The four candidates vying for three seats on the South Orange-Maplewood Board of Education — Trish Azeez, Liz Callahan, Kevin Diaz, and Will Meyer — met at the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race candidates forum on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Following is a transcription of the questions and answers with timestamps for the video. Read more election coverage here.
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Opening Statements
Trish Azeez (19:42):
Thank you so much for hosting and having this here. Good evening everyone. I’m Trish. I’ve lived in South Orange with my husband and our two children for over 10 years. I feel really fortunate to be here. I am a poor girl from West Philadelphia and education was a lifeline for me and it is the reason that I can sit here today, so I take it very seriously. Professionally, I spent years in DC as an economist. I spent years on Wall Street in equity research. And in those roles, I learned to analyze data and to use evidence and ask hard questions to make decisions. But I do think my most defining role was right here in Maplewood as a martial arts instructor. It was in the dojo that I found my passion not just for teaching, but for helping children be the very best that they can be. Helping a child do something that they could do, that is just everything, that is my jam.
So you can understand that as a parent in the district — I have two children. One advanced learner who always needed more challenge, another neurodivergent who needed more support and we often went with their needs unmet in the district. So that is why I’m running. I believe in what our children can do. And I think that they deserve to have the support they need. They deserve to have all of the challenge they need so that they can reach their potential. I’m hoping that my experience as an economist, my experience as a parent, and my perspective as a martial arts instructor will help us do that. Thank you.
Liz Callahan (21:30):
I want to thank the schools committee and the Community Coalition on Race for their deep work in our community for hosting this forum tonight and to everyone joining us here in the room as well as online. My name is Liz Callahan and I’m running for reelection of the Board of Ed alongside my colleague Will Meyer. As a Maplewood resident since 2018, my investment here is personal. I’m a district parent with a first grader at Tuscan and a sixth grader at Maplewood Middle. But long before I was a parent, care for students and commitment to public schools was part of who I am. I’ve been in education for 22 years. I have worked at every level from paraprofessional to teaching to behavior analyst to district administrator. And today I consult for schools across the state. So when we talk about systems of support or disproportionality in special education, I’m coming from a place of professional expertise in building those systems and addressing those issues to create more access and equity in schools.
During the first term, I’ve been well served by my combined lens as a district parent and an educator, particularly since my day job and since building relationships, developing and understanding of schools and district strengths and opportunities, diagnosing issues and operationalizing a path forward. I was able to leverage the skills of a board member while building a new muscle in governance, translating my professional skills into effective oversight. Doing this work on the board also requires humility. Experience doesn’t mean getting it right all the time. It means having the honesty to learn from mistakes, adjust and grow, because ultimately this is a job, and it’s one I take very seriously. We’re facing unprecedented local budget pressures alongside a shifting and unpredictable landscape for public education. As we enter a challenging budget season, major contract negotiations, we cannot afford a steep learning curve. We need members like Will and I who have done the work before.
Public education constantly demands that we do more with less. And our job is to figure out how to meet those challenges with race and stability and an unwavering focus for student experience and outcomes. Tested leadership, institutional knowledge and a steady hand is how we navigate this chapter and keep growing together. I look forward to the next conversation. Thank you.
Kevin Diaz (23:35):
Good evening and thank you to everyone joining us. And I also want to thank the Community Coalition on race for hosting this and allowing us this very important dialogue. Before launching my campaign, I spoke with dozens of families to hear their concerns and to better understand their experiences. Those conversations have reinforced my belief that our district has many dedicated people doing important work while showing me that we have the opportunity to do better.
I’ve always had a deep belief in the importance of community service and I’m thankful for the generations of activists that have come before me helping in the many rights that we all enjoy today. Running for the board is my way of paying it forward. After hearing so many wonderful things about South Orange, in 2022, my husband Trey and I decided to purchase our home and put down roots here. Our son Fernando is a recent graduate of South Mountain Elementary and is starting at South Orange Middle School.
Along with our dog, Milo, we love this community and we want to see it continue to be a place where every family feels welcome and supported. For the past nine years I’ve worked as a real estate broker in a competitive Jersey City market. That experience has taught me the importance of listening, understanding different perspectives, managing expectations and following through. It has also reinforced three values that I believe are essential to empathy, equity and accountability. I’m running because I believe our children deserve a school district that listens, learns and continues to strive to improve the life and educational experience of every student. Thank you.
Will Meyer (25:10):
Thank you so much for the community coalition on for hosting this event. I’m here for my third time. I’m Will Meyers, the parent of two district students, special education attorney, and currently president of the Board of Education. I’m running again with Liz Callahan because we’ve helped build a stronger foundation for this district and I’m committed to turning that foundation into lasting results. Our community’s diversity does not automatically produce integration. That’s why this really important organization exists in the first place. And neither does integration automatically produce equal opportunity or outcomes. Both of them require sustained intentional work. A core part of my concern this evening is my support for the Intentional Integration Initiative. We’ve been willing to seek improvements while preserving its goals and we must continue to ensure the sustainability of the program while protecting its purpose.
And Dr. Fergus’s report also made clear these efforts have to reach inside our classrooms to rigorous instruction, access to advanced courses, timely intervention and genuine belonging.
And we’ve achieved some of that. We’ve seen stronger literacy in math pathways, systemic student supports, expanded special education capacity, greater family engagement. Our next term has to focus on measurable results. Who’s getting the opportunities, receiving support, who feels safe and included. We’re one community connected together and educated side by side and every one of those students deserves to thrive and belong. That’s the promise that Liz and I are working to fulfill and how we keep going together. Thank you.
