Paul Bockelman

Paul Bockelman

1. What do you see as the two or three most important issues facing Somerville Public Schools and the children who attend them in 2005? How will you as School Committee member seek to guide the City in addressing those issues?
   
   
   • I will bring new leadership to the School Committee. Leadership means:
     • Hiring the best and the brightest. Many of our talented teachers and staff will be retiring in the next five years. Those we hire to replace them will drive the school system for the next twenty-five years. We must be aggressive in recruiting and attracting the absolute best educators to Somerville.
     • Bringing greater accountability and transparency to the budget process will create greater credibility for the school department.
     • Involving parents and guardians – communicating regularly and honestly – is crucial to the success of the schools.
     
     
   • Statistics show that about one thousand babies are born in Somerville every year. Five years later, when these babies are old enough for kindergarten, only about 350 enroll in Somerville’s public schools. We need to understand what is happening here and if it is something to be concerned about. If there truly is a flight from Somerville’s schools, is it because of the lack of affordable housing? Is it a lack of confidence in our school system? Is it a phenomenon that is new? Or has it been going on for years? We must dig into this issue and understand what is happening.
   
   
2. What will you do to help the Somerville School Department generate the kinds of revenues it needs in order to more adequately fund instruction, curriculum development, updating of books and equipment, enrichment activities, and other costs of operating top-notch schools? Are there places we can cut expenses?
   
   
   • The School Committee must be active in reversing the curse of state budget cuts that has cost the system millions of dollars in the past five years. My work at the Massachusetts Municipal Association puts me in a unique position in advocating for adequate funding for cities and towns.
   • Many of us have discussed the formation of a privately funded educational foundation that is able to fund educational activities in support of the public schools. Many school districts have formed similar foundations and they work well.
   • We must align the school budget with our educational priorities.
   • Using a cooperative approach with the unions and the city, we should explore ways to slow the growth of health insurance costs.
   
   
3. What are the strengths of the Somerville schools? What kinds of important educational and ancillary services have been lacking in Somerville schools, and what are your goals for improving those services?
   
   
   • STRENGTHS: We have many. There is general agreement that the strengths of the Somerville public schools are small class size, free full-day pre-kindergarten and kindergarten, and many new facilities. But the schools also have many other strengths. Most important, the public schools have many very committed faculty and staff who are dedicating their lives to our children. We have a diverse student body that reflects the world. The schools also offer innovative programs like Unidos, Choice, and Next Wave/Full Circle. And the string music program is exceptional in its inclusiveness.
   • MISSING SERVICES: We also have many needs. Most important, we’re missing a coordinated effort to involve parents/guardians in the school system. This means being better communicators and being better listeners. Services for English language learners and their families need to be increased, not diminished. And guidance services at the high school are woefully understaffed. We need more adults in the high school so every student is able to connect with an adult. This connection is a key indicator of a student’s success.
   
   
4. How can Somerville schools best prepare young people for the economy that they will be facing when they graduate?
   
   
   • We must create a culture of high academic expectations. This becomes manifest in the number of our high school students who advance onto college. The new world economy – and especially the Boston economy – is knowledge-based, and to compete successfully our students must have a solid grounding in math, science, reading, and writing. This does not mean simply offering more honors classes. It means finding ways to ensure that ALL Somerville graduates have the tools to confront a complex and interconnected world. We are uniquely positioned to take advantage of the huge resource of cultural and intellectual talent living within our borders.
   • Our graduates must learn to be engaged, critical thinkers. It is not just about knowing a set body of knowledge. The most successful graduates are those who leave school with an understanding of how to solve problems and to critically engage their communities.
   
   
5. In what ways, would you like to see parents and guardians involved in the Somerville Public Schools and in the education of their children? Is there a role for parents/guardians in the classroom?
   
   
   • Parent involvement is critical to the success of any school. However, there must be many avenues for parents and guardians to get involved. While some parents are comfortable – or have the day-time available to be – in the classroom, many are not. Many do not know how to become involved…perhaps their parents were never involved. We must start with parents of kindergarteners and develop a diverse program of involvement that includes numerous interactions with teachers and performances by our children!
   • Parents can be a valuable resource in the classroom. But this involvement must be managed by the teachers.
   
   5a Given the diversity of ethnic, cultural, educational, and economic backgrounds of Somerville families, how can the City better support parent /caregiver involvement in their children’s schools and education?
   
   
   • Language is just one of the many obstacles to parental/caregiver involvement. System-wide support for translations is critical. Equally important are long-term solutions that involve parents and guardians in their children’s schools. Clear avenues for parental involvement must be paved and marked with explicit signals. To be honest, I have found it very difficult to figure out how to be involved in my 7th grader’s school activities.
   • In my children’s school, international potluck dinners with performances by children have drawn the greatest diversity of parents/guardians to the school. And, they are always the most fun!
   
   
6. As the sponsor of SCALE, the Somerville School Department provides critically needed adult literacy classes. What additional role(s), if any, should Somerville schools play in serving adult residents in need of upgrading their education or job skills?



