Board of Education Candidate: Nancy Gilly

Editor's note: Seven candidates are running for 5 seats on the Groton Board of Education on Nov. 8. Below is a Q&A with one of the candidates.

Name: Nancy Gilly           

Age: 50

Education: BA(Mod), MA in Medieval History from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, BFA in Music from U-Conn, MLS from SUNY Albany

Work Experience:  Medical Librarian at Backus Hospital in Norwich since January 2001.  I worked at the Subase Library as the Assistant Librarian, in the early ‘90s, for H&RBlock as a tax preparer during the 1998-2000 tax seasons, and as a substitute teacher in Waterford, Ledyard, and Preston in 1999 and 2000.

Civic/Political Experience: Former member of the Groton Historic District Commission, current RTM member for District 5, one of two representatives from Groton on the SEAT Board of Directors

Family: Husband James Gilly, retired Navy Submariner, and two daughters, one at Grasso Tech, and one attending Fitch Middle School.

Why are you running for this office?  I’m running for two reasons.  The first is as simple as someone needs to do it.  There are 5 seats up for election next month, and there are only seven candidates between the two parties, of whom only three are not current members.

We seem to have a problem right now with meetings often having to be cancelled due to the lack of a quorum, and I promise that if elected I will attend the vast majority of meetings, and if my situation were to change so that I was no longer able to do so, I would resign.  The town deserves a Board which can do business. 

The second is that I feel that the current incarnation of the Board is out of touch with the town, and particularly out of touch with the town’s financial situation.  I don’t think there is anyone out there who does not want the best possible education for all the children in Groton, but the definition of “best possible” has to include “which we can afford”. 

I don’t want to see Groton end up like the town a friend of mine grew up in, where one year the school budget was the town budget.  No money for police, no money for any public works, no money for social services.  I’ve been through two town budget cycles on the RTM, and the school budget is remarkably untransparent, and the Board seemingly unaccountable to the town for over 60% of the town’s annual monies, and I do not think that we as a town should continue to accept this. 

What do you believe is the greatest challenge Groton schools face today, and what would you do to meet this challenge?  Right now the greatest challenge facing Groton overall is financial, the same challenge facing government and schools nationwide.  In addition we have a loss of trust in the current Board, as evidenced by the many speakers at both the October 11th meeting and the unofficial meeting (due to a lack of quorum) on September 26th.

It seems that the current Board and Superintendant have a faith in technology and the latest educational gadgets and trends which isn’t always justified.  If you look at school board budgets and expenditures nationally (and even internationally), even after allowing for differences in personnel, facilities, and materials costs, there isn’t always a correlation between greater expenditures and better educated students. 

I’m willing to make hard decisions and work to try to keep the education budget to one which the town can afford while still maintaining or, better yet, improving the quality of our students’ education and I’m willing to explain why I’m making a decision and defend it. 

I’m also willing to listen to other opinions and options and change my mind. No one person has all the right answers, and a Board needs to consider all options so that between the members the best decisions for the town and the schools can be reached.   

I would also like to work for better communication between the Board and the Central Office and the taxpayers and parents of the town.  Parents shouldn’t have to be able to attend every BoE meeting in order to have an idea of what is coming down the pike.

How would you rate the performance of the current board overall, and what, if anything, would you do differently?

I’m not impressed, as you can probably tell from my answers to the two previous questions.  Based on what I have seen at the Board meetings which I have attended, while individual members may be strong, as a board they do not hold their own in relationship to the superintendent. 

It’s not that I think that a strong superintendent is bad, but he or she works for the Board, not the other way around.  This current Board also seems to be a remarkably passive board for a school district facing the challenges we face.  They react to problems, but do not seem to be doing anything to get ahead of them. 

Going into the Phase II referendum, the Board should have had a “Plan B” other than simply asking the town for an extra $2 Million.  I think we all recognize that Groton does need a Phase II; we had to expand quickly after WWII, and a lot of our buildings are great examples of “Fast, good, cheap - pick two”. We should have had a committee formed the day after the referendum failed, or at the latest after the town budget was finalized, and that was in May. 

Currently they haven’t even decided how many middle schools they want next year, and depending on how many, and if there are closures, where, we need to get these decisions made NOW, or else it’s going to cost the town money we don’t really have, and which could be better spent if there was appropriate planning beforehand. 

If elected I will listen to parents and taxpayers, and I will work to get decisions made in a timely manner,  rather than making them last minute when we have no options left to us.