Voters in West Windsor and Plainsboro will decide the fate of the $155.9 million school budget when they head to the polls on Tuesday, April 21.##M:[more]##
Also on the ballot: An uncontested election for a board member from West Windsor and four candidates vying for two seats in Plainsboro.
Although the proposed $134.79 million tax levy proposed under the WW-P School District Budget is only a 0.5 percent increase over last year, Plainsboro residents would see a 9-cent increase in their school tax bills, while West Windsor residents would see a 5-cent increase.
Adopted by the board in March, the $155.9 million budget comes with a 1.6 percent, or $2.4 million, increase over last year, a smaller rate of increase than the average 4.3 percent increase the district sees on a yearly basis.
This is the first year that taxes will be assessed based on enrollment percentages, rather than equalized valuation.
However, school officials pointed out that because of varying calendars used by other agencies for tax collection, this year’s property tax bills will reflect the second part of last year’s taxes — which were still based on equalized valuation — and the first part of this year’s, which are based on enrollment.
Plainsboro taxpayers will be hit harder this year as a result of the new formula, bringing their school taxes back up to nearly the same level as in 2006. West Windsor residents make up 58.4 percent of the student body, while Plainsboro residents make up 41.6 percent. This is a jump from the percentages that were based on equalized valuation, where Plainsboro made up 37.8 percent of the tax base, and West Windsor made up 62.2 percent.
For a house assessed at $500,”000, the tax increases would translate into about a $450 increase in the tax bills for Plainsboro residents, and about $250 for those living in West Windsor.
Aside from the budget, voters will also elect three members to the school board. In Plainsboro two new candidates — Todd Hochman and Shipra Mitra — have filed to run against incumbents Anthony Fleres and Anjani Gharpure.
In West Windsor, John Farrell will run uncontested for the sole seat. Farrell, who was appointed by the board in September to fill the open seat vacated by Stan Katz, will be running to fulfill the remainder of the term.
While there were no debates held this year for school board candidates, the League of Women Voters elicited position statements from each of the candidates for a virtual forum. The candidates shared their responses to the league with the West Windsor-Plainsboro News, which also posed some questions of its own.
The responses below have been formatted and edited for space and clarity by the WW-P News. The candidates are presented in alphabetical order.
Questions for the Candidates
1.) In your view, what is the single-most urgent problem facing the WW-P district?
2.) Also, if possible, are there any opportunities the district could take advantage of?
3.) What should our educational priorities be during this time of national economic upheaval?
4.) The State Commissioner of Education has asked school districts to identify state mandates, regulations or directives that could be lifted to help reduce costs to local districts. Which ones do you think should be lifted?
5.) Does the school district have sufficient communication among board members, administration, teachers and the community? If not, what improvements are needed?
Plainsboro
Anthony Fleres, of Mifflin Court. Occupation: civil engineer. Education: B.E., Civil engineering, City College of New York; MBA, University of Connecticut. Community activities: member, WW-P school board administration and facilities committee; liaison to Plainsboro Township Council.
1.) One of the major strengths of any school district is its staff and faculty. Highlighting WW-P’s success in this area is the fact that two of our senior administrators, Dr. Thomas Smith, assistant superintendent for pupil services/planning, and Steve Mayer, assistant superintendent for curriculum, have been offered positions as superintendents in Hopewell Valley and Robbinsville. Replacing these two key people while maintaining our standard our excellence should be the Board’s top priority.
2.) We are always looking for opportunities that will either enhance our educational program or reduce costs. For example, in the budget presented to the voters this year, the district will take advantage of a $586,”000 state grant to install solar panels on some of our buildings, reducing our future electricity cost. Currently, the Administration and Facilities Committee, on which I serve, is considering ways the district could generate revenue through the use of our facilities (fields, theaters, gymnasiums) by non-school organizations.
