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The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Los Altos/Mtn. View Area and asked of all candidates for this office.
See below for questions on
Parking,
Graduation,
Budget,
Teacher Shortage
Click on a name for candidate information. See also more information about this contest.
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1. What would you recommend to better address parking at both high schools and the neighborhoods around them?
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Answer from Colin Rudolph:
The fundamental problem is not parking, but rather it is transportation - getting educators and students from homes to school and back. Parking is merely a symptom of an inadequate transportation system. Thus, we need to review how we can optimize transportation and subsequently reduce the number of cars that need to park. Three areas to consider include:
1) Promote carpooling for all students who are eligible under California Driving Regulations.
2) Work with the Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) to optimize public transit.
3) Limit parking permits and strongly enforce offenders.
Answer from Susan Sweeley:
The long term solution is to get fewer students and employees to drive one-passenger vehicles to school. We would like to encourage as many students as possible who drive to school to park on or next to campus and not park in the neighborhoods.
This year the school board worked successfully with the City of Mountain View to deal with traffic and parking around MVHS. This summer we added 68 new parking spaces by re-striping and reconfiguring our staff and student parking areas. The city of MV allowed parking on the school side of Bryant and Truman that created 60 additional parking spaces. As of now, the addition of 128 spaces seems to make a big difference in parking at MVHS. But the test will come in the spring when more students turn 16 and are able to drive to school.
Over the past several years, we have been able to add some parking slots at LAHS as a result of some reconfiguring of the parking lots. However, we are reluctant to take green space and turn it to blacktop for parking. We have encouraged the city to allow us to park in front of LAHS and to allow diagonal parking on Jardin.
Our Green Teams at each school have programs to encourage student biking to school. Overall, we have almost doubled our number of student bikers over the past two years and credit goes to our Carbon Free Environment parent group at MVHS and the Green Team students at both high schools.
Actions we have recently taken:
1. Running a pilot at LAHS for carpool parking.
2. Added more bike racks and encouraging and incenting biking.
3. Lots of advertising and messaging about alternatives to driving.
4. Providing bus tokens to students to encourage taking VTA.
5. Selling more permits than spaces to ensure that all spaces are utilized.
6. Continuing neighborhood meetings to hear concerns of our neighbors.
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2. What would you do to improve the passing rate for the high school exit exam and the high school graduation rate?
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Answer from Colin Rudolph:
A priority must be placed on the Exit Exam as one cannot graduate without passing the exam. There are two areas that our District can address and one that we must partner with our Elementary Districts:
1) Work with our Elementary Districts to ensure that all students are on track to meet the Exit Exam's requirements. Identify any students that are "at risk" and develop a plan (or roadmap) to ensure success.
2) Educate families and students of the importance of passing the Exit Exam. We must also balance the benefits of passing with the consequences of failing.
3) Continue to promote volunteer tutoring to bridge any gaps in test preparation.
Answer from Susan Sweeley:
We have very high graduation and high school exit exam passing rates (90-92 % on the first time and by the time they are seniors, 99% of our students pass the exam). We can always do better and we are always refining our programs. We have a major emphasis on "college and beyond" with our counselors and student support programs. I have been involved with the JustREAD literacy non-profit. I am a founding Board member and our organization provides volunteer tutors in our schools to help the kids struggling in the mechanics of the English language.
We have a low drop-out rate in our district, 1-2% per year vs the state average of 21% . We work with every single student to ensure their success in high school and beyond.
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3. How will you cope with the state budget cuts?
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Answer from Susan Sweeley:
We believe that a strong public education system is the backbone of our democracy. The state cannot hope to maintain a strong economy without a well educated workforce. We must invest more in public education at all levels. We have been fortunate that we have not had to cut programs recently as a result of budget cuts. In my position on the executive board of the Santa Clara County School Boards Association, I work closely with our state and federal legislators in Sacramento to advocate for better funding for our students.
However, in the past, when we have had to make budget reductions, we were able to cut as far away from the classroom as possible with minimal impact on student achievement. We engaged the help of our parents and community to help fund an education that our students deserve. That is why I began as a board member of the MVLA High School Foundation. The foundation helps fill the gaps that we cannot fund within our current budget. Our foundation has stepped up this year and has set its goal at a record $700,000, or a suggested donation of $700 per student.
We have also been successful in working with corporations and securing outside grants to fund our programs. Much of the funding for our new Freestyle Academy comes from outside funding sources and partnerships with companies such as Apple, Adobe, Synopsis, Microsoft, etc.
Our schools belong to our community. Many people move to our district because of the public education system. We have been fortunate to have passed a general obligation bond that has modernized our classrooms and given our schools state of the art science labs, libraries and theaters. We work closely with our partner elementary districts to help them pass parcel taxes to help fund their schools.
Answer from Colin Rudolph:
As a basic-aid District, State budget cuts are not catastrophic, but still impact many programs. There are three areas that can be used to reduce the exposure of State funded programs:
1) Establish MVLA Endowment Fund in which accrued interest can be reinvested into the fund in good economic times or used to off-set State shortages in poor economic times.
2) Continue to require "rainy-day" budgeting
3) Invite local State Representatives to address the District (and community) on their State Budget position prior to the Budget deadline and each month the budget is not ratified.
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4. What steps would you take in the near-term to prepare for the foreseeable future challenge of a teacher shortage resulting from so many baby-boomer teachers retiring en masse, especially in math and science?
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Answer from Colin Rudolph:
Forecasted retirements are something that will affect many areas of our Government and Educational System. MVLA is not exempt, but forecasted retirements in the District are not as massive as other areas. However, we can address any potential short-falls in three ways:
1) Continue to offer one of the highest pay ranges in the State and competitive benefit packages.
2) Focus on making the District a "Top Place to Work" and ensure that there is a focus on the Educators.
3) Support and promote grass-roots programs for attracting potential teachers to the industry.
Answer from Susan Sweeley:
Although this is a state and national problem, after checking our employment records for upcoming retirements, this has not and doesn't appear to be a major issue for us in the future. We are fortunate that we have a very high retention rate for our employees whom we offer tenure and permanent status. We have an average of 200 applicants for every position in our district. We are known as a great district and teacher want to teach here. We are very careful and strict in our hiring and we only grant tenure to the very best teachers. We have great training programs for our new teachers and we invest specifically in math and science training. Each year I speak with our new teachers and they continually say they "died and came to heaven" when they get to our district. These comments are because we have such extensive training programs and it is a district where the kids always come first!
Responses to questions asked of each candidate
are reproduced as submitted to the League.
Candidates' responses are not edited or
corrected by the League.
The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.
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League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
