03031Insight — A Voice for a Better Amherst

I have long been supportive of Education professionals having attended Public Schools from K-12 and starting to tutor students when I was in the National Honor Society in High School. I continued to tutor students and work with teachers when I was an Undergraduate and a Graduate Student. While pursuing my Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from Johns Hopkins, I was awarded a National Science Foundation scholarship to bring STEM education into the Public Schools in Baltimore. I later cofounded an after-school tutoring program for inner city Baltimore students which successfully increased the graduation rate and test scores of attending students over their previous projections. I am running to become a member of the Amherst School Board (ASB) because I think that is my best chance to help improve education, spending, and trust in the ASB. I have closely watched the ASB over the past three years and have been disappointed with the lack of seriousness, transparency, and community engagement over important decisions involving Education. I endeavor to address all three areas through a Data Driven process, and not abusing the data to confirm a bias position. An honest analysis of the status and options forward transparently communicated and involving all who wish to be heard is the most likely way to break the high inertia position we find ourselves in today. As I have been involved in the ongoings of the Amherst School Board, I have served for two years on Ways and Means overseeing the budgeting process and one year on Building and Grounds which was a working group for the facilities projects in the Amherst School District. I see areas for improvement both in budgeting and in facility planning. For budgeting, we need to identify the line items for which the actual spending is significantly different than the budgeting and outline our true priorities to have better alignment between planned and actual expenses. This will uncover inefficiencies where money can be saved or allocated more productively. For facilities, we need to consider all options and not merely suppose that alternatives will cost more of less. Complete and honest analysis is the best way to get broad buy-in from the community. The largest reason the proposed plan this year is ~25% less than last year is because we got two quotes and the repair quote was a lot less than previously assumed by the Board. It is interesting to me that the new building plan is just a hair over the repair quote. By considering other options, like repurposing the available space within the SAU, we will be able to conclusively show the trade in options and spend as little as possible on the best facility for the education goals in this District.

The role of the Amherst School Board is to represent the values of the community to the Superintendent. This is how the voters can get budgets and plans they support. I have voted the way of the average Amherst voter last year; YES for the Teacher’s contract, NO for the excessive proposed budget, and NO for the proposed facility plan. While some wonder about how the voters cut the pie between YES and NO votes, I get it. We support the improvements to the teachers’ contract and oppose unserious spending plans that will consume the available educational resources. The legal duties of a School Board can be found in RSA 189 and Ed Rule 303. The Ed Rule 303.01 layout the substantive duties of a School Board that that includes paragraph (g) which reads in part, “In consultation with the superintendent, … determine the educational goals of the district, develop long-range plans, and identify measurable and attainable short-term objectives.” That is not in place today and I know that it will be helpful to guide our decisions when we have comply with this Ed Rule. Another important role of the School Board is to provide leadership during tumultuous times. The School Board should not try to catch on to every fad and change the curriculum or educational culture to appease the latest trend but rather provide steady consistent support for high quality education within the budget approved by the community. Harming education, getting caught up in national politics, or calling residents demeaning names such as “Fascist” for having different values is the mark of a lousy School Board Member and we can do better.

In the first year, I will ensure that the facility plans for Wilkins are responsibly presented to the Public. I will ensure that all options are clearly outlined prior to school starting in the Fall and we will analyze each plan completely prior to the Christmas break. I will then push to include all the options to the Warrant in a stacked fashion such that the first article will be the preferred plan by the Board and if that fails then the second article can be adopted which represents the Board’s second preference, and so on until all the options are listed. (This is similar to an “ELSEIF” operator in computer programming: IF Option A has at least 60% support, then buy Option A, ELSEIF Option B has at least 60% support, then buy Option B, ELSEIF Option C has at least 60% support? …) This way, we can get this facility question resolved in March and set an example of how to perform serious facility proposals so that we don’t have to repeat the last EIGHT YEARS each time we need to upgrade the facilities. Over three years, I hope to establish a funding vehicle to accept more voluntary donations to the operating budget and for large projects like facility plans. Voluntary funding is far more civilized than the alternatives and represents real support while also decreases taxes across the board without cutting spending. I hope to also work with the other Board Members to improve the communication process to restore the trust of the community. It is very frustrating for me to know when false statements are said by Board Members in areas that I know well and it affects how I trust them in areas I do not know as well. I have publicly apologized for my mistakes as soon as I realize I made them and taken corrective action. I will do that for future errors as well and ask forgiveness rather than project perfection which I do not have.

This question should definitely involve the perspective of education professionals but in my judgement, factors such as NWEA standardized tests, the students RIT scores compared to their projected RIT scores, student happiness, teacher job satisfaction, and parent/guardian reviews should be factored in. The RIT scores are a nice indicator because they are personalized for each student and generated by the third party which runs the NWEA tests in a large fraction of the USA. A student that matches their projected RIT score received an average education compared to the NWEA districts. A student who earned a higher RIT score than their projected, received a better education than the average EVEN IF their scores remain lower than the desired grade objectives. I want to do this analysis for the Amherst School District and see if we can say that any student who attends these schools will receive an above average education regardless of where they were when they entered this District. Student, Teacher, and Parent satisfaction surveys are helpful to serve as early warning signals. Joyful students are better learners and more likely to become independent learners.