3.) While these are difficult economic times, we must be careful not to rush into quick fixes that jeopardize the long-term educational goals for the children of our community. Impulsive changes to our excellent programs can have impacts lasting well beyond any temporary economic situation.
Five years ago, the district, through the hard work of its administrators, faculty, parents and other community members, rewrote the Strategic Plan used to set our long-term goals. Later this year that plan is scheduled for a thorough review and will be revised as necessary.
As part of our normal policy, the board does regular curriculum reviews in all subject areas. This allows our educational program to evolve with changing times without overreacting to short-term circumstances.
On the financial side, the Board of Education has set a goal of limiting budget increases to 1 percent less than the sum of enrollment growth plus inflation. Our district’s sound fiscal practices have resulted in WW-P being the first district in New Jersey to receive a AAA bond rating and currently is one of only two districts in the state with such a rating. We must be careful not to take advantage of one-time budget gimmicks that could jeopardize our condition.
4.) Since the start of the year, the state has issued over 1,”000 pages of new or revised regulations and directives. These regulations can run the gamut from budget accounting, to bus maintenance and replacement practices, to the provision of services to students with special needs. Many are only slight tweaks to existing polices or cover situations that have either never or only rarely arisen in West Windsor-Plainsboro. Nevertheless, the sheer number of these regulations presents an administrative burden at a time when we are striving to reduce our overall administrative costs.
In my view, the most onerous of these are those that seek to achieve a tax “savings” by infringing on the district’s established sound fiscal practices. Items like deferring pension payments or reducing the fund balance (basically cash on hand) to unsound levels don’t reduce costs — they simply put them off into the next fiscal year.
One particular difficulty is that recent legislation has empowered the Commissioner to bypass the normal rule-making process by eliminating the public notice and comment period. The result is a myriad of regulations and directives that, while each individually may appear to serve a worthwhile goal, often conflict with each other or have significant unintended consequences.
5.) As a board member, I believe we have good, open lines of communication among all board members and the administration. This is extremely important for a properly functioning school district, as can be seen in districts where a sense of hostility exists among board members and senior administrators.
The district has gone to great lengths to communicate with parents and the general community. In addition to the usual flyers and mailings, we have taken advantage of modern technology and established a number of E-mail list servs for residents to join covering news at each of the district’s 10 schools as well as ones for overall district news, guidance information for college bound students, and Community Education and EDP programs. We have recently implemented a program called Infinite Campus where, among other things, parents can go online to get current information on the children’s progress.
Finally, as parents of children in the district for the past 11 years, my wife and I have always found the teachers and school staff accessible and willing to discuss the educational and personal growth of our children.
Anjani Gharpure, Blossom Hill Drive. Occupation: homemaker. MBA, finance, Butler University; undergraduate degree, business; degree, law. Community activities: liaison, PTA/PTSA, Community Education Advisory Council, and for Superintendents Advisory Council; negotiations committee for WWPFA; liaison for district-wide science curriculum review; chair, Mini Grants and Reflections committees, and North scholarship committee.
1. The immediate challenge is to communicate to the parents and residents the importance of voting for the school budget. It is important for the voters to realize that the school budget is for the expenses to be incurred for our children’s education and for all our schools to continue to provide the excellent standard of education; that they vote on April 21st and vote “YES” for the school budget.
2. We are fortunate to have extraordinary talent in our townships — educators, researchers, IT professionals, lawyers, engineers, physicians, and above all we have retired citizens with years of valuable life experiences. We can foster partnerships with these community members for the benefit of our students in the classrooms and beyond.
3. The current national economic upheaval has demonstrated an urgent need to invest in our future, i.e. our students. Our educational priority is to strive for educational excellence for our students. As pointed out by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the need is for “higher academic standards, teacher training and development, and enhanced statewide tracking systems.”
