Editor’s Note: School Board member Rachel Juliana delivered the remarks below at the December 15 board meeting.
First of all, I want to thank all of the parents and members of the community who reached out to me with your thoughts and opinions on this issue, as well as other issues facing the district. I did my best to try and respond to as many of you as I could, and tried to work my schedule to meet with as many parents as I could. I know I wasn’t able to get to all of you, but I do want you to know that I did take into consideration all of the comments, questions, challenges and thoughts that you shared with me.
I have to say that sitting here the last couple of months, listening to all the comments made and reading all the emails and letters to the newspaper, has not been easy. The comments and exchanges that have taken place, as you all know, have grown increasingly emotional and people have been very passionate about their opinions. For me as a board member, it has been challenging to try and separate out the emotions on both sides of this argument and to try and be objective in reviewing the information surrounding this proposal. But that is what I have tried my very best to do given the circumstances and is also what I believe is a board member’s job to do.
The Administration has presented to us their proposed revisions to the math program in the 4th and 5th grades, and so the question posed to the Board tonight is essentially this: which of the two math programs will benefit our students as a whole the most, the proposed changes to the math program or the existing math program? My vote tonight will reflect the answer that my review and my analysis have come up with to that question.
I would like to say something about the Gifted & Talented program review conducted by the internal team since I was the board member who had the privilege of being a part of that team. I was the only non-expert sitting in a room filled with educators. The team was composed of teachers, supervisors and specialists in this district who have been here and taught here for many years, some of whom have been in this district for more than 20 years. I can tell you that this team took this review very seriously. A lot of discussion and analysis went into these recommendations, and this team went over these recommendations with each other for months. The internal team report was a collaboration effort that was written by the members of the internal team, which was then presented to the Board of Education in September.
I also want to point out the difference between the internal team and the external team. The external team based their conclusions on the results of surveys, classroom visits, interviews and other data that they gathered for this review. But the key difference between the internal team and the external team is that the internal team knows our students. They were not just basing their recommendations on data and numbers, but on their actual experiences with the students in this district over the last 10 to 20 years that they have been here and that they’ve taught here. That is not something that the external team would know or could know, and it’s why our program reviews involve internal and external teams. It’s so that we can get both perspectives to get the most accurate picture of how a program is doing in this district.
So when the phrase “trust the experts” has been mentioned, I don’t equate the term “experts” with just the administrators sitting at this table. The experts are also teachers, supervisors and specialists in this district who have weighed in on these recommendations. And after all of the information that I have heard from our district’s experts on this issue, all the experiences they have shared about our students, and frankly seeing firsthand how much they truly care about all our students, I do trust them. And please understand that when I say that I “trust the experts”, I don’t mean “blind faith” or that I’m “writing a blank check” or that I will always agree with everything that they propose. I can tell you, and I’m sure the Administration can tell you, that we challenged their assumptions and their analyses, we asked them a lot of questions, we critically reviewed the proposed solutions and measured it against the yardstick of what is the best program that will benefit all the students in this district. Just as many of you have met with them over the last few months, they have had similarly long meetings with each and every one of us.
Trusting someone doesn’t necessarily mean that you always have to agree with them. So when I say that I trust the experts, what I trust is that they care about our students, that they want what is best for our students and that they will draw on their educational training and expertise to come up with the best possible programs that will meet the needs of all of our students.
The last thing I would like to address is the diversity in this community since that too has come up in a number of comments and conversations. We live in a community that is a very diverse one and where we all come from different backgrounds. I happen to think that this is a good thing and I want my children to grow up in a diverse community so that they can learn and understand other cultures. My own household is a multi-cultural household. And of course, with diversity also comes differences in opinion and we will not all agree with each other on many, many issues. But I believe there is a way that we can communicate our differences of opinion to each other in a way that is respectful, and that we can try and understand where the other person is coming from, even if we can’t agree with their position. It is possible to communicate your disagreement with someone without resorting to name calling, insults or veiled threats. We would never want our children to communicate in this way, so I believe we should hold ourselves to the same standards that we expect from our children. So please, as we move forward in this district, and I know there will continue to be strong disagreement within our community, I would urge all of you to please be respectful as we continue this community conversation. I have made it a point to be respectful to all of you with whom I have communicated with directly and I hope you believe that I have. I promise you going forward that while I may not agree with you, I will listen and I will respect you.