Lauren Solomon, CCR (27:12):
Question #1: Why is an integrated school district important or not important to you? Achieving integration takes significant time and investment. Do you see this as a vital community priority? What further actions should the district consider to truly live out this value?
Trish Azeez (27:32):
So I want to start by saying that I fully support the principles of integration. Integration is about providing equitable academic opportunities.
But I do think that our current placement algorithm needs a lot of work. Dr. [Edward] Fergus, when we went through our process of, when the district was being sued, Dr. Fergus said, “Listen, we cannot face integration. The success of integration isn’t going to be measured by demographics alone, right? It takes a lot more than that. And so we are looking at expanding equitable opportunities and we have to measure academic achievement. So we have spent millions of dollars, considerable time and effort on our integration effort, but have we really improved outcomes? What do outcomes look like? So for me, it’s academic achievement. That’s where we start. And if we look at the academic achievement of the [math] proficiency rate of black students, right now it’s 27%. And that growth has been less than that of white students students and black students are not on grade level in that.
And if we look at economically disadvantaged, this is even worse. So we’re looking at 20% in that for proficiency. And we just have to ask ourselves, is the money that we’re spending and the time and the research that we’re spending on integration, could we, is that getting to the bottom line?
Liz Callahan (29:30):
It’s a lot of questions for one minute, but I’m gonna do my best. Okay. So I’ll start by saying that, if you’re familiar and watch board meetings, my support of the intentional integration initiative has been clear in my board service. My priority is to protect it, to continue doing the oversight work that is the responsibility of our board. And I believe in the fundamental premise of Triple I. The students benefit from learning in diverse school communities and that we have a responsibility to create equitable access and educational opportunities across the district. I don’t see integration though as an end to itself. It’s one part of this broader equity strategy that we are engaged in. So it’s one that requires us to make sure that what happens inside of our schools is equitable, that students have access to opportunities, that they have access to support, and that every student can thrive.
I think that distinction is important because there are money being spent, but the vast majority of what the Triple I promise is, is in fact those systems of support like MTSS, like affinity groups, like the work we’ve done in math access and scorecards.
Kevin Diaz (30:37)
So I agree with Liz, that we do need to make sure that we improve Triple I. I think we need to make sure that we are, it is important. It’s something that we’ve been working on as a country for 70 plus years, making sure that we integrate all of our schools and our neighborhoods. We’ve been working on it as a district since the 70s. Again, it’s something that’s not new. It’s something that continues to grow. We need to continue working on it. We can’t give up on it.
As far as looking at the achievement gap and making sure that we are closing that, we have to start looking at the opportunity gap first, making sure that opportunity gap is closed, making sure we are bringing all the students from the different walks of life into the same experiences before we can then begin to close that achievement gap. But at the end of the day, Triple I need to be preserved. We need to continue to scrutinize it, make it better, cannot give up on it because it’s inconvenient.
Will Meyer (31:44):
So I am hugely supportive of the integration plan and I think it’s very important to look at the history to think about this. We’ve been working on integration since at least the early 80s. And there’s been lawsuit after lawsuit. Integration is important as a right of its own, even separate from academic achievement. Board vs board of education decided that. It is important, for us to work on discrepancies and the huge gaps we’ve seen between our schools in our district’s history. And we have succeeded in doing that only within the past six years with full implementation of this current plan as opposed to the smaller initiatives. We’ve also, by the way, seen growth in every area. In our state testing. Scores are going up. It does take longer for them to go higher. And the integration plan was never expected to by itself produce those goals.
However, pared the work we’re doing in the Rutgers implementation, in the increases in our curriculum strength, there’s a lot we’re doing to improve. And we have to keep on that path together.
Question 2 (33:00): How would you ensure continued progress on the Fergus recommendations now that the monitoring period has ended? Which recommendations are you most anxious to see completed?
Liz Callahan (33:18):
So simply because the or the monitoring period is over, means that it’s actually now the real test of our commitment to this work. We’ve talked a lot about what that would look like. I am a member currently, and I guess the disclaimer being that Will and I both sit on the board of education, anything we’re saying today is in our capacity as candidates and not as a representative of the board. I’m on the board. I do sit on the Rutgers committee for this past year, and a lot of the conversation has in fact shifted to that maintenance period. This is now some work that needs to be embedded in the fabric of what we do. Luckily, we’re on that road. We just don’t have the monitoring period available to us. It’s up to us to look at what that looks like.
I’m also the chair of our special education committee, so one thing my eye always goes to are the recommendations around our special education students. So we have long monitored the risk ratio, meaning how much more likely are Black and brown students to be referred to special education and classified. We talked this year about making sure that we’re monitoring that in a way that feels more responsive. So instead of doing it as a part of an end of year roll up, we’ll be reviewing that data quarterly. And I think that’s a good example in the interest of time about, one, something that a priority of mine personally in terms of how we create a maintenance plan for reviewing and being responsive to that data. When we’re reviewing something at the end of the year, we’ve largely missed an opportunity potentially to intervene. By moving into a cadence of quarterly, we have much more of an opportunity to examine the systems that are leading that, to intervene and have plans in place to perhaps address things that we see happening at a school level.
So I think more robust cadence of monitoring with some of these things is one way I’m thinking about what the maintenance phase of this looks like.