The WW-P district will continue to focus on the academic excellence of our students. We have made progress toward college and career-ready standards and have implemented rigorous assessments that will improve both teaching and learning. WW-P students have extraordinary opportunities to develop knowledge and skill in academics. The district’s co-curricular and athletic programs, including extensive after-school activities have shown exceptional results. At WW-P there are programs for special needs students, from pre-school and multiply-disabled elementary programs to the HSN Academy. Academic programs and instruction are monitored and improved through a five-year program review cycle.
With respect to teacher training and development, WW-P has a professional development program that is targeted toward specific needs identified through our program review process. WW-P advocates a turnkey training model, whereby staff members who are trained by experts become the trainers for other teachers and staff.
WW-P seniors continue to have a graduation rate of almost 100 percent — 96 percent of these students plan to attend college/post-secondary education. SAT/ACT scores are far above state and national averages. Our students continue to be successful in post secondary education as well.
4. The Garden State Coalition of Schools has called for a moratorium on implementing new state initiatives until school funding is more stable. I agree with this.
All state mandates should be research-based and evidence-based. If the research shows that a mandate improves education and saves costs, then the state should implement a mandate, regulation, or directive. Innumerable and unnecessary mandates and regulations end up costing the districts in terms of administrators’ time. Instead of saving taxpayers’ dollars, we could end up losing tightly-budgeted, much-needed funds for the improvement of education in New Jersey school districts.
Most of the state’s regulations and cap formulas treat all districts the same and do not recognize fiscal prudence, efficiency, effectiveness, and achievement of any individual school district. There should be closer scrutiny of the districts and individualization of mandates for various districts. Also, the state has played a major role in a number of districts and those districts have neither excellent education nor below average per pupil costs.
5.) I serve as a Board of Education’s liaison on various committees, including PTA/PTSA presidents committee and Superintendent’s advisory committee. The President’s committee is comprised of parent representatives from 10 schools, and the advisory committee includes teachers, principals, and other staff members.
I believe that good communication between the administration, teachers, and the Board of Education at WW-P is based on mutual respect and understanding. I think that we have good and open lines of communication between the board and administration.
Community engagement is an ongoing process. It is one of the key features of WW-P’s strategic plan. Various modes of communication are being implemented to communicate effectively with our community including public board meetings, district website with its new feature called WW-P tube, and news flyers sent by schools.
The challenge today is to improve upon the current level of parent involvement in the district’s activities, especially during the budget process. All efforts are being made to inform the public about the budget process through “Get out the vote committee,” “Budget Bytes,” and budget discussions. Even though education is the top-most priority, engaging the community has not been easy. Various diversity committees to foster understanding of the district’s teaching philosophies to parents from different countries of origin, and understanding parents’ expectations on education, will add to the ongoing efforts for effective community engagement in our school district.
Todd Hochman, Daisy Court. Occupation: director, compliance for Prudential Financial, Iselin. Education: law degree, St. John University; B.S., State University of New York, Stonybrook. Community activities: vice president, Walker Gordon Farm Homeowners Association.
1.) The single most urgent problem facing the WW-P School District is the incredibly high property taxes its residents are paying to fund the schools. In these trying economic times, residents are losing jobs and those who have jobs are finding their compensation frozen or cut. Instead of “limiting” tax increases, the board needs to find a way to decrease taxes.
2.) The District needs to take advantage of every possible opportunity to stem increases in Special Services expenditures. It is imperative that efforts be made to explore the sharing of services with other districts. The district is spending an astounding $22.6 million on Special Services and needs to do everything in its power to reduce to limit and if possible reduce this expenditure.
3.) Enhancing education quality is critical and particularly so during this time of national economic upheaval. While it is difficult to choose one priority over another, I believe that math and science educational standards need to be improved. This country simply cannot maintain its innovative edge in comparison to other developed countries around the world without more college graduates with degrees in math, science, and engineering. College students will not be prepared to pursue these technical degrees without having mastered the basic fundamentals by the time of their high school graduation.
Additionally, there will not be enough qualified math and science teachers unless more American students pursue technical majors in college.
