My Campaign Issues

By Walter Maurer

Here are the issues of primary importance to me: Parental Rights, Educational Choice, Improved Learning Environment, Classroom Music, Free Health Insurance, and Holding Incumbents Accountable.

I wholeheartedly agree with this campaign statement published four years ago:

"For 13 years parents and the schools become partners in guiding students through their education. For a successful partnership the school board must recognize a parent's right to be involved and parents must always feel that the board and the district are responsive to their concerns."

My strong commitment to this principle was amply demonstrated in the Parental Notification (PN) issue which, as a representative of American Life League of IWV, I brought to the attention of our Board and community in June 1999. At that time, SSUSD's booklet "Right and Responsibilities Parents and Students Should Know" stated:

"According to the Education Code [46010.1], school authorities may excuse any student in grades 7 through 12 from school for the purpose of obtaining confidential medical services without the consent of the pupil's parent or guardian."

Confidential medical services refer to sexually-related matters, e.g. obtaining STD tests, pregnancy tests, birth control, and even abortions, hence ALLIWV's interest in this issue. A 3-3 tie vote on October 7, 1999 left the policy unchanged. In the following eight weeks, over 1700 petition signatures in support of a PN policy were obtained, but on December 7 the Board blatantly disregarded the will of those many people by refusing to again discuss and vote upon reversing the policy. That refusal resulted in a citizen-mandated Special Election in March 2000 which was won by a pro-PN candidate, and in the November 2000 election, two more pro-PN candidates were elected. Published PN-related campaign statements included:

"The current policy of allowing students to leave campus for confidential medical appointments without notifying parents discourages parental involvement, encourages dishonesty, violates parental rights, and should be changed."

"I honestly believe that the current board policy excusing students for confidential medical treatment is not in the best interest of either the student or the family."

"The second time that parental notification came before the school board, following Robert's Rules became more important than a parent's right to be involved. When parents fill the chamber to be heard on an issue, it is a valid reason for setting aside Robert's Rules. Any board member could have made that motion. If parents had been heard and their input considered before the decision, we might have avoided a special election."

Nevertheless, since the November 2000 election, virtually nothing has been accomplished on this issue. I believe that I possess the necessary political skill and ability to - at the very least - reintroduce this issue to our community and parents.

EDUCATIONAL CHOICE

Happily, SSUSD's educational test scores are rising. For this, the current Board and its influential Superintendent are to be commended. However, the same Board and Superintendent made yet another misguided and unsuccessful attempt in February 2004 to close the Ridgecrest Charter School (RCS) whose educational performance is no less impressive. (Unfortunately, local press accounts of SSUSD vs. California State Board of Education appear to have been one-sided: according to eyewitnesses I spoke with, SSUSD representatives were severely criticized by State Board members for seeking to close the charter school.) I'm sure that SSUSD, the Charter School, and local private schools would all agree that their common objective is to produce well-educated, responsible young people. To that end, the SSUSD Board must be prevailed upon to abandon its hostile intent that has been publicly demonstrated at least 3 times since RCS founders began their effort in 1999. It appears that eliminating the Board's hostility towards RCS can only be achieved by electing a majority of Board members (i.e. 4 persons) who unequivocally support educational choice and, once in office, can be trusted to maintain that support.

IMPROVED LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

The following behaviors have been mentioned to me over the past few years, and I doubt if teachers or parents will be shocked:

- bullying
- inconsistently enforced dress codes
- sexually-suggestive behavior (initiated by both sexes)
- lunch-hour sex in City Park bathroom (allegedly observed by a City maintenance worker)
- profanity

To varying degrees, these are all disruptive to the learning environment. I do not know to what extent these behaviors are present on today's SSUSD campuses, but I certainly was not impressed when I visited one of our Jr. High schools in the late 90's and overheard the foul language of some students within earshot of adults who seemed not to mind in the least.

I assume that there are policies in place dealing with such behaviors, but I question to what extent such policies are being enforced. In short: is the typical SSUSD school environment overly permissive? If elected, I intend to find out.

I also need to address what I believe to be a behavioral issue with very serious consequences: teen sex. Local parents need to be reminded that 1) Kern County has often posted the highest per-capita number of teen pregnancies in California, 2) AIDS and STDs won't be disappearing any time soon, and 3) our cultural emphasis on having boyfriends/girlfriends at an early age promotes the opposite of sexual purity. To put my concern into perspective, consider the extraordinary amount of funding and visibility enjoyed by the D.A.R.E. program in our community for many, many years. By comparison, abstinence education in the IWV is virtually nonexistent. Yet, which act poses the greater long-term risk to a student's physical and emotional well-being: 1) smoking one joint, or 2) having one sexual encounter? That "high" will wear off in a few hours, but AIDS can shorten a life by 30 years or more. Current policy recognizes that female students are less likely to finish their high school education if they become pregnant, so does it really make sense for our schools to continue teaching coed Sex Ed classes and hosting dances for immature early adolescents? Are IWV parents truly comfortable with the status quo?

