Table of Contents
Running for BoE
| If you have been following the Board of Education over the last year, you may have heard of me. My name is Tom Gorman, and I was appointed last year as an Independent to fill a vacancy. 2023 has been an exciting year on the board, and while it isn’t without it’s challenges, I have enjoyed every moment. I believe that there is much more than needs to be done so I have followed the proper steps to be on this ballot this November. A special THANK YOU for those who helped in the process! My wife and I have been living in Glastonbury for over 22 years and she has been teaching in town for 23 years! We are raising four children and three of them are active in our school system. Over the years, I have been active with the town soccer club as a rec and travel coach as well as a board member. I’ve coached three seasons of baseball as well as four years mentoring Lego Robotics. My background is in facilities management, and I have experience in overseeing large contracts with sizable budgets. I became an indepdent several years ago because I was growing increasing uncomfortable with the divisive polotics. It seems that parties are just automatically taking the opposing stance of the other group. My feelings are that if one party screams that they like kittens, the other side will scream, “They hate puppies!” I am not pointing fingers at anyone because they both have some incredibly positive ideas. The Board of Education NEEDS a candidate who is a free thinker and can manage in the grey areas. My passions are for our students in speical education as well as our educators across all our schools. I feel that we do not provide enough recourses for our students with needs, as there is no “One Size Fits All” approach. Also, our teachers work extremely hard each day to try to educate our children. They are accomplishing this while performing numerous assessments to fine tune the message. There needs to be an effective avenue for communication so we can understand their needs. I will be submitting additional letters to the editor over the coming weeks to further explain my positions. If you have any questinos, feel free to reach out to me directly as I want to know how you feel. |
Hearing From Our Teachers
| For almost a full year, I have been so fortunate to serve my community on the Board of Education. Prior to this, I have met many associates who work for the Board as administrators, educators, custodians, Resource Officers, and many more. Regardless of their position, they all work with the common goal of supporting our children’s education. They do this daily with a seemingly tireless enthusiasm and focus on that priority. Unfortunately, during my tenure, I was disappointed to learn that there are vital avenues of communication missing in the system. Before I joined the Board. I have heard from many of my friends who work in the district, that they felt that they weren’t listened to and that there wasn’t an efficient system to even be heard. Something simple as an employee engagement survey would allow the front- line staff to voice their needs and frustrations as well as share their successes. In the private sector, most large organizations actively solicit feedback from their associates to achieve continuous quality improvement. In manufacturing, they often use TQM, or Total Quality Management, to engage all levels of employees to foster a better-quality product. In my working experience, we have used such surveys to help identify opportunities for improvement as well as discover issues that we may not have known about. Hearing from the people who are actively doing the important work fosters an atmosphere of empowerment! Many times, those working in the schools, may have a more effective way of getting the job done more effectively. Ideally, Administration should implement an annual survey to all associates in the school district. This should be done anonymously so that respondents would feel most comfortable that their feedback is secure and confidential. Questions in the survey should include topics such as job satisfaction, professional development opportunities, obstacles, successes, and overall job satisfaction. With this information, senior leadership can formulate action plans both to address many of the staff’s concerns and reinforce and share successes. By providing this simple process of open communication, and allowing the exchange of honest opinions, the education structure in our community will be stronger. Please help me in engaging with School Administration to establish such a simple yet effective means of communication. |
Special Education
| If you have spoken with me, it is no secret that I hold a special concern for our students in Special Education. In my family alone, we have experienced the town’s program via both a 504 and an IEP. We have shared in numerous successes and frustrations as our children have navigated through the school system. I am not satisfied that we simply meet the needs of these students in accordance with the law, but rather I believe we should go beyond so that our special needs students get an excellent education that we provide to the rest of our school population. In CT, the percentage of students who qualify for such need has increased from 11.6% in 2010, to 15.9% in 2020. During that same period, the increases in autism diagnosis went up 79%. According to Cross River Therapy, about 9.4% of children in the US have ADHD and 33% of those children will drop out of high school. We need to make sure that the resources are available to engage and properly educate our students with such needs. On January 9th, 2023, during the Board Meeting to approve the budget, I made a motion to increase the Special Education line item by $87,400 for the purpose of hiring 2 additional full-time Paraprofessionals. I saw the trends in 504 cases and felt that we needed to put the resources in place before we had to go looking for them. Unfortunately, it was voted down with the comment “I am confident that we will find the money if we need it.” This kind of attitude is reactive and alarming. Currently, there are 7 Paraprofessional vacancies in our system with only one of them Full Time. That one position has been vacant since January! The rest of them are part-time with only about 18 hrs./wk. available. We need to look at our recruiting processes and make sure that we are competitive with our offerings. We talk about how great our school system is yet why can we fill vacancies in the schools? If elected, I will work tirelessly to make sure the resources are available for our Special Education teachers and students. |
Election Day
| Election day is nearly upon us, and I thank all of you who have reached out to offer their ideas, concerns, and support. I have really enjoyed your feedback as it has helped me to better understand how the community feels about the state of our town’s education system. Like many of you, I read the Letters to the Editor each week and I see many differing opinions about how to support our children’s learning. Seeing this polarization over the past few years is the main reason why I decided to be unaffiliated. I didn’t want my opinions to have to fit one of only two narratives and be mutually exclusive from another point of view. There are good ideas from both sides but sometimes the messages can get lost in the “noise.” I ask all of you reading this that feel the same way, to please vote for me on November 7 th . Let us send a message to both sides that there can be middle ground and not just black and white viewpoints. I promise to listen to all sides and manage with a commonsense approach. You can reach out to me anytime and I will continue to work tirelessly on our student’s and faculties behalf. |