Five vie for three open seats on SOMA BOE – Essex News Daily
SOUTH ORANGE / MAPLEWOOD, NJ — There are five challengers running for three open seats on the South Orange–Maplewood Board of Education: Susan Bergin, Deborah Engel, Melanie Finnern, Elissa Malespina and Courtney Winkfield. Current board members Elizabeth Baker, Robin Baker and Anthony Mazzocchi have chosen not to run for reelection. Additionally, current BOE member Kamal Zubieta is running unopposed for the remaining year of Javier Farfan’s term; Farfan resigned from the board at the beginning of 2020, and Zubieta was appointed to fill the term until the coming election.
Bergin has lived in Maplewood for 11 years and has three children — the oldest is at Columbia High School, the middle child is at Maplewood Middle School and the youngest is poised to begin kindergarten in the district. She has a Master of Public Administration degree from Columbia University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law; Bergin works as a regulatory attorney. She has served on the School Safety committees at both Marshall and Jefferson elementary schools, has coordinated parent volunteers in the Marshall lunchroom for three years, and is a member of the Maplewood Recreation Advisory Committee and the Parenting Center’s steering committee. Bergin also wrote the proposal for a community Wi-Fi pilot program that won Maplewood’s first participatory budget contest and has since helped bridge the digital divide in the Seth Boyden community.
“I’ve lived in SOMA for 11 years and been deeply involved in volunteer service to the SOMA community. My service has focused on supporting local students to encourage their full inclusion in all that our schools and community have to offer,” Bergin told the News-Record. “In 2017, I led an effort to pay student lunch debt and worked with the district’s Parenting Center to ensure students with empty lunch accounts are fed a school lunch and not stigmatized. I also created the Cougar Cares program to support food-insecure students at CHS. I was on the team that purchased prom tickets for CHS students in need of assistance and then launched the CHS Senior Fund to ensure students are not excluded from other senior year rites of passage due to financial need. These programs have supported hundreds of students.”
Engel has also lived in Maplewood for 11 years and currently has three daughters in elementary school in the SOMSD. A local business owner, Engel operated South Orange’s Work and Play, a co-working space that offered state-licensed child care, until the business was forced to close in June due to the pandemic. Engel has a background in public relations, having spent 15 years marketing to parents; she is currently the vice chairperson of the South Orange Village Center Alliance, has been active in the Tuscan School community and spent five years on the board of the Iris Family Center at Temple Sharey Tefilo-Israel.
“I also co-founded the General Store Cooperative, which produced the 2018 and 2019 South Orange Holiday Pop-Up Shops — that was me behind the register! — and which opened its flagship retail and cafe space on Springfield Avenue in Maplewood in the fall of 2019. When the pandemic hit, I started a Facebook group, which quickly grew to over 1,500 members, to track relief legislation and advocate for small businesses and independent contractors. I helped many business owners navigate the federal and state funding programs,” Engel told the News-Record, adding that it is more important now than ever for the district’s families to work together for the benefit of all students. According to Engel, some families have been able to create “pods” for their students to learn in, while others are struggling to provide basic supports for their children to learn from home. “I think the digital divide just highlighted a bigger economic divide in our community. … When thinking about this divide, we need to remember that we are all one community. The phrase ‘it takes a village’ comes from somewhere; we need to lean on and support each other, and ensure that our integration plan will create individual school communities that are able to support each other.”
Finnern has lived in Maplewood for six years and has two children at Clinton Elementary School. Professionally, she is a freelance art director and has been working with Major League Baseball for more than a decade; she also teaches yoga in Maplewood Village.
“Aside from volunteering for class responsibilities at Clinton, I love being a part of our community through the yoga studio. It has allowed me to meet a diverse group of people in SOMA that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to meet, otherwise. There is so much pride in SOMA and I am so happy to be raising my own family here,” Finnern told the News-Record, adding that, if elected, she would be an independent voice on the board. “I believe that we need more independent members, untethered from community advocacy groups, who can help the superintendent drive a focused agenda without special interest distractions. Independent thinkers on the board will facilitate much-needed diversity of thoughts and ideas to drive new and better ways of doing things, generating better outcomes and allocating our funds to the most essential needs.”
Malespina has lived in South Orange for 26 years; she has worked in education for two decades as a teacher, librarian, technology integrator and supervisor, and is invited to speak nationally about technology integration. For nine years, she served as librarian at CHS and South Orange Middle School. Though she now works outside SOMSD, she is a regular fixture at each BOE meeting, advocating for her son, a senior at CHS, and all the students in the district.
“I have been a constant presence as an outspoken advocate before the board,” Malespina told the News-Record. “I have been an active volunteer in the community over the years. I helped advocate for the beautification of the South Orange downtown and helped to secure funds to make that happen. I have been actively involved with South Orange board of trustees campaigns to ensure good government and have been on the South Orange Recreation Advisory Board and the South Orange Library board of trustees. I am currently the education liaison for the Academy Heights Neighborhood Association and am a member of the Founders Park Conservancy.”
