• Tweet
• Pin It

Angie Simpson

What experience do you think has prepared you to be on the school board?

I was a teacher here in the Conejo Valley Unified School District, I taught English, Dance, coached Volleyball, I was onsight counsel, so as a grassroots candidate, I understand the real day-to-day of what’s happening in the classroom for our teachers and our students and also parents. My youngest son is in fifth grade and I am a community leader, so I serve on the City of Thousand Oaks Traffic and Transportation Commission and have had a lot of experience running meetings with using the Brown Act. And I work in the private sector now, so I think that the blend of all have experiences professionally, personally and civically have made me a great fit for this job.

I know you mentioned no cell classrooms, but our school is kind of going in the opposite direction. We’ve been getting Chromebooks to be shared between departments. How do you feel about increasing technology use in the classroom?

Yeah. So I think that the Chromebooks are awesome tools for learning and that when you’re using a Chromebook for academic purposes in the classroom, then it’s very powerful and I’m super proud that our community can provide that to all of our students using the Measure I funds. So don’t get me wrong when I say that the no-cellphone possibility would be something to help solve a problem not necessarily as an academic tool, so if we are funding these tablets and Chromebooks, then theoretically there shouldn’t be a need to have personal cell phone devices, which can be distractive. So that’s all I mean by leveraging technology appropriately to meet the needs of students.

As a follow up question, how would you address the issue of kids who don’t necessarily have access to technology off-site?

Yeah, so I think that definitely is where Measure I right now has flexibility in the way that different schools are able to rule out technology and I know that each high school does it a little bit differently. It’s my understanding that Thousand Oaks High School has their own Chromebooks that are assigned, so that’s where the customization is really important for not only how we design a curriculum for our students but also for how we roll out learning tools and that’s very possible to support the students who might needs those types of devices provided to them. And special wifi privileges, potentially that would be accessible if that’s a need.

What are your views on high school journalism programs? And what changes would you make to them if any?

So I was a high school journalist, I wrote on my high school paper, it was called The Vanguard. And then I wrote for my college paper at Penn State and then I wrote for the Acorn, I wrote for the Ventura County Star, so I’m a huge fan of what you all do here and I think that you guys have great advisers and I hope that these programs continue to be strong and I would totally support the same sort of freedom that you guys have now with freedom of speech. Also, I just don’t know what your needs are, so if there’s something that you don’t have right now as students, I would be really interested in hearing what those are to help potentially solve that problem.

So California just voted to ban school from starting before 8:30, what is your opinion on this and how would you implement it in schools?
That’s a funny one. So I think that’s very interesting because, as a working parent, it’s really really challenging and so I think as a school board member, we still have to carry out and follow state laws, federal laws and defend the Constitution. So there isn’t local control at this point on that issue, unfortunately. As a mom, I think the 8:30 start time is fine but I can’t imagine my son getting up for 0 period necessarily, but that’s a personal choice so that’s a tough one.

You were mentioning earlier a policy committee of some sort. And I’m just wondering who would that be comprised of and who do you think should have the highest jurisdiction when dealing with student rights in curriculum?
So a committee like that, I visual working very similar to how we have other government agencies like the Traffic and Transportation Commission or the Planning Commission and Measure I. Those are groups of people with different positions and views from the community that are appointed by the city council or by the school board members and yet they are diverse. So that group does represent our community pretty well like every council I serve on. So that being said, it’s still ultimately got to be education and curriculum is definitely driven by teachers because they are the experts, and we have to fuel innovation and leave the morale very high with our future teachers and cultivate teacher leaders across the district. So it has got to be a community approach and teachers drive the process, absolutely. But at the end of the day, each school board member is elected to represent the community and is ultimately responsible for the district. So in the end, those curriculum changes do have to be approved by the school board and that is part of the American way as it relates to public education.

How do you feel about the vote 17 proposition and student involvement in board policy, board position, board elections?
I think that what I’ve read is kind of contrary to a younger vote because from what the other data is showing is that our current generation’s social skills and ability to be self-sustainable is less than it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So it is kind of confusing to have voting be something we should make (legal) for kids at a year younger but yet parents’ obligation for students could be legally considered into the 20s in the future. So you see what I mean? You have this okay to vote. Kids are all of a sudden so self-sufficient and should have a say at 17. But then to take care of themselves, to pay their own bills, have insurance, all those things. Now, all of a sudden, parents might be held responsible for kids who might be considered minors longer. So, those are two polar opposite positions. That being said, I think 18 is the appropriate place for voting rights and that is the time when a person is legally an adult and they can also joining the military and I think those things have to go hand in hand .

