WEST ORANGE, Nj — Terry Trigg Scales, WOBOE candidate, is a retired teacher, assistant principal and BOE superintendent. Ms. Trigg Scales retired at 34 years of educational experience and currently works as a intern principal at Montclair High School, where she supervises teachers, overseas programs, evaluates staff and handles discipline. From these past work experiences in education, Ms. Trigg Scales has gained interpersonal skills, efficiency in communication, problem solving, and proactive planning and critical thinking. If elected, she not only hopes to widen the conversation of education in West Orange, but Ms. Trigg Scales also hopes to bring her skills to the BOE to help improve communication as well.

Participation of the community, teachers, students, and parents are one of the most important values to Ms. Trigg Scales, and she plans to create school leadership teams of parents and teachers at each school to act as an advisory to the principal. Despite comparisons to PTA boards, these school leadership teams will be much different, as they will talk about initiatives for the district, from not just parents, but also teachers. Ms. Trigg Scales finds great value in the voices of both teachers and parents, as both can help in the improvement of a students experience in the West Orange education district.

The voice of students is another part of the West Orange community that Ms. Trigg Scales has a lot of respect for. She would love to propose the idea of a student board in order to have board members more involved in the high school and have the youth represent the needs and voices of fellow West Orange students. Trigg Scales recognizes the strength and power that young students withhold, and would love to further shed light on that power if elected for the BOE. “Old folks learn from young folks,” she said in our interview, “You guys are the future.”

When asked about her inspirations for her campaign, Ms. Trigg Scales noted that she immediately saw a need to bring the community together in the midst of the Jeff Rutzky leadership. As a retired educator, she realized the advantage and skills she had which she thought might benefit the BOE. In the wake of the Jeff Rutzky resignation, Ms. Trigg Scales says that in a superintendent, she looks for strong interpersonal and communication skills. She firmly believes that such skills are necessary in order to be able to communicate with a variety of people regardless of disagreements, and to be a visionary leader open to the opinions and voices of others. Familiarity and experience in a diverse community such as ours, she noted in our interview, is what makes a superintendent truly efficient and fit for the job.