Kevin Diaz (35:05):
So we’re talking about it, I think it comes back to looking at —we’re in the first cohort of triple I is in fifth grade right now. So again, I think it’s gonna take time for us to actually monitor where the numbers look with this group once they’re out of fifth grade, kind of get an idea of where they’re going. Again, I think it’s important to continue to monitor all the facts that come along with that. Look at the impacts, look at the poverty levels, look at the student beliefs, making sure that they believe they can take the accelerated classes and other things as well. So again, we do have to look at all the different facts behind all the students that are coming out of this fifth grade class now. Again we do need to make sure that we are looking at the math tracking, different things like that again to make sure that we see the numbers increasing, as far as the different SLAs [Strategic Learning Assessments?], making sure that the numbers are increasing rather than decreasing.
We do see slight increase in those numbers. But again, we have to continue to monitor it to make sure that we don’t see any backtrack. And we can’t stop now, otherwise those numbers will reverse.
Will Meyer (36:21):
I think it’s worth noting that when Dr. Fergus put out his equity report three years ago, he noted this is a 3-5 year plan. And while the settlement was focused on three years, there’s an expectation this is going to continue. And at the end of the five years, it’s not pencils down either. The work must continue. I think the areas that stand out to be virtual, the fact that the plan was termed as getting to the point of being integration ready. We’ve been integrating, but getting that groundwork in place to make sure that our students have belonging and adequate supports in the classroom Are really, you know, those are just coming online. Continuing to increase our educator capacity, increasing or continuing anti-bias work, to have that as a fabric throughout our community is important. The sense of belonging in all of our classes, all of our buildings is really important for students and for families. We talked about differentiating the I&RS [Intervention and Referral Services], which we now also refer to as MTSS [Multi-Tiered System of Supports]. Having that be consistent in all the schools to make sure those supports are available at the beginning for students is really important. As we heard in the debate on Thursday night supports in our classes as well.
Trish Azeez (37:39):
So I think for closing achievement gap, this is where we have the most work. We’ve started integration and we’ve spent the money there on transportation and redistributing the students for demographics, but according to what’s being completed from the Dr. Fergus’ recommendations, we have a lot more work to do. I think first it starts with real academic supports. We have not measured for these students that have been redistributed. We don’t know how they’re feeling in their classroom and we don’t know if they’re feeling supported academically or if they are feeling connected to their community. So it does start with looking at data. Starting earlier, starting in preschool, K through five, making sure that we are addressing needs or identifying needs where students need more support. Bringing in more teachers of color, not just teachers of color, but qualified teachers of color, that we need to relate to these students and that can help them start closing these gaps.
I think also just how we engage with families and making sure that we are including the voices of all of our marginalized families, our Black families, our low-SES families. Because we find that they are not being captured on our surveys.
Question #3: Please detail your history of volunteering in South Orange-Maplewood public schools and explain how that has helped prepare you to serve the Board of Education.
Kevin Diaz (39:00):
So my history of volunteering, it goes back to New York City. Starting in New York City, volunteering with New York Cares, volunteering with God’s Love We Deliver. Volunteering with a lot of the longstanding organizations to give back and help the communities that are in need. Moving into South Orange, I’ve done individual volunteer work with different organizations, in West Orange, such as Christine’s Kitchen and different areas like that. So again, it’s about making sure that we’re giving back to those that need it the most and helping in any organization or any capacity that you can. As far as my volunteer experience for the board here, I think that goes along with what I do as a realtor as far as listening to all the people who are looking to buy or sell a home, understanding what their needs are, asking the difficult questions, making sure that I’m preparing them for what could come up or what may come up.
And again, I think that’s going to translate on the board and when we’re dealing with anything here in the board such as budgets or cutting. It’s about asking the difficult questions, making sure we know if we move something from this line item to that line item, who is it going to affect, how many people will it affect? Will it disproportionately affect one group larger than another group? And again, making sure that we go back to the drawing board so that everyone is on an equal playing field.Speaker 3:
Will Meyer (40:44):
Volunteering in our school district, I got started when my son was in the first grade in the middle of COVID, so this is, I guess, the ’21-’22 school year. He was in the annex of the South Mountain and they could not get lunch and recess monitors to go up there at that point. So I did a lot of volunteering there. If my boss is watching, I was working. I got onto the South Mountain PTA. I served on the nominating committee. I was chair of the programming, and put on a few fairs, which was a whole lot of fun. I served on SEPAC [Special Education Parents Advisory Committee] for a year as vice president of policy, which is a tremendous organization, did a few different public speaks. Since then, I’ve been putting in three years of entirely unpaid service on board education, which is more or less a second full-time job. Again if my boss is watching and I’m still working as well. I’ll note as well, a shout out to Jocelyn Ryan who does amazing coordination work for food pantry volunteers every weekend. I enjoy doing that and y’all should go sign up and help.
Trish Azeez (41:55):
I was home with my children for the most of their lives. I really feel like I lived in our schools. I was a class parent each year, building relationships with the families, building relationships with the parents, with the teachers. As Will suggested, I feel like I did every volunteer service at lunch, because we couldn’t get enough people in. And for me, it was important not to just go to see what was happening and help out at the schools, but to make sure that children saw just another Black adult around who had their back. That was really important for me. I was our PTA treasurer for two years and this was over the COVID years so it was very involved. I volunteered for every fair and book fair and just really been involved with what the children are doing and showed up, again, for the teachers and the families.
