- By Dan Veaner
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David Dittman
Sponsored by the Lansing PTSO, the event was moderated by the League of Women Voters' Kay Sharp. Debbie Levin, also a League member, was the timer, though with so few people candidates were allowed to go over the allotted time with their answers to questions from the audience. The election is scheduled for next Tuesday, May 18th, from 7am to 9pm at the Teacher Center located at R.C. Buckley Elementary School.
Editor's Note: What follows is a transcript of the meeting. I have shortened the moderator's and questioners' remarks, but have strived to quote the candidates verbatim.
Kay Sharp: Each of the candidates will have five minutes for opening statements. Then we'll take questions from the audience. You'll have one minute to ask your question, and they'll have two minutes to answer the question. Then we'll have a closing summary from each of the candidates which will be two to three minutes.
The League of Women voters is a non-partisan citizen organization. We encourage informed and active participation in government, work to increase understanding of major public policy issues, and influences public policy through education and advocacy. The league does not support or oppose any political parties or candidates. It achieves its goals through year-round voter service activities such as tonight, and the study on issues selected by its members on the local, state, and national levels.
(She holds a lottery to decide who will go first)
Christine Iacobucci: Thank you for coming. I'm going to introduce myself and be quite informal given (the small size of) the audience and who we all are.
My name is Christine Iacobucci. I've lived in Lansing since 1989. I moved here when our son was about 18 months old because I took a job at Ithaca College. Since that time I had three more children. My oldest son is 22. he is working in Baltimore, MD. and has been accepted into the University of Buffalo where he'll be studying cogitative science in the Fall. My daughter just finished her sophomore year at Geneseo. She followed her brother in that respect. The is majoring in French and English. I have a son here at the high school who is a junior. He wants to follow his siblings steps and go to Geneseo. It's one of the greatest state schools, and a good bargain. Our youngest daughter is in seventh grade.
Some people have asked me why I am running for the school board again. I did spend six years on the school board from 2001 to 2007. I think I can make a contribution. There are a lot of people on the board right now who are very savvy about the finances of a school district, and I am really delighted to have those people on the board, especially David Dittman here.
I think I bring expertise having to do with curriculum and public education. Steve Grimm said last night in his budget presentation that he had changed the title of his presentation to 'Preserving Excellence, Planning for the Future.' I would say that is probably one of my main goals, to preserve the excellence of our district. I think that's going to be really important, while at the same time easing the burden of our taxpayers.
I'll just (list) very quickly those strengths of the district. Our faculty and staff are amazing people. They really care about our children and we're really lucky to have them working in our community. I believe that our community is a caring one and that's something that we should treasure. It's one of the reasons why I decided to live in Lansing, and one of the reasons why I will stay in Lansing. Joe and I have decided that we do, in fact, want to stay right here after the kids have finished school.
Incredibly strong academic core, and our extra-curriculars are engaging for all of our children. Those are things not to be taken lightly. It's an excellent resource for our community.
Some of the things I would like to see addressed: i would like the school to be embraced by our entire community, not just families who have children who go to school here. One of the ways we can do that is by extending what we offer here to the community, such as the swimming pool, which is already offered to the community. Also, we have an amazing facility here, and that could be extended to our younger and older people as well, and people who don't have children.
I like that Dr. Grimm has improved decision making, and I would like to see that continue to be maintained. I'd like to see us proceed in a financially responsible way. I think that way has to be strategic, and intelligent, and well informed, and data driven. I'm really concerned about that and I think I can make a contribution to that.
Other than that, this is a huge commitment. I believe the district is in a much kinder place than it once was. I see people connecting with each other in more caring ways, and I would like to see that maintained. That's why I would like to be on the board now. Thank you.
David Dittman: My name is David Dittman. I am a current incumbent on the school board. I was elected three years ago.
The reason I ran three years ago was to give back to the community, a community that I had been in, at that point in time, for 17 years. A community which educated both of my daughters, gave them a quality education at Lansing, (good enough) quality that they attended Notre Dame. They both graduated with honors. Megan then went to Cornell and received a Masters degree.