I think so but I don’t know because the analysis on the SAU39 website is averaged together so we cannot see the RIT score analysis I mentioned above. Anecdotally, I am very pleased with the education my children have received and are currently receiving in this District. The issues appear to be in every grade and in the core areas of math and reading. We need to strive for consistency in the math curriculum where fads are abound. Teachers should not have wild swings in the art of teaching math within a five year period and students should be able to see how their math curriculum is smoothly evolving from grade to grade.

Yes, cost is higher than the peer Districts. Reasonability of costs must be measured against the results. Without understanding the results better, the costs seem unreasonable. It is a foggy challenge to determine how SAU39 costs compare to peer SAUs but it is worth noting that the largest increase in costs across New Hampshire schools is in Administration as opposed to Teachers or Curriculum. My understanding is that these Administration costs are driven by external requirements from Concord and/or Washington D.C. I would like to understand if accepting funds from Washington D.C. costs us more than it is worth. There are also costs due to the high institutional inertia within the SAU and the ASD. There was a cook in the previous contract but no one noticed it until the contract was under review for negotiations last year. As a result, this cook position was not filled during the free lunch period when the cafeterias were slammed with customers. The cook position in the contract was discovered after the free lunch period had ended and the number of students eating a hot lunch had dropped significantly. Board Members asked the Superintendent to hire the cook anyway. Careful reading of what we are agreeing to could have helped ease the extra workload during the free lunch period or we could have modified the contract since we were making due without it but somehow the Amherst School Board found a way to have the worst of both worlds: understaffed during the rush, and increased costs during the lull. I should add a comment about how I interpret your use of the term “peer school districts.” Last year, when I was serving on Ways and Means, we surveyed the Administration and School Board to identify “peer” and “aspirational” districts. It is in this sense that I interpret your meaning. For more information on this, please see the Ways and Means reports from last year. During our surveys, not a single person suggested that ConVal District was either “peer” nor “aspirational.” Now the former Chair of the ConVal District is competing with me for this seat on the Amherst School Board.

By my quick math based on my memory of the student population, there would be about four fewer classrooms required at AMS if Mont Vernon were to do this. One opportunity may be to use the newly empty space to do the building repairs during the school year rather than wait for the Summer. Another opportunity may be to accept students currently at Wilkins and alleviate the space issues there. Furthermore, the tuition from Mont Vernon would be eliminated from the budget representing a challenge. The accuracy of this needs to be determined and considered but Amherst School District should lead on what is best for this District. We should work in coordination with Mont Vernon but not wait for them to lead.

I do not support Article 12 because the design for this is not known to meet the needs of the Wilkins School. We only have one chance in the next 30+ years to spend this amount of money on Wilkins and I want it to be right. We do not know what the projected spatial needs are for special education which consists of ~$8.5M of the ~$34M budget. That is a large minority that I want to have some basis for supporting. We do not know if we need all the proposed classrooms if we utilize available space in the Annex for 8th graders and move 4th graders to AMS. Many people have projections but we just don’t know what the cost of the next best option is and therefore I would rather wait one more year and get this right then spend all this money on the wrong plan. As an engineer and program manager, I just cannot get myself to support this plan, even though I worked to improve its design as a member of Building and Grounds this year, because the requirements are not clearly identified and the alternatives are not considered. Another concern is that we are in an environment whereas the average Amherst voter wants to see the cost increases slow down. I am concerned that if we spend too much money on the facility, then the Public will not support funding for Teachers in the near future. This has happened in Newton, MA famously. Newton spent ~$200M on a new facility and then within a few years of its completion, had teachers striking this school year for two weeks while contract negotiations were not progressing well enough. Teachers are far more important to education than a facility or a curriculum. Overspending on a facility because we don’t want to cost out the alternatives could very possibly result in lower education quality in this environment. My support of the schools and education system dictates that I do not support Article 12.

The question could be: “Do you support the proposed or the default budget?” Both of these budgets represent an increase from the current year. The difference between these two is ~2.8% or $939,476. This year alone, there is underspending of $780,000 that is proposed to be reallocated in warrant articles 14, 15, and 16. The difference between the proposed difference ($939,476) and the planned underspending ($780,000) is $159,476 which is less than 0.5% of the budget. I think that there is more than 0.5% of slack in the Default budget so I support the Default budget which means I will vote NO on Article 13. It is noteworthy that the underspent funds this year is happening after two consecutive Default budgets. The Board and the Administration continue to prioritize the underspending over the alleged current needs. This is a great example of where we could voluntarily raise funds to close the gap between the proposed and default budgets. Raising $159,476 or even $939,476 would mean that we could reduce civil frustration by just agreeing on the Default and accepting the donated funds.