So Newbury Park is part of the International Baccalaureate program. How do you feel about expanding this to other schools and maybe even to middle school or implementing more AP classes into Newbury Park?
I think that expanding the International Baccalaureate program to middle schools is something that a lot parents might be very interested in. So, I think that is definitely something that would be great. I think that’s really what parents in my generation want, is choice and options for their kids. There is so much more information that we have now about how people learn differently. I, as former teacher, recognize the complexities that our teachers have because you have such a vast array of talents and abilities in the classroom at any given time. We’re able to customize education because we have this technology in the classroom. So I think it goes back to whether we are using the tools we have now that we didn’t have 10 to 20 years ago in the classroom.  

Do you think that would help with pulling people back into the public education system from the private or home schooling?

That can definitely be a great program to offer to our community. It would set us apart. I know that there is a leak in enrollment when kids exit elementary school and at that point for middle school there is a leak right there. You are talking a great strategy when considering to plugging in that leak in those years with providing diverse education solutions.

A lot of the time in board meetings there is a disconnect between community members and students and their needs versus what the board actually accomplishes. How would you amend that disconnection and facilitate more agreements?

It’s very interesting, with the board meetings. What I think happens in the boardroom and the culture that is displayed there between citizens and each other and these tribes of people who come into the boardroom, it doesn’t reflect what really happens on our campuses or it doesn’t reflect how our communities feel about each other when you live on the same street. So, I think that people in these board meetings, in particular, are dehumanized. There are definitely clear biases that we see shine through from different polarized groups during these heated discusses. I think that all I can do as a board member is control my behavior and be my best self. By being my best self means, I will not have altercations with the public, I will not send emails to the public that are inappropriate, because we have seen that happen several times by several board members. We’ve seen board members make really inappropriate comments on their Facebook platforms and start rumors, I just don’t think that helps. So, I want to integrate something like the city council and what they have. It is a group of cultural norms that you can look at and see what the city council does to promote confidence and trust. First of all, it would be outlining a list of culture norms and hold each other accountable. That would help set the tone for the community members that are sitting there.

If you had been on the school board last year, what would you have done differently?

Ok, so 2017, I’m trying to think of the significant events. Are you referring back to primarily the dominant topic of the book policy? [Arrow clarifies] Ok, so I believe that if I was on the board, that my leadership skills, interpersonal skills, and ability to relate with different community stakeholders across the conejo valley would be a huge asset to the school board, and potentially, there might have been with my skill set on the school board less political drama and jockeying (? 0:54) regarding the parental notification and alternative assignment policy. So that being said, I would have approached that policy as dynamically as the board did but hopefully with less friction from various groups in the community because of my communication style and ability to effectively discuss and highlight really what the state suggests, and so I brought that for you because I thought that would be really helpful because I think that the district’s selection policies that are highlighted on the California Department of Education website really outlines what ended up coming to fruition and being approved by the board but maybe the journey of how it got there could have been a little less rocky

So, this kind of continues this same theme, what is your opinion on the core literature book policy 6161.1 and then how it was passed and implemented?

Ok, So I definitely support 100% parental involvement in education at the high school level, K-12, so what my suggestion would be, moving forward as a board member, is to develop a curriculum counsel and that is a practice that is implemented in the Los Virgenes school district since 2009 and their policy is easily accessible on the website, so you can check this out, it basically creates a, it’s a teacher driven process that is also supported by various stakeholders from various academic touch points including administrators, special education, even parents and community members that would be part of the process and then part of presenting to the school board.  Ultimately, the school board has the final say on curriculum that was how our country was founded after the 1600s and I believe in that process wholeheartedly and I believe in local control and community input in education

How would the people on that curriculum council be selected?

I think that that’s definitely a process that needs to be vetted by a broader group and as an individual that wouldn’t be a recommendation I could make.  I think that that’s a really important question that our community, especially our teachers and our administrators here within the district, need to feel really good about that so I think that they need to be very much a part of that process

So you said that you supported 100% parental involvement, so what role do you think that parents should play in their child’s education and how should they go about doing that?