CLASSROOM MUSIC

As an amateur musician -- and the husband of a wonderful woman who taught music for SSUSD from 1987 to 1992 -- I am concerned about potential negative effects of the Board's recent action to reduce funding for classroom music instruction (K-3). I freely admit that I do not yet have all the facts on this issue, but obviously there is only so much money in SSUSD's budget. On the one hand, music education is considered by some to be a frill; on the other hand, there is at least some evidence correlating music education with enhanced academic performance and overall social development. According to a local music teacher, Japanese schoolchildren have music in their curriculum - and they appear to do very well on their test scores compared to the rest of the world. I've been challenged by one of the incumbents to provide him with "cause and effect" evidence, instead of correlative studies, to scientifically prove classroom music's scholastic benefits, if any. In return, I challenged him to explain why music instruction isn't important enough to merit degreed music specialists, yet is important enough to be retained and "taught" by general classroom teachers (as if they don't have more than enough to do already!).

It is worth noting again that providing free health and dental insurance to Board members costs SSUSD around $79,000 annually. That amount of taxpayer money could instead be used to reinstate both the K-3 music program and the DARE program that was recently cut. Parents should be asking the Board how receiving free health insurance benefits, at the expense of such programs, benefits public education.

FREE HEALTH INSURANCE (FHI)

This issue generally surfaces at every election. One advocate of FHI for Board members has publicly stated:

"I've always been concerned at the heated debate that arises from time to time around this issue, primarily because I think this is the wrong question to be asking. The right question to ask is, "How can we encourage the best suited, most capable individuals to run for a seat on the School Board?" As a community, we should want the best, brightest, hardest-working people to run for a seat on the school board. This position is too important to wish for anything less. The benefit question implies that people are willing to remove an incentive to get such people to run. I believe that the cost of the benefit package for all the board members is insignificant compared to the value that would would be realized if offering benefits influenced one great new board member to run and be elected who might not have otherwise considered candidacy."

I respectfully disagree. Why?

- Not one dime of that $79,000 directly benefits the education of a single student.
- That amount of money, which I certainly don't view as insignificant, could restore classroom music, DARE, or something else that would directly benefit students.
- Board members are not District employees. Rather, they are community volunteers - and volunteerism, not monetary gain, is what should be the primary motivator behind public service. (Incidentally, President George Washington accepted no salary for his years of public service.)
- As implied in "Why I'm Running", I don't believe that normal Board duties necessarily require the best and brightest people. Furthermore, election of "one great new board member" might not make a dime's worth of difference because one person does not constitute a majority on a 7-member Board.

I must also mention that two Board members were strongly against FHI when they were elected a few years ago. Soon after their election, they were informed that the Board cannot opt out of receiving FHI, supposedly because of how the District purchases policies from its insurer. The current Superintendent recently told candidates the same thing. He also stated that he generally has not failed in anything he has attempted; that being the case, I am confident that the Superintendent could indeed be successful in eliminating FHI for Board members and returning that money to the classroom where it rightfully belongs. Alternatively, Board members could each donate $11,300 to the District to pay for their insurance like virtually everyone else does in this city.

HOLDING INCUMBENTS ACCOUNTABLE ((Note: As a condition of participation in the Smart Voter Project website, this topic does not identify candidates in the current election. Please visit my website's "Hold Incumbents Accountable" section for additional information.)

When elected officials suddenly reverse course in a manner that is inconsistent with their previous actions, they should be carefully scrutinized by the electorate, particularly when those reversals are contrary to implicit or explicit campaign promises. Here are a few examples that contributed to my decision to enter the Board of Education race:

- On October 7, 1999, a Board member voted in favor of the Parental Notification policy discussed above. But when this issue came up again for a second vote on July 20, 2000, he voted against the policy. He was the only Board member to reverse his vote, thus killing the policy.

- In the November 2000 election campaign, a Board member published this campaign ad:

"For 13 years parents and the schools become partners in guiding students through their education. For a successful partnership the school board must recognize a parent's right to be involved and parents must always feel that the board and the district are responsive to their concerns. The second time that parental notification came before the school board, following Robert's Rules became more important than a parent's right to be involved. When parents fill the chamber to be heard on an issue, it is a valid reason for setting aside Robert's Rules. Any board member could have made that motion. If parents had been heard and their input considered before the decision, we might have avoided a special election."

Nevertheless, since the November 2000 election, this Board member has done little or nothing to advance this issue.

- A Board member, prior to being elected, helped found a local Charter School and ran for office on a pro-charter platform. However, that Board member recently appeared before the California Board of Education and personally recommended denial of Charter School renewal.

If elected, I intend to remain true to my agenda and principles as set forth in my published campaign platform which is essentially a good-faith promise to the electorate. Failure to do so would warrant my resignation.