Pay to Play, Part 2

For a couple of weeks each summer, Triangle Road in front of Hillsborough Middle School becomes a parking lot for 30 minutes around 9am and again around noon. The reason is the multi-decade-long success of the school district's summer enrichment program.

The self-sustaining initiative consists of two weeks of three-hour-per-day, week-long classes designed and primarily taught by district teachers. Students in 1st through 8th grade and their parents choose a topic of interest for either or both of the two weeks. When my kids took advantage of the program a decade or more ago the price for a class was $105 - or about $7 an hour.

Classes ranged from recreational to academic. I remember my daughter taking scrapbooking and theater while my son did computers and robotics, for example.

The takeaway is that parents knew what they were getting—most sessions included a project or some concrete culmination of the week's work - and were happy to pay for it.

During my second term on the school board around 2010, I began to think of ways to build on the success of Summer Enrichment. It wasn't hard to see how this model could be used to revamp after-school clubs and activities at the 5th-6th and 7th-8th schools in Hillsborough.

Clubs at this level were also recreational, academic, and service-oriented—and don't forget middle school sports. But aside from the sports, clubs—supervised by a contractually appointed teacher advisor—seemed to meet irregularly and had little accountability as to their value. And because parents weren't paying anything, their involvement was limited.

My proposal, which I presented to the newly hired superintendent in 2011, included the following.

• Create three sessions during the school year - Fall, Winter, and Spring Enrichment corresponding with the athletic seasons.
• Allow teachers to design and submit proposals for perhaps ten 90-minute after-school sessions—analogous to the 15-hour Summer Enrichment Program—over a 10-week period.
• Charge parents the same fee as they would pay at Summer Enrichment.
• Have these fees apply to the middle school sports program as well.

As I wrote in a previous column, I believe that parents of 5th through 8th-grade students are already paying for their children's activities, and the school district shouldn't be unfairly competing against these other businesses by offering so many taxpayer-funded pastimes in this age group.

One of the complaints I heard from parents and students - especially middle school students - during my years on the school board was that they were locked out of certain clubs and activities because they were already committed to another. For example - a child couldn't be in the school play because that was a full-year commitment, and he or she played a sport during one of the seasons. In the new three-season enrichment program, students could participate in their sport and be in the school play during a subsequent session. 

The complaint I heard over the years from fellow board members about after-school activities for these younger students was that the board members wanted more activities that were "co-curricular"—in other words, more educational. Teachers would undoubtedly be able to provide this in twice-weekly 45-minute sessions before or after school.

In the end, none of my suggestions caught on. 

Pay to Play, Part 1

In the summer of 2019 (when else?), the Hillsborough Township Board of Education adopted a policy calling for participation fees to be collected from students for most activities and athletics - the so-called "Pay-to-Play" policy. I was on the board then and opposed the policy as it was developed. I had different ideas.

I have always found that policies work best - and can best be defended to a skeptical public - when they are grounded in a sure philosophy. In this instance, the philosophical underpinnings that should have guided the board are that school - especially high school - is not only what happens between the first and last bell. Academic and social clubs - and especially athletics - are sometimes erroneously thought of as add-ons to the high school experience. This is not true. They are integral to it.

Charging a fee, even if it's only $100 per sport, is antithetical to our goal of having a barrier-free high school experience. And by the way, it's never just $100. If you have a couple of kids in school playing two or three sports per year, it can add up quickly. It was my firm belief then, as it is now, that the general public does not resent paying for the full cost of clubs and sports at the high school. They recognize the value of it.

If I had let my opposition to the policy rest there, I could have just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. But the truth is that I was never opposed to participation fees being collected from the younger students - namely 5th through 8th grade. At that level, parents routinely pay for all of their child's many after-school activities - sports leagues, martial arts, dance, scouting, etc. There is no reason the school district should compete with these businesses by offering free activities for 11-year-olds.

In fact - I had a whole concept for a 5th - 8th-grade after-school enrichment program that I first discussed with the superintendent way back in 2011. I will discuss that in the next installment.

[It should also be noted that, whereas the budget in Hillsborough for high school athletics is around $1 million, the participation fees collected - when I reported on this as a board member - only covered around 15% of that.]

Lincoln on Education

For the 215th birthday of our 2nd greatest president, let's enjoy some Abraham Lincoln quotes regarding education.

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education...appears to be an object of vital importance...

Every head should be cultivated.

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

All I have learned, I learned from books.

When I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the Rule of Three.... The little advance I now have upon this store of education, I have picked up from time to time under the pressure of necessity.

And the most important for our times:

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

 

The Strategic Plan

"It's time for the new strategic plan." No seven words evince more fear and loathing in the veteran school board member than that one short sentence. And if they don't, you're doing it wrong.

Every five to seven years, a school district will need to create a plan for the future encompassing items such as curriculum, facilities, staffing, and finances. The buzzword of the day will be "sustainable" - but that's a canard. The school district is never going out of business.

As a five-term school board member, I participated to varying degrees in three strategic plans. And let me be clear - I observed people with earnest intentions trying to steer the district in the direction they wanted it to go. I refrain from labeling their intentions as "good" because their intentions were never the same as mine.

If you are a conservative school board member attempting to represent - in the case of a town like Hillsborough - the views of at least half of the residents, you will be thwarted. The education establishment has many ways to stop you - here are a few:

• Public Input via Email - The superintendent will solicit input from the public in an attempt to learn what their priorities are. The "public" who submit their ideas will consist overwhelmingly of teachers and other school employees.
• Public Forums - The board will hold several public forums and workshops. These will be attended largely by teachers, et. al. (see above).
• Board Members Roundtable  - The superintendent may suggest principals, supervisors, high-level administrators, and board members break into groups to discuss priorities. Board members will be outnumbered three to one in each group.

As the Hillsborough school district works through its strategic plan this year, pay attention to what you are hearing. Will there be even one item that might satisfy a traditional/conservative constituent? 

