Question from a board member during the New Jersey School Boards Association Workshop in Somerset yesterday during “A Conversation With the Acting Commissioner.” (This session started out as “A Conversation with Commissioner Bret Schundler” and was changed to “A Conversation with Acting Commissioner Rochelle Hendricks.” But, with Hendricks flu-ridden, the session was christened “A Conversation with Assistant Commissioner Willa Spicer, Acting Assistant Commissioner Yut’se Thomas, and Bergen County Executive County Superintendent Aaron Graham.”)

Board Member: Our schools are great — the best in the country. But the DOE has a “governmental attitude” towards our public schools that is “very negative.” Why don’t “you people stand up for our schools?”

Willa Spicer: “Our problem is that we have children in schools that are not great. Our attention is drawn, simply out of humanity, to the children who are not served well.”