WORTHINGTON BOARD OF EDUCATION

SCHOOL BOARD VACANCY SUPPLEMENTAL QUESTIONNAIRE

Candidate’s Name: _______Gerald L. Prince_________________________________________

Contact Address: _________6854 Kilt Court_________________________________________

Contact Telephone Number: _614-888-3226_________________________________________

Contact Email Address: _____glprince@aol.com______________________________________

Please answer all questions and send a completed questionnaire by January 16 via email to:

vgnezda@worthington.k12.oh.us

1. Please state your professional or volunteer activities with K-12 education, either in the Worthington School District, another school district or in a private school.

Teacher, principal and a central office administrator for 37 years
Central office administrator in the Worthington Schools for 25 years
Consultant with K-12 districts in twenty-plus states and three Canadian providences
Volunteer presenter, on numerous occasions, for Worthington and other schools on topics such as: Positive discipline, building a positive culture, improving communications.
Presenter at numerous state and national K-12 educational conferences
Taught teacher and administrator preparation courses for 11 universities and colleges: University of Hawaii, BYU, BYU of Hawaii, University of Northern Colorado, Colorado State University, Adams State College, University of Wyoming, Northwest Nazarene College, Ohio State University, Ashland University and University of Colorado

2. What personal traits, skills, or experiences would you bring to the position that you feel would make you an effective board member?

TRAITS & SKILLS

Consensus building Team building Negotiation

Listening Decision making Relationship building

Problem solving Long-range planning Leadership development

Critical thinking Personnel selection Evaluation

Acting Superintendent in Worthington

3. What do you think is the most pressing issue in the Worthington Schools?

The most pressing issue is that we continue to move toward the priorities, the mission and vision of the school district. District's Mission: The Worthington School District inspires learning for all. District's Vision: We develop life-long learning through visionary leadership, effective teaching and learning practices, wise resource management and information-based accountability in a safe, positive, and supportive environment.

Several other specific issues that affect the work on reaching the mission and vision are:

Financial stability to assure that excellent educational opportunities continue to be offered in Worthington.
Financial accountability to make sure all programs are effectively and efficiently being implemented.
Program accountability to assure that programs are maintained, created or eliminated, based on the future needs of our students to be successful in the job market and the world of tomorrow.
Community accountability to build a knowledge-base regarding education and to establish common education goals for the Worthington Schools. State government accountability to establish, to and adequately fund, the “true” cost of educating students.

4. If it were necessary to make substantial cuts in the expenditures of the district, what areas would you cut first, and what areas would you seek to preserve?

As a board member, my role, along with the other board members, would be to work closely with the superintendent to establish a transparent process that would clearly outline what the program reduction recommendations would be based on, what the parameters for decision-making would be, what the timeline for making recommendations to the board of education be, who should be involved and how. Some strategies the board must consider:

Review the district mission and vision to specify the outcomes that must be retained and focused on during the process (Example-literacy, math, safe and collaborative learning environment).
Establish the financial targets for the reductions.
Review and discuss the superintendent’s periodic updates.
Listen, consider and make a decision on the superintendent’s recommendations.
Campaign and vote for the alternatives that would have the least negative impact on preparing our students for the future and the most positive impact on encouraging staff innovation to meet student needs.

Some strategies the board would expect of the superintendent:

Involve staff, administrators, students, parents and community members in examining the alternatives.
Study current educational research and other resources to establish a basis for the reductions.
Audit course offerings and programs to determine the degree of impact on the district mission.
Consult, periodically, with the board of education to assure common understanding.
Inform and gain feedback from the community on the alternatives and the impact the reductions would have on the educational opportunities for students.
Make recommendations for reductions that meet the parameters established with the board of education.

5. If it were possible to add new programs to the district, what programs would you seek to add?

As I answered the question number 4, my role, along with the other board members, would be to work closely with the superintendent to establish a transparent process that clearly outlines what the programs would promote the district vision and mission, what the superintendent’s recommendations would be based on, what the parameters for decision-making would be, what would the timeline for making recommendations to the board of education be, who should be involved and how. Some strategies the board must consider:

Review the district mission and vision to specify the priorities for enhancing the program.
Establish the financial parameters that would govern additions. (Example-programs needing short term resources and those needing continuing support)
Review and discuss the superintendent’s periodic updates.
Listen, consider and make a decision on the superintendent’s recommendations.
Campaign and vote for the alternatives that would have the most positive impact on student learning and encouraging staff innovation.

