Chappaqua School Board Q&A: Nona Ullman

This is a question and answer interview with Chappaqua Central School District Board of Education candidate Nona Ullman. She has lived in Chappaqua for five years and has three daughters: twins in elementary school at Grafflin and first graders, and a fourth grader current at Grafflin, who will go on to Bell next year.

Ullman runs her own educational consulting business, which is called Education and Management Consulting, and she does it from home. She has a long list of voltuneer work in the community. Among her volunteer work: being co-chair of the environmental committee at Grafflin, the elementary's school's planning committe and was a chair of the overall PTA legislative committee.

This interview has been condensed and edited for both legnth and for clarification.

Patch – What do you bring to the table that is different than your opponents?

Ullman – well I have 20 years of educational management consulting experience, helping school districts and state education agencies improve their operations, to reduce costs, to operate more efficiently and also define their strategic vision. And I think that would – that's very valuable for exactly where the school district is positioned now and no one else has that.

Patch – My next question is: the issue of employee benefits, such as healthcare and pensions, have come up at recent board meetings. What would you propose to do to handle the situation?

Ullman – Well, pensions we need some kind of political action committee with other Westchester school districts and other – really, it's all the state and local governments. That's something that we have to negotiate with Albany and they can't – I think they come up with up with a third tier, fourth tier, so those are determined by the state. But the benefits, those medical benefits could be within our control, and that's something we will have to address through union negotiations and, frankly, with union negotiations there's a chance maybe we can move to a 401K plan, there are other things – we can try and move away from a defined benefits pension plan.

Patch – Two employee union contracts will be up within the next three year: the Chappaqua Office Staff Association's ends after the 2010-11 school year, while the contract for the Chappaqua Congress of Teachers runs out after the 2011-12 year. What items, in particular, do you feel need to be on the table for discussion when negotiations take place?

Ullman – First of all I think everything needs to be on the table, but the things I would focus on initially, is that we negotiated the salary increase in a much more rosier, optimistic time, and I'm sure it was the right thing to do – we felt at the time – in our new economic situation those are generous, and we're going to have to take a – a harder look at those and sharpen our pencil. In exchange for that, I think we also need to have more flexibility for teachers. I'm thinking we should have more teacher-led schools, where teachers, I think, know what's best – how to best spend the resources to help improve education and I'd like to give them more control over how the money is spent, and – maybe, do they need a full-time aide or maybe they need a couple part-time aides, or maybe want to hire someone to come in and help them differentiate instruction for a special needs students or a gifted and talented student, or …

Right now they're kind of locked in to what the district provides them, but what if we gave them more control over the spending and they could spend it as they saw fit, and ideally hopefully there will be more public-private partnerships.

Maybe we could bring – train – and more parents in, to help tutor in the class. So, in effect you're reducing class size, saving money and it's helping the teachers and the kids. I think we have to be more creative about how we re-staff, and all the way through a function – do they want to work part time, 'cause they have young children, maybe allow them to do that, and then maybe we save months in benefits costs…maybe it works out for everyone.

In the area of technology, there are some classes that we have a teacher who only teaches a few students. Maybe that class then becomes a candidate for online learning. So, we – there's a certain AP class that a lot of kids want to take and it's too expensive to have one teachers dedicated just to a few students. Let those students take it online … with a real expert in that area.

Patch – Residents have expressed concern about the rate of the spending and tax increases, particularly over the past decade. What solutions would you propose to handle the increase in tax and spending?

Ullman – I think we have to reign it in. I mean, we're all watching our budgets right now we have to continue to. It would be irresponsible to do anything else, and I think 75 percent of the budget is personnel costs, so to the extent that we can be creative and restructure how we deliver education, that's going to address a lot of the costs. And the other ones are exactly the points that you've mentioned, which are the pension and benefits. So 50 percent are salaries and 25 percent of the budget are the pensions and medical benefits, so that's 75 percent right there. The other 25 percent are transportation, food services, for the procurement function, administration, and there are ways to save there, too. We could partner with the town and maybe do a joint payroll, or maybe we do that now. We could share technology resources, maybe for the infrastructure, maybe not the application side.

There are a lot of things we could do to save money and operate more efficiently, and that's another thing I've done a lot of is helping other school districts manage their budgets. And I've done in-depth analyses of payroll departments and procurement departments, and buildings and grounds, and there are certain benchmarks and standards you can use to help guide you what is, really what we should be spending here to achieve desired results.

Patch – My next question is where do you stand on the issue of the Triborough Amendment and Wicks Law?

Ullman – What is that? Tell me what it is. I'll tell you where I stand on it.

Patch – I believe it's an amendment where – I believe it was passed in the early '80s and it essentially locks in the current teacher's union contract terms once a contract is expired until a new contract sets in.

Ullman – Oh, right, ok.

Patch – I'm saying that in layman's terms, though.

Ullman – That's if you don't come to an agreement it reverts back to the original contract terms. You know, that's a political issue. We're going to have to resolve this with the force of the community and it's going to take a community cooperative – cooperative community effort to really face the music. We can't continue to spend like we are and still maintain residents. And we need residents to have to give an education to. So there has to be a balance, and I think people are going to be reasonable in this economic climate. I think it would be suicide to be otherwise.

Patch – With the search underway for a new superintendent, what sort of qualities do you personally look for in an ideal candidate?

Ullman – I would like a strategic thought leader and implementer. So someone who has a vision and a track record of dramatically improving student achievement and leadership skills in another high-performing district, who has actually implemented that and has results. Someone who understands 21st century skills and what students need to succeed in our increasingly competitive collegiate and working world, in our international world. So someone who is a visionary, who's a thought leader but also has implementation and management skills, and … willing to listen to the community and be cooperative in their approach. Someone who's open to accepting ideas and someone also who believes more transparency and accountability, who will show us, give us more of a window into how things operate and why they operate, and I think we'll get better results with someone … who is open to showing what's happening.

Patch – My last question is what educational issues are you most passionate about? For example, funding for sports and music, or technology, or social life among students.

Ullman – I'm most passionate about personalizing the learning experience for every student. So meeting each student, where that student is, knowing where they are and moving them forward and finding their passion, so it's both allowing, for example, in the elementary schools, it's knowing what are the continuum of skills that our students need to have from when they enter kindergarten and to when they lead into both math and language arts, and where are they now, and how can we, how can we get them to the next level?

In middle school, I think the social issues are more important, and I think it's very important there, where there tends to be a lot of adolescent bullying and behavior … issue create more of a sense of community and belongingness, and ideally it would be these advisories for half an hour for the beginning of school where they would do team building and we'd make sure that every student has an adult that they could connect with.

And in the high school, I think we need to provide two things: senior year, is a personalized learning experience in terms of helping seniors find community internships or find some project that they're passionate about, and let them go out into the community and learn how to work and come up with their own internship or project that excites them, and gives them a chance to explore. And I think those are skills that they need. And then the other thing is, more open dialogue on course quality and course evaluation, really maybe providing some input … there should be some accountability on that side, too. We do that at business school, where you would provide input on your professor and they took that seriously, and I think that's always helpful … to give feedback on how you're doing and how you can do it better.