Amy Tenney Levere
Biography
Response to Gazette Questions:
Most Important Issue Facing District
I think that the most important issue facing the Mamaroneck School
District is the same as that facing all other school districts - how best to
provide an excellent education for all of our students within the confines
of a budget which the community can support. This is a challenge for any district;
in ours it is more complex because of our diversity.
ACTION:
Excellence can only be accomplished when each child is engaged and challenged
to perform to the best of his abilities. The best way to provide that challenge
is to ensure that all classes are rigorous; rigor should not be restricted
to honors and AP classes. Further, all classes must provide students with the
skills and habits of mind needed to succeed in later years.
Differentiation of instruction, which is defined as a teacher’s flexible
response to learners’ needs, is another critical step on the road to
excellence. Teachers can differentiate by content, process and product, and
according to students’ readiness, interest or learning profile. Differentiation
allows a teacher to reach all children where they are and challenge them to
go further, whether they are “high fliers”, students (too often
neglected) in the middle or those requiring extra supports. This has been a
focus of the district during the past several years and must continue to be
one in the future.
All of our educational programs must take account of the demographics and
diversity of our district. Not all children come to school with the same experiences,
expectations and language rich background. Thus, we must provide supports for
those who need them in order to succeed. We must also recognize that children
from different cultures and traditions may perceive the classroom setting and
teacher’s requests and instruction differently from non-minority children.
Most critically, teachers must expect every child to succeed: teachers’ expectations
have been proven to be closely tied to student achievement. Closing the minority
achievement gap has been one of the board’s highest priorities during
my tenure and, I believe, must continue to be so for the foreseeable future.
The school board cannot micro-manage the school system and cannot be in the
classrooms teaching. Rather, it is the job of the school board, through its
initiatives and the wise use of study sessions, to set the policy, values and
tone for the district and to ensure that the administrators and teachers share
the philosophy of education and goals of the board, and, most importantly,
that they have the tools and skills necessary to achieve those goals. I believe
that the two budget hearings the board held last fall were a successful method
of listening to the community views on budgetary concerns and educational values
and were important is preparing the budget for 2005-2006. Further, through
study sessions (most notably this year on gatekeeping and differentiation),
and its school visits that this year focused on rigor and the math curriculum,
as well as the reports at board meetings on various initiatives in the schools,
the board keeps its policies and values central in the educators’ minds. |
Richard Marsico
Biography
Response to Gazette Questions:
Most Important Issue Facing District
Our district includes students who have special education needs, speak
English as their second language, struggle to pass their courses, are on
the cusp of high achievement, and take as many as eight Advanced Placement
examinations. Our students are interested in pursuing or investigating art,
technology, music, computer science, the social sciences, the hard sciences,
and athletics. We live in a community that includes people from different
socioeconomic backgrounds and at different stages in their lives. We have
had, until this year, a shrinking tax base; we face rising costs, and the
continued aging of our already old buildings. Flowing from this, the most
important issue facing the Mamaroneck School Board is how best to educate
our students to the best of their abilities so they can reach their potential
and thrive in an increasingly specialized and competitive world, all within
a budget that our community can support.
ACTION:
The school board has taken many steps to address these issues
and has done a good job of balancing the interests and needs of the various
populations within our community. For example, the board has created a Minority
Achievement Task Force to address the achievement gap between minority and
white students. It has addressed the needs of highly achieving students by
supporting a wide range of AP and other advanced courses and it has opened
such courses to more students by supporting changes to the district’s
gatekeeping policies. The board has addressed the needs of the diverse student
body at Mamaroneck Avenue School by reducing the student/teacher ratio and
supporting programs for higher achieving students. The board held a series
of budget hearings in the fall, resulting in a budget that reduces last year’s
increase, that has the fourth lowest increase of twenty school districts
that have reported their budgets, while at the same time addresses educational
needs by reducing the class size in kindergarten and hiring additional teachers
for the increasing student body at the high school.
If elected, I would work with teachers, parents, administrators, students,
and other members of the community to continue these board initiatives. I
would also like to establish goals for closing the minority achievement gap
against which we can measure our progress. I would like to initiate discussions
about incorporating a required research paper component into the high school
curriculum, perhaps in the form of a “Senior Thesis” (an idea
all three of my children oppose) I would also like to continue to study our
gatekeeping policies to ensure that we do not preclude students from taking
advanced courses in high school because of choices they make in elementary
or middle school and to experiment with the possibility of eliminating gatekeeping
for AP and honors courses.
|
Gerhard Stohrer
Biography
Response to Gazette Questions:
Most Important Issue Facing District
An unsustainable increase in school taxes linked to
an unwillingness
of the administration / school board to engage the community in a
meaningful dialog has stressed community support for the Mamaroneck
School
system to the breaking point.
Good teachers and solid support by the
community are the twin pillars
of a successful school system. We enjoyed both for a long time
but the
administration and school board have recently squandered community
good will with high-handed and offensive spending.
ACTION:
-- Restore responsiveness by involving community
talent, such as retired
architects, in the early phases of new projects. This may well save
the huge fees now paid to consultants.
-- Create a formal cost-control mechanism for new spending.
--Review all non-teaching programs in a once-a-decade review.
--Take affirmative steps to recruit indpendents to make the school
board more representative.
--Cut down on the wasteful lawsuits that currently consume half
a
million dollars. Every dollar spent on lawyering is a dollar taken
from
children's education.
This is the action I would take if elected to the Mamaroneck School
Board.
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