Board of Education Candidate Mark Friedman

Name:  Mark Friedman

Age:  49

Address:  30 Manchester Drive

Length of Time in Town: 21 years

Family Life:  Married, 2 children, Both Juniors at the High School

Education: MBA Finance from Rutgers and BA Economics from Lafayette

Professional Life:  President of Details Interactive LLC a multi-channel retailing consultancy with a focus on e-commerce

Community/Political Activities:  Have coached more than 25 seasons of baseball, soccer and basketball.  Two years on the United Way Budget Committee

Hobbies: Sports of all kinds, playing and watching- Mets, Giants, Rangers, Knicks

What do you think the three biggest issues facing the Westfield public schools in this election?

a.     Growing enrollments and how we plan for the future

b.     Overall budgetary issues- how do we generate more revenue (primarily) and reduce costs (secondarily) so that we can continue to evolve the programs that we offer

c.      Communication from the Board to the community- both sides need to work harder; the Board to offer more information and transparency and the community must want to become more engaged.  Ambivalence until there is a problem serves neither party well.

Please explain your positions on these issues?

Enrollments:  Growing enrollment is a great thing because it indicates that more young people are moving into town.  It brings with it however many challenges.  Although the Board has worked diligently to plan for more students, I think that we can do better.  We forecast the number of kids we will have many years in advance and I realize that the numbers change all the time, but we need to look for long term solutions, not ones that serve us well for a year or two.  We also need to work more closely with the community by educating them with accurate and timely information so that they are part of the solution and that we are not creating a “board vs the resident” perception. 

Budget: Every town, city, school district is having budgetary issues.  We will not solve our problems by only raising taxes and cutting costs.  We have cut so much these last few years that any more cutting will cause us to significantly change the quality of education that we provide our kids.  We must look at the process differently, we must engage more people and we must have an attitude that what used to work, just does not work any longer.  We have started to see success in winning our share of grants and we must work even harder.  If I am elected, I will work with the Board to convene an Education Forum that will invite the best financial minds in our town.  The goal will be to discuss ways that other forms of revenue can be generated in a school district.  I do not know what we will find but to leave this group of people untapped is a waste of brainpower. 

Communication:  You hear about this all the time; “they do not communicate”.  Communication is a two way street.  I am certain that the Board needs to do a better job of being open and transparent about the issues that they deal with but I think that we, as residents, also need to do a better job of listening.  We all have an opinion and many of us complain, but how many of us are willing to actually do something about it?  I must admit however, that I do find it amazing how many direct questions are asked of administrators and board members that are not answered.  This has to change.  The Board works for the residents and we all deserve a respectful response to a reasonable question. 

How do you propose the Board of Education handle the school budget at a time of reduced state aid and the two-percent property tax cap?

We need a new way to conduct our business.  We need to start with a new process of creating the budget, analyzing our needs and engaging with a wider universe of people within the community to determine how we raise and spend our money.  If I am elected, I will work with the other Board members to create a new budget creation process, one where we start from zero each year for each line and build from there, based on our changing needs.  We will create a 3 year “budget” EVERY year that will consist of the one year budget that must be approved by the Board and the voters and we will also create a pro-forma budget for the following two years which will be driven by the enrollment forecasts that we have.  This will give us greater visibility.  We need to change the mentality that we “do a one year budget” which I have heard time and time again.

We will have a clear and well-defined list of goals for each budget cycle.  Perhaps we know we need to add to a capital reserve, perhaps we have more teachers to hire because of an increase in enrollment, perhaps we need more books; everything must be clearly delineated each year before the process gets started.  Most importantly, we need to be transparent about the process. Board members who do not participate on the finance committee should not have the burden put on them to make sure they ask questions, as has been suggested, but the finance committee should be presenting to them as if they actually sat on the committee. 

We also need to learn how to present a budget to our constituents.  The concept of doling out bits and pieces over 3 or 4 nights to the public is not the way to do this.  We should establish a complete and comprehensive document that has high level summary information and then all of the supporting details of how the budget was created.  If we need to deliver the same presentation each night for three nights then that is what we should do, but this adding in new slides as the process unwinds establishes NO confidence in the process.  This is unfortunate because the people who work on the budget work on it for months but the presentation, and often that is what matters the most, is very weak.  There are other towns out there offering much more information so there is no need to recreate the wheel here.  Lets learn from our neighbors. 