Liz Callahan (43:00):
I also started with PTAs, was one of the main ways that I started, and still am a class coordinator. So I was a class coordinator when my youngest son started. He also started during the pandemic, and so I think during that time it was a role that we took pretty seriously because we were able to really utilize it to help build some social connections and do a lot of extra things for the kids, like masked play dates at the park and things like that. And it’s a role I continue to do today. I actually won the lottery for a first grade class coordinator this year, which I’m excited to get back into. I’ve done all sorts of events and I chaired the Memorial Day parade at Tuscan for two years. I will be giving out ice cream at MMS on Thursday.
I was part of the Soma Action Education Committee, and during that kindergarten COVID year, I also did some community organizing with other local parents and I think Will and I first met doing this, where we kind of tried to suss through all of the different things that were happening with reopening and mask mandates and social distancing, and we produced a PowerPoint that would kind of recap where we were after every single board meeting. And then yeah, I’ve been on the board for two years and change.
Question #4: We are concerned that the burden of our current fiscal difficulties is falling disproportionately on staff of color in our buildings, with our paraprofessionals no longer appropriately compensated. Will you advocate with the administration to put the contract back out to bid when it ends in June? And if so, what would you vote to cut to find the $1.8 million needed to restore our paras’ former salary and benefits?
Will Meyer (44:50):
So first of all, I’m unfortunately not going to make a promise right now as far as what — because of course I’m one board member — as far as what we’re going to do rebidding those contracts. What I am going to say, and what you heard the superintendent say over and over is that we’re on a downward slide as far as the money that is available to us. And we are in a position of having to cut about $8 million more dollars from next year’s budget. So I would love to see paraprofessionals receive a better wage, 100%. The way that whole system is set up, the amount of money they earn and the amount that we have available, is inequitable. And it is not an SOMSD issue, it’s not even a New Jersey issue, it is nationwide.
The funds to pay for special education services have never been funded by the federal government anywhere near what they should have. Most of the state aid that we receive from Trenton is for special education and it is slashed about eight different times before it gets here. So we are being cut off at the knees as far as being able to fund paraprofessionals, funding special education teachers, funding a lot of different services in the classroom. I am glad that we have been able to have our paras in the higher end of the guide with this contract, and if there was a way of bringing them, for example, in-house to maintain a fairly even spend by giving them more money, I would love to see that. I don’t know it’s in the cards. There’s negotiations involved with a lot of people. I would love to see that happen.
Trish Azeez (46:33):
So when I talk about my experience as an economist, this is where it matters. Economics is merely the art of allocating limited resources. And so when I express my concerns with our integration program, it’s not because I don’t value integration. I absolutely understand what the benefits of integrating. It is that in a time of financial constraints, we have to consider how we’re spending each dollar and we have to make sure that each dollar is going towards student outcomes, because we are a school and that’s what matters. And so when I look at what we’re spending on busing, I think, well, if we don’t make changes to this program, we are already cutting the quality and the quantity of paraprofessionals. And when we look at the achievement gap for our special education students, that’s just one place where we can’t afford to cut. When we look at the achievement gap for Black students, for economically disadvantaged students, the classroom is not a place where we can afford to make cuts.
And so we have to look at those other initiatives. We have to look at other initiatives that aren’t affecting that bottom line in the outcomes of our students.
Liz Callahan (47:47):
I do want to clarify that this would not qualify as a cut because no services were cut. It was a vendor transition. And I would echo what Will said. We have been and will continue to explore a variety of options to bring at least some portion of paraprofessionals in-house. And I completely understand, the concerns and the strong feelings around this transition. I would also echo that when we’re having these discussions, that much of what we’re talking about, these are also fights in Trenton. Fighting to professionalize paraprofessionals as a role. Fighting to more properly fund, not just special education, but public schools in general. And I respect the importance and role of paraprofessionals, which I think is something we haven’t quite talked about in this. It’s an incredibly challenging decision in the midst of these ongoing fiscal challenges that we were asked to make.
And I think that continuing to keep the door open and explore those other options are through negotiations with SOMEA, with the town and fights in Trenton. There’s no stone I wouldn’t leave unturned to bring some portion of our paraprofessionals in house to build a deeper pipeline for those folks.
Kevin Diaz (49:04):
So I think I can kind of go along with a lot of that, as far as making sure our paras, for me, yes, I think I would go back and we look at the para contract, obviously in 2025 when it’s renewed, or I’m sorry, when it’s renewed next year. Yes, re-looking at it again, making sure that they do have appropriate salaries, they are paid properly.Again, we know that everyone has been talking about fiscal cliff and the financial crisis. It’s understandable, it happens, it’s gonna happen in every budget, but at the end of the day, I think when decisions have to be made, we need to make sure that we’re looking at, as I said before, if it’s pertaining only to special education or only to students of color or only other students that have a different learning ability. Again, it cannot affect just one group. We have to look to make sure that the cuts or changes affect everybody, not just one person or one group.
Question #5: For our 2025 forum on integration, we interviewed district graduates who spoke about teachers and counselors discouraging students of color from enrolling in higher level courses. Have you spoken to current Columbia High School students of color and what has their experience been?
Trish Azeez (50:48):
So I have spoken to current students, former students, parents of former students and parents of current students. And while we have deleveled the classrooms and given more opportunity, more access to Black students, we haven’t quite encouraged them to register for those classes and we haven’t even begun to really prepare them because preparation starts at pre-K, K-5. So , yes, while they are available, they can go to the classes, but they haven’t expressed support for those classes. Not that there’s no academic support, but it is lacking. And again, the readiness is what we need to address.
