Board President Helping Summit Schools Take Next Big Step

Things are good enough in the Summit School District.

The city’s high school is in the top five percent of New Jersey high schools based on criteria like test scores and graduation rates. The district retains a high percentage of students, seeing them from kindergarten through to graduation and onto, quite often, highly ranked colleges. And recently, the district’s appropriations committee approved a five-year, $17 million facilities plan that will bring its aging schools up to date.

Good enough, certainly, but for Gloria Ron-Fornes, there’s always room for improvement.

As the Summit Board of Education’s new president, Ron-Fornes is tasked with not only maintaining the district’s elevated position when it comes to education, outreach, and working with the public, but improving upon it. It’s a job she’s more than ready for, and she’s already readying ideas to make it happen.

“I think we’ve been raising our standards on a consistent basis over the years,” she said during a recent conversation. “I think we’re at a place where the infrastructure, the core curriculum are in a good place. But, we need to take a leap, we need to make that next step.”

Ron-Fornes has enough incentive to see Summit take that next step. She’s served on the board for five years – she’s now in her second term – and she’s got two children in the very school system she’s looking to improve. Certainly, those factors are motivation enough, but they’re not all.

In her time on the board, Ron-Fornes has had a realization. The real competition isn’t coming from other school districts in the state, but from the rest of the world, where childhood education has caught up or, in some cases, surpassed the educational system in the United States.

If things don’t change, she feels, being good enough won’t be near enough.

Overhauling the country’s education system isn’t her goal, but there are changes that can be made in Summit to help close the achievement gap. First, she said, are the teachers. Summit, she’s convinced, has some of the best. Support of the district’s teachers is key and is something she and the rest of her fellow board members are more than willing to provide.

But, she recognizes that there needs to be more.

According to district data, Summit High School’s 2012 graduating class sent more than 30 percent of its students to the country’s most competitive four-year colleges. It’s a good number, in fact it’s the highest percentage Summit has ever seen, but the district can do more.           

"How do we go beyond graduation? I think a lot of education looks at graduation like ‘OK, we’ve got them out,’ but that’s not enough,” she said. “How do we look beyond? How to we bring what they’re looking for into our planning process.”

Part of the solution could come down to simple cheerleading. Summit can do a better job of branding itself as a district with the state’s top students. Colleges and universities, Ron-Fornes feels, don’t see Summit that way. By marketing itself and developing programs aimed at answering the needs of colleges, Summit can help ensure that high school isn’t the end of the education experience.

Ron-Fornes would also like to see the implementation of more technology in the classroom, but only where it makes sense. Students in Summit are building websites, participating in a digital newsroom and, beginning next year, the district’s sixth grad students are being outfitted with iPads.

With students spending more and more time in front of computer screens and on the internet, there needs to be an equal effort applied to finding the right balance between technology and what remains of the real world.

Though she’s adamant about her willingness to fight for the students, the district remains unconvinced of some matters, especially those owning prospective financial implications on future tax bills. The facilities plan was hard fought, with parents even writing a petition to ensure that Jefferson Elementary School got the money it needed for upgrades. Several projects were approved, but the appropriations committee rejected one completely: all-day kindergarten.

The issue, Ron-Fornes said, is funding. Currently, half-day kindergarten is all that’s available to public school children in Summit. It’s a position that could negatively impact early education and development.

“The problem is (full-day kindergarten) is not mandated, but the curriculum is,” she said, noting that the price of full-day kindergarten could exceed a $1 million each year. “So what you have to do is cut back on naps, cut back on playtime, cut back on the things these young children can do.

“If you have a half day and a core curriculum, how do you manage that? We need to find a balance.”

For much of that balance, Ron-Fornes is leaning on the district’s parents. The parents of Summit school children are a passionate bunch, she said, and their input is welcome when it comes to solving some of the district’s concerns.

Though some hotly contested issues can rankle the parents, the board, the administration, and sometimes all three, respect goes a long way towards easing communication. To that end, Ron-Fornes said she hopes to continue initiatives already in place like issue-specific town halls, as well as create some of her own, including holding “office hours” at a local café where parents can stop by to talk about the district.

By bridging the communication gap, Ron-Fornes is hopeful the board can avoid the muddle of ongoing disagreements that can sometimes hamper the board’s role.

Summit boasts a number of dedicated parent groups, including its Parent-Teacher Organization, its sports boosters, mentors, the Summit Education Foundation – they’re the ones responsible for the new iPads – and CHAT, a group dedicated to meeting the communication needs of the district’s Hispanic families.

The latter is especially important considering Summit’s growing Hispanic population.

“I think diversity is a powerful tool Summit has,” Ron-Fornes, who is of Cuban descent, said. “It’s such a wonderful thing.”

In the end, it’ll take everyone working together to help Summit take that next big step.

“It’s really all about us fighting for our kids,” she said. “It’s going to be a challenge, but we’re in it together.”