Lastly, the days of being able to cut significant expenses are likely over.  We cannot cut our way to a better education.  We need to find new ways to generate real revenue and I would like to engage the best and brightest financial minds in town to discuss this issue.  There will be more about this as the campaign continues. 

What is your position on the contract the Board of Education negotiated with Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan, which has been objected to by the state Department of Education for going over Gov. Chris Christie’s cap on superintendent salaries?

This is another situation where the Board appears to have shown little regard for appearances and common sense.  Clearly, the landscape had been changing and the Department of Education was quite clear about the new rules that were being put in place.  I believe strongly that we need good leadership in the Superintendent’s position and that we need to pay market value for talent.  You can view it as either a good or a bad thing, but the market was actually being set for us by the Department of Education and we should have adhered to their guidelines.  I do not know what discussions were held between the Board and Dr. Dolan but both sides should have realized that trying to arrange a deal where we exceeded the guidelines was in neither parties best interest.  I am confident that the outcome meets the requirements of the State. 

What is your position on the contract negotiated by the Board of Education and the Westfield Education Association in 2010?

I was disappointed in the timing of the contract.  I certainly do not know all of the details of what needed to be decided and when, but this is a perfect example of how the board has not given enough thought to how decisions are perceived by the community.  Admittedly, I do not expect decisions to be based on appearances but rather on fact, but this was one that needed a better thought process.  As for the numbers, again, we are not privileged to know how the negotiations transpired but it would seem that a 3.9%, 3 year contract was more than was warranted at that moment in time.  We would soon come to find that state aid would be cut by $4 million annually and I just do not believe that we had NO indications that aid would be reduced; perhaps not by as much as it was, but why give that type of a raise before we knew what we were getting from Trenton.  In retrospect, if we had waited, I believe that the WEA and the Board would have come to a very different agreement and there would have been jobs and programs saved in the schools. 

What is your position on the school district’s capital reserve fund and the financing of future capital projects?

I must admit that the current level of the capital reserve was a surprise to me, many town residents and to many on the current board.  It has been explained that school districts have used Bond money in the past to finance capital improvements though there were clearly rules in place for districts that chose to fund a capital reserve.  The rules set limits as to how much money could be set aside. Our board chose to set aside nothing.

It has been stated often that we have chosen to put our kids and teachers and programs ahead of brick and mortar and frankly, I understand that approach but I do not agree with it.  We need a balance.  This is exactly why I am running.  We need a new thought process across many of the policies and guidelines that are currently in force.  Either we do not re-visit our policies often enough, or we just believe that nothing has changed and hence, why change the way we conduct business.  The time has come for that change.  To be fair, we have also been told that we have money in each budget to handle routine repairs but if we have a significant issue, beyond the scope of our insurance, we will have a problem that we have not prepared for. 

If I am elected, I will be working with the Board to look at the viability of creating a “Development Office” to focus on the creation of an Endowment Fund, similar to what has been created in Summit.  This Endowment fund would work hand in hand with the Westfield Education Fund.  This Development Office would be focused on reaching out to former district students and current residents requesting donations.  Summit has generated $3.5 million in pledges with a goal of $5 million.  The interest from this endowment would be used to supplement the budget. 

Do you believe that shared services can be implemented between the Board of Education and the Town of Westfield or other Boards of Education? If so, what types of services do you believe can be shared?

I believe that the district has already implemented some shared service agreements with some cooperatives for the purchases of goods and services.  I would hope that we are taking the approach that everything, when possible, should be purchased either through a cooperative or another entity.  We certainly would have greater bargaining power if we take this approach.  As for working with the Town Council, I would like to see us be much more aggressive to share resources.   One example is for field maintenance.  It would appear that both organizations (the town of Westfield and the School District) are maintaining their respective fields, which really makes no sense to me.  In a perfect world, there would be one group that maintained all fields in town.  As far as shared resources go, there are those that feel that each entity should handle their own issues.  Unfortunately, this approach no longer works when funds are so limited.  When one company takes over another company, the first thing that they do is to look for redundancy and attempt to re-organize.  We could use some of that thinking but we need to maintain the quality of the services that are provided. 

