Pelham School Board Election Coverage: Q & A With Madeline Smith

Name: Madeline Smith

Age: 46

Occupation: Stay-at-home mom

Education: BA in International Affairs from Lafayette College;
MBA in Finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business

Experience: Government Bond Finance Desk at the former Bear Stearns, Founding partner of magazine publishing company.  

Have you ever held an elected office? If so, what office did you hold and when did you hold it?  No.

Why do you want to serve? I would like to serve as a member of the Board of Education for several reasons.  I am a strong proponent of public education, I have been very pleased with the school system here in Pelham, and I would like to give back to the community by helping the Board of Education handle the many challenges it faces.  This is an area that I’m extremely interested in and I believe that my background in finance and corporate management will allow me to add value.

Some district parents expressed frustration over the way the current board of education handled the 2012-2013 budget process. Are you happy with the way the budget process was handled? If not, what else did you want to see the board do? There has been a lot of discussion throughout the year about paired schools, class size, schedule changes at the high school, elimination of a nurse, not replacing certain positions such as the Athletic Director and several teaching positions, and discussions about the use of reserves, among other items.  The board had to balance the desires of the community with the fiscal reality of having to cut approximately $1.4 million from the budget. It is unfortunate that we were not able to replace the teaching positions that were lost, but replacing all of them does not appear to have been the fiscally responsible thing to do at this time. The budget that was initially proposed is quite different from the final version.  Overall, I think the budget is a good compromise and reflects the fact that the board took the community’s concerns into consideration and reacted accordingly.

This is the first year that the Pelham school district has had to deal with the property tax cap. What adjustments do you think need to be made going forward to ensure that pressures from the tax cap don’t dramatically impact the quality of instruction offered by the district? We need to advocate at the state level for mandate relief.  We have three large unfunded mandates that will be going into effect next year.  This puts a tremendous burden on our system.  In addition, the Triborough Amendment of the Taylor Law needs to be overturned because it takes away our bargaining power by allowing public employees to continue to collect step increases in salaries while negotiating their contract, even if their contract has expired.  Salary step increases should be frozen when no contract is in place.   

Dr. Dennis Lauro announced that he is stepping down as the superintendent of Pelham schools at the end of this year. What qualities would you like to see in the district’s next superintendent? In my mind, a superintendent is like the CEO of the school district.  He, or she, is a visionary that has the ability to look at all the complex issues facing us and the educational challenges and opportunities before us, and put together a plan, with input from the Board of Education, that will inspire the community, despite the difficult choices that need to be made.  This isn’t an easy task given all the fiscal constraints that we are dealing with, which is why it is more important than ever to have someone who can effectively communicate the strengths of his plan and the reasons for making the decisions that he made.

We want someone who can interface with the community, the Board of Education, the Administration, the teachers, and all the staff in a way that instills trust and confidence.  At the same time, since his most important job is to present a budget that will be accepted by the community, he needs to have a solid understanding of public education finance, he needs to understand our communities desire to keep our taxes as low as possible, and he needs to have experience in putting these types of budgets together.  

What process would you like to see the school district use in finding Lauro’s replacement? I think we need to employ a national search firm to help us find a superintendant.  There are a lot of other districts currently looking for new superintendents so it won’t be easy, and it will certainly be a competitive market.  We may want to consider the idea of putting an interim superintendent in place in the event that it takes us a while to find the right match.  Once the field has been narrowed down to our top choices, I would like the community to have the opportunity to meet these candidates and weigh in.

Earlier in this year, the district discussed the possibility of reconfiguring the student population at its four elementary schools. The school board decided to suspend discussion on the plan until the 2012-2013  budget process was completed.  Do you see benefits to reconfiguring the district’s elementary schools? I think that the plan that was presented to the community last fall did not demonstrate many tangible educational benefits.  In order to consider the dissolution of our neighborhood schools, there would have to be very specific and significant educational benefits.  If our mission is to give our kids the best education possible while keeping our taxes as low as possible, and the reconfiguration of our schools accomplishes that, then it would be our responsibility to consider such a plan.  And in that event, we would need to analyze the trade-offs to see if the benefits outweigh the costs, and if that were to be the case, then it would need to be sold to the community.  

What questions do you feel need to be answered before you are comfortable supporting any changes to the configuration of the district’s elementary schools? Many questions would need to be answered before such a plan could be considered.  All the logistics with respect to parking, increased traffic in town, transportation issues, differing start times at the schools so that parents can shuttle their kids to multiple schools in the morning and still get them to school on time, crossing guards at major intersections, etc., would all have to be worked out ahead of time before presenting a plan to the community.