I think that if a school is going to be presenting information in a classroom there shouldn’t be a secret about what that information is going to be and when it comes to understanding what mental health challenges and situational challenges face our students, 1 out of 10 kids, high school kids nationally has a diagnosable mental health disorder.  1 out of 8 high school students has suffered a traumatic event and so when you think about you’re in a class of 40 kids that’s 4 kids that might have something pretty significant going on that that you may not see as a peer or that a teacher may not recognize so I think that we have to protect those kids just like we protect any other fragile student population and so that’s where I think you have to have a really transparent line of communication with parents. They may not be full time parents, they might be temporary you know living situations for kids so that’s where .. and it also may be a student knows themself and maybe they know that they have a fragile mental health profile where if they’re going to be reading certain content triggering could be something that might happen to them and maybe its happened before but that wouldn’t be the business of perhaps a general education teacher or a fellow peer so I just think we can’t judge and even if that policy helps one kid a year or five kids a year, that’s better than not having information out there so that parents and students can make their own choices that are best for them

In your opinion, what do you think is the most important issue in this election and what’s your stance on it?

Right now, to me is keeping our schools open and we are facing a radical budget crisis across all of our schools which is nothing new especially here in the state of California but for our Conejo Valley we really have to figure out a way to increase enrollment to subsidize our funding and the great news about that problem is that we have thousands of school aged kids here in our conejo valley community who are opting out of public schools so that’s one in three school aged kids here in the conejo valley that are opting out of our public schools.  We don’t need to have all of 33% of those kids come and enroll in conejo valley unified but if we could just get you know 200 extra students a year and build on that number by creating some alternative learning programs then it’s a win for everybody and we can have more long term security in our schools – local schools

What new programs would you like to see added specifically and why?

Well, I love the idea of expanding our home school offerings, that is something that could be very low cost risk for the school district with a high return rate because that is a huge segment of these students who are opting out of our conejo valley unified now as you know home school doesn’t have the same kind of overhead cost associated with traditional school settings so I would say the first thing would be really exploring how can we leverage alternative learning programs like home school and bringing it to the district more aggressively.

With the district producing impressive test scores, what would you do to make sure the district remains on the cutting edge of education?

I think that it’s being really supportive to teachers and new ideas, so fostering a culture of innovation is paramount to continuing the high scoring results that we have here in our Conejo Valley.

What do you tribute the decline of enrollment to and what do you plan to do to address it?Well declining enrollment is enrollment in some ways is an urban legend because I have heard lots of different reasons and overall declining enrollment might just be because parents are opting to private schools or home schools and we have that information so how do we address that you know it’s got to be education it has to be considered like a consumer driven market and so how is our conejo valley gonna shift the program offerings not to take away from traditional students but to figure out how we can we capture a higher percentage of those kids that are opting out and I think that just requires flexibility and requires thinking about how we can partner differently with various community stakeholders and not being afraid to do things differently

Students are worried that their extracurriculars are being underfunded how would you address this problem?

So underfunding extracurricular activities is again an epidemic across our state of California. I am sad that my son’s elementary school doesn’t have access to a specialized PE teacher, doesn’t have access to a specialized art teacher, and music comes at a cost and so that’s something that when i grew up going to school was baked into mainstream education so I think that as a leader in this community what the community has to be benefit for voting from me in November is that I come from a long list and I think a broad reach of relationships with other elected officials both democrats and republicans in various roles across the conejo valley and I think that we all have to work together and we all have to put pressure on our state officials to really walk the walk that they are really going to be the change in Sacramento to drive better funds here to public education because do you realize right now California is ranked 44 out of 50 states in people funding and California is ranked number one in state income tax and we look at California as the number five GDP out there and we are not putting enough money into education and that is not something alone as a school board member can fix but is something that I will commit to partnering and advocating with our other elected officials to drive that change in Sacramento.

How will you play a role in the distribution of Measure I funds?

Right now I am on the measure I citizens oversight committee so I have gotten to learn a lot about how those bond funds are allocated and I think it is asking strike smart questions requiring transparent communication from the CVUSD and as a person who sits on that panel right now of citizens oversight committee I have seen pretty good things so far and I feel like this bond is off to the right kind of start for making sure that the 197 million dollars that the taxpayers approved is going to the right places

In your opinion what has the school board in the past 2-3 years done poorly or well?

