Dear Neighbors and Friends,

Your vote these past five years has made a world of difference to the students and families in Jersey City. I was honored to have been elected by you in 2010- 2014, to begin the process of improving the District in a dramatic way.

Your vote on Tuesday November 4th for Parents For Excellence Candidates : Bertram Okpokwasili-2H Carol Harrison Arnold-6H Monica Kress-8H will help the successes below continue and grow:

1) New Superintendent and Better Aligned Senior Staff
2) Philosophical shift that ALL students can maximize their potential
3) Strategic Plan and Long Term Demographic/Facilities Plans
4) End to fears of school closures
5) Cut $2 million from Claremont "waste"
6) Cut in half Student Drop Outs
7) Reign in abuses in absenteeism
8) End the yearly summer layoffs of 300 employees shenanigans
9) Clean up decades long Civil Service abuses and untitled positions
10) Increased Local Control via improved QSAC scores
11) Solve problem of 20% of classes with teacher absent having NO substitute
12) Take 6 out of 10 most "at risk RAC" schools off "at risk" list.
13) Equity so ALL schools have: books, computers, wi fi, hands on curriculum, free after school help, AP courses, free SAT/PSAT prep & testing and free breakfast. And MORE schools benefit from dual language instruction, yoga, partnerships with community groups for gardens, solar projects ??

What do the "opposition candidates" actually oppose except Federal and State initiatives which are mandated for every public school? Some of these are unfunded and untested which causes stress for teachers and students and hurts schools!

To blame a Board or Superintendent for mandates like PARC, Common Core, RAC, Student Growth Models, Staff Evaluation Models, etc is not only ill informed, but also disingenuous.

(By the way, Candidates endorsed by the Unions will not be able to vote on the pending Contracts for a full year. That's why I, an UNendorsed Candidate was the deciding "Yes" vote four years ago)

Sincerely,
CAROL LESTER, Past VP, The Jersey City Board of Education
Co Founder/Past Board President of LCCS, (A unionized & independent Charter)

Wow! The third time I've been extremely proud to be a Jersey City resident!!!! (Just kidding, lots of good things happen here in Chill town, but this is really important for our lives and our children's lives.

NEXT
Mandatory mental health and anti depressant lifelong ban on a gun license.

Dear Jersey City Families and Neighbors

The Board of Education is very interested in your input as we seek to hire a new superintendent. This survey is designed to gather your perception on the importance of various characteristics commonly found in effective superintendents. The information will be used by the Board to determine the ?Desired Characteristics? of our next superintendent.

Thank you for taking the time to share your perceptions with the Board.
Please fill in the survey at this link by this Thursday February

SPANISH https://survey-admin.ecragroup.com/index.php?sid=78824&lang=es-MX
ENGLISH https://survey-admin.ecragroup.com/index.php?sid=21367&lang=en

Also, please attend the final Town Meeting for the Superintendent Search this
Saturday February 25th, at 1:30pm, F.L. Williams Middle School #7 222 Laidlaw Avenue

Tonight: Wednesday, January 11th at 6pm in Snyder High School Town Meeting for COmmunity Input on Superintendent Search- one of six Marvin Adames, Board Member Chair for Search Community outreach has hosted. JCSupersearch@jcboe.org

Tomorrow night: Thursday, January 12th at 6pm, The Board as a whole is interviewing two finalists Search Firms to aid in a professional, transparent and inclusive search for a district our size. Ray and Associates and West Hudson/Hazard, Young Attea have both placed hundreds of candidates over the past ten years- many in large urban turn around districts as well as hybrid State/Local control Districts. Both have placed traditional and non traditional candidates and have large pools of National and Regional talent.
There was an RFP process to get to this point, but few firms specialize in Superintendent placements in Districts our size. Upon awarding a contract which will most likely happen this Thursday, The Board will begin to post timelines, Search criteria (including compiled data from Marvin Adames Town Meetings), and other documents.

