The Road to the Penn Relays

Video Synopsis: As a Hoboken High School student, Judy Burrell was scouted at the Penn Relays which got her a full scholarship at Utah State. Today she's a math teacher and the head track and field coach at Hoboken High. For the first time in 7 years, the Hoboken High track team has qualified for the Penn Relays, one of the biggest track and field meets in the world. But with a School Board election only a few weeks away the team finds itself the focus of a slate of cost-cutting School Board candidates.

I felt this video had to be made. I was in the audience at the Board meeting when Judy Burrell made her appeal and I was impressed that Hoboken students had qualified for such a prestigious event. I was even more impressed when Judy so eloquently told her own story. And then, I was completely dumbfounded when Maureen Sullivan decided to take issue with the track team's request and vote against funding the team's expenses.

Some may say that it's not right to involve the students in a video with a political message but these students know that it's politics that determined whether or not they would receive their funding. They were in the audience when Maureen Sullivan voted against them. And, with only a week to go in a hotly contested School Board election, the students also recognize that if Maureen Sullivan's tax-relief slate is elected then their future is threatened. So this isn't just a story about athletic accomplishments, it's also a story about politics.

The Kids First slate has done an admirable job of maintaining a positive message during this campaign. But Maureen's slate has been negative right out of the gate. Being a Kids First supporter, and knowing all the good they've done for the school system and taxpayers in just one year, it's been frustrating for me to watch Maureen and her slate endlessly spout mistruths and uninformed prescriptions for the school system.

After that School Board meeting I realized that this was a story that perfectly captures the danger posed by Maureen's slate. This was a story that perfectly illustrates what's at stake in this election. While her slate has been vague overall about about what they intend to cut if elected, Maureen's vote that night and her slate's website make it abundantly clear they intend to cut athletics. And this gets to the heart of the matter. While tax relief sounds like a great idea, tax relief without regards for the students is destructive. It strikes a blow at the heart of our city. This city will grow stronger as the city's public schools grow stronger. Making them weaker in favor of tax relief weakens the city and ultimately harms taxpayers.

In contrast to Maureen's slate, the Kids First slate is taking a sensible approach that balances cost-cutting and fiscal responsibility with the strength of the schools and the well-being of their students. This approach goes beyond the vague proclamations of Maureen's slate - it's a proven approach that's been in place for a year now. The budget has decreased, the schools are stronger, and Hoboken is all the stronger for it.

P.S. It's not too late to help the team out! You can drop by the school store at the High School to drop a donation in the team's donation bucket.

Maureen First

With much fanfare Maureen Sullivan has announced her "resignation" from Kids First, the slate of three Hoboken School Board candidates who were elected to the Hoboken Board of Education with an overwhelming majority almost one year ago. While resigning from an electoral slate a year after the election would appear to be a meaningless gesture, the excessive volume with which Sullivan is broadcasting this news indicates that she wants everyone to hear that she's got something important to say. And the news is this: she's appalled that the majority of the Board voted against her in their decision to hire Dr Frank Romano as the next Hoboken Superintendent of Schools. Sullivan's stated reason for opposing the decision is that she feels Dr. Romano's salary is too high. The other dissenting vote came from Board member Carrie Gilliard who favored a candidate who failed to submit their application on time. Gilliard stated that the Board "rushed" the hiring process, presumably because they did not (illegally) accept this late application or re-open the search to consider her candidate.

Let's put things in perspective: seven of nine Board members voted in favor of hiring Dr. Romano. Only three of those seven members were elected on "Kids First" tickets. Furthermore, the only two dissenting votes also came from members elected on "Kids First" tickets. To me that sounds like a healthy vote in favor of Dr. Romano. It's clear evidence that the vote had everything to do with individual decisions and nothing to do with electoral slates. Nevertheless, as a result of losing the vote Sullivan has publicly decried the existence of a conspiratorial "machine" at work behind the scenes. Given the diversity of members voting in favor of Romano this accusation is clearly nonsense; and so it raises the question: what is Sullivan's real motivation in making all this noise?

Sullivan is publicly declaring herself as the only reformer Board member which is quite an assertion considering the make-up of the current Board. What does Sullivan hope to gain by vilifying all her fellow Board members who have worked so hard over the past year to improve the schools and rein in the budget?

My first impression is that Sullivan opportunistically rode the coattails of Kids First to victory last year after a failed run as an independent and now that members of her former slate have decided to vote differently from her she's thrown a very big, public tantrum. But perhaps there's more to it than that.

The Board of Education elections are only a month and a half away and, while Sullivan is not up for re-election, perhaps she's angling to back her own slate of candidates who would be more willing to vote the way she votes: a "Maureen First" ticket. So how does Sullivan vote anyhow? Interestingly, she tends to vote the same way as everyone else on board. As a regular School Board meeting attendee one thing that has struck me is how unified the Board has been in making their decisions of late. Admittedly, until the decision to hire Dr. Romano was brought to a vote there haven't been a lot of "big ticket" items on the agenda. So perhaps Sullivan intends to wrap herself in the "slash and burn the budget" flag. This would be consistent with her stated reason for rejecting Dr. Romano and, with the annual budget to be voted on soon the picture will be clearer.

Everyone knows that the Board's annual budget is bloated and I've applauded the Board's actions this year to both expose the budgetary shenanigans from years past and significantly reduce the budget going forward. However, as a parent with a child in the public school system I recognize that slashing the budget shouldn't be a goal in itself. Reducing the budget has to be performed so that it doesn't adversely affect students' educations - after all, this is what it's all about. Given the size of the budget I'm certain there are many more places where the budget can be reduced but let's remember that it's taken decades for the Hoboken School system budget to get to its current state. It's reasonable to expect that it's going to take more than 9 months to get it back under control. More importantly, I'm confident the Board is working to achieve this goal in a sensible way that takes into account how the students will be affected. Now that Sullivan's children have moved to schools outside the Hoboken public school system she doesn't have the same personal stake in improving the system that she used to have. It's easy to make "slash and burn the budget" pronouncements when you're not concerned about the consequences for your child's education.

Reform will not come from one person or the loudest person. Sullivan is free to disagree with the majority in this or any decision but that doesn't mean reform is dead or that she is the vanguard of reform. The record is clear: for the past year reform has been happening in the Hoboken School district and the reason why is because the majority of the Board has been voting in favor of reform, not just Sullivan. Sullivan's clearly decided to redefine "reform" to mean something that suits her better although it's not entirely clear what that is yet. My suspicion is when Sullivan says reform she really means "conform", as in: conform to my way or the highway. We should bear this in mind during the upcoming School Board elections when Sullivan anoints her chosen candidates as "reformers."

We Are Living in Hoboken

Hoboken Wired

A couple of weeks ago a tall truck careened down our street taking out 4 successive sets of overhead wiring reminding me of how archaic the infrastructure is here compared to the suburbs I grew up in where the only hint of infrastructure was the occasional humming metal box poking its head out of a manicured lawn.

Zombies in Hoboken