001[Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Paul, you okay? You want Okay, good evening everyone. Welcome to tonight's community forum for the Waterberry Public Schools. And I apologize there's a bit of an echo. It's this mic. My name is James Gon. I'm the president and CEO of JG Consulting. My firm is the consulting group that has been leading this very important endeavor to recruit the school system's next superintendent. Um, so I am here on behalf of the search firm representing the school board. And tonight we have three very important guests along with all of you from the community, the staff, students alike uh to hear from. So this evening I will ask a series of questions. Each of the three candidates has been informed and um instructed of the format. All three candidates will be asked the same
002question. Each question that I will ask this evening has been received by different community members over the course of the past 5 days or so. So there's a series of 10 questions. If we have enough time to ask additional questions that I have here in the item bank, I will ask more questions. But each each candidate will have three minutes allotted per question. So I have my timer here to keep them on track. I'm going to start right to uh from my right all the way down the line starting with Dr. Lewis then Dr. Schwarz and then Dr. White and then we're going to come backwards with Dr. White starting first and so forth. So there's going to be a random order to the questions. Um, so my hope is that we'll get through as
003many questions as possible. And again, I want to thank all of you who are here publicly, those that are watching virtually through our broadcast through the streaming. For anyone who provided questions in advance of tonight's meeting, thank you for doing that. Thank you for your um engagement in this process. Okay. So, in the spirit of the time, we're going to get started. First question, Dr. Lewis and other um candidates. To kick things off, we would briefly like to hear about you, your career, and the things you feel is important for us to know about you. Uh, sure. Can everyone hear me? Okay. All right. We're off to a good start. Good evening, everyone. I am DaVon Lewis. Uh, it is a pleasure to be here with you all uh this evening. Uh, thank you to
004those of you who are here in person, as well as to those of you who are with us online and to uh the other candidates. Uh, Dr. Schwarz, thank you for the very warm welcome and uh, Dr. White. Good luck to the both of you. Uh, so I am currently the assistant superintendent of student services in South Ben, Indiana, which is a district of a little over 15,000 students. So very similar in size and uh demographics and some of the uh challenges uh similar here to Waterberry, Connecticut. I have been a classroom teacher, a summer school principal, a a grade level chair. I've been a board member. I've consulted with boards uh as well. I've uh been in and out of both traditional districts as well as in charters as well as in nonprofits. So
005I bring a very uh diverse broad uh background to the work. Uh I am a first generation immigrant myself. I've now lived in uh three countries, seven different states. And uh one of the things I know to be true is that regardless of uh where people come from, they all want the same thing for their kids. They all have the same hopes and dreams and aspiration for their little kiddos. uh and I bring that global broad-minded equity-minded perspective uh to the work and I'm uh hopeful uh to be your next uh superintendent. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Thank you. Good evening everyone. And I want to thank the board of education for uh this rigorous uh process to select the next superintendent for the Waterberry public schools. It's an important position obviously in the
006city and I want to thank them for for that. and JG Consulting. Um, for over 20 years, I've dedicated my life to education. Uh, I started in a small little town in East Grahamby, Connecticut for two years. And I taught there and I thought, you know, there's something different for me. This this is great. I love East Graanby, great kids, great families, but I wanted to do something different. So I um I took the uh I took the lunch and I went to New York City for a year and I studied in New York City and worked there at PS126 in uh Jacob August School and I fell in love working with students uh from the inner city and uh from there I went to Hartford, Connecticut where it's the only district I applied to
007at the time because it's the district I wanted to go to and I taught there uh for about seven years. I was able to also become a principal in the Hartford public schools. I was a principal of a expeditionary learning school. I started that school as a redesign school uh there. I also had Moy uh at Moland School. I also had a monastery component at our school. From there, I was recruited to Waterberry Public Schools to be the instructional leadership director. And uh I've worked here for the last 12 years, not just as the instructional leadership director who was the director over 10 elementary schools. I then worked my way up to be the chief academic officer in the Waterberry public schools. I was then also uh promoted to be the deputy superintendent and of
008course now serving as the interim uh superintendent. And you you know James you asked what's something important that you need to know about me? I live in the city. You know I live 3 miles away from here. Um I go to bed every night there. I wake up uh kiss my beautiful wife here my I think I hear my kid in the back. Uh she's going to preschool here next year. She's not going to a private school. She's not going to a different uh school system. She's going here in the Waterberry public schools because I believe in the Waterberry public schools. And so um I'm really happy not just to be an employee here, but to be a resident here and I care about this city tremendously and that's why I want to be the
009superintendent. Thank you, Dr. White. Good evening everyone. Uh again, thank you to the board. Thank you to you James and to everyone for this process and for this opportunity to talk with you to get to know me or reintroduce myself. Um the key thing to know is I believe in education. A teacher changed the trajectory of my life so I understand the power of what education is and what it can do. Uh for me I I'm a child of immigrants born and raised in the Bronx. Uh as I said a teacher changed the life for one of my sisters which changed my trajectory and out of that came my experience of teaching in New York City coming up to Connecticut uh I became a principal in Bridgeport Connecticut and then had the opportunity to work
010here in Waterberry. But as an educator one of our charges is to teach the world not just in our geopolitical boundaries. So, I did leave to learn more and bring back new skills to Waterberry to help lead this district to greater success. Um, as an experience, I've been an assistant superintendent. I've led the district through its COVID response, helped us get back on track afterwards, uh worked on negotiations for a variety of our contracts, always leading for us with what can we do to make life better for our students, our families, and our staff. Central office works as the inservice of all of those units. So that's what I bring to this work and will bring to this work as your next superintendent. Terrific. Thank you. All right. Uh Dr. White, we're going to start
011with you again. The second question, when you're ready, why do you want to be the Waterberry Public School Superintendent? And what specific things about this position do you find attractive? Uh I'll start where I ended. being of service that is the key thing that the superintendent can be can lead a district lead the experience improve the life outcomes for students which in turns changes the life outcomes for families. So being able to shape the policies working in collaboration with our board working in collaboration with our teachers our administrators and our families really making this a community effort to move this city forward. So that those are the things that attract me most about doing this. This is the about really making a change in people's lives and being in the position to move the levers
012necessary to make the changes for students. Okay. Terrific. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. All right. Well, I mean to me it's I'm the eternal optimist for Waterberry. I really am. If you know me, I I I when I came to Waterberry, I just want to let you know I had three adviserss tell me, "Don't come here." Three said, "Do not come here. You're doing great in Hartford. You're moving up. Stay where you are. You're going to do great." And I said, "Well, why why wouldn't I go there?" And um they talked about the politics. They talked about that the culture in the school system wasn't great. Uh they listed a long list of things. I said, "Well, isn't that why I should come? because I do feel like I'm a great educator and I've ca I
013came here 12 years ago and I've stayed here and I've stayed here because I believe in Waterberry. I'm I'm an optimist. It's it's it's one of my best and worst qualities, but I do feel like it is uh Waterberry is poised to be the leader in New England for urban schools. I really believe that we have some of if if if you could spend a day as interimm superintendent, see the kids that we have in the Waterberry public schools. If you we we're sending two kids to Harvard this year, okay, we we we have five robotics teams now in every single high school. Kids that are interested, they just need a chance. And so I'm I'm just the eternal optimist. I I really believe in the city. I think we have amazing kids. We have
014an incredible staff that is underappreciated because you know what teaching staff isn't? And you know I really feel like I can bring that positive energy that vibe that that that reality that you we can all be optimists together. I started the year off with a word calleduntu. So the administrators here knew what I was saying. Abuntu is a South African phrase. It says I am because we are. I can't shine unless we all shine. And I really believe that about Waterbear. I think we all can shine. I think we all need to work together. I have a history here. I talked about all of my different positions. I understand and I've built relationships over 12 years. And so when I make a decision, sometimes I having that history and those relationships allows me to kind
015of see, okay, what's going to be the impact of this decision? And who do I need to communicate with and talk to before these decisions are made that quite frankly, if you don't have the history and relationships here, you might not you might not get. And then just lastly, I just think that uh overall I just I care. I care tremendously about what happens here. I care about our students and that's why I want to be the superintendent. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Okay, Dr. Lewis. Yeah. So, you know, I I'm on a mission. Uh I uh by no stretch of the imagination should be sitting here in front of you. Uh I didn't go to the best schools. Uh but I am the product of uh what a great education can do and uh a
