Jersey City schools hire consultants to draft $165K strategic plan

By Terrence T. McDonald/The Jersey Journal
July 09, 2013 at 2:06 PM

Two Baltimore-based education consultants were awarded a joint, $165,100 contract last night to draft a strategic plan for the Jersey City public school district.

UPD and Cross & Joftus, two firms that specialize in k-12 education, will work with school officials to complete the plan by December 2013. The Jersey City Board of Education approved their bid last night by an 8-1 vote, with only member Gerald Lyons voting against.

The plan would include research on successful education models, recommendations of new programs and more.

The district has started writing strategic plans before, but district spokeswoman Maryann Dickar said they haven?t been completed. Some speakers at last night?s meeting said they believe its Schools Superintendent Marcia V. Lyles? job to complete a new plan, but Dickar said the two firms hired last night will help Lyles? efforts to improve test scores, school facilities and more.

?We haven?t gotten a long-term, comprehensive plan that unifies all the efforts into a real focused set of goals,? Dickar said.

Representatives of the two firms said last night that they have worked in school districts in Chicago, Baltimore and Camden, a district that was recently taken over by state education officials.

Douglass Austin, president and CEO of UPD, told the BOE last night that his firm has an approach ?intended to address exactly what you need.?

?We?re not going to tell you how to improve your district. We?re going to extract that from you,? he said. ?You?re all the experts on Jersey City Public Schools, not us.?

BOE member Marilyn Roman, a former schoolteacher, expressed concern that the district would not be able to implement the strategic plan.

?We do some things very well here and we do some things miserably,? Roman said, adding that the plan should describe ?an activity that has to be done in terms of the schools" and also specify "the people that are going to do it.?

The district is now going to draw up a contract with UPD and Cross & Joftus. Dickar said if the agreement is finalized by the middle of this month, the December 2013 deadline for the consultants? report should be met.

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