4.) The identification of state mandates, regulations or directives that can be lifted to reduce costs is a difficult question. It is also a surprising question from the State Commissioner of Education considering that the Department is in the process of increasing the number of credits required for a high school diploma from 110 to 120. Fortunately, our District has always maintained strong standards for a high school diploma and already requires 120 credits. Consequently, this increase should have a negligible effect on our financial bottom line.
During 2009-’10, this District plans to spend an astounding $22.6 million on Special Services. This is an incredibly large 14.5 percent of the total $155.9 million budget and a 2.5 percent increase over last year. When one realizes that we are only spending a total of $50.2 million on regular instruction, the $22.6 million special services expenditure becomes even more alarmingly high.
We need the Special Services requirements relaxed sufficiently so that this expenditure can be reduced to a manageable number. Efficiencies and synergies need to be identified and cost savings must be found. We simply cannot afford to increase our Special Services expenditure year after year without raising the tax burden to an unaffordable level.
5.) In my opinion, communication in the School District is excellent. As the parent of two children attending District schools, I have been very pleased with the willingness of both teachers and the Administration to spend the necessary time communicating with me. E-mail is used when appropriate and this technology has enhanced our teachers’ ability to communicate with parents despite hectic schedules. But communication does not stop there. Teachers call parents to have candid discussions, often taking time out of their own evenings to make these phone calls.
Communication with the Administration is also very good. My oldest child is a college bound high school senior and I have found the communication regarding college planning and applications to be excellent. While there is always room for improvement, I believe that communication is one of this District’s strong points.
Shipra Mitra, Mahogany Court. Occupation: management consultant (IT). Education: MBA, strategic management, Kelly School of Business; certificate in physics, chemistry, and math, St. Xavier’s College, India. Community activities: board member, secretary, homeowners association; troop leader, Girl Scouts.
1.) If we can differentiate urgency from importance, I would say the most urgent problem this year is to not increase the budget due to the current economic conditions. However, an important issue within it is to prioritize our spending. I would like to see if we can improve our student curriculum by reducing administration spending, and increasing spending per student.
2.) The district is currently taking advantage of the solar rebate program to build a solar power units in High School South.
To enhance student experience for smart kids (many of our students belong to that category), we should look into differentiated learning programs like John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth online courses, instead of asking an overcrowded classroom teacher to practice differentiated learning. After all, many of us move to this school district for its education!
3.) Education is the only way out when economic crisis hits the community. A generation better educated will have better economic decision making abilities. Each student should be given the opportunity to expand to his/her full potential, even in this current economic state. However, a balance between investment and results needs to be assessed. Measuring success against our spending will give us an idea of the most effective way to invest our money. The high school and middle school students in this community are doing well. We can raise our bar to compete with private and magnet schools, and I believe we have the potential to do so.
A variety of education opportunities — hands on skills that can be employed immediately, as well as life skills of leadership, decision making, and ethics — need to be emphasized.
The current economic times do put pressure on the budget. We have to be looking at everything — even programs that are working may need to be revisited to see if there are ways to achieve the same result in a more cost conscious way. If there are projects that do not have immediate returns, or are not urgent in nature, we may try to postpone them for better economic times.
4.) DoE had established a commission in 2003 to look at state mandates that could be lifted to help reduce cost of running schools. Its report lists several mandates that can be lifted. I found the following to be useful:
a. Appropriate holiday observation can be eliminated — the Legislative mandated curriculum already includes this.
b. Eliminate circulars/printed materials that are costly — information dissemination can be done through the website, library, or media center.
c. Eliminate custodian/treasurer of school monies and reassign duties to the Board Secretary — this can potentially save an accountant’s wages.
d. Simplify reporting and consolidate report cards. Consolidate the reporting system for QAAR (Quarterly Assurance Annual Report). Other reports like New Jersey School Report Card and NJSA 18A:7E-1 through 5 can also be consolidated with the federal report card.
