Each year, Village Green sends a questionnaire to the candidates for South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education to answer. We post answers by question topic. Candidates are asked to answer as individuals, not as a slate. They are also asked to keep answers to no more than 500 words each. Here is the Q&A for all seven candidates on Sports Facilities and Equity:
VG: Last year, the Board of School Estimate excised funding for expanded turfing of Ritzer Field from a bond ordinance. In the meantime, the district is reportedly facing a Title IX suit for unequal provision of playing space for girls and boys sports. What solution do you support for providing equitable use of fields for our students and to meet the needs of student athletes? Additionally, the district ended its swim program years ago and recently converted its pool to a student commons. What do you think the district’s role should be in providing swim equity?
Bethany Joseph
BETHANY JOSEPH:
I would want staff to look at all of the playing fields and facilities to calculate how much time each team needs for their respective sport, both for practices and competitions. We need to make sure the boys and girls teams have equal access to the facilities and fields. Partnerships with community organizations could possibly provide us with additional resources for our teams as well.
I strongly believe that swimming and water safety are critical life skills.The District, our towns and our local organizations should work together to find ways to ensure water safety and/or swimming proficiency for our students.
For example, the District has a strong, on-going relationship with the South Mountain YMCA, which is part of the larger organization, The YMCA of the Oranges. Both the East Orange Y and the West Essex Y (Livingston) offer swimming lessons. I would explore entering into an agreement for students who do not know how to swim or need to work on their proficiency, to access these resources at a cost that is manageable for each family. We also have community pools in both towns that offer swimming lessons during the summer months, though access to the pools by low income families is still a growth area for us. The Maplewood town pool is where I learned to swim in the early morning (cold water) hours. It is possible that the District and towns could come to an agreement about summer swimming lessons at our town pools without requiring pool membership to participate.
______
Bimal Kapadia
BIMAL KAPADIA:
Safe, well maintained, equitable access to fields shouldn’t even be a question in 2024. It’s a basic, student athlete right. While a natural field is preferable for Ritzer, I fully support the implementation of the expanded turf fields to accommodate ALL student athletes. Academics, Arts and Athletics are paramount to ensuring the breadth of education for our students and shouldn’t be an either/or proposition.
SOMSD should fulfill its promise to provide every child in the district with access to swimming and swim lessons. While the thought of a year-round pool is commendable, the current state of our district’s budget makes this untenable. And the immediate attention and allocation of those funds should be toward improving the district’s academics, arts and infrastructure. Instead, we should rely on the neighboring community pools in South Orange and Maplewood public pools to provide access for children in the district, including proper financial aid for those in need.
PAUL STEPHAN:
Ensuring equity in access to sports and playing time for girls is essential, and I fully support finding ways to improve girls’ access to fields and playing time. However, equity isn’t just about creating new, expensive facilities—it’s about ensuring that existing resources are shared fairly and used efficiently. Title IX is focused on equity in access, not on building new facilities. In the short term, we should prioritize maximizing and better allocating our current fields to ensure that all students, especially girls, have equal opportunities to use these spaces.
I support better management of the grass at Ritzer Field, rather than the installation of artificial turf. Earlier this year, the Board of School Estimate cut out funding for artificial turf on Ritzer from a bond ordinance because the proposal didn’t have the necessary details on flood prevention. In addition to those flooding concerns, artificial turf causes more injuries to players, is not playable on very hot days, and contains carcinogens including so-called “forever chemicals.” The current cost estimate for installing turf is $4 million, which may already be an underestimate, and that doesn’t account for the costs of maintaining the field or replacing it in eight to ten years. Given the concerns I’ve outlined, I don’t believe that cost is worth it.
As for swim equity, while the high school pool is no longer available, our obligation to ensure that children learn to swim, and to prevent drowning deaths, remains. I support the creation of a task force to address this issue and partnerships with South Orange, Maplewood, and local non-profits to provide students with access to swim lessons, ensuring that all students have the opportunity to learn this life-saving skill.
______
Qawi Telesford
QAWI TELESFORD:
Our district should be committed to ensuring equitable access to athletic facilities for all students. To support this goal, I requested a full audit of our fields and sports facilities, which will help us assess current usage patterns and ensure that all students, regardless of gender, have fair access to playing spaces. In a tour of our high school during my first year, I noted the inadequacy of our girls’ locker room and asked that a full renovation be included in the Long Range Facilities Plan (LRFP) as opposed to the original plan that only included a replacement of the skylight. These efforts were successful as the girls’ locker room will be renovated as part of the Additionally, in my discussions with the superintendent, the district has agreed to assess the grounds at all our schools to determine if there are additional spaces that can be utilized by our student athletes.
Regarding swim equity, I believe students should receive training in essential life skills, such as swimming. Although the high school no longer has a pool, I support the Board’s previous commitment to ensuring that every student has access to swim lessons. During discussions surrounding the pool’s demolition, one statement stood out to me: the notion that swim education has no place in high school because it’s “too late” for older students. This perspective implies there is a cutoff for learning basic life skills and denies certain students access to opportunities that are essential for their safety and well-being. While the absence of a pool makes it more challenging to provide swim education, I believe the Board should pursue partnerships with local organizations to offer swim lessons—whether through our municipal partners at community pools, the YMCA, or the newly opened British Swim School in Maplewood. The district’s role should focus on facilitating access to these resources and supporting students who want to engage in swimming, recognizing that equity in sports extends beyond what we can directly provide in our own buildings.
