Four candidates vying for three seats on the Board of Education aired their views at a forum sponsored by the Paulus Hook Neighborhood Association on Oct. 19.
Incumbents Vidya Gangadin and Marilyn Roman along with John Reichart are running on a ticket together, and have the endorsement of the Jersey City Education Association (JCEA), the teachers union. Gina Verdibello is running as an independent.
Vidya Gangadin is currently president of the school board, chair of the Finance committee, and advisory board member for Innovation High School. She has four children who attend public school.
Marilyn Roman is vice president of the board, has 43 years experience as teacher, and is education supervisor and director of the Education/Business Alliance.
John Reichart is the former president of the Jersey City Historic Downtown Special Improvement District, a retired NJ Transit Police sergeant, and has two children in public schools.
Gina Verdibello describes herself as a stay-at-home parent by choice. She is a parent activist, a Girl Scout troop leader, and real estate agent. A graduate of Rutgers University, she used to be a grants administrator. Her three children currently attend Jersey City public schools.
Dr. Jonathon Warton served as moderator for the debate and asked the questions, most of which were from the audience. These touched on subjects from facilities to educational philosophy, and upon the ability of each candidate to deal with the most pressing issues of the school district.
What role does a board member play?
“We are responsible for educational programs and finance,” Roman said. “We oversee a $667 million budget and need to know that the programs are working. We evaluate them. If they are good, we go on, if not we replace them.”
Reichart focused on the board’s role in establishing policy and providing oversight.
“We’re not here to run the schools, but we’re here to make sure the schools are run well,” he said. “I hope to bring sound reasoning to the board. In many cases, the board was better over the last year. But sometimes civility and reason are absent.”
“Some schools are under capacity while others are over capacity.” – Vidya Gangadin
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“All the public schools deserve to be great, not just the ones downtown,” she said. “You see a difference when you look at the schools south of Communipaw Avenue. I have attended Board of Education meetings on the behalf of parents. Now I want to be on the other side so I can do more.”
Gangadin said the Board of Education’s role is to set policy, which the superintendent of schools implements.
“The challenge is evaluating the superintendent and voting on adopting the budget,” she said. “The board also must vote on resolutions recommended by the superintendent.”
Candidates agree: school facilities are a concern
Both Reichart and Verdibello said they would like to get appointed to the Facilities Committee if elected to the board.
“Facilities is what I do for a living,” Reichart said, noting that he is currently employed by a well-established local developer.
“I’m a facilities gal,” Verdibello said, pointing out that she has been a strong advocate for getting rid of or upgrading trailers that are used for classrooms outside many of the schools. She took credit for motivating the existing board to come up with a trailer evaluation report.
While Gangadin disputed this claim, saying the board was already looking at the trailers, she and other candidates have to face a projected short fall of classroom space by 2017.
Getting more space for students
“Earlier this year, The Hudson Reporter reported that the school district will be short 7,000 seats by 2017,” Dr. Warton said. “What would you do as a board member to deal with this?”
Gangadin said this projection was the result of a demographic study the board had commissioned, the results of which were unveiled last summer. She said she established a committee to look at rezoning. This means possible relocation of school district boundaries that would reassign students to different schools.
“This will take time,” she said. “Some schools are under capacity while others are over capacity.”
But she noted that a new pre-K to 5th grade school is under construction in Jersey City Heights that will provide for an addition 750 students, and there is also a school planned for the Greenville section of the city. She said the district needs to lobby the state for more money.
Roman said the state is no longer increasing funding or providing funds to build or rent new schools.
“The big problem is to where put students,” she said. “When the city took down Duncan Projects a lot of those families left, and that created empty spaces in School No. 39. We have empty spaces in other schools as well. One developer downtown wasn’t prepared to build pre-k classes in the first floor of that building. We should look at any opportunity we can to get more classroom space.”
Reichart placed the blame on poor planning.
“We need to have a conversation before there is a problem,” he said. “If there is big development in Journal Square, we need to talk about it before those 3,000 units are built. We know where the development is.”
Verdibello said conventional public schools are competing with charter schools.
“The charter schools have flexibility and a diverse curriculum we do not have,” she said. “School No. 41 on Ocean Avenue is very big and empty. If we brought things to school that would attract parents, they would come.”
By this, she meant of many of the programs that are currently available in some schools and not in others, such as duel language programs.
“Rezoning is a bad idea,” she said. “We bus students already and rezoning would create more confusion.”
In a rebuttal, Roman said the Board of Education needs to work with the city since the buildings are technically owned by the city. Recently the board established an add hoc committee to work with the city on issues such as this.
Gangadin said a representative of the mayor’s office is part of this committee, and among the discussions is how to improve facilities and to modify the tax abatement policies that would bring more revenue into the district.
But many people, Reichart noted, are afraid to send their kids to areas prone to violence so this must be taken into consideration when seeking to better utilize space.
“Parents need to know their kids are safe,” he said.
Money is the big issue
Roman said state funding is flat and the district cannot expect to get any more revenue from the state. The district has to devise more creative ways of doing better with the resources it has. This includes having staffers do work in the buildings that has previously been bid out to contractors.
Gangadin said she was recently part of a tour of the district to look at work done at various schools, including construction or repair of kitchens, pools, gyms, and other facilities.
Reichart said state revenues to the district have been flat since 2008.
“Buildings need maintenance, and we have to be more proactive in getting funding,” he said.
Verdibello disagreed, saying that money exists. She criticized the board for giving huge contracts for things like food service, and said administrative costs in the district are very high. She pointed to a recent news report that showed the superintendent and the business administrator had the highest salaries of all public officials in Jersey City.
