Helping our Schools and Children Succeed

By Jim Price

Education is in crisis and as a result, local employment is in crisis. Our public schools are also in a financial crisis. As your County Supervisor I will be the advocate for our schools that so many teachers and school district officials feel is missing at the County level.

1. Preparing our young people for jobs in the new local economy. I am already working with teachers, district officials, unions and the private sector to accomplish this goal.

I have begun to address this issue by organizing the first "Preparing our Young People for the New Economy Summit" which will take place on April 27th. This event will focus on crafting a vision and preliminary plans for delivering awareness and training to our young people for jobs in the new local economy. Representatives from the Alameda, San Leandro, Oakland, and San Lorenzo school districts, representatives from SEIU-UHW, Local 70 construction union, Chevron Corporation, Kaiser Permanente and Assemblywoman Wilma Chan are expected to participate.

2. Improve the relationship between the County and local school districts and see to it that the County is actively helping districts to improve API scores and fulfilling its role of helping districts avoid financial trouble.

3. I will fight for an equitable distribution of ADA (average daily attendance) funds so that our children receive the same opportunities as those children in other districts in our County.

I will help our young people become aware of and receive training for many of the well paying jobs that are available in today's local economy. Light industry, healthcare and skilled building & trades are areas where there is a growing demand for qualified people. These jobs provide the opportunity for people to earn a real family wage and continued career growth. Unfortunately, a lack of locally qualified people causes employers to go outside of the community to fill the needs.

I believe that through a coordinated effort between local school districts, the public and private sectors and local unions that many more of our young people can discover and qualify for these opportunities.

Our school districts deserve an equitable distribution of ADA funds. It is inexcusable that a school district such as Pleasanton receives about $1000.00 more per child than the Alameda or San Leandro districts receive. I will fight for an equitable distribution of these funds. $1000.00 more per child would equate to approximately $10,000,000.00 more for Alameda schools each year.

My plan for helping our schools includes improving communication between individual districts so that information and best practices can be shared to help raise API scores in districts where they are low and to help districts avoid financial trouble.

I will work with the Board of Education and the Superintendent of Schools to develop better strategies so that the County can fulfill their mission of helping local school districts stay out of financial trouble. One of the first things I will do as Supervisor is work with the Board of Education to bring together members of all school districts on a regular basis so that they may sit together and begin sharing ideas and information. They can share what is and what is not working, problems that they have encountered, why they happened and what they have done to resolve or overcome problems. This process will allow firsthand information to be shared and immediately utilized by other school districts. The Board of Education will begin to develop a better understanding of the needs of individual school districts. Believe it or not, even this first simple step has not taken place. Open communication means more than occasionally bringing District superintendents together. We must hear from those individuals who are on the ground doing the work, experiencing the challenges of education firsthand.