016great education education in general is the great equalizer and waterberry uh is at an inflection point. Uh there's a lot of opportunity as Dr. Schwarz uh talked about uh and the city's poised to do great things, but there are some challenges um and education again being the great equalizer. Uh there about 24% of Waterberry uh residents live below the poverty line. The average median uh household income is around $51,000 per year. Unemployment is around 7% in the city. You have about a one in a 234 uh chance of being the victim of a crime and education is how we solve those problems. Over the last 5 years, over 300 plus new businesses have opened in the city. But as those businesses open, as the mayor and uh his administration uh bring down unemployment, a couple
017years ago it was 10.5%, now it's at six. You will need an educated workforce um to be able to take those jobs. Folks in the communities, whether from Bunker Hills to burnt hills, they're being priced out of uh the housing market. the average uh cost for rent of a one-bedroom is around $150. And if folks can't afford that, then our public school system is simply not doing the job it's intended to do. I'm on a mission and public education is the great equalizer. It's how you change the lives of young people, but more importantly, it's how you go on to change the community. Now, Waterberry has a lot of great ingredients, uh, but it's going to require a leader with a bold vision, a courageous leader who's willing to bring all the stakeholders together. And
018again, I am so grateful to see so many of you here, but I'm also disappointed that the room is in packed. This is our city. This is your city. And yes, uh, uh, Dr. Schwarz is the internal candidate. He's been here 12 plus years. has a lot of great relationships. That will be important. Dr. White's been here and it's a homecoming, but so too can having an outside perspective come in to help shape how we move forward. Uh, and that's why I want to be the superintendent because this is a great opportunity. And I think I can uh help us uh take the necessary steps to change not just our schools but the entire city. Thank you. Okay. Now, I'm going to start with Dr. Schwarz uh this time. Okay. Question number three. What would
019your top priorities be for the district and how would you plan to achieve them? Uh thank you. Uh so the top priorities uh I've been I've been able to think about this for a long time now. Uh and I see some people smiling at me because we've had a lot of good conversations about what to do here. I think sometimes what happens in Waterberry is we solve problems that don't exist. So we we we start initiatives that are that are great, that might make the paper, that might look good, but they're not solving the core issues that actually exist here in Waterberry public schools. And some of the issues that exist here are the same ones that were here when I came 12 years ago. And so, um, having the opportunity to be the superintendent
020to be able to lead the vision, uh, of of of when with the charge with the priorities in collaboration with the board of education, uh, is is really, uh, is really exciting for me. And so, some of those priorities are this, unless the city finds a way to hi to offer better highquality preschool education for all students, uh, we are going to continue to have students entering kindergarten that aren't ready. We need to do a better job at the preschool level. That's one. Multilingual students. We've we've almost doubled in 10 years. We need to have a better infrastructure. We need to give uh Manny, who I see back there, who is our supervisor of multilingual services. We have to give him an opportunity to be able to develop his department the way he sees fit
021so that he could serve. He's one supervisor over 4,000 students. That's not that's not a department built for success. So, we need to do a better job for our multilingual learners. We also elephant in the room special education folks. Special education special education costs have gone up $10 million in 5 years. $10 million. And it's not that many more students. It's just the costs are rising. And Waterberry is known for its programs. We have great internal programs. We have uh I was at a an event on Sunday at Buckill Park for autism awareness. Uh Mr. his voice and we're starting a a special education parent teacher organization for anyone interested. But the reality is is unless you you solve special education the staffing, we've been down 40 staff almost all year in special education, you
022can't you can't you can't help our most vulnerable students with that type of uh uh with that type of uh staffing. And and and to be honest, that's down from 60. So kudos to the uh to the to the human capital department who's really worked hard at going from 60 to 40. And so beyond that, I would say those are my three priorities. Safety is always a concern. Safety is always number one. I walked in as the interim and I was told Darren, the safety, everyone's talking about the safety. Well, as of today, we're on track. We're 29% uh on track for a 29% reduction in battery assault in our schools this year. 29% reduction, 10% reduction in weapons as well this year. And so those three things along as along with safety and the
023last thing would be worker satisfaction because unless teachers and administrators are happy about coming to work every day, we're going to keep on the same cycle and we're not going to be able to push the needle. So we got to we got to take care of our teachers, administrators, and all staff. All right, Dr. Lewis, your turn, sir. Yeah. Uh thank you. uh certainly uh agree with everything just said by Dr. Schwarz. All important things. Uh the question around uh priorities. Uh number one, I want to make it clear uh that as an incoming superintendent, I'm not coming in with a prescribed plan. Um I think one of the worst things leaders can do is to come in with a savior mentality that they have all the answers. I want to be super clear that
024the community already has all the answers. My job as superintendent is to help with the facilitation of putting those answers together and then helping us to coordinate to work urgently towards solving problems. That being said, uh in the superintendent candidate profile, the community articulated uh what should be the priorities uh reestablishing trust within the district, reestablishing uh transparency and accountability. So those would be uh my my initial priorities. Um I am a data driven person. So uh the next set of data that I looked at in thinking about uh what I would prioritize is is that we have a real uh issue in Waterberry right now in terms of uh inequities. uh when we look at absenteeism, when we look at truency, when we look at suspensions, when we look at proficiency rates, black students,
025brown students, students with disabilities, students who primary home language is not English are significantly uh falling behind uh their their counterparts. And if equity is something that we say that we believe in, then we're not doing a good enough job. Um and that's something that we we are going to have to tackle. um uh uh right away. Uh the next thing um that I would say is uh as I talked about earlier um education uh in order to move things forward is it's going to require collective action. And so in my opinion, the next superintendent is really going to have to be uh urgently and laser-like focused on bringing stakeholders together, families, uh community partners, uh uh uh the workforce development, uh uh the mayor's office or college partners. We have to bring all of
026the stakeholders together in order uh to a define what it is that we want. what are the dreams and aspirations for our kiddos and then set a pathway towards uh achieving that. So those would be my my three priorities. Okay. Thank you sir. Dr. White, I would absolutely have to agree with Malal being one of the issues. Uh if we don't have a happy workforce, we are not achieving the goals we need for our students. So we begin with that rebuilding the trust what looking at working conditions looking at what we need to do to make the experience for our staff better so that they can have their true impact on their students making sure that they feel safe coming to work making sure they have the supplies they need the things to the basic
027tools to do the job those that's where we begin that's the foundation because once we have the staff in place doing what they need to do. Then everyone can focus on the students. From there, the focus has to be on improving literacy, improving performance. So once we have our students able to do everything they need, uh, our staff able to what they need, then we're now able to work on our students, give them all the skills that they need to succeed going through school, working with our multilingual population, working with our special ed population, make sure those things are all in place so that students are able to achieve and succeed. And then of course let's let's work on what the post-graduate options are. Our goal is to graduate students ready for life, college, career,
028the military. So we really need to work on what what it means to come out of Waterberry public schools. What are they going to have the opportunities so that whether they stay here in town, they leave, but create a Waterberry that they're able to come back to. So we create all of these opportunities so that they are able to succeed. But again, the basis of this comes back to working with our staff first, giving them every piece they need so that they they they want to be here. It's an incredible staff here. My experience here, I loved working with everyone here in Waterberry. They're committed. Many of many of the staff are Waterberryians who have stayed here. This is the only place they've wanted to work. And that's that's a a statement to what it
029means to be here and we have to make it so that they are happy to stay here, not miserable to stay here and then from there all of the other steps can come together. Wonderful. Thank you gentlemen. Okay, we're on to question number four and I'm going to start with you Dr. Lewis. All right. Given the population distribution of Waterberry, the demographics of the current student population, what would be your initial view of the ideal Waterberry public school system in the next 5 years? So, I'll I'll I'll start off by uh I guess doing something I'm not supposed to do, which is somewhat reject the premise of the question. The question sets up in such a way that because of the demographics of the students that somehow expectations should not be the same. And I