So I think what triggered me to saying that I am going to step up and throw my hat in the ring in 2016 was going to the board meetings as a community member and seeing really really poor interactions from the board the majority of the time with the public citizens and so that made me sit there and go oh my gosh I can’t believe that this is happening and I taught in this district and I can’t believe that this is the bar as far as how board is going to be interacting with the public and I as sat there week after week regarding our issue that we were there for as activists I realized with my background as a teacher with my community involvement here it seemed like the school board would be a great place for me to put my effort into giving back to the community so number one i think it is restoring the trust within the community, number 2 is working to figure out the curriculum council, and number is 3 is ensuring that our budget and enrollment numbers are secure long term

Bill Gorback

Why are you running and what experiences do you think have prepared you to be on the board?

Why am I running? Well, it kinda combines both. I taught for 20 years, 12 of those years I taught at Moorpark High, mostly math, a little bit of peer counseling. But I taught a variety, I started out at elementary school and then taught middle school and then I was a counselor for 18 years. So I’ve always been in positions where I’ve been advocating for kids. And then I moved away, I came back, I basically retired, and then actually 4 years ago, after I moved back from Arizona, I realized that the only person who’s been on the board who had public K-12 experience was a guy by the name Doctor Tim Stevenson. And he was up for re-election but had decided not to run, so I said, “the board needs someone who knows what it’s like to be in school.” To be in those classrooms, to be in those hallways. To have that impact to know what the impact of board decisions are on the teachers and therefore the kids since it protects them. So I threw my hat in the ring in ‘14. And I had just moved back like I said after seven years out of the state so no one knew who I was even though I lived here since ‘82, and I still got 11,500 votes. So then in ‘16 I was really satisfied with two people who were running and I said “Well, if I run and they have the same philosophy as I do, and there were only two seats up in ‘16, then it would diversify the vote to a point where I would endanger them,” so I didn’t run in ‘16. And I’ve been going to every board meeting since 2014 and I’ve been following all the issues and I really feel that the issues are such that the direction of this election is very very important and I felt that I had to get in. And as I write on the pin that I normally wear, I didn’t wear it today cause you’re not supposed to campaign on campus, “It’s about the kids.” and I thought that in these arguments that we’ve been having, we’ve kinda been leaving you guys out of it. And I thought let’s go back to focusing on programs, I think you heard my comments Tuesday night, I said, “well let’s get some social-emotional programs in, let’s do things that benefit the kids instead of arguing about limiting what we do for the kids.”

What are your views on high school journalism programs and would you make any changes?

As I said I’ve been following the issues for four years so, of course, you know the history of your own paper and I believe unless you are endangering other people, and that may be what the other side was thinking of, and I wouldn’t want you to write an article about hating this group or that group, but I believe in the freedom of journalists to have journalistic freedom. I totally believe in the rights of the Prowler, and the Lancer and the Arrow, where you have those rights.

How do you feel about using technology in the classroom setting?

I was at a middle school in Arizona when I was a counselor there and they had a great blended learning program. I mean they had such a program where teachers would ask questions and instead of raising their hands… And I think that we have to move on, I mean one of my real planks on my platform in ’14 was to make sure everybody had the sufficient technology to carry on modern education and also to prepare you for your next step.

So California just voted to ban school from starting before 8:30, what is your opinion on this and how would you implement it in schools?

It’s going to be doable and it’s something I totally believe in, I was actually thinking for the high school 9 o’clock, but 8:30 is certainly an improvement instead of 6:45 or whatever 0 period is. There were times as a teacher that I wasn’t ready for my first period class because I was kind of sleepy and I recognized that some of my kids weren’t ready. You know they were not alert and you know you all come in from this practice or that practice or this event or that event, or those of you who are fortunate enough to cover our board meetings until 11 o’clock, you’re not ready for school in the morning. I’m not making a generalization about the teen brain, but I just think it makes it better that you can better use your time by actually being awake for the first class instead of sleeping through it.

How do you feel about the vote 17 proposition and student involvement in board policy, board position, board elections?

