Candidate for
Board Member; City of Santa Rosa High School District

A conversation with ... Frank Pugh

Hands-on experience in teaching and governance has prepared CSBA's president for his new role

What led you to run for your local school board the first time?

The first time I ran for school board was in 1974. I had just graduated from high school and I was attending Southwestern College. They had an election for the College Board. Politics interested me, so I checked out a book from the local library and read about how to run a campaign. I think there were five or six people running for two seats, and I unfortunately came in third. When I went to work at Santa Rosa Junior College I became really interested in the faculty governance system. So I ran for the faculty senate, which handles governance issues, and became their president, and then I was re-elected three times as president of the faculty association. I would negotiate salary enhancements, fringe benefits and so forth, and I got really interested in the whole process: working with their board, working with the administration, representing faculty that had all kinds of different views and ideas.

When we hired a new college president, I was involved and I became very interested in the board dynamics of selecting a superintendent. I thought, "Well - I might want to run for the board of Santa Rosa City Schools." One of their long-time board members had passed away, and I applied for that position. It was a large pool of candidates, maybe 12 or so, and we were all interviewed and it got down to myself and another person, and unfortunately they selected the other guy. So I ran in the next election... and won by a landslide. I'm now the longest serving board member, I believe, in the history of the district. I'm completing my 20th year.

So you haven't soured any?

No. You know why? Because I've always tried to see both sides of whatever the issues are. And I learned that tolerance working with faculty in the community college. I have found my involvement with my school board to be one of the most rewarding things I've ever done. In spite of the chronic problems with state funding? Well, that's something you just grow to accept because there's virtually no leadership [at the state level] to change it. So you have to look at what can we do as board members to improve the lives of our children and improve our community with the resources that are given to us. It requires constant reinvention and constant review, and I like that part of governance. I really enjoy creating new programs out of virtually nothing, and promoting the talent that we have in our district among our teachers and administrators to benefit kids.

It really is a personal connection then, isn't it? You feel personally invested.

We all are invested on my board, and I know it's true on other school boards as well. All of the stresses that are out there don't really get in the way between you and ... the students who have worked really hard and have had to overcome tremendous obstacles.

You talked about the advantage of being able to see both sides as a board member. You also bring your own experience as a teacher and your involvement in the faculty senate and administration. How do you bring that experience to bear when you're dealing with board members who may not have that same kind of background?

All board members bring something special to their board. It's been my observation that some board members run because they experience something they want to correct. A lot of board members have their own children in the schools, and they've seen something that didn't quite add up right, or they want to champion something to benefit all children. People run for different reasons.

But the one thing that board members really need, and that benefited me tremendously, is participating in the Masters in Governance programs that CSBA has, because governance is really sort of an art: how you conduct business and how you gather information, how you keep people informed, how you plan, how you evaluate yourself as a board member and as a board, how you hold yourself accountable before the public--these are things that you can learn, but it takes somebody from the outside, such as CSBA, to make that happen. And the type of training that we provide here is just stellar. What's scary, quite honestly, is that boards all around our state are in financial stress. They need board training now more than ever. A few years ago, simple errors of a board could probably be absorbed. Now there's no room to resolve those. [Boards] have to know how to govern and they have to know how to monitor. They have to know what their resources are. They need to invest in professional development, because that will keep them out of trouble more often than not.

How does your experience at the community college level and your experience teaching industrial arts in high school inform your approach to career and technical education?

I know that in my district we have a number of students that will not go on to a university. They could if they wanted to, and we have plenty of classes for them to take to make that happen. But many students have to work to support their family. It's just the reality of the situation. They're being robbed of that opportunity, not because of what we don't offer but because circumstances with their families make it difficult, and they have to make some very adult choices. Many of these students want well-paying jobs in construction or technology or health, or to become police officers or correction workers, because they find satisfaction in that. ... If we can keep children in school and educate them to be productive citizens, then I think we have done a good job.

We could change our graduation requirements and make it solely A through G, [but] then I think we're going to have a high dropout rate, because I don't see most of our career pathway programs satisfying the requirement for transfer to the university system. Do we serve the needs of all of our students who have desires and family pressures [to go straight to work], or do we just focus in like a laser light on one thing? I tell you, I'm going to serve all our students and not just some of our students.

Do you see a need for improvement in the relationship between the K-12 system and the community colleges and higher ed?