Do you believe there are any programs/services that should be cut from the school district budget? Do you think there are any programs/services that should not be considered for being cut from the school district budget?

At this point in time, I do not have enough information to determine if there are programs/services that warrant being cut from the budget.  I am going into this process with the thought that we should maintain our programs and that the current administration is managing the program offerings efficiently.  One area that I have looked at is that of Foreign Languages.  Since we continue to move each year into a more global economy, we need to be sure that we are offering languages that will prepare the kids to excel in that changing economy.  If I am elected, I will suggest that the administration look at the kind of languages we offer and the levels.  Chinese, as an example, seems to be a language that warrants additional review. 

What are your thoughts regarding the student activity fee implemented at the beginning of the current school year?

It was unfortunate that it had to come to that but in light of the other challenges that we had in the district, I am in favor of the fee.  I would certainly prefer if we did not have it, but with what the hole that we had to fill, it was one way to generate some incremental revenue.  I would hope that as we add some new, creative thinking to the Board, that we will be able to repeal the fee in the near future. 

How do you propose the school district deal with the projected intermediate school enrollment bubble?

I do not believe that I have all of the information available to me at the moment to make an informed decision on a clear plan.  If elected, I will request information that is validated and accurate, about the enrollments and from that information, I will be able to offer additional insight.  It is clear that the Board and Dr. Dolan are planning for class sizes to be comparable at Edison and Roosevelt for Fall 2011.  When they were asked how they were going to do that, they did not offer up their plan.  If they had offered specific and clear plans, I think that all parents would have much more confidence in the statement.    The bottom line is this:  We need to look at solutions that we have used in the past to handle these problems and then evaluate their performance.  Every enrollment bubble is different and this one is made worse because of the major reductions we have had in teachers over the last 2 years. 

What is your position on parking for students at Westfield High School and the parking/traffic situation in the Dorian Road neighborhood?

This is a complicated issue with not just one solution.  I attended the parking meeting on March 23rd that was hosted by the Town Council and The School Board.  I was shocked to hear from the traffic consultant and others that the meeting was intended to “start over” and put “everything back on the table”.  It is great that this issue is finally getting the time it deserves, but this discussion has been going on since 2004 and for the residents near the school to have to start all over, was disappointing.

In any event, I think that we need to work hard with The Armory to find a common ground to make some parking spots available for a fee.  This would allow us to move cars off the street.  We should assess how many spots are available.  Once we have that information we could conduct a lottery starting with seniors and then on to the juniors.   This is not just a nuisance issue to residents close to the school but it is a clear safety issue. 

We also need an increased police presence around the high school during morning and afternoon drop off.  Finally, I think that the High School administration needs to engage with students on a “good neighbor” campaign.  Lets remind the kids that on their way to school and then back home, they are walking the streets of their neighbors and that they should conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.

What is your position on Westfield High School’s ranking dropping from 27 to 41 in the latest ranking by New Jersey Monthly Magazine? Do you believe these rankings reflect the academic performance of the high school?

I believe that the rankings are based not just on academic performance but other criterion as well.  This is not an exact science and there is some “art” to their assessment.  I think that we have two issues:  First, this indicates that we are “down-trending” and I think that this is accurate.  We are not keeping up with the top school districts in the country with respect to our physical plant, our technology offerings and with the breadth of classes that we are able to offer.  In order to do this, we need to have a better vision of the future and where we see ourselves going in the district.  If we have that vision, then only a select few know what it is.  We need to engage the residents, we need to market the vision and good things will happen.  Secondly, I think that we have a marketing issue.  We need to sit down with the people at NJ Magazine and we need to be certain that they are evaluating the district on the correct information. Lets get them into our schools and let them see for themselves the good work that is going on.  Of course we can get better, but there are some great things going on in the schools everyday and we need to make sure that they know about them.  Every realtor that you speak to mentions how often they hear about the ranking from potential homeowners.  This is not only hurting the schools, it is hurting the town and we need to reverse the trend. 

What can the school district do to handle the issue of student stress?

