Montclair Kindergarten Tours Moved To January

Below please find two letters to the Montclair community.

The first letter is to the parents of our incoming kindergartners to welcome them to our public schools and let them know that the school tours are coming in less than two weeks — from January 26-30 (rather than in late March as has been typical in recent years).

The second letter is to our community generally about the concerns I have regarding the district’s failure to adequately publicize this year’s school tours, especially given the major date change. I’m really disappointed at the extent to which Central Services dropped the ball on this one, and I hope that Dr. MacCormack, Matt Frankel, and the entire Central Services team will publicly apologize for their mistake.

Dear Parents of Montclair Pre-Kindergartners Who Are New to Montclair Public Schools,

As you might know, what sets out community — and our school district — apart is the diversity of our public schools. Our strength is that we are a rare suburban community in which our students come from all walks of life, and that students from different backgrounds have the opportunity to know and understand each other by sharing classrooms with each other for thirteen years. That diversity is what I love about Montclair, and it’s the reason I chose to move to this town.

As you might also know, although we are diverse as a whole community, historically some of our individual neighborhoods were not as diverse. As a result, on a historical basis, our neighborhood elementary schools as a whole were not as socioeconomically integrated as they could and should be. Eventually, under a combination of court and community pressure, our all-magnet elementary and middle school system was born to ensure that we have integrated public schools. For more details, please watch the terrific video that the PTA put together a number of years ago, which recounts the history of our magnet system.

I’ve been a public school parent here for 5 years now, and I love our magnet system. I love that each school has its own personality, its own unique strengths, and its own traditions. My kids love having their neighborhood friends and their school friends. And I really appreciate that when I thought the school my older daughter attended for her first three years was no longer the right fit for her, I had the opportunity to switch her to another fully public school. Montclair’s system is a grassroots, organically developed local system that is perfect for us because our community has tailored it to the community’s needs over the past 30+ years

But because our magnet system rests on choice, it all falls apart if the parents of our incoming kindergartners don’t have the opportunity to see and tour each of our elementary schools. Parents need to see how Nishuane and Hillside’s gifted & talented magnet works through its electives (here in Montclair, we call them C-Is and Aesthetics) system. Parents need to see Watchung’s science lab and greenhouse. Parents need to see Edgemont’s Montessori program in action. Parents need to see Northeast’s global studies theme, and Bradford’s university magnet program, and how Bullock’s environmental science theme relates to its beautiful new building.

The vast majority of our parents get one of their top choices for elementary school, but for parents to make informed choices regarding which school to list first, they need the opportunity to see and tour our schools.

For the last four years, school tours have taken place in late March to early April. Day tours occupied a week, and evening tours for working parents who can’t take time during the day took about two weeks to complete.

This year, the tours are taking place January 26-30th. Yes, that’s right, your primary opportunity to tour our schools is taking place 12 days from now. I know that when I was in your shoes, I had enough lead time to rearrange my work schedule to ensure that I could devote all five mornings of tour week to checking out Montclair’s elementary schools. I’m sorry that the district has moved the tours up by two months with almost no notice, and then compounded that issue by failing to effectively publicize them, so you may have to scramble to get them done, but I assure you that taking the time time visit all of our terrific elementary schools — during the day if you possibly can — is absolutely worth your while, and I, for one, welcome you to our community’s public schools.

And for the working parents who can’t get there during the day, to be honest, if I were you, I’d be outraged that they’ve doubled up evening tours so that it’s going to be impossible for you to get to all 7 schools. If you’re upset by this — as you should be — I’d take the time to reach out to our school board members and our central office staff to let them know that and to request a better tour schedule. You should also know that the elimination of some of the morning tours is new this year as well — I know how difficult it was to get the tours done with the old, more expansive schedule, so I don’t envy you trying to get this all done with the abbreviated schedule that’s been provided.

Central Office might have really dropped the ball on this one, but the major take away remains. Remember — our magnet schools are each unique, but they are also each strong public schools that will do a terrific job educating your child. Whether you get your first choice or last choice or somewhere in between, please know that this is a community that cares deeply about education, and that has the ability to offer your child a high-quality elementary school experience.

Please help to get the word out.

Best regards,

Sarah Blaine (4th grade and kindergarten parent)

 

Dear Montclair Taxpayers and Community Members:

For the past seven years that I’ve been in town, as I recall, the kindergarten tours were always well-publicized in advance with articles and notices about tour season in our local news sources (although less so last year than in prior years, so perhaps Dr. MacCormack simply doesn’t see the tours as a priority). But thankfully, Montclair Community Pre-K, at least, regularly advertised them for about two months in advance in its weekly newsletter. This year, however, the administration has not gotten the word out — there’s been nothing on Baristanet, nothing in the Montclair Times, nothing on Montclair Patch, and nothing in The Alternative Press — Montclair. (Although to be fair, there is elementary tour information on the Montclair Public Schools website — I have no idea when the middle school tours are happening, however).