That foundation was laid here in the Lansing school system. I believe that the teachers in Lansing are a dedicated staff, that we have a concerned community that embodies the desire to have a high quality education for our children. But I think we also have the desire to have that done in a fiscally responsible manner.
I believe that over the next several years that we as a community will be challenged, given the cutbacks at the state, given the reevaluation of the AES Cayuga power plant, and given the fact that we are already one of the highest-taxed commodities in New York State from the standpoint of property taxes.
So we are going to have to look at the way we conduct business in Lansing, and try to find new ways to provide this high quality education that we currently deliver. I believe that we have an administration in place that is creative, and one that will take that task to hand. I hope that I can be supportive as a board member, and keeping the quality of education, the needs of our students, and the needs of our community in mind.
I believe that I have some unique characteristics to bring to the table. I've been in academics my whole life, ever since Kindergarten I guess. I really never stopped. I got my PhD from Ohio State in accounting. I have an undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame in accounting. I've been on public boards and public not-for-profit boards. I know how board members should act, and how supportive they should be to the administration.
Our job as board members is not to make administrative decisions. Those decisions should be left to the administration. Our job as board members is to set policy and provide guidance to the administration. I believe that for the last three years that's what this board has been doing. I believe that's what you see in the outcomes of the administrative decisions that have been made. I hope to be able to do that for another three years.
It's a time-consuming task -- if I had realized just how time-consuming this task was when I first got into it I would have thought long and hard about it. But now I'm committed. I believe I'm committed for another three years, and I believe that this is my responsibility as an active member of the community, to try to give back some of my expertise to the Lansing school system.
KS: I would like to open up the microphones to your questions.
Ted Laux: Both of you have been on the board before and know the difficulties. Is there anything in particular that especially drove you to run again?
DD: The reason I ran the first time, I believe, was self-preservation. I saw a $76 million capital budget being mismanaged, and a commitment, had we made it at that time that would have buried this community in a tax burden that it wouldn't have been able to dig out of. With the $76 million that was proposed at that time we could have replaced all three schools for less money than to do the additions that we were talking about.
We're in a system that has stabilized enrollments, but stabilized enrollments below what they were in 1990. Therefore I think we need to adjust to those new stabilized enrollments. We're faced with a fiscal crisis like the states and local governments are, and like the United States government it. We need to react to that in a responsible and systematic way. I believe that I can help the administration through those difficult times, so I decided to re-run for office because I don't believe that the job that I set out to do is finished. Hopefully it will be finished in three years, and somebody else can take this task from my hands.
For right now I believe there are going to be major financial challenges that we need to address, and it's going to be a tough slog for the school board, for the administration, and I believe for the community to come to the recognition that it's not going to be business as usual. There are going to be some changes, and we have to make those changes in an insightful and systematic and creative way.
CI: That's an excellent question, Ted. As I've been re-engaging with the school community-- I'm coming to board meetings and strategic planning meetings, and budget meetings -- I think that it's pretty clear that everyone is feeling the pinch, some of us more painfully than others. I get that.
David Dubin was here and said there's another part of Lansing that we don't hear from. The decisions that are made about the school community will affect those people. That touched me. And I get that, I understand that.
On the other hand I am worried about people -- not Mr. Dubin, because I know he's not about this -- who think, 'I don't care how you do it, just cut the taxes.' I think that's a mistake. I think the school system is our biggest resource here. Educating our youth is probably the most patriotic thing we can do. Our forefathers and mothers believed in public education. They believed that in order to have a democracy everybody, whether they could afford it or not, had the right to a public education so that everybody could read and write and engage in critical thinking.
I just want to be a part of doing this, whatever our business is here of educating the kids, in a financially responsible way, but it has to be informed. Some of the cuts that are on that April 12 list -- I think there are some ramifications that are a little scary. For people who don't know they might not see that it has some potential negative impact. The bus situation is one. (Editor's note: the proposal for cuts includes some bus runs that will mix high school, middle school and elementary students on the same busses to save money on duplicate routes) You've heard me before. I'm a little worried about the safety of our children and whether we might be disengaging our children.
