Robert Gursha
May 9, 2008
by Susie Pender
Robert Gursha has lived in Chappaqua for seven years. He has three children, an eighth grader at Bell, an eleventh grader at Greeley and a 2006 Greeley graduate. He has a bachelor of science degree in management from Carnegie-Mellon University and trained as a CPA. He is executive vice president and chief marketing officer of TimeWarner Retail Sales and Marketing, a division of Time Inc.
Why are you running for a second term on the school board?
I want to shape and influence the education program for my children as well as the community. I feel I have made a real difference in my first term for two reasons. I brought a different perspective on thinking about education to the board. We moved here from California. It’s so different there. They have nowhere near the richness and depth of program in their school districts that we have here. We have a great school system; it’s not like that everywhere else.
Also, I trained as a CPA in finance and accounting. I look at the budget and the numbers and look for ways to be more efficient and spend wisely. As a result, I was made chair of the new audit committee, the creation of which was a state mandate a year and a half ago. The audit committee is comprised of all five board members and three members from the community, Kristy Rudel, Kevin Gregson and Karen Kowgios.
What were your major accomplishments during your first term as a board member?
Getting up to speed on the new state mandates from the financial side: internal auditors, claims auditor, and putting policies in place for financial controls.
I ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility. We have brought the budget to budget increases down to moderate levels. My first year the budget to budget increase was 8%, last year it was 5.15% and this year it is 5.25%. We don’t want to price people out of this community. Seventy-five percent of the budget is salaries, compensation and benefits. There is very little discretionary spending. I would put us in the lower middle, from a budget increase perspective, of comparable districts in Westchester.
We have hired a great business administrator, John Chow, and three new building administrators at Seven Bridges, Roaring Brook and Westorchard.
How do you keep yourself informed about the views of the community?
Through friends, parents of friends of my children, neighbors, commuters on the train. No one is shy about giving their opinion or asking questions. Formally through emails or letters to the board that are forwarded to all board members.
I attend a few PTA meetings a year and we as a board get together with the PTA once or twice a year to find out what they have been hearing. And we have the budget coffees. I wish we could do more of that.
I’d love to be more connected, but community members do reach out to me. I think we could do better. We send out News & Views, and have the web site. I think we need more practice in taking advantage of technology and email. Maybe we need to do more traditional mailings.
What is your view of the proposed schedule change?
I’m confident we’re going to make it work. I know the planning of it has been well thought out and will continue to be thought out the rest of this year and this summer. There is a fair amount of teaching that will be offered to the teachers this summer, and we hope all the teachers will take advantage of it.
In hindsight, would you have done anything differently given the community’s upset with the schedule change?
Could we have done more to communicate with the community? Yes, but I didn’t get the sense that we had that much overwhelming negative feeling. During the official board meetings, there wasn’t that much discussion by the community. I would have thought there would have been more. I assumed the majority of the town with kids were trusting the administration.
We can’t keep dragging things out. We wanted to make a decision. I felt we reached out and told people about the meetings when the discussion of the schedule change would occur. There was ample opportunity for the community members and teachers to speak about it. I feel that is the appropriate forum, the board meetings, rather than me pursuing teacher opinions.
I’m not saying we did a bad job. I feel like we could always improve our communications and this is important to me. I don’t want the community to feel that we’re not open to community input. It’s important that we reach out to the community as much as possible and in as many ways as possible and that they have as much opportunity to voice their concerns as possible.
Communication is not a one way responsibility. It’s important that the community reach out to us when they have questions.
What is the largest issue facing the school district in the next year? In the next five years?
The next issue is the teachers’ contract, which expires on June 30. I want to get it successfully negotiated. Insurance costs have significantly grown year to year. I would like to see that cost shared more equally between the teachers and the district.
We feel that there will be a good transition to the new schedule. We want every teacher to be able to deliver the material in the new schedule, which is very different from the old mod schedule. During next year, those teachers who need additional development or help, it will be available. They have to work out their whole classroom teaching plan for the whole year under the new schedule.
The biggest worry over the next five years will be how to afford the pay for the unfunded mandates from the state without taking away from the depth and breadth of our program. Continuing to attract good, strong teachers will be tough. It’s competitive out there, so that is a long-term challenge for any district. Another challenge is to provide the technology to support our strategic question and deliver on this promise to the students.
Given its proximity to the high school and the potential impact on enrollment if the 55 and over age restriction is not enforced, what is your view of Summit Greenfield’s proposal for the development of the Reader’s Digest property?
We need to wait and see and hear more about that process. In the scoping document, we asked questions on how it would impact on enrollment, property tax income, transportation and traffic. I haven’t seen a response from Summit Greenfield. At some point we will have to weigh in, but it is premature at this point.
A group of 38 school superintendents have sent a letter to Newsweek asking that they be dropped from the magazine’s annual ranking of schools based on the number of Advanced Placement courses taken. (See Superintendents rankled by school rankings.) Superintendent Fleischman signed that letter and informed the board about it afterwards. Should the board have been informed first?
I understand why various school districts and superintendents would draft that letter. The rankings are based on a very narrow measure. Could Newsweek do better? Yes.
A letter like this is not something we, the board, would have a role in. It would have no major impact on our school district to be dropped from this ranking and would have no bearing on the value of our properties. There are other ways to measure the quality of the school district, how many students enter college, state test scores.
How can you as a board member work to curtail unfunded state mandates?
We work with the New York State School Board Association on issues and platforms to be communicated to the state legislature and the education department. We had breakfast recently with our assemblymen and senators and had a healthy dialogue.
Superintendent Fleischman’s contract with the district expires at the end of this school year. Why do you believe he deserves to continue as superintendent?
David has done an outstanding job and I support him 100%. I am looking forward to continuing to work with him. He is not afraid to tackle difficult issues and take positions. He brought in terrific administrators at Seven Bridges, Roaring Brook and Westorchard.
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