2019 School Board Election
I'll vote for Joshua, and probably Wright. At least she has been in a classroom, which I think brings something different to the table. Leaning towards Kraus. Inexperienced, I agree, but she has I think three young kids about to go through the system. She will see how it goes, for better or worse. I'm not too impressed by the others.
sprout said:
- I may vote for Lawson-Muhammad.
She's held a seat for two terms / 6 years correct? How many superintendents have come and gone in that time?
Red_Barchetta said:
sprout said:
- I may vote for Lawson-Muhammad.
She's held a seat for two terms / 6 years correct? How many superintendents have come and gone in that time?
IIRC, both Wright and L-M have been on for two terms?
Osborne was already in place when they both arrived. They would have been on the BOE when they selected Ramos, then 2 years later when they encouraged him to leave, then selected Ficarra as a 2-year interim, and now selected Taylor.
I had provided the search committee with a candidate in the pool when they picked Ramos. My nominated person would have been a young new Superintendent. With Ramos, they decided to go with someone very seasoned -- which I can understand after the term of Osborne, who was a 1st-time Supt, and made many rookie missteps, and no effort towards data-based decisionmaking.
Did anyone vote against any of the final candidates in the Ramos/Ficarra/Taylor cases? I think there were a couple either against or abstained in one of those rounds... but I can't remember offhand. I just recall thinking that it's a curious thing when some on the BOE are not enthusiastic about the finalist candidate.
Since we don't know enough about the alternatives, it's hard to say if there were better options that were missed. The BOE did at some point reject all the applicants and decided to renew the search.
All that said: I think Ficarra as a 2-yr interim worked well to get the district in better alignment with regulations and with needed infrastructure costs. He wasn't worried about retaining the position, which made it easier to clean house and put money into the unromantic repairs and additions. However, I'm glad he wasn't longer than that -- he had other shortcomings.
sprout said:
If you skip to the 1 hr mark, the candidates mention how many meetings they have attended/watched/etc.
- Not voting for Chisholm-Greene (underwhelmed by her limited attendance/following, which seems reflected in limited knowledge of issues);
- Not voting for Tanenbaum Kraus who just started becoming interested in the past year -- and seems very inexperienced with limited knowledge/naive of the district's workings. "I think the meetings are very long, and I think there is a way to shorten them". Maybe? But this is not a good indicator of ability to commit the time. Not sure she realizes that this oft-criticized and voluntary position really includes a substantial amount of additional time out of the meetings.
To conclude with the remaining candidates:
- Not voting for Johanna Wright. I have disagreed with many of her positions and her negative approach in the past. Her generalization that our curriculum is crap is reflective of her non-nuanced approach, which is not productive for determining where and how to make improvement.
- Carey Smith. Spoke in platitudes that I probably agree with, but not getting a picture of his purpose, goals, solutions proposed. I don't get a sense that he's familiar enough. Not getting my vote this time around.
- I may vote for Lawson-Muhammad. I have agreed with her votes and found her questions very on-point while she's been serving on the BOE for the past two terms. Her responses to the questions in this video were extremely knowledgeable, specific, and generally align with my point of view. She seems to understand the challenges, successes, and the changes that have been implemented that are moving us towards district improvement.
- Will probably vote for Siders and Joshua (as indicated on the previous page).
So, I guess that's my 3.
Joanna Wright fights for our kids. And she does so against a faction on the BOE that bend to the voices behind the scenes. She speaks out and does not give an F. And our curriculum is crap. That’s why they have Ann Bodnar fixing things. Finally.
SLM was just suspended for her behavior.
Narda went to school here and is raising her family here. She’s got experience in our schools for decades. She, like Wright, will be an independent voice for our kids.
mammabear said:
Joanna Wright fights for our kids. And she does so against a faction on the BOE that bend to the voices behind the scenes. She speaks out and does not give an F.
Were any of Wright's dissenting votes ones that you thought were better choices vs. the 'faction on the BOE'?
Thank you sprout for posting the youtube of the BOE debate. It certainly changed my votes. Some said they had never attended a BOE meeting,were too busy and meetings were too long. Sounds to me like they will miss many meetings. Some had few ideas but others really seemed to want to make good changes. Check out the youtube.