Particularly school board elections, I am so pro. I think that more kids at a younger age should have an influence on the school board elections. As I said, it’s about the kids. During 1992 President Bush said “read my lips” well I go around saying “read my pin.” Well, you mentioned for local elections. I feel kids should have the right in local elections, whether it be school board, which I think is directly obviously pertaining to (17-year-olds), but City Council, which also, of course, pertains to (17-year-olds) . It affects you guys, so I think you should have the right to vote on it. And I will tell you what, and present company emphasized, I am so proud of all of the high school students who showed how much aware they are of issues over the past two years and how eloquently you speak and how passionately you speak. And if anybody has any doubt about whether 17-year-olds and 18-year-olds are eligible to know what’s going on, let them watch you guys, particularly you (looks at Maya), at a board meeting. You guys have shown that you know what you’re doing. And so, yes, I think (17-year-olds) deserve to vote, not just speak on it so that other people can vote, but I think (17-year-olds) deserve to have a control over what controls (them).

Who do you think has the highest jurisdiction when dealing with student rights and curriculum is that students, parents, teachers, board members, etc., anyone else?

There’s a Latin phrase, it was brought up and used even this past Tuesday night, it’s called “locus parentis.” It’s an Italian phrase and what it means is, when kids are at school, the school has responsibility. As far as the issue, you know, the elephant in the room issue, teachers have been trained to look at a standard and figure out how to weave a curriculum around that standard so they can teach it to you. It’s the teacher who knows “well, for this standard I’m going to use this textbook first semester, and I’m going to use this textbook second semester, to reaffirm what I taught first semester, to bring it up again.” Anyway, teachers have been trained to do that, schools have been trained to know what it’s like. I mean, as a counselor, I would have parents that they would come in and say “oh my kid would never do that.” But we would be kind of watching the kids do it. So I think kids do tend to act differently at school than they may at home in front of their parents. Now that doesn’t negate the fact that I believe in parent rights for their own individual children. I definitely feel that a parent has the right, that if they find that something in a curriculum is offensive, that they can pull their particular individual student. But, as I sure you’re learning in your American government classes and your civics classes, with rights come responsibilities. So I’d say before you contradict the school curriculum and opt to pull your child out, you have the responsibility to totally know what you’re pulling your child out from, which means number one, reading a book that you may question, the whole book. I learned a very valuable lesson about that, during this, this event, but reading the whole book and talking to the teacher to find out how that teacher is going to present the so-called sensitive material. And I’ll tell you a story, I didn’t realize until I started thinking about this, two years ago, in June, the school board had an event, we were having the so-called groundbreaking for the Conejo Valley High School. And that was like at 4 o’clock. And so we were there at the groundbreaking, very pomp and circumstance ceremony. And then we had a board meeting at six. And one of the people that I campaigned to, I went by knocking on his door, he said: “Bill, come out here, let me show you this book.” And he shows me one page of the book. And it was I mean, I’ll be honest, it was graphic. It was a graphic description of sex, and taken out of context, it was very graphic. And I said, “well, you know, yeah, that’s pretty graphic, I’d have to read about.” Well, then I went home and I read the whole book. And the creation of the story was so beautiful that when in the book in the context, I get back to that page, I was halfway through the page when I realized this was the page that this person had brought me to, because it just didn’t seem the same reading a graphic description, out of context from in context. So that’s why I say, you have to have the responsibility of reading the whole book and find out where it is. But in answer to curriculum and discipline and stuff like that, I think when you’re at school, the school has that, when you’re at home, and your parents, they want to pull out a book then with those responsibilities that I mentioned, they have that.

Students are worried that their extracurriculars are being underfunded. How would you address this issue?                             

It is tough issue. I would make sure that we have what I fear is that when students feel their extracurriculars are under, underfunded, what that usually means. I mean many people here in the Conejo we have a diverse socioeconomic climate. We have people that can afford to pay extra for their extracurriculars on their own and we have people that can’t I certainly don’t want that to discriminate between who can participate, who can’t. So again, it’s about the kids. Somebody asked me about yesterday, I’m at where I would look for funding and I look at, I say this and I hope it doesn’t come off insultingly. I look at the students as like the rock and upon the stone being thrown in a pond those concentric circles. The one closest to the stone that’s the most important. That’s the ones closest to the kids. So I would make sure that all activities, whether it be curricular or co-curricular, extracurricular, are funded enough that every student can be participating. If we have to cut something, you know, three or four waves away from the stone, then we’ll cut that. We’ll look for things that don’t directly pertain to the kids. I hope I answered your question.

