DISTRICT 2: RON SOFO
2023 Vote School Board First! Candidate Questionnaire:
Q: What, in your view, is PPS doing very well? What needs course correction?
A: PPS does well with:
1. Early childhood education/Head Start
2. The authorization of some district charter schools that are serving Black and other marginalized youth well
3. District Magnet Schools.
I would course correct/ build on the above strengths by:
1. Redistributing resources within the district’s budget to fund and operate universal child care and pre-school/Head Start education for all families for children starting at age 3, with seamless transition to early elementary school (K-3).
2. Creating a climate of collaboration and professional learning communities between and among effective district and district-authorized charter schools. This begins the process of creating an internal culture of education innovation focused on strengthening student learning/growth and teacher effectiveness across all district schools.
3. Having each school create a specific mission and focus as if they all are open enrollment magnet schools and equitably funded as such.
Q: What is the role of the school district in the success of the city? How will you partner with other governmental entities?
A: Safe, caring, quality public schools are essential in shaping our region’s economy and Pittsburgh’s success as the most livable city for all residents. A portfolio of quality city public schools creates the backbone of stable communities and neighborhoods, anchors property values, and most importantly, provides essential opportunities for all youth to become caring, responsible citizens who are economically able to provide for themselves and their families.
The Board, with the Superintendent, needs to develop a long-term comprehensive 21st Century Public Education Master Plan that invites city, county, and state governments to be at the table to listen to all constituents. These would include parents, students, teachers, administrators, staff, law enforcement, health and human services, businesses, post-secondary education institutions, and trade unions as we collectively assess our future expectations and goals for our schools and students, preparing them to be life- and career-ready. The Master Plan must address the aging physical plant of our school buildings in relation to the educational needs of our students, then incorporate what was learned from the pandemic about the inequitable distribution of resources among schools.
Community schools and early childhood education are the initial places to start collaboratively --and adequately-- educating all children in Pittsburgh with city, county, state, and federal resources contributing to sustainability and equitable access for all children and their families. There is also a great need to proactively address community and school violence, as all parties have a responsibility to collaborate in creating data-informed, sustainable solutions that exceed the capacity of individual schools and the district to solve alone.
Q: What training/information do you think you will need to be successful in your role as a school board member?
A: As a retired school administrator, I bring a lifelong career background of experience to the table. Coming from a new perspective, as a PPS Board member, below are the areas that I think I need training/information to be successful in this role.
*How does the Board set its goals and priorities for the district? How do these impact the development of the district- and school-based budgets, as well as Board policy priorities?
*I will need an in-depth understanding of how the district’s budgets are developed.
*How are school-based budgets constructed?
*How do current labor agreements impact the equitable deployment of human and other needed school-based resources?
*What goods and services does the district competitively bid? How do decisions to bid or not to bid/receive multiple price quotes impact potential budget savings?
*What level of input do building teachers and principals have in the adoption/use of curriculum, technology, and other essential services with and for their students?
Q: What do you believe a school board member should know/be able to do relative to district operations?
A: A Board member should have access to a “dashboard” describing each individual school’s monthly operations in regard to school safety, a caring and inclusive culture for students and staff, and the impact of instruction on student academic growth.
The Board has only 1 employee it hires, supervises and evaluates: the Superintendent. The data and emerging trends from the individual school dashboards will provide an important source of information to guide Board policy and budget discussion/decisions, and the annual evaluation of the Superintendent’s job performance within the context of district goals and priorities jointly developed by the Board and Superintendent.
Q: We know that the pandemic had a negative effect on school attendance. How will you fulfill your role to create and foster schools where kids want to be?
A: Kids want to be in schools that are physically and emotionally safe, where they are cared for and seen as individuals, and held to high expectations for their learning and academic growth over time and with appropriate equitable supports.
The Board and the Superintendent must adopt a leadership orientation for district growth, not envision managing the district’s decay. Leading for growth requires an emphasis on creating trusting, caring relationships at every level within the district, especially in each school.
Individual schools where students’ regular school attendance is a concern need the autonomy to rethink how to create safe, caring, and academically challenging classrooms in collaboration with the students and parents they serve. Community resources and advocates need to be welcomed partners in helping the school understand the external pressures and needs that may impede a student’s regular attendance.
One strategy central to creating and sustaining caring, safe, and quality public schools where our students want to be is for our teachers to stay with the same group of students for 2 to 4 years at a time. Relationships matter, with positive change occurring at the speed needed to build trust with those we teach and with whom we work.
