Candidate for
Governing Board Member; County Board of Education; Trustee Area 3

• First and foremost, I am a father. As a parent of a student at an Oakland public elementary school, my interest in improving public education is intensely personal. Each morning, when my wife and I drop off our daughter at her school, we think about the kind of middle school, and, then, high school we want, not only for our daughter, but for all children in Oakland and Alameda County.

• We want our daughter to attend schools which are safe and will provide children with a sense of security. We know children cannot learn when they are worried about their personal safety. It is our society's responsibility to make every effort to create safe schools which will foster intellectual growth and overall development.

• We want our children to be able to function in an increasingly complex and competitive society. As technology brings our world's nations closer together, we realize that every child will need to develop not only English proficiency, but proficiency in other languages as well, in order to support our country and its role as a major economic force.

• We want our children to attend schools which utilize innovative strategies and are responsive to the changing needs of our diverse population in Oakland and in the County of Alameda. We know that our children have the capability to excel in programs that are based on sound research, which will stimulate and challenge their minds.

• I am running for the County Board of Education because I want to ensure that our schools today will provide the opportunities I was fortunate enough to receive when I was a young child. As a young child, my parents provided the foundation for learning, my teachers planted the seeds and cultivated my growth, and my community nurtured my development. As I reflect on my past, I realize that partnerships were essential to my success and I am therefore committed to developing collaborations.

• Our children deserve only the best. I will do everything within my power, as a father and as a Trustee, to make schools in Oakland and in the County of Alameda worthy of our most precious asset-our children.