As a candidate endorsed by the UACT, what do you bring to the table that the teachers union favors over the other candidates. And how will you keep an impartial opinion when passing a budget that includes teachers salaries?

You know, as I first of all what I bring in, I think the reason they endorsed me is the fact that I have 38 years of experience in the public schools both as a teacher and a counselor. And I’ve worked not only that, but through those positions I’ve worked. I mean, I at different times I’ve had cafeteria duties, but I’ve slopped mashed potatoes on your plate. So I had the experience in the schools when it comes to partiality, talking about those ripples again, the students have first jokes, but because teachers work with the students, they’re going to be, we’re going to look for every possible way to give them increased when they came. And what I’m going to do to be able to give them increased when, when we can, is look for those outer ripples, those outer expenses that we have and say, you know, I think we can cut this, but we had an expense, uh, on the board meeting two weeks ago that I just feel did not directly pertain to kids. And yeah, it was, it was $15,000 in our budget is $196 million dollars, 15 out of $196 million is like a spit in the bucket. But those things add up and that 15,000 could have bought another class of laptops. I mean, it could have been used for something directly pertaining to kids. But in answer to your question, yes. Teachers, our teachers work with you and art and I want, I want to make Conejo Valley Unified School District. The what I thought we were when my kids went here and I literally say here when my kids went here, I thought we were the jewel of the east county. And I think now people look at some of the things we’ve been doing and yes, the, the realtor is still rank us because they just go by test scores and, and because of you people are test scores are good. So we’re still ranked high, but I want to make other people look at the events that have happened over the last two years and they say, you know, that’s, that’s not a well oiled machine that’s working well, smoothly together. And I’d rather go to Oak Park or Las Virgenes or you know, and I want us to have the reputation or the jewel of east valley or excuse me east county that we’re the best school district here. And to do that we have to have the best teachers. And to get the best teachers we have to offer remuneration, we have to offer the best bank. So yeah, that’s going to be a high priority. And I think, you know, they saw that I believe in that. And they saw, you know, I believe it’s not a chicken and egg situation, they saw, I believed in that because that’s just my basic values. It’s not, I believe in that because I wanted their endorsement. I certainly value it, but I didn’t make, I don’t make my decisions to get an endorsement. I make my decisions based on what’s best for the kids. And I think great teachers are best for great students.

In your opinion, what has the school board done well and what have they done poorly?

The fact, and I spoke on this Tuesday night, the fact that they added an l cap for this year on social and emotional learning abilities I think was a wonderful thing. They did a, I think that was great. And that’s going to be an area, an area that I’m going to as a former counselor. Yes, I’m biased. I believe social, emotional is the most important thing. So the fact that they did that is what I will say that they did the best. As far as the areas that I think that our reputation has gone down based on their actions has been all this little fighting and in fighting and arguing and people, when I was canvassing at the park for the concert, the concert in the park on Monday, and obviously to those parts we can have good music. And so we get people from Simi and Camarillo and we get. And I say ran for school board. I said, well, you know, what are you gonna do about this book thing? Are you going to go back to the fifties? That was an area that I feel is a real negative thing for the family. And I think we have to get past that. We, we should have been passed that this week and yet it came up again. They voted two weeks ago. It came up again. I think that this whole discussion about limiting what books you as a class, not you as individuals but you as a class can read I think has set us back a long way as far as our reputation and the thing that worries me. Somebody even made fun of me today in an article in the paper because what I said was people don’t distinguish between the Conejo Valley Unified School District and Conejo Valley. So when they say, ‘oh that’s Conejo Valley,’ they’re really doing crazy stuff. I was going to use a cruder term but they said not to but they are really doing crazy stuff and the people that live in the Conejo Valley it still sounds like the Conejo Valley is doing crazy stuff. So what happens is that people from the outside, and we’ve had examples of this, people from the outside, one of to move here and want to go to firms around here when I get jobs right here and they say, well, what, what, what do you know about, about the area? And people played tapes and they print are they, are they show them articles from the Acorn and things like that. About all this bickering and like maybe I’ll try Agoura, maybe I’ll try Oak Park. Well that affects property values and because the reputation of Conejo Valley School District affects the reputation of Conejo Valley in general. So I think that’s what they’ve done wrong is all the divisiveness, all the arguing, all the not listening to people’s opinions.  

