Meet Janet Matthews, Easton School Board Candidate for Region III

Janet Matthews

Posted by: Noël Jones

The Easton Democratic Committee has chosen their candidate to run for the remaining two years of the school board seat vacated by Jen Holzberger in Region III, which covers part of Lower Mount Bethel Township, Forks Township and Easton's West Ward and College Hill neighborhoods. I had the opportunity to sit down with Janet Matthews in her Forks Township home, to discuss the upcoming election, her

views on the current state of the district, and ways as to how it could improve. A former teacher and Associate Director of Literacy in the Easton Area School District, Matthews says she wants to give back to the community by serving on the other side--representing voting taxpayers while working to find the best value in terms of effective programming to raise student performance. "I have experience and expertise to share," says Matthews. After 32 years with the district, that experience is broad, and she serves on invitation-only boards at the state level as well.

"My experience as a teacher and administrator has given me the unique perspective of each school's strengths and weaknesses. I'm not sure that a candidate has ever offered that combination of experience before. I can look at things with a critical eye when it comes to spending, and I have the ability to evaluate programs to know if they are worth keeping or not. Each school is different--there's no cookie-cutter…this is my community--I want it to get better."

I ask her what she might say to voters who are hesitant to embrace candidates with strong ties to the district. "There is definitely a deficit of trust in the community, and I want to help restore that trust. My connection to the district is different than board members in the past--I have no relatives looking to get jobs in the district, and if I did, they would know better than to ask me."

With regard to academic achievement, literacy is her forte, and close to her heart. "I see the big picture. I know that if students aren't reading at grade level by the end of grade 3, the chances of improving academic performance overall are very slight..." She trails off for a moment, before sharing a disturbing statistic, "The best predictor of the number of needed prison beds in several states is 3rd grade reading scores. We have to do everything we can in K-3."

So with regard to programming that works, and program expenses that can be cut, what does she suggest?

"Each program might be valuable to some students and not others--again, it's not a cookie-cutter--you have to treat each school individually and decide which interventions are working and which are not. It's not hard to find out--the teachers know."

As an example, she offers Cheston Elementary, which won the International Reading Association's Exemplary Reading Program Award in 2002. Eighty-seven percent of 2nd and 3rd grade students were reading at or above grade level.

So what happened? "There were a lot of good interventions going on, in addition to best practices being taught by teachers, and a we had a lot of teacher training." One intervention being used at the time was called Reading Recovery, an intensive 1st grade intervention program that consisted of a half hour each day for 16 weeks. "After Cheston won the award, the Director of Literacy showed up one day in the middle of the year and shut down the program without explanation." Matthews points out that many of the teachers from that time are still with the district. "Teachers are already trained and we are not using it."

Another successful intervention was made possible by a Read to Succeed grant, through which Cheston acquired an on line literacy program called Fast Forward from Scientific Learning. Kids went to the lab for an hour and a half, for five weeks. "We paid $100,000 for a perpetual site license for Cheston. The program hasn't been in use for about eight years." According to Matthews, the lab was dismantled because the computers were outdated, and the room was needed for Special Education students. But she points out that the program is now hosted in an internet cloud, requiring no need to load into hard drives anymore, so since Cheston has a perpetual site license, the school could be using the program again at minimal cost, even without upgrading their computers. But they aren't, so both the money spent, and the benefit that helped achieve the award in 2002, are currently being wasted.

At one point Dr. Maura Roberts, Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, was approached about moving the site license to the middle school, where students were struggling badly with literacy and academic performance, but Roberts said no. "It's a shame,” explains Matthews, “because this program has had proven success with this population, which is difficult to move [because the students are post-3rd grade]. It could also be used for the high school. It's a great way to increase literacy, and test scores in general."

So that is an example of money already spent and programming being wasted, but what does she think can be cut to ease spending right now? "Anything that's not working,” responds Matthews, “AFG for example--or Excellence by Design, as they're calling it now." 

AFG stands for Accreditation for Growth, and is a program through which a high school can become accredited so that its graduates can be accepted to colleges. But there are many ways for a school to become accredited. AFG was the subject of much controversy last year during the budget crisis leading up to the firing of 72 teachers, as the Director of AFG was Linda Fisher, sister-in-law to then School Board President, Pat Fisher. The district had wasted millions of dollars over the years on the AFG program--a program that did nothing to raise Easton Area High School out of its six years of Corrective Action under No Child Left Behind, and a program that no other districts in our region employ. The price tag per year was reported as high as $600,000, including a handsome salary for Linda Fisher. Linda Fisher resigned last year amid the hubbub, but the program has continued on. Not only has AFG done nothing to improve test scores, but as Matthews points out, "there was never any need to run the program K-12," since only high school seniors were graduating and trying to get into college.

"AFG took on a life of its own. Major portions of teachers’ professional development, entire days, were devoted to AFG. Every teacher in every school had to be on an AFG committee in their school, and each "internal facilitator" in each school was paid a stipend according to how many teachers were in the school."

Considering there are hundreds of teachers at the high school alone, that's a lot of money. For teachers, it was an unpaid extra obligation and burden. They were touted as meetings where the district teachers and administrators worked with parents to improve their kids' academic performance. But in reality, although the meetings were open to the public, AFG did little to promote them, and the committee meetings were pretty much just mandatory discussions amongst themselves on the AFG topics of Literacy, Math and Citizenship. The committees made a variety of recommendations—extra staff needed, repairs, etc., that never made it past the school board. Every year the teachers were forced to participate in a “Celebration of Success” for AFG, when none of their recommendations had ever been acted upon. “Nobody wanted to do it,” says Matthews.

When AFG started, Linda Fisher was a teacher, and Pat Fisher was on the school board. Linda Fisher quickly went from teacher, to District Coordinator, to Associate Director, to Director of AFG while Pat Fisher was on the board [Fisher is still is on the board, but only until November, as she is not running for re-election]. During that time, according to Matthews, Sue McGinley was brought on as Superintendent, and she fully endorsed the AFG program.

“Sue McGinley promised to have an open-door policy when she was hired, but soon after, when I was the Associate Director of Literacy, she implemented new rules that no administrators were allowed to approach her. We had to go up the chain of command—the communication issue was huge—when you can’t communicate with leadership, it puts a strain on everyone. Principals couldn’t get an appointment with her—and still can’t, as far as I know.”

Matthews goes on to say of the general public’s frustration with McGinley, “There is no accountability here—for her to walk away this year with $324,000—where is the accountability?” She laments that the board hastily approved McGinley’s contract without reading it thoroughly. “The lesson here is that this can never happen again—people have to do what’s right, not what’s popular. If you cannot defend your vote, there’s something wrong with that.”

As an example, she recalls the school board’s recent vote to approve a $20 million TIF to help Chrin Brothers build a highway interchange off Route 33, so that Chrin can develop 690 acres of farmland into a new commercial complex. “According to the local paper, as of Tuesday, the board had not discussed it, and then on Thursday, they voted for it. It’s repeating past mistakes of not reading and discussing all possible outcomes.”

With regard to the November election, Matthews muses, “It cannot be business-as-usual. People will not put up with it anymore. I hope the new board will be a renaissance for the district, that it will be made up of people with diverse skills, who will take the job seriously.”

With seven of nine positions up for turnover this election, she may just get her wish.

She smiles across the kitchen table at me. “I’m really excited. I want to win.”