Q: Given that nutrition is closely tied to student health and academic outcomes, what initiatives should PPS support to help promote healthy food access for PPS students?
A: Students need reliable access to healthy meals both during the school day (breakfast and lunch) as well at home and within their communities. The district needs to support state and federal efforts to provide free breakfast and lunch to all students while they are attending school.
Locally, the district needs to work with existing and potentially new community partners to facilitate, through a community schools model, a direct point of contact at every school for students and their families to access assistance with food insecurity at home during the week and weekends.
Q: With enrollment declining in PPS, what is your vision for the future of the physical footprint of the district?
A: As noted above, the Board, with the Superintendent, needs to develop a strategic, comprehensive, long term 21st Century Public Education Master Plan with city, county, and state governments at the table, listening to all constituents to collectively assess our future expectations and goals for our students and the schools--taking a leadership role instead of managing decline.
This Master Plan must address the aging physical plant of our school buildings in relation to the educational needs of our students and incorporate what we have learned from the pandemic about the inequitable distribution of resources among schools as well the benefits of year-round school calendars.
The district’s buildings—on average, 84 years old—need to be modernized. The Board’s leadership role should engage all levels of government, business, and trade unions in our state as well as potential federal resources to create a local “school building authority” that invites “the not for profit” institutions (higher education and healthcare, for example) to invest funds to build, where needed, 21st century designed schools that are environmentally sustainable, educationally attractive and relevant to our youth and their families, both as an educational, instructional tool and to hold and attract students to PPS. These new schools need to be designed as open enrollment facilities focused on areas like education & medicine, AI & technology, sports & related careers, and social-economic-legal-environmental justice themes that engage students in relevant, life- and career-ready course work, with internships that maximize their success after high school graduation.
In this process of building the new, the district must transparently engage the entire city in equitably creating a portfolio of district schools that also are financially responsible in adequately educating the 18,000+ current students. The plans should also anticipate growth, as students stay at PPS throughout their entire K-12 education while new students and families are attracted to enroll in a preschool through high school system.
Q: What are your plans to desegregate our school district?
A: Safe, caring, quality public schools are essential in shaping our region’s economy, creating the backbone of stable communities and neighborhoods, anchoring property values, and—most importantly—providing essential opportunities for all youth to become caring, responsible citizens who are economically able to provide for themselves and their families.
I support community schools that integrate quality education with the social, emotional, physical, and economic health of each child and their families in a seamless web of equitable support services to students and their families. Community schools need integrated funding across traditional organization and government “silos,” because quality schools are economic drivers of a community’s prosperity. All levels of government, healthcare, social services, and businesses have responsibilities to contribute to a community school’s success and each owns roles in supporting its most important assets: its students, teachers, and support staff.
Q: How do you plan on integrating student voice into your decisions? Are you aware of the existing channels of student voice to tap into?
A: I would work to promote a transparent student voice in the district by having the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council (SAC) meet jointly with the Board and Superintendent. SAC members would be invited to attend Board committee meetings per their interests. Additionally, SAC members could invite School Board members into their schools to learn first-hand of challenges, barriers, and successes related to their requests for support/recognition.
I have heard some students testify at public meetings, and these students should be engaged in follow-up conversations to ensure that they know they have been heard and to explore nuances of their views that may not be fully served in a 3-minute limited testimony statement.
I also believe, as a Board member representing District #2, I need to be visible and engaged with parents and students at planned school events and need to co-sponsor regular listening sessions at each school/community location with partners like the PTA and other community-based organizations that work with school families in order to keep two-way communications open and ongoing.
Q: What role does the school board play in improving the learning environment for our students?
A: 1. A better educational return on the $900 million spent per year on public education for all of the 19,000 students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools. We have enough money; it is how we spend it. The district’s educational goals and its budgetary decisions must be aligned. A major governance responsibility of the Board, with the Superintendent, is to set limited and focused yearly district goals and priorities guiding how the annual district budget is developed.
2. The creation of relevant metrics of student success and teacher, principal, and school effectiveness that are reviewed at least on a quarterly basis by the Board and Superintendent. These metrics need to include by school: student/staff attendance rates; number and length of teacher and administrator leaves of absence; the number of student suspensions by type and length; open positions at both school and central office; formative assessment data focusing on students’ academic growth. These types of data collection and analysis will lay the foundation on which to monitor and adjust teaching and student learning that will lead to all students becoming life- and career-ready upon high school graduation.
