2012 Board of Education

Candidate Questionnaire

Sangeeta Ranade, 5A
1) Why are you running for the Board of Education? How do Board of Ed decisions directly affect you? My involvement in the Jersey City School system started with my two daughters. My older daughter is in the PreK4 Dual Language program at PS3. My younger daughter is 2 years old and going to join the PS3 family in 2013. They are the reason I am deeply involved in PS3 today and want to be on the Jersey City Board of Education. I have three attributes that make me a good fit for the Board today. I am an active parent in the system: I understand some of the struggles that parents are facing with navigating the public school system because I am one of them. Besides a deep seated passion to see our schools improve without good schools my daughters will be at a disadvantage I understand the challenges teachers and principals are facing because the PS3 PTA works as a partner with the school administration. Our partnership has let me see firsthand the fires they have to fight every day. Last year I was the PS3 Dual Language Representative and led the initiative to expand the dual language program to accommodate more students. This year I am the Vice President of the PTA.. My career is built on strengthening the public sector: For 6 of the past 9 years I have been a consultant to local government. I have reengineered back office processes to make local government more efficient and I am currently working with the NYC Department of Education to implement $10,000,000 of energy efficiency projects. The experience has given me a good sense of the multiple stakeholders that our schools answers to most obviously the children, but also local constituents, employees, the federal and state Department of Education teams, etc. My career is built on going beyond the simple costbenefit analysis and factoring in the perspective of these multiple stakeholders. I do not have political ambitions: I am aware that the Board is an intensely political environment with a complex set of issues to solve. This complexity requires us to find the best people for the job, not people who see it as a stepping stone to something else.

I dont pretend to have all the answers to solving Jersey Citys problems, but I am a good listener, have worked extensively in the public sector, and want to improve our schools for my girls and for my community. The Jersey City Board of Education directly affects my family, and if I can help to improve our schools then I feel obligated to get involved at this level. 2) What are the top 2 challenges in Jersey City Public Schools? Ultimately the best way to judge a school system is how effectively it prepares students for the rest of their lives. For the past 10 years the results have remained remarkably consistent a high

dropout rate and for families with the means an attempt to get out of the system by moving or opting for private schools or charters. Unfortunately we see a system that works very well for the people who work for it but not very well for the people it is meant to serve. I believe our top 2 challenges are a culture of inaction and budget mismanagement. 3) If elected, what are the first 2 issues you would like to focus on? Related to my response above I would like to focus on 2 things Immediately focus on finding a superintendent who can work with the board as a partner. The Boardsets policy and the superintendent implements it. I want a superintendent who embodies the culture we are trying to create, one focused on the student, open to parents, and with high expectations of our educators. Prioritize the programs that are most effective and cancel or dramatically shrink budgets or teams that are ineffective. Parents for Progress would like the superintendent to do an audit of each team on the payroll for JCPS to determine what they are responsible for, how their budget is used, and judge their effectiveness. This will give us a starting point to determine if our structure is aligned with our priorities. Using our budget more effectively and with more transparency is critical to ensuring that we are doing what we need to do.

4) What do you think the role of parents should be in the public schoolsystem? Most people in Jersey City would say parents are the most important piece of a successful school system. We need to make sure parents feel welcome in our schools and that they are engaged. Across the country, the most successful schools, whether theyre traditional public, charter, or private, all share the same trait: Parents are involved. We dont need parents to administer programs, but, at a minimum parents need to make sure their kids are prepared for school and have done their homework. There is a large group of parents who want to constructively take part in their childs classroom. They should be welcomed and their feedback should be encouraged. 5) Classroom supply does not seem to be meeting current demand, particularly in the PreK and Dual Language programs. What are some of the ways you feel this can be addressed? We have to be responsive to expanding and shrinking programs as demand changes. This means better planning. Some of the challenges with our program are a physical space issues so we need to determine if additional sites are required, if school catchment boundaries should be redrawn, or if temporary space should be procured to meet increased demand. Specialty programs may have different requirements for teachers. We should aim to have more teachers in the system who meet the requirements of different programs so that we can move them into high demand areas as needed.

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6) Many parents feel Charter Schools are a better educational model than conventional public schools. What models do you think JC Public Schools can adopt to attract and retain families, and improve schools? Successful schools are accountable to the public and give autonomy to principals and teachers. Charter does not necessarily mean better but it does mean accountable because NJ law requires each charter school to be evaluated every 5 years. This means poorly performing charters are shut down. We should aim to bring more accountability into the traditional school system and to push responsibility down to principals. Many teachers have told me they want more accountability up and down the system in our schools, so this is very doable. Some people say that charter schools siphon off our best students. I couldnt disagree more. There are only 4000 students in charter schools in Jersey City and we have 27,000 students in our conventional schools. I refuse to believe that those 27,000 students lack the potential to be excellent students. JCPS spends almost twice as much per student as charter schools there is no reason why our schools cannot be strengthened. 7) What are the 3 most important qualities a Superintendent Candidate should possess? Track record of working as a partner with Board of Education members. Unfortunately for many Superintendents they are backed into a corner where they need to protect the interests of the status quo rather than institute changes that would benefit the students. If the Board supports the superintendent, then it can give him/her cover to make the hard daytoday decisions to improve our schools. Sets high expectations: The superintendent sets the tone for the entire system. This person needs to set an example by going above and beyond the daytoday tasks to get things done. This person should expect the same of his/her direct reports and in return they should do the same for their direct reports. Experience managing a budget: In 2007 KPMG performed an audit of the Jersey City School System and raised concerns about budget management and controls. The Superintendent needs to hold his/her departments to their fiduciary responsibility and ensure that taxpayer money is accounted for and used effectively. 8). There seems to be concern amongst taxpayers about how the $650,000,000 budget has been administered. What would be the one major change you would like to see in the administration of the budget? After a new superintendent completes an administrative personnel audit and has cut administrative jobs that do nothing to support students or teachers, the superintendents office should go on to clearly articulate the impact to the student and taxpayer of each budget program cut or addition (over a certain amount). For example, if the district wants to build a new cafeteria at central office (this was proposed last year) or cut guidance counselors (this was done last year) then a one page write up should be provided that summarizes the impact of this change. I had success using school data to make the case for expanding the Dual Language program in 2010. We articulated the benefit to the community and the cost to the district (no

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net cost for expansion) and used the writeup to gauge parent interest. One page summaries are very doable and should be made available for public comment.

S. Ranade 5A