The Road to Nowhere movement has brought wonderful exposure to the issue of student stress.  I must say that I have not seen it first hand as both of my kids have seemed to manage the day-to-day workload well.  I have heard from friends however, that some kids are working 3 and 4 hours per night on homework.  I would like the district to formalize a program to deal with this issue and engage parents, administrators, teachers and students on an annual basis about it.  We need to conduct workshops for teachers and parents so they can spot when a child is stressed.  We need to conduct workshops for the kids so they learn how to plan their day, manage their time and deal with the challenges of today’s student.  I would also like to have teachers continue to look for new techniques in teaching that put more emphasis on classroom time, than homework time. 

What is your position on merit pay, teacher tenure reform and “last in, first out?”

I am supportive of our teachers but I am also a proponent of change to the tenure system.  I understand the reasons that tenure became policy but it no longer works.  We are rewarding teachers with essentially lifetime employment regardless of performance.  Sure, technically they can be terminated if they do not perform, but the costs to a district and the time to remove a teacher, make it almost an impossible task.  There is no other industry where an employee gets tenure, so I just cannot understand why teachers receive it. We are a society of performance.  If you perform, you get rewarded; in some instances the reward is that you get to keep your job.  

As far as merit pay goes, I support merit pay based on 3rd party evaluations of teachers (administrators, peers, students and parents) and some form of test scores of the students. 

What processes and procedures do you believe should be used for teacher evaluations?

I think that the process for evaluating teachers is a difficult one.  I would like to see a system where teachers are evaluated not only on administrator evaluations but also on evaluations from peers, themselves, parents and students.  Although it is not popular, I do believe that some method of using grades should be part of a teacher review.  As an example, teachers A and B teach Chemistry.  Kids complete the class and move into Physics the next year with Teachers C.  The kids who had Chemistry with Teacher A perform much better in Physics than the kids who had Teacher B.  Although this is not scientific, one would believe that Teacher A prepared his/her kids better.  There appear to be some formulas that could be used to contribute to the evaluation process beyond what we are doing today. 

What are your thoughts on moving out-placed special education students back into the school district?

This is another area where, when elected, I will spend more time learning about the issues in greater detail.  I do not believe that as a candidate, I have enough information to formulate a well, detailed plan.   I do strongly believe however, that we need to do what is best for the kids on an individual basis.  I would certainly like as many kids as possible to remain in the district and have them be able to learn with their friends.  Some times however, it is in the best interest of a child to be with the best professionals possible that match their needs.  Our child study teams work well with the goals of matching each child with the best program possible. 

What do you believe the school district could do to prevent bullying?

There are at least 3 groups of people that need to be educated in this area: kids, parents and educators.  I believe that we need to improve the information that we share with the kids, earlier in their school life.  We teach them about drugs; we should be teaching them about harassment and bullying along the same path.  Bullying takes on many forms and sometimes kids do not know that they are party to it.  Parents also need to know what signs to look for from the kids that indicate that their child might be having an issue in school.  As for educators, we need more guidance counselors in our schools.  This area has been severely cut for budget reasons, and I believe that we need to add back counselors at all levels.  They need to be available to work through issues between the kids and to help parents, help their own kids. 

Are the Westfield public schools better off than where they were three years ago?

I love our schools and I believe that we offer a great education to our kids but we can and must do better.  I believe that the school system is down trending and that is based on conversations with parents, my own eyes and at least one outside observer, NJ Monthly Magazine.  Whether we agree with the magazines rankings or not, the fact is that people looking to move into Westfield use this as one measure of our performance.  We need to do a better job of marketing our accomplishments and that starts with meeting with the magazine and discussing how they come to their conclusions.  If we know what is driving their assessment, and if we agree with them, that should be an area that we work on.

I believe that we continue to offer compelling programs for the kids but perhaps not enough of them that will prepare our kids for the rest of the 21st century.  Our lack of technology in the schools and the aging physical plant (buildings and fields) has caused us to fall behind other communities and that should not be the case.  The economic crisis has hurt but I fear that we were down trending before the crisis hit because we have lacked the vision to think more than one year at a time.  Yes, we have a long range plan but it feels like the plan is created and our progress against that plan is not measured and adjusted as we meet (or do not meet) the targets that we have set for ourselves.