Williamsburg-James City County School Board candidates disagreed about some recent school board decisions – including the division’s new strategic plan – at a debate Monday night.
Jamestown District candidates Jim Kelly and Reese Peck squared off in a forum moderated by former Williamsburg Mayor and current Williamburg Community Health Foundation President Jeanne Zeidler. The candidates discussed how to close the achievement gap and how to help students with discipline problems; the efficacy of the division’s new strategic plan; whether the conversion of James Blair into administrative offices was a good idea; and the future of career and technical education for students. The men touched very generally on the budgeting process and what each believed should be WJCC’s funding priorities.
Peck stressed his ability and desire to “set goals and metrics” and said this is something the division needs; he also said his work as a teacher and administrator prepared him for the “leadership and oversight” needed to be a school board member.
Kelly told the audience that his tenure on the Board so far “has not been convenient or easy,” but that he has a “passion to provide quality public education” to local students equal to the passion of teachers, students and parents across the division.
Incumbent member Kelly was appointed to the Jamestown District seat in February to finish the term of Ruth Larson, who now represents the Berkeley District. Before redistricting last year, he represented the Berkeley District. He is running to complete Larson’s original term.
Kelly, an engineer with Newport News Shipbuilding, first joined the board when Mary Ann Maimone resigned in 2009. He and his wife, a teacher at J. Blaine Blayton Elementary School, have raised three children who attended WJCC schools.
Peck, former James City County Planning Commissioner and former Planning Commission chair, is a first-time school board candidate. He is working on establishing his own investment advisory firm in Williamsburg. In 2011, he resigned from his position on the commission to accept a position as leader of the state’s new Stormwater Management division.
Peck is a former Deputy Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources in South Dakota; he has a master’s of public administration and also earned a teaching certificate.
Closing the Achievement Gap and Helping At-Risk Students
Peck highlighted a program by the Charlotte- Mecklenburg school division called Parent University, a program that offers free workshops for parents “to help parents become full partners in their children’s education,” according to that division’s website.
Peck liked the program because it aims to “give parents tools” to help address achievement and disciplinary issues at home.
The school system “can’t be doing all things for all people,” Peck said; WJCC has “got to get people to value education.”
New student advancement coaches have been an advantage to the division in helping struggling students, according to Kelly. Coaches helped about 400 students so far, and reach more than that informally, he said.
He also agreed that engaging parents was important to help students who struggle for various reasons, but he also stressed the important role of community groups such as churches – another point both candidates agreed on.
As far as discipline cases in the school system, Kelly said there were roughly 170 students suspended for one week last year, and about half that number suspended for two weeks. These students still have full access to teachers and assignments. “I don’t know that we have a real problem here,” he said of discipline cases.
Strategic Plan
Candidates first brought up the division’s new strategic plan when discussing the high turnover in school superintendents over recent years. Peck argued that the school system is suffering from “an instability of leadership” and that the school board should be more than a “cheerleader” – it needs to provide oversight and expectations, and a means of measuring these.
Kelly said WJCC had that, in the form of its strategic plan. The board is not a cheerleader, he said, but should be supportive of its selected superintendent.
Several times, Peck argued that the strategic plan lacked metrics and performance measures. James City County’s 2009 Comprehensive Plan has a timeline, a list of priorities and a scorecard that lets the community know how departments fulfill their objectives. This is what he would like to see for the division.
Kelly argued that there are several mentions of plans to create performance measures in the plan. The school board should offer “strategic” direction to the superintendent, whose role it is to be the “tactical director.”
Career and Technical Training
The school division’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) offerings for students came up several times Monday night.
Peck said cutting CTE classes is not a good idea, because about 40 percent of adults do not graduate from college and could have benefitted from CTE learning.
WJCC currently sends students to New Horizons for CTE classes. New Horizons is a regional vocational technical center owned and operated by six peninsula school divisions, including WJCC. Students have to travel to get to one of four teaching sites.
Peck stressed that metrics are needed to evaluate how CTE is best integrated into the school system, but that he would support investigating the addition of similar programming locally that would keep students from commuting to a New Horizons classroom.
Kelly said New Horizons “is very expensive.” His experience at the shipyard has shown him that technical training is important, he said; almost 400 WJCC graduates received technical education certificates last year, according to Kelly.
But, Kelly said he felt students are “better served” at New Horizons than if the division were to try to re-create a similar program locally.
James Blair
The decision to turn the James Blair Middle School building into administrative offices is a decision Peck said he didn’t think was necessary. Though the division has planned for expansion, Peck said he wants to look more closely at the population growth rate to see if opening another middle school – or building one – is necessary.
He suggested examining whether it would be better to expand the capacity of current middle schools instead.
Kelly disagreed with Peck, saying the conversion of Blair “was a sound fiscal move” that saved WJCC money on leasing office space and on renovations and more.
As for his thoughts on returning the building to a school or just building a new school, he said that decision “needs to be a community conversation.”
Budgets and Funding
In response to a question on how to best address funding requests and whether to support raising taxes to better fund schools, Kelly said he was not a proponent of raising taxes but that schools did need to be funded adequately.
Peck said he had recently witnessed the division cut funds from programs, while he “had an 11 percent reduction in my taxes.”
Kelly and Peck had a brief back-and-forth about whether Peck has publicly said he supported raising taxes; Peck said at the debate that he preferred a “needs-based budget” that relied on metrics to support what funding is needed.
Kelly noted that WJCC’s funding partners (Williamsburg and James City County) had not underfunded the schools; it was the state that had done so.
When it came to a question about whether to fund teacher raises (teachers have not had a raise in four years), Peck said the recent salary study did show some pay inadequacies.
He would look to find money elsewhere in the budget, but if funds could not be found he would support making an argument to the funding partners.
Kelly said the division needs to make sure to attract teachers. “We need to get them a meaningful raise,” he said.
Universal Preschool
Zeidler asked the candidates what they thought of the idea of public preschool for all students, not just those who are at-risk or developmentally delayed.
Peck said he felt the division’s “primary focus… is K through 12 education,” and cutting into the K-12 classes to fund these programs is not something he supports. He said if the division were to consider investing in expanding preschool, he would want better metrics and data.
Kelly said he would like to see universal preschool become a reality, but that there are “budget realities” that stand in the way.