I'm a little worried if we only talk about numbers and not understand the full impact of potential cuts. I'm a little worried that if we make decisions now and let the chips fall where they may, kids will get hurt by that. I think I can make a contribution, so those are some of the reasons.
I am very sensitive to working class families. I don't think they have a large voice at meetings here and I would like to be a voice for those people. And I have a tremendous respect for our kids. Nothing delights me more than having our kids come to meetings and ask questions and provide respectful comments to the Superintendent and the school board. I think that's a wonderful reflection of what we're doing here.
TL: This administration is probably the most open administration we've had here in many, many years, and the school board is, too. Do you have any additional ideas on how you can communicate better with the community, not just within the schools, but in the broader community?
CI: That is tough, because one of the wonderful things Dr. Grimm has brought to this district is transparency and openness. That is something this community has wanted and deserved, and here he is, doing that.
I guess the only thing, again, has to do with the working class families. Why don't we hear from them? I know about Dr. Grimm's dissertation, because he presented it at Wells College (where Iacobucci teaches). We speak the same language. Working class families don't have the time, and they don't have the social capital, they don't have the cultural capital, and they don't have the financial capital to be as involved.
So how do we invite them? How do we make it more inviting? They might not want to come here, or maybe they just can't, so how do we reach out to them?
(Dr. Grimm) has been doing that. He's been going to restaurants and coffee houses, and trying to get out into the community. Perhaps the board members could do that, too, I don't know. But I think this administration has been doing a good job of it.
DD: I really know of no other item that could be done to communicate better. The board meetings are televised. Our superintendent has been very open with the community. He's been out there with every issue, explaining it in small groups and answering questions. We take questions in each board meeting from the floor in our open session. So I don't know of any other way except knocking on doors and forcing people to talk to us.
Cathy Nelson: Both of you have at least three years (serving on) the board. Projecting forward, where do you see the schools at the end (of the next) three years, especially with respect to the budget and the changes it will bring forth?
DD: It all depends -- this is a conditional answer. A lot depends upon whether the state recovers fiscally, and can step up to the plate from the standpoint of reestablishing their payment schedule to public education. Or whether they will have a tremendous cutback.
They have cut us tremendously in the last two years. That was filled in partially with federal funds, the stimulus package, which has gone away. And the valuation of AES Cayuga going down $30 million this year and scheduled to go down another $10 million next year without new development. There is a 76 home development being planned, if it's approved by the Planning Board, which I think would add to the tax base. It's mostly town homes, which I think would be good for us.
So I think it depends upon the kind of tax flow that we have. The budget is dependent on revenues, and a large portion of those revenues come from property taxes. Our goal over the last couple of years has been to hold those property taxes fairly steady from the standpoint of the tax rate. We've been able to accomplish that.
But I don't see that as a possibility in the next couple of years without adding major cuts in expenditures.
Next year we're looking at at least a $1.3 million deficit built into this year's budget in that we're using reserves to pay for those expenditures. If the state does not replace those funds that we are using our reserves for, then we will be $1.3 million down going into the (next) budgetary cycle. I believe it's the board's responsibility and the superintendent's responsibility to come up with a contingency plan. What happens if the state keeps the funding at the same level or less going into next year? That will have an impact. While we don't want it to have an impact on the children, and we would like to have every (student) from Kindergarten to high school say, 'What fiscal crisis?' -- it may be a reality for children to understand like everybody else that we just don't have the resources that we used to have and that some things have to be done differently.
Doing them differently doesn't mean we will give them a lower quality education. It does mean we'll have to do things differently, and that's why we'll have to be creative in how we put together the education plan under those budget conditions.
We have a plan right now that works fairly well. But that doesn't mean that another organization, another way of organizing education wouldn't be as effective, or maybe even more effective than what we're doing right now. Those are the types of things that necessity forces you to look at. And I think we're entering a period of necessity.
