and welcome to another edition of this week in education tonight my guest is frank pollution of who is the deputy executive director and director of communications for the new jersey school board association so frank thank you very much for stopping by today and coming on the show thank you very to the executive director laurie fine thought and strategic planning and defining the school boards public message political issues and state education policy frank also manages the data collection editing and publication of research reports which support school boards advocacy efforts recent surplus include student achievement school security the impact of underfunded state and federal mandates on local school districts and special education all of which will be talking about today is the recipient of the two thousand excellence in school board association leadership which is presented by the school boards association the national school boards association his work in the state has been recognized by the association of education publishers prior to joining the school boards in seventy nine frank worked for the prevention insurance company with an editor and reporter for a chain of commuting newspapers in essex and union counties and served as a reporter for a daily newspaper in morris county and is a graduate of seton hall university and he's a lifelong new jersey guy and who currently resides in hamilton with his wife terri and three great children so frank i just want to talk to believe that what's going on at school boards of course for those who don't know school board new jersey scoopers association is a federation of the states local boards of education and includes the majority of the new jersey's charter schools as associate members the school boards provides training advocacy and support to advance public education and promote the achievement of also through students through effective governance so i guess the first question i want to get right into talking to you about is you know recently school boards released a major study on educational opportunities for the career focused learner that is the student who does not plan to enroll in a four year college media graduation so what prompted the study and tell us a little bit about the study well our president dancing player who's a member of the lakeland regional board of education in passaic county had a consumer basically  focused on what are we doing for the student who does not plan to go to college immediately after high school graduation he felt that in fact there are very limited educational opportunities for the students who might want to pursue a career in the traditional trades like welding construction and so forth so in response he formed a task force along with our executive direct and they studied the issue for about a year they looked at areas where in fact the public schools can be doing a better job the concern is the gold standard of success in education has long been how many students how many of your graduates go on to four year colleges and even better the platinum standard is how many go on to ivy league schools or the more competitive universities and in fact we have to make sure we're meeting the needs of all students right and that's why true this we found that the county vocational school districts whose original charter was to serve students who were going to pursue the trades immediately after graduation have don't have the capacity anymore many of them in fact have them marked on the stop pushing these very competitive career cademy is where the students do in fact want to college so there's a gap we're not meeting the needs are delivering the education for all the students who do want to have what are called the middle level skills the middle level careers just as an example in atlantic county there were plans to really build an economic engine around the atlantic city airport they had to put the brakes on that because they cannot find enough workers who could service airplane mechanics right now that is an example of the middle level skills area that is not being met and the new jersey business and industry association which was represented on our taskforce did stress some of the economic and employment issues that are being challenged that are challenging our state's economy right now and that's one side of the coin the other side of the coin for us is a school boards association is for that subset of students who are not college bound what are we doing for them we're looking at expanding the capacity in the comprehensive high schools maybe finding ways to provide funding for vocational or c t a career and technical education programs in our comprehensive high schools you know the ones that are operated by kindergarten through twelfth grade districts or regional high school districts ok let's go to the family of stuart so what other educational issues it is th school boards currently studying right now well you know if to the park one tragedy on valentine's day this year again we decided that we need to really look at school security and j s p a had issued a report in two thousand and fourteen of a school of what makes school safe and we looked at various facets of school security and student safety everything ranging from target hardening which is a difficult concept to apply to our schools you know you have to think you know we're at a point now where we have to think look at our schools as targets but in fact after both parkland in the new town earlier it is really something that had to be considered you also looked at on law enforcement in the schools and the relationship between police departments and local school districts as well as financial issues well we looked at that two thousand and fourteen report and said you know we might need to updated so for the past few months we have been involved in a study that will be released shortly on issues dealing with school security generally we found that the two thousand and fourteen report was still valid  but we have looked at other areas on refinement of some of the principals concerning law enforcement presence in the schools as well as cyber security you know you might not think that your data is directly related to the physical safety of students but if your system is hacked there is a lot of information in there that both exposes your staff and your students to one danger ok you know we talked a little bit about the study so we have it up there study and school security because it's a big issue right now yes on a lot of schools throughout the state are also having referendums you know to and including the referendum is to make sure the schools are getting you know the the security  need to be safe as you know as individuals walked into the building at school we're taking a closer look at exactly seeing if there's any funding that could go to school districts to you know help you know upgrade issues of security in schools while funny has been limited there is a component of the state school funding system that is called security aid and every district receives that on a per pupil basis it's not prescripti districts of course will go into their general fund to pay for security upgrades right we've had a number of districts that have put out bond issues to the public comment part of their overall construction proposals there will be items such as securing the fast appeals that became a critical factor if to the newtown