Winkfield moved to South Orange in early 2019, and both of her children attend Jefferson Elementary School. Professionally, in addition to having served as a teacher, assistant principal and principal, Winkfield is the senior strategy and policy adviser for the New York City Department of Education’s Office of Equity & Access.
“OEA develops initiatives and strategies to address long-standing racial, ethnic and socioeconomic disparities and promotes equity and excellence in education through policy and advocacy both within and outside of the NYCDOE,” Winkfield said. “As a member of the OEA senior leadership team for the past 18 months, I have developed strategies to support systemwide antibias training as well as district equity team capacity building. I lead the AP for All initiative, which increases access to and participation and performance in open-enrollment AP courses across NYCDOE high schools.”
When asked what the top issue in the school district is today, Bergin responded simply “equity.” Unfortunately, while identifying the issue is easy, the response requires a lot of work.
“My top priority is equity. To me, that means making sure all students get what they need and are able to participate fully in everything that our schools have to offer. My volunteer work has centered on plugging the holes so no student is left out. As a board member, I want to get our district to a place where there aren’t any holes, where we can move forward together, in schools where all our children thrive,” Bergin said, expressing her concern with the disparities seen between schools, including some schools using PTA funds to purchase creative STEM games while others need to use PTA funds to purchase basic school supplies, and including the “pay-to-play approach to everything outside the classroom” at CHS.
“My extensive volunteer work and advocacy in the district has chipped away at this inequity, and as a board member I will work to address it on a broader scale, to make the district a place where all students belong and thrive,” she said, identifying several areas in which the district needs to work, such as improving the cultural competency of the curriculum; removing financial and transportation barriers to full participation; and providing academic support.
It is perhaps unsurprising that a PR specialist would highlight communications as the top issue to address in the SOMSD; that is precisely what Engel did.
“We are living in uncertain times, and our community is anxious. We have had years of administrative turnover, creating mistrust with our Board of Education and with our administration. We need to be working on regaining this trust and show our community of parents, teachers and other stakeholders that good work is being done,” Engel said. “I believe our district should be communicating to stakeholders more frequently and reporting back on plans and processes, even if they don’t yet have all the answers. Acknowledging the questions is one step in regaining trust. I also believe our district should be differentiating messaging toward different audience segments — an 11th-grader’s parent is looking for different information than a first-grader’s parent.”
For Finnern, the top issue in the school district is its failure to follow through on changes, which then leads to unfavorable outcomes.
“We seem to go 70 percent of the way in everything we do. That includes updating the curriculum, training our teachers, communicating with our stakeholders and providing for all children,” Finnern said. “We need to make sure our Intentional Integration Initiative actually has an equitable allocation of resources to lift all students and doesn’t just simply look good on paper. This initiative, if executed properly, has the potential to create a better system of capable and motivated learners.
“There is a lot of work to be done, not only for school integration, but in creating schools that will maximize every student’s potential for learning,” she continued. “We need to provide clear direction to the superintendent of school district goals and priorities. These will be aligned to policy governance best practices and be representative of the community. This process will be focused and deliberate, measurable and trackable, and will ensure accountability exists with those who are responsible for the future of our children’s education.”
When asked, Malespina could not pin down a single top issue, saying that “the district has a lot of work to do.” But she did put equity compliance and creating a new curriculum at the top of her list.
“It is crucial that we make sure the district implements the changes required by the Black Parents Workshop settlement, all of which are purposefully written to foster true integration across our schools and to support equity in our classes,” Malespina said. “Equally important, and something that works in tandem with the work required as part of the BPW settlement, is a complete revamp of our district’s curriculum. The district has made some progress with this, but there is still a long way to go.
“There’s no reason our curricula should continue to exist as ‘good enough.’ Further, care needs to be taken to make sure what is still a largely whitewashed curriculum is updated to include instruction and instructional materials that accurately portray political, economic and social contributions made by persons with disabilities; black, indigenous and people of color; as well as individuals who identify as LGBTQ+,” she added, saying that the district needs to look hard at increasing diversity in educators and curriculum, infusing STEM into the classroom, supporting the arts and music programs, and increasing accessibility by putting more curricula online. “We’re simply not close to this goal, even though as a district we’ve been talking about these needs for a long time. That is not acceptable.”
Unsurprisingly, Winkfield, a senior strategy and policy adviser for the NYCDOE’s Office of Equity & Access, identified segregation as the top issue in the district.
“The most pressing issue facing SOMA schools today is the academic segregation that exists in our middle and high school grades that directly undermines our values around inclusion and efforts to intentionally integrate our schools. Neither the Access and Equity policy passed in 2016 nor the elementary integration plan passed in 2020 go far enough in addressing the issues of inequity in our district,” Winkfield said, stressing the importance of sharing data with the community to evaluate how policies are working.
“A physical redistribution of students will not alone achieve the broader goals of ensuring all students have equitable access and opportunities to thrive in this district,” she said, adding that the district must commit to programming inclusion for students with IEPs in advanced courses, implement high-quality student-support systems; and invest in AP exam fee waivers for students who are eligible for free and reduced lunch.