Not if they can help it.

"Bursting at the Seams?"

"Building is out of control in this town!" Okay. "Why must there be apartment buildings on every available piece of land?" I hear you. "We can't keep adding houses everywhere; the schools are bursting at the seams!" Now you've lost me.

Counting the number of students in the schools and predicting how many there will be tomorrow - or five years from now - is fundamental to a well-run district. So why is it so hard? And why is there so much confusion?

After nearly sixteen years of service as a school board member in New Jersey, I conclude that the confusion is on purpose.

Education of the K-12 variety has become an industry. And the industry needs customers. Unlike other industries - where a dwindling customer base would be taken care of by a free market - the government schools have no pressure to scale down. All they want to do is keep the train on the tracks. If enrollment isn't growing, it's hard to justify increased spending - so they have to pretend.

The Hillsborough Township, New Jersey School District currently has 7,226 students across its nine schools. That is 435 FEWER students than the peak year when there were 7,661 students in the district. That was 2005 - EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO. 

Yet I constantly hear that the schools are "bursting at the seams." How can this be? More importantly, why did the rampant development in the town over the past twenty years not cause a tremendous INCREASE in enrollment but instead result in a DECREASE? And finally, why are there so many that don't know the truth?

We can answer the second question first with what sounds like a copout - the "rampant development" just didn't happen. The question is flawed. In this case, you actually can't believe your lying eyes. Hillsborough's population increased by a relatively paltry 6,000 between 2000 and 2020. That's a mere 18%. As a comparison, between 1970 and 1990, the township's population increased from 11,000 to nearly 29,000 - an 18,000-person, 160% increase! Those were the decades of "rampant development" - not the past 20 years.

Even so, shouldn't a population increase of 6,000 add some students to the school system? Yes - and it did, at first. School enrollments increased between 2000 and 2005 before heading in the other direction and bottoming out at 7,126 in 2015. Birth rates in Hillsborough simply did not keep pace with all of the new bedrooms being built. In 2002, the Auten Road Elementary School was doubled in size to become the Auten Road Intermediate School (grades 5-6), and the final of three major additions was completed at the high school, doubling its capacity from the original building of 1969. There have been no projects to increase school capacity since that time.

So, if there are 435 fewer students enrolled now than in 2005, and school capacity has remained the same, why is there a prevalent narrative that says the schools are overcrowded? The answer is that over the past 18 years, the state has changed the definition of full capacity. In other words, you no longer have what you paid for.

For example, in 2001, when voters went to the polls to approve the construction projects at ARIS and the high school, they were told that the project would increase the high school capacity from 2,100 to 2,600 students. Yet today, the state uses something called Facility Efficiency Standards to calculate that the current high school has a capacity of 1,517. Somewhere along the line, the residents of Hillsborough have lost space for over 1,000 students. That is space that they paid for - and it's all gone. 

The same is true of every school in the district. What we thought were elementary schools with a maximum enrollment of 600 are now down to an FES maximum of around 400. This is a real kick to longtime residents who paid for the schools to be built and expanded numerous times.

One last note...over the years, Hillsborough has commissioned demographic studies to predict and plan for future enrollment. Despite the fact that their entire business is built on PREDICTION, they have a mountain of excuses when their prognostication fails. In Hillsborough's case, they consistently predict a far more significant increase in school-aged children than what actually occurs - and they are resistant to any retroactive studies to see how their predictions have fared in the past. Another board member and I tried several times to get a demographer to look back on past predictions and hold themselves to account but faced nothing but poor excuses. 

The 2018 Enrollment Projection and Facility Utilization Study predicted an enrollment of 7,723 students for the 2023-24 school year. As reported at a December 2023 school board meeting, current enrollment is 7,226.

A New High School for Hillsborough? Part Two

In Part One I wrote about how, in the final years of my tenure on the Hillsborough Township Board of Education, there was a big push to do something about the outdated, overcrowded high school. The first question I asked when this subject came up was, "If a school with a capacity for 2,400 students has fewer than 2,400 students enrolled, how can it be overcrowded?"

The school is overcrowded in two ways that are tied together. Firstly, we can measure the capacity of the school by the number of classrooms. If a school has eighty classrooms designed for 30 students each, that gives us a maximum capacity of 2,400. The issue is that we don't use classrooms in the same way we did fifty years ago. Some classrooms will need to have fewer students - there is no getting around it.

Secondly, the basic infrastructure is too small. A school constructed fifty-four years ago with a limited ability for expansion was soon expanded far beyond that. That means the hallways are too small with several choke points and limited routes to get from one area to another - especially with the current enrollment. And common areas such as the cafeteria are overcrowded.

The "unlimited money" solution to this problem is to erect a new 2500-plus capacity high school on a new site and turn the current high school into a 6-7-8 middle school - thereby reducing the number of students in the building to fewer than 1800 and relieving the congestion in the hallways and the strain on the bathrooms, cafeteria, gyms, auditorium, and other common areas.

Setting aside the money issue (likely to be an immediate $1,000 increase on everyone's annual tax bill) the question becomes where to build a new school. The current high school site has many advantages. One is that it is centrally located. It also has good access to roads - three in fact! I know that some bemoan its location on the busy Amwell Road, but imagine if the school was tucked into a quiet residential development at the end of a cul-de-sac. 

The suggestion to build a new high school at the site of the former GSA Depot was explored in 1995 and has come up again from time to time as the land has been cleaned up and is available for development. But are there any other solutions? Can anything be done on the current high school site to alleviate the issues?

I have a few ideas - this is one:

1. Acquire the land at the GSA Depot.
2. Relocate the practice fields and baseball and softball diamonds to the GSA Depot.
3. Construct a cart path between the high school and the GSA Depot.
4. Build a new arts center/auditorium at the vacated soccer fields.
5. Reconfigure the current auditorium and music instruction rooms into classroom space.
6. Put a sign up at the GSA Depot site reading, "Future Home of Hillsborough High School".
7. Wait.