Not voting for Lawson Muhammad. Aside from her obvious arrogance and deserved ethics suspension, she has one of the worst attendance records on the BOE and has not responded to emails from the public for 6 years. Last Monday’s BOE meeting was a disaster. The Board changed the public speaks policy and the public had to wait hours to speak, some until midnight. One CHS student with disabilities had to wait two hours and was only able to speak because the student representative gave him her time.
Definitely troubled by the BOE’s lack of communication, transparency and accountability, not to mention the recent troubling test scores showing that the achievement gap has widened. Want to know what the BOE discussed in their committee meetings or who attended? You have to make an OPRA request. I want a diversity of thought and opinion and members who are genuinely interested in serving all students and the whole community. I am voting for Johanna Wright, who voted against limiting the public speaks. I think she genuinely cares about the students and taxpayers.
I am voting for Sharon Tanenbaum Kraus, a journalist who is interested in improving communication and asking questions (which is sorely lacking in the current BOE majority). I am voting for Narda Chisholm Greene, who has extensive knowledge of the district from going to school here herself and sending five kids through the district schools. I like her slogan “unbought and unbossed.” That BOE needs independent thinkers who are not going to rubber stamp things and will ask questions and understand that the public should be treated with respect.
Mom270 said:
Not voting for Lawson Muhammad. Aside from her obvious arrogance and deserved ethics suspension, she has one of the worst attendance records on the BOE...
FWIW: From the analysis performed by the Village Green:
Our analysis showed that Robin Baker missed the most meetings – eight in total, which included four regular meetings and four special meetings. Lawson-Muhammad and Johanna Wright missed six meetings each – two regular and four special for Lawson-Muhammad, and one regular and five special for Wright.
sprout said:
Mom270 said:
Not voting for Lawson Muhammad. Aside from her obvious arrogance and deserved ethics suspension, she has one of the worst attendance records on the BOE...
FWIW: From the analysis performed by the Village Green:
Our analysis showed that Robin Baker missed the most meetings – eight in total, which included four regular meetings and four special meetings. Lawson-Muhammad and Johanna Wright missed six meetings each – two regular and four special for Lawson-Muhammad, and one regular and five special for Wright.
The Village Green said they found it difficult to analyze the attendance due to a lack of records, but Elissa Malespina posted in the SoMa Cares About Schools group that she reviewed every BOE meeting minute and found Lawson Muhammad was absent for 21 meetings or 16.41 percent of the time, including three meetings in a row May 1, 11 and 15, which is against the BOE’s attendance policy. I don’t think that includes meetings where she arrived late at 11 p.m. Former BOE member Madhu Pai has said SLM was known to not show up for committee work, although it appears the BOE is not releasing those records to the public.
Mom270 said:
The Village Green said they found it difficult to analyze the attendance due to a lack of records, but Elissa Malespina posted in the SoMa Cares About Schools group that she reviewed every BOE meeting minute and found Lawson Muhammad was absent for 21 meetings or 16.41 percent of the time, including three meetings in a row May 1, 11 and 15, which is against the BOE’s attendance policy.
The policy applies to regular meetings. She did not miss three regular meetings in a row. For a separate discussion about attendance on the SLM-specific thread:
Mom270 said:
The Village Green said they found it difficult to analyze the attendance due to a lack of records..
Actually, the Village Green page linked says this:
Without no official accounting available, Village Green decided to painstakingly review the board meeting minutes and video from the 2018-19 calendar year – 25 meeting minutes in all that were posted to the Board’s web page – to come up with an attendance chart, which was shared with BOE members to get their feedback.
Mom270 said:
The Village Green said they found it difficult to analyze the attendance due to a lack of records, but Elissa Malespina posted in the SoMa Cares About Schools group that she reviewed every BOE meeting minute and found...
The Village Green also responded to exactly this group's finding lower down on the linked page with:
Elissa Malespina, a former candidate for the BOE and active administrator of a local grassroots Facebook group — South Orange Maplewood Cares About Schools — that advocates for local education issues, has called on Maini and other Board members to enforce this rule. The group, which has kept its own attendance records, says that at least two board members have met this threshold of absences.