CI: I agree with a lot of what David said, although he is definitely the financial guy. I'm going to take a different academic, social twist to this. First of all, we'll have a different governor. That seems to be certain. To talk about state worker furloughs and all the strange business that is making history right now is pretty scary. I'm hoping that things will stabilize in the near future.
I don't really know that much about 'Race To The Top.' I'm thinking that state and federal influences -- it's starting to smack to me of resembling NCLB (No Child Left Behind), which is not a good thing in my opinion. But we'll see. We'll see what Arnie Duncan does, and whether President Obama agrees with Mr. Duncan's advice on that.
I do thinkwith respect to Lansing -- again back to Dr. Grimm's goal of preserving excellent. All of us, I presume live in Lansing. Why did you move here? Was it because you got a better view of the lake? Why did we move here? We moved here because of the schools. It's a huge selling feature for real estate. A lot of us moved here because of the schools. Some of us had our family with black garbage bags in the car because they refused to move outside the district. That was me one Christmas season, because I did not want to leave this school district. That's how committed I am, and how wonderful a place I think this is.
This is a resource, and an investment. So I think we need to work really hard to preserve the excellence that we have here. I don't know whether we've done diligence in evaluating the program. This is where I agree with David. There are some things we can look at very closely to see how we can do it differently.
It's going to be an alarm for somebody who say, 'That's mine. It's got to stay intact. It's working the way it should be right now.' We all have to look at how we're doing what we do here, and I don't think that that's been done. I think that we all know that there is a need. There's not one person who says that we don't need to cut back. I think we all know that.
Now we need to look at our program. We need to evaluate it and we need to see how we can do it differently. I do think that means involving the faculty and staff and telling them at the front end, 'We need to do it differently. Let's see what you can do. How can we do this>'
Is there some waste in our district? I'm sure there is and we need to find that. I do think we can maintain a high quality education, but that's going to require data driven decisions. It's going to require using experts. It's going to require a lot of heads coming together. I think that we care enough that we'll do that.
Tricia Thomas: You've both been here over twenty years. I've been here six years. One thing that has bothered me -- we have two open seats. We have a community of 1,200 students. I find it interesting we only get two people running for school board. I think our community is very involved, but when I see a turnout like this I don't think it's very involved. Is there a reason you think we can't get more candidates?
DD: I've been recruiting people for the board. People are busy and this is a major time commitment. You have to be at the right place in your life to do this, because it requires two Monday nights a month, committee meetings... I do a once a month Friday committee meeting at BOCES. There are committee meetings. When we negotiate contracts there are meetings then. Probably as a board member I am here four or five times a month for a couple of hours each time, not counting the board meetings.
If you work during the day -- I do, but I'm a professor so I have some flexibility in my time -- if you have a nine to five job that creates a problem for you. If you have small kids that you need to take care of at night, that creates a problem for you. If you travel a lot, that creates a problem. I couldn't have done this job during the first ten years I was here because I was out of town 40% or 50% of the time.
CI: I also think there's a scary component. People can get mean. People who were your friends may not talk to you any more because of what you said at a board meeting.
I don't think that's likely given this current administration, but when things get adversarial, when there's a conflict in the district, and as a board member you are challenged to do what you think is the right thing or go along -- that's really a hard thing to do, and it's not always rewarding.
The Middle School just went to New York City to watch 'Wicked.' Oh my goodness, all those kids on the bus! They were loud, very loud! There's a song in 'Wicked' that says 'No good deed goes unpunished,' and sometimes it feels like that. It can be scary to sit here. Glenn (Swanson) knows that, and Ted knows that, and people who come to board meetings know that. I can't imagine being a superintendent. I mean, holy cow, what kind of person can do that. We're committed for three years and we can step down any time it gets too hot in the kitchen. But I do think it takes a lot of commitment and it can be scary.
When you're talking about your children -- and people usually come here when they're upset about something or they feel very emotional about something, so you see people when they are highly emotive. Anne (Drake), how is that for you? A lot of fun?