tragedy constructing but recall a man tribes were somebody gets buzzed into the vestibule and then they need to go one other other types of security functions and you will find those components and many of the bond issues that have been proposed and approved by voters there will be a bond issue on the november sixth ballot this year it's five hundred million dollars it's a state wide blind issue and it will go to several purposes including school security upgrades ok and school districts will be eligible for that yes and they would apply through the school's development authority for grants through that program ok so i know a lot of subjects that we talk about in education all vile some degree of funding and i know that you know recently just a couple months ago you know governor murphy and state state you know senate president sween in the legislature all got together to finalize a state budget which they did but i don't think education was was a big issue and it will remain a big issue but maybe you can just talk about some of the concerns that were raised and whether any of them have been resolved well there was you know good news and bad news for school districts you know we looked at a school funding system that essentially was frozen for about a decade after the great recession hit governor christie at the time had to implement school funding cuts slowly things were ratcheted back but we really did not follow our school funding formula that form was based on the number of students in the district as well as the wealth factors  the individual community but those things changed and we've had districts where there has been in roman growth some time substantial and school districts where there has been a declining enrollment some time substantial this year through both the state budget and additional legislation the legislature has put us back on a path toward full funding through the state school finance formula well that's good news for about two thirds of the state school districts for another third of them though they did have cuts this year and these cuts came along after they had received initial state figures on which to build their budgets long after they adopted regarding schools which is why i touch on because there's funding that goes from the state that's passed through to this trip and it's passed on you know to charter schools if we just take the time to talk a little that charter schools and because when they originally set up and princeton you know charter schools one of the you know first one to be set up in the state when they originally set up they were really set up to be you know areas and schools of innovation in which basically especially for school districts that maybe weren't doing their job you know primarily not for school districts that were doing well and so i think the law has been stretched you know over the years and now the aids education is such that when there is an increased aid a lot of the money i get princeton for example that princeton gets goes past the right to the charter school so is there any opportunity to change the legislation is anybody looking at anything seeing whether it's  possibility to have separate you know funding of charter schools you know by the state as opposed to state aid well having the state fully fund charter schools has been a long term goal of the new jersey school board's association and i do have to also mention that we do have the majority of charter schools in the state as associate members and america's fight services they are publicly funded institutions and governed by boards of trustees so we do provide training and other services to the charter school boards but we do feel strongly that much of the tension between traditional public school districts in georgia schools would be resolved if we can look at the funding  process rather than funneling the money through the public school district had direct state funding and i believe that there are many charter schools that would be open to that concept you know and the other factor is that yes trotter schools were designed or were founded also to be innovators and to some extent experimental programming has been shared at the local level but not to the degree we would like to s know we would like to see the end of age of programming the success that many target schools have had would be shared with the young public school districts in their areas and we have tried to foster that and we will continue to do so we think that's very important i know that you see that school boards knows that a lot of applications are read every year for new charter schools throughout the state the school boards take a position either way i whether or not the local local rule should happen where you know local towns should be able to vote on whether or not to admit a charter school what our primary position is that the local board of education should have some authorisation rights it doesn't it merely reviews the application and then makes a recommendation we believe that yes it should be as in many other states require the approval of the local board of right the department of education right now is having and put session or input process and designing it has involved the major education organizations as well those groups that are very participation in this immediate area so they are looking at designing a process where everyone would have been put and the commissioner of education with and look at the implementation and the regulations governing charter schools was developed by working group consisting of lawmakers representatives of this incident history and other working as asians and was commissioned by the legislature senate president sweeney was a major force behind the report and they're looking at a condom mees in government operations but the state government municipalities school districts and county governments for the public schools one of the critical recommendations involves regional and that would be the merger of school districts that operate only elementary level schools and school districts that operate only high schools and bringing them together into k through twelve units and it would be a substantial reduction in the number of school districts if that were to occur they're also calling for creation of two pilot county wide school districts and probably looking to institution in some rural areas of new jersey the new jersey school boards association believes that school districts should look at regionalization and but there needs to be a study to determine if there will be financial benefits which is not always the case and also more important than anything else educational benefits for the students we help south hundred regional right which created a k through twelve regional district back in two thousand and thirteen we provided advice and assistance to them and that is more the process we would like to see followed it needs to be done locally you can't force it and the ramifications are not always financially viable and i think that has to be real i sometimes from the state level you might feel well this really doesn't make sense to have all these you know various size school districts but very often locally it does yeah it does and what looks good at the state level policy is not always practical on a day by day basis but you know if anybody's ever done a financial feasibility study what would be the office of legislative