Syracuse school board member Bill Bullen has stepped down after three years in the post. Not having a background as an educator, Bullen says there was a lot to learn when he was elected to the Syracuse Board of Education in 2011.
He says enacting a comprehensive plan for the district’s future goals was a big achievement, as was diminishing the fiscal problems the district faced seemingly each budget year.
But talk of budget cuts gave way to public tension at times between the board and Superintendent Sharon Contreras, but certainly between Contreras and the teacher’s union.
"Oh, I think that was a minor distraction," he said in an interview with WRVO. Bullen is referring to a raucous school board meeting last June when the Syracuse Teachers Association announced a positive vote of no confidence in Contreras.
"I think it was more of a, ‘hey it doesn’t appear we’re being heard. We need to stand up and make sure you’re hearing us,'" Bullen said.
He says relationships with the superintendent are better than they appear in public, but Bullen says educators and administrators aren’t working as well together as they could.
"I think there’s just a tremendous amount of frustration in the system and that was just an example of that," he said.
Frustration, he says, that is caused by disjointed reform efforts, unfunded mandates and too many people working in opposite directions.
"There seems to be just more obstacles than usual to accomplishing success," he added.
He says the answer is within the city’s public school system, but the parties involved need to collaborate better. "And we don’t do that across Syracuse, and I’m not sure why, but that’s to me, one of the biggest things that I think we need to going forward," he said.
Bullen resigned in order to spend more time with his wife, who works in Boston, but he says he’ll still be involved in education policy.
He’s being replaced, at least in the interim, by Mark Muhammad. Muhammad is a college professor, community activist and clergyman. He has also been a mediator of talks between Contreras and president of the teachers union, Kevin Ahern.
Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated Mr. Bullen's first name. It's Bill, not Bob.