Candidate for
Board Member; Monterey Peninsula Unified School District; Trustee Area 2

I am committed to public education and I want all schools to provide a safe, productive and well maintained learning environment. I intend to continue the Modernization of our schools and to bring them into the 21st century, so that all of our students, teachers and support staff can work safely and have access to the latest technology. We as a District must continue to monitor project expenditures and use the information we will obtain from our Forensic Audit to insure that all monies are accounted for and that every change order is warranted. I will continue to ask the direct questions that will require full answers. The current Board asked the "hard" questions and it was District leadership that failed in its answers. We will use the Forensic Audit as a learning tool and to assure the parents, community and all stakeholders that the Board of Education is keeping tabs and we want to earn their trust back.

I also want to address the District's Program Improvement Status. In the four years that I have been privileged to serve, the demographics of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District have changed significantly. The District is currently a "majority minority" district with a great number of our students being English Language Learners. Because of this, the current assessment scores by which we measure student performance, the API, have been affected in schools in areas of the District where we have high concentrations of racial inequity and socio-economic disparity. While the schools facing this crisis are in the greater Seaside area and receive Title I funds, we need to devote more resources that will directly impact student learning and find new ways of teaching that may not be the norm in other parts of the District. I am committed to working with staff and teachers to come up with options that may have an impact on these students and help them raise their test scores and inspire them a desire to learn and to also let them know that sometimes good remedies are sometimes not the conventional ones that we are comfortable with.

Finally, I am committed to maintaining a balanced budget while also addressing the issue of salary for our teachers and support staff. When we made our first round of budget cuts nearly four years ago, we as a Board made a commitment to bring back custodians and address the issue of salaries for our valued employees. Well we accomplished a part of those goals. Even today our teachers make less than their counterparts in other parts of the county. However, in order to keep funding teacher raises and CSEA raises we need additional sources of income. Because we are in declining enrollment (still), we have to become more resourceful in finding these new (continuous) revenue streams. I believe that our current Administration has been listening to the Board and our employees to find ways of addressing this issue; and I will continue to press for new options (with supporting data) to address employee salaries without dipping into the required 3% Reserve as required by the State.

I sincerely believe that every child is entitled to an education; one that serves his/her needs and will inspire in them a desire to become lifelong learners and productive members of society in whatever vocation they choose. We have much work to do, and I am committed to finishing the task set before me. We still have a long way to go, and I would like to continue to be a part of that journey. I would appreciate your vote and let me continue the task that we have undertaken in the reshaping of the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District.