League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Alameda County, CA November 4, 2014 Election
	Cheri Spigner Answers Questions Candidate for School Director; Oakland Unified School District; Trustee Area 4

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Oakland and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How do you plan to get parents and the community more informed and involved in educational policy and programs?

Perhaps the greatest disconnect comes from OUSD does not have the greatest relationship with the community at large. Frequently we see an us-versus-them dynamic at play. I will change that. I want to have quarterly forums to engage the diversity of interests in my district.

I will create an Advisory Board of various community, business, and education interests in order to assist me in creating policy, and making sure that I keep abreast of the concerns of the people who have supported me.

I plan to use the latest technology available (social media, OUSD website, email distribution lists) to get the word out. I firmly believe that OUSD should be working to regularly include parents in school affairs.

Finally, I will regularly hold office hours, to make myself available to the community; too often the halls of the OUSD building are silent, and parents never seem to have the chance to address a Board Member one-on-one. Parents need to know that I will be working for them.

2. What will you do to raise the incentives and motivation for students to study, stay in school, and choose a skilled trade or a college career?

Create a uniform dual degree program so that students can attend local colleges and universities to obtain AA degrees while still in high school.

Develop a series of programs that do not exist to placate students, but to challenge them. We need to invest in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (ST.E.M.) and Gifted and Talented (G.A.T.E.) programs, to make sure that parents realize we have not given up on high achievement in Oakland, and students need to know that the brightest have a place in our schools, and we will ensure that their experience will be a challenging one to prepare them for the world of tomorrow. Additionally, I want to financially enhance new programs, such as the trade academies at the high schools, to focus on 21st century, job ready skills in construction, technology, and manufacturing. In addition, robust sports programs need to be a part of the fabric of our schools as well as a focus on art and music programs.

3. What is educational equity? Using your definition, how will you address the most critical issues of inequity facing Oakland public schools, and how will you attempt to resolve this issue as a school board member?

As a Board Member, I will support policies that create Quality Schools for every child in Oakland. In an educational neutral environment, it would not matter which middle or high school our children attend in Oakland; in an equitable space, all students would have access to the same level of on-site materials and technology; the sports facilities would be the same, and each campus would have the basic quality of life things we attribute to the necessities of school; clean bathrooms, ample space, safety. Meanwhile, the level of instruction and the caliber of the instructors would have no real variances. In Oakland, we must address these issues

4. What can the School Board do to hire and retain high quality teachers and encourage diversity among staff?

Some challenges are clear, such as the lack of competitive salaries as compared to local districts, coupled with the high cost of living for educators in Oakland. Other issues are not so revealing, such as the lack of success in achieving diversity among new teachers in Oakland that looks like the population of Oakland; yet both go hand in hand. If we continue to recruit teachers from outside our community and are not representative of our natural cultural affiliations, then we are bringing in many instructors who simply use our system to get work experience with the opportunity to come to California. OUSD should not be a way station or entry point for East Coasters to enter the market for greener pastures. At the same time, we should be thinking in a fundamentally new direction to create a culture in Oakland, which supports an intellectual base and sets achievement as its priority, with our educators serving as the cornerstone. We must find new resources within our budget and redirect wasteful spending on consultants, contractors, and administrators to teacher salaries. I will look to any and all cost saving measures to bring money back to the classrooms, such as full utilization of our closed campuses, curbing renting office locations in areas across the city. I want to create educational villages, where working educators and their families are able to obtain affordable housing in Oakland, and help create creative communities where we can have a repository of these gifted people in the same manner that Silicon Valley has a concentration of tech workers.

Not all things will come from money; I wish to work with our teachers to get ideas on better practices that can be incorporated into OUSD, and from what I have been able to gather over these many months, our teachers are eager to be a part of the process, and they are waiting for someone to call upon them.

I want to target recruitment of new teachers from Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) along with California colleges and universities, so that we don't overlook the passion, experience and perspective, which come from the inclusion of talented African American, Hispanic, and Native American educators.

Build upon local educational partnerships, such as those developed at Mills College and Stanford University.

My work experience allows me to leverage relationships with our corporate community to raise funds in order to offer special enrichment grants for high achieving educators to use as they wish, for research, personal development, classroom enhancement. We can have such a dynamic environment for learning when educators know they can be rewarded for their inspiration and motivation of our students.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. References to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 6, 2014 06:52
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