Candidate for
Board Member; Mount Diablo Unified School District

E. WILLIAM "BILL" LEAL

Instructor, Applied Graphic Design, Laney College. Member, Board of Trustees, Mt. Diablo Unified School District.

Bill Leal is an educator with over 29 years experience in teaching and private sector management. He holds a Master of Science in Educational Leadership (School Administration) from California State University, Hayward and a Bachelor of Science from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo in Industrial Technology with a minor in Physical Sciences and Chemistry. His experiences include seventeen years as a secondary educator in both the vocational (Visual Communications) and liberal arts (Chemistry and Physical Science) classrooms. He has been teaching Graphic Design at Laney College, Oakland, California for ten years. He has recently returned to the classroom after three years as Dean of Instruction, Vocational Technologies, and Director of Vocational and Contract Education for the college.

Mr. Leal also worked for an international mining and mineral exploration company as its Coordinator of Reprographics for the international headquarters in San Francisco. Additionally, he retired from the United States Army/Army Reserves (Chief Warrant Officer 3) after 26 years of service as a reprographics officer and division environmental compliance officer. His educational, private sector and military experiences have given him an expertise that especially qualifies him for issues facing schools as businesses.

In November of 1997, Mr. Leal was elected to the Board of Trustees for the Mt. Diablo Unified School District with the specific agenda to move the K-12 district to a "career centered" curriculum with an emphasis on preparing students to enter the workforce prepared to meet the needs of businesses and the community. The Mt. Diablo Unified Schools comprise the fourteenth largest school district in the state with over 60,000 K-12 and adult students on over 57 sites.

Bill holds strong opinions about the decline of California's comprehensive education. State schools, in their headlong rush to answer criticisms of the business and political communities, have sacrificed truly comprehensive educational programs in favor of "college preparatory" curriculums aimed at less than 25% of the student population of the state. To that end, we find ourselves still receiving the same criticisms from the business community, "education has failed to provide workers who are prepared to meet the challenges and requirements of the business community, thereby having a direct impact on the economic health of the State of California. We need to do better in preparing our students for the rich, rewarding lives they deserve and the business community needs."