School safety can mean a lot of things, from physical to social-emotional. Now of course, safety also includes protecting students, faculty and staff from COVID-19.
For Bergin, the biggest impediment to school safety right now is the need for more social workers, who can support students both educationally and emotionally.
“School safety is much broader than school security. Social and emotional support, school climate and culture, hiring more social workers — all these things are important to making our schools safe and welcoming places and to the prevention of school violence. Our upper schools need more social workers. The pandemic has only increased the need for the district to invest in prevention by funding staff and programs that support our students’ social-emotional health,” Bergin said, adding that she believes the district must implement all of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ suggestions with regard to safety drills, including removing students entirely from participation in active shooter drills.
“I support a board policy on security drills that complies with applicable law and aligns with the AAP recommendations,” she said. “According to the AAP, high-intensity drills have not been shown to be effective but have been tied to an increase in anxiety and fear. Particularly now and in the wake of the pandemic, we need to invest in violence prevention and social-emotional programs that support our students’ overall health.”
Engel had many similar concerns, specifically mental health support and the emotional load that today’s drills can have on students and staff.
“Can we talk about mental health again? For persons aged 10 to 14, suicide rates nearly tripled from 2007 to 2017, according to data released by the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control released in October 2019. Board member Shannon Cuttle noted additional research regarding depression and anxiety in children during the pandemic at (a recent) BOE meeting. We need to ensure we are supporting our children’s mental health by assessing each and every child,” Engel said. “I also believe our current active-shooter and lockdown drills impose undue emotional burden on our children. As the owner of a child care center, it pained me to have to perform these drills at our center, which cared for children ages 3 and under. Can you imagine being locked in a bathroom hiding from a ‘shooter’ when you are just 3 years old? I believe the emotional burden only gets worse as these children get older. My own daughter told me that she is scared to go to the bathroom at school for fear of being away from her class during a drill. While it is unfortunate that the state of the world today requires such extreme safety measures, I don’t believe running active-shooter drills as currently administered are necessary to prepare for an emergency.”
According to Finnern, when it comes to school safety, the district must consider soap in addition to air filtration systems and personal protective equipment.
“We need to make sure there is a proper allocation of funds towards cleaning supplies. Why this has been an issue in the past, I truly have no idea. What will the district be doing to ensure that sanitization supplies are in stock at all times? We know that masks and hand washing/sanitizing helps keep us safe. Let’s make sure the schools are prepared for this,” she said, adding that the pandemic has also created emotional safety issues, with many community members experiencing loss and trauma in 2020. “I have a kindergartener at home, and I can tell you that he was desperately afraid I was going to leave him at his class playdate for one hour. If I were currently on the board, I would be looking to hire additional social workers and counselors, because they are more necessary than ever. I think I speak for a majority of people in the belief that our staff does not reflect the incredible diversity of our community. Wouldn’t this be the perfect opportunity to expand our faculty accordingly?”
When it comes to school safety, Malespina has already gotten the ball rolling on her work.
“I was a member of the Columbia High School HSA School Safety Committee last year and helped to organize the first-ever district discussion on school safety. I have been an outspoken advocate not only to make sure our students and teachers are safe when they enter the building but also to ensure those same students and teachers have the emotional support they need to thrive,” she said. “On numerous occasions over the last few years I testified before the board about the need for enhanced safety measures for our students and staff and also for additional emotional supports. I am happy to see that many of my recommendations are starting to be implemented. We have added more social workers to the staff at CHS; we are securing the security at the main entrance to the building, adding alarms to the outside doors and upgrading security camera systems.
“I believe that no student or teacher should ever feel unsafe in our schools, and I will work closely with administration to make sure that each school has the tools and resources to make that a possibility,” she continued, adding that the district must become more proactive in its approach to discipline, better implementing conflict resolution, restorative justice and counseling.
Winkfield stated that children simply cannot learn in an environment in which they don’t feel safe, both physically and emotionally.
“In addition to broadly investing in social-emotional support for our young people, especially during this vulnerable time in remote learning, SOMSD must address glaring issues that persist in making students feel less connected and less safe within their schools. Our district is currently lacking in policies to address issues of racial disproportionality in student discipline and with respect to the over-representation of students of color with special education classifications,” she said, calling for better discipline policies that won’t use out-of-school suspensions, which can negatively affect students both academically and social-emotionally. She explained that suspension can lead to students feeling rejected and isolated, and can lead to absenteeism and declining schoolwork. “This pattern is rooted in anti-blackness and is well documented as being part of the school-to-prison pipeline, which examines the direct policies and practices that systematically push students of color out of school.”
As for physical safety, Winkfield agreed with some of her fellow candidates that active-shooter and lockdown drills do not adequately prepare students for actual emergencies but do increase anxiety.
The final day to vote in this election is Nov. 3 by 8 p.m. All residents should have received a mail-in ballot, which can be returned via the post, ballot boxes placed throughout the county or, as a last resort, in person at a resident’s polling place.