______
Arun Vadlamani
ARUN VADLAMANI:
I am a strong supporter of equity for our female student-athletes and fought hard to get funding for the girls’ locker room at the Columbia High School
The intellectually honest way to examine any equity issue regarding field usage in athletics is to explore the complete offerings of fields our school district has access to (including fields owned by our Municipal Partners) and see how that field use is apportioned between girls and boys. As a community, we agree with the law that we want our female student-athletes to have equal opportunity to play as our male student-athletes.
If that is not the case, the district should draw up a plan for the facilities. The board is responsible for asking questions, ensuring the plan is sound, and procuring funds by tax levy or bonding.
Funding that cannot be allocated from the budget needs approval from the Board of School Estimates. The BoSE consists of two members from the South Orange Council, two members from Maplewood Township, and two members from the BOE (traditionally the Board President and the Chair of the FFT Committee). For a resolution to pass, we need a majority of the entire body and the majority of the four members from our municipalities. So, it is as much a decision of the municipal partners as it is of the BOE.
Additionally, the Columbia High School pool has not been functional for over a decade. In 2022, the board decided not to fund it and planned to convert it into a Commons area.
Previous Boards had promised to work with our Municipal Partners to bring swim instruction back to our District. I support all programs that will teach survival swimming to our students regardless of age. The Board should work in good faith to fulfill this promise.
Board Governance and Administrative Accountability/Stability:
After a year of major turnover in top administrators, how do you see a board member’s role in terms of working with the Superintendent and administration? What do you believe are the one or two most important responsibilities a board member has? Finally, what are some of the most important and impactful actions the Superintendent and administration can take to improve student outcomes both academically and from a socio-emotional standpoint?
______
Jeff Bennett
JEFF BENNETT:
I support building a turf field at Ritzer. Columbia High School is a large high school with numerous outdoor sports teams. Having only a single all-weather turf field, at Underhill, which is supposed to be used by 11 different teams, is nowhere near sufficient.
In a period when both rainfall can be more intense and droughts can be longer, I do not think the natural grass field at Ritzer is adequate for CHS’s female athletes. Even in a year of normal, moderate rainfall, a grass field is not adequate for the usage needs of Columbia athletes, since a grass field can only be used for 16 hours a week, versus 60 hours a week for turf.
Ritzer Field has pits, sloughs, and gullies, and it is therefore far from an ideal playing surface, or even a safe one. We should be frustrated with ourselves for letting the girls softball team use the M3 Field at Meadowlands Park, which is a “minefield of rocks, bumps, divots, puddles, mud, and goose poop,” is almost two miles from CHS, and lacks a nearby bathroom or changing facility. Since Ritzer and Meadowlands often can’t be used after storms, our female athletes lose practice time and therefore the maximum opportunity to develop athletically.
I’ve listened to opponents of a turf field and I accept that there are tradeoffs to constructing one. I know that a grass field has some environmental and stormwater absorption advantages, but I think the benefits of a turf field outweigh the drawbacks. I agree that our district schools can be more environmentally conscious, but I would focus on installing solar panels on all roofs that are strong enough to support them and in reducing single-use plastic.
As for a pool, in the event that a donor stepped forward and offered to fund a portion of an indoor pool on SOMSD grounds, I would be receptive, support the SOMSD funding the remainder, and grant naming rights to the donor, if the donor wanted that to be a condition of the gift. However, as a South Orange-Maplewood citizen, I do not know if an indoor pool on school property is necessarily better than it being at a non-school site in SOMA, where presumably the community would have more weekday access to it and which would still expand access to swim lessons for teens.
Very few NJ high schools have indoor pools. My opinion is that our obligation is to proactively inform students of opportunities to learn to swim at the municipal pools with ample advertising and encouragement by staff. SOMSD should make sure that all students know about Maplewood Pool’s “Swim Lessons for All” program, which does have financial aid, and South Orange pool’s programs.
Finally, as the BOE embarks on its next capital project in 2025 and does not need to conduct any expansions, I look forward to making enhancement of athletic facilities a larger part of the project than it has been in recent history.
______
Deirdre Brown
DEIRDRE BROWN:
The lack of usable fields for all students is not acceptable. Our student athletes, and notably our female student athletes, deserve better. I support expanded turfing of Ritzer Field. I see turf as the only viable option in our district at this point in time. There is no way our district has the capacity to have fully functional, adequate, and safe fields for our students using grass. I wish that was not the case, but it is not, simply put.
I was appalled when listening to our female student athletes’ testimonies at the BOE meeting this past spring. For a district that prides itself on equity, I could not believe these students have been treated like second class citizens. It is completely unacceptable that they do not have equal access to fields and changing facilities, and I am so proud of the CHS students for coming out and voicing their concerns and experiences.
Having all-weather sports fields and facilities is necessary for student safety and access, but it also creates a sense of pride in our community and especially the high school. We need to continue building a culture of pride and school spirit at Columbia–an important aspect of this is having facilities and fields reflecting such pride.
As for swimming, I believe learning to swim is a necessary safety measure all children should have access to. I believe our towns have the ability to provide swim lessons to all children, and that this should occur when children are young. I believe the district can do more to engage with municipal partners to make this a reality. For example, it is my understanding that the towns provide financial support to low income families at both pools. The district could help advertise this assistance, especially to families who receive free and reduced lunch. There may even be opportunities to partner to create after school swim lessons for elementary school students with financial support for students in need.
Read more Village Green election coverage here.
