Gautam Surya for Glen Rock BOE

Category: Uncategorized

  • Providing services for students

    Providing services for students

              In general, when arguing my positions, I like to refer to facts and research and reports and citations. I won’t be doing that here. Oh, there’s a lot of research on the benefits of inclusivity in classrooms, on best practices in disability accommodation, and other things that can be brought to bear in talking about special services. However, at its root, this is a moral and ethical issue. Whether or not providing special services takes resources that could putatively be used for other purposes, it is the right thing to do.

                As such, I won’t attempt to make the case for providing or expanding services. If you, dear reader, do not agree with this, then I will not be attempting to convince you – please read a different post on my blog, and I hope you can find something that resonates with you there. This post will be starting from the point of view that accommodations in the classroom benefit everyone – not just the recipient child  and their family, but their peers, teachers, other staff, and essentially the entire district and community.

                Having said that – given that we’re starting from the position that special services are a critical function of any school system, how to provide them efficiently is still something that can be discussed. As I have said before and will say again – education is one of the most important places to spend public money, but when public money is being spent, the public is owed a responsibility to maximize the impact of every dollar. So the discussion is not “do we provide services”, but “can we do a better job of providing services”.

                This is a personal issue for me, since I have a child who is mainstreamed and supported through a 504 plan. At the outset, I would like to make it clear that our experience dealing with their classroom teachers, and with the staff providing services, has been excellent. Every day they go to school, we have felt confident that they are in good hands, and are understood, considered, and cared for as the person they are.

    However, our experience navigating the process of formalizing classroom accommodations wasn’t frustration-free. Moreover, I do not think our experience was unique in any way. In talking to other parents, I have consistently heard complaints about the general opacity of the process. In addition, while the plural of “anecdote” isn’t “data”, I know of multiple parents who have decided, or been advised to, transfer between elementary schools in the district – and those transfers aren’t necessarily aligned (e.g. one child being advised to transfer from school A to B, and a second one being advised to transfer from B to A). Again, based on my experience, everyone involved has excellent intentions and has the students’ best interests at heart. However, parents are understandably confused and frustrated, especially when there’s no easily accessible documentation of what might be driving these decisions.

    So what can we do about it? As a board member, I will make it a priority to work with school administration to start by creating transparent documentation on the process and criteria that underlie classroom accommodations, and also to have public information on whether there are particular programs that are not offered in every elementary school. From that starting point, we can then continue to work out whether there are ways to change the way services are delivered, and whether there are opportunities to create some efficiency by, for example, consolidating specific services in specific schools (as a simplistic example, having OT available in school A and speech therapy available in school B, although of course some children need both – the details would need to be worked out carefully). By doing so, we can then more accurately assess the degree to which we are meeting student needs, and what level of resourcing might be required to reduce the gap and where it would be best directed.

    Glen Rock schools need to work for all children and all families – and while the intent is there, we are not yet meeting that standard. Let’s fix that.

  • Spending Money Wisely

    Spending Money Wisely

    © BappleBusiness

    Let’s start with two basic principles that are foundational to my views. Principle 1 – there are few, if any, better ways to spend public money than on education. Principle 2 – if the money being spent is public money, then the people spending it have an obligation to ensure that every dollar spent conveys the maximum possible benefit. In plain words – “spending money wisely” doesn’t necessarily mean “spend less money” – it means ensuring the effectiveness of the money being spent.

    So with that preamble out of the way, let’s look at some structural changes in the Glen Rock school district in recent years.

    A consistent pattern

    Let’s take a look at the following table, which shows the number of full-time equivalent staff by function in the school system1.

    Something interesting happens in 2022. In 2021, there were a total of 224 full-time equivalent instructional staff and 19 support staff – a ratio of 11.8:1. In 2022, the number of instructional staff increases to 264…and the number of support staff increases to 61, a ratio of 4.3:1. So what happened, exactly? Not much changed in the enrollment as can be seen in the image below2,3. It’s genuinely confusing – the 2022 financial report4 doesn’t say anything in particular.

    For the 2022-23 school year5, 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! As can be seen in the above image, the three largest year-on-year increases in student spending per capita occurred since 2022 – and while there was a notable inflation spike that year, the increases still outpace annual inflation.

    Some more context

    Tenafly is the most directly comparable school district to Glen Rock – also in Bergen County, similar size, and similar income levels. And, as we’ll eventually discuss in a future post, it scores well above Glen Rock in academic achievement. So, what do Tenafly’s finances show6?

    I’d like to be able to present a nice, neat story comparing the two districts – but there isn’t one, partly because the way Tenafly reports its support staff appears to be very different. Having said that, four things stand out:

    • There is no comparable jump in support staff in the same time frame.
    • Tenafly spends less per capita on administrative costs7
    • Tenafly’s overall per-pupil spending is very similar to Glen Rock’s
    • Tenafly has much higher over all staffing levels

    The bottom line

    I want to be very clear here – none of this is intended to impugn any individual person working in Glen Rock schools, in any role. Nor is this meant to diminish the importance of administrative work in general. However, when taken in combination with Glen Rock’s academic attainment numbers (which will be the subject of a separate post), all of this at least raises the question of whether the money we are spending on our schools is having the impact our kids deserve.

    To go back to the beginning – spending public money is the closest thing to a sacred trust in a secular society. Properly resourcing our schools does not mean spending money haphazardly. I’ve only scratched the surface here, and focused on one aspect of spending – there are many others, such as spending on capital projects, that I hope to return to in future installments. Personally, I would pay even more in taxes if I were sure that every additional dollar was truly benefiting students (and teachers and staff). I’m just not sure that’s currently the case.

    1. The source is the district’s comprehensive annual financial report (CAFR) to the state for the year 2025 – page 114, exhibit J-16. ↩︎
    2. Same link as above, page 115, exhibit J-17. ↩︎
    3. Also, this is probably not important, but there’s something funny about the “Teaching Staff” column in the second table, compared to the instruction totals in the first table. From 2017-2021, the numbers match up perfectly…and then after 2022, they don’t, being much smaller in the second table. I have no idea why – it can’t be a part-time vs. full-time thing, because the first table has full-time staff equivalents, and the second table has lower numbers. ↩︎
    4. Which you can read for yourself here. ↩︎
    5. This link contains the numbers cited in this paragraph. ↩︎
    6. You can find their CAFR at this link – exhibits J-16 and J-17 are the ones we’re looking at. ↩︎
    7. You can find those numbers at the same link in note 5. ↩︎

  • Why I’m running for Board of Education

    Why I’m running for Board of Education

    © BappleBusiness

    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. ↩︎