Many thanks to the League of Women Voters of the Cooperstown Area for organizing and moderating tonight’s Meet the Candidates event. Though sparsely attended, we had an excellent and varied dialogue with members of the community and school officials.
I’d like to summarize my answers to as many of the questions as possible while they’re still fresh in my mind. Current board members Mark Rathbun and Rosemary Craig appeared to transcribe my replies verbatim; I hope they did the same for candidate Paula Greene. Making this transcript available would not only benefit members of the community who couldn’t (or didn’t) attend tonight, but also candidate Mary Leonard who was unable to attend due to a family emergency. I will contact the Superintendent’s office tomorrow to see if a transcript will be available before the election on Tuesday, May 15th.
My opening statement was an introduction during which I gave my educational and professional background and reinforced my commitment to the District as an alumnus and resident. A question/answer period followed during which community members and school officials asked us to examine the pressing issues that face the District. I will try to present these as accurately as possible, but I recognize that I may mix and match my responses a bit – too many questions/issues overlap for me to remember the exchanges flawlessly.
I apologize for some formatting quirks, WordPress has given me a few fits using the bulleted-list format. I’ve bolded the questions so you can scroll through and read about the issues that interest you.
In no particular order, here are some of the specific questions I fielded and a summary of my response to each:
- “What are the most important qualities of an effective teacher?” First, a teacher must know his or her subject to a high degree. We can’t take a teacher’s mastery of content for granted; some education schools focus more on theory than content, though thankfully, that is changing. Our district needs to focus on hiring teachers who demonstrate a solid command of the subject with which they are charged to teach. Plenty of research has shown us that knowing a subject is the most critical element to successful teaching. Strong communication skills and a willingness to develop as an educator, when combined with knowledge of the subject and aided by the school’s leadership, make for an effective teacher.
- “If you could change one thing about the school, what would it be?” I broke this answer into two parts: what could be changed unrealistically by wishing and snapping our fingers, and what could be changed with a little focus and hard work. For the pie in the sky change, I explained that having greater autonomy from state and federal requirements would put our school in a position to raise achievement [though I wasn't able to mention this in the allotted time, this is a two-way street; such responsibility can also result in failure if not handled properly, as common sense tells us]. Though I don’t have nearly as many serious gripes with Regents requirements or NCLB, I think that a school could tweak its goals to fit more appropriately with its students and community.For a realistic change, I explained that we need to improve communication – on all levels – with the community. We simply aren’t doing a good job with our website, traditional mailings, or working with the local press.Examples of the school’s failure to communicate include mailing the annual budget newsletter so it was received the day before or, in the case of rural delivery like I receive, the very same day as the public hearing. A district cannot expect community involvement when its residents receive don’t receive information in a timely fashion. Our website is also an unhelpful resource; it is not updated frequently [as I write this, the most recent school board agenda is two months old] nor are basic public documents available online. I explained that I requested all documentation on the budget and Capital Project from the last 16 months and, in one evening, scanned to PDF format each of those documents and made them available on my website. It isn’t hard, expensive or time-consuming; we just have to have a sincere desire to want the public to have all of this information.A related question came up – the particular phrasing I can’t remember – to which I replied again about our need to communicate properly. This time I cited the scheduling of the meeting that we were at. It was scheduled for a Wednesday evening, but our two local weekly papers go to print on Wednesday afternoon. This means that the papers can’t cover the public event; they can’t fit it into this week’s issue and by next Thursday’s paper the election is already over. This wasn’t a spur of the moment oversight, either. The date for Candidates’ Night was chosen last summer, as evidenced by its inclusion on the District Calendar that is mailed to residents just before the start of the school year. We need to work with our local papers to make sure the community is informed, and scheduling an important public event on a day/time that conflicts with their ability to report is no way to go about that.
- “What do you see as the role of interscholastic athletics for our school?” This question was mostly intended to address the proliferation of sports in the district – we’re at 44 sports teams right now – while our enrollment has declined from ~1,400 to ~1,050. I am a strong supporter of sports [and have dabbled in professional athletics myself], but I also recognize the need to spend wisely. Increasing yearly our athletic offerings while experiencing steadily-declining enrollment hurts our ability to deliver teams with plenty of participation [it stretches our athletes thin] and is difficult to justify financially. We also need to work with the Clark Sports Center, a high-quality, well-funded facility in Cooperstown, to satisfy the needs of our students. There is little reason for Cooperstown to offer certain sports programs when the CSC already does it and, in some cases, can do it better.I also pointed out the need for developmental support systems for school athletics. A major reason why some of our teams have been so successful and have garnered broad participation is because we have such well-developed youth programs. This includes excellent programs in baseball, soccer and football that are showing results when the students are old enough to play for the District. This year we’ve included a new bowling team in the annual budget; before making such a move, we need to develop in the community a youth bowling program that can support the demands of the sport on the school level.
- “When was the last time you were in a Cooperstown school building during the school day and what did you see that you liked?” My answer to this question was brief. I have been in the Cooperstown Middle/High School three or four times over the last few weeks to pick up documents and talk to some teachers. While in the building, I saw exactly what I expected to see: teachers teaching and students engaged in learning. There were few surprises.
- “What experience do you have with teaching?” My background in education is varied. I started by teaching a woodworking/welding program 7 years ago in California. After graduating from Boston University, I worked with a few politics classes and gave guest lectures on politics and the arts [with a focus on political music], and also spoke on the sociology of sport. Since then I have taught a wide variety of subjects privately, including advising on a thesis about statistics in popular culture, leading to mastery a student who needed an entire history course in two weeks’ time, and working with students on topics from physics to the comedy of Junior Samples [I got the impression that few in the audience were familiar with Hee-Haw].
