Candidate for
Board Member; Cupertino Union School District

I see a hundred things that our district can work on to make it better, but I learned long ago that if you have a list of a hundred, you might as well have no list at all. So let me limit this discussion to three:

-I see teacher support and retention as our top issue - we hired 135 new teachers this year (close to 20% of the staff), and this is on top of earlier turnover in recent years. We're all well aware of how our funding keeps teacher salaries low, making it tough for them to afford living in our area. So, in addition to working those major funding issues, my thoughts are to work on those issues that address teacher support that don't necessarily cost much money - including teacher involvement in workload changes, improved new teacher mentoring, and better funding for classroom supplies, to name a few.

-We just passed an $80 million bond for our school facilities last June. From working on that campaign, and making literally hundreds of phone calls, I know that our voting public doesn't want to see us come back and ask for more any time soon! I'm the engineer with extensive experience in managing capital projects and budgets, and my goal is to make sure we stretch those precious dollars as smartly as we can.

-Better communication with our community, teachers, and parents - I think that's the key to a lot of things. Let's make it easier for the community to attend and become informed on board decisions, let's be active in including the community in decisions that affect their traffic, noise, and facilities use, and let's include the teachers even more in decisions that affect the curriculum and our programs in the future.