030want to be clear that regardless of the demographics of our student body uh and and we are a predominantly minority uh uh district. 62% of students are Hispanic Latino. Uh uh it's about 29% that are black African-American. The expectations for me are the same that students will achieve great results that we will uh provide the type of educational journey for parents that for students that allows them to uh live up to their god-given potential. Um so the the demographics have nothing to do with that. Uh where the demographics uh come into play is the work that we need to do as adults in order to serve our students uh uh better. The reality again right now uh in every single metric whether you are looking at truency, suspensions and expulsions uh proficiency uh in ELA
031or math, our black students, our Hispanic students or students with disabilities. Uh the district's absenteeism rate right now is about 27% which is about 12%age points higher than the state average. But for students with disabilities that's about 40%. right? Why aren't we doing a better job of engaging our students with disabilities and providing them with the services that they need so that they're coming to schools? It's a similar story for our black students or Hispanic students and our students whose primary home language is not English. So, the expectation is the same. We just have to uh uh in my opinion uh figure out how to work better with our with our families, our community partners to engage students to provide them with the resources that they need. uh the home is the first school and
032the parent is the first teacher and we ought to be engaging them as co-teers to make sure that we can support um these students regardless of the demographics. Okay. Thank you, sir. Dr. Schwarz, so uh I mean I think I'd agree with Dr. Lewis that obviously the Democrat your zip code shouldn't determine your success period. We we I think no educator up here, no educator in the crowd believes that, right? And so nobody believes that your demographics, you wouldn't be here in Waterberry if you if you if you felt that way. And so um but I didn't hear what where we'd be in 5 years. I've heard a lot of what we don't do. So where we'll be in 5 years is in my op opinion, we have to have we have we let me
033just start off with this. We have an amazing amount of people in Waterberry working really really hard for kids. I don't even want to start the list because I'll forget someone. But we have an amazing amount of people. And what we don't have though is collective accountability as an entire not just school system but city of all of us working together, rowing together in the boat in the same direction all at once towards the same goals. And it's not just about this this pie in the sky achievement goal. It's about what is the goal for the water public schools and how can we get everyone together their collective voice of how we can achieve that. There's nobody that's going to sit up here. No, no superintendent that comes to the Waterberry public schools that's going
034to have all the answers. You need the entire organization in the city behind the the the school system. And you can't just look at the school system when something goes wrong. It needs to we all need to feel accountable for what's happening in our schools. And so with that being said, I think in 5 years, my ideal system is a system where we have collective accountability across the city that we all are engaged in similar goals, working together, pulling our resources so that we are all working towards those goals as one rather than United Way working here and another, you know, I said I wasn't going to list everyone, but all these different organizations working doing amazing things for kids, but we're not doing it consistently and working together. And then like I said earlier,
035I do believe in the uh that eternal optimist belief in Waterberry public schools. I think within five years, not only are we going to get back to our prepandemic levels, which by the way, before the pandemic, I I bet a lot of people don't know this. Before the pandemic, the four years leading up to it, Waterberry Public Schools had the highest rate of growth on the accountability index than any other district in Connecticut that was pre-K12. The Waterberry Public Schools had the highest rate of growth. That was through three different superintendents. And so I watched that as a as not just a as a participant, as a leader in the district to see that we could get back to that type of accelerated growth. I really believe that. Go past our pre-andemic levels and really
036be the premier system in New England. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Okay. Dr. White. Okay. Um the superintendent uh former superintendent of Milwaukee one time said to a group of us when we were talk about parents don't keep their good kid at home to see how we do with one kid. They send the kids they have. So in some ways we have the ideal system. Now the demographics aren't going to change that. The student in front of us is the student we have to teach. So what we have to do is again go back to what are the supports needed multilingual learners we need to increase those supports special education we need to increase those supports so the ideal system is where we are able to get our students everything that they need that are able
037to become out critical thinkers that are able to make choices for what their lives are going to be like when they graduate from our high schools. they are going to be able to make life choices and improve their life outcomes. That's the ideal system that can be put together and that the backwards planning to that from now uh five years from now to today is that shared responsibility working with our families working with the city in all aspects to make sure that there we have opportunities uh support that we create the employable workforce in this city. uh that we create the college educated staff to come back and teach our kids again, work on growing our own. All of those things come together from making sure we work with our kids who we have now.
038And it doesn't change because of the demographics, the zip code, all of that. Everyone who's part of this city should have the same opportunity to succeed, and that comes from us working together on those pieces. Wonderful. All right, gentlemen. So, we eased in with the first four. Uh, question number five um is going to be a little bit lengthier, so buckle up. Okay. There is a great increase in mental health needs, especially in autism. Yet, the district has not grown over the years to accommodate these children in terms of appropriate programming. There have been several factors stated as short staffing, the budget, etc. And in the meantime, these students are left in environments that are truly not appropriate for their level of needs. As a superintendent, how will you handle this issue in the expansion
039of programs in an area that has been in dire need for sever several years but continues to fall short? So, Dr. White, I'm starting with you. Do you need me to repeat any part of the question? Um, if you could read one more time. Okay. All right. I understand we're they're going to get a little give me a little weight. They're going to be more multifaceted. So, I'm giving the three of you fair warning now. Okay. There is a great increase in mental health needs, especially in autism. Yet, the district has not grown over the years to accommodate these children in terms of appropriate programming. There have been several factors stated as short staffing, the budget, etc. And in the meantime, these students are left in environments that are truly not appropriate for their level
040of needs. As a superintendent, how will you handle this issue in the expansion of programs in an area that has been in dire need for several years but continues to fall short? So, I'm going to start with you first, Dr. White. Okay. So, coming in as the new superintendent, one of the things has to be a needs assessment of everything that is happening. Knowing what is the current state of the program and how we can improve that. uh as you said in this question that uh it's there's been a lack of programming or then uh not the quality of programming quality programming begins to improve with that needs assessment knowing what needs to be done making sure that we are accurately placing our children in the right programming and then also providing the professional development
041for staff where necessary expanding staff so that we have these programs put in place uh for autism but for mental health in general. We know that since the pandemic our students have come back to a very different experience a diff different way of coping and different levels of struggle and we have to support them. Social emotional learning has to be increased so that it becomes part of the curriculum. It's done some elements of it have to be part of the curriculum. Other elements do require other environments for that. And again, starting with a needs assessment, we know what we need to have and how many how many different types of programmings we need in place to support all of our students. And then from there, training up the staff to be able to deliver that
042program and working on what would probably be very difficult budget decisions to make priorities in these areas because it does cost more to do proper programming. But children deserve those things and then we get we we have to make that a priority and live up to the priorities we set. Okay. Terrific Dr. Lewis. Yes. Uh certainly agree with with Dr. White. I think the first thing you do is a needs assessment. You get a sense of what what is already in place. Uh what's working, what's not working. Uh I think the second thing you do uh is do some asset mapping to see what uh resources are available within the community um that we might not be uh taking advantage of. uh you know schools are microcosms of their communities and so whatever is happening
043in a community would ultimately manifest in a school and so just as in a community you have a wide array of resources to uh support the community you similarly need the same things happening in schools and so uh one of the things I I really try to to emphasize is the need to create ecosystems of supports around schools which require higher uh public private partnerships. Um especially in areas where uh we are we are lacking such as mental health. Um I think about in Atlanta where um at the Rice schools um I uh brought uh to our schools the first in the state to provide all of our staff uh to become certified in mental health first aid in a partnership through uh NAMI, the National Association of Mental uh illness. I think uh because
