With November 2 rapidly approaching, Englewood’s local Board of Education candidates are gearing up for what will surely be a heated election. But the “Children Matter Most” candidates, Tamar Blumenthal, Dan Tokayer and Alexander Chester, are ready and eager to tackle Englewood’s biggest educational challenges and bring their experience, passion and expertise to the city they call home. Among some of the issues they are looking to resolve are helping appoint a new superintendent who would share their vision in transforming Englewood public schools to a quality educational destination where every student meets New Jersey’s educational standards, and opening lines of communication between parents, teachers and administrators.
All three candidates are deeply passionate about trying to bring about change to make Englewood a better place for everyone and view it as part of their obligation, as members of the community, to try and help their neighbors.
As a clinical psychologist with a PsyD, Tamar Blumenthal would be a welcome addition to any school board. Having worked extensively with parents and children from all backgrounds throughout her career, she has spent much of her time helping them overcome the challenges and obstacles they have encountered within their school systems. From writing up 504 and IEP plans, to working with special needs students and their families to make sure their needs are being met, Tamar is thoroughly familiar with the complexities surrounding educational issues and has dedicated her career to easing that burden for both children and adults. Tamar, as a mother of four young children, sees this chance to become a BOE member as a way to give back to the city she calls home. “I work a lot with children and parents who are navigating various issues within their schools. I thought this would be a unique opportunity for me to be able to contribute to my community given the specific skill set that I possess.”
Dan Tokayer hopes he gets elected so that he can “go in there and change things to make the Englewood public school system a better place.” When he met with fellow Englewood residents recently, they shared that the school system had been quite good in the 1960s-1970s but are dismayed how it has been steadily declining since then. While many share the sentiment that they would like to bring the school system back to its former glory, there are those who shrug their shoulders in defeat and have come to accept it for what it is—a sub-par public school system.
In fact, Dan has made it a point to speak to many residents from all the different Englewood neighborhoods who all seem to share the same sentiment and common goals: “To clean the system up so that the taxes residents pay make Englewood a fantastic place where families would want to move.” He said, “You have the means. You have the money. You have the teachers…You just need to fix some of the strong-headed people who are voting just to push back the other way.”
The father of three boys, one of whom has special needs, added, “I think there are ways to help the kids in the school system at an early age, utilizing early-intervention techniques from a placement-wise standpoint, in order not to spend a lot of money on sending kids outside the district to receive additional services.”
Alexander Chester, a father of four boys, also looks forward to improving Englewood’s public schools reputation. He is eager to listen, learn and see where he can play the most constructive role. Besides helping find the right superintendent, he echoed Tamar’s sentiments that the school system is especially problematic when compared to those of neighboring towns and, as a consequence, people move to other communities or they move to Englewood but do not send their children to the public school. The problem this poses is that the families that do not have the luxury of sending their kids elsewhere are not being best served. Among the solutions, he believes, would be to improve enrichment, STEM and fine arts programs for all students, and to invest in an improved dual-language/ESL program for students from households where English is not the first language.
Alexander shared, “The reason I chose to run alongside Dan and Tamar is because we all want to see the Englewood schools improve to fix the inefficiencies in the system.” He believes that there are individuals within the system “who are not open to new philosophies and new ideas of education, new opportunities.” Some of it he blames on a sense of complacency on their part and their unwillingness to change. But the fact remains that in the end, it is the students who are the ones truly suffering.
Currently there is an interim superintendent overseeing the Englewood public school system so one of the first items on the board’s agenda will be to appoint a new superintendent. “We need to be able to find a new superintendent who is going to be able to help us to improve the schools and be willing to work with us…we want to be able to find somebody that is going to really be able to pursue an agenda of making the schools better,” Tamar explained.
Alexander added, “The schools in Englewood, for example, right now are 65% Latino. I don’t think that our dual-language programs and our schools have adjusted appropriately enough for the kind of student body that we have now…it’s not because anyone has bad intentions or is malevolent. It’s more an issue of people not being open to accepting the fact that there are new ways that you have to approach it.”