Yes. I think the best systems are the ones that are so articulated that students know what their options are. You need a career counselor, you need a career center. I think there's plenty of room for creating transition plans for kids from elementary through middle school, middle school to high, and there has to be great transition plans for high school to community college, high school to a university and high school to work. That's something we have to be really vigilant about.

The federal role in education has taken on increasing importance this year with the stimulus funding under President Obama, but that money has been coming with strings attached--requirements to use the money to "transform" our public schools, to increase accountability for student performance. What's your assessment of those federal requirements?

First, I would say school districts in general are very thankful for the infusion of stimulus money. That came at the right time, since we have had such severe funding cuts in our state. That's kind of a stopgap; in a year or so it will no longer be there.

What's troubling is when I listen to other states' leadership through the National School Boards Association; some states that do not have our financial problems are doing amazing add-on things with that stimulus money. They're hiring additional people. They're creating a good support network for their students, they're doing things that will really add value. Here, we're just trying to keep our heads above water. ... I'd like to have all of those great things--but quite honestly we're just on life support, and the stimulus money is keeping the machine going right now.

But you know, I was most fortunate to have attended the Inauguration. On that day, almost a year ago, I actually felt that this would be the administration that would fix and fund No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately, given the intrusive restrictions of the Race To The Top, the rewriting of Title 1, the significant promotion of Charter Schools and the seeming interest of promoting mayoral take-overs of local boards of education + I find that my hope for our president and my hope in improving education for all children has been really dashed.

To me, the biggest disconnect in our state and federal [relations] is that they have never figured out the importance of the governance team. If [U.S. Secretary of Education] Arne Duncan wants success in schools, he should forget about talking to all of the think tanks in D.C. and around the country. He ought to be talking to school board members, asking how we can improve achievement , and we will tell him how to do it. But they would much rather listen to a lobbyist than talk to people who have the knowledge to get the job done.

Every school board member I know makes really hard decisions, and so we as school board members get pretty used to figuring out what the community will want and will tolerate. We know what our capacity is. I think people who are in power, like Duncan and Obama, perhaps they make these decisions too quickly, and they don't understand the consequences.

Washington has been preoccupied with health care reform, but those same committees will be taking up No Child Left Behind at some point. What would you just like to see done with NCLB?

Well, [CSBA has its Fix NCLB campaign but basically,] if we have to continue to live with NCLB, then at least fully fund it - then we've got a chance. But if there's not adequate funding then you're just really insulting districts, because you're holding them to standards they can't meet. And then the question is, why are we doing this -- just to have schools that fail?

During CSBA's Federal Issues Council in Washington last spring, there was a lot of talk about developing common educational standards among groups of states or among the 50 states. What are your feelings about that?

I have to admit that in several of those meetings that I attended, I had bitter words to share, because I lack confidence in the system that's going to create these standards--that they'll be properly vetted, properly funded, that they'll be fairly administered, and that we're really using them for the purposes intended, which is to improve student achievement.

And clearly, if there are going to be standards it won't take anybody very long to figure out we need to have common assessments. When we talk about national scores, international benchmarks, I just don't think that comparing our students to a selected group of students in China is really fair, because in California everybody would be assessed, and in China they would not.

The same thing is true in Western European countries. And they have a whole different system. If the federal leaders and these think-tank folks want to have the same playing field as other countries, then they're going to have to get used to the idea that we will have large dropout rates and we will have students who did not meet certain goals. There are going to be students who will be written off and ignored by this new federal system--as I believe may have happen in other countries.

The proponents of national standards and assessments need to talk to school board members instead of having the developers of standardized tests like ACT and [the Scholastic Achievement Test] and all of these special interest groups on their advisory committees. I believe that many of these contributors will receive a direct benefit because they are positioning themselves to acquire contracts to write and administer these tests. I would think that's a conflict of interest, but others see it as a business model. And when the test results are in, the punishment will be doled out for teachers, schools and districts that don't meet the standards.

I hear a theme in your responses about those in higher levels of government needing to communicate more and listen more to local school board members. How about California's State Board of Education?

At CSBA, and in my community where I work as a school board member, and on committees at my college, every time we form a committee we always try to make sure that it's balanced with people of different opinions so there can be good dialogue, debate and discussion. Yet when you look at our State Board of Education, they're predominately Charter School advocates and it seems to me they rarely understand the impacts of their decisions. They appear isolated and aloof.