044this is not just a waterberry specific issue um uh this is a statewide and a national issue. I would want us to look at uh working with our neighboring districts to create some sort of a regional hub so that we can pull resources because uh all of our districts across the the the state right now are are struggling financially especially with the loss of esser dollars. So where we can pull resources to solve some of the same problems I think this presents an opportunity. I think this is an opportunity as well to utilize uh technology. A lot of mental health resources are available uh through technology. I remember again going back to Atlanta even pre uh COVID um I partnered with organizations to be able to do uh speech and occupational therapy virtual and we
045were the first to do it when others thought that things like that uh wasn't possible that only certain services could be done in person and I demonstrated that it could be done uh virtually. I will also add that a role of a superintendent, especially in a district this size, is that we have to be on the front line working uh with or appointed and elected officials advocating on behalf of our district for more funding from the state. A district our size, we carry a lot of social and political capital. And I think uh to be able to go to legislators and say I am representing a system that services 18,000 students and their families are fed up and they are expecting you all to find more money in legislation to support the needs of their
046students. I think that's a powerful part of the work. Um and those are some of the things that that I would absolutely do. And I uh in my last five seconds just emphasized the need that mental health support has to go to our staff as well because they came back, I came back, we all came back from the pandemic with a variety of different things. And so it's not just students, it's the adults in our communities as well that um I would want to make sure that we're supporting in terms of their mental health needs. Thank you, Dr. Luc. Okay, Dr. Schwarz. Okay, thank you so much. Big question, so long answer here. So um you know what I've been able to in Waterberry our teachers need help. Nobody's saying that um I don't think
047anyone in in the in the question and the answers here that the reality is is our teachers are coming to work every single day and counting on us the leaders to be able to formulate either uh either either support whether it be through uh funding support whether it be programmatic support. They're coming every day and they're begging for extra help in in this area. And so what I've been able to do here in Waterberry, so just to be clear, there was an audit done here uh a few years ago. So those in the Waterberry public schools should know that those in the Waterberry public schools, there was an audit done, but uh Dr. Ruffin uh helped support an audit for the special education services. Through that audit, we've been able to make some changes. So
048a lot of that road mapping and asset mapping has been done for the Waterberry public schools and uh which is which is great because that's where you start, right? But the reality is some of those things that have come out of that just to just I've been a it's been a pleasure to be a part of you know I see Wendy Johns and Tracy Mensy here they've been able to create a roadmap for mental health supports that they have provided not only just for adults but also for students and that roadmap really clarifies all the um all the different programs and opportunities whether it is the school-based health center whether it's CJR whether it's clinicians coming into our school to to support students they've been able to really clarify all of the different areas in
049which we provide that mental health support. And in fact, uh I was able to work with a superintendent uh advisory committee. There's about uh 50 students on that superintendent advisory committee that consists of juniors and seniors. Guess what we're doing on Thursday here at WAMS. We're creating a PSA on mental health. And who whose idea was that? It was a student's idea because they want to be able to create a public service announcement for other students on all of the things that are available here in the Waterberry public schools. Um, I also uh want to just go back to the this concept of the SEPTO and the special ed parent teacher organization because a lot of times our parents are looking for support. It's sometimes could be it can be very lonely sometimes being a
050parent of of a student with special needs. And so getting a communal uh opportunity together to provide uh a learning for parents, provide an opportunity for them to engage with us is going to be really important. We also were able to bring Sandy Hook Promise in under uh with with part of my leadership and Sandy Hook Promise allows students at any time of the day. Trust me, I get the text because I know 247 kids can say, "Hey, I'm thinking about hurting myself. Hey, I you know, I was just talking to another student online and you know, this isn't right." And it's anonymous and we get those calls and we get out to the the schools and we we work with the police departments to get out to those homes to be able to work
051with them. I'm also engaged Yukon. Yukon is doing this. Oh, Yukon's doing a survey uh for our Kota schools. I've been working with Representative Khan who's fighting for us in Connecticut to be able to get us more money to get the special ed is a big topic right now in our uh in in especially the bianium budget. I work directly with our representatives and representative Khan. I work with the Connecticut Association of Urban Superintendent because we need more money to be able to service student. And I think finally in my last five seconds I think somebody said once that the professional learning for uh for teachers obviously is really uh super important. Uh Dr. White said that but we also need programmatic handbooks here in Waterberry. We need to define what our programs are so
052that we understand how students get into the programs and what we expect for outcomes and how we support students throughout their journey in our special education uh uh in their special education journey with us. Thank you Dr. Schwarz. Okay, Dr. White. I'm sorry. We're gonna Sorry, I want to give Dr. Schwarz a break. Uh, that extra five seconds threw me off. All right. You might want to take a sip of water before I ask question six. And that's a recommendation for all three of you. All right, question number six. We're going to start with Dr. Schwarz. The academic achievement of our students is our primary focus. Would you please give us some examples of how you have helped improve academic performance in your career? Also, how might you go about improving scores in WPS, monitor
053progress and highlight areas in need of improvement? And I can repeat the question if necessary. All right, one more time. No, I think I got it. I got it. You got it. Yeah, I got it. Uh so academic achievement I talked about that uh the the highest rate of growth in the four years prior to the pandemic happened and the one consistency uh and this isn't to be braggadocious but the reality is is the chief as the chief academic officer we had a core group of people that stayed here and worked here through transitions of different superintendent and that that with the board of education the support from them and the funding available with the chief financial officer putting money towards investing in our curriculum and writing our curriculum and getting teachers what they need
054in the classroom is what made the difference in those four years. Teachers had the materials, they had aligned curriculum, but most importantly, and I truly believe this is that um if if you think of a throughine, right? Their central office, which everybody likes to talk about, right? So, their central office has a through line and they should have the same goals as building administrators. Building administrators should have the same goals as the staff within their classrooms and then students should be setting goals aligned to that. And so, we used to do that. we used to have a better through line from central office all the way to the student and we've gotten away from that and so um for me improving the academic achievement um there's a there's a playbook that has worked here in
055Waterberry and it is working through that through line and identifying number one what we need uh as a district looking at the scores and doing a root cause analysis why are we getting these scores not to make assumptions not to not to make guesses although I've been here for 12 years it's a it's an important uh task ask to be able to go through with your educators to say what is the root cause of why we're getting these scores and then to be able to establish goals with the board of education and again going back to that idea of collective accountability everybody working together towards the same goals. If we put it all in the teachers it's not going to work. If we just say administrators make sure your schools do that it's not going
056to work. We all need everyone in this room, whether you're a family member, whether you're a board member, whether you're a community member, need to be collectively accountable in working towards that. And so to prove those scores, uh, you need data systems. Um, you know, every school, every school district is perfectly designed to get the results it's getting. Every school district is perfectly designed to get the results it's getting. We're designed to get the results we're getting right now. And so we have a lack of data systems that also uh permeate that through line that I talked about. We need a better district data team that also talks to the school data teams to the instructional data teams within the schools and then that needs to be monitored through the progress of not only identifying
057and looking at the scores on a consistent basis having those conversations but also you need to be in the schools. You want to ask how how how you're doing. Go and ask a teacher, go and ask a pair professional. Go and ask a parent leaison how you're doing because they'll tell you. they're they're not going to sometimes the administrators might tell you what you want to hear even though they'll tell you too. Um I you go and ask the the hall monitor, you ask the office staff, you you have to be visible in the schools. And so how are you going to do that? You need to get into schools. You need to get in the classrooms. You need to work with the teachers and you need to be able to monitor that progress through
058walkthrough opportunities uh not only at the school level but also as a central office. Thank you Dr. Schwarz. Okay, Dr. White. Now you're at bat. Okay. So the first part was times that I've been part of that success. Well, some of the data that was talked about, I was here for for that success here in Waterberry. And then also prior to that, uh when I was a principal, I was able to move my school forward. Uh one of the years I was principal, we had uh the highest growth in our middle school grades. Um back then it was still the CMTs. That's so yes, I'm dating myself to back a couple testing platforms before, but that those are a couple examples of it. Uh working on building that database as Darren spoke about. Of course,
