All comments here are my own and do not represent the Pequannock Township Board of Education.
This weekend, at the township's annual Family Hoedown, I had the pleasure of spending some time with our teachers at the Pequannock Township Education Association's booth. As they have in the past, the PTEA leadership invited Board of Education members to share their booth space to connect with our educators, families, and community members. As a current Board member, I am grateful for this invitation and really enjoy the time spent there.
The chain of command and the role of the Board as a governance body, both of which exist for very good reasons, can sometimes create distance between BOE members and the educators "on the ground." These unique opportunities to briefly step outside of those roles and have informal conversations and just get to know each other better help build strong relationships and mutual understanding of the challenges we are all facing.
In my professional role as a college faculty member, I serve as the Vice-President of our faculty union. This dual identity - as a Board of Education member and a union leadership member - gives me a well-rounded perspective on the labor-management relationship and the issues affecting both sides. I am a conflicted Board member when it comes to contract negotiations, so I do not participate in those discussions, but I am permitted to vote on the final resolution. Fortunately, my fellow BOE members and our Superintendent share my desire to maintain a productive and cooperative relationship with the PTEA and other unions in the district. The needs and desires of management and those of labor are not always aligned; there are always going to be areas where we do not see eye to eye. But a mutually respectful relationship between the two means that discussions can be had, negotiations really are negotiations, no one is going to get everything they want, but generally we're all going to be ok with that.
Such cooperation has not been my experience negotiating on behalf of my faculty union where the relationship with management is much more contentious and a history of mistrust has led to drawn-out, fraught negotiations that destroy employee morale. Although I am not involved in Pequannock negotiations, I know that the most recent ones went relatively smoothly and I hear from teachers and from parents that morale in our district has improved dramatically under the current Board and Superintendent. I attribute much of that to increased communication, transparent processes, and collaborative decision-making, which have substantially improved the labor-management relationship in the district. These were priorities for me when I ran for the BOE in 2018 and remain priorities that I want to see continue in the district. I will ask the hard questions when they need to be asked, I will push back where I am within my authority to do so, and I will insist on clear communication, transparency and honesty from our administration. But I have no reason to believe that the Board will not receive those things from the current district leadership, and based on my three years of experience, I have every reason to trust that decisions are being made with the best interests of our students, our families, our staff and our community at the center. We have worked hard to build that mutual respect and trust, and our schools are all the better for it.