Chappaqua School Board Q&A: Randall Katchis

This is a question and answer interview with Chappaqua Central School District Board of Education candidate Randall Katchis. He has been a Chappaqua resident for more than 16 year, is married and has four children: a 21-year-old son who goes to Boston College, a 19-year-old son on his way to Colgate, a 12-year-old son who is a sixth grader at Seven Bridges Middle School and a 9-year-old son who is a fourth grader at Westorchard Elementary School.

Katchis has an entrepreneurial background and has worked in technology for his career. In addition, he has worked with several volunteer groups. He was on the board of the Chappaqua School Foundation from 2003 to 2007 and won their Special Leadership award in 2007. He has also been on the Horace Greeley Lacrosse Board and a member of the Chappaqua Field Committee.

This interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity. In addition, portions of it relate to an earlier interview.

Patch - As someone who has run a business, what skills, if any, do you feel are transferable to working on the school board?

Randall Katchis – I think there's a great number of skills. I think, if you run an entraprenuerial business, each and every day you've got to kind of set the vision for that company. You've got to assemble a team that can help you execute that vision, and then you got to show your leadership and the hard work to get that vision executed. At the same time you've got to be able to ensure that the vision you had is one that's constantly being monitored and adjusted, as well as ensuring that that vision, and that level of service that you're delivering is one that your customer desires.

So if you make that analogus to school board it's really the ability of the board to assemble a quality team to prioritizing the issues and making sure that those issues … and the direction of those issues are ones that reflect the majority of the people in your school district.

Patch – You have mentioned different constituencies in the district, who have different access or interest in levels of technology. Do you believe that the district can take a multi-faceted approach in reaching out to them through the different means?

Katchis – Yeah, what I said earlier in the prior interview was that, the art, I think, to navigating financially challenging times is to make sure, again, that you are able to reach the majority of the people and not acting on the vocal minority. And I think being proactive is much better off than being reactive, meaning that I would rather know the opinion of the silent majority, hopefully becoming a vocalized majority now, to help shape our opinions and where we're moving at decisions, rather than tossing up a school budget or a proposal that we feel reflects, through the best of our ability with limited information, and then wait to see if it's voted up or down, or that people are excited about it, or are terrified by it.

So, I think the way to do that is again, with those three – those three individual groups, as I mentioned. The first one is obviously, you know, the fully PDA-capable individual, you know the Blackberry, iPhone person carrying around all day. It's very easy to push information to that phone and have them able to access all sorts of different kinds of informations from that phone. I think push technology is the key to it, because people will not take time out of their day, busy day, to go, you know, navigate through Web sites to try to find the piece of information. But, if we were talking about upcoming contracts [with the unions] – there are three contracts that will be due. One's open now with two more coming due, and we want to put together, hopefully the new superintendent, the leadership of the new superintendent, and the president of the board, put together a five or eight-minute video on what a negotiation is like and what parameters a contract can and can't be adjusted, and how – what the process looks like, and then maybe another one that … lays out exactly what proposal we're making to that constituent.

So, if it's, lets say, for the administrators. What – what is that proposal to the administrators for the new contract, and inform the people about which way we're headed. The second group is obviously those people who don't have PDAs … may have a cell phone but don't have that interactive email, you know, YouTube-like capability in their hand, but certainly have email …

… Thirdly, is clearly the people that don't have any electronic communication. Tends to be some of the more senior people in the community, but there is no reason why we can't put a kiosk in libraries, community centers, places where they can literally get a touch screen or click on a screen and up will come a series of articles and videos – the same thing we'd be pushing to the other two groups. So I think there's plenty of ways to go out and disseminate information and bring it, really to the people directly, rather than ask them to go find it, 'cause, I think we found that when you ask them to go find it, it doesn't happen.

Patch – You mentioned at Thursday's League of Women Voters event that tenure should be done away with. Could you tell me what kind of alternative system would you favor to tenure?

