William H. Ross Elementary School
MARGATE – Weary of hearing negative comments about the Margate public schools and consolidating to one school, Board of Education members and parents stepped up to the mic Wednesday, Oct. 10 to speak their mind.
Their comments come on the heels of repeated comments from two Margate senior citizens who say the district is spending too much money to educate students, class sizes are too small and with the reduction in enrollment over the last several years, the district should consolidate to one school.
Residents John Sewell and Art Coutilli often speak at school board and at Board of Commissioners meetings, criticizing administrators and commissioners for not doing enough to reduce the cost of education.
On Wednesday, Sewell said the district was “failing to plan” and “failing all indices of efficiency.” He called having two sections of kindergarten with 10 students in each and four sections of 12 students inefficient and costly.
“The district should begin emergency sessions with the Ventnor City Board of Education to come up with real shared services,” Sewell said.
Coutilli said former school board President J.B. Sless said 18-21 students is an ideal class size.
He said the district should consider putting kindergarten through third grade in the old Union Avenue School, which was vacated in 2011 and is now home to municipal government. However, moving back to a school that was abandoned by the district, may not be approved by the state.
“If you have a plan, you can proceed to ask,” he said.
He also encouraged the board to plan for continued reduced enrollment.
“This (trend) is going to continue going like it has for the last five years. We have no houses for young people,” he said.
Board member Tracy Santoro said when Sewell and Coutilli speak at meetings, they continually give out bad information, which gets spread around the community.
“You continually quote facts about class size in Tighe School. It doesn’t matter about homeroom size, it’s by subject area,” she said. “It’s frustrating when you put out that we have four homerooms of 12.”
Santoro said that students spend very little time in their homerooms before moving to subject area classes, some of which are tracked to the students’ abilities.
Board President Catherine Horn invited Coutilli and Sewell to meet with the superintendent to learn how the Eugene A. Tighe Middle School schedules classes.
She said the district is being responsive to the needs of the community, by keeping taxes in check, while still offering a superb education.
“We meet and talk about things and were looking at options,” Horn said. “We see it. We hear you. We are here for the children, taxpayers and teachers. We want the public to understand the way things really work.”
Resident Nick Palmisano was born and raised in Margate, lived in Ventnor for a while, but moved back to Margate so his children could attend the public schools, one of which has been named a national Blue Ribbon School.
“I commend the schools and they are an asset,” he said. “I would like to talk to the commission about using the schools as an asset to promote Margate.”
Resident Luke Duff said when parents from other towns visit the Margate schools for athletic events, they say they want to move there.
“This school is different from any other in Atlantic County. What you’ve done here and what we’ve accomplished as a community is amazing,” he said.
If the district merged with Ventnor, it would have the added costs of transportation, he said.
“I understand being financially responsible, but education is not a business. You can not put a number on what you can do for a child,” he said.
Lifelong resident Brian Duffey, who has two children in the district, said he was diagnosed with dyslexia as a child and struggled in class, but his mother fought the district to get him the extra help he needed.
“They told her, ‘he could go to a special school in Philadelphia and the district would pay for it,’ but my mom said ‘no, you will teach my child in Margate,’ and I was taught in Margate,” he said.
He graduated, went to college, owns two businesses and lives in town.
“I consider myself pretty successful thanks to a Margate education,” he said. “I’m fired up tonight because my mom got fired up 35 years ago.”
Rohini McArdle, moved to Margate in 2014 and because of the extra help offered by teachers, her son, who had developmental issues, is succeeding.
She thanked the teachers for working with him one-on-one and said she attended the meeting to support other parents and the school district.
“We are here to make sure the district succeeds,” she said.
Board member Jim Swift said many of the negative comments are not supported by viable alternatives, and that the community is lucky to have such great schools.
“We do not waste money. We make serious decisions the public might not see. We don’t spend one dime recklessly. Every bit of money is spent with the best interest of these children and to give them the best education possible,” he said.
Following the public comment session, the board honored volunteers of Art Goes to School, an interactive program that has educated students in the district for the last 21 years on how to view, appreciate and understand the fundamentals of art.
The district also heard a report on last year’s PARCC scores.
Supervisor of Instruction Loreen Cohen presented scores that showed that Margate students outperformed the state averages in both English and mathematics in all grade levels.
Of special note, she said, is that 100 percent of eighth grade students who took the algebra assessment either met or exceeded expectations.
The district is analyzing results of the PARCC and monitoring students who are not meeting expectations, she said.
A new mathematics curriculum has been implemented in grades K-5 and a phonics program has been implemented in kindergarten and first grade. The entire English language curriculum is being reviewed this year, she said.
Cohen also said the state ended its membership in an interstate consortium that produced the PARCC. It will be replaced with a new online testing system that will be called the NJ Student Learning Assessment, and the testing period will be shortened to 360 minutes, from the PARCC’s 465-minute testing time.
