On Monday, October 23rd, 2017, the League of Women
Voters (LOWV) in conjunction with our local PTAs, conducted a ‘Meet the
Candidate’ night at DeMasi Middle School.
This is a great way for our citizen voters to learn more about the
candidates, to hear the candidates in their own words, and to learn about how
they would approach the position of School Board Member. Sadly the meeting was sparsely attended, with
around 30 people in attendance. While I
will try to summarize what was said during the meeting, there is nothing like
meeting a candidate in person to get a feel for who they are and how they would
conduct themselves in the care of our children.
The meeting was moderated by Barbara Kutcher of the League
of Women Voters of Burlington County.
She described the LOWV as a non-partisan political organization which
encourages the informed and active participation of citizens in
governments. She made clear that neither
she nor the two women assisting her were residents of Evesham and they were
there in a non-biased capacity. All 5
candidates were invited and 4 attended.
Jayesh Parikh did not respond to invitations. As Mr Parikh has not responded to previous questionnaires
sent by various groups, I am uncertain whether he is actively running for the
position.
There were no fireworks last night. The candidates had few differing opinions on
how they would help the schools if elected. But because of their backgrounds, the night
was worth attending. The candidates have
different experiences in regards to the School Board. Elaine Barbagiovanni was a teacher in Evesham
Schools for 30 years and a School Board member since 2015. Her answers regarding what she will do or how
she views certain items will be vastly different from someone who is not on the
board. Lea Ryan has been a teachers
union president as well as a PTA president, so her experience with School Board
related issues will be vastly different from others. Bennie Roberson and Janis Knoll are
outsiders, never having participated in school administration. So at times, Mrs Barbagiovanni was able to
give a detailed answer to a question while the other panelists wisely answered with a ‘I don’t know.’ It should also be
noted that answering questions on the spot is not something that is a good test
of a school board candidate. As far as I
can tell, answering questions under pressure is not something that school board
members have to do. Agendas are
published beforehand and school board members can research issues before school
board functions.
To open the meeting, each candidate was allowed to give a 2
minute opening speech, to introduce themselves and state their approaches to
and goals for the School Board. The only
interesting item I found during these speeches was that while Ms Barbagiovanni,
Ms Ryan and Ms Knoll focused on providing the best results and education for
our children, Mr Roberson seemed to focus more on homeowners and providing the
best results and use of our taxes.
Questions from the audience commenced after the opening
statements. Anyone attending was allowed
to write questions on an index card to ask any or all of the candidates. Residents were required to write their name
and address on the cards to prove they were Evesham residents. The moderator would read the questions and
state who they were from. While there
was at least one question directed to a specific candidate, the moderator
decided to ask all questions to all candidates.
Each candidate would answer the question in turn, and it rotated who
would answer first. I won’t discuss
every question, as many of them had answers that didn’t really differentiate
the candidates from each other. I will
note who the questions are from on most of the questions. If there is no name with the question, it
means either there were multiple people asking the same question, or I didn’t
catch the name of the person. The questions are listed in order they were presented and the candidate answers are listed in order of their answers.
- Why are Evesham’s PARCC scores lower than surrounding districts? (Question from Sandy Student)
- How do you plan to keep our programs in place without raising taxes? This was one of the few questions where the candidates differentiated themselves from each other. (Patty Meeker)
- Mr Roberson: Need to balance the needs of the children with the cost of the programs. Will do everything in his power to avoid raising taxes, but can’t make promises he would never vote to raise taxes, ‘but 99.9% of the time’ would avoid it.
- Mrs Ryan: Doesn’t know where things can change but we need to maintain our standards. Programs need to be funded but since she isn’t on the board, doesn't know where cuts can be made.
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: Pointed out her positon on the finance committee. “I would not cut any program in this district”.
- Mrs Knoll: “last thing we want to do is start cutting programs”. The best chance at increasing funding is to look at expanding shared services and programs that bring in revenue like Teddy Bear academy, preschool inclusion and Reading Recovery
- What two areas of the budget can be scrutinized for savings? (Moderator noted that question came from a senior on a fixed income) (John Brown)
- Mrs Ryan: Education should be number one priority. Sympathizes and empathizes with those on fixed income. Problems of the district will not be solved by tax increases.