This simplified plan doesn't address all of the details and doesn't solve all of the issues but it plans for the future while buying time to see where enrollment goes. A new high school can be erected later. A centrally-located high-seating capacity arts center can always be used even after the current high school is converted into a middle school.

A New High School for Hillsborough? Part One

In 1995, Hillsborough High School was beginning to become overcrowded. The 26-year-old high school was 150 students beyond its 1,350-student capacity with no end in sight. Besides, the school already seemed outdated.

The school board believed that the solution to this problem was to build a brand-new high school and to reconfigure the other schools  - notably making the 1969 high school a 6-8 school. I have written about that plan - and the two rejected referenda that followed - and you can read about it here. Since then, the current high school has been expanded twice to its current nominal capacity of 2,400 students - but the talk of building a new high school persists.

A few years ago, a new fancy high school proposal was floated. A presentation by the high school principal condemned the current high school - once again - as being overcrowded and outdated.

There is no doubt that the two additions to the high school in the late 90s and early 2000s while adding classrooms, did not adequately address the common area issues. The cafeteria, the hallways, etc. are still small. Imagine building a skyscraper with just enough elevator capacity to reach the top floor, and then adding 50 more floors on top of that with no ability to build more elevator shafts. It won't work.

One of the reasons that the first 1995 high school referendum was rejected was that people objected to the site at the corner of Beekman Lane and New Center Road. They were concerned that the site was too far from the population centers of the 54-square-mile township and worried about what bringing sewers to that part of town would do to its rural character. 

Before the second 1995 referendum, the school board published a map denoting the 15 properties in Hillsborough that were considered for the high school, and why 14 of them were rejected. The referendum still failed.

During one of my final years on the school board - 25 years after the failed referendum - I accompanied the superintendent on a site visit to two of the rejected sites from 1995. One was the site bounded by North Willow Road on the west, Hamilton Road on the north, and Amwell Road on the south. This property was rejected by the school board in 1995 because of the presence of a major gas pipeline and substantial wetlands. Those conditions were unchanged in 2021.

The other site I visited was the Belle Mead GSA Depot. Since 1995, the southern half of the tract had been purchased by Somerset County and became Mountain View Park. Now the northern part of the property was controlled by the Hillsborough Township Committee and was available for development.

The difference with this property was that there had been significant changes since it was rejected by the school board in 1995 for "environmental reasons". The property had undergone a multimillion-dollar cleanup and was just awaiting final testing to be given the "all-clear".

So...what to do? I will give you my thoughts in Part Two!

Board Member Privilege?

Today, we hear the word "privilege" almost exclusively in the context of the debated concept of "white privilege". It's a sneaky way of saying "advantage" that makes it harder to argue against. Today's question is whether school board members - regardless of race - have privilege. Do they enjoy advantages merely by being school board members apart from how much effort they put into the position?

Even before I first ran for school board in 2007 I was aware that there was a notion that board members were privileged in regard to their children. The only privilege that became immediately apparent to me is that as a board member, I had the superintendent's cell phone number and a guarantee that he or she would answer pretty much every time I called. 

That is an advantage that the typical parent or concerned resident doesn't have. The problem is that as far as your own children are concerned you, as a board member, are prohibited from calling the superintendent. You simply have to follow the "chain of command" from teacher to principal and up to the superintendent. If a concern ever got that far the superintendent would already be aware and would be involved with any parent equally - including board members.

Another advantage - one that I put in the "blessing and curse" category - is that a board member acquires a much better understanding of how the school system works. You get to see the bureaucracy in action. Witness how the sausage is made. Your eyes will be opened, but it can also be infuriating! 

Since we are examining privilege in the context of advantage it might be useful to list some of the DISadvntages that accrue to you as a board member and to your school-aged children. Here are a few from my own experience and from the experience of board members I have served with:

• You will be the target of disinformation campaigns. Teachers and school employees with whom you had good relationships before you ran for school board will turn against you because they will believe lies promulgated by dishonorable union leaders. In my case, it was the lie that I was the "architect of privatization". In reality, I fought against it and preserved union jobs.
• You may have teachers' union picketers outside your home during contract negotiations. This happened to board members during and before my time on the board.
• You may be the target of a vicious, libelous, letter-writing campaign. In 2017 I was the target of such a campaign. Teachers, neighbors, friends, professional associates, and others received anonymous letters through the US mail with preposterous accusations of illegal activity. All false. This went on for almost a year.
• Your children's academic future could be threatened. During a contract negotiation, a union leader turned to one board member and said, "Your children are out of the school system. They're safe." Then turned to me and another board member and said, "Your children are still in the system, think about that before you make your next offer." P.S. The other board member had the resources to remove his younger children from the district, and did so.
• Your children could be singled out and made to feel uncomfortable in class because their parent is a board member as happened to my daughter.
• Forget about getting college recommendation letters for your kids if you are in contract negotiations. It's not happening. And these are the people that use the phrase "for the children". It's a joke.

I could probably go on but you get the idea. The disadvantages far outweigh the advantages - at least externally. The privilege, if there is one, comes from an internal feeling that you have been of service to your fellow citizens. That has to be enough.

Wawa and the Meaning of Life

After thirty-seven years, the Hillsborough, NJ Wawa is no more. The daily - sometimes twice daily - routine of hundreds of commuters, neighbors, and friends has been permanently disrupted. 

I have patronized the Wawa on Triangle Road in Hillsborough for over 30 years. Indeed, there was a period of seven or eight years when I was there seven days a week. I am a creature of habit, but I strive to make them good ones - and Wawa was a good one.

The Wawa morning shift cashiers must be the most patient people on earth. Why? Because they interact with customers who have yet to drink their morning coffee! I will miss them - just as I miss all the great employees who have moved on over the years (Nettie, AJ, Justin - even the other Justin!).