5.) Our school district is very good about communicating and disseminating information. They hold regular meetings that are open to public, most information is posted on the district website, and flyers are sent home with students. However, some links do not work — for example, the administrator salaries link in the school budget brings up the NJDoE page as of today.
There are regular parent teacher meetings, and the teacher’s E-mails are all public for parents to communicate.
Even with all that, there is no transparency of information. Parents always are at a loss to understand the process of student development and excellence. The “Gifted and Talented” program is always a mysterious entity that many parents wonder about. Some teachers do not even know its existence! Similarly, Math A&E program is shrouded in mystery, where if a student really does not want to do a lot of homework, or is two grades ahead, a parent is discouraged from inquiring.
I would like information to be more transparent. The process of achieving excellence should be encouraged. Parents should be encouraged to be involved in the board meetings and activities so that their voices can be heard. Regular surveys of students’ needs would indicate what the community wants, and their priority.
As a conclusion, I have a suggestion: Why not have a 100-word summary in the PTA newsletter of every school, summarizing the key points of every board meeting?
West Windsor
John Farrell, Millbrook Drive. Occupation: assistant dean for graduate programs, overseeing the MBA program and the master’s accounting program at Rider University. Education: economics, Notre Dame; MBA, the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. Community activities: volunteer boys’ lacrosse coach at High School South and also at Grover Middle School.
1.) Today, the single-most urgent problem (though I would like to consider it an opportunity) is recruiting for the two leadership positions to replace Steve Mayer and Tom Smith. Both of them have done great jobs. Our district needs to methodically and quickly recruit top talent such that the Superintendent can begin to integrate them into our leadership team before the start of the school year.
2.) I am very comfortable that the leadership of the district continues to inform the board of the many opportunities to improve our curriculum, facilities, and services. I am unaware of any major opportunities that are not under consideration or planned for review.
3.) Within the district, I don’t believe that the current economic upheaval should have an impact on our educational priorities. The situation is certain to have an effect on the resources available to us in both the long and short term. Our administration and faculty have been very creative in developing programs that meet our educational objectives while being fiscally prudent. For example, the innovations in our special education programs, which have improved the educational experience and while decreasing our costs, are models for other districts to follow.
We must, however, find ways to improve our curriculum, programs, and facilities in support of our fundamental mission. Whether it is the introduction of new technologies that will help us manage our costs, such as the proposed solar project at High Schools South and North or the results of the five-year curriculum reviews that update our programs of study, we must continue to innovate.
4.) I applaud the Commissioner for reaching out to the school districts for guidance and suggestions on which mandates, regulations or directives should be lifted. On the surface it seems like a very practical way to identify some of the directives that can be eliminated and therefore, relieve the financial pressure on the district’s compliance.
However, given that her office, other state agencies, and the legislature put these in place, and therefore have a vested interest in seeing them continue, I have absolutely no confidence that relief of any magnitude will be forthcoming. Additionally, the education bureaucrats and other elements of the State will simply take forever to agree on any action to eliminate these mandates.
One could reasonably expect that when the State Commissioner of Education issued mandates and regulations, her office would have prepared a cost-benefit analysis, and understood the burden and impact that they were placing on individual districts. I strongly believe that the DOE is in the best position to identify and eliminate or suspend current mandates. It should also seriously consider whether to move forward on the several mandates that are in the pipeline. Do any of these truly have an impact on the education of our children?
5.) We need to begin a discussion between the teachers, their representatives, the board, and administration about the “Pay for Performance” initiative being promoted by the Obama Administration. We have so many excellent teachers in the district who deserve to be recognized for their outstanding contributions. However, there are both real and perceived limitations to trying to do this.
Nevertheless, we have two paths to take: we can ignore the issue for the time being and take what will be handed down from Washington and Trenton; or we can begin a constructive dialogue that focuses on teaching excellence, pay for performance, and rewarding the outstanding teachers.