Liz Callahan (51:38):
Speaking to students, speaking to families, I think we are definitely, and I think Will kind of mentioned this early, integration ready was kind of the benchmark. And I think in a lot of those conversations that is what we find. We have systems that have, are in large part, some still in our infancy. We are still actively working to build those up, to refine them, to make sure that they’re serving the intended purpose. So we have affinity groups. We have folks who go to, say, our middle schools and talk about their own experiences. Which I really appreciate that peer-to-peer interaction, because they’re so much more likely to engage in something if they heard from a peer that they had a positive experience or they kind of understand what were the dynamics. “I’ve heard it, how did you hope, how did you kind of manage this?”
And so I support kind of continuing that work. I think we are, like I said, we’re at a place where a lot of that work is ongoing. A lot of figuring out what is working for kids, how are we breaking down barriers to remove those things that are long held and systemic. I think it will require continued attention. I think it will require probably more student voice to kind of understand what were the key reasons why you chose to enroll in this course, what were the things that went well and what didn’t. I think one thing I’m thinking about from a board perspective is we created Student & Family Affairs committee, and I think this gives us a nice venue or a room to be able to start having some more of those concrete conversations and inviting perhaps even more than just our student grads into those conversations to get a real sense of we laid this groundwork, we have some of these systems and practices at play, what else needs to change from the folks directly we’re interacting with, which are our students.
Kevin Diaz (53:30):
So I talked to a few people that went through CHS. I’ve talked to parents, I’ve talked to other people and they’ve talked about some of the barriers that were put up in the past. A lot of those barriers have since been removed. We’ve reduced them. However, the difference in outcomes still persists. The overall four-year graduation rate is about 93.2% compared to 86. But the economically disadvantaged student, that gap is a little bit higher. We still have less of those students actually graduating. Looking at that, I think we need to make sure that the African American student, students of color, are being encouraged to take the additional classes, making sure that the kids in the school are seen, making sure that they feel seen and not as an adult looking at them telling them what they need, making sure that they’re confident and comfortable in taking the classes that are available to them, when they were so used to or regularly being told that they couldn’t take certain classes or because of that generational difference where their parents weren’t able to take it, they’re also being advised not to take it.
So again, I think we need to make sure that the classes that are available, they’re open and we are actually encouraging the students to take additional things to make sure that they’re able to excel as well.
Will Meyer (54:56):
So I have gotten the opportunity to talk to a number of students of color, current students, current high school students, current middle school students, and former students. So you really get to see a cross section of where these district has come from and where it’s going to. I would call out former board president, Dr. Qawi Telesford, who is here tonight, who has spoken at length about his experience in being told, “Oh, of course you can’t do this work.” When he’s in fact one of the brightest folks who sat up here. I think we’re doing a much better job now. There are a tremendous number of students of color who I have met who are just having wildly successful experiences at Columbia, getting access to the GMAC, the slam lab, a number of other opportunities available for supporting them in higher level work. But it’s not uniform for sure.
And what we see is, this starts in the fifth grade. It starts with steering folks as far as, “Are you going to elect to be in a higher level sixth grade math class?” And there’s all the different factors that are going to come into play down the road as a result of where you are at that point. And the steering that happens, the teachers saying, “Well, sure, you meet most of these criteria, but this one criteria, I’m not sure maybe you should go for the lower one.” We know there are many opportunities still to catch up and to go to the different levels, but this does have to be a piece that is a culture issue, not just at the high school, but far before the high school, and that’s the place we need to grow at this point.
Audience Questions (57:27)
Ronnie Schwarz: What is your opinion on adding school resource officers to SOMSD? Are you aware of the risks with SROs? And if [Superintendent] Mr. Bing wanted you to add SROs, how would you proceed?
Will Meyer (57:48):
I don’t think he does, and I’m absolutely not in favor of it. Cops don’t belong in our schools. I’m not prepared to say universally there’s a never a school that might need one. Our schools do not. We have very talented educators who are trained in crisis intervention in the way that police officers are not trained in interventions. We have security guards available as needed, and we have fabulously talented police officers from both our towns who are three minutes away. So no I think we are doing just fine.
Liz Callahan (58:24):
I would co-sign what Will said, and I think I would definitely also add that the addition of a school resource officers adds a risk to, in particular, our Black and brown students. We know that their presence in schools often leads to over-policing and increased discipline measures, up to and including, hands-on discipline measures. So that is just not a risk that I would ever feel comfortable taking for the students in our district. For all of those reasons in combination with the training that we have provided in verbal deescalation, the security guards that we have, and the work that is ongoing to build cultures of belonging and inclusion, I don’t see a world where that fits in with the type of culture that we want to continue to build and sustain here in South Orange and Maplewood.
Kevin Diaz (59:17):
I’ll actually piggyback on that as well. We all know the long issue of racial disparities in school discipline, as well as the concerns about the school to prison pipeline. So I stand firmly against having armed police officers within our school. I believe our schools should be places where students should feel safe, supported, able to learn, and not be places where interactions with law enforcement become the school experience — often prematurely exposing adolescents to the criminal justice system. That doesn’t mean ignoring safety. It means approaching school safety with prevention, supportive relationships, mental health resources and the appropriate crisis response, as well as strong partnerships with families and the broader community.
Trish Azeez:
I don’t think anything else needs to be said there. We know the disparities exist between Black students and students of color and other students and how discipline is administered. And so, no, we don’t need another contributor to those disparities.
Question from Kate Albright Hannah: Do you support bringing the bus system back in house and does that include purchasing a fleet of electric buses?
Trish Azeez:
So without analysis, without knowing what it costs and whether we, I can’t say that our absolutely we should be considering whether or not it would be more beneficial for our students, um, more beneficial for our families and more cost effective.
