School Board candidate Peter Mandel believes the Morgan Hill
School District can improve academically, he said, and one way to
make that happen – and fix many of the district
’s other problems – is through leadership.
School Board candidate Peter Mandel believes the Morgan Hill School District can improve academically, he said, and one way to make that happen – and fix many of the district’s other problems – is through leadership.
“I believe the root cause … is the School District’s shortage of effective leadership,” he said. “Leadership is the essential skill needed to unify the stakeholders in the education of the children of our district.”
As a senior development manager for IBM, Mandel said he has the experience to guide the district.
“I believe my skills are well-suited for addressing this district’s specific problems,” he said. “I know how to ask the right questions and set goals to focus staff and old them accountable. I am extremely experienced in using data to identify areas for improvement.”
Communication, both internal and external, is an area Mandel sees that could use improvement. He said one of the ways he would seek to improve communication is by looking at the way the board functions.
“I believe there needs to be a variety of venues used by the board to foster public discussion,” he said. “For example, there should be: open forums on key topics, held at times that are convenient for public participation; more dynamic discussion between board members needs to happen at the board meetings; more interchange between the board and the public on agenda topics; and clear, documented actions in response to recommendations from task forces and workgroups involving the public.”
The acrimony and dissension that has plagued the current board has at the least given the public a poor opinion of the district and lowered community confidence.
“If we could achieve a board working well together on many issues, but specifically academic goals, what the metrics are going to be, what the actions are going to be, the public would breathe a sigh of relief that there is some forward motion,” he said. “When it comes to academic success and our test scores, (Director of Assessment) Pat Blanar has an ongoing job of looking at this, working on this. You have to have the perspective that this is going to take years, you have to be comfortable without instant gratification.”
Mandel said he would like the board and the district to go from specifics to creating more general plans.
“I’m comfortable with taking a long view and doing some of those bottom-up assessments, determining at what point will all schools have a plan per child,” he said. “Then roll them up at a site level and have the sites bring a fund usage recommendation back to the district. I think we would then eventually start seeing some measurable change.”
