{"id":6715,"date":"2015-10-28T05:26:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T09:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=6715"},"modified":"2015-10-27T14:39:54","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T18:39:54","slug":"brick-boe-candidate-profile-victoria-pakala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/10\/brick-boe-candidate-profile-victoria-pakala\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick BOE Candidate Profile: Victoria Pakala"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note:<\/strong> Each of the 12 candidates running for a seat on the Brick Township Board of Education were sent a questionnaire by Brick Shorebeat. Their answers to our questions will be published on our site verbatim. We have disabled comments on profile articles to ensure the candidates\u2019 statements speak for themselves and readers can decide, without additional, potentially anonymous commentary, their view on those running for office.<\/em><\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/a>

Victoria Pakala (File Photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Full Name: <\/strong>Victoria Pakala<\/p>\n

Current Age: <\/strong>53<\/p>\n

Educational Background:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

1984, Rutgers College, New Brunswick, NJ. Bachelor of Arts, History;
\nNJ Certification, Teacher of Social Studies.<\/p>\n

1994, NJ Certification, Elementary Education.<\/p>\n

2008, NJ Certification, Teacher of Students with Disabilities.<\/p>\n

2009, Rutgers Graduate School of Education, New Brunswick, NJ.
\nMasters of Education, Special Education.
\nCompleted Learning Disabilities Teacher-Consultant Internship.<\/p>\n

Current Occupation:<\/strong><\/p>\n

I currently work as a substitute teacher and home instructor in the Freehold Regional High School District.<\/p>\n

Do you currently receive any public salary compensation? If so, from what public agency?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

See above.<\/p>\n

Have you ever previously held an elected office in Brick or elsewhere?<\/strong><\/p>\n

(No answer provided.)<\/p>\n

As it presently stands, the administration of the Brick school district remains in flux. What should the academic priorities of our administrators be over the next three years?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Setting academic priorities is critical to advancing the school district mission in the short and long term and is important to making budget allocation decisions. First, the district should focus on the importance of a good, research-based early literacy curriculum program. \u00a0A new program should include teacher training, parent education workshops and consistent use of specific student intervention strategies for success.<\/p>\n

Another priority is to recognize that strong and effective teachers require expert support to constantly improve their content area knowledge and instructional skills.\u00a0 Teacher morale will improve when specific support such as a \u2018new teachers academy\u2019 as well as a teacher coaching program are put in place. \u00a0Many resources for professional development are already in place in the district but a more concentrated district-wide effort specific to the teacher\u2019s knowledge, instructional practice, meaningful assessments, data management and successful co-teaching relationships can be honed by a coaching program.<\/p>\n

Finally, there are many additional economic resources available in public education that are currently off the radar in Brick Schools. \u00a0We need a new superintendent with a vision and knowledge of how to bring \u2018free money\u2019 to innovative programs for our students. \u00a0For instance, the district should hire a Grant Writer and establish an Educational Foundation to bring large sums of private and government funds to Brick teachers and students.<\/p>\n

At its core, a public school district will always be judged based on the achievement of its students. Though Brick\u2019s performance has improved in some areas in recent years based on state data, that same data has repeatedly shown that the Brick district lags in the category of college and career readiness. In a competitive state like New Jersey, what specific initiatives should be put into place to ensure that Brick students will be able to compete in both college and the marketplace with their peers who reside in the state\u2019s highest-performing districts?<\/strong><\/p>\n

What is the mission of the Brick Township school district and strategic plan for improving student knowledge and achievement? \u00a0We need a well-articulated strategic plan in place to raise student achievement in Brick. \u00a0This strategic plan must be created with input from administrators, teachers, students, parents and the community.<\/p>\n

I would like to lead a district effort to create a plan that takes into consideration current strengths and weaknesses, defines critical issues and prioritizes and implements annual goals and objectives for our students. \u00a0The plan will foster monitoring and aid in assessing progress. \u00a0The NJSBA offers free programs to school districts to complete such a plan. \u00a0Also, I\u2019m not a current member of the Brick BOE but I would like to see a re-commitment by the administration and school board to \u00a0implement and follow NJ laws that govern all schools in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Finally, working with staff and students I believe it is critical to review the testing process and work toward more meaningful assessments, teaching all students intervention strategies that focus on problem solving and higher order thinking skills. \u00a0These efforts would put the district on course to improve academic achievement for all students and help them be more successful in post-secondary pursuits.<\/p>\n

Most Board of Education meetings are extremely lightly attended. On some occasions, concern has been expressed that not enough parents are engaged in the academic aspects of the school experience. What specific ways can the district better engage parents and members of the community with the aim of bringing them into discussions on academic achievement?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two specific suggestions I have to better engage parents in the academic aspects of student education are called \u2018collaborative homework\u2019 and the second is improved communication methods.<\/p>\n

Collaborative homework involves a conversation and practice activities between parent and child. This has been shown to make the biggest impact on parent involvement in the academic process for students in elementary school because it draws parents into daily learning activities.<\/p>\n

Improved communication methods between parents and the school can begin with a change to in the back-to-school-night program to incorporate parent training on the mechanics of using technology to access student assignments, monitor progress and grades that are currently available on the school district web-site. If parents know how to access student assignments, progress and grades they will be more engaged in student academic programs in all grade levels. Let\u2019s just show them how!<\/p>\n

Other improved methods of communication can include a new parent welcome packet and such regular and consistent feedback as provided in a \u2018Friday Folder\u2019 in the elementary schools.<\/p>\n

In recent years, some long-sought facilities improvements have been completed in various school buildings. With the condition and age of the district\u2019s facilities continuing to be a chief concern among Brick residents, which improvements and\/or upgrades would you prioritize, and which funding mechanism would you favor to finance those projects?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is my understanding that there is no one currently in the Brick School District whose job it is to coordinate and prioritize facility repairs and improvements. \u00a0An analysis of the current condition of facilities, as well an energy audit, are crucial to creating a long term plan for remediation and improvement of facilities. This analysis could be performed by an outside agency or by training current employees to complete the task. \u00a0Upon completion the report would inform the board as to creating financial priorities and allocation of funds. \u00a0Any facilities that are necessary to repair or build in order to advance district curriculum priorities may require a public referendum.<\/p>\n

The future success of our students is at stake.<\/p>\n

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Brick Township Board of Education candidate Victoria Pakala talks about her background and answers numerous questions on the minds of Brick residents…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":6716,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,2,13],"tags":[1732,41,24,1168,1737],"class_list":["post-6715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brick-elections","category-government","category-brick-schools","tag-2015-candidate-profiles","tag-board-of-education","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-election-2015","tag-victoria-pakala"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/Victoria-Shorebeat-Headshot.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1Kj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6715\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}