Kevin Diaz (1:01:20):
I agree that we should start looking at bringing our own fleet buses back into the district, to make sure that we have control over the routes, the schedules, all of those different things. I think the electric bus option is something that needs to be looked into. Now whether we’re doing full fleet buses up front, I don’t know that that’s feasible. I don’t know the numbers or the budget, but at the end of the day I think it’s something that needs to be looked into whether we start with a small number of buses to begin with and continue to add onto that as we move on in years.
Will Meyer (1:01:54):
I would love to, if we could. I don’t know if we can. The cost of the buses, having those drivers as salaried employees. There is, again, the unfortunate underside of the outsourcing relationship is that the personnel costs wind up going down. So if we were able to have an in-district fleet of buses, it would be amazing. And I’d love to, I think the district is looking at what the cost would be on that. I don’t know that we should hold our breath for it to happen. I think if we can have at least some, that would be great.
And there’s also this development that the state made a year, year and a half ago, that now non-CDL licensed drivers are able to drive eight-and-fewer passenger vans. So we can have district staff who are otherwise qualified take vans and pick up students … our [unclearl] students, our special education students, that may be an option to bring some in-house.
One funny quirk is that, apparently, all the electric buses that are being made right now, as far as the full size buses, are about two feet too high to fit under the railroad trestles that go across our towns, except for South Orange Avenue, most of the others, you get wedged in there. So you actually have to think about, well, does this route have to go across town because then no electric. I’m sure this is something that can be developed, but one interesting fact.
Liz Callahan (1:03:22):
I don’t have much to add to what Will said because I think this is consistent with our current understanding of where things are. I think from the perspective of just decision making, of course I think that there are trade offs when we’ve done so much outsourcing, but there are these additional costs sometimes associated with, with bringing things back in now. And I think perhaps looking at like stages of analysis, I don’t know that we would be in a position certainly right now given the physical posture that we’re in to bring the whole fleet of buses in. But I think we can be strategic in the analysis and what we ask for the district to present to us what would be kind of the best designed plan in terms of maybe electric buses, vans, can we leverage the staff that we have in-house through stipended positions as opposed to hiring folks. So I think there’s stages to look at it similar to when we have the para discussion and we’re trying to be strategic about what bringing folks might look like, or bringing folks back in house might look like.
Do I think that we would have capacity to bring 180 folks back in? Probably not. Do I think that we could look at our self-contained classrooms as a starting point? Yes. And so I think the same kind of phased-in logic would apply to the decision making here and perhaps the proposal that we ask the district to produce within the fiscal concerns that we’re operating under.
Question is from Barbara Corkorinos (1:05:00): What is an example of something positive happening in the district now that we can all be proud of and applaud.
Liz Callahan:
I’ll use like a personal anecdote for this one. My older son just started at Maplewood Middle School. I think it would be easy for me to have said Maplewood Middle School and everyone’s mind goes to crumbling and disruptor and feeling that’s not where I’m going because this is a positive anecdote. We’ve had a really lovely beginning to our experience as middle school parents. He was recommended to the bridge program, which is a place that kids get oriented to the school year before it starts. So he had an opportunity to meet his teachers, he had an opportunity to be in the building, he had an opportunity to run through his schedule, he had an opportunity to start looking at what are the kind of organizational tools and skills that I believe can be successful in this place. And I think that’s really important.
It sets kids up who maybe executive functioning is harder, maybe anxiety about starting challenges is hard. And I think that it was a really thoughtful approach to making sure some of our kids who might have those challenges are set up for success in a very intentional and thoughtful and kind and supportive way. I think that to be a good example of the best our district has to offer in terms of student support, especially because we know those transitions school to school can be really hard. And you’ve been in an elementary school for six years, so you’re finally leaving that nest. Really nice to see a robust attendance in the summer for kids who benefit from that kind of support. So I think that to me is a positive. I know that it’s offered not just at MMS but also at SOMS.
Trish Azeez (1:06:51):
I would say that the addition, expansion of middle school sports in our schools is very positive and I was very pleased to see it happening. So athletics are just important and they shouldn’t be an afterthought in our district. And I think expanding middle school sports is addressing equity issues because when we didn’t have it, we have families who cannot afford to go to club sports and they don’t have — they can’t handle the logistics of getting to club sports. So expanding that program I think is, or even starting the program, I think is great. And although I didn’t get to go the first football game on Thursday because there was a debate. But my understanding is that it was packed. It was a full house, and there was love and that’s what sports can do. They bring connection and community together. So that is a very positive thing happening now.
Will Meyer (1:07:50):
So, it is hard to pick because there’s a lot of things that are really great in our district. A few that pop to mind right now: We’re in our second year for the Freshman Academy and things are going really well. We’ve seen — for anyone who has walked through the huge, huge facility that is Columbia High School, being able to take that and cut it down in size a little bit to make an easier transition for our ninth graders. And building in additional supports to help in that transition from middle school. And to get up to speed with the high school, creating and putting blinders on a little bit to support those kids. I think we’ve seen some great statistics as far as absenteeism, as far as discipline, it’s doing good things.
I also have to say, obviously our students are just phenomenal in every circumstance where they show their skills, whether it’s in robotics, whether it’s on the playing field, recently we’ve seen, phenomenal results from our girls’ soccer team, girls softball team, one of them is watching my kids tonight — drama, the unbelievable CHS show every year, the show in both the middle schools and the elementary schools. There is such spirit in the arts in our district. And that’s a thing that I know we all want to encourage and it’s hard in budget time. So it is so wonderful that we have the amount of, the infusion of life and excitement in there. So, those are a couple of things that really I like to celebrate every day about our district.