However, after reviewing the minutes for the meetings in question, Village Green found that no BOE member had met that threshold — at least for the 2018-19 school year; we discovered that the two members in questions arrived late to some meetings that the group had marked them absent for. According to our analysis, there were no Board members who missed three consecutive meetings of any kind during the last calendar year.
Here's the link again:
Next you are going to claim she didn’t show up at 11 pm to meetings. I believe Elissa and Madhu Pai about her lack of engagement. And, oh yeah, she is heading that Excellence and Equity Committee with those terrible results at the last BOE meeting. Not to mention my personal experience of 6 years of never receiving an email in response. We as a community can do much better. I would rather see any other candidate elected.
OK. It's interesting that they are currently on the same side of this critique as Elissa Malespina called Madhu Pai a "failure" and said, "Why would you want to vote for failure?" in the 2015 BOE Hilton neighborhood debate.
Someone who might want to take Elissa's criticisms with a grain of salt.
I don’t agree with her or Walter Fields about everything, but both are right sometimes. She is a fixture at those meetings and reports on them regularly. I think she knows who shows up.
That's fine. And I'll go with the Village Green's review of her analysis on this one.
That’s fine. I will continue to be appalled the BOE has not been releasing its committee notes to the public (which would include the attendance). I trust Madhu Pai and if she says SLM was frequently absent from committee work, I believe her.
Mom270 said:
I trust Madhu Pai and if she says SLM was frequently absent from committee work, I believe her.
I trust Madhu, too; she’s a friend. If she commented publicly on a board colleague’s attendance, that’s one thing. If you heard this secondhand, that’s another. And if she told you this directly and you’re anonymously broadcasting a private conversation, that’s a third thing.
DaveSchmidt said:
I trust Madhu, too; she’s a friend. If she commented publicly on a board colleague’s attendance, that’s one thing. If you heard this secondhand, that’s another. And if she told you this directly and you’re anonymously broadcasting a private conversation, that’s a third thing.
I have read her online comments and heard this from her in person. This is a recent online comment: “While I served, many of us BOE members acknowledged and lamented, in private, about her lack of work ethic”
Thank you. I’m not on Facebook and was about to ask if there was something I could see.
sprout said:
Red_Barchetta said:
sprout said:
- I may vote for Lawson-Muhammad.
She's held a seat for two terms / 6 years correct? How many superintendents have come and gone in that time?
IIRC, both Wright and L-M have been on for two terms?
Osborne was already in place when they both arrived. They would have been on the BOE when they selected Ramos, then 2 years later when they encouraged him to leave, then selected Ficarra as a 2-year interim, and now selected Taylor.
I had provided the search committee with a candidate in the pool when they picked Ramos. My nominated person would have been a young new Superintendent. With Ramos, they decided to go with someone very seasoned -- which I can understand after the term of Osborne, who was a 1st-time Supt, and made many rookie missteps, and no effort towards data-based decisionmaking.
Did anyone vote against any of the final candidates in the Ramos/Ficarra/Taylor cases? I think there were a couple either against or abstained in one of those rounds... but I can't remember offhand. I just recall thinking that it's a curious thing when some on the BOE are not enthusiastic about the finalist candidate.
Since we don't know enough about the alternatives, it's hard to say if there were better options that were missed. The BOE did at some point reject all the applicants and decided to renew the search.
I can't vote for any BOE incumbents. The District has been so poorly overseen by the BOE in recent years. There are no valid excuses at this point.
I have yet to see Wright take the lead on an important initiative. Her typical approach is divisive and confrontational and I haven't seen anything productive come from this.
Did Wright explain why she abstained from voting for Taylor? She said she would later in the debate, but I didn't hear her mention it.
jfinnegan said:
Did Wright explain why she abstained from voting for Taylor? She said she would later in the debate, but I didn't hear her mention it.
IMHO, there was no excuse to abstain. If she disagreed with the process, then vote no.
Does anyone know how to access the BOE election results as they come in tomorrow?
Thanks!
Walter Fields 10/30 editorial was spot on and very powerful-integrity should be the top consideration in one's vote tomorrow!
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If you skip to the 1 hr mark in the video, the candidates mention how many meetings they have attended/watched/etc.
To conclude with the remaining candidates:
So, I guess that's my 3.