Anne Drake: (smiling) It's a blast.
CI: So I think there's the scary part of it, but all the things David said, too. The demographic of school board members is not really representative of the community. Overwhelmingly they're professional people -- again going back to Steve's dissertation -- they're people who have financial capital, social capital, cultural capital. Overwhelmingly white, upper class males -- (laughs) like David. Honestly, a lot of people just can't do it. They don't have the wherewithal to be able to do it.
KS: Thank you for your challenging questions. It's been a good conversation. We've got a small audience and that's unfortunate. But I do think the candidates have been able to say what they wanted to say. I want to ask if there are final comments you would like to make at this time to open any issues you haven't touched on.
DD: Christine made the point that academic qualifications are an issue, and that understanding academics is very important. I believe that's true.
My PhD was at Ohio State, which is a large public university. At the time I did my PhD it was the largest public university in the United States with over 55,000 students on the Columbus campus. I came to Ohio State from a small Catholic college in the midwest, Notre Dame. A lot of people know about Notre Dame, but it has only 10,000 students with very small classes taught by professors. When I went to Ohio State I found that a lot of the classes, especially the undergraduate classes, were very large. They were taught by me as a graduate teaching assistant.
I took engineering calculus while I was there, which had about 4,000 budding engineers who were freshmen. We took it by going to a classroom and watching the lecture on TV, and then having a TA help us with the problems.
So I experienced the private education, and the large public education. My observation was that if you are a dedicated student both work. Both worked exceedingly well.
So what it takes to really make a quality system is dedicated teachers who are experts at their trade, who know how to teach and care about the students. It takes a student who wants to learn. If the student doesn't want to learn it doesn't make a difference what the teacher does. They're not going to be able to penetrate them.
Where the student's desire to learn comes from is the home environment. If the parents are on the same page of the teachers from the standpoint of supporting the education mission of Lansing... if the home environment supports the educational mission, I believe the school will be successful. I believe that our home environments in Lansing have been doing that and that is one of the reasons why we have been so successful here. The parents are concerned. The parents want their children to succeed, and they support our educational mission. And they support out teachers who are in the classroom.
I believe without that symbiotic relationship between the home and the teaching environment at the school, you cannot provide that high quality education. I would hate to lose that home environment and support that we have, and I believe that's really the strong point in the Lansing community.
CI: I think we ask our schools to do a lot. The schools are not operating in a vacuum. There is a social system with social forces. When David talks about home environment I agree with him: yes, all of our parents care about our kids. Not all of them have the same kinds of resources to be able to give all children the same opportunities on a level playing ground.
I look at this historically: at the beginning of our country Thomas Jefferson wanted public education because of democracy and rational decision making. We added n some goals for what public education should be about, and part of those goals have to do with equal economic opportunities, to train a work force so people can get jobs in our nation.
We also cared about crime reduction that has to do with jobs. If you give people an honest way to earn a living they're less likely to engage in crime. But that also went to character education, which is now something that the schools are mandated to do, to teach kids how to be good people.
In the 50s and 60s other goals came on the scene such as public health issues, and now the schools are required to teach about public health. So the schools over the years have taken on a lot of things that they have to do by law. Where the family fits in on that -- not every family can fit into the organization of the educational system. It's probably our job to reach out to those kinds of people. The people who are not engaged because they don't believe in education -- it's probably because they don't have the resources.
Look at the school not only as a place that educates children, but also in terms of what it functions as in the community. It functions as a place for community members to gather and socialize at athletic events, at entertainment opportunities, the plays, the music that we have. It's a gathering spot. It's where people see each other, we greet each other, we spend time with each other. Our children become friends.
It's a good employer. We employ people in our community, our teachers and our staff members, a lot of whom are lifelong residents who work here. Probably their parents worked here. Maybe their children will work here. So we're a good employer.
I think we service our community in ways that maybe I'm not even thinking of. I would like to preserve the excellence we have and continue to make Lansing a wonderful community in which to live.
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