As my travel patterns in and around Hillsborough changed over the past three years I became a Wawa weekend warrior almost exclusively. But now even that is gone. And while I will miss the coffee (I can't see driving out to Summer Road/Route 202 for 20 oz. of joe) what I will miss the most are the friendly faces that I only ran into at Wawa, and their inevitable greeting, "How are things going on the school board?"

I have been off the board for nearly a year already and I still get that question. 

School board members (as well as school employees and local politicians) come in two varieties - those who are happy to engage with the public, and those who aren't. In some cases, it breaks down to whether or not the board member thinks residents of the town are truly his constituents. As discussed in a previous article, the New Jersey School Boards Association trains board members to NOT be accountable to residents as their representatives, but rather to act as "agents of the state". I was never an agent of the state.

I have known school board members - and other school employees - to avoid the public. In other words, if they must go to the local Shop Rite, it's during off-hours. And Wawa is to be avoided during the morning rush.

Of course, I know many who have the completely opposite philosophy.

The best example that comes to mind is my friend and longtime New Jersey Assemblyman the late Pete Biondi. During his most active years representing the residents of the 16th legislative district, he would be at the Hillsborough Wawa once or twice a week during the morning coffee hours. After making his coffee, he would step outside the store and make himself available to anyone who wanted to talk.

What I observed in those years was a confident person willing to engage. Although I never went as far as setting up shop outside the doors, I did try to emulate his attitude towards the public. And I never shied away from the hard questions - even when they came from Pete himself!

And one other thing...about 15 years ago at the coffee counter, as I was about to add the half-and-half Pete stopped me briefly, reached into the cooler, turned to me, and said, "I've got the secret to the meaning of life." In his hand, he held a carton of French Vanilla creamer. 

I am going to miss Wawa.

So Many Questions

What are children taught in school? That used to be an easy question to answer. Beyond the three "R"s (reading, writing, and arithmetic), they learn the sciences, history, arts, and many other readily described vocational and academic subjects - and we used to know what each meant.

Today's educational landscape - around the country and New Jersey - has become so politically charged that no traditional subject can escape contemporary politics. The law demands it.

Even classes that we thought were safe have succumbed. And so we learn that what we thought was an objective math truth - two plus two equals four - should instead be looked at under the microscope to find the percolating molecules of white supremacy. The sciences are not much better.

But that's not what this column is about. Rather, it is about how the public can discover what is being taught.

I first became interested in this subject in my second term as a school board member 12 years ago. It was the tenth anniversary of 9-11 and I wanted to know if our school district had a lesson about 9-11 and what was in the lesson. You would think that type of information would be easy for a board member to get. LOL.

In all fairness, the assistant superintendent was happy to show me the 9-11 curriculum. There were definitely a lot of typewritten words on that printout. The problem was that most of them were in the form of a question. 

What I needed were the answers. For example, how were teachers answering the question, "What motivated the 9-11 hijackers?" It seems like that would be essential but that information wasn't available. It's all roses and hedgehogs to pose a bunch of important-sounding questions - but what were the answers? 

You might say that there is no one correct answer to that question. OK. Then let me know some of the answers. Nope. Board members don't need to know that because that crosses the line into managing the schools. What hope is there for parents to know what their children are being taught if board members don't even know?

This sort of came to a head during the major 2020 to 2022 New Jersey Social Studies curriculum revisions. I asked to see a representative lesson plan - for any Social Studies topic. It was not going to happen. How dare I ask to see a lesson plan. Who did I think I was? That is for the professionals, not lowly board members. It was the first time I remember board members voting NO on curriculum. 

As we pay our respects today to the victims of 9-11, let's pray that their deaths were not for nothing and that our children may know that.

The Six Board Members You Meet In Hell

In my nearly 16 years on the Hillsborough Board of Education, I sat at the dais on Monday nights with thirty-four different board members. As the years passed and the turnover continued, I had the opportunity to observe - and squirm. I served with some terrific board members, including a few with whom I got along well and some that I remain friends with to this day. And then there were the others.

Before I talk about "The Six Board Members You Meet In Hell" you must know that these observations have little or nothing to do with whether or not the individual was effective as a board member - or if they are a good person in general. I am confident that a "Greg Gillette" type would make someone else's list. Nevertheless, plenty of board members exhibited traits during their tenure that were just infuriating (to me). So, let's begin. [Note: this is all about behavior at public board meetings]

The Know-It-All

A board member that does his or her homework, is familiar with the schools and the issues, and offers thoughtful solutions is always appreciated. That is not this person. The school board Know-It-All uses their outside professional status as a cudgel to demand acquiescence to their point of view. They dabble in that age-old logical fallacy of Appeal to Authority. This wears thin in a hurry - especially when spiced with an air of contempt. Board members come from all walks of life and all education levels. Pro tip - if you have a bunch of letters after your name, leave them home on Monday night.

The Windbag

At least the Know-It-All knows something. The Windbag likes to hear himself speak. That wouldn't be so bad if he had or point, or, at a minimum, had looked at the agenda and read the notes. This person presumably wanted to be on the board, we just don't know why. Pro tip - if you are going to first open your packet (in the days when we had paper packets) at the dais, then don't say anything else the rest of the evening.

The Persistent Pugilist

It's great when a board member has a little fight in them - I certainly did. But when the ref counts you out - you're done. In the context of a school board meeting, the usual etiquette is that a board member can speak - and be rebuked by other members -  three times on any subject and then they need to throw in the towel. That has always seemed abundantly fair. The Persistent Pugilist has a good opportunity - three of them in fact - to make an argument and win support. Pro tip - know when it's time to hit the showers.

The Last Word Lecturer

Different from the Persistent Pugilist, the Last Word Lecturer has to have the final retort in any exchange. It's no good following on with more thoughts on the subject, you will be contradicted again - and again. I was on the board with a few members who had this affliction, and it drove me batty! Honestly, for some of these board members, it's the only thing I remember about them. Pro tip - we're not married; I am allowed to have the last word once in a while!