Kevin Diaz (1:09:40):
I could go on about South Orange Middle School going on the start of the year. I think everything has been great within the school. Talking to the different teachers during back to school night, every teacher is supported. We have a great staff of teachers that are here that are working extremely hard to make sure that our students feel welcome, they feel like they belong, they’re included. So to go through back to school night and experience that, I think that is great, and I think our teachers need to be recognized for that. And we need to make sure that we’re taking care of and showing teachers that they are supported as well.
Question from Dan Caplan: In every year that the Triple I survey has been administered, families of color, in particular Black families, have been underrepresented in the responses to the survey. Why do you think this continues to persist, and how will you ensure that the voices of families and students of color are heard at a proportionate level so that we can be sure that our integration efforts are actually on the right track, helping those that we’re purporting to help?
Liz Callahan (1:11:05):
I would answer that a couple different ways. First I would say that, in my mind, integration supports all students. So I don’t accept the premise that our integration plan simply just benefits Black and brown students. I think integration is successful exactly because it puts students together who come from different backgrounds, have different culture, different socioeconomic status, and that’s why integration has the outcomes around the soft skills of being able to accept and understand diverse perspectives, have better critical thinking skills.
And I think that you’re absolutely right. Figuring out, and I would say that the Triple I survey is one example, though we have many examples and probably survey fatigue from all folks who participate, is getting better participation across the board. We talked a little bit about that I think in our last update, really kind of figuring out that it can’t be a one shot deal if this gets sent out via email. I am as guilty as the next person in missing some of those opportunities myself. And so getting more creative. Dr. Gilbert has talked about different outreach efforts that they are making. I think some in partnership with CCR to really kind of go out into the community, they call it street data, really kind of getting out to churches, community centers. One thing we talked about is, are there opportunities when folks are already coming into school for a back to school night when we kind of already have that rapt attention and folks in the building to be able to kind of put a survey in hand perhaps and then ask that you return. So I think it’s really about shifting and not viewing online administration of a survey as the only kind of avenue to get those results. Just being more creative and I think more in real life context to get that done.
Trish Azeez (1:12:56):
So I think our inability to capture all voices is twofold. One, we keep using the same methods. So if we’re sending out emails, no, we’re not getting responses from our low-SES families and we’re not getting responses from our Black families. For the experience survey for Triple I, we saw that only 20 Black families responded. Chances are that they are being disproportionately affected by the busing.
It also comes down to trust. I mean, our district has a history of not listening to these voices. So, we come in, our SPED families, they voice their feelings and they’re Black families. We come in, we voice our experience and our feelings, and they’re often ignored. And so, and we know that it worked because there was a lawsuit. So we would address these inequities, and the segregation issues long ago. So I think it comes down to building trust. And, and to build trust, you have to actively listen and show that you are trying to not just make things look better, but actually address gaps, opportunity gaps, achievement gaps.
I’ll echo what Liz said, and it’s something that I’ve propose, we need a task force. We need people — for my campaign, I met with a wonderful Creole-speaking resident and we’re going out and we’re knocking on doors and being able to speak to them in their language. So we have to meet them where they are, go to churches, go to restaurants, go to playgrounds, wherever you think that people are congregating, and when you show up, that is how we start building trust. The email alone isn’t gonna get it done.
Will Meyer (1:14:48):
So this has been really frustrating, and I’ve sat up here and I’ve seen survey results go down and down as far as their number of responses. We saw relatively higher this year but still nowhere that we’d like them to be. And I’m not prepared to sit here with a broad brush to say why Black families in particular are not returning as much. I think there is a piece of survey fatigue. It is difficult to get survey responses from a lot of folks. But we also know between Black households, households of color, and low-SES households, including free and reduced lunch populations, the district has been investing a lot of effort generally in making sure that we reach those populations especially for the Triple I surveys, but also things that are much more impactful, such as making sure that they have equal access and opportunity to sign up for our preschool program for which there is special targeting at this point to bring those low-income households in to make sure they are supported.
Going to laundromats, going to churches, reaching out to churches outside of our district, but where our families are going, making sure that they are translated into other languages, which of course our website and surveys also are. We have changed the survey. It was in PowerSchool for a while which is great for tracking, terrible for using. Now it’s been in Google form, which is slightly easier. But it’s tough.
The other thing I’m going to say, and this is probably a little spicy, is I think people fill out surveys the same way they filled out Yelp reviews. You go on there because your are ticked off. And it’s possible that not everyone is as ticked off about the Triple I. For some families, it is like a sporting hat. You put it on. You figure out where you’re going and that’s it, you’re done with Triple I and you’re just in your school and you love your school.
So there are some people who will walk on for years and tell you why the Triple I has been really hard on their family life and shuts down and want to hear it and look at issues that we’ve liberalized the transfer policy to allow people to move around. But also, I think for some families it’s like, well, that’s worked just fine for us.
Kevin Diaz (1:17:09):
I think I can agree with that. I think not every family is upset with Triple I. Not every family is disappointed in how it’s working. Triple I is working. Again, most people complete surveys when they are upset about something. So if you’re not getting the responses, they’re likely okay with the results that are happening.
But one of the other things that we want to look at is making sure that everything is translated, like you said in the different languages that may be the first language of the parents. Although the child speaks English, the parents may not. Again, looking at going into technology. It’s not only about that, not every family has the technology. When we’re talking about low socioeconomic households, they may not all have computers. They may not all have smartphones. They may not have all these things in order to take it.
