Published in the Tracy Press during the week of October 21
Tracy Press Questions and Answers :
1. Question: Do you support Measure W? Answer: Providing our young people with a quality education is the single most important thing we can do as a community. It is a huge part of preparing our kids to be successful, happy adults. Our kids are facing a competitive world and they deserve the opportunity that complete, modern facilities will provide. There is no other money to rebuild Tracy High and finish West High. The continuing decay at Tracy High is consuming maintenance dollars that could be spent on our middle and elementary schools. Dilapidated facilities already make it very difficult for us to retain or hire talented, experienced teachers for our classrooms. Thirty-one cents a day can give several generations of Tracy kids a safe, modern, high schools. Low interest rates make this the best time to make an investment in new facilities. If we wait and rates go up, it will cost us even more. Now is the time to act. Let's show our kids and their teachers that Tracy is a community where education is a priority. Lets show them we are willing to invest a little more in their education. Let's show our kids that their future is important. Vote yes on W.
2. Question: Many experts think that the state might cut funding for schools. How will you react to those cuts? What programs would you cut? Answer: My nineteen years of experience as a CPA, Chief Financial Officer, and General Manager have more than prepared me to deal with any financial or budgetary crisis. I have led companies from the brink of bankruptcy back into financial health and I believe that all situations can have a positive solution. I would use my financial leadership skills to keep budget cuts out of the classroom. Deep cuts in school funding would not be popular in California. The people of California spoke pretty clearly when they passed proposition 98 which safeguarded funding for K-12 education. Suspending proposition 98 requires a two-thirds majority of the legislature and the agreement of the governor. Given the difficulty of passing a state budget, it does not seem like there is a lot of room for agreement in Sacramento. California is still well below the national average in spending per student and many schools across the state are not measuring up. In the recent past, the state legislature has avoided large cuts in K-12 funding. I believe that it is likely that the legislature will again limit the negative fallout from a massive cut in school spending.
3. Question: Test scores in our high schools are below state average in math. How will you address this issue? Answer: Student achievement must be the top priority in our schools. Our test scores are too low, particularly in the High Schools. The test scores of Tracy students tend to deteriorate as students move through the middle schools and into high school. We have to work very hard to understand why this is happening and implement strategies to reverse these trends. For the last three years I was on the South/West Park School Site Counsel. As a team, the administrators, teachers, and parents on that Counsel worked to understand the academic performance of each area in our school and to formulate plans to improve student achievement. We came up with new ideas by looking at schools outside the district that were similar to South/West Park but had higher levels of student achievement. We wanted to model the successful strategies of other schools and bring them to our school. One area we found that helped some schools was bringing professional development for teachers to the classroom. Our school leadership found and applied for a grant to implement this at South/West Park. I believe that the process of modeling successful strategies in place in other districts will improve student achievement in Tracy.
4. Question: How will you address overcrowding in the Tracy Schools? Answer: The key to reducing overcrowding is having enough facilities for the growth in our student population. Passing Measure W and Proposition 47 will help this situation. Vote Yes on both! I believe that this significant challenge can be managed through planning, careful allocation of resources to new construction, and effective communication with the community. My nineteen years of financial experience can help with this process. Both the middle and elementary schools my children attend have been expanded in the past couple of years to handle increased enrollment. I believe that my children now go to the largest elementary and middle schools in town. The district has implemented year round education at some schools to reduce overcrowding. Year round education is often met with mixed emotions. Some people like it and some do not. I know that life can be more challenging for families that have children in both year round and conventional calendars. Clear communication to help the community understand the costs and benefits of the choices the district will be making to manage our growth is really important. I would like to see the community have significant input into those choices.
5. Question: The planned communities around Tracy will have a significant burden on our schools. How do you plan to address that burden? Answer: I have four kids in Tracy schools ranging from the fourth to tenth grades. I have a strong vested interest in easing the burden of growth on the classroom. First we have to look at the growth projections and carefully match our expenditures to those projections. I believe that my nineteen-year financial background can add to this process. Over the last 10 to 15 years, the district has gained a lot of experience that it can use to manage the impact of growth. I would make it my responsibility to encourage the district to use that experience to ensure that available funds were spent to provide the best facilities in the right places at the right time. This means that we would need a multi-year plan that is clearly communicated to the community. We then have to track that plan to make changes if the timing of growth changes. Clearly communicating the growth events we expect to happen, what actions we are taking (and why) to address those events, and then measuring and reporting our degree of success will help us build a successful process for handling growth. Passing measure W and Proposition 47 will help!
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