The Stone-Stepper

Ah Yes! The lowly school board as launching pad. School boards in New Jersey are supposed to be non-partisan. Board members agree to not let their opinions, votes, etc. be swayed by any political parties. Get real. I have served with board members who had engraved nametags that read "Jane Doe, Hillsborough BoE" that they wore to political gatherings. I also served with board members from both political parties who were elected county committee members of their parties - actually elected by the general public during the NJ primary elections in June! Pro tip - be humble on your way up, you may be back here on your way down.

Ms. Manifesto

Often a repeat offender, when Ms. (or Mr.) Manifesto begins to speak, get ready for ten to twelve minutes of misplaced righteous indignation. When I would spot that single-spaced typewritten sheaf of paper come out I felt like running out of the room. This is not the US Senate. You are not Daniel Webster. Sure, some of the histrionics were fun -- the banging of tiny fists, etc. - but come on! The other eight board members didn't get the assignment. No one is prepared. It's not right! Pro tip - if you need one of those special industrial staplers to get it together, it's too long!

There you have it...but, you know what? Spending a few hours today thinking about this makes me realize that I might need to do a Part 2 someday! Maybe before that, I should do one about the board members who made meetings seem like Heaven! Would it surprise you to know that they could be the same people? People are complicated.

Let's Get Elected

Many of my posts concentrate on the frustrations of being a school board member  - especially in New Jersey. Sometimes I wonder why anyone would want to run for a seat - let alone do it five times! I can only conclude that the frustration of being on the sideline and the desire to do SOMETHING to turn the tide outweighs any perceived future pummeling! In any case, I give every prospective school board candidate the same advice I was given back in February 2007 when I threw my hat in the ring - be prepared to win!

 

That statement can, and should, be read two ways. Firstly, never go into the campaign season just for the experience, or to give it a try, or whatever. Assume that you are going to win and be ready to put in the work it takes to be a successful board member once you are elected - including giving up all of those evenings for three years.

Secondly, be ready to launch a winning campaign. If you are at that stage today, you have come to the right place. Here are my proven tips that will get you to the finish line "in the money".

• Declare Very Early or Very Late. Most candidates don't file their petitions until the final day, which is fine - no need to let anyone get a head start to defeat you. On the other hand, there was one year I made my intentions known very early, months before the deadline. It was my third run and I believed myself to be a very strong candidate and I was hoping to deter other candidates from jumping in. And it worked! I essentially ran unopposed with only three candidates vying for the three available seats.
• Raise $500 from family and friends. That's really all it takes, even today. In fact, there are plenty of successful school board campaigns that spent no money at all. Ask for donations of between $25 and $50. This will not only get you the cash you need but also build a group of between 10 and 20 committed supporters. Once people have donated they literally have a vested interest in the outcome and will be good advocates for the campaign. This forms a pool of people to draw from for "Letters to the Editor" on the local news websites.
• Purchase Lawn Signs.  I don't advocate spending money on anything else. I have seen so many campaigns that didn't put up any signs, and lost by a few votes. That was someone who didn't "prepare to win". Even one sign in front of each polling place might have been enough. In my day you could get 150 signs for $500 but perhaps now it's only 100. No problem - that will be enough.
• Employ a good sign strategy. Your lawn sign design should be as simple as you can make it. I went with my last name on top and "School Board" underneath. Anything else is a waste. Your voters are smart enough to know what town they are in and the date of the election - no need to inform someone else's voters of these facts. As far as slogans go - trite ones (think "for the children") will be mocked and others are difficult without context (in other words they may turn off as many people as they turn on!). Placement locations are easy enough. All of the polling places and all of the schools should get signs. Then, simply place a sign adjacent to the signs of other candidates. The rule of thumb here is that no one should see someone else's sign while not also seeing one of yours. Simple. If you are coordinating your campaign with another candidate, read the next bullet...
• No "Ticket" is the ticket! A few years ago New Jersey began allowing school board candidates to run together on one ticket and be listed together on the ballot. This can be problematic as voters don't always realize that they need to "pull the lever" for each individual candidate (it's not like voting for president where you get Dan Quayle as a bonus!). I suggest, instead, that like-minded candidates - ideally two - simply coordinate their campaigns. The most visible way to do this is by employing identical lawn sign color and design. This will immediately double (or triple) your campaign visibility on the highways and byways as drivers will recognize the color and design first before they even read the name. After that, simply endorse each other in your emails and social media posts. Note: I do not recommend running three candidates together as this has a tendency for all three to lose votes to each other when a voter has a personal commitment to a candidate outside of your group. In other words, when voters are left with two votes to give for your campaign they won't always give those votes to the same two candidates but rather spread them around among all three. Better to win two seats than narrowly lose two, or all three!
• Get the Social Media working for you. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter - none existed when I first ran back in 2007 but I did use Facebook extensively for my final campaign in 2019. Use your lawn sign design on your social media page, and update regularly with your views and especially a countdown to election day. It's free and it works!
• Have a simple platform. People generally only remember three things at a time (unless I am at Wegmans, in which case I can usually only remember two). In 2019 my three were Respect Parents and Taxpayers, Repair the Damaged Relationship with Stakeholder Groups, and Restore Confidence in the Board. Ideally, one item in your platform should be timely. For instance, under Repair the Damaged Relationship with Stakeholder Groups I listed settling the teachers' contract, working cooperatively with the township committee, and hiring a superintendent. Within each of your three planks, you can either state the specifics of how you will solve the problem or simply state what makes you the best candidate on that issue.
• GOTV Until we reach the point where there is near 100% participation in voting, getting your voters to the polls is paramount. These days, that also means utilizing early voting and mail-in ballots. Be sure to have instructions on how to do that on your social media!!!!
• Have principles and don't forget them. Explaining yourself to others is fine, but if you find that you are explaining yourself to yourself - that's a problem. 

Good luck candidates!

Who Do You Trust?

