Alameda School Board Questionnaire Pt. 2
Today’s Board of Education Question:
List the top 5 issues you see moving forward (short explanation ok) and a brief description of how you would like to deal with them?
Neil Tam:
One issue is the transition of our district leadership. We will hiring a new superintendent and chief financial officer after school begins. There needs to be a contingency plan by the school board if the district cannot find candidates. I will take an active leadership role with the school board members to support the schools during this period.
The ELL student population continue to increase in the school district. A pressing issue is the lack of translators for the ELL families in the schools. It is a challenge for non english speaking parents to communicate with school personnel. I would address this issue by meeting with CSEA and non government organizations to discuss possible resources for translators.
Another pending issue is disaster preparedness at our schools. If there is a major earthquake the schools will become shelters. There is a need for disaster preparedness training of our school staff. I would have the district coordinate with the city disaster response committee to train school staff and parents and assess what supplies are needed at the schools.
The retention of our new teachers is another concern. I will have a continuous dialogue with the new teachers, AEA, BTSA providers and colleges to identify what the district must do differently to keep our new teachers.
There is a turn over of site adminstrators in our district. I propose that the district develop an admistrative internship program for those teachers interested in administration. This will be an opportunity for the participate to develop their leadership skills and for the district to develop its administrative pool.
Patricia “Trish” Spencer:
Generally, the Alameda Unified School District continues to face these key challenges:
- Quality
- Equity
- Fiscal
These three areas highlight what I believe are most on the mind of parents, teachers, administrators and the community at large-how to manage a school system in the light of budget uncertainties and remain ahead of the curve in terms of challenging our children, compensating our educators and staff, and remaining relevant in a changing world.
To begin dealing with these challenges, I would like to move forward with these five issues:
- Improve the Board’s dialogue with parents, teachers, classified staff, administration, community members and local legislators so that our schools are better served. I enjoy meeting with individuals and groups and would make myself available to discuss issues with them that they think are important and then take steps, working with the other members of the Board, to amicably resolve the issues in a timely manner. I want to encourage discussion of issues so that they can be amicably resolved.
- Develop a long-term fiscal plan for the District, with the priorities of providing quality education across the Island while being fiscally responsible. It’s important that the District’s limited funds be spent according to our priority of providing quality education to all of our students.
- Continue efforts I spearheaded as PTA Council President of lobbying Sacramento to increase educational funding to the District, including joining efforts with other low-wealth Districts, and applying for grants. As PTA Council President, 2006-2008, I organized unprecedented lobbying efforts for educational funding (trips to Sacramento, letter campaign and community rallies) and through my leadership every AUSD school obtained CA State Garden Grants.
- Comprehensively review cuts to programs (magnet and/or non-traditional academic programs/schedules, afterschool middle school sports, class offerings at middle and high schools, etc.), teachers and staff that have occurred over the last decade to ensure that those cuts align with the District’s long-term fiscal plan (with priorities of providing quality education across the Island while being fiscally responsible).
- Review new restrictions that prohibit high school classes and clubs from selling foods (including healthy foods) on campus and have made it difficult for students to participate in enrichment and extracurricular activities, compete for scholarships, and earn other awards to supplement their college applications. We need to work with the high school students to meet their academic needs.
I like meeting with concerned Alamedans and openly discussing the issues. My legal background enables me to ask key questions, research viable solutions and negotiate agreeable outcomes. These skills, along with my empathy for each child, are needed to face the District’s challenges. When I look at an issue I like to weigh the impact on the student(s) as well as the District as a whole. I’m also aware of the time factor in that we want our children to receive a quality education now.
I look forward to working together with our community to secure quality education for all our students. Working together, we can amicably and effectively solve these serious and important issues that our students, teachers, staff, administrators, and community at large face.
David Forbes:
Education Excellence
Educational Equity
Fiscal sustainability
Facilities
People
These issues are all interrelated and need to be discussed on a community-wide basis starting as soon as possible after we have hired a new Superintendent.
Ron Mooney:
Leadership – I believe the Board needs to act as the community leaders of our schools, with integrity, vision and action. The Board needs to lead the discussion of what we want for our schools and how we will fund them, not continually being reactive to the diminishing State funding year after year after year. The Board needs to hold meetings (workshops), share the data and vision for our public schools, and rely not just on bureaucratic committees and reports. The Board needs to own a “Master” plan (whatever it is called) for our schools. While the Superintendent is the CEO, the Board must be active and the ones exhibiting the direction of our schools. The board needs significant input from our professional educators – Superintendent, teachers, staff, administrators so that the Board can create and adopt a District “Master Plan” that all can look to for the direction of our schools, that all can look to as a guide for the major decisions we make every year, every month, every day.
The Board must have a vision for our schools, not individual disconnected thoughts and ideas, but a cohesive, exciting, bold plan that will allow all to understand our vision and goals. I will work to build such a plan.
Finances – We must create long term funding plans that expect shortfalls from the State, give our community the information and strategies for making up the differences of the State allocations to meet the expectations, needs and demands of our community and adjusting our schools accordingly. While doing this we need to be actively pursuing real funding reform including legislative and judicial remedies. My business experience which included making real funding choices between long and short term needs, demanding excellent customer service and quality as well as risk taking coupled with my previous school board experience gives me the unique ability of understanding the complexity of school finances and facing tough budget processes.
Communication – I believe for our schools to be successful we need to have consistent effective communication between all segments of our community. We need to be telling the stories of our great teachers, staff and students and the work they do. We need to be listening to our teachers, staff, students, and parents, businesses – EVERYONE – to understand the needs, wants, views and perceptions of our schools. We must work to have real communication so we will have a long term strategy for local support of our schools. The Board must take responsibility for the communications with our community and I will work to do so using what volunteer and technology resources we can but also by working to structure effective communication devises including workshops. Having clear, consistent and meaningful communication should build trust within our schools and across our community so we all can support the real work, educating our children. If we are clear in our expectations and assessments I believe we can create a plan with the needed resources to implement it effectively.
Equity and Excellence – a year ago the Superintendent and Board Therefore, in order to achieve equity in serving our students, AUSD will factor in student needs when making decisions regarding resource allocations.” Since that time some discussion has been had on the implementation of decisions and using equity, but I still, and I believe the community too, am unclear on how this is being implemented and what decisions consistently have been driven by equity. We must be able to show how we are pressing for excellence in all of our schools. We must be able to specifically demonstrate how we are addressing our achievement gaps and the plans and decisions made using the equity and excellence lenses.
New Superintendent – while I do not expect to be in the actual decision making meeting, I would be an evaluator of the new Superintendent. The Board (as a whole) should be the community voice of education in Alameda and evaluate the performance of the District and Superintendent openly and honestly. Hopefully we’ll be able to engage a Superintendent that consistently demonstrates an open respectful and driven leadership for the District that matches the Board and community expectations. I will endeavor to build a positive relationship with the new Superintendent so we can build trust individually and as a community. If for some reason there becomes a significant disconnect between the Board, community and new Superintendent there needs to be frank discussions on re-connecting the items and I will do so in the appropriate setting quickly.
Clearly there are issues that affect the classrooms, student – teachers – parents and staff critically that need to be addressed (class offerings, school choice, size and number of schools, counselors…) however in my view if we do not address the above issues so we create long term plans and solutions, we will always be discussing the items through a crisis view instead of a vision view.
Janet Gibson:
[Did not return a questionnaire]
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