Katchis – Well, you know, clearly in a district … a high-performing district like Chappaqua, I just honestly don't think tenure benefits anyone. Because the way I look at tenure, is that, you know, the majority of our teachers would have tenure here with or without the tenure rule. They would have a life-long job here because they're incredibly, talented, motivated people. But, for those people, where this is not a good match, and I'm not saying they're, they're bad teachers, just may not be a good match – this particular district for them. There's no way to manage that, and if you talk to every superintendent that I could talk to, including private school presidents and some provosts at colleges, they tell you the same thing: the most important asset you have in education is the teacher standing in front of the class. So if that's their most value possession in education, then we need to make sure that the administration can manage that, those individuals properly.

With tenure – very difficult to do, very difficult to do, and there's, to me, it's the triple negative if you have a teacher that's not working out in the district. Number one, the students aren't happy because the teacher is not connecting with the students and motivating them. Number two, the administration's not happy because they have to handle all the objections and parental involvement and student involvement, et cetera. And number three, I'm sure that teacher's not happy, because to wake up every day and know that you're walking into your career, your passion, and not going to perform well, is no way to kind of march through life, especially with the amount of time teachers put in today in order to do their job. So I think, you know, the people … like that in my history of, you know, having many, many employees … that, that those people are better off just finding a better match somewhere. The way I think we could do it better is to address an evaluation process that allows the administrators and a body, whether that's comprised of administrators, teachers and maybe some professional educational evaluators, to evaluate teachers on a regular basis. And on top of that evaluation, if there is a teacher they think may not be a fit for the district, then I don't think there should be a very quick strike to be able to eliminate that teacher, I think it should be a fairly long process that allows that teacher to make the adjustments to see if they can fit in, but in the end if they don't, then they should be, you know, asked to take an opportunity elsewhere.

Patch – What qualifies do you feel would make for a good national search firm for the superintendent search?

Katchis – several qualities. The first and most important quality in a national search firm, whether it's for superintendent or any leadership position that we've been doing in the business world, is that search firm has to have a very broad and deep reputation, such that where they are not only familiar with all the quality people out in the industry, but when they go to approach those individuals whom they want the opportunity becoming the Chappaqua Central School District superintendent, that they'll not only take their call, but they're seriously consider the opportunity.

With that said, the second-most important criteria is to be able to listen, to make sure that they understand exactly what it is the board and the associated committees that'll be developed to hire this new superintendent are, are outlining. And that they digest what it is, we need, to understand our school district, understand what we're telling them and can go out and find that individual. Thirdly, clearly, is that once they've identified a handful of individuals, that they are able to do a tremendous amount of high-quality diligence and mete out those individuals and present us with several options.

Patch – How would you propose, if you were open to it, restructuring the curriculum and academics of the schools? I understand the topic was discussed at Thursday's League of Women Voters event. I'm wondering if you have any specific ideas that you would like to propose?

Katchis – You know, I probably don't have enough information to make a formal proposal decision, but with that said, I think that they should be driven by two things: number one, data, to sit down and in conjunction with teachers and administrators, and some community groups – sit down and discuss change, because that's really what it is. Restructuring is change. And ensure that the decision we're making is the best decision we can make, with the data at hand. Number two, I think it's important that we do not get shackled by fear of change. I think in times like this we need to understand that we may have to make some changes in the district in order to meet our financial requirements, and we're going to have to make those difficult changes, but I think we can embrace it, I think we can do well. As I said in the League of Women Voters opening statement, our district has been around since the late 1920s … '27. And we've gone through a major depressions, world wars, conflicts, financial crises areas in the Carter era, you know, we can abolstuely flourish in these times ahead. We just have to be willing to make prudent, informed decisions, and execute our vision.

Patch – Lastly, what differentiates you from your opponents?

Katchis – Well I think the biggest differentiator is that, that for, you know, the last 30 years, I have been building companies, effectively from the ground up, or managing smaller companies into midsize companies, and always in a leadership role. And I think when you are the CEO of these companies, you really own all the different facets of communication, leadership, vision setting, motivation, hiring, terminating. And with that, you learn a great deal about how to take a group of people, focus them on the priorities, set a vision, and then go execute that vision. And that, that's very similar to what I think needs to get done over the course of the next three years with the school board.