- “Which group would you try the hardest to serve?” [I apologize for butchering the question, but I sincerely can't remember how it was asked.] I explained that I could only see one answer from any school board candidate anywhere – we’re all trying to serve the students. Whereas we have to represent the interests of several groups within our constituency, including parents, staff, taxpayers, and community groups, we’ve all got the same thing in mind: delivering a quality education to our kids and doing so at a fair price.
- “What do you think of the Greatness 2010 initiative adopted by the school?” For those of you who aren’t from Cooperstown, the district has adopted a list of goals to go “from good to great” by the year 2010. I regard these goals mostly as lip service; I’m concerned with greatness in 2007, 2008, 2009 and beyond. These are things we should already be doing and many of them aren’t difficult to implement in a timely fashion. For example, developing an effective blog takes about 15 minutes and a commitment to updating it frequently. I said that the District did not currently have a blog and detailed my initiative with using my site to communicate with residents and disseminate the information they want. Current board member Kelly Branigan said, “the school does have a blog.” I asked where it was and she said “on the district website.”What the school has simply is not a blog.Readers are invited to find it at www.cooperstowncs.org. [Hint: There is no link or indication on the front page. You'll have to mouse-over CCS District and BOE, then click Mary Jo McPhail's name. There you'll see a small box that includes some text.]I do not point this out to embarrass the school or simply to be critical. An effective blog is a) easy to find; b) allows for dialogue between the author and readers; c) has links to relevant sites that support content; d) can be linked to; there are more hallmarks of an effective blog and I am more than happy to work with the district regardless of whether I win Tuesday’s election to develop their website as a worthwhile communication tool. If we are concerned about greatness, we need to achieve those goals in more than name only.Throughout the process of defining greatness, I was struck by this line many months ago:
“McPhail noted one school board member was absent because he was in Hartwick helping students with their homework, a new initiative aimed at providing students with after-school help in a convenient location; 22 Hartwick area students have signed up.”
Instead of lip service, I prefer the approach I just referenced: Less talking, more doing. Greatness just doesn’t result from well-intentioned plans.
- “What would you do in your first months on the board?” This was another question with a brief answer. I see only one sensible way to respond: listen. New board members need to listen, observe, and get to know everyone before anything meaningful can be achieved. A board member has to understand those around him and make an effort for everyone else to understand him – only then can a group figure out how to work together to achieve their common goals.
- “How will you respond to the needs and concerns of the Service Unit?” For many years, my mother was a member of the District’s Service Unit, the division of non-instructional staff. Anyone who has spent at least 5 minutes in school knows that non-instructional staff are an integral part of the building’s operation. The Service Unit has not always had an easy time negotiating fair contracts with the district; I don’t feel that any public employee should be a victim of obsolete, ineffective contracts that don’t even address inflation. In short, I’ll represent the interests of the Service Unit to make sure there’s a fair contract.
- “How much time can you devote to the board?” I see service on a board of education as a full-time job, and before I picked up my nominating petition I had to make sure that I could devote 30-40 hours a week, especially during the daytime, to service. Thankfully, I engage in work that allows me incredible flexibility. I detailed the responsibilities of an effective board member:Observing classes and meeting teachers and students to understand better what they do during the schoolday; meeting with community members, local businesses/groups to establish common goals and ways to achieve them; taking time to communicate via the internet, phone, mail and in person; devoting time to research and analysis of both our school and the broader education world; and, of course, serving on/leading committees, attending board meetings and being 100% familiar with all packet content on the agenda.I relayed a quick story about how I talked to 6 students one of the times I was recently in the school. I asked them, “Can you tell me anyone who’s on the Board of Education?” 5 students answered no, and 1 student gave the name of a single board member. This has to change. Kids and teachers need to know that we’re supporting them in full and have a legitimate interest in the school; this can only happen if we’re there and interact with them.
- “How will you as a board member be comfortable with consensus?” This was a question that I at first didn’t quite understand, because it really wasn’t about consensus. The questioner, current and outgoing board member Kelly Branigan, wanted to know how we would react to board decisions we did not support. My answer was succinct: when a decision is made, the board needs to support it and enable its complete implementation regardless of how they voted. Whereas members necessarily differ and disagree on some issues, once a decision is made, it is final. I mentioned that the Supreme Court does this case after case, as they seldom vote unanimously. Members justify publicly their decisions and move on. Harboring bitterness or resentment because a decision didn’t go your way simply is not an option.
- A parent asked whether her concerns would be heard even though she is a single working mother with four children and a modest income. My answer? Absolutely. Every district resident must be treated with dignity and respect with any and all issues, and one’s personal circumstances are irrelevant. Everyone is important. I pointed out that the board has been criticized over the last few years for tolerating resident’s concerns rather than welcoming them. I was clear about that approach being rude and counterproductive . We can’t – and I won’t – treat our constituents with contempt. I explained that I have made myself accessible, and will continue to do so, to the nth degree by giving out freely my e-mail address, landline phone number, mobile phone number, website address and residential address. I welcome as a potential public servant any and all communication, and I’m also willing to be proactive and seek it out.
- “How do we encourage public participation? How can we seduce residents to come to meetings?” Before we seduce anyone, we need to ask them directly to participate. We need to go to them rather than relying on them to come to us. Issues over the last two years have shown that our community is full of knowledgeable and willing people who want to help the school achieve its missions. We need to identify them and ask for their participation. We should want this.
In my closing statement, I thanked everyone for the dialogue – I appreciated it as a citizen, candidate, and education professional. I have truly had a wonderful time over the last month talking to people from Cooperstown, Hartwick, Fly Creek, and Mt. Vision; I’ve talked to students, parents, teachers, taxpayers and alumni and have enjoyed every minute of it.
As I told the audience, my commitment to the District is strong and will remain strong regardless of the election results.
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