Veronica Wiseman

Please share your skills, qualifications, and experiences that will make you a great member of the School Committee. Do you have a candidate website or social media page where voters can learn more about you?

My name is Veronica Wiseman, and I am a ten-year veteran of the Sharon School Committee, running for reelection to a fourth term. Prior to joining the SC in 2012 I was an active parent leader, so I have keenly observed and learned from a generation of school committee members, five Superintendents and dozens of administrators, building principals, specialists and classroom teachers. Professionally, I am a speech and language pathologist with a specialty in augmentative and alternative communication. I have worked with clients of all ages and levels of ability, in schools, vocational programs and in residential settings. My husband Howard (SHS Class of 1977) and I have two daughters who attended SPS from kindergarten through graduation. Both are competitive students who proceeded to college very well prepared by the rigorous academic experience they received in Sharon. Academic excellence is what the Sharon community expects from our schools. As a parent advocating for my own children, I saw first-hand what excellence looks like, and as a school committee member I have worked to maintain excellent, rigorous teaching at every instructional level for all our children.

Find me on Facebook at veronicawisemanforschoolcommittee.

The Sharon School Committee has to deal with a budget deficit of $1-1.5 million dollars every year. How will you handle these difficult choices?

Budget planning and management is an ever-present challenge to public schools. In simple terms, there is never enough money, and it all comes down to priorities. In Sharon we have a limited commercial tax base, so we rely on residential property taxes. Since we must account for annual staff cost of living adjustments (COLA) and step raises, we start budget planning from a deficit every year. This cycle has been particularly tough, since state tax revenues have declined (after a bump due to federal COVID spending and payments) and needs have grown. Unfortunately for Sharon and 148 other districts, this meant a significant drop in expected state funding, which has negatively impacted our FY25 school budget. This year the SC’s proposed budget cuts several administrative positions and reinstated fees for full day kindergarten. These decisions were painful and regrettable, but by doing so we preserved instructional positions and kept class sizes at lower levels. In my role as the chair of the Budget Subcommittee, I recently attended an FY25 Budget and MA economic outlook roundtable hosted by our state senator Paul Feeney and Michael Rodrigues, the state senate chair of the MA Joint Committee on Ways and Means. I wanted to underscore to our representatives how important it was for the state to increase education funding. If reelected, will continue to work closely with our town administration, State House representative Ted Phillips, and Senator Feeney as the state budget process continues.

Deleveling is a popular trend nationwide to eliminate advanced and honors classes. The Sharon superintendent has proposed to eliminate advanced math at the middle school and advanced science classes in early high school. What is your position on deleveling?

Dr. Botelho has not proposed eliminating either advanced math at the middle school or advanced Physics in 9th grade. When he began his tenure in 2021, middle school math and science instructors were already engaged in a review of current systems of grouping students into instructional levels. As our incoming superintendent, Dr. Botelho stated clearly that he was open to hearing staff proposals to potentially revise how students were grouped, but that he would not recommend any changes unless he felt confident such changes would improve student outcomes. After a teacher presentation to the school committee last May 2023, Dr. Botelho did not recommend we make any changes to middle school math levels or freshman physics. He did however, support a proposal from the World Languages department to “re-level” World Languages classes at the high school, which if adopted, would allow students to “test in” to the already tiered classes (e.g. Spanish I,II,III or French I,II,III). In this instance Dr. Botelho recognized the validity of the World Languages faculty’s assertions that teaching language was very different than teaching math and science, and that they could provide a more rigorous, and robust learning environment with heterogeneous groups of students with similar skills. The World Languages teachers (who have a collective 100 years-experience teaching world languages) also pointed out that our current system of placing kids into grade level honors and standard language classes is imperfect because teacher recommendations are not consistent and parents/students often override the decision, resulting in the honors and standard language classes delivering virtually the same level of academic rigor. With a quantitative test objectively placing students into an instructional level, the curriculum could be aligned and the instruction rigorous and robust. Dr. Botelho supported this proposal. I voted to support it as well.

Many Sharon parents feel they are forced to hire private tutors or enroll in outside classes because either their child is not being challenged enough or is falling behind. What can you do as a School Committee member to help all children achieve their full academic potential?

I agree with the assertion that there is room for improvement in our schools. Throughout my ten years on the school committee, I have always come to the table with an open mind, eager to hear curricular reviews and status reports to get an honest assessment of how we are doing. I look to our educational leaders to highlight successes as well as to shine a light on where we are falling short, and to define action steps for continued growth and improvement. As you can discern from my response to question #3, I strongly believe that we must empower our professional educators and support their innovations and willingness to try new strategies. If we want to see improvement in our schools, we must be willing to make changes in how we do what we do. I have had the privilege of being a public servant for over a decade, and I can affirm that Sharon’s schools are at their best when the school committee, district administration and the community work together from a baseline of respect and trust. That stability is reflected in teacher performance and in student achievement.