Candidate for
Trustee; Peralta Community College District; Trustee Area 7

Education has the power to transform individual lives and improve the entire community. The Peralta Community Colleges -- Laney, Merritt, College of Alameda, and Berkeley City College (formerly Vista) -- are on the frontlines of college access and workforce training. These four schools provide educational opportunity to those who might otherwise never be able to attend college; in addition they provide the trained and skilled workers that will keep our local economy healthy and vibrant for years to come.

But currently the Peralta Community College District is not living up to its potential. The transfer rate to four-year colleges and universities has declined sharply over the last three years. The transfer rate is down (26% at Laney alone). Enrollment is far below what it should be. We only have 18,000 Full-Time Equivalent Students when a college system our size should serve closer to 40,000). Poor decisions by the Board have eroded the ability of the Peralta Colleges to provide the services that our students need, and students are increasingly leaving our community for other districts or, worse yet, giving up their dreams of success.

The Board has, for years now, neglected the big job of planning. Instead of managing district affairs within a carefully designed framework, they spend most of their time reacting to unforeseen problems in a style that can only be called management-by-crisis. This lack of planning and foresight leads to bad and often costly decisions made in a hasty and non-transparent manner, which then leads to ill-will and cynicism among members of the community.

I want to lead the Peralta Board in a different direction. My career in public school finance gives me a strong background in planning, budgeting, and listening to all the members of the community so that together we can design a strategic vision for the future, one that works for all the members of the Peralta Community.

To achieve this goal, I believe that we must do the following three things:

1. We must make Peralta more relevant and accessible to today's students.

As a student at the University of California, Berkeley, I led the Student Recruitment and Retention Center where I helped to demystify the admissions process for high school and community college students who might not have otherwise considered a UC education. While I traveled around the Bay Area and the Central Valley as part of this effort, I was very disturbed to see that the military has a bigger presence in many of our high schools than our community colleges do. Unfortunately, a lot of young people become convinced that joining the military is the only way they can get ahead. We need to do outreach to our high schools early and explain the benefits of attending community college, and we need to make sure that we provide the infrastructure to retain students once they enroll. I would work to ensure that we develop a comprehensive recruitment and retention plan for the local high schools, something I have not yet seen.

I will promote workforce development programs to better prepare workers for higher-paying jobs. In the next twenty years, the Association of Bay Area Governments suggests that the biggest job growth areas will be in health care, construction and information technology. Our local economy will require trained workers in these industries and Peralta should lead the way. I want to develop relationships with industry and labor unions to help train the next generation of workers.

Finally, I will work to increase the transfer rate from the Peralta District to four-year colleges. Over the last three years, the transfer rate to four-year colleges and universities has decreased. At Laney College alone, the transfer rate for students who indicated as freshmen that they want to transfer has declined by 26%. I want to strengthen programs such as Project Bridge at Laney, Extended Opportunity Programs & Services and Puente Programs. Students who participate in outreach and retention programs like these are more likely to earn degrees and transfer to four-year colleges.

2. We must make Peralta fair to teachers and staff.

Teachers and staff should be treated with the respect they are owed as stakeholders of the Peralta District. I will ensure that the district properly notifies workers when changes are made that affect their workplace. And I will work to ensure that they participate in the shared governance of the district. In the short-term, I am particularly interested in working with teachers and staff to develop a shared vision for the district.

3. We must make Peralta accountable and transparent.

The way that the Peralta District spends money ought to reflect the values of our community. So I will work to include the various stakeholder groups in the budgeting process. By opening up the budget process to the stakeholder groups, we can ensure that the priorities we set through our budget are grounded in the will of the community members.

I believe that accountability in the spending of bond monies once they are received by the District is predicated upon a clear planning process. Recently, the citizens of the Peralta Community College District voted to provide $390 million in Measure A bond money to finance improvements to the District. At present, we have a list of projects totaling over $500 million. So we are going to have to prioritize this list in an inclusive manner and establish a clear plan on how this money will be spent, including developing timelines, benchmarks, clear delineations of responsibility, and strong feedback mechanisms.

As a trustee I will initiate a community planning process where we invite all relevant parties including staff, faculty, students, community members, alumni, and the public in general to help us determine bond funding priorities. By allowing all interested parties to participate in this process, we will ensure that the prioritized plan is reflective of the competing desires and concerns of the stakeholders of Peralta. It will also ensure that the planning process is done transparently so that the community understands the plan to be the result of a democratic and inclusive process, not something arbitrarily imposed upon the community.

Through these reforms, I believe the Board of Trustees can return relevance, fairness, and accountability to the Peralta Community College District and turn our colleges into strong local assets that work to benefit both our students and our entire community.