1.) What experience or perspective would you bring to the board? Which trait would be most useful?
2.) What’s your opinion of the district’s financial management, including annual increases in the budget and budget surplus amounts. If cuts are required, what one subject/activity/initiative would you cut first? What would you cut last? What area or areas would you increase funding for?
3.) The school district this year has budgeted about $1 million for increased security measures. What’s your view of the district’s safety program?
4.) What changes or additions, if any, would you make to the district’s foreign language offerings?
5.) The district is embarking on a new technology initiative for students. Should the district be more or less aggressive in pursuing this initiative and what would you cut from the budget to fund it?
6.) The state has mandated a salary cap for superintendents, and also mandates changes to the teacher evaluation and tenure process. How can WW-P ensure that students are not harmed by these changes?
7.) Are there any other school district issues you feel should be addressed?
1.) I have been a board member of Huaxia Chinese School for two terms, serving on the education committee. I was also a member of WW-P district Ad Hoc Committee on Facilities Use. Currently I’m a member of the Plainsboro Township Environmental Advisory Committee.
I can serve all three committees on the WW-P board: curriculum, finance, and facilities.
My education is in math, physics, and finance. I work as a risk manager in the financial industry. If elected I will be the first board member from the financial industry in recent years.
I have spoken to many residents, both with and without children in the WW-P school system. I listen to their concerns. If elected. I’ll keep listening and vote on policies with their concerns in mind.
2.) I read many articles about financial management, especially before the school elections in the past several years. I also attended several seminars and board meetings discussing the budget.
Residents have polarized views on budget. Parents with kids in the school system usually support budget increases, while senior citizens and those living in Plainsboro Village are strongly against budget increases. Some criticized me for the budget approval in the past years, while others shouted at me for not strongly advocating for a budget increase.
The toughest part of being a board member is to balance education and budget. I generally try to satisfy all involved parties. However, with a limited budget, the board should review all the programs annually based on enrollment. If some programs have lower enrollment, we can consolidate those. Funding and cuts should be done based on the enrollment.
Starting this year residents can no longer vote on the budget, as long as the increase is less than 2 percent. I’ll try to listen to residents and get their feedback before I cast my vote.
3.) I support this measure. Since the Sandy Hook incident last December, parents formed the task force “WW-P Parents for Safer Schools.” The district made school safety a top issue. It’s parents’ top concern that their kids are safe at schools. In February several schools in our district had a lock-down due to duck hunting. I received dozens of E-mails during the two-hour lock-down.
I did extensive research on school safety issue after Sandy Hook shooting. Some districts armed their teachers, some placed police officers inside school buildings, and some installed cameras. Starting in June schools in Summit, NJ, are stopping unannounced visits from parents.
In WW-P the board and the administration are considering expanding the Eyes on the Door security pilot program. The program will be extended to the middle schools as well as Village and Millstone River, and it will also be implemented for after-school activities. In addition, 42 security cameras have been purchased and will be installed in the schools.
4.) Last semester the district did a survey among parents on world languages. As a result Latin was eliminated and Hindi was added. Last year there was a petition to make Hindi an option for world languages in WW-P curriculum. Since this change was based on a survey, and more parents support Hindi than Latin, I reluctantly support this change.
Some parents are complaining about the elimination of Latin. I don’t know how much communication the district had with the parents whose kids plan to take Latin. I would listen to their concerns and see the best alternative.
5.) The technology initiative is new this year. While the district should pursue this initiative, we should not be too aggressive. We should always review the results as changes are being made.
If any cut should be made we should be fair to all schools and not victimize one school to benefit another. We should not cut programs in other areas to enrich technology programs.
6.) These three things were done by Christie administration against New Jersey public education. The WW-P News published my letter, “Salary Cap Should Be Voted by Residents,” in May. I did extensive research on this topic and spoke to several superintendents from outside of the district. The salary cap forced out the superintendents in dozens of districts in New Jersey.
Each district has its own situation, we cannot apply a state defined teacher valuation: I don’t agree with the valuation process mandated by the state. The process compares test scores before and after the period that the teacher is being evaluated. This may not reflect teacher’s effort accurately. For example, A&E students normally get 300 in math in NJ ASK before they start new school. If any student make mistakes in the exam and get non-perfect score, the teacher’s valuation will be bad. This is unfair to the teacher.
Tenure Process: Christie believes the answer to making schools more effective is to place more accountability on teachers. However, the student achievement methodology based on score is not accurate in WW-P school district. So I don’t agree with this reform either.
To ensure that students are not harmed by these changes, we should vote Christie out of the office and elect Barbara Buono as our next state governor. Buono believes that “Public education is the foundation of democracy”.
7.) The biggest issue is to balance education and budget. Families move to WW-P for its excellent schools, then move out after their kids graduate due to high taxes.
School buses: Residents are asking why students living next to schools should take a school bus.
Art courses: The district puts too much emphasis on science and math and pays less attention to arts and language arts.
Average students: The district spends a significant amount on students with math and science talent. Average students are the majority, but they don’t get enough attention.
Shared services: High Schools South and North should share services, not compete with each other.
Custodian: The district hired cheaper custodians. Their job quality is not satisfactory.
Funding: While we should try to maintain our current budget and not increase school taxes, we should actively pursue external funding. Our school district can also tap alumni for donations. We should also seek federal funding. The district should also seek closer cooperation with Princeton University, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, Rider, and Mercer College.
Talent pool: We should get more parents involved and tap the talent pool in the greater Princeton region. I read that Grover teacher Debra Cohen invites various professionals, including hedge fund managers, to Grover to give speeches to students. This is an excellent idea that should be promoted and expanded to other schools.
