Patricia Blome - Common Sense Education

I try to model this in my personal interactions with people in my life. I think I succeed most of the time….
Hoping to model this as a board member, too.
Both privately and publicly.
I hope I can succeed .

💔💔💔

Sadly this is accurate.

❤️❤️❤️

Thought for today. I think this explains what we want for children in school as well as for ourselves.

Such a happy day in our schools. Congratulations to all of the special honorees!💕

❤️❤️❤️

Powerful! 🙌
📷 Mounika Studio

When I accepted my first teaching assignment at Whitman School for the 1978-1979 school year I was very thankful and excited to begin my career in teaching. Other than being on maternity leave four times over the following 40 years, I worked in our school district at Whitman and then Grenloch for 180+ days each school year.
I enjoyed being a teacher every day and always liked going to work. No matter what challenges I might have had outside of school, my time in school was spent surrounded by wonderful staff members and children who kept me happily engaged in who they were and what they needed in order to learn things both academically and socially throughout the school day. It was my dream job. And I was thankful to have a career that I truly loved and valued.
So when I finally retired in 2018, I did so with a heavy heart, not the excitement for life post teaching that many others experience.
I could see that it was the right decision to make once COVID hit and my lack of solid technology skills would have been an issue. And at that point I spent many months surrounded by grandchildren completing school work in my basement which became their “ home school” classroom for many months.
I had always thought about running for a position on the board, but never took further action to make it happen.
Until last summer…..
When a friend encouraged me to do so and guided me through the process of printing off a petition for voters to sign and handing it in to the Board of Elections with a word crossed out that I was told would not be a problem but my common sense told me it MIGHT be a problem. So at 11am on the last day that a petition could be filed I redid my signature pages of my petition and still got the paperwork filed before the 4 o’clock deadline.
And then I was officially a candidate for a position on our board.
When I did all of this I did it without really thinking much about whether I would win or not.I used my candidate status via this page to have a spot to talk about what I value in education. And also to communicate areas I felt were important for our district to look at and possibly make some changes to in order to educate our students and support our staff in an academically sound/ respectful environment. I also hoped to encourage parents and the community to become more involved in our schools again because involvement opportunities were limited for a long time because of COVID.
And it made me excited to once again be thinking about what I believe is important in education and in our schools.
Residents have asked who I am politically. My answer is I am a conservative, liberal, and moderate depending on what topic is being discussed. I am pro public education and pro student/ staff/ parent/ community.
I think I received support in this election from many different groups and I want to thank every voter who voted for me. Thank you!💕
And I promise to be a hard working board member who will try to do what is best for our schools. You may not always agree with me, but know that I will put a lot of thought and reflection into my position on every issue or policy that comes before the board.
Thank you once again for your support. My heart is happy and excited to be engaged in our schools again.

Here are my last thoughts before Election Day.

As a district, we need to make changes. All districts do, this is how we move forward in education.
As we make changes I believe we need to ALWAYS take our time, explore our options, and then make changes.
Remember that quote? We must not “ fly the plane while it is being built.”
Our district needs to decide what we value and where we need to make changes when it comes to educating our students in grades preschool through 12 th grade.
Here are my thoughts on this topic:
1. We need to decide what our grading system should look like in our middle and upper grades. This takes time, imput from our teachers, LOTS of training, and sharing the grading system clearly and concisely with parents.
2. We need to find better ways to meet the needs of our special education students. This includes training, proper support for the students AND the teachers. As a district, we need to explore the possibility of employing behavior specialists who work in each of our schools as district employees, not hire an outside company to provide this service for us. Each school building should have Emotional Support/ Sensory rooms available to help a student have an area designed to help him handle his emotions in a supportive environment such as this if it is needed to have a successful day. Remember therapy dogs? That is something that could be explored as well and utilized by many students in different settings and classrooms throughout the district.
3. Vocational opportunities must be provided for our students. GCIT can NOT provide enough spots to serve our students who want to pursue a trade instead of college or the armed services after graduation. Do we do this by applying for grants? Via a bond referendum? If we establish a vocational education program could we bring in students from outside of our district by applying to be a school choice district?
4. We need to address the lack of space in our schools ( preschool and elementary facilities) as our actual enrollment continues to decrease. Are there ways to do this with the buildings that we already have in our district?
5. We need to find ways to retain our teachers and figure out how to train , pay, and retain our paraprofessional staff members as well who work directly with our students in every school on a daily basis.
6. Safety and security in our schools are important to the entire community. Our security protocols have improved over the years. We have more work to do when it comes to safety within our schools. Updating and enforcing our Code of Conduct is an excellent start. Having security staff in each building is also an excellent initiative.
BUT students need to have ongoing training/ reminders about how to stop a bully( speak up!) and that respecting other students is a non negotiable responsibility while on school property.
7. Many people continue to talk about student regression both socially and educationally because of COVID. I am more concerned at this point about how we as a district have taken away opportunities for parents to come into our schools as helpers throughout the district post COVID. The exception to this is Grenloch….
Parent involvement builds trust between the home and the school. It is something that the district needs to think about improving/ implementing once more to strengthen the bond between home and school.
8. And lastly the district needs to answer general questions asked at Board of Education meetings. I am talking about questions such as whether or not our district could be designated a choice school district, etc . Questions that need to be researched before they can be answered publicly at a board meeting SHOULD be answered during the “ old business” portion of the next board meeting. That is what the popular word transparency looks like to parents and the rest of the community in regards to our schools.

