Pelham School Board Election Coverage: Q & A With Paul Prencis

Name: Paul Prencis

Age: 43

Occupation: Teacher, Mathematics

Education: B.S. Applied Mathematics and Statistics, SUNY Stony Brook; M.A. Mathematics Education, Teachers College, Columbia University; M.A. Educational Administration, College of New Rochelle

Experience: 20 years experience in education, including teaching positions in middle school, high school and college level, as well as administrative experience including Mathematics chair and Director of Mathematics

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 have a vested interest in preserving and improving our schools since my three sons are either in the system or about to enter the system.  I also have an interest in keeping costs as low as possible because I am a taxpayer on a modest budget.

Some district parents expressed frustration over the way the current board of education handled 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? A school board trustee's job is a very difficult.  As with any position of authority, there is no such possibility of pleasing everybody.  In general, I think the budget process was handled well.  

The public was given ample time during meetings to voice their opinions and the board considered all suggestions and even acted on many of them.  For example, while the board was considering the idea of paired schools, many members of our community voiced their concerns.  As a result, the board dismissed the proposition.

Obviously, not every decision could make everyone happy and the Board had to make compromises, which, by definition, is not what some people would prefer.  Perhaps some issues could have been given more transparency, such as the decision to remove block scheduling in the high school, but in the most part, they were fairly clear with their intentions.

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 must look to saving money in creative ways in any way other than removing teachers from classrooms.  Using technology appropriately is one way.  For example, having teachers and students use a digital medium for assignments could substantially reduce paper and ink costs.  There are many items in a school district that can be trimmed in this manner.  

As a teacher and former administrator, one of my unique qualifications is that I know of a multitude of cost saving measures that can be employed.  Getting rid of a teacher can save around $100,000, but their are great consequences in doing that (large class sizes and reduced program offerings).  Saving $5000 on twenty items saves the same and would have hardly the same impact.  It is harder to find twenty places to cut $5000, but it is not impossible.

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? I would hope to find a superintendent that does not come with an agenda and that we instead find one that wants to learn about the way our district works and find ways to maintain and improve our quality of education without trying to redefine who we are.  Most importantly, a superintendent with a balanced approach to learning is what we need.

What process would you like to see the Pelham school district use in finding Dennis Lauro’s replacement? In the first stages of the process, the candidates must be interviewed by the Board, the current central administrative staff, teachers and parents in several sessions.  A thorough background check must be completed to see what the previous candidate actually did in the district they came from, including the possibility of interviewing teachers and community members of that district to see how they feel the candidate impacted their district.  Once the pool of candidates is reduced to a few finalists, I would like the final phases of the process to be completely public.  This would include making public the finalists' resume public to our community and even videotaping the interview process for public viewing.  I would like to see a survey taken of the public to get their opinion of the candidates.  Once the public response is considered, then the Board will be able to confidently appoint a new Superintendent.

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? Last week, I had to meet someone by Anne Hutchinson School.  I live near Prospect Hill School.  It was not rush hour.  It took me nearly 20 minutes to make the trip.  Now picture an entire community trying to get to these four schools twice a day, every day.  It would be a nightmare.  In every district that I know of that has paired schools, there is busing.  Unless we address the issue of transportation, paired schools should not even be considered.  Hiding behind "two mile" law (which states that children are only legally required busing if they live more than 2 miles from the school) is a terrible way to get around this and the consequences would hurt us all, most especially the students who will have to cross Boston Post Road. Having said that, should busing be put into place, then there are several benefits to paired schools, most notably the ability to equalize class size and share materials over a grade.  However, since busing is quite expensive, the idea can only be put into effect should the economic tide turn since it would not save money.

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? Let's change the question - Instead of implementing a wide scale change that affects us all, why not try a smaller, invasive solution.  

Consider this: Next year's grade two will have three schools with two sections at the high end of the guideline.  Add one teacher to one school (I would recommend Prospect due to its size, particularly its outdoor grounds) and offer six children in Colonial and six children in Siwanoy the opportunity to be bussed from their respective school - parents would drop their children off at their neighborhood school and a bus would take them to Prospect.  This would require a minibus and driver to chauffeur 12 children.

Those children could be picked up at their school (either Colonial or Siwanoy) and then dropped off at Prospect.  Likewise, in the afternoon, they would be picked up at Prospect and dropped off at their neighborhood school.  Unlike the Princeton plan which would disrupt the entire district without offering any transportation relief, this would only affect a small number of families.  I think there would be at least a dozen families that would find it acceptable and even favorable to send their child to Prospect especially with the added incentive of transportation.  The cost would be one teacher plus a bus (I believe there already is a custodian on staff that is certified to drive a bus and a quick google search yielded a 24 passenger 2004 Chevy US Coach School Bus for under $16000).  The result would be two classes each at Colonial and Siwanoy with 20 students and three classes at Prospect with 20, 20 and 19 students.

The same could be done with grades K and one.  Taking 5 students from the two first grade classes at Hutchinson School that currently are projected at 21 and 22 and sending them to Prospect (via the same bus, since the total number of students including the second grade would be 19 students) and adding a teacher at Prospect would yield a nearly uniform 19 students per grade for all classes at all schools.  While there, the bus can also pick up two students from each kindergarten class making the kindergarten classes at Hutchinson an appropriate 20 and prospect 19.  Using a bus that seats 25, a single bus is still adequate.  This idea accomplishes the desired effect of leveling the classes across these grades without impacting the entire community and requires no planning for things like crossing guards, additional traffic lights, and countless other considerations that a full scale Princeton Plan would require.  Furthermore, it is sustainable.  The same children could continue to attend the alternate schools for the duration of their early childhood years.