{"id":800331,"date":"2019-10-13T13:38:58","date_gmt":"2019-10-13T19:38:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=372952"},"modified":"2019-10-13T13:38:58","modified_gmt":"2019-10-13T19:38:58","slug":"stan-katz-curriculum-finance-experience-can-bring-district-to-next-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/stan-katz-curriculum-finance-experience-can-bring-district-to-next-level\/","title":{"rendered":"Stan Katz: Curriculum, finance experience can bring district to next level"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"618\" height=\"898\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/10\/col-katz-sdn-101419.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/10\/col-katz-sdn-101419.jpg 618w, https:\/\/cdn.summitdaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2019\/10\/col-katz-sdn-101419-206x300.jpg 206w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 618px) 100vw, 618px\"><figcaption><strong>Stan Katz<\/strong><br \/><em>Courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<ul>\n<li>Occupation: retired<\/li>\n<li>Hometown:<strong> <\/strong>grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. Lived 31 years in West Windsor, New Jersey.<\/li>\n<li>Years in Summit County: 11<\/li>\n<li>Family: Wife, Stephanie, and two grown children: Jeff and Dan<\/li>\n<li>Civic involvement:<strong> <\/strong>West-Windsor-Plainsboro, New Jersey board of education, 1997-2008; Johns Hopkins University Endowed Scholarship creator (Department of Financial Economics)<strong>; <\/strong>Summit County Housing Authority advisory committee member; Mountain Scholars committee member; Grand Lodge Peak 7 Homeowners Association advisory board member; Colorado certified high school lacrosse referee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I am running for the Summit School District board because I<br \/>\nbelieve in high-quality public education. We owe our children the best education that we can give them,<br \/>\nand I have always been an advocate for the strongest curriculum possible. I<br \/>\nbelieve that my prior extensive experience as a former school board<br \/>\nmember, both in curriculum and budget development, can help move the Summit<br \/>\nSchool District to a much higher level than it is currently.<\/p>\n<p>I spent many years involved in public education, serving as<br \/>\na school board member in a large (9,500 students) high-achieving district in<br \/>\nNew Jersey. As the Finance Committee chairman for many of those years, I<br \/>\nwas instrumental in creating budgets of about $130 million. Those budgets<br \/>\nallowed us to achieve rankings every year somewhere between No. 5 and No. 10 of<br \/>\n567 districts, yet at the same time, our per-pupil spending was<br \/>\nslightly below the state average, so I know that I can help make this district<br \/>\neducationally stronger, even with our historically inadequate support from the<br \/>\nstate.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Priority No. 1: Raising the district\u2019s educational<br \/>\nresults and expectations<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>By most state measures, Summit is a slightly above-average<br \/>\nschool district, but it could be a lot better, and I would like to help move it<br \/>\nin that direction. To be truly successful, a school district needs to have a<br \/>\ngood balance between social outcomes and educational outcomes. Our district has<br \/>\nhad good results emphasizing the social side, graduating more than 96% of its students,<br \/>\nbut unfortunately, it has allowed the educational side to slide, as evidenced<br \/>\nby our mediocre state assessments. The state has set a very low bar for its<br \/>\neducational goals, and we have allowed the district to work its way down to<br \/>\nthat level. There is no reason why Summit County, one of the wealthiest in the<br \/>\nstate and one of the most supportive of public education, cannot also have one<br \/>\nof the highest achieving public school districts.<\/p>\n<p>Reading<br \/>\ncompetency is vital to both school success and later in life. As our state<br \/>\nscores indicate, one educational area that needs serious strengthening in our<br \/>\ndistrict is the literacy curriculum. For better or worse, most tests of<br \/>\nacademic skills, even in mathematics, involve \u201cword questions,\u201d and students<br \/>\nwho are not fluent readers are at a distinct disadvantage. I do not believe<br \/>\nthat one size fits all in this vital area \u2014 we need to incorporate all of the<br \/>\nelements of phonics, sight reading, context and vocabulary building.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Priority<br \/>\nNo. 2: Creating a better situation for our teachers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Two of the<br \/>\nmost critical components of a high-quality school district are the ability to<br \/>\nattract the best teachers and to retain those teachers. Not surprisingly,<br \/>\nadequate teacher pay and access to professional development are major factors<br \/>\nfor accomplishing those goals. We need to continue, and enhance wherever<br \/>\npossible, these efforts. I support increasing current teacher salaries and<br \/>\nraising the current entry-level salary to a level that can attract and retain<br \/>\nteachers.<\/p>\n<p>But still<br \/>\nmore can be done, especially with regard to ensuring adequate housing<br \/>\nopportunities for these important members of our community, including a<br \/>\npossible mortgage-assistance program for them. We don\u2019t want to lose these<br \/>\npeople after a few years as a result of their inability to afford to live in<br \/>\nour high-housing-cost, tourist-economy county. I am a strong proponent for<br \/>\ncontinuing the county\u2019s efforts to create more affordable housing, permanent<br \/>\nand rental, especially for our public employees. Anything that the school board<br \/>\ncan do to promote this issue will be beneficial to the ability to retain its<br \/>\nteaching staff and, by extension, to the county as a whole.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Priority<br \/>\nNo. 3: Promoting more board activism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After 12 years of school board experience in a large<br \/>\ndistrict with a reputation for board activism and high-quality results, I<br \/>\nfirmly believe those two items go hand in hand. In contrast, I have been surprised at the general<br \/>\npassivity of the Summit school board, which seems content to leave many of its<br \/>\nvital decision-making roles to its administrators. For example, I was extremely<br \/>\nsurprised to find out that the board doesn\u2019t have its own Finance Committee, a<br \/>\nsituation I would like to see corrected. While the next board, even with<br \/>\nme on it, might choose not to take that step, I would at least like the<br \/>\nopportunity to promote that sort of change, because I believe it would result<br \/>\nin an improved district.<\/p>\n<p>If you believe, as I do, that we can be better, I would appreciate your vote.<\/p>\n<p><em>Find more election coverage at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/news\/election\/\">SummitDaily.com\/election<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/opinion\/stan-katz-curriculum-finance-experience-can-bring-district-to-next-level\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stan KatzCourtesy photo Occupation: retired Hometown: grew up in Englewood, New Jersey. Lived 31 years in West Windsor, New Jersey. Years in Summit County: 11 Family: Wife, Stephanie, and two grown children: Jeff and Dan Civic involvement: West-Windsor-Plainsboro, New Jersey board of education, 1997-2008; Johns Hopkins University Endowed Scholarship creator (Department of Financial Economics); Summit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-800331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 09:14:20","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=800331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}