In a letter to the Massachusetts Militia dated 11 October 1798, President John Adams wrote, "Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." He was speaking not only of morality but also of the virtues needed for trusted interpersonal relationships - things like courage, prudence, and honesty. 

The issue of trust comes up a lot on the school board. Much is made about the need for school board members to trust each other and the administration, for the administrators to trust each other and the school board members, and for mutual trust between the board, administration, and employees. After serving for more than 15 years as an elected board member, my first inclination would be to tell new board members to trust no one.

Unfortunately, that is wholly impractical. School board members are not hands-on enough - indeed are prohibited from being hands-on - to make decisions on most issues without the input of administrators. A board member needs to know that facts and figures from the business administrator are accurate and that reports from the superintendent truly reflect what is happening in the schools.

In a district like Hillsborough, the five main administrators that board members are in contact with are the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, the business administrator, the assistant business administrator, and the human resources director. I served with quite a few over the years and trusted each of them unless they gave me a reason not to. I can say confidently that there were many who were honorable and trustworthy over the course of their entire tenure at Hillsborough - and sadly there were many who were not. 

An administrator is dishonest primarily by having a hidden agenda revealed to other administrators but not to the board - or at least not to all board members. It's no secret that superintendents are good at getting what they want. Most of the time they are motivated by what they think is best for the district and the students - and aren't going to let a school board stand in their way!

Who do you trust? Can you trust anyone? My advice is to trust yourself first. Have a noble purpose and stick with it. Don't apologize when you have done nothing wrong. Have courage as well as patience. Show by your example that you are not an ignoble dirty trickster. Perhaps others will follow.

Congratulations, Graduates!

On June 20, 2017, it was my great pleasure as Board President to deliver a brief address to Hillsborough Township High School graduates. This was a very special occasion for me personally as it was the only year of fifteen that I was president - and my daughter was one of the graduates.

I took the opportunity to speak, in my own way, about American exceptionalism - though I never used that phrase. In my view, the thing that makes America exceptional, i.e. different from all other nations, is that there is no single religion, ethnic background, or cultural tradition that bonds us. Instead, we are bound by an idea - that humans have inalienable rights centered on freedom and individual liberty - and that we are stronger as a nation because we choose to have this idea rise above cultural, ethnic, and racial divisions. E Pluribus Unum, indeed. And by the way, public education is what makes that work, when public education itself is working.

The following is a transcript of my remarks that day.

"Good afternoon graduates, parents, family, and friends. Congratulations! 

One of the few perks granted a school board president is the privilege of speaking at graduation. Now, as we all know, no student remembers anything that was said at their graduation - and today that goes double for one graduate out there who hasn't listened to a word I’ve said since she was about fourteen! Nevertheless, I am going to give it a shot. 

I stand before you today not only as a representative of your nine elected school board members, but also, and more importantly, as a representative of the people of Hillsborough, who have provided this education to you as more than their obligation, but as their gift. And what an important gift. 

We have heard much in recent years about how America, a nation of immigrants, finds its strength through its diversity. But that’s only half the story. America is great because of our ability, indeed necessity, of setting aside our diversity and uniting as Americans. This is as true for those who trace their family tree back to the beginning of our country as it is for those recent immigrants we welcome each year. And a public school education is the catalyst. 

When Alexis de Tocqueville traveled through America in the 1830s, studying and compiling his great works on American democracy, he marveled at a classless, egalitarian society. One whose cultural traditions arose from their great founding documents - centered on freedom and individual liberty. This was before the great waves of immigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia, Eastern and Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia, and all corners of the globe - each bringing their own cultural traditions. 

What they found is that America is more than a place to travel to on a map, it is a place to travel to in your head. It doesn't matter where we begin our journey if we all end up in the same place, as Americans. 

In 2012 author Richard Kahlenberg wrote, “Public schools were founded in this country to make sure that future generations of citizens have an appreciation for democratic values, understand what we have in common as Americans, and have the skills to be productive members of society.” 

Through education, we give you the gift of America, and in return, we ask only that you pass this great gift on to your children and grandchildren."

Fight Censorship

It wasn't that long ago that school administrators and even teachers decried the infiltration of political ideologies into the classroom. I think I was in my second term as an elected school board member in 2011 or 2012 when the superintendent told me that he wouldn't stand for indoctrination in the classroom, and would want to be informed immediately if any teacher was dispensing political views in place of learning. 

My, how things have changed in a decade. Nowadays, in states like New Jersey, indoctrination in one point of view is not only tolerated, it's mandated. It's not just that students never hear any opposing views on subjects such as climate science, the founding of the United States, or any of a wide range of social issues - they don't even know that other points of view exist!

We hear a lot today from the progressive left about "book banning". Efforts to ensure reading materials are age-appropriate are derided as censorship. What people don't know is that real censorship in "the marketplace of ideas" has been going on for decades.

In my fifteen-plus years as a school board member, I can't think of even one book on a summer reading list or sent to the school board to be approved for use in the classroom that was written by a conservative author. Not one. But there were plenty offered up for student use written by progressives and/or outright communists (Howard Zinn comes to mind). Sometimes I voted No on these texts - but with no alternatives ever presented by administrators, it turns into a futile battle.

This is the real de facto "book banning" - and parents have no idea.

Yet there are hundreds of great reads by renowned, accomplished conservative authors. I will list a few here. See if you can figure out what they all have in common (besides never being allowed in a school library).

• Discrimination and Disparities - Thomas Sowell
• White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era - Shelby Steele
• My Grandfather's Son - Clarence Thomas
• Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America  - John McWhorter
• Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed - Jason L. Riley
• Liberty vs. the Tyranny of Socialism - Walter E. Williams
• What's Race Got to Do With It? - Larry Elder
• Blackout - Candace Owens
• Black Rednecks and White Liberals - Thomas Sowell
• The Content of Our Character - Shelby Steele

Rise and Shine

For some years now, members of the public have asked the Hillsborough Township School Board to consider changing the start time at the high school from 7:30 to 8:30 or even later. They cite studies purported to show that students get more sleep, perform better in school, and have better overall health when beginning school later in the morning. 

