By Cheryl Conway
The following is a wrap-up of issues raised at the last Mt. Olive Township Board of Education meeting held Monday, Feb. 10.
Concerned Bus Drivers
Several bus drivers employed by the Mt. Olive School District attended the last Mt. Olive BOE meeting to raise their concern regarding safety, discipline and communication breakdown.
Rob Sherman, husband of one of the bus drivers, was asked to be spokesperson by some transportation members to raise their issues at the board meeting.
The “core of the issue is child safety,” said Sherman. “They are grateful for their job,” he says of the bus drivers, however, maintains there is a “systematic failure for providing safe transportation for some of the students they transfer.”
When one African American bus driver was called a racial slur earlier this school year the student was placed on a different run with no mention of any other disciplinary action, Sherman said. The driver said she felt like “this was a slap” in her face,” he said.
Another bus driver who is Spanish was called a “a b..ch,” and “they [students] continue to ride the school bus.”
Sherman suggested that students be reprimanded by having to serve detention if they misbehave on the bus.
“They [the bus drivers] are asking for your help,” said Sherman. One bus driver, who happens to be Sherman’s wife, resigned “after being under distress,” he said. She had worked for transportation for 11 years, but “rather than looking into it,” and after having to wait two and a half months to meet with administration to discuss the incident and being allotted just 30 minutes, she resigned, he said.
“Two-and-a- half months went by, not one person said we care what you feel, what you think,” said Sherman.
His wife, along with the other drivers, have been told that they need to fill out a form whenever an issue arises on their bus route, he said.
“No one knew the existence of the form until the meeting last week,” he said.
When it comes to the safety of the kids, the bus driver is liable. They are driving “25 pounds rolling steel glass machines. They are being left liable of what is happening on the bus,” if a bus gets wrecked, if a child gets hurt.
“They are asking for help to make the bus a safe place for the children,” said Sherman. “If you have one, two, three who can’t meet the code of conduct, if they are putting other children, bus driver in danger…why are they waiting for someone to get hurt? Why were they not given the form?”
Continued Sherman, “If you can’t put students’ safety first; if you can’t give them the support from the top down, someone’s going to get hurt. The form is great; no one has a copy of the form; no one knows it exists.”
Said Sherman, “My wife has been out of employment for two-and-a half months; she would love to do her job” but asking the bus driver to take the liability of the kids without the support from the administration is too much.
“No one wants to put their neck on the line,” said Sherman. “Why can’t one of them come up here? They’re grateful, they are thankful,” but they “don’t feel they can safely transfer the kids.
Disciplining the kids “shouldn’t be any difference on the school bus,” said Sherman. Students on the bus should get the same punishment as those kids in the classroom who misbehave.
BOE President Anthony Giordano responded to Sherman and the bus drivers at the meeting and said, “We do respect you,” and suggested that they get the form to file so that any complaint “can be properly investigated.”
BOE Member Liz Ouimet thanked the bus drivers for the great job that they do, especially for transporting her four children to and from school.
“It’s documentation,” she said regarding their issue. “Get the forms in.”
BOE Member Anthony Strillacci spoke about when he was board president in 1998 and had a similar complaint about an incident on the bus. So the next day, he rode the bus, took the misbehaved kids off the bus and told their parents.
“We will look into it because we want everyone to be safe,” said Strillacci. “The superintendent has your interests at heart.”
BOE Member Dr. Antoine Gayles said “my daughter still rides the bus today. I rely on the skill of the bus driver to get my 10-year old to school.” He suggested that if there is an incident, the bus driver should call security or police.
“You pull over,” said Gayles. “Distracted driving is dangerous driving. If your safety is in danger, you call police, in my opinion. Looking through a manual, not the first thing to do. I just gave my non legal-opinion.”
The school board attorney disagreed and said bus drivers need to follow the manual on how to deal with situations.
Mt. Olive Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zywicki responded by saying bus drivers can get the form from the district Business Administrator Gail Libby. The form needs to go to administration once filed and then to the school principals for action.
