Gary McCready's Education Website

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Gary McCready Launches

Campaign for BOE Seat

WESTFIELD – Gary McCready formally announced his candidacy for the Westfield Board of Education this past week. Mr. McCready works in Jersey City for an international bank as a technology manager, and has previously worked for Cantor Fitzgerald/ eSpeed, the American Stock Exchange and TIAA-CREF. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Computer Science from Columbia College.

 The candidate and his family have lived in Westfield for 10 years in both the Wilson and Franklin Elementary School districts. His son, Ben, attends Roosevelt Intermediate School, while Madeline and Charlie attend Wilson, where his wife, Jane, has been involved in many in-classroom activities.

 Mr. McCready’s platform will focus on a few key areas that he feels are critical to maintaining both the high educational standards of Westfield’s schools and insuring that the community’s tax dollars are well spent.

 “Westfield’s excellent educational programs must not only be maintained, but continually analyzed and improved at all levels, especially when they need to integrate new research sources such as the Internet and computer presentation technologies. The current five year curriculum review process may not be often enough. Westfield also needs to track its achievements against other similar districts in areas such as AP course passing rates and admission to selective colleges,” he said.

 “I feel the board needs to increase public involvement in the budget process, including long range planning and funding issues,” he noted.

 “Finally, I would bring to the board my experience as a manager of technology, which is the budget’s largest area of discretionary spending. The district’s technology resources cannot only be used in the classroom, but also to improve the district’s website, and to allow both teachers and community members to share their expertise with the schools. I’ll be focusing on those areas in more detail in future issues of The Leader, and on my website,” Mr. McCready said.

 “I would like to take a first step of using technology to encourage community participation with the School Board by asking Westfield residents to visit my Website, www.McCready.com, where I have more information about my platform and a link to a survey. The survey’s goal is to collect information and ideas that I would consider if elected. If respondents leave their contact details on the survey, I may reach out to them later when I solicit the community’s opinions on issues before the board,” he said.

  Survey results, which will be reported anonymously, will be released prior to the Tuesday, April 19^th, election.