059you need to make sure you have proper data. In New Haven, we've been using the data wise process, which has been that process of really looking at the data, uh, stripping away the assumptions, uh, and inferences and then really trying to figure out what is the problem, what what do we need to do, and then making using that to diagnose what we have to try to fix it. And then if that works, great. go back and let's look back at what what's the next thing. If that doesn't let's make sure we didn't make the wrong assumption and figure out the next steps. So it is a systematic approach to going through data making sure we figure that out and make the choices so that again we're putting putting our bets on the right things. uh
060of course making sure that curriculara is up to date in all the time and continue to update that so that we are teaching our things the correct things so that they are able to succeed on the exterior measures. We need our internal assessments so that we have the dipsticks to know along the way how our kids are doing so that no one's surprised. The the results when they come out in July shouldn't be a surprise. We should be able to have a good approximation of where we're going to be if we take the steps along the way. The same way students shouldn't be surprised at the end of the year on the grade they're getting on their report card. We work towards that. Make sure they have the opportunities to learn what they're supposed to
061do, what they're doing, how they're doing, and make make course corrections as they go along. We apply that same thing to the classroom to the results we get there. Support our staff in doing those things. Uh have the walkthroughs look at see what's happening in classrooms. Again, Dr. Schwarz said perfectly. You can't you can't supervise all of academics from central office. You have to be in buildings. You have to see the experience that students are having. And that includes are they engaged? are they able are they ready to take in that information or are we not doing what's necessary to give them those supports. So, it's a combination of all of those things that create the ability to monitor success and get towards the goals that we do want to achieve within that plat in
062in platform. Thank you, Dr. Okay, Dr. Lewis. Yeah. Uh the first the first thing I'll say is uh our our students are absolutely more than just test scores, right? Um and so when I think about achievement, I think about the holistic development of our of our young people or our goal is to uh make sure that we are graduating fully well-rounded uh students who can go on to live productive happy lives, right? um and choose whatever kind of pathways that they want for themselves. Um that being said, I I I do understand the the question here is talking specifically about academics. I I'll say a couple of things. One, you know, when I when I got to South Ben, Indiana, I went there specifically because uh the state board of education went into the district
063and took away a subset of schools from the district that were all failing schools on one side of town. it was all black and brown students, students below the poverty line. And the state took away those schools from the district um and created kind of a micro district called the empowerment zone. And when I got there, only 2% of kids were on grade level in ELA, 6% in math, and 78% of eighth graders were three or more grade levels behind. Um and we really turned uh that around. In one of our schools, Warren Elementary, 35% of students were students with the most severe disabilities. I'm talking about students who required a full-time one-to-one parro, had feeding tubes, things of that nature. Um, in one year, um, uh, Warren on the Learn assessment, uh, average growth
064in ELA was 9.8% and 17.9% in math, the highest and the second highest in the entire city. our average growth um uh surpassed the larger district, the state average growth, the three neighboring districts and all the charter schools uh in the region. Um and that wasn't something that I did on my own. Um that was a team effort. Um, and I want to be clear that as superintendent, the the number one way you impact uh student achievement is through staffing because I can't be in all 33 buildings and I can't be in every single meeting. But I can really be thoughtful and intentional about the people that we choose to put in front of our kiddos, how we support them, how we train them. Uh and through the staffing um through making sure that they
065had the resources through professional development we were able uh to achieve all of those things uh uh you improve student achievement by being focused on equity as well. As I talked about before um we do have some uh students that are achieving in Waterberry right now, but the achievement is not equitable and we're doing an injustice uh to those students. Uh, one of the things I did in Southbend as well was to introduce a balance scorecard which tracks 72 KPIs across three different domains that was public facing so that the members of the public could look at our data at any single time and see how we were doing. In one of my prior roles, I was the certified lead evaluator for Cogna. Um, Cognia is the world's largest accredititation body and so I would
066go in with a team um for for a couple of days and then make recommendations as to whether or not a school should be accredited or not. So I know very intimately what it takes in to to make continuous improvement work um and how to move uh uh systems and that's what I would bring as your next superintendent uh to Waterberry. Okay, thank you gentlemen. Okay, on to question number seven and we're going to start with you first Dr. Lewis. And then on deck we have Dr. Schwarz. And wrapping it up will be Dr. White. Question number seven. Community input and trust is vitally important to the district's success. How would you go about getting that input and building community trust and a vision for the future? Also, many decisions that have been made are
067difficult. How would you work with the community on unpopular issues? Yeah. uh you know when when I again got to to Southbend in my first uh 90 days I did well over 15 town hall meetings with just families alone. Um I was also intentional about making sure that I did town hall meetings by subgroups. Um, you know, when you have uh uh uh uh town hall meetings, um one of the things we know to be true is that for our families whose uh primary uh home language is not English, they're often hesitant to come to public forums. And if and when they do, they're often hesitant to speak up because of fear or embarrassment around the language barrier. And so I held meetings specifically for families who did not um uh uh speak English as
068their primary language. We also did the same thing for subgroups. If you have 50 families in a room uh and to one family their child has an IEP uh and has a feeding tube and require one time a full-time onetoone power, that's going to be their most important problem versus the other family who is just concerned about, you know, the bus picking their kid up late every single day. both issues are equally important to those families, but they don't bring the same weight. And so it's hard to have deep, meaningful conversations uh when you bring those different types of issues together as opposed to bringing families together to discuss issues specific to their subgroups. So that's one thing I did to really improve uh uh student engagement. Of course, we created uh um I'm sorry,
069parent engagement. Of course, we created parent advisory councils. um uh as well which I'm sure already exists here. I did same thing similar with our staff. Um so I met with staff by building by grade level also by content area to hear directly what their concerns were and we brought students in a part of that process as well. So we made budgetary decisions or when we made programmatic decisions students were a part of that process. In fact, um we partnered um uh with a a program that allowed students to give teachers feedback in real time on their instruction and then teachers um could use the feedback from students to uh to make modifications to their instructional style and delivery. It's one thing when your principal says your class, your lesson isn't engaging, right? That principal
070doesn't like me. Of course, they're going to say that. It's another thing when you have 24 kids and they take a survey and they give you that feedback in real time um to improve uh your instructional practice. So we made sure that that student self-efficacy and agency um uh was there. I did a lot of small group uh focus groups as well as one-to-one interviews uh because ultimately uh you need to bring everyone together to be a part of decision- making. I believe that as a leader you uh you have to be okay with uh being transparent with folks and giving them the information that they need uh and then remove the barriers to um from them being accessed information. I know a lot of superintendents think that you know if we share this information
071it's going to open a can of worms. is going to lead to more difficult conversations. But I think you give people information and you trust them to engage in the process. And if you do that, the decisions, especially the difficult ones, uh become a lot easier. Um uh and certainly wish I had more time to give more examples, but that is my leadership style because ultimately if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, the board is going to have a moment of silence. Uh board president Hernandez is going to appoint somebody within the next day and then the work continues. But how we keep things moving forward. You said there won't be a moment of silence. How the work continues is by making sure that it is grounded in the community and it's not just
072driven by one individual. That's why you constantly have to churn because that was that superintendent's idea. So when he or she leaves, we get rid of it. But if it's our idea, it doesn't matter who the superintendent is. That's how you create change and you make meaningful sustainable change if it's our collective efforts that's driving the work of the district. Okay. Thank you Dr. Lewis and Dr. Schwarz. I I'll give you and uh Dr. White 30 more seconds on this. I'm sorry guys. No, that's okay. Um so you know I I think the the one positive although you know I've heard from Dr. Louis that, you know, bringing outside perspective in uh could be a breath of fresh air on in terms of a new direction. And the reality is I do think that um