These are my thoughts the night before Election Day. I may have left some things out, but this is enough to digest in one “ last” post tonight.
Remember that no matter who is elected tomorrow, you may not agree with everything that board member says or how that board member votes 100% of the time.
And that is okay.
Vote for candidates that you believe have the best interest of our schools and all of the people that are impacted by the decisions made at the board level each month.
Candidates who know our schools are responsible for impacting and educating our future soldiers, doctors, electricians,teachers, car mechanics, cashiers, mail deliverers, food service workers, sales clerks or store greeters, and so many more.
We need to continue to improve in education in order to have our students “ actively participate in an ever changing world as responsible, self-directed, and civic minded citizens.”

At the board meeting on 8/15/23 a resident asked the board about whether or not our district could be designated a “ choice school”.
The answer was that the board ( I presume this would possibly be the business administrator or another administrator) would have to check into this…
Too often at board meetings questions like this are asked that may be of interest to the general public, but need to be researched before an answer can be given. The answer is never revisited publicly if it has to be “ checked into” at the next board meeting.
Communication is vital in every district. It is an area that could easily be addressed with the support of technology or as part of “ old business” at the next board meeting.
I think it is something we need to work on that would truly improve productive communication between the community and our schools.
What do you think?
This type of interaction takes place too frequently at board meetings.
It was refreshing to hear more information about how grants work for our preschool program and how the size of the actual classroom matters in providing space for the program. Especially since the number of classrooms needed may increase from 19 to 31 for the 2024-2025 school year.
Good information cuts down on rumors and sometimes fear in our district.
And preventing rumors or misinformation by actively keeping the public informed about things like this helps build trust and support for our schools.
Two things that we need to have in order to have a successful school district for our students.

I will probably post again today to explain what topics are important to me as a candidate for our Boardof Education.
But before that, I want to share with you the first two things I researched as I began to think about running for the board, the district Mission Statement and the district Vision Statement.
I doubt many of us look at these, but I believe that we all should, especially those of us who want to help make decisions about what our district needs to do to be successful.
Here they are:
Mission Statement:
“The mission of the Washington Twp Public Schools is to provide a safe, positive, and progressive environment that provides opportunity for all students to attain the knowledge and skills specified in the NJ Learning Standards at all grade levels, as to ensure their full participation in an ever changing world as responsible, self directed, and civic minded students.”

I researched the word progressive in terms of education because it seems to be a trigger word/ political word in today’s society.
In education it means that education must prepare students to be active participants in a democratic and global society ( civic minded).

District Vision Statement:
“The Washington Township School District will promote a safe, inclusive environment that embraces differences and provides varied experiences to help ALL students build an academic foundation that will develop critical thinking skills, interpersonal skills, social and emotional intelligence, and the confidence to be ethical, responsible, and productive citizens in a global society.

I believe it is difficult to establish a school environment that wholeheartedly “ embraces” differences, BUT I think we can create a school environment where ALL are expected to “respect” differences….

As the school board/ superintendent create district goals every year, I believe that these two statements need to be considered. You can also find District Goals on our website as well.
I am not sure if they change yearly or not. There are/were four listed when I checked this information out earlier this year.

I know that a lot of thought and hours of work went into creating these statements and goals. But I wonder if they are considered and reviewed in the decisions we are making as a district?