I only realized this was an issue when I received a note from the coordinator for the Hillside tour committee and I started to ask myself why the tours were so early this year. Then I realized that I hadn’t seen any notice of them in any of our local news sources (I read our local news regularly), and I realized that we have a real problem

Tonight I sat through a good chunk of the long but at times quite illuminating Board of Education workshop meeting so that I could raise this issue during public comment. I was the only member of the public there tonight, so my comment itself didn’t reach many people. In particular, I have to admit that the more I thought about this issue, the more annoyed I became. If the school tours are not well-attended at their scheduled times, there is going to be huge pressure on our individual PTAs to offer private tours to those who miss the public ones. That’s an enormous burden to place on our individual school-level PTAs, especially considering that this bureaucratic screwup is not theirs, but rather falls soundly on the shoulders of our Central Office staff. Perhaps this year, given that it was a Central Office screwup, district staff should be responsible for conducting the private tours, rather than our volunteer PTAs

In particular, I’m annoyed because, as I understand it, as of the 2014-2015 academic year we are now, for the first time since at least before the Great Recession, paying a part-time communications/public relations person, Matt Frankel, a significant salary to do our district’s public relations.

Mr. Frankel approached me immediately after my comment, and asked me to further explain what the issue was, since he clearly had no idea what I was talking about, and he stated that he was unaware of the issue until I raised it. Wow. Just wow. I’m honestly shocked, especially given how critical it is to ensure that parents new to the district have the opportunity to tour our schools and learn about our magnet system. That is, of course, if you think that our magnet system is a priority.

After I explained the issue in more detail to him, Mr. Frankel then suggested that he could do an email to current public school parents to publicize the tours. I pointed out that an email to current public school parents, while helpful, wouldn’t really solve the issue given that the point of school tours is outreach to next year’s new-to-the-district kindergarten families, who by definition wouldn’t receive an email to this year’s public school parents, and that the tours need to be publicized in our local media. Mr. Frankel continued asking me for additional ideas, at which point I politely suggested that since he is getting paid to do our district’s communications and I am not, perhaps he is best suited to figure out how best to communicate with the public to get the word out.

Let’s put it this way: my first interaction with Mr. Frankel didn’t give me great confidence that he’s worth the salary that’s coming out of my tax dollars. Hopefully he will redeem himself in the next eleven days.

The elephant in the room, of course, is the question of why the tour dates were changed from the late March/early April time frame of the last four years. (FYI, I reviewed my old emails, and I can see that prior to 2011, the tours were in February — I do recall that the district made this change, because when I wanted to do some limited tours again for my younger daughter I was surprised that the tours were so late — but unlike for this issue, it wasn’t a big deal to go on tours that were later than I expected, because obviously I hadn’t missed them). The reason for the last minute change this year, of course, is poor planning around the PARCC testing. Because the PARCC testing will take up the entire month of March, the district can’t conduct the tours then. And then a combination of Good Friday and spring break makes the rest of April problematic as well, especially given that the kids will be right back doing more PARCC assessments at the end of April and for most of May.

Given the importance of the school tours to Montclair’s community, there is no question that the administration should have been planning how to handle the tour calendar given the logistics challenges created by PARCC. But it seems that Central Office dropped the ball. I’d signed up to be a Hillside tour guide back on the first day of school last September. Here’s the start of the email I got on January 5th from Hillside PTA’s tour coordinator: “Surprise! It’s tour season! We were just informed today that Montclair’s elementary school tours will take place January 26-30 with an evening tour at Hillside yet to be scheduled.”

Our magnet schools mean the world to me, and ensuring that our community’s parents continue to support them is critical. That support doesn’t always come easily, but a big part of what generates it is having the opportunity to see all of the magnet schools in action. By failing to publicize the tours early and effectively, Central Services really dropped the ball on what should be a top communications priority. I hope that the members of the Montclair Board of Education will keep this in mind when they decide whether Central Services staffers should be awarded merit bonuses next fall.

Finally, thank goodness for the opportunity to provide public comment tonight so that I could raise this issue to the Board and Central Services staff — this once again demonstrates that there are good reasons why the public is invited to attend and comment on how we’re running our public schools, which are, of course, spending our precious tax dollars. During the workshop portion of the presentation, I heard some really negative comments from certain board members regarding the public comment tradition here in Montclair, as well as some occasionally frightening suggestions from the District’s consultant about methods for handling public comment. Perhaps our Board needs a reminder that these are the public’s schools with the great majority of their funding coming from local taxpayers, and that as the policy making entity for our town’s public schools, the Board of Education earns — or fails to earn — the public’s trust by listening to and taking action in response to the public’s concerns, be they large or small.

Best regards,

Sarah Blaine