The word around town is that realtors are getting questions from prospective homebuyers about Montclair’s school system. These possible new residents have read and heard about the current discord in the district, and are anxious about what awaits their children and/or future children if they were to relocate here.
There’s also word of a spin campaign by our Superintendent that aims to assuage realtor concerns about what’s going on in our schools. There are plenty of facts, however, to dispute the rosy evaluation that’s being offered.
The reality is that Montclair’s public schools are being purposely and unnecessarily disrupted, and are overseen by a Board of Education president who:
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- was eager to subpoena voices in the community who were critical of the Board’s behavior and decisions
- has spent $130,000 and counting to launch and defend her unlawful and unconstitutional subpoenas rather than spending funds on desperately needed text books, supplies, and afterschool programs
- disregards/dismisses protests about the Board’s behavior and decisions from the community and teachers
- routinely bends, evades, and misrepresents the facts in her interactions with the community
- authorized the subpoena of a fellow Board member who has been critical of her and the Board’s behavior and decisions
Our district’s education policies are also being guided by the Superintendent, who:
- insists on implementing assessment tests that have caused tremendous student stress, curriculum pacing disruption, teacher frustration, and have generated zero usable results to help improve education in the district
- is basing her assessment test strategy on questionably “improved” test scores that she achieved when she was the Chief Academic Officer in Hartford, CT (NOTE: these improved scores have been proven to be unreliable because they purposely didn’t include the low scores of special needs students, which would have dragged down the district’s overall scores)
- spent $490,000 on the creation of her assessment tests in Montclair, many of which were copied and pasted from online resources and were not – as she promised they would be – entirely teacher crafted and reflective of what was being taught in the classroom
- did not implement proper protection of her assessment tests on the district’s server, and felt that appropriate security measures were unnecessary
- maintains that her tests are a “work-in-progress”, but is downplaying feedback from teachers across the district who are saying that the tests were implemented too quickly, are not accurate gauges of student comprehension, include questions that in many cases are not authentic to a teacher’s particular classroom or pacing, and should be stopped (click for video – select the 1/27/14 Board of Education meeting and scroll forward to 82:00 for teacher feedback about the tests)
- isn’t acknowledging that her tests are negatively affecting the GPAs and college prospects of many Montclair High School students who had previously been achieving high grades and scoring well on teacher-created quizzes and tests
- has been in charge for over a year, but has not achieved any movement towards reducing Montclair’s achievement gap, improving student preparation for college, highlighting strengths and weaknesses in the curriculum, preparing students for more rigorous academic standards, or delivering any of the other goals that her “Strategic Plan” was supposed to bring
Should prospective Montclair home buyers be worried about how the BOE’s and Superintendent’s policies will affect their children’s education? Absolutely. They should also be wary about the fact that the BOE and Superintendent are following a rigid, damaging, and secretive agenda that may potentially have deleterious effects on the future value of the properties that they’re considering.
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It’s important that these truths be shared with Montclair realtors and prospective homebuyers. Each one can all be documented, validated, and verified by the poor behavior and decisions of the Board’s president, a majority of the Board, and the Superintendent (see below links).
As a concerned Montclair parent, I’m choosing to stay here and fight the harm that’s been caused – and may continue to be caused – to our students and school system by the Board’s president, a majority of the Board, and the Superintendent. However, if I were a prospective homebuyer who was considering Montclair as a place to move, I’d absolutely be looking elsewhere - especially if the current Board president and Superintendent remain in control of our children’s education.
