Final thoughts before the election

By J. Samuel Diaz

A lot has happened in these past two years and a lot has not. These are my pensive thoughts prior to election day. I met a lot of folks and learned more than I contributed. Here are my thoughts ...

I remember passing out flyers and wondering how you win an election as an outsider. Even in my hometown of Redwood City, a local magazine editor commented I was a "flyby night" candidate. That's actually the closest someone has come to calling me a carpetbagger and it's ironic from my point of view.

For you see, I was born and raised in Redwood City. I went to K-thru-12 schools here and I have seen the good and bad in education; at least from the student's point of view. I remember being a top student at Fair Oaks Elementary, where everyone was poor. For two years we did not go on a single field trip and the principal, a bubbly fellow, told us the school would pay our $10 fee! You cannot imagine how memorable that field trip was.

I also remember my abrupt transition to Selby Lane Elementary, where all of a sudden I was dropped to remedial English and Math and where I struggled to eventually be in some of the highest books, only to be reset to remedial status the following year. That was my introduction to the dual-class tracking system, where I would receive hand-me-down books and resources that were remarkably outdated.

I remember being at Kennedy Jr. High and wondering why I had been placed in an English as a Second Language homeroom. I even talked with the teacher in English and it did not raise any flags. After my sister argued my case for several hours in the principal's office, I got sent to advanced history class and then quickly reset to remedial history.

The list goes on, but I eventually got my break at Woodside High School, where I got into fairly advanced classes and participated in the marching band as a trumpet player, second chair. I found new obstacles there, but I also found a lot of friends and it was at this last stage of K-12 that I got my chance to prepare for college and get accepted to U.C. Davis, where I even taught upper division classes as a Teaching Assistant.

So I see it as vainly ironic when I am considered the outsider when, in fact, I am one of the few candidates who ever participated in our K-12 system! I find some jumping to conclusions about the poor quality of students nowadays and I wonder how that was different from before when students could get downgraded to remedial status by some educational planner who had never met them and who probably would only review their student files the following year when he or she again reset those same students to remedial status.

This campaign season made me think about the students who weren't as fortunate as I was in high school and who were bussed in from East Palo Alto. Granted, it probably was folks from Belle Haven too, but it didn't matter. They would wait their 20 minutes to catch a yellow bus over in East Palo Alto, ride the bus for an hour and show up for classes. Sadly, most of their classes had been scheduled for remedial this and remedial that with study hall and P.E. thrown in to balance out their schedule. Some schedule!

And then they would wait to catch the return bus and waste another hour and a half of their day to get home. All in all, they would expend three hours daily + five times a week + to get access to a low quality education by a system that treated their hopes and aspirations with indifference. So it is no wonder when I read that 20% of today's students bussed in from East Palo Alto are truants; just a fancy word for cutting class, as if no one had ever done that.

The worrisome part is that each year's 20% is a different blend of students, for many of the previous year's truants have already dropped out of education altogether! And so each year, you throw away another 20% of hopes and dreams because you do not have the time to spend in wisely planning a student's coursework; coursework that should be relevant to that student's needs and that challenges them to learn and grow.

Twenty-some years have passed since I left high school and yet we still have a bussing system that partitions East Palo Alto's identity into four, schizophrenic parts. One fourth identifies with Woodside H.S., another fourth with Carlmont, another fourth with M-A and yet another fourth with Sequoia. With four loyalties dividing it, it's no wonder gangs thrive and recruit in E.P.A.

And twenty-some years ago, a lot of the worst students came from East Palo Alto. You'd see them attack students who had broken bones set in casts and who were pretty much defenseless against four or five bullies who would jump individuals at lunchtime and then run away. Perhaps they did it out of frustration, but I honestly do not know why. Oddly enough, it reminded me of how us newcomers at Selby Lane Elementary were attacked for no real reason other than we were from the poorer side of town.

And I must say, some of my best friends also came from East Palo Alto. I remember the two brothers who joined band and who befriended me. Both were older than me, but it didn't matter. They watched over me kind of like a little brother. And the only reason why they could make it to band practice at 07:00 AM daily was because one of them owned a used car. For there was no way you could catch the yellow bus and get to school by 07:00 AM! Again, the yellow bus limited students' options.

And the few E.P.A. students you met who had managed to get into regular biology or math were usually like that: One or two years older than the rest of the students, yet much eager to learn and attending class daily. It didn't matter what problems were happening in their hometown; they were there daily because they had broken down the door to education and could get into regular classes! I remember that so much more now when listening to comments from folks who seem to view students as a statistic to be discarded. So I am encouraged when I hear concurrent enrollment in both high school and college classes coming closer to being a reality for students who might otherwise fail in our current educational system.

When I read that bussing continues as a holdover from a stalled civil rights movement, I worry. Did you know bussing originally started as a means to accelerate the desegregation of schools? Bussing was NEVER meant as a means by which to rip out the best educational infrastructure in African American and Mexican neighborhoods! And yet that's exactly what it enabled policy makers to do: Ravenswood High School ... is no more. And if you listen to folks who were students in the 1960s and 1970s, it won't surprise you to hear they preferred to go to Ravenswood's graduation than to their bussed ceremonies. It's then that you realize Ravenswood High School was the heart of East Palo Alto, pulsing vibrantly with a soul rhythm and bringing families and children together. Heck, if you were a parent and needed to meet the principal, you could! It was just a few blocks away from your house and not a two hour ride on SamTrans! If your kids were in trouble, your neighbors could tell you about it before things got worse!

And yet bussing changed all that. Students were pulled away from their neighborhoods and placed into segregated classes, where tracking bussed students for failure was the established norm. If you didn't excel in sports or in music, you were pretty much headed for a dead-end education. And so it is sad when I remember East Palo Alto, at one time, had its own high school that few remember today.

This campaign season, I reminded voters about the loss of KCSM-TV. For me, it had been the county's anchor; its identity. Yet after years of neglect, it is hardly recognizable. I reminded voters to think about the fact we owe over $750 million dollars in bond money and interest that county residents will have to own up to. I reminded you all about the fact our college campuses have far fewer full-time students than ever before and that many more students are leaving as more departments close their doors. Two years ago, I was the only candidate who opposed Measure H and it made me wonder whether voters really voted on the candidates' opinions or on their rhetoric and endorsements. My greatest satisfaction is knowing that two years ago, I was the only candidate who supported building a real satellite campus in East Palo Alto. Today, that dream is coming closer to becoming a reality. Did you know all four candidates this year support building this campus? All four!

This year, we saw a dialogue start between the Sequoia Union High School District and the San Mateo County Community College District. Though their trustees did not meet each other, the opposing candidates sure did and it brought about an honest dialogue as to what education means for our county residents. I sincerely hope to see this dialogue expand and for the two boards to meet with folks in Fair Oaks, Belle Haven and East Palo Alto. For the time to bring education to the students has come.

When the new campus gets built, I want the first song to be played at its inauguration to be "Rivers of Babylon" by Boney M. It's a song many Islanders, African Americans, Mexicans and Latinos can relate to as they find themselves so far away from their roots and with a desire to establish themselves in their new hometowns.

Well, I have spoken enough on these issues. I sincerely hope more residents who grew up here find the courage to run for office. Your voice will truly matter when you can explain to the other trustees just what this or that is about and help them see the world that exists beyond the statistics. It's a world we need to let others see so that policies can change, a college campus built, a high school campus built and the educational infrastructure of a core part of our county restored to what it was before.