Candidate for
Governing Board Member; Mount Diablo Unified School District

Create and implement a comprehensive K-12 school to work curriculum

This is one of the reasons that I originally ran for the School Board. When I was in high school I had no intention to go to college and I wanted to learn a trade and go to work. I enrolled in metal shop when I was a sophomore and ever since then I have worked in the manufacturing industry. I started as a machinist and worked my way to the rank of manager. Had I not had the opportunity to be exposed to manufacturing in my metal shop class, I may not have ever gained the skills necessary to land a job in manufacturing.

I give you my background because I think there are many students that have the same dilemma. Fewer than 50% of the students that start high school ever graduate from college. How are we educating those 50% of the students that don't go to college? Are we giving them what they need so they can start a job where they can earn a living wage? We must provide the education necessary so that ALL students can be successful. I went on to college in my later years and I do understand the importance of college. I would encourage ever student to go to college. We must face the facts; every student must work sometime in their life. Teaching students a skill, and work ethics, and what it takes to land a job, are all things that they will use their entire life. I have worked with too many mechanical engineers that have designed mechanical parts that are impossible to build. That's because those mechanical engineers have masters in engineering, but never spent a semester in a high school metal shop. They learned the information in the book, but never bothered to pick up a wrench. We need to provide for all students and ensure that all students are well rounded when they complete the education process.

Study enrollment district wide and begin to plan for a new high school in Bay Point

We know we need a high school in Bay Point. There are over 1200 students being bused out of Bay Point every day to high schools all over our district. The process of planning for a new high school in Bay Point will take some time. We must start now to form a committee of parents, students, and district employees that can look at where the new school should be and how we are going to fund it.

The other thing that is important is the impact on other district high schools when we build a new high school in Bay Point. Over half of the students that attend Mt. Diablo high school come from Bay Point. We need to create a district high school that is dedicated to career exploration and training. Mt. Diablo high might make an excellent technology high school when we open the new Bay Point high. We can make Mt. Diablo high a magnet technical high school and students from all over the district could attend and learn marketable job skills there. That could solve some of our over crowding at other high schools and better utilize the Mt. Diablo high school campus. Imagine a high school where students could complete all of their academic requirements, and learn job skills such as:

Computer technician, Starting salary-$40 k per year, Up to $250 k per year. Employment recruiter, Starting salary-$40 k per year, Up to $200 k per year. Web designer, Starting salary-$40 k per year, Up to $250 k per year. Machinist, Starting salary-$30 k per year, Up to $100 k per year.

The list of jobs we can train for goes on and on. Fast food and service station jobs are not going to provide a living wage and we must ensure that our graduates don't have to start at minimum wage.

Add kindergarten classrooms so we can get kindergarten down to 20 to 1 all day

Currently our kindergarten classes are half day with a 20 to 1 ratio of students to teacher and the other half of the day they are at 32 to 1. This was done due to lack of classrooms at each of our elementary schools. I have seen first hand the advantages of the 20 to 1 program and our district must look at what is needed to make all of our kindergarten classes 20 to 1 all school day.

Another issue that I see as a huge one at our elementary campuses is day care. We need to make sure that ample day care exists at each school site so that any parent that wants to take advantage of day care on site has that opportunity. Day care is provided by outside sources, but since that is almost always provided in cooperation with our district, we must do what we can as a district to encourage that outside operators are available to our parents and students on our sites.