A World Class Education for Pleasanton USD Students

By Prasad V. Rallapalli

Our children deserve and can get a "world class" education right here in Pleasanton despite tight budgets. We have an excellent School District in Pleasanton that can become one of the world's best with a little innovation and support. To help meet this resource crunch, I believe we all need to give back to our community and I want to foster this by using innovative ideas such as "Each One Teach One".

Our children deserve and can get a "world class" education right here in Pleasanton. Education has to provide problem-solving skills in our global village. Our system must teach our children to be the leaders of tomorrow. This takes them beyond just getting good grades and scoring high in standardized tests; it takes them to a world where they do not fear competing with others and themselves to achieve their full potential. Our children need to learn how to think globally while acting locally.

Because of my insatiable and life long passion to learn and teach, I am a candidate for election to the Pleasanton School Board. I have lived in Pleasanton for over nine years, with my wife, a Special Education teacher in the Fremont USD. Our kids have been attending Pleasanton USD schools since 1999.

We have an excellent School District in Pleasanton that can become one of the world's best with a little innovation and support. I have great respect, gratitude and regard for our school administrators, teachers and staff and for the parents who volunteer for "our" kids. However, funding or finding much-needed resources to continue on this path to achieve global excellence will only become harder in the future, because of the ongoing State and Federal budget deficits.

To help meet this resource crunch, I believe we all need to give back to our community and I want to foster this by using innovative ideas such as "Each One Teach One". Each one of us should voluntarily help at least one student in our area of expertise. This leverages the rich resources in the Tri-Valley area without spending lots of money.

I have tested this method by co-founding the Pleasanton Science League last February with a fellow Yahoo. We had immediate support from the Principal of Pleasanton Middle School and teachers from PMS, Amador and Harvest Park as well as high school students to help middle school students "learn science by doing".

With the confidence gained through in-class experiments, the students have competed in the Junior Solar Sprint Challenge and other local science challenges. We also encourage students to participate in Science and Math Olympiads and the Tri Valley and worldwide Intel Science and Engineering Fair Competition and the Tech Challenge. For more information on the Science League activities for this school year please see http://206.110.20.132/~dmintz/psl.htm and you can join the Science League at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scienceleague

While this community-district partnership is one idea, I have many others that would enhance the quality of our school district. I also look forward to listening to your ideas and if elected will work hard with the Board, Superintendent, Parents, Principals and staff of our schools to give our students the world-class education they need to thrive in this global economy.

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your support. Please email your ideas to me at Prasad.rallapalli@yahoo.com