A resident asked what I thought was an excellent question at our last Millburn Board of Education meeting: “How are you going to do more with less?” What I like so much about it is the embedded presumption that we’re not going to do “less” or “the same” with less, but, rather, we’re going to do “more.” Fantastic! I’d like to answer that simple yet elegant question with this column.Taking a step back for a moment from the ongoing question of how much less (i.e. the ongoing budget deliberations), I’d like to focus on just the part that looks forward and that takes the conversation into a more …

Words matter, but sometimes too much. Facts also matter, and always not enough.As the Millburn community continues to discuss the 2011-12 school budget and how we can close the “gap” (see below for more on that word), it strikes me that the words we use when we have these discussions can sometimes take on a life of their own and then distract more than illuminate.What I’d like to do in this month’s column is take a look at some of the key words that are surfacing in these budget discussions to see if we can get past the words and back to the concepts/ideas/facts that are behind the words so …

Editor's Note: This is the first of an ongoing series of guest columns from Schools Superintendent James Crisfield on topics important to the Millburn school community. Crisfield has pledged he'll be checking the comments on these columns to add input if he can. Since the new year is now upon us, it makes sense for my first column to be focused on what is a favorite topic across the state at this time of year — the upcoming school budget discussions and deliberations.The first draft of Millburn's proposed 2011-12 school budget will be unveiled at the Jan. 10 board of education meeting, …