Frequently Asked Questions

By Jose Escarce

I have served on the School Board since 2000. Throughout my years on the Board, including my recent tenure as Board President, I have focused on fostering academic excellence and equality of opportunity for all our students in Malibu and Santa Monica.

Over the last few years, I have focused as well on steering our district through California's budget crisis while ensuring that we continued to make strong gains in achievement.

I am seeking another term on the Board of Education in order to provide the vision, experience, and continuity in Board leadership that our district needs at this crucial moment for public education in California.

What will be your top objectives, if re-elected to the SMMUSD school board?

I am proud to say that my time on the Board has been one of consistent improvement in our district. Academic achievement is rising for all student groups, and growing numbers of students are taking the rigorous courses that make them eligible for admission to four-year colleges and universities. Our music and arts programs are the envy of the state, and every year more students participate in them. Our students shine in academic, artistic, and athletic competitions. However, there is more work to do, and I remain committed to helping all children reach their potential.

If re-elected, my priorities will be:

Improving instruction and maintaining academic and arts programs while balancing the budget in difficult economic times

Promoting teachers' professional development to ensure that all our students develop their creativity and critical-thinking skills

Making our schools welcoming places for all students and parents

Strengthening our honors and intervention programs

What educational program or issue would you like to focus on in the next term?

As a board, we monitor and discuss annually numerous programs including intervention programs, the Advanced Placement program, mathematics instruction and achievement, AVID and Young Collegians, summer school, and so on. I will continue to take a keen interest in all of these, as I always have.

However, three initiatives stand out from the others as areas that require particular attention at this time and that I will emphasize.

First, it is essential that we implement district wide fund raising in a way that ensures that the new policy delivers on its potential to raise more resources and to use the resources more effectively and equitably to promote student learning.

Second, we must continue and deepen our work on improving the climate in our schools, and especially at Santa Monica High School, with regard to racial and ethnic relations.

Third, the board will need to track and support the district's efforts to implement a Response to Intervention approach for identifying students who are struggling academically early in their school careers. Because this approach is new to our district and requires some degree of cultural change, strong board support will be essential to its success.

Finally, I am eager to support the superintendent's efforts to enhance collaboration in our district as a way to improve achievement for all students.

What is the role of arts education in our public schools?

Over the past five years, when school district budgets have been under siege and the temptation to reduce arts programs has been at its peak, I have been a leader on the Board in ensuring that we did not cut our district's arts and music programs.

In fact, certain dimensions of our program have expanded over this period. As long as I am on the Board, I intend to continue to ensure that all students have access to a standards-based arts education.

In our district, a comprehensive education that includes the arts has long been non- negotiable. It is expected by our community and strongly supported by the entire Board of Education. Our district has been an "Arts for All" District since 2003.

("Arts for All" is an education project of the Los Angeles County Arts Commission.") With the support of "Arts for All", we developed a 9-year strategic and implementation plan for arts education in our district that the Board adopted in 2005.

The plan, which focuses on nine areas including curriculum, assessment, professional development and resources, was ambitious in its breadth and depth. Although the severe budget cuts we have experienced over the last few years have slowed our progress toward our 9-year goals, I am proud to say that we have continued to move forward.

Describe the strategies you would champion to improve meaningful communication, foster successful partnerships with public school families bringing parent voices to the decision-making table.

I strongly support the numerous ways our district offers for parents to communicate meaningfully with the Board and administration at all levels. At the level of the Board and district administration, parents and community members play key roles in District Advisory Committees. Parents and community members routinely address the Board during board meetings, and they have countless informal conversations with Board members as well.

The Board ensures that parents participate in important working committees of the district (e.g., the Superintendent's Advisory Group), and parents always take part in interview panels for school principal candidates. The recent processes for choosing new principals for several of our schools are good examples.

On numerous occasions, suggestions or requests from parents have been the catalyst for review and modification of key district policies (e.g., homework policy, substance abuse policy, sexual harassment policy).

At the school level, parents make their voices heard through parents' groups and by participating in Site Councils. Our principals also are expected to keep their doors open to parents. A high level of parent involvement is one of the features that distinguishes our school district.

What will you do to ensure that our public schools are safe? Student safety is a priority and we take numerous steps to ensure it. I support our comprehensive approach to safety in our schools and will promote continuous review of our procedures and policies. Each school has a safety plan and our staff are trained to identify and deal with potentially unsafe situations. Our secondary campuses have safety personnel, and we have outstanding relationships with local law enforcement, which provide school resource officers. We provide counseling and referrals to students involved in unsafe behaviors or situations, and many of our policies address safety as well.

What are your plans to help make the school district more sustainable?

I strongly support our District's efforts to enhance sustainability. Our construction projects under Measure BB exceed sustainability standards. Additionally, we have installed energy-efficient lighting and several schools will soon have solar panels. Our schools recycle and use non-toxic products, and many of our buses run on clean natural gas. To teach our students the importance of sustainability, we have incorporated environmental stewardship into our curriculum. Enhancing sustainability is an important goal in our district.

Where do you stand on inter-district permits? How many should Santa Monica-Malibu Unified issue each year?

Thanks to a change in our permit policy that I helped craft, permit students fell from 2,750 in 2002 to about 1,400 in 2008, as total enrollment dropped from 12,800 to 11,500. When state budget cuts began, however, we could no longer afford declining enrollment, and we modified our policy with the goal of maintaining a stable enrollment and its associated revenues. Last year, 1,350 of our 11,400 students were on permit, the lowest percentage (12%) of permit students in nearly two decades. I have helped to shape and strongly supported the approach we have taken to relieve overcrowding in our schools while coping with state budget cuts.

Some residents in Santa Monica and Malibu have called for two separate school districts instead of one. Do you support this idea?

I support investigating the feasibility of creating separate school districts but will not take a position on separation until all the details are known. I would support separation if the analyses reveal that separate districts could continue to provide an excellent education to their students and if the majority of residents prefer separation.

What are your thoughts on district-wide fundraising?

The challenge for the board, administration and school community is to ensure that the new policy which is set to go into effect in 2014-15 succeeds in bringing in more resources and that the resources are used to maximize learning opportunities for all children. Several other districts have accomplished this, and we can do it, too. I believe centralized fund raising will also strengthen the sense of community in our district and contribute to a stronger culture of collaboration. The Superintendent's Advisory Group, composed of parents, teachers, and community members, is helping the superintendent in developing an implementation plan that will achieve these goals.

What is the appropriate level of discipline for students who violate rules on school campuses?

Consequences for disciplinary violations in schools (e.g., bullying, possession of drugs or alcohol, selling drugs, fighting, cheating, or vandalizing school property) should include not only punishment, but also education/counseling and opportunities for restitution. Additionally, consequences should be more severe for older than for younger children, for repeat than for first violations, and for serious than for minor infractions. Our district's disciplinary policies incorporate these principles. Further, we must continue to improve and update our disciplinary policies to make them consistent with emerging best practices. It is also worth noting that for certain very serious offenses, such as selling drugs or bringing weapons on campus, state law mandates expulsion.