends of the West Windsor Library (FOWWL) and is the Publicity Chair for FOWWL. As a Duke University graduate, she serves on the Alumni Advisory Committee. She also volunteers for the West Windsor Little League, West Windsor Babe Ruth (baseball league), the West Windsor Hawks (basketball program), and the West Windsor-Plainsboro Dance Company.
1.) I believe that the school board should have a parent who has direct and current experience at multiple grade levels and in multiple district schools. Since I am very involved in the community and I am open to the concerns of fellow parents, I feel that I would be a welcome addition to the board. Further, my experience managing departments and budgets in both university and corporate settings will be of great value. My background in communications and marketing will be useful in effectively communicating to parents and taxpayers.
2.) I believe that I will bring the right mix of professional experience and community involvement. For more than 18 years, I worked with many stakeholders to build strategies for different business functions. My tasks included managing budgets for marketing campaigns and departments, negotiating vendor contracts and analyzing data to develop strategic plans for various business functions. I am persistent, dedicated and resourceful. I am also adept at managing highly complex projects, while being a team player and working collaboratively.
3.) 1. Preserving the high quality of education in the face of financial constraints; 2. Consistent curriculum and standards across grades and district schools; and 3. Ensuring that each WW-P student receives appropriate differentiated instruction.
4.) Already there will be cost savings coming. Under state law, district employees will have to pay 1.5 percent of salary towards health care benefits when their contracts expire next year. Currently, the district’s teacher and administrator salaries total $70 million. A 1.5 percent of salary contribution towards health benefits will produce approximately $1 million in revenue for tax relief. In addition, the board could also review stipend formulas and review the number of stipends for possible further savings. Centralizing the purchasing of supplies and books and sharing services with other school districts and/or the two townships could provide additional savings for taxpayers. Ideas from all stakeholders should be carefully considered.
5.) A careful and fair evaluation of all programs and functions would need to occur before I would recommend any specific budget cuts. Programs and services that are underutilized would be considered first. Programs and services with small impacts on the scholastic experience of WW-P children would be considered too.
6.) After a careful and fair review of all programs and functions, I would be less likely to recommend cuts in areas that directly affect the education of WW-P students. However, with 80 percent of the school budget being contractually tied, securing fair settlements for the taxpayers and district employees will be of utmost importance.
7.) I, like many West Windsor residents, am concerned that the board is proposing more than a 2 percent tax increase. Because salaries are not exempt from the state mandated 2 percent local property tax levy cap, the 2.9-3.38 percent salary increases that the board approved last year for 2011-2012 translate into cuts that have to be made elsewhere in the budget in order to come in under 2 percent. The two exemptions to the 2 percent cap are: health benefits and pension cost increases. The increases in the district’s pension and healthcare obligations are contributing factors to the tax increase. I will work collaboratively with all stakeholders to develop a fair and equitable plan to control future tax increases for the district.
8.) The district needs to have a budget surplus in case of an emergency need. The state mandate calls for a 2 percent cap on the general fund surplus, which the district uses to manage cash flow. I will encourage a long range and careful review of any general fund surplus.
9.) I have managed many budgets in my professional career. I have made hard choices about business functions and personnel, when my group no longer had the funding to support previous commitments. In many cases, I had to be resourceful: sharing functions and responsibilities with others, centralizing purchasing operations and learning how to mine data on my own, for example.
10.) I believe that communication with the community is key. I would encourage community forums, including, perhaps, an online version. I would encourage community members to attend board meetings and ask questions.
11.) One of my goals is to preserve the high quality of education, under the state’s strict financial constraints. I would like to see more representation from parents and taxpayers in molding the budget and education of our children.
Scott Powell, a resident of West Windsor for five years, moved to the township to relocate for a job and chose it because of its excellent school district, and reasonable commute to his job in Iselin, and he and his wife liked the semi-rural setting.
Powell grew up in Agoura Hills, CA. His father worked as a portfolio manager in the investment management industry, and his mother had three professions — she started off as an elementary school teacher, then worked as a bank branch manager, and then was an entrepreneur, owning a successful private elementary school. Powell earned his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and an MBA from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.
Powell is a product manager for Prudential Financial. His wife, Michele, works as an operations director for a professional trade organization in New Jersey. The couple have two children: Spencer, 8, who attends second grade at Maurice Hawk Elementary; and Grant, five, who is in pre-school but will also attend Maurice Hawk next fall.
