Three incumbents battle for seats against two challengers
Hudson Reporter, 1-Apr-18
by Hannington Dia
The Weehawken Board of Education will hold its annual elections on April 17. Three incumbents are running to keep their three-year spots on the nine-person board. They are up against two challengers this year.
The incumbents include Board President Richard Barsa and board members Jennifer Bolcar and Meg Carson. Their challengers are Monika Sikand and Elizabeth Chan.
Mayor Richard Turner is supporting the three incumbents, he said. "They’ve done a fantastic job, the whole board.”
Richard Barsa
Board President Richard Barsa is running for his 10th term. A Weehawken High School graduate, as is his son, Barsa is running again because he wants to help the district continue its upward trends.
“Our kids have coding and computer science in every school,” Barsa said. “We have made tremendous progress.” Though he is happy with the district's technological advancements, Barsa also feels it could still do better in giving students skills to become contenders in the digital age.
“Our children need to master 'hard and soft skills' so that they can connect and compete in a dynamic global economy,” Barsa said. “The days of memorizing facts and 'doing school' to just pass a test are over.”
To that end, the district has introduced career academies where graduates work on a career-focused set of courses, he said.
Jennifer Bolcar
Jennifer Bolcar will be running for her first official term this year. She was appointed to a vacancy on the board last year. She has children in the Daniel Webster and Theodore Roosevelt schools.
“I am excited about the direction our schools are taking,” Bolcar said. “I want to be a part of the continued growth and transformation.”
Bolcar was also enthusiastic about the district's blended learning program and student strides. “Our AP participation is skyrocketing and our children are becoming more engaged,” she said. “I think it is important to keep this momentum going.”
Bolcar does see a few issues.
“Adjusting to the increased use of technology has been a learning curve for some of our students and parents,” she said. Today, “as a parent, reviewing your child's progress might mean sitting down at your laptop or smartphone now, as opposed to reviewing paper worksheets.”
But though some students and parents aren't entirely tech savvy yet, Bolcar believes their growing pains are necessary.
Meg Carson
Like Bolcar, Carson was also appointed to the board through a vacancy, so this will be her first time running. She has a son in the sixth grade and a daughter in third grade at the Roosevelt School.
She has been heavily involved with the PTA and helped run activities with students such as gardening. Carson is an educator at New York's Museum of Natural History and a science and music teacher at Kaplan Co-Operative Preschool in Hoboken.
“Most of my adult life has been spent working with children so it made sense for me to work with my local school board,” Carson said.
As her colleagues did, Carson lauded the schools' improvements, and just feels that there's more room for further improvements.
Monika Sikand
A Weehawken resident since 2005, Monika Sikand is confident in the district. “If the district had irreconcilable weaknesses I would not be sending my kids to Weehawken schools,” she said.
So why is Sikand running to replace one of the three incumbents? She, like them, wants to improve the schools by bringing her “strengths, skills, and our community’s voice” to the board. And while she applauds what the district has done, she has some ideas of how to build on that, if elected.
“Perhaps, we need to take a look at the guidelines for class size and current student–teacher ratio in the classrooms,” she said.
She also wants to see expanded summer internship opportunities and strengthened career and college guidance counseling for high school students.
Sikand also feels that the evaluation system for programs, events and teachers' professional development could be strengthened.
As Weehawken High School has seventh and eighth grade students, she would like to evaluate this setup to see if it is optimal for those students.
Sikand is an assistant professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), as well as an adjunct faculty at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken.
“My own experiences in education and service to my college in CUNY can help me better understand the insider challenges in administration and make improvements utilizing our strengths,” she said.
A mother to a Pre-K student and second grade kids in the district, Sikand also volunteers much of her time to after school activities at Daniel Webster School.
She is a native of India and immigrated to this country in 2005, the same year she moved to Weehawken.
Elizabeth Chan
Local designer Elizabeth Chan—the second challenger to the incumbents—would like to see better communication between students, teachers, and parents.
Chan, who has one daughter at Daniel Webster, and another seven-month old daughter, said she would push for a student mentorship program if elected.
“Some of these kids don't know what they want to do with their lives moving forward,” she said. Chan would also be interested in a food education program to bring awareness about healthy eating. “I'm a big advocate for healthy, clean living,” she said. “It would be great to see about making our own food.” The high school is working to place a greenhouse atop its roof, which helps, she said.
Weehawken schools today
The district has three schools. Daniel Webster serves pre-K to second grade; the Theodore Roosevelt School serves grades 3-6; and Weehawken High School serves grades 7-12. It is also working to acquire the Woodrow Wilson School, which was recently returned to Weehawken after a 19-year shared services agreement with Union City.
Since 2016, the Weehawken School District has become a 1:1 district, meaning every student has access to a Google Chromebook and blended learning programs, mixing traditional teaching with educational apps.
With this in place, Future Ready Schools-New Jersey designated the district as “future ready” last October.
Last year, the district was also named an “Innovative District” by the International Center for Leadership in Education.
That same year, data site Niche ranked Weehawken schools the best in Hudson County, 79th in the state, and in the top 14 percent nationally.
The improvements have shown in student performances. In 2017, the district achieved a 98 percent graduation rate, a 15 percent increase since 2015, according to Superintendent of Schools Dr. Robert Zywicki.
The district's achievements were accomplished on a tight school budget-$26.5 million for the 2016-17 school year. The total budget is $28 million for the 2017-18 year.
