Candidate for
Board Member; Cabrillo Unified School District

Platform

As a Candidate for School Board, I believe an effective School Board, must be focused on educational priorities and not other issues. The CUSD Governing Board presides over one of the largest enterprises on the Coast ($25 Million in revenue with 350 employees). Its five Board members must deal effectively not only with educational issues but with state imposed budgets, labor relations and legal issues. An effective Board works together; consolidating its members strengths, interests, and abilities with the goal of making Cabrillo one of the top school systems in the state.

I believe the education of our children should be a community's top priority. I believe that giving our students the tools they will need to succeed and lead our community and nation in the years to come is vital. Ultimately, educating our children is the most important investment we can make. It is education that gives children the opportunity for a life better than their parents and in our democracy, the ability to make their best decisions.

The Board has developed a vision for its schools using district goals and objectives which are reviewed annually. These goals provide the framework for decision making. The vision that the Board has developed over the past decade is one that I share. It emphasizes higher academic standards at all grade levels, and increased high school graduation requirements, and an alignment of district curriculum with state standards in language arts, math, science and social studies. At the secondary schools, the Board has supported classroom programs in music and fine arts and a flourishing program in agricultural science. There are new facilities, a consistent and progressive increase in test scores, new initiatives, new academic programs, and substantive progress in implementing new standards and curriculum.

I believe the Cabrillo Unified School District should work toward the following Goals:

1. Increase Revenues for Educational Programs and Services.

Our funding level is inadequate and has been shrinking relative to our neighboring Districts (like Sequoia and Palo Alto) for the last decade. Educational programs and services suffer.-One need look no further than the cuts we?ve had to make this year due to declining revenues from the State of California. Cuts in busing, class sizes, counselors, literacy and reading programs, custodians, librarians, sports, computer technicians, clerical support, have been force upon us. I believe there are several strategies which we can use to increase local and federal revenues, while simultaneously working to change state formulas for funding. Strategies include: a parcel tax, joint powers agreements, grant writers, and new collaboratives. All of this will take hard work, excellent communication, and elaborating a vision of a school system worthy of our children. In addition, we must drive our legislators to find long-term solutions.

2. Support Teachers and Administration and Staff

Teachers are the brains, the heart and the soul of the classroom. We must find revenues to pay them salaries commensurate with their talents and with the cost of living in this area. We must find supportive ways to keep the teaching environment alive and strong and vibrant. We must keep class sizes low. We must reduce teaching loads in the middle and high school and/or find department support technicians/personnel.

Our administrators are the backbone which keeps the total system strong, interconnected, and working together as one. Without our district office and our principals, counselors, and computer staff, the horizontal communication between classrooms, and the vertical transition between schools would not exist. The new curriculum and content standards must be implemented; we need to support this effort fully.

3. Define and Support a Clear Path to Building a New Middle School.

We need to acknowledge that no one solution is perfect, and that there may be more than one viable solution to building a middle school. Simultaneously, we need to acknowledge that there are fundamental internal constraints: time to construction; fiscal responsibilities; fundamental design constraints and educational needs; legal issues; future needs; and the interests of middle school age children. We need to consider that this middle school will serve our community for over 50 years. A thoughtful, fiscally-sound, educationally and child-centric solution that will not be blocked by a vocal minority of this community is what we need.

4. Continue on Our Path to Improving Educational Programs.

Improving education means improving content, standards, accountability, school-home communication, and opportunities for a diversity of children. We as parents, educators, policiticians and board members need to take a long-term approach and build systematically, constructively, flexibly but with a solid foundation and underpinning. And we need to make changes knowing that for students, learning is an incremental and sequential process. Changes should be interfaced in an intelligent and rationale manner.

All children should be successful, and we as parents, teachers, and Board members need to provide students with the tools for this success. A diversity of needs, talents, and interests all need to nurtured, encouraged, and challenged.

Many of the changes that we are currently implementing and will continue to do, are based on changes in State frameworks, curriculum, and alignment of standards- in Language Arts, Math, Science, and History.We can also explore opportunities for other opportunities leading to instructional improvements. These will require research and discussion, strategies, anda feasibility studies.

5. Encourage Parental and Adult Involvement

Studies routinely show that when parents are supportive of and value education, students do better. Our parents are wonderful. But we need to encourage them to take positions of leadership, as well as participating in basic volunteer positions. We need to encourage and promote parental interest and involvement in daily activities and homework.