073being here for 12 years, working the different capacities that I've had, I've been able to build up a lot of trust with various components of the community that have taken a good amount of time to be able to do that. Takes time to cultivate those relationships um in Waterberry. And sometimes those relationships don't always start off great. um sometimes they they start off good and then they become tumultuous and then you come back together and you end up working together toward towards the betterment of what's right for kids. Um but over 12 years I've been able to gain a lot of those relationships uh within the community. And so um to seek that input it may look slightly different for me but I also don't want to assume that I know what people are thinking
074just because I've been here for so long. And so I do if elected as the uh and promoted as the superintendent here in the um um in the district, you know, I do think that there is going to be maybe a truncated version of a of a of a listening tour that uh Dr. Lewis talked about. Uh but one that still needs to uh occur anyways because I don't want to assume. I don't want to walk in uh thinking that just because I've been here for 12 years, I know everything. I I I don't think that. And if anybody knows me, I'm constantly working and and striving to understand what people are thinking and feeling about the district. And so whether that be with businesses, parents and guardians, students, uh as you mentioned, staff, elected
075officials, and specifically the board of education and having real sit-down one-on-one conversations with the board of education because the board of education's elected and they're elected by the people and they quite often get a lot of feedback from the people. And so the board of education has a lot of knowledge about what's going on, not just in education, but also how the community is feeling about it. And so I'd really want to sit down with them individually, go through a series of questions and find out and and one of my questions will will not just be what's going right, what do you think needs to be worked on, but also who are we not talking to that I need to talk to? Uh because there's it's a big district, right? So even if I've been
076here for 12 years, there's people that I have not made connections with yet and that I I really want to. I I yearn for that. I I spend a lot of nights and weekends trying to do that, continue to do so. And so, uh, you know, not just, uh, the, uh, not just the the forms that we talked about. I think that's a good idea. Obviously, the traditional, uh, forms and surveys could reach people that have a hard time getting out of the house. Um, it could also be in languages that are spoken at their home. Um, but also uh you could do uh uh you could you could cast uh and do a presentation uh via the social media and try to reach people that way as well. I think that's an important way
077to try to reach everyone. Um not just having them physically come, but maybe you're set up and you're you're casting on a on a platform. But also, I think it's important to meet people in in in places that aren't like this. Schools aren't the most inviting places for everybody in the community. If you had a bad experience in a school, you usually don't want to go back to a school to go talk about how how education's going. So, I would want to look out I'd look out to uh looking at the Hispanic Coalition, looking at our churches, uh looking at um different areas within the community, whether it's could be the YMCA, could be could be could be WOW, um could be the North End Wreck, uh you know, all the various organizations that are
078in the communities that you know, whether it's PAL, PAL has lots of kids, lots of programs, right? uh everybody knows how important Pal is. Maybe you should go there and ask for feedback rather than inviting people and saying come to my home and and talk to me here because it can be intimidating. So, I'd want to do that as well. Uh because I think that builds trust. When you meet people where they are, especially where they're comfortable, I think that's really important. And then finally, you asked about unpopular issues. We've had a few in Waterberry over the years, I'd say. No. Um and so a few unpopular issues. I think you got to be upfront and transparent and you got to lay out in the data and the facts and you can't communicate enough. You
079got to communicate and you can't walk into a situation that's going to be unpopular and assume you already have the answer. You have to be an active listener. So, you got to lay out the facts, but then you got to listen and you and and sometimes when you're just listening, something triggers like, "Oh, you know what? There's a different path than what I was thinking of because I was able to actively listen and bring it. So, you have to be honest. You have to be transparent. You have to be upfront. You can't hide away. You can't just sneak it on a Friday afternoon out there. You got to just be out there with the information. be willing to hear people actively listen and then um and like I said don't go uh uh go on
080to answer your own question without an open mind you have to be open-minded okay thank you sir Dr. White the mic is yours sometimes by going through it the worst thing is uh a lot of things you've thought about or want to talk about have already been taken but no problem but I'll I'll start with uh the point Dr. Schwarz had talked about. Yes. Part of it is being outside of the buildings, outside of the school. Um going to to community, not not have just sitting here and hoping the community will come in. We have to go out to different places, be visible, be out asking the questions, uh talking with what was hearing. What are you hearing out there? Talk to our team. What are you hearing? So that we know when there's an
081issue, what's the issue is? and try to support because it doesn't always have to be when the house is on fire. If we could put things out when they're smoldering by getting ahead of things and the way you do that is by having open communications, knowing what's going on around the city, being engaged, uh doing the things on the weekends, the night events, all of those come into building that sense of comm community communication and ultimately trust. you have to uh also use technology. uh we h at the age where you do have different platforms that can elicit feedback whe uh surveys all of those different methods can be used so that the person who can't necessarily be out here I'm sure if we look at the count of the streaming tonight it is far
082far exceeds the number of people in this room if there are ways to provide get feedback those are the things we have to do so that community while they may not physically always be able to get somewhere that they do have a means to engage. Uh having the frank conversations and then the difficult conversations. Um I was here when we started turnaround at Crosby and Walsh and we know those some of those were not very popular times and the work was came about through communication talking with our stakeholders explaining what was happening talking with our teachers how how this was going to be what does this look like and come to some real understandings. Um, you can't do that by just hiding. You have to be forward with that. You have to be able to
083take the decision and deal with consequences. And then also, if you've made a mistake, you've made a mistake. Uh, we h recently I had to move an assistant principal from one school to cover another school for a variety of reasons. Uh, nothing was wrong. it was that another principal was out on leave but the announcement came out this is happening and the staff uh felt heard and they expressed that to me. So I came I met with the staff at the staff meet we actually held a restorative circle giving people the opportunity to talk about their feelings about that. One of the things I said felt that it was the announcement was cold. Um it was actually just it was a factual announcement. I didn't think I was being cold, but hey, it was that
084was the feedback and I apologized and talked with them about how how this could have been done better and what what the goals were we were trying to achieve and we left the meeting in a good place. Those are the things getting ahead of something not not assuming you'll get it right and when you don't get it right take those opportunities to correct it and continue going back. It's not going out to career. It's not one and done opportunities. It's the ongoing dialogue that creates the opportunity and the trust that your superintendent is doing the things he needs to do to make our schools better and our community better. All right, gentlemen. If I could ask let's try to get back on on time with the three minutes allotted to each question. I appreciate your
085thoroughess and the well-rounded answers to your questions, but I do want to ask as many questions that the community has submitted uh prior to tonight's um community forum. So, Dr. White, you get to go first this time. Uh, question number eight. How would you foster the academic achievement of ELLL students, alternative students, gifted and talented students, and students attending other programs while maintaining equity across all groups of students? One more time. How would you foster the academic achievement of ELLL students, alternative students, gifted and talented students, and students attending other programs while maintaining equity across all groups of students? Okay, it starts again with that needs assessment that I talked about earlier, making sure we know what we have and also a quality assessment cuz it's not just say we have an multilingual program or
086we have the dual language school. We have to really put the pieces behind that to make that come together. And then from there it's making sure that the quality is improved is up to standard and we we bring that across to all elements of program and also we don't forget about our talidated gift and make sure they are getting what they need but also we have to do things for the nos. I these are the kids who are not your high flyers in your school of doing great things your top 10 but they're not turning over your school either. These are the kids who are just kids. Come to school, do what they need to do. And sometimes as educators, we forget that that middle band of kids who are just about trying to be
087students, be the person they are learning into the self. So we have to make sure we're providing programs and opportunities so that we're not just servicing the ones that we're doing out of compliance. We have to service everyone out of our our true belief, our goals, and our values and make those decisions. So out of the value of equity everything will come together as we build those programs make sure it all comes together and bring make that a reality for every single student. Okay. Thank you Dr. Dr. Lewis please. Yeah. Uh you know when I am assessing the health of a uh school or system the first thing I do is to look at subgroups. If your subgroups are doing well, then it it increases the likelihood that your general population uh is doing well.