[SBE members] basically blow in whatever direction the governor wants them to go. And to me that's just not good governance. I would think you'd want to have a variety of people with a variety of ideas debating the issues, gauging public support and engaging school board members for the benefit of kids. I've become very disenchanted with our state board, because all the members seem to be [the same]. You might as well just have a one person board. One of the state board's actions in the past year was to require that all eighth-graders be enrolled in Algebra 1. That sparked controversy and a lawsuit from CSBA's Education Legal Alliance that halted implementation of the policy. You've got a background in teaching and you've got a great background in math. How do you see that issue? The goal to have all students take algebra in the eighth grade is a pretty high standard and a good standard. But from my experience not everyone is ready--even at the college level--to tackle everything at the same time. When it comes to math, students come from a variety of different backgrounds. Some are just not ready for algebra in the eighth grade. But if the governor had taken the time, and if his advisors had given him proper counsel, he would have noticed that many, many school districts in the state already offer algebra in eighth grade. So it isn't so much that we are opposed to the concept, it's that we're opposed to forcing every student to a subject area that they may not be just quite ready for.

Another responsibility the State Board of Education has is the approval of curriculum and instructional materials. As a textbook author yourself, what is your perspective on the approval process and the product?

When I teach my class I have goals that I have to meet. There is certain content that I have to cover. There is a certain level of proficiency [my students] have to meet, because they're going to go on to the next course and they have to be prepared for that. No one says to me that I have to use this book that they found somewhere that was adopted by a bunch of people who know very little about what it is I do.

Our state is so intent on trying to make all of these micromanaged decisions that I think it really ties the hands of a lot of school districts. And that's the whole textbook selection process. I know there's politics involved with it, and you know there's a lot of these book pushers and book companies that make significant donations to candidates. But again, this process doesn't really get to what's really best for kids.

When it comes to electronic media, we should be there now. If we had electronic books there would be no need for old out-of-date textbooks hanging around. Kids could access this same material at home or in their local library. Without those 12 pound backpacks.

Exactly. The electronic textbook is the way to go. It can be updated, it can be changed, it can be modified, and links can be placed into the pages that will access the Internet. We can create a rich source of material for kids that's flexible and changeable, and that meets the needs of whatever's going on in that particular class at that particular time.

The book companies are in business to make a profit, and they're probably very much afraid about having all of their textbook content online. But this state and other states, in my opinion, need to really push for that to happen. Well, you certainly have a wide variety of experience in different levels of education and teaching and governance, and a consuming personal interest in it all. Oh, yeah+--I love the job.

What are your goals as president of CSBA?

I've seen several presidents before me that have fairly specific goals, and it's also been my experience that, more often than not, their goals become usurped by the circumstances of the state.

My core interest is improving student success and making sure that we do what we must to prepare our next generation. I have a strong interest in career and technical education, and know that we have a major impact on the economy of our state by getting our children work-ready.

I also have this very strong interest in Early Assessment Programs that make sure our students are well-prepared to transition to universities and community colleges, as well as creating the right connection between high school and college.

Unfortunately, you know, career and technical education has not always been appreciated. With the [state] budget cuts, you can just see the dollars that were going to be used for these really great career pathway programs are going to disappear because of the necessity to teach the core [curriculum] and only the core. That's to the detriment of a lot of kids. I have an interest in not letting that happen. I want to help all kids be successful and give them as many options so they can, because it's all about having options.

What advice do you have for new school board members? For the new school board member, my best advice is that they need to realize that they don't have all of the answers and they need be comfortable in knowing that they never will. And so - they need to participate in the governance activities that our organization provides. In doing so, they will become a better spokesperson for their district and advocate for education. And all of this benefits our kids. You just need to have continuous professional development.

I know some boards will say, "We can't afford it, we can't do this and we can't do that." But, they need to make that investment now more than ever. Board members need that training every bit--if not more--now than they did 10 years ago, to help make good governance decisions and keep them out of trouble. New board members need to realize that these trainings are a prerequisite to being a successful board member.

I have advice for old seasoned board members as well, and that is: Don't give up. We need them more than ever on our boards because their expertise is needed so desperately in the community. They're the only ones who really know the history of the districts they're in, and they need to stick it out. And I imagine they will, because they care about their community. They want to do the right thing. We need to really foster the senior board members to continue on, because we need expertise, guidance and wisdom.