The interviews are noticed so the Public can attend and the Board can take action on a contract. The Search firm Presentations will be made in front of the Board and the Public. There will be cards available for Public comment in writing so that when the Board goes into closed sessin for a deliberation all comments can be included as part of that deliberation. The meeting is at the Claremont Building, first floor. There is parking and a light rail stop.

Carol Lester, Vice President JC BOE
and Chair Search Committee

I will be there tonight as one of the speakers as well. School reform and what other cities (near and far) are doing is of great importance.

As Co Founder of LCCS and 2 term Board Chair, for 12 years I was able to be part of what success in urban education can actually look like. NO waste at the top and empowering excellent teachers to institute complete site based decison making in all areas like books, trips, team teaching, classroom art, supplies and support!!!

Also there tonight will be- Carol Harrison Arnold and Marvin Adames, whose incredible skill sets that can dissolve the catch 22's (legal nuances in interpretation) that currently stand in the way of impactful transparency and accountability. Translated that means Sterling and I (with Suzanne's 15 treasure trove of BOE history) could finally implement MORE of the great items that were so hard fought and we achieved (in baby steps)-

The Good News from Sterling Waterman and Carol Lester- Next year FINALLY, there will be at least one (small) alternative high school to address our most at risk students and free the other schools from learning distractions, alternative school also as step one for vocational technical training, an end to block scheduling so less children go out for lunch and all children can have fun electives like music art and gym back in their day, and a green intiatives policy

Carol Lester, Jersey City Board of Education 2010-2013
Opinions expressed here are mine alone and do
not represent any other member of the Board of Education or the Board as a whole.

People who saw the JCLIST Vimeo yesterday and today asked me to fill them in on some details and break down the "lingo"

OK. The situation is that April of 2010, one week after winning the Board of Education election, I was at a meeting to review the budget I had inherited which showed no significant Educational Theory or Educational Practice changes, but did call for increased local taxes, many raises and over 300 layoffs The simple question "how many of these 300 layoffs were people from the administration building?" never received an answer in the many committees where I asked it since April 2010.

On top of that, instead of laying off Administrative or support positions from the Administration Building on Claremont Avenue, there were an unidentified number of persons "reassigned" back into the schools. The simple questions," how many? what titles? what Salaries?" were not answered and most recently my insistence on wanting to know a cumulative sick day, vacation day and personal day count for these saved and then reassigned persons (without names attached to protect employees' rights) went unanswered.

Now one full year later nearly the exact same budget for 2011 has been submitted with yet another 300 jobs on the line and continued confusion about classroom versus administrative cuts. The Budget does address any issue of substance that Sterling or I or other member of the Board addressed as KEY. (Votech education, alternative education, science labs in every high school class room, pay freezes, best practices roll out, cutting administration, on and on)

In the beginning I was told by most long time Board members "We don't have personnel", as if that implied we were not supposed to ask or expect answers to our questions. I was given Policy this year. Boring and dry, but really key in the working of a governance body like the Board of Education. I am in the end of a year long process to review and overhaul the Policy Manual and to educate all Board members on our rights and responsibilities.

The State hired Dr Epps to run this district over ten years ago and the Board acted as observers. But three years ago partial control (and corresponding increased taxes) came back to the District. However, the pattern of Unilateral Decision making on behalf of the Superintendent with the support of the State (now the State was no longer watching- but the Board did not seem to realize the implications) continued. So, in effect, one person, Our Superintendent holds control over all hiring and firing, every collective contract negotiation (I asked for the Board to a have a seat at the table and was denied by Superintendent, Board President and majority of Board).
Judge, Jury, Executioner, Pardoner, etc. To be clear I actually like and respect the man, but

You know what they say about absolute power....

anyway..... We CAN turn this around in four weeks!!!

If we the people elect three persons who CARE 100% for every child first, (employees second), have no lifelong friends or relatives who are power wielding stakeholders in the system EXCEPT as parents, have experience with corporate and education budgets and either a strong legal background and/or long term massive scale planning.

Register now and vote on April Wednesday, April 27th