SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — The South Orange-Maplewood School District held a second education summit at Columbia High School on Dec. 6 in order to garner feedback from parents, teachers and students as to how the deliverables of its proposed action plan should be prioritized if the Board of Education votes to approve the overall strategic plan.
The more than 100 community members who attended Education Summit 2 were given the opportunity to participate in breakout sessions, each one focused on one of the nine strategies initiated by the district’s strategic direction and expounded on by the action plan. Members of the action planning committees led the sessions, explaining the deliverables they conceived to bring about each strategy while also inviting comments and concerns. In the end, attendees were given the chance to fill out a survey regarding which of the actions they think are most pressing and detailing other initiatives they feel should be considered.
And while the second summit’s attendance came nowhere close to the approximately 1,500 people who attended the first summit last year, Superintendent of Schools John Ramos Sr. is nonetheless pleased at least some of the community was able to hear about potential first steps toward transforming SOMSD into a district “delivering 21st-century learning and preparing our students for a future we have yet to imagine.” Ramos added that the “robust and thoughtful dialog” that took place is a sign the strategic planning process as a whole has been successful.
“The results once again demonstrate the benefits of an organic process that engages the community and staff in every phase,” Ramos told the News-Record in a Dec. 12 email. “The action plans and feedback have the potential to drive good and relevant work well into the future.”
Karen Weiland, co-chairwoman of the Multiple Student Supports Committee, also was satisfied coming out of the education summit. Weiland said she appreciated the chance to discuss her committee’s seven deliverables with the larger community since it was the community sharing its vision at the first summit that guided the action plan’s scope. She is glad that she received a lot of positive feedback as well, telling the News-Record she believes the deliverables will do a lot of good for students.
“I really think that it will be, from my perspective, transformative,” Weiland said in a Dec. 12 phone interview, pointing out that her committee looked at the needs of students from preschool to 12th grade and studied best practices from outside the district to devise the list. “We really hope that, all taken together, it adds up to a whole that will be the support that all different sorts of students need.”
Weiland said her audience seemed particularly impressed by the committee’s idea to launch a peer mentorship program for secondary students, with a few commenting that such an initiative would be a helpful safety net for participating teens. Another deliverable — strengthening the district’s information and referral system — is already being addressed, she said. In fact, she said Co-chairwoman Tamara Steckler recently met with roughly 20 local professionals about the possibility of sharing their expert knowledge pro bono with community members who need it. That way, she said, those with questions on everything from obtaining government benefits to applying for college could attend free consulting sessions with lawyers, college admissions officers and others with the ability to help.
Summit presenter Ramon Robles-Fernandez was also happy with the event. Robles-Fernandez, who served as co-chairman of the cultural competency committee, said attendees seemed very receptive to deliverables such as providing opportunities for student cultural discussion and developing a protocol for culturally competent hiring and retention of staff. He said many people asked questions and no one responded negatively.
For Robles-Fernandez and his fellow committee members, the summit served as a culmination of nine months of meeting and considering what the SOMSD must do to become more culturally competent. He said they started by reviewing the strategy they were given — “We will infuse cultural competency in every aspect of our learning community” — and then came up with ideas about how to achieve this. Then, committee members combined similar ideas before eventually arriving at their seven actions. But they did not stop there, the co-chairman said; they went on to devise individual ways in which to accomplish those deliverables.
In the end, Robles-Fernandez believes his committee created a list of objectives that will make the SOMSD a shining example of cultural competence, which he said is vital for the diverse district.
“Learning who we are and what we value as a community is going to have a positive impact,” Robles-Fernandez told the News-Record in a Dec. 12 phone interview.
Not everyone was so impressed by the summit, though. Student representative to the BOE Filip Saulean, who was a member of the Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee, said he wishes more people had attended the recent summit. Saulean pointed out that he saw only one other student there, meaning a pivotal group of stakeholders did not get their voices heard. Even those who were there did not have much time to share their opinions, he said, which prevented extensive dialog.
Saulean also has concerns about the action plan itself, telling the News-Record that he does not think it will be the “paradigm shift” Ramos has predicted. A big reason for that, he said, is that many of the deliverables included are too ambiguous to be effective. For instance, he said no action directly addresses how to improve the CHS discipline policy, which he believes can be too harsh at times.
Saulean also said not enough thought has gone into how the district will pay for all the deliverables described. He said his group was tasked with conducting a cost analysis of its objectives although no one on the committee was a financial expert. He said the expenses involved in pursuing the actions could thus easily be higher than expected. And if the SOMSD does not have enough funds to cover those expenses — which is possible, considering budget cuts — he said the chances of implementation are unlikely.
