While high school seniors scramble to send in their early decision applications this November, Jordon DeGroote will be campaigning for a school board seat.
A rising senior who captains the High School South football team and is president of the Model United Nations (MUN) club, DeGroote is an earnest student with many ideas and the single goal of improving the school district.
“People are probably going to question my credibility and experience,” says DeGroote, who does not plan to include this effort on his college resume. “I’m not trying to spite the system, I’m trying to fix the system.”
DeGroote is running against Michele Kaish, the current board vice president, for one open West Windsor seat. The two Plainsboro board seats up for election this fall belong to board president Tony Fleres and Rachel Juliana, and they are running unopposed for re-election.
The first time DeGroote attended a board meeting was in the spring of his sophomore year. He had spent his freshman year attempting to set up a Mock Trial club. North had one, but South’s administration ruled out a teacher-advised club, and a student-run club would not be able to compete against other schools. So DeGroote made a case before the school board. He had a petition with 70 signatures, and he prepared a written proposal upon request. However, the board said the budget had already been set and no funds were available for a teacher-advisor stipend.
“I was at first disillusioned with the school board,” DeGroote says. “Now I realize there are a lot of great things they do, but there are a number of fields which can be improved upon.”
The journey onto the November municipal ballot began in April, when DeGroote submitted his voter registration forms to the Mercer County Voter Registration office. He does not turn 18 until mid-October, and his registration was initially rejected even though those who are 18 by election day are eligible to vote under state law. After multiple trips to the Trenton office, DeGroote was able to successfully register.
“My birthday is two days past the arbitrary filing deadline in October, but the attorney general said I was eligible,” DeGroote says. “To be eligible for a school board position, the law says you have to be a registered voter.”
Getting onto the municipal ballot also required multiple trips to the Mercer County Clerk’s Office. Candidate petitions require 10 signatures, and the office asked for an amended one after a couple were deemed illegible.
The youngest of three siblings, DeGroote grew up in Dallas, Texas, before moving to Plainsboro in 2009 and then relocating to West Windsor three years later. His mother is a substitute teacher, and his dad is retired from the reinsurance business.
After three years at Grover Middle School, DeGroote matriculated to South. He tried out for Model UN and played on the freshman football team as a running back and tailback. He made varsity his sophomore year, and now starts at defensive end and fullback.
Model UN conferences begin just as football season winds down. DeGroote’s involvement in MUN began with his eighth grade Exit Assessment, a problem-solving presentation project developed by Grover administrator Mark Wise. DeGroote’s group made a presentation on deforestation in Cambodia, which caught the attention of Vedant Sachdeva, a South student and MUN officer who was on the panel that heard the group’s presentation.
Once at South, DeGroote earned a spot on Model UN, which has proved to be a tremendous educational experience.
“At MUN, being presented with an issue so broad and complicated, the only way to combat it is with creativity,” DeGroote says. “You have to understand the issue in all its different aspects before you come up with solutions.”
At conferences MUN participants must come up with resolutions, which requires consensus building among all the student-delegates.
“You have hundreds of people with their own ideas, and you have to come up with one solution,” DeGroote says. “The ability to present myself is important, to go in front of 400 people and concisely and effectively communicate in a way that other people might agree with.”
Last year, it was DeGroote’s turn to sit on an Exit Assessment panel and listen to presentations from eighth graders. He noticed the disparity in public speaking skills, and alongside fellow MUN officer Jaidev Phadke, he started Interactive Public Speaking, which tutors younger students in speaking (see story, page 24).
“It’s something asked of students, and we wanted to help solve the problem,” DeGroote says.
Since teaching a group of students at the West Windsor Library last summer, DeGroote and Phadke have taught public speaking courses as part of the Central Jersey Student Innovators Association, renting room from Tiger Labs in Princeton University, as well as teaching students at the Young Scholars Institute in Trenton this past summer. He estimates having worked with 70 students so far.
This year DeGroote is captain of the football team, and in his role as MUN president the big project is to organize South’s conference in April. Academically, his favorite classes include history and writing, and he is interested in politics and government, and has thought about a career in the State Department.
He understands a school board term is a three-year commitment, and if elected he says he will fulfill his term. Rising seniors are fretting about college applications, but DeGroote is flexible. He is not planning to apply early decision to any college, and he says he is open to deferring college for two years. Another alternative is attending a local school, whether taking honors courses at Mercer County Community College or attending the College of New Jersey or Princeton. Either way, the options will become clearer after the November election.
On the school board, DeGroote advocates for more transparency and greater student consideration in the course of making decisions.
Echoing statements made by previous board candidates, DeGroote supports televising or streaming board meetings.
“In last year’s League of Women Voters forum, every board candidate said yes in support of televising meetings,” DeGroote says. He also cited a December 5, 2014, story in the News on the subject: “Interestingly enough, the board president doesn’t believe there’s been a movement to ask for taped meetings. There has been a movement. Also just because there isn’t action by the public, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken.”
In addition, DeGroote says the district and the board could be more responsive to residents who make public comments at board meetings.
“When you make a public comment, not only does the board not respond, they do not respond directly to the person,” says DeGroote, noting that other school boards redirect the discussion to address the comment.
One idea is for the board to log all questions asked during the public commenting period and then later publish an official response.
DeGroote also believes the board needs to give greater consideration for student life. He wants to revisit last December’s Option II curriculum changes, which reduced the number of allowable out-of-district courses from eight to four. Under the new policy, which passed 6-2, students could only take one Option II course per subject area, and the district credits one Option II course per year.
In his view, concerns over hyper-competitive pressure were unfounded, and students could take classes at other local universities if Princeton cannot accommodate students.
“There simply wasn’t more discussion on viable alternatives to Option II, and the district just restricted the program,” DeGroote. “The changes didn’t grandfather in students. There were juniors and sophomores who had planned their courses and curriculum.”
High quality education is DeGroote’s first priority, and he has given much thought to the hiring and evaluation of teachers.
“I want to make sure that we have quality teachers, not just cost-effective teachers,” DeGroote says. “We don’t know why teachers aren’t being hired back and why others are. We don’t know why Mr. Nishan Patel was not rehired to teach art at North, and the board is not allowed to say due to state law. I can only hope that his non-renewal was not in an effort to provide cost-effective teachers over quality teachers.”
In a follow up E-mail, DeGroote writes he has talked with “teachers and prospective teachers who have voiced their complaints that they are not being considered for position due to too much experience, because they would come in at such a high pay grade.”
He is also interested in changing the teacher evaluation system, which he says is currently too predictable. It isn’t difficult to gauge when unannounced evaluations will occur, which take place in a certain window of time. As for scheduled evaluations, teachers can prepare for those in advance.
“There was a class — everyday was a movie or taking notes on a packet that the teacher had not read,” DeGroote says. “I remember walking in one day, I couldn’t believe my eyes, all the seats were in a circle and the teacher said we’re having a Socratic seminar! We’ve never had a Socratic seminar before. Sure enough, the supervisor walks in and starts to take notes.”
