Candidate for
Board Member; San Mateo County Community College District

Providing quality public education for all is one of the most important responsibilities of our government. Open, affordable, and equal access to high quality educational opportunities is the key to enabling pursuit of the American Dream. In particular, the San Mateo County Community College District is a vital link between our locally run K-12 school systems and our state-run four-year colleges and universities, and is the primary provider of career and job skills training in San Mateo County. In these economically and technologically challenging times, education is vital to creating a prosperous future, both for individuals and for society at large. The following ten points highlight the key areas I will focus on to make sure that our Community College District is effectively serving the needs of San Mateo County's residents and taxpayers:

1. Keep Our Budget Balanced. Continue the process of balancing the District's budget in the face of ongoing reductions in State funding, in keeping with the Board's core values statement focusing our efforts on our core mission of transfer education, workforce training, and basic skills classes;

2. Focus on Jobs. Use our resources to provide job training programs and apprenticeship opportunities that prepare student for jobs that pay enough to live on in San Mateo County, and use our local tax dollars to create jobs locally whenever possible;

3. Diversify Our Funding. Continue to develop alternate sources of funding for our programs, such as Federal grants and local community support, in order to reduce our reliance on general fund revenue from the State of California and place ourselves in better control of our own destiny;

4. Find Creative Sources for New Revenue. Think "outside of the box" in order to come up with creative ways to generate new revenue from our facilities and District resources in order to provide more resources for our classroom educational programs;

5. Invest Wisely. Make sure that our Capital Improvement Program funds are invested wisely and safely, and are spent on the most critically needed facilities and equipment, especially those that reduce operating costs, thus freeing up general fund revenue for classroom use;

6. Keep Programs Relevant. Review our current academic programs in a regular and timely manner to make sure that they are kept up-to-date and continue to address the greatest current needs of the community in terms of educational resources, knowledge, skills, and workforce training;

7. Clarify and Streamline Programs. Make sure that our course offerings, course names, and course numbers are well articulated and aligned, both within the three colleges in our own District as well as with popular transfer majors within the California State University and University of California systems;

8. Collaborate With High Schools. Continue to reach out to our local high schools to encourage increases in concurrent enrollment of local high school students in our Community College classes, both on our campuses and on the high school campuses;

9. Build Our Coastside Presence. Continue our efforts to increase the number of classes we offer on the San Mateo County Coast, both through partnership with Coastside schools and in our own facilities;

10. Keep Lines of Communication Open. Work harder to reach out to the community and communicate with all of our constituencies, both on and off campus, with mutual trust and respect, in an open, honest, and transparent manner.