So again, as we’re sending home the papers in the backpacks, again, making sure that those papers are translated in the language for that child, make sure it does get to the parent, so the parents are aware of any surveys or anything that they’re interested in taking is available to them.
Question from Dr. Qawi Telesford (1:18:34): Thank you for running and stepping up. This is a very grueling process and I don’t envy you. So my question is, with the change to proximity for student assignments, what factors or outcomes would you consider important to track to ensure that our schools are not becoming more segregated again?
Will Meyer (1:19:02):
I will claim proximity and also critique proximity. It is not my preference from the standpoint of the fidelity of what the integration plan was originally shaped and designed to do. And I think there have been some numbers that have shown that while our SES variance has stayed within its window, we’ve seen drift in the racial composition of our schools. And of course, we’re not measuring specifically or correcting for race but it’s a thing that we’re tracking.
I think the number one piece is certainly looking at that variance and making sure that, between the different changes that we’ve made, the proximity, model, liberalized transfers, including urgent transfers that can override that variance, that we’re making sure that we’re staying within the parameters that the initiative was originally designed around.
But in addition to that, I think the recently created Regulation 5120, which I’m really glad to see finally the district having created to actually articulate and tell everyone transparently, this is how Triple I actually works.
There’s pieces in there that I think we can ask the district to reconsider. If we’re seeing gaps, the actual gaps in our demographics that are beyond what the goal had been of the Triple I the we should look at making those changes. But at the same time we are looking right now looking at how are we going to maintain this program and maintain the services such as transportation that may be required for it to work in our district, keep those going while also balancing resources. So if this is a way that we can continue that balance, then I’m okay with it.
Liz Callahan (1:21:02):
I would build on what Will said. I think doing nothing to address segregation in our schools is not neutral. That was a choice. And we made the choice to address those disparities and really ensure that our schools reflect the diversity of our district. And I think Triple I has given us a structured way to address that socioeconomic separation that exists. And we can talk about the changes to demographics in our town, but it still exists here, even if it is shifting and changing under our feet. So I think one thing that I’m cognizant of is adding that. Making sure that we’re continuing to look at what are those shifts over time and keeping an eye on that as we’re also looking at things like the consideration of proximity, siblings, capacity, special education, our multilingual learners. The data has shown us that the core mechanism is working. Five of our six schools, we’re within that five plus or minus SES target that we set. And at the same time, proximity did improve for groups that had historically carried more of that transportation burden, which I think is a good thing.
So I don’t think the honest answer is that what we have is perfect. I think the honest answer is that we have data that will be used to improve implementation while protecting our integration goals. And as Will noted, now we have this regulation that really requires us to go for structured impact analysis if any changes were to be brought forth to that.
Kevin Diaz (1:22:32):
I think we need to be careful with adjusting the proximity. Again, we’re only within the first cohort of people with Triple I, and if we start making too many changes to it, we’re gonna end up with high poverty schools again. So what’s gonna happen is we’re gonna end up with high poverty schools, we’re gonna have overcrowding in schools, and it’s not gonna solve the issue. We’re gonna end up busing kids from the overcrowded schools to another school because we changed everybody back to proximity. So again, I think we need to be cautious about changing it and we need to make sure that we’re letting the results play out and follow the data and make sure that we’re looking at actual facts before making changes to it.
Trish Azeez (1:23:20):
I think we need to ask ourselves what is the underlying goal of integration? The truth is it’s not for demographics alone. This is not 1954 Mississippi. And so integration is really important — and honestly there are just long term benefits. I myself as a Black parent was very unhappy at South Mountain when there was only one other child, one other Black family in our kindergarten orientation out of 75 families. So, yes, integration is important.
But the point is that we are allowing for equitable opportunity. And so, for Kevin to say, well, we don’t want low poverty-high poverty schools. I mean, if we are, as a district, making sure that all of our teachers are highly qualified, that class sizes aren’t changing from one school to the next.
The point here is that we need high-quality instruction. And so, no, we don’t want to desegregate. We don’t want there to be wide disparities in SES the way we saw. But we do have to prioritize proximity because every dollar that we are spending on transportation, redistributing students, is a dollar that we cannot put into actual initiatives that are going to directly impact achievement. And we’ve seen that. We’ve seen trying to cut costs, like I said, with paraprofessionals, and we see the impact on teacher instruction.
So while we’re distributing students or redistributing students, teacher instruction training is being cut 25% and we’re maxing out class sizes.
So what is really important here? Yes, demographics matter to an extent because we want our children to feel like there’s someone in the classroom who looks like them. We want them to feel like they’re a part of a community. But we really have to focus on what is the bottom line here, and the bottom line is achievement. So schools in 1954, the reason we wanted to integrate, it wasn’t just to put white children next to Black children. It wasn’t to put low SES next to high SES. It was because you had a predominantly Black and brown school that was being under-sourced. And then you had a predominately white school and they had all the resources. And so yes, in that situation, when we integrate, now they’re gonna have black children who have higher quality instruction. They’re gonna have smaller class sizes, they’re gonna have expanded enrichment opportunity. If we are doing our job as a district that should not happen from Seth Boyden to South Mountain. In fact, Seth Boyden, their numbers were better before integration. And so yes, we do wanna make sure that we are legally bound to make sure that our schools are not segregated, but we do wanna make sure that we are paying attention to the bottom line. And it’s more than demographics.
Watch closing statements at 1:27:33 in the video.
