Board of Education
Retirements
November 3, 2009

BOB HALE Tribute: (By Becky Coffey) So, Bob. Tonight is your last evening as Board Chair! We will all miss your counsel and your leadership. You have mentored each of us and shown us that dedication and hard work can produce great results. As a result, our Board, in most of the years you’ve been Chairman, has received the prestigious Board Leadership award from the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education. And on November 21st of this year, the Madison Board of Education will be awarded the CABE Board of Distinction Award – Level II. It’s an honor for our Board, of course, but it’s especially a tribute to your leadership with the Board, and our joint efforts to work with the Superintendent and the staff to nurture the high quality school district that is Madison’s pride.

Our school district has grown and changed since 1997 when you first joined the Board of Education. From 1997 to 2007, 620 new homes were built in Madison, a trend that pushed student enrollment from 3019 students in 1996-97 to 3844 students in 2006-2007. Yet working with your Board, town leaders, and the superintendent, you found creative ways to juggle facilities, add a new high school, and build staff while closely managing cost increases. And yet throughout these difficult stressful years, you and the team did not sacrifice our educational goals and standards. Why, I heard of a recent graduate who didn’t even attend every…single…school building in Madison over her 13 years!

Your legacy today is to leave a Madison Public School district where students’ stellar performance on state tests makes the district the third-highest achieving district in the State. Yet this extraordinary feat was accomplished at a cost per pupil that is among the lowest in the state…150th out of 169 towns! What better standard of educational value could anyone hope for? The highest performance at the lowest cost per student!

Now, to be honest, there are a lot of people who work hard for the students in any school district. But few bring the big picture to the mission that you brought to Madison’s schools. That “big picture” view is best reflected in your tireless work to fight for relief from unfunded State mandates that push up costs for local education districts.

You worked behind the scenes for a decade to galvanize the elected leaders of Connecticut’s small towns to fight for full funding of the Education Cost Sharing formula. You saw—well before most people did—that towns like Madison that had their ECS grants capped by the Legislature and that did not receive what the state owed them under the formula, faced a shortfall in state funding. That in turn put pressure on local taxes and threatened both our school budgets AND our educational mission. You fought – against entrenched opposition - for the changes made two years ago by the Legislature that shifted the state funding ground rules for towns like Madison.

Ironically, few people in your own community are even aware of the level of respect you have earned among State educators and leaders. (Humility does that!) You were appointed a member of the state task force for high school reform, and were elected President of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education—CABE – after having served in other CABE leadership posts. Because of your behind-the-scenes approach to issues, your patient determination to work within the political system to protect the interests of our schools and our taxpayers, many of your fellow Madison residents are unaware of your work. Like your frequent testimony before the State Legislature to oppose proposals that raised local education district costs or that might limit our ability to deliver quality education. You were never hesitant to fight—in the most courteous, professional way, of course—both for students and for the rights of Madison’s taxpayers.

But what led you to become a state and local leader fighting both for educational excellence and for preserving town rights?

You began as a teacher of technology education in Manchester and then moved to the Branford Public Schools. As technology education evolved, you moved from teaching woodworking to teaching electronics and power mechanics. I guess that’s where you figured out how to make all the pieces work together! Shifting to administration, you became the district’s Director of Technology and Grants.

By 1986, you had joined the state Department of Education and been voted President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology. In this year, you took your first trip to China as one of America’s experts. In 1987, you were the keynote speaker at the first all-Japan conference on Educational Technology, and in 1992, you were the keynote speaker at the Chinese Technology conference. After a billion people halfway around the planet decided that your ideas were worth listening to, a few folks in Hartford apparently followed suit! Within the state education department, you rose over several years to the post of Assistant Division Director overseeing curriculum, instruction, certification, and the development of Connecticut Mastery Tests before retiring from state service in 1992. You were leading the way in systematically assessing student performance, and using the results to correct weak curriculum areas, long before Presidents worried about leaving children behind!

Luckily, at that moment, the Madison Board of Education snagged you before some other district did, and the rest is history. Excellent schools. Prudent budgets. A district that attracts teachers who want to teach among the best, and families who want the best public education for their children.

Those of us remaining on the Board will protect your hard-won accomplishments. We will build on the constructive relationship you built with our administration, teachers, town officials and community. We collectively aspire to a contribution that matches in some small way what you have given to the education system of Madison and the State.

On a more personal level, we’ll miss the Grumpy dolls you brought to the Board meetings as each budget season began. We’ll miss themed neckties you wore to remind us of the seasons – as well as your undying loyalty to the Red Sox. (OK. No names, but some of us won’t miss that devotion to the Red Sox!) Most of all, Bob, we will miss you.

Good luck in your retirement! I’m sure you won’t sit still for long.

Three members of our Board of Education retire tonight: Holly Sellers, Harriet Gowanlock, and Bob Hale. I’ll speak first about Holly and Harriet.

HOLLY TAYLOR SELLERS

Holly, you’re completing your second four-year term, first joining the Board in 2001, just as the high school building committee was in the design phase for the new high school.

It was a time of turmoil as the district was deep in planning to reorganize our schools: grade levels were reconfigured, portables added, and students were moved to find instructional space until the high school could open in August 2003. Plans were made to divide library collections; to move faculty, students, and instructional resources between schools. In 2003-2004, when the high school opened, another challenging transition occurred as Brown School closed for a year for renovation and Jeffrey Elementary School temporarily became a Grade 5-6 Middle School.

Despite the difficult times, your leadership on the Board’s Executive Committee provided a steady hand – and your ability to help us understand legal nuances was incredibly helpful. Your passion for strengthening music and arts education as a key component of a comprehensive education was one shared with several other Board members (Whatever happened to our plans for a Board musical skit at the staff fall picnic?). How many know that your undergraduate degree was in Music?

Yet you also are a passionate athlete who continued to play adult hockey even while on the Board and working full-time– and were chosen to be hockey goalie on a major adult competitive team early in your tenure. But you were also were generous with sharing your skills, helping out by assisting with the Hand girls hockey team.

Like most Board of Education members, you also hold a full-time job, in your case, as Court Administrator for Connecticut’s Supreme Court, utilizing your graduate degrees of Juris Doctor and a masters in public administration.

On our Board, Holly has served as the Board Secretary, as the Board Vice-Chair, as Chairman of the Board’s Policy Committee and as a member of the Finance and Personnel Committees.

Now that you are retiring from the Board, don’t be a stranger…you know how much we love to see an audience at our Board meetings. Good luck.

HARRIET GOWANLOCK

Harriet is completing her first term on the Board but that service is actually a culmination of many years of active involvement in education issues as a volunteer. Prior to joining the Board, she did tough duty as a volunteer member of the contentious First Selectman’s Fiscal Planning Task Force.

While on the Board of Education, Harriet has chaired the Policy Committee and has been a member of the Board’s Finance Committee. Because her work schedule allowed her flexibility, Harriet was one of about a half-dozen members who contributed a significant number of hours serving on several key district search committees charged with selecting the best candidates for senior staff posts

Harriet, like Holly, also gave the Board the benefit of her wisdom and training as an attorney to inform our Board and Committee discussions.

Like Holly – and other members of the Board – she shares a passion for strengthening and bolstering the role of music and arts as part of a comprehensive public education.

She grew up in Manhattan and attended the High School of the Performing Arts before moving on to college at the University of Chicago and earning a law degree from Yale University Law School.

Harriet now leaves the Board but not the field of education as she is just now completing her student teaching experience that will soon qualify her as a certified high school English teacher.

Good Luck Harriet in your new endeavors.