088Uh you know, when you build uh a building and you put stairs, just only folks that can walk can use the stairs. But when you have a ramp, those who can walk and those who cannot walk can still access the building because you have a ramp. And that's essentially what equity is. and get into broader terms around inclusion etc. Um and so the the idea um uh that by potentially focusing on some subgroups of students that you are forgetting other students you can build the ceiling and the floor simultaneously. Um and so that's how I think about things uh programmatically. You can focus on acceleration and remediation simultaneously. um we already have uh the DLI program at Clemente um to the extent that we can expand that. So that's um uh uh some sort of
089a K through 12 articulation is something that I would look at and and in general whether it's around uh gifted and talented or any of our our subgroups I would want to make sure that we have the opportunity to have K through 12 vertical alignment and articulation um across the board. um that we have very clear pathways um uh for students um that the majority of our students um have the opportunity to have AP courses uh dual enrollment opportunities. Uh right now when you look at uh AP participation uh there is under reppresentation of uh black and brown students who are accessing AP courses. Um uh so even within the the opportunities that we have for acceleration um not all students are have the same equitable opportunity uh uh to access that. But I think
090that starts with a doing a comprehensive needs assessment looking at the data and then making sure that we have vertical alignment and articulation for K through 12 um uh for for all pathways. Um and that obviously starts with uh strong uh prek and early childhood. Um so that's how I I think about um uh uh that question in terms of uh achievement for ELLL and other specialized groups. Okay. Terrific. Thank you Dr. Lewis. And under three minutes under three and then Dr. Short starting my timer. So, uh, every student deserves a high quality education and, uh, for those that have watched my career over the last 12 years, you know that, you know, I'm not I don't shy away from that equity talk. I don't, you know, we have conversations about it consistently. We still
091have conversations about it regarding um, what's happening in in the in in the larger sense of education. Um, but, you know, equity in itself uh, isn't enough, you know. So, you asked specific questions about multilingual students. I'll call them multilingual. I know you said ELLL gifted and talented al uh alternative ed students and students attending programs. So I want to take this uh one by one. So multilingual students I I I mentioned it earlier as part of my priorities. So I'm glad it was a question because it is a priority. Um we have to provide high quality professional learning for our staffing. We got to keep our staffing right here right now. We've got to be able to create the SCA model for all our schools. And it's not just for you know multilingual isn't
092just for the multilingual teachers by the way. It's for all teachers in our district at this point. over 4,000 students are multilingual learners. So that means it's something that all of our teachers could benefit from. And so I'd really want to again work with our bilingual and multilingual office to be able to um sit down, expand that office, create a structure that is going to be able to deliver on high quality professional learning, not just for multilingual teachers, but for all teachers in the district because it's a collective responsibility of ours. Um, I also noticed uh I don't know if you if you know this, not this year, but last year there was like 35 kids in a kindergarten program of that was a bilingual program. 35 kids sitting in one of our kindergarten classes.
093And so, um, you know, that was an easy solution. What we did is we opened up a couple of extra classes at Walsh this year that are bilingual programs. No kid should be sitting, talk about equity, no kid, kindergartener student, a multilingual, many newcomers to the to the to the city should be sitting in a in a kindergarten class with 34 other students while they're trying to learn. And so um you know, so also opening our bilingual programming across the district, opening up more classrooms, say where we can uh provide that opportunity. And you know, Roberto Clemente International Dual Language School is going to uh sixth to 8th grade as well. So that's a very popular program for our dual language program. Gifted and talented. I started the uh the the the work here um
094and worked together with several other uh individuals including Dr. Baker and a few others about establishing the Nagi as a non-verbal uh assessment for uh for uh students being identify as gifted and talented. It's non-verbal because we have a lot of newcomers and a lot of students that are multilingual. You don't want your gifted and talented program be uh subject to English language. And so we've been able to do that. We've been able to create the academic academy, early college high school under uh the leadership of several superintendent. Soar is an amazing I see uh principal Johnston back there. Career academy with a lot of awesome programs that our gifted and talented students continue to go to. Alternative edge students, it's not just state street and enlightenment anymore. We opened the um expulsion academy this
095year and the exposure academy has over 50 students in it. They're separated out now. They used to be in with all the alternative students and guess what? as of today, zero referrals for any student in that program. Zero referrals, behavioral referrals for kids in that program. And I just uh uh end this by saying that um Dr. Lewis, I agree with you that we are uh under reppresented in AP. That's because if you know our program of studies, uh many of our students actually choose dual enrollment courses because they I get the college credit for that without having to take the test. And we're actually over represented in that area if you look at that. And as the chief academic officer, we took away all gates in our program of studies. You do not have
096to get a teacher signature to get into that AP or dual enrollment class. If you want to take that challenging class, you get to take that class. All right, Dr. Schwarz, don't get too comfortable with your first and the question nine. All right, question number nine. I'm going to assume you're ready. Uh could you please tell us about your philosophy on managing people and what do routine interactions with principles, teachers, and other staff look like? How do you deal with conflict either with you or between subordinates? Yeah. So I'm I'm collaborative by nature. Um my philosophy is um you know we're we're a profession. Teaching is a profession and I take that professionalism with me uh every day when I come to work and I expect the same from everybody that I work with. And
097so um I hold everyone accountable. Uh if you ask uh Juan Mendoza and I both work together in Hartford and he said you were the toughest on me uh when you were my supervisor as a as a director. And I said I was tough on you because I knew how good you were and I knew what I could get from you. And so you know my philosophy is I'm collaborative. I expect um I expect uh um not just cabinet but all of those at central office and our staff to uh to to come to work not just prepared but also with the mindset that what we do every day matters it matters for students and you can only do that with with go back to that word iuntu if if my success is your success
098your success is my success and so you know I believe my philosophy is that that you have to be able to work together you have to be collaborative you have to be able to uh celebrate the positive You have to be willing to do that. You know, I think a lot of times we get so stuck in the negative, we forget about the positive here. And so, um, you know, I'm also, uh, um, I'm not afraid. You know, I think, uh, I was about a month ago, I was, uh, where's Mr. McCasen? I pi him in the face at a school, you know. So, you know, his kids were doing a fundraiser. They were doing a uh, you know, thing and they said, "Hey, maybe you could come over here." Of course, I went to
099the school. I gave it an opportunity to to walk around a little bit, but then I snuck around the back door and gave him a pie in the face in front of all the kids. So, you know, those are the types of things that I think uh that's the type of person I am. I also like to you can you can also bring joy to the work, but it doesn't have to be folly, right? You could bring joy to the work. This is we're talking about educating students. Um we all dedicated our lives to this and uh the teachers did as well. So, to point fingers and say you're not doing right, you're not doing this, that that doesn't work. So, you got to be collaborative in nature, you got to bring positive vibes, you
100got to be able to um that those are my routine interactions with people. Uh, but they also know that if I ask you to do something, you better do it because I'm going to ask in about a week when you're not at when you're not ready for it and I'm going to say, "So, how are we doing on this thing?" Like, "Oh, I can't believe you remember that." Um, because I write everything down. I use the notebook still with the pen. And so, I keep everything down. I write it down and I just say, "Hey, how are we doing with that?" And I just keep it going. So, that's my routine interactions. And with conflict, um, I think with conflict, it's it's it's just straightforward. You got to be honest, transparent with everyone. Um, you
101got to be able to to look someone in the eye and have the hard conversation. And so for me, uh, when you deal with conflict, you got to be able to look someone in the eye. You got to you got to be able to, um, actively listen, understand, uh, where the con conflict is generating from, and then, um, you can't be afraid to to to have that tough conversation. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Dr. White, uh, my philosophy overall is being a servant leader. So, it begins with, uh, we are all equal in the work. Um, sometimes the job is cleaning up after someone else. Sometimes it's making tough decisions to lead lead the entire district. So, it starts with a respect for everyone doing the work. That's that's the beginning of it. Uh, from
102there it's how do we get to the common goal? We talk about that, discuss what are your goals, what are my goals, how do we get there together. Uh and then it's providing the supports because there's going to be pressure but there has to be the support to bring throughout that pressure to get both of us all of us to get to the level that we need to get to. So it's at no point is anyone in it alone. Uh everyone is in this together. We have to make make advances together. So you look take that perspective. You take the perspective of the goal is to support our children. It's not to feed my ego, not to feed your ego. It is what are the decisions we're making for our kids. How do we build
103that together through conversation, true accountability, and then when we mess up, own up to what we've messed up on and fix it because we're all going to make mistakes. Big ones, small ones. Own up to that. Let's move forward. figure out how we take the next step and do do those things in conflict. It comes back to that same owning up. We we may not agree on every single thing, but the expectation is certain things have to be done and it's coming from a place for moving this district forward. It's not coming from the place of I have to be right. This is about what needs to be done for children. If we keep them at the center, keep our staff at the center of our decisions, how do we support them, the ego goes