Overall, Saulean is not optimistic that the action plan will make a difference for the district.
“It’s a small step in the right direction, but I don’t think it’s going to do too much,” Saulean told the News-Record in a Dec. 12 phone interview. “I feel that there are problems with how our education model is set up. It’s very antiquated and there needs to be some change. But I don’t think strategic planning is necessarily the vehicle for change.”
Lauren Freedman also was not optimistic after attending Education Summit 2. A co-founder of the South Orange-Maplewood Cares About Schools parent group, Freedman said she was interested in hearing details about the action plan, but did not learning much more than when the deliverables were revealed at the Nov. 21 BOE meeting. She added that she was still unclear how her feedback would be used, or if it would be used at all.
Freedman does know that the district has a poor track record of implementing programs, such as International Baccalaureate, which is partly why she said she is not confident the action plan will be successful. Also concerning her is the fact that some major issues were not addressed directly, with the district parent listing the Office of Civil Rights complaint as a prime example. She said she expected the action plan to illustrate how the issues behind the complaint were being resolved, but did not see any reference to it.
Board of Education member Johanna Wright agreed that the action plan left out a lot of topics that should be covered, which is a reason she opposes it. Aside from the OCR and ACLU complaints, Wright listed bullying, arts education, scheduling and infrastructure among the many subjects that should have been included in the strategic plan, but were not. With such glaring omissions, she said, it is clear to her that the district deserves a better plan.
“We’re looking at an incomplete and, as far as I’m concerned, incompetent piece of work,” Wright told the News-Record in a Dec. 9 phone interview. “It’s not acceptable. It’s not ready to be voted on. And we had a lot of talented people from our community working on this, but they were given absolutely no direction in terms of what the true issues were. Imagine where we would be right now if those people who worked so hard on this plan knew what the issues were.
“It’s a missed opportunity,” she continued. “We can’t tell people to dream big if you don’t tell them what needs to be included in that dream.”
Wright said Ramos should have directed the action planning committees to focus on the SOMSD’s important issues in creating their deliverables. She said the superintendent also should have allowed the entire community to offer input in the action planning process instead of leaving it entirely in the hands of the committee members. The board member said she requested to be included in the process, as she has experience working on strategic plans for the South Orange Performing Arts Center, but she said she was denied by Ramos. As a result, Wright said, she and the larger community were left in the dark for nine months only to be presented what she said is an unsatisfactory plan.
If it were up to her, Wright said, the district would begin the strategic planning process over with an emphasis on complete transparency. She also said she will not vote in favor of the proposed strategic direction and action plan. And she hopes her fellow board members will not develop “Stockholm syndrome” and blindly vote in line with the superintendent. Because, if these items are passed, especially without a financial plan and implementation procedure in place, she warned that the district will suffer as a result.
“It would be detrimental, I think, to the district and almost a betrayal to the kids,” Wright said. “We don’t really have a strategic plan, as I see it.”
Contrary to Wright’s claims, Ramos said the community has been part of the strategic planning process “every step along the way.” He said everyone was invited to attend the first education summit to offer input on what the district needs. He said that feedback was then used by the strategic direction committee to create the nine strategies, which were subsequently used by the action planning committees to devise their deliverables. Those committees consisted of more than 100 community members of varied expertise, he said, and even more residents were used as consultants too.
While not all subjects were addressed directly, Ramos added that many major topics are actually covered in the action plan. For instance, he said, deliverables such as a mentorship program are meant to improve the social and emotional lives of students, which will prevent bullying. Other deliverables address arts education, he said, including the development of integrated content units in the elementary grades. And once the SOMSD reviews the surveys submitted through Education Summit 2, the superintendent said it can create a three-year implementation plan to carry out these ideas based on priority.
As for cost, Ramos said the district will create a first-year implementation plan during this winter so any objectives with costs attached can be incorporated into the 2017-2018 budget. He pointed out that many have little or no affiliated expenses, while initiatives such as the guidance internship program actually increase capacity without increasing costs.
The BOE will vote to approve the strategic direction and action plan — which both make up the overall strategic plan — at its Dec. 19 meeting. Though Wright has come out staunchly against it, other board members, including BOE President Elizabeth Baker, are optimistic that the plan could provide positive change for the district.
Baker said she was impressed by the presentations given during the summit in a Dec. 12 statement to the News-Record. She said she also received a lot of positive feedback from parents and other community members as she visited some of the break-out sessions. Though she did not say how she will be voting, Baker said she and her colleagues will be listening to even more feedback through email and Let’s Talk before making their decisions.