Some strategies the board would expect of the superintendent:

Involve staff, administrators, students, parents and community members in examining the alternatives.
Study current educational research and other resources to gather input for the process of considering what programs would have the most positive impact on reaching the Worthington School District priorities.
Audit course offerings and programs to determine the degree of impact on the district mission.
Consult periodically with the board of education to assure common understandings.
Inform and gain feedback from the community the alternatives and the expected positive outcome on student learning.
Make recommendations to the board of education for programs to enhance the learning opportunities for students.

6. What do you see as the impact of “No Child Left Behind” on the Worthington Schools? What about the Ohio Core legislation?

There are positive and negative impacts from both legislative mandates.

The Worthington School District has been known for providing many opportunities for students, at all grade levels, to gain basic skills, to explore and to focus in specific areas of talent and interest. NCLB has provided specific standards that were helpful to ensure a quality education for all students. Because of the standards, more attention has been given to students’ individual learning needs. Closing the achievement gap with minority students and other subgroups has been a positive focus. A negative impact as a result of the focus on only specific standards is NCLB has tended to narrow the curriculum and thus limit the enrichment opportunities that were part of many programs. Another negative impact is the difficultly in explaining how a high performing district like Worthington doesn’t meet the Average Yearly Performance (AYP) standards set. Worthington can and does have an Excellent rating, as reported on the annual District State Report for the past 6 years, yet recently has not been able to continue to show the mandated growth in all areas. A major limiting impact is that the teachers and administrators, for the most part, have always been outstanding in finding and implementing innovative strategies to gain student interest and to spark student achievement. With assessment being done only by standardized tests, innovation has to been focused on making sure students are prepared for the tests and often at the expense of past innovations that brought excitement to learning.

Establishing the Ohio Core has brought a positive focus on preparing students for college. Worthington’s, board approved, graduation requirements are much the same as recently passed by the legislature. A challenge will be to make sure terms used, such as inquiry-based laboratory experiences, in the act are understood, defined and courses altered to ensure the requirements are met. A negative impact could be the affect on the elective program. Will students risk taking electives or will they focus on taking more of the core courses? The recommendation that foreign language be considered P-12 may be positive for preparing students, but would have a financial impact. A negative impact is the excusing of students who participate in athletics from physical education. With the national crisis of obesity, students need to learn more about healthy life style. Allowing students to complete two semesters of fine arts between grades 7 and 12 may come into conflict with out-of-state college admission. Another negative impact will be the forced tracking of students at the end to their second year. Students opting out of the Ohio Core will not be eligible for admission to colleges or universities in the state and will have to pay the cost of remedial work in community colleges if they desire to attend the universities.

7. If selected, what do you see as your role in influencing state education laws and policies that affect the Worthington Schools?

Act as a team with other board members to send a clear and consistent message. Be proactive in meeting with OSBA, legislators and other boards of education.
Lobby for establishing the “true” cost of educating students and working to ensure that the state commits to fund that amount. Worthington residents could then determine the additional programs we would support.
Seek stability in state funding of education.
Work to provide lower cost healthcare plans through the state or professional groups.
Seek to ensure charter and private schools be held to the same standards as public schools.

8. What do you see as the roles and responsibilities of a school board member?

Set a model for how decisions are made in the district.
Focus on setting the policies that will guide employees, parents and community members to achieve district educational goals.
Actively seek out opportunities to listen to all stakeholders and to discuss board of education decisions.
Understand the district programs well enough to know what is being funded, what programs are not being funded and what should be funded.
Maintain a competitive package for attracting and retaining a quality staff.
Demonstrate that district resources are being used in the most effective ways.
Provide counsel to the superintendent and treasurer as they perform their jobs.
Seek feedback on how well we, as the board of education, are performing our jobs as based on defined goals.

9. What evidence do you believe shows the Worthington Schools are adequately, or inadequately, preparing students for their lives after graduation?

The assessment of how well students are doing after graduation must come from many different sources. Research shows that most jobs now, and in the future, require post high school education. The information from the Worthington School District profile indicates that 90 percent of our students go on to post high school education. This is only one indicator of success after graduation. Student graduation from post high school programs would be important information. Student and parent perception of how well students have been prepared is important to provide a broader, yet subjective, view. Past surveys of Worthington graduates and their parents indicated a high degree of satisfaction with the education received, but such surveys have not been conducted recently and may need to be resumed. On a limited basis, my personal experience with graduates and their parents has been one of praise for how well prepared students were for their college programs.

10. A suggestion for a tenth question – If you had three wishes for the Worthington School District, what would they be?