I confess that while I was on the board I was skeptical of the benefits of later start times - and having researched the issue I remain skeptical. But that doesn't mean I didn't work on the problem. The problem being - what would the district do if the state were to mandate 8:30 start times? A little over a year ago, at the April 20, 2022 Operations Committee meeting, I discussed at some length my ideas. At that point - even though board members had been nodding their heads as residents came to the podium on this issue - the board was waiting for the administration to lead with some proposals. None were forthcoming. The next day I sent an email to the members of the committee, the acting superintendent, and the business administrator summarizing my proposal. Below are the contents of the email for your consideration.

Adjustment of High School Start Times

In consideration of the fact that the NJ legislature may in the near future mandate a later high school start time, potentially as late as 8:30, I have put together some thoughts on how this might be accomplished while also addressing other issues.

• The length of the school day. Currently, the high school day is approximately 30 minutes longer than the other schools in the district. Besides the inherent inequity for our staff, this also leads to transportation issues.
• The lunch period is too short. For students wishing to purchase lunch, there is often not enough time to get in line, make a purchase, find a seat, and eat.
• In our current system lab sciences are tied to PE periods so that students can miss PE once per cycle to have a double period of science. This causes scheduling conflicts.
• Short class periods, very short periods split by lunch, and frequent, short passing periods.

It should be self-evident that a change of the school dismissal from 2:30 to 3:30 would have a severely detrimental effect on participation in athletics and other after-school activities, including employment. If the school day is shortened by 30 minutes, school can begin at a state-mandated 8:30 and dismiss at a reasonable 3:00. This would seem to be a good compromise. Also, when every school in the district has the same length of day, transportation routes should be able to be more efficiently tiered.

I propose dividing the 6.5-hour schedule into A Days and B Days. Essentially classes would meet every other day. In this plan, instruction periods would be approximately 80 minutes long; passing would be 4 or 5 minutes, and lunch periods approximately 37 minutes.

The daily bell schedule might look something like this:

8:30-8:40 Homeroom

8:45-10:05 Period 1

10:10-11:30 Period 2

11:34-12:12 Period 3 Lunch

12:16-12:53 Period 4 Lunch

12:57-1:35 Period 5 Lunch

1:40-3:00 Period 6

Classes would be in periods 1, 2, 3-4, 4-5, 3-5, and 6. Classes during 3-5 would be split by lunch. The 80-minute period for most of the day means that any day can be a lab day. This will divorce lab periods from PE. It also opens up the possibility of making PE a semester (half-year) course that can be taken during a different period in the spring than in the fall, thereby better accommodating the scheduling of other semester courses.

During this technological age, an A/B schedule is eminently doable, if not preferable. In years and decades past, it was imperative to receive instruction from a teacher each day, as the face to face instruction time was the primary means of communication. Now, students have access to online resources from the teacher and others and do not need to see the instructor each day.

There will be some challenges. Can you do lunch in three periods? Kathy Major has talked about a plan to utilize outdoor space for lunch so perhaps that could be an option. Or maybe period 2 would need to be split creating one more lunch period (10:53-11:30) and one more split instruction period.

Would students take 8 courses or 7? Even with 90 fewer work hours per year, teachers might have an objection to teaching 6 classes compared to 5. So perhaps students would take 3 classes on A Day and 4 on B Day or vice versa, (with teachers having three classes one day and two on the other). Students could be assigned to the cafeteria for study hall during periods 1, 2, or 6 on the day they have 3 classes. In any case, some modeling would need to be done to cover various scenarios.

 

I hope this serves to illuminate the suggestions I made at the recent Operations/Finance meeting during the discussion of later school start times.

Spineless, Maybe...

I've written before about the defined role of a New Jersey school board member. And truthfully it should be easy to understand. Board members are policymakers, not administrators. In broad terms, board members must refrain from involving themselves in the school district's day-to-day operations. That's great in theory and should keep administrators in their lane, except for one thing - administrators and the education establishment think that board members are idiots.

 

That's not quite right. I would change Mark Twain's famous quote above to read, "In the first place God made worms. This was for practice. Then he made school boards" because while school board members certainly aren't idiots, they rival most invertebrates for lack of spine.

Over the years, administrators have slowly scraped away most of what school board members can do and taken it for themselves - sometimes aided by state regulations - all the while giving school board members essentially meaningless tasks such as approving sixth-period coverage. 

There are a host of things that have nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of the district that school board members are prohibited from weighing in on. School board members have no input on the hiring of a new high school principal or a head football coach, for example, even though those actions would more easily fit under the umbrella of "policy" than they would "administration".

One of the big topics of discussion on the school board the year before I was first elected was how class rank should be calculated. That was 17 years ago. I can't imagine the current school board in Hillsborough having any input into something like that today.

After the disastrous Covid-era high school graduation in 2020, I proposed changing our graduation policy to allow the elected board members to have input into the date, location, and manner of graduation. I think we can all agree that high school graduation has nothing to do with "administering the schools". Indeed, it is the board that awards the diplomas! Yet I got so much pushback from administration and a contingent of board members that all I was able to negotiate was a one-sentence change that required the superintendent to inform the board of graduation details a few months in advance. 

Administrators continue to come up with novel ways to get what they want without board input or approval. In 2021 a decision was made by the administration to "de-track" students at the intermediate school level. This meant that students would no longer be grouped by aptitude in their subject classes. Now, you can argue for or against such a change, but you must agree that a move like that is broadly a change in policy, not "day-to-day". In other words, shouldn't the public, through their elected representatives, have a say in whether or not the district will be "tracking" students?

Well, in this case, the answer was No. The move to de-tracking was framed as a Student Growth Objective of the school principal, which by necessity made it a personnel matter walled off from board members. Outrageous! 