104away, the gold stays on focus, stays the focus and we keep moving forward in those directions and we we can solve most issues. When it's when it's deeper than that, uh when it's trying to solve it for subordinates, uh co-workers, colleagues, and I really don't use the word subordinate or it's about really because everyone's a colleague. while we're doing this work together. So, it's really sometimes it's conversation with one person, then the other, and then bring them back together to get to it. Other parts I'm sorry, allergies this evening. Uh, and the rest of it is just trying to get get it done. Sometimes you as I've said before there's I tend to be the velvet glove but at times it has to be the iron fist in the velvet glove because we need something
105to get done. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Team team sport. Very good. All right. Dr. Lewis. Uh yeah. Um so ultimately we what we do is human work and in order to do human work relationships are at the center of that. Um and so one of the things I like to say is uh uh context before content that we have to understand the context in which we work before we get to the content of that. Um, and as as a part of my leadership style, I I work in service of the people that I have the privilege and opportunity to lead. Um, and so how I show up uh is based entirely on how you need me to show up. So I think about um uh some few people
106uh a few people that I've had the privilege to to serve as leaders to. Um, uh, Julia has a Google sheet for everything and she has tabs and the way I show up for her is a structured one-on-one each week and we go through the spreadsheet and we end with next steps and we start the last meeting by reviewing where we ended the last meeting which is very different for how I would show up for Verissa who will text me multiple times during the day. So, we don't do a standard one-to-one because she and I have this ongoing communication which is very different from Rhonda who sends me pre-work ahead of time for our meetings. And so, if that's how you need me to show up for you, I show up for you how you
107need me to show up for you so that you can maximize your potential and be your best self. Um, and I ultimately believe that's what what leadership is. Um, it's not about uh uh the leader. Um it's important for me that uh the folks that I work with that we don't just set professional goals, we set personal goals as well. Um that you find uh uh life work balance, not work life, but life work balance and that you feel a sense of fulfillment in and outside of work. Uh because I need you to show up to work every day as your best self. And if you don't have that holistic fulfillment, then I'm not going to get the version of you or kids rather aren't going to get the best possible version of you that's
108going to help move the needle and create uh the type of achievement that that we want. I see my role as leader um in in a couple of ways. One to ensure alignment alignment of the vision, expectations, resources, etc. um uh accountability and urgency. Um and I I recognize that the work is long and hard. I recognize that the opportunity gap and the achievement gap will probably not be solved in my lifetime. Uh but I I see this work as a relay race and you pass the baton to me. I will run my leg of the race as hard as long as I can for as fast as I can and then you pass it. But we got to do that uh urgently. So I am a no time to waste kind of person. The
109data that I talked about earlier that's the data what it is and we can't afford as a result of nicities and you know not wanting uh to step on each other's toes and things like that to skirt around the issue because in the meantime we're graduating kids that aren't prepared. In the meantime communities continue to fail. So there is urgency and conflict. I welcome conflict. If we're agreeing all the time, then there's a problem. Uh I don't like a team where everyone agrees with me. Uh and if we have too much group think, then I'm going to be the person in the the room to challenge everyone. But the work is too important for all of us to agree. If we're coming out of meetings and making tough decisions in 5 minutes, that's a problem.
110Um so I welcome uh healthy conflict. It's how we're going to uh do better um for these kiddos because this is really important work and we got to move quickly. We got to move urgently. Okay. Thank you. All right. And thank you to the community for indulging us. I know it's been a long evening. Sharing your time with us is uh critically important to this process. So, we have time for one final question. I'm going to ask for the three gentlemen to be as brief as you can be. Um is there anything that the community did not ask this evening that you were hoping would have been asked uh from me as your facilitator? And I'll start with you first, Dr. Lewis. anything you'd like to share about yourself? Uh uh I I can't necessarily
111think of one particular question. I think these were uh great questions. Uh maybe a question around uh teacher support, teacher retention, teacher recruitment uh uh would have good would have been good. I think maybe a question around uh the finances of the district. We know the recent uh executive order from the president is going to cost uh WPS about 1.4 4 million. We talked a little bit about special education, but certainly think we could have spent some more uh time on that. Um I think we could have talked a little bit more as well about um what uh whoever the superintendent is, how we uh plan to draw a line in the sand despite what's happening at the national level. Um there are some districts that are uh equivocating and acquiescing. Um, but I want
112to be uh clear that if we say that we believe in equity, I don't care what anyone in Washington is saying, then this is the work that we're going to do and we're going to make sure that all students um uh uh will achieve. Um so, you know, my my closing thought is um what you see with me is what you get. I'm not going to show up one way because this is an interview in a community forum and then I get the job and I show up as a completely different person. I am my genuine authentic self. Um, and the things that I am proudest of, um, over the course of my, uh, 20 year career are, uh, the relationships I've had the opportunity to develop and the lives that I've had the opportunity,
113uh, to positively impact. And that's, um, what I would want to bring to Waterberry as your next superintendent. So, thank you all for the opportunity uh, to be here with you um, this evening. And I think whoever is a superintendent uh uh Waterberry is going to uh uh to win in the brief time that I've had with my colleagues. They're they're certainly um exceptional and I um echo so much of what they said uh this evening. So uh thank you all. Thank you Dr. Lewis and thank you for being here this evening. Dr. Schwarz. Yeah, I just want to uh start off by thanking you know JG Consulting the board of education and my two colleagues here uh for uh just being exceptional leaders willing to come to Waterberry. Um I I you know among
114some of the questions that I wish were asked as well I know we had limited uh time uh tonight but I I do think that you know Waterberry is um it can it is a an amazing place that also can be difficult to navigate at certain times and I think that um a question that talked a little bit more about the dynamics of the city of Waterberry and how to work specifically with our union stewards um would have been I think appropriate. I think working with our union stewards, our city hall, our board of education, and then all the other constituents that we talked a little bit about uh tonight would have been beneficial because I think at a place like Waterberry, you need to understand what levers to pull and when uh to be
115able to get good things done for kids. I think sometimes people conflate like, oh, you kind of understand the system, so now you you're part of it. And people don't I think and specifically for me and I think no I I use that knowledge of the system so I could do good things for kids uh because I'm an educator. Um and so I think that something around that uh and in in how the city works would have been beneficial and specifically working with our unions because they are uh they represent amazing amazing educators. We have over 3,500 staff here in Waterberry Public Schools, over 18,000 kids. And you know, there's a lot of different unions, a lot of different um um entities to be able to work with. And so that collaboration, I think, is
116is super important. And I just want to um end by uh thanking my my wife for coming here tonight and uh with our little one. And uh she's been a longtime uh resident of Waterberry. We've chosen to live here and uh we love this city and I hope that I have the opportunity to serve you as the superintendent. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Schwarz. Last but not uh last but not least, Dr. White. Thank you. I I think a little more around student engagement would have been something I would really have liked to engage in a conversation about, but that would probably be the area. Beyond that, uh my colleagues have said covered all the other areas I'd be interesting to engage in further conversation in. Uh what I would close with of course is
117thanking everyone for being here, taking the time out. Uh my two colleagues for experience uh my friend and my fraternity brother as that we've met tonight but a friend for many years as we've gone through this. This is a work that's done uh out of the heart. Education is a vocation. It is something there's a calling to do this work. make this happen. Uh, anyone who knows me, people who remember me know that my work was always about what we could do for kids. How we do that, how we come, how we stand up for one another and support one another. So, that is truly who I am as a person. That is who I I stand up for. Uh, as your superintendent, I will be standing up for all of you. I'll be standing
118up to make sure we get what we need for our kids. I'll be standing up for you to make sure we make this a better water berry for every single person. Thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. And if I may ask the uh the audience to give a round of applause to our three semifinals, of course. So, I'd like to share with you that um this process has been very arduous, comprehensive, intense for them and the other candidates alike. Um I want to thank the board, uh the mayor, the mayoral staff, the community, uh the staff, the students, all of those who have played an a very important role in this process. Um these three gentlemen plus the other candidates who did not advance to this stage went through a very intense process. Um and that
119certainly is not lost on me. Um we require quite a bit of u information by way of the application materials, the on demand interviews, the civil services review. Um quite intensive. So you should be very proud um that the three candidates before you this evening have went through this to be potentially your next superintendent. So on behalf of JG Consulting, I want to thank you for being here this evening sharing part of your evening with us. Um I will be here also tomorrow. So if you happen to see me, if you have additional thoughts or questions u to the extent that I'm able to answer, I certainly will. Um but want to wish everybody that's attending virtually u a good night and and be safe getting home. Thank you all. [Music] Knock that off. What
120time you go tomorrow? Uh 7:15 right after that. All right, good. I was going to say time to get a drink. Yeah, could be