Powell has also coached boys’ soccer in the West Windsor-Plainsboro Soccer Association (WWPSA).
1.) The number one issue facing our district, and others, at this time is teacher accountability. We need to implement a system where all levels of the school district, starting with the board and district administrators, strive for measurable objectives, goals and targets. When everyone targets the same objectives, and we hold them accountable, we can achieve great things.
2.) I am running for school board to make a difference and give back to the community. I want to ensure that West Windsor-Plainsboro continues to provide the best education possible by bringing some new thinking to the board. In particular, I want to look for more creative ways to cut costs and reduce the annual tax increases that we face. I will also bring the perspective of a parent with elementary school children.
3.) Most importantly, we need to improve our teacher performance. As many readers probably know, managing employees well requires a lot of time and skill. However, with dedication and effort, good coaching improves performance. We should use teacher evaluations that rely on measurable targets including student learning outcomes and student and parent satisfaction.
An equal priority should be to keep our property taxes under control, as this affects all residents of West Windsor and Plainsboro. This may be difficult to change in the short run, as the costs are driven primarily by contractually negotiated pay and benefits. Longer term, we have the opportunity to address these costs through contract negotiations that pay teachers according to effectiveness and productivity.
Finally, we need to continue to ensure that the education we provide our students stays amongst the best in the world. As we compete in a global talent race, we must strive to produce globally competitive students. This includes setting rigorous learning outcome targets for our students, and holding our teachers accountable for teaching them.
4.) The best source for savings is the general instruction category. In looking at the budget, this is not only the biggest cost category, but the fastest growing.
5.) Although I have been reviewing the budget for savings opportunities, I do not feel I understand it enough to make bold savings proclamations. There are a few things that I have noticed in the budget that I would like to understand better. For example, in the 2011-12 budget presentation, the district projects an increase in students of approximately 1.4 percent. At the same time, the cost for regular instruction is increasing 5.9 percent and benefits are increasing 3.0 percent. Why are our instructional costs rising faster than our enrollment? I was also struck by the absence of legal expenses in the budget. Do we spend money on legal costs, either as part of a service dispute or as part of contract negotiations? I’m in favor of keeping legal costs down, but zero seems improbable.
6.) Similar to my reluctance to specify our top priorities for cutting the budget, I hesitate to specify specific areas that we should avoid cutting. However, given the increasing role of technology in our lives, I would think very carefully before cutting this area of the budget. Technology has become an integral tool in our lives, both in business increase productivity and as a collaboration tool. The district has already laid the foundation for a cutting edge education delivery platform with our infinite campus portal. Now we need to extend this platform to enable greater use of electronic learning.
7.) I admire these individuals for standing up for their principals. I agree that the district should be more thoughtful in how we spend our money each year. The spirit of the law is to provide guidance to school boards on how much to limit their annual budget increases. Although technically legal, the board should have tried harder to deliver a budget with an increase less than the 2 percent limit.
8.) The school should be very open about how it uses it funds. Without knowing the details, the idea that the district used an accounting maneuver to permit a larger tax increase seems very sneaky.
Although I think we should minimize budget surpluses, once we have a surplus, it should only be used to keep tax increases down in years where a larger increase would be inevitable. This money should be saved for an occasion when we have a true emergency.
9.) I once had an assignment to turn around a loss-making business. When I was brought in to assess the situation, this $28 million business was losing several million dollars each year. I worked with a team to assess the drivers of the losses. By increasing expense oversight and matching capacity to volume, we were able to make the business profitable again.
10.) In talking to parents of special needs children, it appears we have an opportunity to improve our relations with these families. According to some anecdotes I have heard, the district takes a very adversarial approach to some of these families. This relationship becomes especially contentious when a parent seeks an out-of-district solution for his or her child’s needs. In some cases this turns into a litigious situation. I would like to see the district take a more cooperative approach to finding solutions to these needs.
11.) I think we need to incorporate parental and student feedback into teacher evaluations. Most enterprises have opportunities to improve. Some of the best ideas for improvement come from customers. In the case of a school, the students and their parents represent the customers. I’m sure many parents and students can provide meaningful feedback on teacher performance to improve our classrooms.