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: We need programs that create more revenue. We saved $1.4M by closing Evans and that will continue each year. We do have an issue with new building and tax abatements.
- Mrs Knoll: Confident the school board is always looking at ways to save money. Ratables are down so less money is going to the school district. Good schools bring in families.
- Mr Roberson: “I can’t answer without a deep dive into the budget.”
- What specifically would you cut from the budget? (multiple residents)
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: The board is looking into changing health plans to save money
- Mrs Knoll: Doesn’t have enough knowledge of every line of the budget to answer. “I will not cut programs”.
- Mr Roberson: Need to take a deep dive into budget. It will take team work for that dive.
- Mrs Ryan: Echoed the sentiments of the previous candidates
- What is your experience with finance and budgeting? (Trish Everhart)
- Mrs Knoll: In charge of multi-million dollar budgets as project manager. Serves as treasurer of Marlton Lakes Civic Association.
- Mr Roberson: (Author’s note: I had problems hearing Mr Roberson’s answer to this question. I’m not sure if it was a microphone issue or if he was perhaps speaking in military lingo I was unfamiliar with. I think he mentioned something about ‘Standing up’ a program for his job in the military, though I can’t be certain). Was involved with small office finance issues.
- Mrs Ryan: Was union president, the representative in charge of negotiating between the union and school board. President of PTO for 6 years.
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: On the School Board Finance committee. Noted that 82% of the school board is salary and benefits.
- How will you educate yourself on how the school board runs and school board issues? (Phil Warren)
- Mr Roberson: Will take advantage of programs and workshops offered by the state. Sit down with other board members and learn learn learn.
- Mrs Ryan: In position of PTA president, sits down once a month with Superintendent and Director of Cirriculum. Will attend state workshops.
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: Is a life long learner, has taken advantage of many workshops.
- Mrs Knoll: When she decided to run, called the superintendent and director of curriculum and set up meetings with them and brought a list of questions. Attended a ‘Candidate Briefing’ offered by NJ School Board Association.
- What is the greatest problem facing the school board? (multiple) All the answers basically came down to budget and taxes.
- How many school board meetings have you attended?
- Mrs Barbaviovanni: In 3 years, missed one meeting due to being out of the country.
- Mrs Knoll: Every meeting, every month
- Mr Roberson: Zero
- Mrs Ryan: (Author’s Note – I missed part of this answer. In previously speaking with Mrs Ryan, I know she has attended many meetings.) Mentioned that she appreciates the live stream for when she cannot attend.
- Describe your involvement in the schools
- Do you think we need SROs? How many hours? (SRO = School Resource Officer, police officers in the schools)
- Mr Roberson: Yes, because it would be hard to explain why one wasn’t there if something went down in the school . He wouldn’t want to have to explain it. They should be there the entire school day. How to pay for it is under investigation.
- Mrs Ryan: Yes, supports SROs. How to pay? She doesn’t know. Doesn’t know how many hours per day, would need to investigate the program
- Mrs Barbagiovanni: Yes but not necessarily in every school. There are plans in place, lockdown procedures, shelter in place. It is the duty of the school district to educate student and it is the towns responsibility to protect residents. There were SROs in every school when the town paid for it. Surrounding districts don’t have SROs.
- Mrs Knoll: There is a comprehensive plan in place for staff. The question should be put to the voters on whether this should be funded. Leave the number of hours up to the experts.
The moderator at this point asked if candidates
needed additional time for this question.
Only Mrs Barbagiovanni took advantage of the additional time to say she
agreed that the question of funding SROs should be put directly to the voters.
- Are you funded by any political party? (Ken Mills) – the answer from all four candidates was NO.
- During the campaign, how would you develop a dialogue with the public?
- Where can we spend more money?
- What is the role of the Town Council in regards to the school? This was followed by: Has the Mayor’s influence adversely affected the school board ? (Rosemary Bernardi)
- The common theme was that they are two separate entities and should remain that way, though they may occasionally have to work together. Every candidate vowed to remain independent.
I know that members of the local media were invited to attend, but I am not sure that they did, as I did not see the usual reporter from the Marlton Sun. I decided to provide this for those who were unable to attend. If I made any mistakes, they were done of out negligence, not malice - please send me a note letting me know.
I previously discussed this election in the second half of this blog post. There are links in that post to the candidates written statements that are worth reading.