Financial Fairness and Justice for All Students

By Donna J. Woodrum

To Ensure Social AND Fiscal Justice AND Equity among ALL students.

At this time, a group of students called the "Underrepresented" are receiving much of their community college education at reduced rates or for free.

The Departments who serve the "Underrepresented" are nearly fully funded and staffed, and are at the beck and call of this group of students. Nothing is spared in making their education experience at the Community College pleasant and mostly free.

Another group of students - the Active Duty Military and American Military Veterans - do not get anything for free.

In fact, their program, the Military Education Program, receives NO FUNDING from the District, according to the people running this program. Any money received by this program comes in the form of outside grant requests that are approved.

Apparently, even the staff at the Military Education Program are not funded by the District. If they are compensated, that money comes from the Grants allotted to benefit the Active Duty and Veteran Scholars. So the military servants lose some of the money meant for their education to pay for a staff that the District could compensate.

I don't know of another Program at the SDCCD where the Staff is not funded by the District.

With nearly $750 MILLION in their annual operating budget, what does it take to put some money into a program to advance an active duty serviceman's or servicewoman's career? Or to make sure Veterans in our County know of the advantages available to them for training in classes and programs so they can transition from a military workforce to the civilian workforce?

Aren't these students as valuable as the "Underrepresented" students? It seems to me the "Underrepresented" have plenty of representation, while the Active Duty and Veterans are mostly ignored.

My campaign priority is to equalize the availability of resources to ALL students at the SDCCD. No one should get special favors and no one should be left out.

Social and Fiscal Justice and Equity among ALL students - that's what's fair. That's what I stand for.