And the coup de grace? When I brought this issue to the New Jersey School Boards Association representative at Hillsborough's annual board retreat she agreed wholly with the superintendent! And the board slinked away in the mud.

Pass The Budget, Not the Buck

There are more things that you can't do as a school board member in New Jersey than there are things you can do. Aside from selecting a superintendent, you can't hire anyone and you can't fire anyone. You can't interact with school personnel, and you can't see a sample lesson plan before you approve the school curriculum. Etc., etc. But what you can do is pass a budget. 

With each passing year, as more school policies are dictated by the state, school board members have less impact on the direction of their districts. Board members are told that they can't even have input into whether or not the district will "track" students into advanced, general, or remedial classes or use differentiated instruction within the classroom (more on this in another post).

But board members still hold the purse strings - if they have resolve.

Here are the keys:

• Be vocal in public about what you want and don't want in the budget
• Signal that you will vote No if there are items that are objectionable
• Hold the superintendent accountable for adhering to the budget you pass

As I explained many times at board meetings over the years, aside from some broad categories where monies must remain segregated (capital expenses, maintenance, and cafeteria funds to name a few), much of the budget, once approved, is left to the superintendent to manage.

This is why I always tried to refer to the budget as a "budget plan". It is the opportunity for the board members to stand up and fix their priorities - if not in stone, then at least in an Excel spreadsheet. And then hold the administration accountable. 

We know that there are times when funds will have to be moved from one account to another during the year to cover unplanned expenses - but the administration should always be seeking consent, if not formal approval, for these changes.

My experience on the board taught me that once the budget was passed it was promptly forgotten. Unless...unless board members were vocal in public at budget time about what they wanted. It's not easy. Superintendents generally do not have any regard for the priorities of the board. Several years ago when board members wanted to add three additional guidance counselors at the elementary school level we said so at a public meeting. It wasn't easy. 

About ten years ago when the Operations Committee of the board still had the primary responsibility of hammering out the budget with the superintendent, the committee asked for changes to the superintendent's recommended budget. The superintendent wasn't happy about this and ultimately prepared two budgets - one labeled as the district budget, the other as the Operations Committee budget! 

How far we have fallen! Fifteen years ago the Finance Committee of the board held up the budget for weeks because we objected to a $6000 expenditure that we found unnecessary. Nowadays, with an item that small, the administration would probably just buy it anyway no matter what the board's wishes because it was needed. For whatever. Board members, don't let that happen.

Who Do You Represent?

In the United States, it's pretty much universally accepted that elected representatives of the people are in their positions to represent the people that elected them.

Except if you are a school board member in New Jersey.

Most school administrators that I came in contact with during my fifteen-plus years as a school board member would tell you that a board member's constituents are the students of the district. The official position of the New Jersey School Boards Association (a group that SHOULD be advocating for school board members, but doesn't) is that board members are not representatives of the people in their communities, but rather are "agents of the state".

Did you really think that the State of New Jersey would invest any actual power in 5,000 normal citizens?

It seems that the school board elections are only to give the sad saps of New Jersey the ILLUSION that someone will be representing their interests. Try as they might, good school board members are prevented from doing this at every turn. From Curriculum to Covid, it's always the same - the state and the school administrators will push things along and school board members are only there for cover. And the NJSBA is there to keep the train rolling. No other reason.

I questioned this every year I was on the board. There are no rational answers. If school board members are not permitted to represent the public then why have elections at all? The county superintendents could certainly look at the resumes of candidates from each district and appoint whomever they wish. There is no answer to this.

Why are school board members constantly, CONSTANTLY, informed by the NJSBA that they have no individual power, but only as a group? Why do board members need to be told that? That situation is no different than any other elected body - from a township committee to the NJ Assembly to the US Congress - yet no other group needs to be reminded that their power is only as a group. There is no answer forthcoming.

This frustration is not at all limited to right-leaning board members. Believe me when I tell you that there is an equal number of newly-elected board members from the left side of the aisle who are just as frustrated.

In a future post, I will try to give some Hillsborough-specific examples.

Domestic Terrorists

Last week the House Judiciary Committee released its interim report concerning the involvement of the Department of Justice with the National School Boards Association and the labeling of concerned parents who attend school board meetings as "domestic terrorists".

As a school board member for close to sixteen years between 2007 and 2023 I have to say I never felt threatened by any parent expressing their concerns at a school board meeting - and certainly not by any "far-right", "ultra-MAGA" Republican. Of course, there were times, especially during my stint as board president in 2017, when I felt uncomfortable. It's never easy to tell people things they don't want to hear. When things go wrong at the schools you need to expect difficult questions. That year I faced many difficult questions from the public podium - union issues, mold due to faulty HVAC equipment, lead in the water in several schools, heating issues, air-conditioning issues, substance use concerns, personnel issues, etc. I always answered honestly and firmly and tried to project that I was on the same side as the public.

Indeed, the only time I ever felt threatened as a school board member was not by the general public, but by the local teachers' union. During contract negotiations, it was typical for hundreds of union members to come to a school board meeting and stand outside the meeting room, in the school hallway, lining both sides of the hallway so that board members had to literally squeeze through a narrow gauntlet between rows of scowling union members. That was physically intimidating. During and before my time on the board, other members had union protesters picket outside their homes. 

But beyond all of that, there is something bigger going on here. It was revealed very early on in the DOJ's targeting of parents that the White House collaborated with the National School Boards Association in drafting a letter from the NSBA to the DOJ asking to define protesting parents as domestic terrorists and use all the powers against them that the DOJ is permitted to use against domestic terrorists. 

There was never any threat to school board members from parents. The letter and the DOJ response were political - connected with the upcoming November 2021 governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey where parental rights in education had become an issue - and meant to intimidate PARENTS!

In the aftermath, the NSBA lost nearly half of its membership with 22 states withdrawing from the organization and many others publicly rebuking the letter. The New Jersey School Boards Association remains. And that is a topic for another post.