Plainsboro
Rachelle Feldman Hurwitz, a resident of Plainsboro for nearly 11 years, moved to the township in 2000 when her husband, Jerald — a commercial finance attorney for an international banking institution — relocated, and the couple wanted their children to attend a blue-ribbon school.
She grew up in Englewood and graduated from high school in Old Tappan. Her father has been a self-employed real estate broker in Bergen County for over 50 years, and her mother is the manager of the Paterson DMV.
She has a bachelor’s in communications and history from Rutgers. She has two children who graduated from HS South. Her son, who has dyslexia, is graduating from Rutgers this spring, and her daughter is an artist who graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York. She is working on a second degree in art history from Rutgers. Her oldest son is married, lives in Maryland, and owns his own high tech security company.
She is a self-employed event planner and fundraiser specializing in corporations and nonprofits. She is the past vice president of the Walker Gordon Farm Homeowners Association Board of Trustees, Community Watch block captain, service industry contract negotiator, and project manager for WGF community.
1.) Teachers are facing a major shift in hiring, firing and benefit challenges, we should be cautious in our approach and include teachers in our discussions. As a recent graduate from Rutgers, I witnessed how our district’s students arrive at college better prepared then many of their peers. I fear cut backs will diminish our district’s exemplary educational system.
2.) I have been a mediator and given the state’s demand re-establishing teacher’s criteria for retention, I think it is imperative for teachers being intrinsically involved with their own standards. Teachers recognize testing does not prove how well they are teaching. We should welcome their input and weigh what works best for every grade level with the goal of retaining the best teachers and creating appropriate mechanisms for removal. My son has learning disabilities, therefore I recognize the need for multi-faceted teaching tools and understand first hand why all our students should achieve their potential. I took masters education class, “How to teach children with learning disabilities,” of the 54 people in the class, I was the only mother learning how to help her child and the rest were teachers pursuing Masters and Phd’s.
3.) Teaching standards, budget cuts in correlation to tax increases/deficits, and our AAA bond rating.
4.) The placement of solar panels on our schools at the very least would provide a savings to our district. If we are able to sell back the energy, we will earn money, offset building costs, and could provide reduction in overall facilities expenditures. We should be charging for the use of our facilities and encourage their rentals. Teaching our students how to solicit corporate funding for their extra curricular activities such as trips, sports, proms, plays, and other events, teaching them how to be their own ambassadors, thereby empowering them.
5.) Technically, there are no sacred cows while attempting to cut back on costs. We should review senior administrative salaries and evaluate their increases in context with teaching staff. We can cut facilities costs by implementing renewable sources of energy.
6.) I think we should encourage the best teachers to stay and not burden them with larger classes. Great teachers love teaching and know how to instill a love of learning in their respective areas when classes are manageable in size. Languages in a global economy are mandatory for students who are competing to get into top universities and pursuing advanced degrees. Math and sciences are integral in the 21st century, but we should not negate the importance of reading compounded with critical thinking which stimulates creativity and innovation.
7.) Fiscal conservatism without fiscal responsibility to our children is short sighted. Our children are a reflection of our community, the education they receive encourages other educated families to move into our district, and the quality of our educational system is the paradigm many districts strive to achieve. We should be cautious and deliberate in our choices.
8.) Our reserve should not be used as a source for tax relief. In simple terms, household budgets put money aside pending expenditures. Capitol funding is imperative for maintaining our facilities and attached to our bond rating. Our district’s AAA bond rating is our guarantee to lending institutions providing loans and grants for needed services, and WWPRSD is proudly amongst a handful of NJ schools retaining AAA status.
9.) As a corporate planner, I have negotiated contracts, created budgets and proudly have come in under my own budgets. Recently, I took the initiative and negotiated a service contract for my development, transitioned over 300 families from their old service providers with our new service, while making us feel like a community. We saved several hundreds of dollars individually per year and almost $200,000 collectively.
10.) Making South a healthier environment and the first step would be retrofitting the heating/cooling system with solar energy.
11.) Transporting students to schools closer to their homes, saving money in transportation and providing quality time for students, rather then sitting on buses for extended periods of time while wasting fuel.
Alapakkam (“Mani”) Manikandan, a Plainsboro resident for 12 years, moved to Plainsboro in 1999 because of the area and the excellent school district. He grew up in India, and his father was a department manager in a leading public sector telephone company in India. His mother was a homemaker.