3. The creation of clear and relevant Board priorities for the district with appropriate stakeholder input that place the achievement of grade level proficiency of all third-grade students in reading and math as the overarching initial goal that then drives Board decisions related to budget, personnel, superintendent evaluations, and all other areas of district operations.
Focusing on these three key strategies will enable PPS to learn and grow in equitable opportunities at every level of the organization, impacting students and staff. The resulting “growth mindset” will support effective teaching and caring relationships between and among students and adults in order to promote student academic growth within emotionally stable and safe school environments.
The Board must take a leadership role in modeling trust and a willingness to support individual school’s cultures of educational innovation. These cultures need to be school-based so that teachers and their principals are empowered to own the daily operation of their schools, guided by a relevant and meaningful mission and vision refined in conversation with the families and students served.
Q: What do you think the proper role of a board member is to help foster positive school discipline and building a positive school climate?
A: An individual board member has no authorization other than that which may be given by a majority vote of the entire school board. However, as Board members, our duty and responsibility is to question the Superintendent about available information that reveals each school’s discipline practices and how they contribute or detract from the creation and sustainability of a positive school climate for both students and staff.
These measures of school discipline practices, whether by anonymous surveys or other means, and their impact on student and staff lived experiences must be reviewed by the Board and Superintendent regularly throughout the year, on multiple occasions. This process will keep the impact of school discipline and the code of student conduct a priority focus and determine how their use supports and/or interferes with building a safe, positive school climate.
Q: Superintendent Dr. Wayne Walters has put forward 5 priority goals, what are your thoughts on the goals and do you see yourself as a board member fitting into those goals?
A: The Board needs to develop district goals and priorities with the Superintendent that become the focus of the Superintendent’s work. The Board’s primary role will then be to build district budgets aligned with these priorities and exercise key school governance functions related to personnel, contracts for goods and services, and Board policies that adequately support the Superintendent in making significant progress towards achieving these priorities with the district staff, which s/he is responsible to lead and supervise.
I regard the current goals developed by the Superintendent as a starting point for deeper discussion to determine a focused set of goals and priorities that are co-developed and owned by our School Board and the Superintendent.
Q: A Commonwealth Court Judge recently ruled the way Pennsylvania funds education is unconstitutional, do you think PPS is funded sufficiently? (Please explain why or why not)
A: The “budget crisis” is more a matter of proactive and responsible budget management clearly connected to Board goals and priorities. Do the math. Take $900 million divided by 5,000 charter school students plus 19,000 PPS students (generously overestimated), you have $900,000,000 divided by 24,000 students = $37,500 per student. PPS is in the top 5% of spending per pupil in the state and produces student outcomes in the bottom third of all school districts!
The real budget question is whether we are committed to using the current budget in new and innovative ways to address student achievement, or are we committed to continue budgeting for the status quo? An effort to align the budget with strategies of success for all students would require a deep knowledge of how our budget works alongside the political will to realign the budget with the only really important aspects of our district’s mission. This would empower all students to become literate and well-educated graduates with lifelong career and learning opportunities.
Q: What is your vision for using the existing budget?
A: I am not sure I understand this question, as the existing budget is set for the 2023 budget year. I do believe there needs to be a deep examination of what the current drivers are that have built the 2023 budget and how well those drivers support student academic growth in safe, caring, and quality schools for every student in the district.
My vision for the 2024 budget and beyond would start with determining the district’s goals and priorities to align our spending and budget-building accordingly.
For example, if the Board’s overarching initial priority, with appropriate stakeholder input, is the achievement of grade-level proficiency of all third-grade students in reading and math, then this goal drives board decisions related to budget, personnel, Superintendent evaluations, and all other areas of district operations.
Q: Many PPS families struggle with basic needs such as housing and food insecurity. How should the district be allocating resources to address these needs?
A: The district and its employees need to be the advocates and navigators for families struggling with basic needs such as housing and food insecurities, connecting them with city, county, and community organizations that have the resources to address these and other related needs, such as adequate healthcare (including mental health) and employment.
The district also can improve its implementation and integration of these types of equitable support services through an evolving community schools model so that families have a one-stop destination to access essential support services. The goal is to help all children come to school ready to give their best efforts to learn daily.