The “Children Matter Most” candidates want to bring in a superintendent with a proven track record who values parental input and involvement. When the candidates spoke with several parents in the district, they expressed they wanted someone who was going to listen to them and hear what they have to say. Both candidates and parents feel the superintendent should be someone who is willing to work with them, together with teachers and administrators, who will not only acknowledge their concerns but also make a real effort to implement practical solutions to help the school run more efficiently and help students get what they need.
The candidates consider the current test scores to be of serious concern. “We have a very large budget—approximately $70 million—but our schools are ranked relatively low,” Tamar explained. She strongly believes, along with Dan and Alexander, that the approximately $18,300 spent on each child should result in much higher reading and math test scores than what they are seeing now. Math proficiency of 20% is less than half the NJ state average. Improving dual-language and ESL curricula, especially given the fact that there are several hundred new students in the school system who do not speak English as a first language, is high on their list of priorities. Tamar also wants the board to ensure that children who would benefit from more enrichment opportunities continue to receive them.
Dan said that the numbers don’t lie, and they are showing that things are only getting worse. “The issue that you have with Englewood is that we have a $70 million BOE budget and we are not spending it efficiently and effectively, with too little of it going directly towards student programming.” He said that the money is there so why not use it towards items that can affect positive change, including better student testing, increasing technology integration in the classroom and hiring top-notch educators and administrators with proven track records. Although Dan says change can come in multiple ways, he believes it should come first from the lower school system. “To get things straightened out…we should improve the system at an early age to make sure that no kids fall through the cracks.”
Dan is quick to point out that the 88% systemwide high school graduation rate is a misleading figure because there are, in fact, two vastly differently achieving high school programs in Englewood: Dwight Morrow and the Academies@Englewood. The former is the standard public school system and the latter is a high-achieving, specialized magnet program geared toward high school students who excel. “So when you take into account Academies, which has a graduation rate and four-year college enrollment rate of close to 100%, then yes, it looks like Englewood is doing well. But if you take out Academies, then that graduation and achievement rate drops precipitously.”
When Alexander, Tamar and Dan met with voters in Englewood who either currently have children in the public schools or have attended them themselves, they often spoke with frustration about certain people, who because they have been allowed to do things their way for so many years and get away with it, they have become resistant to any type of change. That has evolved into a tremendous problem especially because the student body has changed so much since those people became involved.
Parents in the community also expressed how they don’t feel heard and that they would like to give their own input. “Parents definitely feel that there is an issue with communication and would like to have clear communication with the schools and administration,” Tamar added.
“All I know is I hear the negative…there are two types of people on the board right now: those who want to change and those who want to keep things the same,” Dan said.
Alexander added, “We think that the students of Englewood are the ones who would most benefit from people coming in with a little bit of a fresh perspective…somebody who can come in and hopefully be open minded to new progressive concepts of education, bringing in new kinds of educators, new administrators, people who maybe have had success or experience in other places and bring some of those ideas here.”
“Many families in town are really struggling in the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, along with the ongoing pandemic, and we need schools that are going to be able to adjust in real time to reflect the circumstances that are challenging our community and provide appropriate resources for them. This has not been happening,” Alexander added.
All three candidates hope that in a few years people will look at the Englewood public schools as a reason to move there. “Given the resources we have at our disposal, we think that we should be able to improve the schools so that they can rank on par with some of the better schools in neighboring communities.” The schools should be seen as appealing, Tamar explains, “where anybody looks at the schools and they say that they would be happy to send their children there.”
“Obviously, that’s a long-term view, but as we take smaller steps and build upon that, I think that there is no reason why we wouldn’t be able to get there,” she adds.
Dan went on to say that “Regardless of whether my kids are in the school system or not (his son was), I have a reason to fight. Providing a high-quality public school education is very important. I’m an Englewood resident. It represents my town. It represents where I want to live…so why not fix the school system?”
By Ronit Mershon
