Montclair School Board Candidate Profile: Andrew Gideon

MONTCLAIR, NJ — Montclair has a big choice to make in 2024: who will serve on the local school board?

There are six candidates competing for three open seats on the Montclair Board of Education. The candidates are: Eric Scherzer, Jada Roman, Sean Long, June Raegner, Andrew Gideon, and Holly Shaw.

Patch reached out to each candidate with the same set of questions. Andrew Gideon's replies follow below (learn more about his campaign here).

>> Are you a candidate seeking an elected office in Montclair? Send campaign updates to eric.kiefer@patch.com

PATCH: What are your qualifications to run for office?

AG: My two kids went though the Montclair school district, with the youngest graduating a year ago. I’ve volunteered on various PTAs and School Action Teams and other groups starting from when my children were small, for example running the mailing list for the Nishuane PTA to communicate with families and mentoring the high school robotics team. I’m currently working with the PTA Council, which I’ve helped with tools to build an organizational memory and a public web site for sharing information.

I’ve also been involved on the board side. I’ve been a regular at board meetings since about 2009, served on a volunteer committee for the board, and I’ve spoken on - and written about - both budgeting and achievement issues.

The volunteer committee I served on was tasked with reviewing, line-by-line, the district’s budget. A goal was to identify issues which were contributing to the wild budget oscillation at the time, where budgets started with threats of cuts and large tax increases but led, at the end of the budget year, to oversized surpluses. We identified several small issues and potential savings, but also found one major causal factor which could be corrected. Budgets since then have no longer exhibited those wild swings - though the fundamental issue of costs inflating more rapidly than the state’s revenue cap accommodates does remain.

I provided the district with a reorganized view of the December 2022 Achievement Report’s data, showing students losing ground in math as they passed through our schools. In response, subsequent reports have been enhanced to show the same view, middle school math curricula were updated, and additional Professional Development (PD) was offered to K-5 math teachers. I don’t know the details of the curriculum change or the enhanced PD, nor how many teachers participated. I hope to push for more sharing of such information as a board member.

I originally became involved, and have stayed involved even after my kids are out, because I believe in the power of education. I also believe in the importance of data which, with context and meaning, becomes information that can inform our actions and show us how to improve the education we’re providing to our students.

Whether I am elected or not, I plan to continue to be involved in helping the school district meet the needs of all students.

PATCH: What is your campaign platform if elected?

AG: The unfortunate loss of Dr. Ponds makes hiring a new superintendent our top priority. I hope to find someone with a depth of experience managing a district as large and complex as ours, a vision for our students and district aligned with the remarkable vision Dr. Pond’s exhibited, and who has a proven record of reducing the achievement gap we continue to see even in the most recent Achievement Report.

Beyond that, I will be advocating for more information - not just data, but information. For example, consider a recent report provided to the board on students for whom English is a new language. This report provided data: the percentage of students in each grade at the various levels of achievement with regard to English learning. But this data lacked the context needed for the board to make any meaningful response. Did the 12% of the students in fifth grade at level 1 arrive in the country yesterday, for example, or have they been in our district since kindergarten? How the board would respond to each scenario is very different.

Reports like this occur with some frequency. While the board can and does ask questions, I’ve seen no systemic movement towards making these reports less about data and more about information, which I feel would guide the board to make better-informed choices. I hope to create that movement.

There are more avenues for improved information movement, which includes sharing information with the community as well as pulling information from that community. We need to make board meetings more accessible, one aspect of which means making them shorter. A fair amount of time could be saved if information moved, in both directions, via more accessible paths.

During my campaign, I often received questions where the answers are found on the district’s web site. We need to do a better job of making that known, but the web site also needs to be organized such that information is more easily located. A question was raised recently regarding administrative staffing, for example. This data is available in at least two different forms: page J-16 of every annual audit document as well as the state’s annual district report.

The timeliness of reporting is also an area I hope to improve, again because it will result in better-informed choices. For example, the recently approved Strategic Plan was provided to the board on the night it had to be approved. Failure to approve it would have caused a cascade of delays. That eliminates the possibility of the board receiving answers to any but the simplest of questions, nor had the board the option of requesting changes or enhancements. I will be pushing for information to be provided well before choices must be made about that information.

We currently have at least two “dashboards” on the district website, one showing progress regarding the projects funded by the bond referendum and the other showing progress regarding the goals and objectives of the Strategic Plan. We can make more use of this model, such as a dashboard which would show the progress - or lack thereof - regarding the Achievement Gap Report’s recommendations. Tools like this will help the board in its task of holding the superintendent accountable as well as the public in holding board members accountable.

Ultimately, though, this is all about improving the functioning of the board and the district so as to advance the district’s primary mission: educating each and every student, preparing them all for a successful future. That must always remain centered as our primary goal.

PATCH: What is one thing that always makes you smile about the Montclair school district?

AG: There is not just one thing, but - forced to choose but one - it would be when students speak at board meetings and other venues. We have terrific students in our town, and it is gratifying to see this while also watching them advocate for themselves and the issues important to them. Given my involvement with the MHS Robotics Team, I’m especially proud of examples such as:

• https://youtu.be/5JbBXP-VXyI
• https://youtu.be/_4yfzSa_4wI
• https://youtu.be/FvpD66DeMK4

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