He attended college in India, earning a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a diploma in electronics and communication. He and is wife, Vasudha, a homemaker, have two children in the WW-P school district. Their daughter is a senior at North, and their son is in fifth grade at Millstone River School.
Manikandan, an IT professional, is a QA Practice Lead for a cloud solution company, Appirio Inc. An incumbent, he has served three years on the board. He was a member of the finance committee for one year and has been a member of the Curriculum Committee for two years. He has also served on the Plainsboro Recreation and Cultural Affairs Committee for two years.
He is also the treasurer and secretary for the Home Owners Association for Grande at Ashford; has coached his son’s baseball team as part of the Cranbury-Plainsboro Little League; is an executive member of New Jersey Softball Cricket League that promotes the game of cricket in NJ; and is an active member of Chinmaya Mission Tri-state Center, which is a spiritual center.
1.) After being on the board for three years, I have understood that implementation of any initiative takes time and effort. Many of the initiatives that I have been involved with have just started gaining momentum. Hence, I would like to run again to provide continuity to these initiatives.
2. I am a certified project manager and have been managing projects for more than 18 years. Thus, I am experienced in balancing expectations of various stakeholders, and delivering value within budget.
Having already served on the board under both Finance and Curriculum Committees, I understand the bigger picture both from financial and curriculum-based perspectives.
3.) The most important issues facing the school district center around the theme of how we can continue to provide an excellent education in these tough economic times. As an incumbent member, I can point at our district record of reducing per pupil spending from $500 above state average in 2002-03 to $1,200 below state average in 2008-09. We achieved this while our students continue to excel in all areas that they participate in, from academics to extracurricular.
One specific aspect of this issue is funding for the proposed charter school that will cost taxpayers of WW-P $1.5 million the first year and continue to increase annually.
4. )I will continue our tradition of prudent management of taxpayer money.
I support the idea that came out of recent community forum to generate revenue through the use of our buildings.
I will try to leverage the WWP Education Foundation, which has a done a great job through its grant program, to help the district in other areas.
Another area I would look at is more opportunities for shared resources, and increased efficiencies within the district.
5.) As incumbent school board member I agree with our approach to first cut areas that don’t affect the students directly.
6.) The school district exists to serve students. Anything that affects the students directly would be the last area to cut. I will touch areas such as class size, availability of courses and choices outside the classroom last.
7.) For the last three years the school budget (spending) has increased by 1.6 percent, 0 percent and 1.9 percent respectively. That is a very modest increase over a three-year period while we are still adding students. The tax increase is also affected by factors beyond school board control. A substantial portion of the tax increase in the last three years is due to the loss of state aid. In the last two years the district has lost over $11 million in state aid. An impartial look at our finances will convince taxpayers that we spend taxpayers’ money judiciously.
8.) The banking of caps was disallowed several years ago under Corzine administration. The total unallocated reserve by the district is only 2 percent, less than our monthly payroll.
The district does budget conservatively to take care of any emergencies. For example, two years ago the state withheld their contribution and forced the district to either make pension contributions through our reserves or borrow from the state at exorbitant interest rates. If the district did not have sufficient reserves, the taxpayers would have been forced to pay the state for many years to come.
9.) I have been a Project Manager / Engagement Manager and P&L Head, for more than 18 years. In all these positions, I have been responsible for budgeting, and managing budgets starting from $50K to $10M. As the sole breadwinner for our family, I am fully aware of financial pressures faced by everyone in our community.
I have been serving as the Treasurer and Secretary for the Home Owners Association of Grande at Ashford for past several years. In this role, I have been responsible for managing the budget for the association.
During my first year on the school board, I served on the Finance Committee. During this period, I got to understand that the school district’s budget is a multi-dimensional, and complicated process, which involves union contracts, state regulations etc.
10.) I would continue to improve the process of curriculum creation and review. I would institute a continuous improvement process in this area, to ensure that our curriculum is keeping-up with the 21st century initiatives and needs.
I would continue to improve our program review for Special Education, by including this area to be part of our regular program review schedule/plan.
11.) I would try to change the public perception of what happens in the school district. Currently, the various processes, procedures and working details of a school district are not well understood by the taxpayers. Hence, several misconceptions exist in the minds of the community. I would figure out a way to get the taxpayers a better appreciation of how the school district handles various challenges, and how this is different from everything else they might be familiar with.
