Jonathan Rollock

Why are you running and why would you be a great person to serve on the School Committee?

I've been a special education teacher for 13 years, so I have a solid grasp of what it takes for a school to be great. After speaking with community parents, there are some clear gaps in our school's services and programming. My background and experiences are unique; I've worked in residential autism specific schools as well as in AP classes, I run both a club and a varsity sport, and I have a child entering the school system. I've seen the intricacies of a school that no one else on the committee has, and I feel like I can provide a fresh perspective that can help move the town in the right direction.

Campaign website: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61573577172586

The School Committee and Superintendent work together every year to develop a $56 million budget. What went well in the past two years and where is there room for improvement?

Our schools have continued to produce talented, educated young adults year after year, and that definitely has to do with available resources. The committee has attempted to allocate those resources as best as possible to keep a high level of rigor, but there seems to be a lack of foresight in some cases.

For example, if your child was born in 2019, you may have gotten free kindergarten, but if your child was born in 2020, you will not. It seems that a thoughtful budget should be able to plan more than a single year out, so why did it falter so quickly?

There have been calls for the committee to speak about the budget earlier, but those requests keep getting shot down. Then, when we're at the finish line, the committee has to scramble to put things together.

It all comes down to needing stronger planning and forethought.

The School Committee has had to make some very painful cuts in staff and programs due to budget.  If there was suddenly an extra $200,000 found in the budget, how would you spend it? Choose between reducing fees, hiring more teacher's aides, rehiring teachers, or reinstating the DEI Director position. 

Assuming that this $200k is recurring, the committee would need to examine each school. The issue in our district has less to do with a lack of funding and more to do with poor allocation of resources. For example, the committee wants to use a 3rd party to conduct a survey in schools for $15,000. In the school where I teach, we give surveys for the exact same reasons, but we do it through Google Forms for free.

$200k is a good amount of money, but knee-jerk decisions are part of our issue.

That said, I believe that getting an adequate number of instructional assistants is important. We have students who aren't getting legally required services because the district is unable to retain classroom supports. When we run into issues like this, it damages the learning of everyone, but it also opens the district up to many unnecessary complications down the line, such as lawsuits, out of district placement, and decreased enrollment overall.

Name one thing the School Committee could do to improve the academics in Sharon schools.

The committee approves curriculum changes and we have some of that coming down the pipeline. The issue is, most on the committee are not teachers. They can read about a curriculum, look at numbers, be as prepared as possible, and still not have the knowledge required to pick a strong program.

In my own professional life, I worked at a school where the teachers all voiced that a specific program would be ineffective prior to its adoption. It was selected anyway and promptly ran into the exact issues that teachers identified. As good as something looks on paper, people who aren’t intimately familiar with the actual process of teaching need to trust the people who are experts.

I think this is just one instance of the committee being asked to take a higher level of responsibility than may be appropriate, and the shortcomings might be hard to see if one doesn’t know what to look for.

Social gender transition means to treat a student as a member of a different gender, for example by using a different name and pronouns. Under what circumstances do you believe it is appropriate for schools to socially transition children to a different gender without telling their parents?

When I was in fourth grade, I wanted to experiment so I decided that I would change my name to something that I thought was cool. I told my teacher and he referred to me by my new name for an entire week, at which point I changed my mind. During that week, aside from him saying a different name when I raised my hand, nothing changed. It didn't noticeably impact the way I lived my life in any way, but it did teach me something very important.

It showed me that my teacher respected me as a free-thinking, independent, and constantly evolving individual. It taught me that I could explore my identity and see both who I am and who I am not. It taught me that I can try something new with people I trust, and they will meet me with respect.

His actions and mentality were those of a great teacher; one who takes steps to ensure that their students feel heard and respected, who gives them the space to explore the world and find their role in it. He encouraged everyone to grow, and just knowing that I had a safe space to try was enough to let me know that I belonged.

I changed my mind, you can tell since I’m campaigning as Jonathan, but I’ve known many people who did not. People who exercised their independence and followed their own path. They made decisions about their lives in an effort to learn more about themselves and found a place of happiness and belonging. For some, the ability to experiment with who they are can’t happen at home for one reason or another. If students are finding their sense of safety exclusively in school, then it’s important to create and maintain an environment where their sense of safety and self are both respected and preserved.

No teacher is actively encouraging students to make drastic, life-changing decisions; they are encouraging students to think and examine their place in the world and then meeting them, regardless of their identity, with the same respect that we all want. Personally, I want my son to go to a school full of staff who care about him for who he is and encourage him to grow, that is the role of a teacher after all. Limiting that can only hurt.