• Learning doesn’t stop at 12th grade. SCALE provides valuable services to many adult learners and especially Somerville’s large immigrant population.
• It makes sense to base some of SCALE’s classes in the neighborhood schools, thus creating another way for parents to be physically in their children’s schools.


7. In each of the past few years, approximately one quarter of the Freshman class at Somerville High School has been held back for academic reasons, that is, required to repeat their Freshman year. Is this a problem? If so, what should Somerville do to address this?
   
   
   • It is a disturbing statistic. But it is only a snapshot. More detailed, longitudinal analysis of the problem needs to be made. Are these retentions creating more high school graduates or are they creating more high school dropouts? Are the retentions the result of managing school populations to ensure MCAS success or is it an indicator of a failing middle school system? We simply need more data and to talk to the students who have been held back.
   
   
8. There are many conflicting opinions about the quality of education and school environment at Somerville High. What are we doing well at SHS and what do we need to improve?
   
   
   • My children will be entering the high school in the very near future, so I care a lot about what is happening there. The feedback I hear from parents of students in academically advanced classes is very positive, while the other programs get mixed reviews. The school is a vibrant place with a wide selection of programs that can appeal to kids of all different interests. We have many very committed staff there, and programs like the peer mediation program appear to have kept in check much of the violence that might be expected in a city of our size. In spite of these strengths, I fear that a culture of low expectations permeates many of the classes. We have a strong, diverse student body and we need to seize on this advantage to graduate street smart kids savvy enough to do business with the entire world.
   • We need to do a better job communicating the good things we are doing at the high school to parents and guardians in the elementary schools. Way too many children choose to leave Somerville schools at key junctures in their educational development because of a lack of confidence in Somerville High School.
   
   
9. Pupils in Somerville schools come from diverse linguistic, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds, and bring a range of learning styles to the classroom. What segments of the Somerville community are best served by the Somerville schools? What segments are least well served? What can the City do to provide every child with access to a high quality public education, and what will you do as a School Committee member to further that vision?
   
   
   • The achievement gap that exists across schools and across different socioeconomic groups within schools is simply not acceptable. We must reach consensus that this is a shared problem and develop strategies to address it.
   • Interestingly, Standard & Poors recently released a study showing Somerville doing better with low-income students than any other district in the state. That’s good news.
   • Our educational leaders must begin to reflect the cultural and racial diversity of our student body. Our students need to identify with role models in their learning environment.
   
   
10. To the extent that each school has different capital assets, a different staff, and different leadership, it is inevitable that the learning environment in each school is also different. What steps would you take to ensure that every school is able to provide its students with a high quality education? In what ways should the neighborhood schools be different from one another? In what ways should they be the same?
    
    
    • Every elementary school deserves a well-qualified, strong principal. That’s the first thing. This principal’s job is to know her/his faculty, students, and parents/guardians and craft an education to meet their needs. Not every school will have the same needs. But our expectations of excellence for every school should be standardized. Good schools are more like families than factories.
    • There are efficiencies to be had, however, in the delivery of technology, food service, and facility management. Our principals should be focused on making sure our kids are learning, not on making sure the roof doesn’t leak or the snow gets plowed.
    • We should prepare both quantitative and qualitative data on the performance of every school. This will provide even more information to parents, guardians, and policy-makers in the city.
    
    
11. What kind of special programs, if any, should the Somerville schools offer to support children from homes where English literacy may be low?
    
    
    • The Unz initiative has robbed Somerville of many of its initiatives for English language learners. There is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to any kind of education. But Somerville has a terrific model of success in the Unidos program. We can also utilize the strength of SCALE to support adults who wish to learn English.
    
    
12. What will you do or have you done to make the School Committee budget process more transparent and budget information more accessible and understandable to the public?
    
    
    • This is a MAJOR concern of mine. Transparency in the budget process with greater public involvement leads to stronger schools and more public acceptance to fund the needs of the schools. Assumptions and projections must be explicit. Beginning the budget process earlier is imperative. And a full understanding of the city’s finances is fundamental to integrating the school’s budget into the overall city budget.
    • All of this transparency and understanding will be utterly useless if it is not communicated to the citizens of Somerville. A concerted effort to inform the public must be made through newspapers, listservs, websites…you name it. Making complicated issues understandable in lay terms is something I’m pretty good at doing.
    
    
13. How can the City more effectively engage diverse parents and caregivers in the political decision-making process that determines school policies? What have you done/will you do as a School Committee member to encourage and facilitate that kind of public participation?
    
    
    • The Schools have to be seen as central to the life of the community; not just the 12% of the citizens who have children in the school system.
    • You simply can’t wait for community members to come to you. We must use existing networks and social service agencies to reach into the communities that typically don’t have a voice in school matters.
    • I would also like to set up appointed committees to work on specific issues. These committees would be representative of the community and report back to the school committee on budget matters, educational issues, and any other priority we may identify.
    • Another model of civic engagement has been the Superintendent search process which generated tremendous discussion of educational issues and has helped spawn other initiatives.