services or anybody like that as far as financial impact will consolidation a gentlem n who was with the rockers university of government research dr histrionic and did what was probably the most significant study of the issue and he looked very specifically at this type of proposal which is merging school districts of various grade levels and greg going from area sizes into k through twelve units and he did identify savings but we don't believe that he took into account certain legislation that exists to protect employees one is that if there is a merger of school districts or a large salary guide that the largest school district takes effect so if you're looking at a high school district merging what's its constituent or its member elementary districts most likely the salary guidance the largest district is going to get high school district most it's going to have higher salary grades than the elementary level districts so you're going to have a large number number of employees with salary increases and that will increase cost so that more or less negates much of the say things that would be there and then again and that's one reason why we feel that these proposals have to be determined locally and you know with feasibility studies local feasibility studies and approval by the voters ok in a special education funding has been another area that's been looked at you just you know but i'm not sure i'm right that was a focus of the path to progress toward and we're looking at ways maybe to control special education funding special education is is a success story in new jersey and you can't get away from that people move here right where you often because or special education programs unfortunately you do have situations because of limited resources you will have conflict between the general education programming and parents and special education programming and parents one area that does need to be looked at is out of district placements particularly residential placements out of state placements and the proposal is is advocating certain controls over there those placements stronger review and also better state of the changes are long overdue they were the type of changes you've been advocating for a while and they concern really looking at proposals that are very common in the private in new jersey under a two thousand and eleven pension reform bill mentioning health benefits reform bill right we did ratchet up the level of employee contributions to the health benefits that is now being so that is now subsided in it's now the subject of hugo she ations we believe that those levels of benefits should be made permanent they have been able school boards to direct more money into the classroom and some you know some school districts but first you know members of the board of education you know why it's important if you could just you know focus on this one was important for citizens to select local school board members the majority of school districts in new jersey now hold their elections in november and one of the challenges we're facing is that you're you have board of education elections going on at the same time as s senate elections which is in new jersey this year it's gone tremendous exposure you know your elections for your congressional candidates as well as municipal and county wide offices being on the ballot school boards make vital decisions i think recently i saw an op ed piece by the former mayor of princeton i think the township who now i believe is associated with the school board and she said you know you have to realize that the amount of public expenditure of the school board is far greater right then you'll see in the municipal government so that's one aspect where people should be just a financial one where people should be paying attention to these elections but in fact school boards also make very important decisions concerning policy the policies in which the school district operates they hire the superintendent they evaluate the superintendents performance they set goals for the district  collaboration with the superintendent it's a very important role so we would like voters to make sure after they cast their ballots for the u s senator for their member of congress to go to that portion of the ballot where there are the school board members listed where the school board candidates and cast their ballots there and get information about where the candidates stand on various educational issues ok recently when he was elected governor for said is one of the promises that he said he was going to you know do away with park you know the state assessment you know of testing students and he has given a new name but it's still park so i was wondering where the were basically school board stands on this regarding the public debate about over testing and the loss of instructional time well i think where do you stand on computer computer based in ruction work computer based assessment or the components of park ward the standards on which it's based or which it was assessing i think well parties would have would agree that maybe we're taking too much of our students and teachers time with assessments and with testing so right now you know  state board of education has come up with a compromise regulation right that he's being considered and it will reduce the number of well tested ministrations at the high school level we think that's a good thing it was the regulation and in fact when there was a movement toward opt out there was a concern that you know is that really was the rise so you know we provided school districts and school boards without administration but in terms of looking at assessment looking at the assessment instrument the amount of time devoted to testing you know that always needs to be under review i've worked for the school board association for forty years on the resolutions the thank you the m b a s test which was i think the state's first assessment where it stood for minimum basic skills in the one nine hundred eighty s was controversial because it was not rigorous enough for the  the later high school proficiency test followed by the high school proficiency this assessment the grade eight assessment well these were controversial and you can't get away with can't get away from the fact that how we're testing students is going to be subject to a lot of debate debate and the involvement in input of parents that's a good one question i'd like to ask all my guests frank is role models who's been a role model in your life i have to go back to my parents both my mom and dad and i work for some wonderful people i started out in journalism i think the first editor i had was she was just tremendous in helping me focus on key issues in reporting cutting through the verbiage and getting terms of the topic here and i have also worked for some wonderful executive directors new jersey school boards association and they've all you had an influence on me and that's great with frank frank blueshift thank you very much for coming on the show thanking them and talking about education policy today and how school boards association is out there in the forefront helping school districts around the state and if everybody's watching oh please stay tuned we have another guest coming up next weekend that time on the go steve thank you for watching this week in education until then stay healthy stay focused and i'll see you next week have a good ni