From left: Watkins Glen School Board candidates Jim Somerville, Kristina Hansen, Keith Caslin, Jannica Moskul and Annette Bascom at the Meet the Candidates forum.

Board candidates' forum

5 of 7 attend, tackle a number of topics

By Charlie Haeffner

WATKINS GLEN, May 16, 2014 -- Meet the Candidates forums can be snooze fests. Maybe that’s why there was such a poor turnout at Thursday’s in the auditorium at the Watkins Glen Elementary School. But the session proved rather engrossing, what with five speakers who carried themselves well and spoke with passion on a number of subjects put to them in question form.

The forum -- a seeming problem to get formed initially, and then the subject of a change of locale -- was ultimately orchestrated by the Watkins Glen Faculty Association and the PTO with some success procedurally, although without many spectators and minus two of the seven candidates who are seeking seats on the Watkins Glen School Board in the May 20 election. The two absentees had excuses: other obligations elsewhere.

There was some media there -- the Watkins Review and The Odessa File -- and there were some teachers and at least one administrator, and some members of the general public, though not many. I don’t think attendance, even accounting for midstream comings and goings, topped 35.

That’s a sad commentary when three seats are up for grabs with seven candidates and only one incumbent running. This election could signal a sea change in the way the Board currently operates -- a change, most of the candidates said, from procedures that foster isolation and poor communication.

The candidates on hand were Jim Somerville, Kristina Hansen, Keith Caslin, Jannica Moskul and Annette Bascom. Absent were Kris Clarkson and the lone incumbent, Gloria Brubaker. But not wanting to miss the experience entirely, Brubaker submitted written answers to questions posed by the forum organizers. Those included: 1. What made you decide to run for the School Board? 2. If elected, what will be your three top priorities? 3. What is your stance on the national push for more testing and linking teacher evaluation to testing scores? 4. Is the Common Core a valid education policy? 5. Do you believe we can answer the needs of our students with fewer teachers? That last was an allusion to the reduction of staff over the past few years.

Those subjects were touched upon in the course of the live forum, and the candidates didn’t vary too widely, except perhaps on Common Core -- where some thought it necessary, one didn’t like it, and all thought the implementation was awful. Brubaker gave a long answer that included this: “The problems really, in my opinion, arose when the state rushed the implementation of the modules. They should have been rolled out from the lower grades on up and maybe only one grade level at a time. We all make mistakes and I believe that I should have done a lot more research before I voted to adopt all of those modules.”

They discussed safety in the schools -- including the Elementary School’s stringent policy regarding visitor admissions -- and on the buses, where incidents of bullying and at least one case of assault have occurred since the move to a single bus run in which young and much older students share the ride.

Those are all worthy topics -- enhanced, perhaps, by Caslin’s reference to a “lock-in” at the school recently that he said was caused by the sighting of a sex offender on school property. Such a person crossing school grounds is not actually unusual, he said, because it’s not just drug addicts that get treatment at the nearby Mill Creek Center. Also treated, he noted, are sex offenders who wander along the Catharine Valley Trail across school property with regularity.

And there was Caslin, again, who in discussing Common Core said the implementation in the district “was completely without thought.” That seemed to lay an accusation at the feet of the Board and the Superintendent. (At a meeting on the subject in November, there was a great deal of discussion on the apparent haste with which Common Core was being implemented. At that session, Board member Tom Richardson said that in any event, "the (Common Core) train has left the station. It's the law. I don't think it's a good idea" to try and delay it. And Superintendent Tom Phillips echoed him later in the meeting when he said “the train has indeed left the station, and it’s not going back.”)

One of the interesting threads of Thursday's forum dealt with the Board’s role in fashioning a budget.

Somerville said “it needs to be gone through in greater detail.” And there needs to be an accountability, he said, referring to the approval of an extra administrator last year after the 2013-14 budget had been approved by voters. Where, he asked, did that $100,000 salary come from? That addition -- of a Middle School principal -- involved some musical chairs, where Middle School Principal Kristine Somerville was shifted over to the Elementary School while the ES Principal, Rod Weeden, moved to the post of Athletic Director. And that question, Somerville said afterward, didn’t even address the wisdom of paying an AD in excess of $100,000.

