League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
	Alameda County, CA November 6, 2012 Election
	Candidates Answer Questions on the Issues Board Member; Fremont Unified School District

The questions were prepared by the League of Women Voters of Fremont, Newark, Union City and asked of all candidates for this office.     See below for questions on Click on a name for candidate information.   See also more information about this contest. 1. (Safe Schools) What does "Safe Schools" means to you; what needs to be done to provide them? Answer from Reshma Karipineni: Safety is perhaps the most fundamental need in the context of education. We must address both physical and emotional safety in our schools, in order to provide the healthy environment students and teachers require for learning to take place. First, we must ensure that our facilities are well maintained and do not pose danger to students or others. In Fremont Unified, we must work to bring roofs, playground equipment, windows, and classroom equipment up to code. We must ensure that our facilities and teachers are prepared to protect children in the event of earthquakes and other natural disasters. In addition, it is our duty to prevent students from harming one another, either physically or emotionally. To accomplish this, we must provide teachers and other caregivers with tools and training that have been proven to be effective against bullying. We must support bullies, victims of bullying, and their families through therapy and behavior modification. Perhaps most importantly, we must bring parents, teachers, administrators, bus drivers, hall monitors, and other caregivers together to create a unified, coordinated, and consistent stance against bullying. This must begin with the youngest of students and their families. Answer from Yang Shao: Safe schools give students a learning environment free of violence, bullying or harassment, and hazardous conditions that would otherwise bring physical or psychological harm to students. I will do my best to to help students build character and gain empathy for others so that bullying, including cyber bullying and academic bullying will be out of the campuses. I will also do all I can to reach out reach out to the community members to help them see the importance of investing into our children's future and gain their support for bond measures so that school facilities and equipments can be improved from hazardous conditions to good order for daily operation. Answer from Lily Mei: "Safe Schools" are accomplished by providing positive school environments, where students feel safe, supported, connected to others and prepared to learn. As school board members this directs our board to provide our administrators, teachers, staff and parents with tools and policies to ensure their schools are safe and secure. For Fremont Unified it is delivered via multi- faceted approaches providing resources to empower our students at all grade levels. To reflect the district's commitment to implementing policies, procedures and practices that will reduce and eliminate bullying and harassment, Fremont Unified School District developed a district wide Anti-Bullying Campaign for the 2012-2013 school year. FUSD educates our students beginning in elementary school to understand what healthy relationships are and delivers this message as part of our character education of elementary students and again as an emphasis in the health and wellness curriculum. To assist older students understanding of healthy relationships, FUSD raised awareness of teen dating violence. Fremont Unified was one of four school districts in California to officially pass a resolution on teen dating violence and provide training for our community to understand and act effectively if these situations should arise. This includes prevention education to students by sharing lessons in our secondary school classes. Moving forward I will support our district to continually improve efforts of tracking any incidents of bullying to better understand future trends while also providing increased opportunities for students, teachers, parents and community stakeholders feedback utilizing our customer satisfaction surveys. Answer from Ann Crosbie: A "Safe School" is a place where a child can go to learn without fear of violence, harassment, bullying, unwanted advances or ridicule. It not only means being safe from harm, but also safe to make mistakes without being ridiculed or made fun of. All of our students should feel free to attend school each day without fear. Fear inhibits learning. We need to start at a young age to teach the importance of having empathy for one another. Students should be taught that it is a value we embrace to care for one another. Standing by while another student is bullied is not OK. We need to teach students, teachers and administrators the skills they need to deal with bullying. Teachers and administrators who are not properly trained can make matters worse. We need to start offering programs in empathy at a young age and we need to help our students understand what creates a bully and what they can do to help someone who may by a bully because they are also suffering at the hands of a bully. We can teach students to make a difference. Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are presented as submitted. Direct references to opponents are not permitted. The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.