“I rely on administration who are educators with masters’ degrees and certifications” when it comes to student code of conduct, Zywicki said on a telephone interview after the meeting.
While he reserved comment regarding the personnel issue, Zywicki said bus drivers have procedures they are supposed to follow in the district. They attend multiple days of safety training, such as with N.J. police, and they are all certified, licensed and trained annually.
Full Day Kindergarten
The issue of full day kindergarten was raised again as the board steps closer toward making it a reality.
One woman spoke up during public comments and said she supports full-day kindergarten as it provides more consistency for the kids, a chance to build relationships with their friends as well as more time for activities like art and music.
Another woman, who works as a realtor, said homebuyers would choose a town such as Long Valley to reside rather than Mt. Olive since there is no full-day kindergarten here.
How to expense full-day kindergarten in Mt. Olive continues to be the burning questions.
BOE Member William Robinson said “I have a problem with full-day kindergarten because of the cost.
“We have a loss” in revenue, he said, adding that he wants “to know how much more it’s going to cost us?” Providing full-day kindergarten will affect other things such as too many students in a class, the need to hire more teachers.
“Teachers told us they don’t want 25 kids in a class,” said Robinson. It is a problem “if it causes us to lose programs or intervention. When our kids leave here they are doing a very good job; they are ready,” when they get out there whether in college or professions.
“I understand more playing time, more music,” said Robinson, “I just don’t want to screw up on what happens afterwards. This is a very big issue for us. I’d like it to be very specific report. I’ve been fighting this for 20 years because I want it to be paid for.
“We’re getting a lot more kids, will be a larger kindergarten, will need more teachers,” said Robinson adding that the recent demographic study showed growth after five years. “It’s no different than what we had last 20 years.”
Giordano responded to Robinson saying that when the budget committee has it, they will look at the numbers.
“Just wait for the report to trust the information,” said Giordano.
As his assessment of the district when he first came on board, Zywicki recognized full-day kindergarten as one of its needs.
“When I came into the district, I assessed our elementary program and our needs,” said Zywicki. Those included the need to teach world language at the elementary level, which is now being offered, as well as provide an inclusive special education environment and full-day kindergarten.
He said he is “trying to fill those needs. Our students will benefit with full-day kindergarten, as well as our community.”
The district has the space without having to add another building or even add onto a building, says Zywicki.
Mt. Olive is the only district in Morris County that does not offer full-day kindergarten, Zywicki confirmed.
Test Scores
Zywicki briefed board members Monday night, Feb. 10, about the most recent NJSLA scores in math and language arts for each grade level.
In his student performance update, he summed up that scores between PARCC and NJSLA are vastly different.
“There are a lot of validity issues,” he says when looking at the data that came in September that examined scores from 2019 and compared them to 2018 scores. “You can’t compare PARCC to NJSLA.”
While they are both “standardized tests, they are “very different.” Zywicki notes that the NJSLA is a “more difficult test.”
The ELA scores for fourth graders received an 80.7 percent, which is the highest in the county, while math scores came in at 50 percent in the elementary grades. Considering that the state average in math yields 40 percent of the students passing, Mt. Olive is still ahead of the pact, he says.
Last year, a new math program was introduced at the elementary level called Envisions, which provides a lot of online resources, says Zywicki.
“It’s been an adjustment for our teachers,” he says. Middle school students continued to struggle with math.
The district remains proactive in trying to improve student test scores. When there was a major decline in writing scores, it introduced more writers’ workshops, he says.
Test scores, such as NJSLA, is a “general thumbnail of progress” that school leaders use to gage students’ performance, notes Zywicki. There is a “lot of data that we use.”
The district uses Response To Intervention Success, Mt. Olive Success Academy and even offers remediation in the classroom as tools to improve students’ performance.
“We’ve made steady progress,” comments BOE Member Dr. Antoine Gayles. Looking at the past five years, “one year of data is nothing to ring an alarm bell. Test scores are not the end all be all,” and education leaders can look at curriculum, personnel and finance to make adjustments.