Gangadin said as head of the finance committee she managed to keep the budget below the 2 percept tax levy increase as recommended by the state, and noted last year was different because the district had to settle some contract issues.
But she said 13 of the district’s school buildings are 100 years old and require significant maintenance.
Gangadin said the board is limited in what it can do to raise outside funding to make up for the flat state revenues. But she said bringing in mentors and people to help with conflict resolution can help offset some of the costs associated with those services.
Roman said the district does not have a regular grant writer to seek out additional revenues. Reichart agree with Roman, saying the district needs to do more to seek out revenue sources. He and Verdibello disputed over the possibility of establishing some kind of recycling program within the schools.
“A program like that will cost more to administer than it brings in,” Reichart said. “It is fantasy.”
“But at least I’m coming up with ideas,” Verdibello responded.
State gives local control back to Jersey City
In early October, the state Board of Education voted to return most control of local operations to the local school district.
The state took over control in the late 1980s to deal with significant problems in nearly every area, including programs and curriculum. These are areas in which the state has yet to relinquish control, but will likely do so in spring.
Verdibello credited students and teachers for making his happen. But Gangadin said it was a joint effort on every level that brought the district back to acceptable levels. With the establishment of a corrective action plan, she said the district will likely get control of curriculum and programs in the spring.
Roman said the district needs to talk about what kind of education it was to provide its kids.
“We don’t have enough conversations in this area,” she said.
Reichart said he was concerned about this last area of control, and said teachers should have more of a say how students are taught.
“We train teachers and they should be allowed to teach,” he said, critical of the top down approach that mandates teachers to teach to a test.
Verdibello said she was critical of the current Common Core standards that have been imposed on school districts.
Food services are a problem
The district has an expensive contract to provide meals to students. While Verdibello criticized the current board for maintaining a contract with a company that provides meals students do not like, Gangadin the district cannot supply all the meals necessary because many schools do not have kitchens.
“Kids often say they don’t like food. We want every child to be fed every day,” she said. “But we must follow state regulations. Even though kids say it doesn’t taste good,
it’s not bad food.
Reichart said under federal law, more than 70 percent of the student population is illegible for free or reduced cost lunches. This has an impact on the school district because in some cases, this may be the only time students get a meal during the day.
“If they don’t go to school, they don’t eat,” he said. “Often the food isn’t healthy, but it must be eatable.”
Roman said the board is bound by law to award the food contract to the lowest bidder, and that she would seek other vendors, who might be hired under the auspices of “lowest responsible bidder,” meaning better food.
Verdibello said the district isn’t doing enough to tap local resources.
“This the Garden State,” she said. “Why aren’t we utilizing farms in New Jersey? We can also work with local colleges’ culinary programs. I have spoken with some chefs who want to make better food for our kids.”
What is their position on tax abatements?
Reichart pointed out that as someone who works for a developer he is in the unique position to look at this issue as a board member. He said he understand why abatements are a concern because these projects do not pay school taxes.
“The fact is, abatements worked, many people are here because of them,” he said. “Abatements brought and kept people here and thanks to Mayor Fulop’s policies they are bringing development to other parts of the city.”
Verdibello said abatements are not bad if done right.
“But Downtown is not blighted, and yet more gets built there and get abatements. That is simply a giveaway. We depend on the taxes, we need to rebalance the formula better.”
Gangadin said this is one of the main areas of concern of the add hoc committee and its ongoing conversation with the city.
“There are so many buildings going up and the number of students going up,” she said, hoping that the district can somehow get a portion of the tax revenues to avoid putting a burden on the average home owner most impacted by school tax.
Roman said she was City Council president in the 1980s when the first abatement was given out.
“It was necessary to attract development,” she said. “A lot has changed since then. The committee is looking to make an arrangement with the city to get revenue. The state had to change the law so that counties could get five percent.”
Common ground
Most the candidates agreed on some of the other hotly-contested issues in the district, such as how to deal with refugees coming into the district from Syria and establishing days off for Muslim holidays.
“I had a problem with the timing,” Verdibello said. “This was an issue that was brought up in June and nobody did anything. When it was brought up again in September it was just too close. But I have to applaud the parents who came out, they proved they have power and a voice, and I encourage it.”
Reichart said that once the Syrian refugees reach Jersey City they become the district’s responsibility.
“Once they get here they are no longer refugees, they are Jersey City residents,” he said. “But we should get ready for when they arrive.”
He said he also admired Democracy in Action when members of the Muslim community argued their case at the Board of Education to get holidays.
Gangadin said the district has a process for helping refugees.
“They will need to be seen at the intake center and evaluated for placement,” she said.
As for the Muslim holidays, she said Jersey City is one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the nation.
“It is time we recognized this diversity,” she said, noting that she put through a policy for an ad hoc committee to communicate with community leaders.
Roman said she supported providing for Muslim holidays, saying that these could be set up on days when teachers are currently scheduled for professional development.
Will you support the reappointment of the superintendent?
Gangadin could not say if she would vote in favor of Dr. Marcia Lyles since Lyles has not yet told the board if she wants to be reappointed.
Roman said that new rules will prevent her from voting. Any board member who has a family member working as a teacher is banned from voting on the superintendent.
This could be an issue, since four of the nine current members are restricted from voting.
“Dr. Lyles’ performance is a mixed bag,” Roman said. “Some things she’s done well, other things, poorly.”
Reichart said he’s reluctant to speak about Lyles because she is an employee.
“She deserves respect and a fair shake like any other employee,” he said. “But I will look at the entirety, and will base my decision on facts, not emotion.”
Like Roman, Verdibello will not be able to vote on the superintendent contract if she is elected. But she said she thought Lyles was a poor leader.
Al Sullivan may be reached at asullivan@hudsonreporter.com.