Author: Gautam Surya

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Glen Rock’s school system is a source of community pride. Our students, teachers, parents, staff and town deserve our schools to be the best that they can be. In order to achieve this, if elected to the board my priorities will be:

Accountability and transparency in decision making

Glen Rock schools have wonderful teachers. However, the leadership and decision-making in recent years has not lived up to them. For example, last year the board was forced to separate from the prior superintendent, after granting them a premature contract extension, at the effective cost of paying out the better part a year’s worth of salary and benefits while putting them on a leave of absence. Despite this agreement being reached in November 2025, the district is still in the position of starting the 2026-27 school year with no permanent superintendent in place. I will aim to improve transparency and communication on BOE decisions.

Spending money wisely

For the 2022-23 school year¹ the district’s per capita spending on administrative costs per student was $1,930. In the 2024-25 year, which is the year with the most recent finalized public numbers, that figure was $2,570 – an increase of over 33%, far outpacing inflation! Education is priceless. However, spending money correctly, and ensuring it benefits students, is a public trust. The Board must uphold this. I will support responsible fiscal behavior, and push for every dollar spent to directly benefit students and teachers.

Providing services for students

In general, the staff providing special services, such as speech and occupational therapy, are wonderful. However, I have encountered multiple parents who have been very frustrated with the process of obtaining services. Parents with children who have individual education needs already face considerable challenges. Creating a more transparent and efficient system to access services would benefit everyone – those parents and their children, but also teachers and other students who may be affected by other pupils in an inappropriate educational environment, and the staff providing services themselves. I will work to improve these systems.

Rethinking our approach to technology

For decades now, digital technologies have been touted as a way to improve education and make it more cost-effective. The technology genie is not going back into the bottle, and computer literacy is clearly a vital skill in the modern world. That said, digital assignments and the “learn to code” approach to education, in the age of generative AI, are increasingly unworkable and do not prepare students. The evidence is increasingly clear that seemingly benign uses of technology, such as laptops for note-taking, have clear and measurable negative effects compared to pen-and-paper². I will advocate for a return to primarily pen-and-paper education, rather than defaulting to all-digital classes and assignments, through at least middle school. As an added benefit, this would also address concerns with cybersecurity and access to inappropriate material.

Academic standards

Fully a quarter of district students are not meeting grade expectations in math – more than in comparable districts such as Tenafly (similar size and income levels). English proficiency is also lagging. Even more concerningly, there are discrepancies related to race and gender. Boys perform significantly better in math and worse in English; Hispanic students underperform the district average in math and English. Particularly at younger grades, this is inexcusable, and once these patterns are set they are very difficult to reverse through higher grades. I will work to understand the root causes of these patterns and support early interventions to address them.

A well-rounded education

I believe education should prepare students for life after school; provide students knowledge and skills needed to earn a living; and produce citizens capable of running our self-governing republic. In order to do so, we cannot simply focus on STEM, or on the old “Reading, Writing, Arithmetic”. A well-rounded education capable of meeting these goals includes civics, history, financial literacy, physical education, art, music, languages, literature. I will work to ensure that we balance educational priorities to allow our students to explore their interests, develop their skills, and understand their rights and responsibilities as members of our community and society.

Supporting working parents

Some recent decisions, such as the lack of aftercare in elementary schools on half days, make things very difficult for working parents. During the 2024-25 school year, schools were closed from October 31 – November 11, a very long stretch right before the Thanksgiving holiday. When making such decisions, I will advocate for policies that help working parents be full participants in their children’s education without assuming they have the privilege to take flexible, extended time off.

Advocating for our district

School boards are very important. However, our public school systems involve a complex set of local, county, state and federal policies, regulation, and funding. Many of the issues that most concern students, teachers, and parents, do not fall under the direct purview of the BOE. A critical part of the BOE’s role is therefore to lobby our state and federal representatives, and work to address issues and obtain funding at those levels. It is not clear whether the current BOE leadership is doing this. I will investigate ways in which we can influence state-level politics through our local representatives, and whether there are opportunities for collaboration with neighboring districts that can increase our efficiency.

1. All numbers cited in this section can be found at this link. ↩︎
2. See, for example, this recent summary on digital vs. analog note-taking, or this one focusing on reading.This isn’t even because laptops can distract – since writing by hand is slower, students are forced to process material and pull out key points in real time, which helps with retaining material. ↩︎