Hansen noted that she has been at many Board meetings, and believes the Board was simply told what the latest budget would be and went along -- that its members started with the tax cap increase and then decided how best to utilize the money from it. “I think that is backward ... There needs to be more discussion about the budget,” she said.

Added Bascom: “The budget needs to be looked at with a magnifying glass” and “more questions need to be asked.”

But Moskal ventured a conciliatory note when she said she thought it was “a disservice to the current Board to think they didn’t go through the budget line by line; they probably did.”

A question from the audience raised the issue of the Superintendent’s role and duties: What should they be?

Caslin said the Superintendent’s role should be to work for the Board, “not the opposite way around. The Board directs the Superintendent. We should take our advice from talking to teachers and the community. There are no checks and balances (now) from what I see. Everyone is in agreement. We need to set goals for the Superintendent.”

Said Somerville: the role of the Superintendent should be “to do the right thing. We should hold him to a standard of doing the right thing. I think there are times that hasn’t happened. We need accountability.”

Added Hansen: The Superintendent should “serve as a conduit between the staff and the Board” and “make sure we’re getting all the information we need. I’m not sure that’s happening all the time now.”

Added Moskal: “I would expect him to abide by the mission,” which is to “promote growth, learning and achievement at the highest level .... It is important he support the staff and students.” She said she -- being concerned about the effects of Common Core on her child and wanting to provide assistance -- had asked the Superintendent “what I can do as a parent” to help, and that he told her “not much." That answer, she said, "tells me a lot. He’s not living up to his responsibility and should be held accountable.”

Bascom said the Superintendent “should support the students, parents and teachers.” If he can’t figure out a way to do that, “he should ask the Board” for guidance. “That’s not what I’m seeing,” she added.

Questions about the single bus run that carries students young and old on one vehicle was discussed at length, especially pertaining to aspects of safety and the decision by some parents to drive their children to school rather than let them ride the bus. The consensus was that a policy such as a single bus run is not set in stone, and should be revisited, but with the Board mindful of the effect a change might have on taxes.

Hansen said that while looking at the policy, there might be thought given to hiring bus monitors with some of the savings realized in joining transportation forces with Odessa-Montour. Somerville said an answer could be in accountablility -- in setting a line that students on buses shouldn’t cross in the use of improper language and in behavior. If they do, he said, there should be consequences.

And on the issue of communication, the general consensus of those candidates present was that it needs to be open -- that the Board has not been receptive in the recent past to questions, deferring answers, Somerville said, to an unspecified time. “You should be told when the answer is coming,” he said, adding: “I would always welcome comments and criticism.”

(Among the written replies she provided, Brubaker had a slightly different take. “I enjoy sitting on the Board and I do my very best to be available,” she said, adding that she is “transparent while always trying to support our students/programs/staff and community.”)

Caslin said that in the course of his campaign for office, he has talked to numerous teachers with opinions but a reluctance to present them aloud. “I was saddened that these teachers didn’t want to speak in public. We need to get past that -- have teachers feel comfortable to talk to the Board.” He said he also asked them if they would be “okay if a Board member sat in their class, and they asked ‘Why?’ ... We need to let the Board in, let them see. The only way to move forward is with strong communication and trust.”

Bascom alluded to a Mandarin Chinese class her son took when he attended WGHS, and how effective it was when run in conjunction with Daemen College. But a daughter took the class after the affiliation changed to Corning Community College and it wasn’t as effective, as productive, as during the Daemen affiliation, she said. Her point: the change was made “with no communication between the Superintendent and the Board and parents and teachers. It should have been jointly discussed. It should have been brought to our attention, but it wasn’t.” She added: “Open communication is the key to running a great school district.”

In offering concluding remarks, Moskal’s were the most pointed.

“It’s too bad more people didn’t fill the seats” in the auditorium, she said. “In five days we will change the face of the Board. We hope to bring change.”