Let me just ask one more question. What are the measure I funds be used for it? Should it be for the modernization of school environments such as the new ac system here at to? Or would you rather see cows or computers on wheels distributed throughout the district?

Say that last part again.

Would you rather see cows or computers on wheels distributed throughout schools in the district?

Oh, okay. Nevermind. Okay. I was wondering about distributing cows around the district. It’s a matter the air conditioning units in most cases I would say because I was on the bond committee and I know the difference between maintenance of old stuff and redoing is what determines whether it’s going to come from the district general fund or the district, the I bond fund. The schools, particularly this one, Newbury Park, you just had your 50th anniversary last fall. When you have to do new air conditioning, it’s not just a matter of maintaining and rebuilding, you’re going to have to do new air conditioning to make it fit. You’d have to do, you had to do a new pool. I think that those kind of things generally affect students’ safety. But yes, it’s a hard question. It’s hard because it’s not dichotomous answer. It’s not one or the other. We have to do a little bit of both. When I ran in ’14, my main platform was making sure our technology was up to date. I would rather do away with, um, do away with textbooks, make sure we have enough, a facility for technology so that we can learn by to buy, buy on the internet. But that means having enough technological power and having enough computers to go around.

Cindy Goldberg

If you had been on the school board last year, what would you have done differently?

Where do you want me to start? Last year was a really interesting year.  I’ve been going to school board meetings, I’ve been to almost every school board meeting since 2007.  Over the past few years, they’ve sort of devolved a little bit, and last year was the first time I think I have ever seen such divisiveness that was, in my head, manufactured because if you ask any parent on any campus, parents love their teachers, for the most part, but to have everyone unanimously agree that yes it’s a good idea to codify a practice and then to agree that here’s the process for that codification which really should have been taken care of in the administrative rights.o that just says, here’s the policy that already exists, here’s our practice, here’s how we implement that policy, here are the guidelines. So a guideline for an alternative assignment, a more robust alternative assignment that doesn’t call out any, make any student feel bad for wanting to or having to avail themselves of that opportunity.  So, they put in a procedure, right, to get to that point, to get to a better policy, so they call in the experts – they call in teachers, administrators, board members who have invested interests so that it’s in-line with what they’re thinking. And they move forward. Well, then it fell apart because people started chanting, “let parents parent” and “let teachers teach.” Well, everybody wanted the same thing – everybody wanted parents to be able to see the books, to have a great thing for their kids. It just didn’t happen. In my world, I work with people from all over the district – kids, administrators, parents – and everybody really wants the same thing, but if they don’t listen to each other, they’re not going to get to the same thing, so discounting voices never works well, and that’s sort of what happened. I’m not a fan … If you have a procedure, you should follow the procedure.  If you need to change it, then everybody should come to an agreement about changing the ground rules. So, I just think from start to finish – and once you have your win, then don’t keep hammering people who already feel bad and disenfranchising, truthfully, the greatest shame of all of it is the disenfranchisement and the devaluation of the teachers who really, some of them are better at it than others, but all of them really want what’s best for their students

What is your opinion on the book policy 6161.1? What is your opinion about how it was passed and how it was implemented?

So, again, there was no consensus.  Everybody agreed to the ground rules and then they went out the window.  My opinion of the policy is that moving forward, it’s untenable. You cannot bring forward a new book because the way it’s crafted, there’s asterisk that don’t exist anymore so you can can have a brand new book that somebody brings forward that they think kids would love. So, how are you going to work that into the committee? And if you’re going to call it a parents committee, then make sure that the people on it are parents.  Quite frankly, we can discuss it, that’s a whole other topic of whether or not, of how representatives, I don’t think parents voices should ever be discounted. I’m the chairperson of the district advisory council – that is the parent group and it gives parents voices. I am all about more voices, not less. But, if it’s a parent committee, then have a parent on it. Don’t just say somebody who lives here and I know who I want … It just doesn’t make sense to me.  

What role do you think parents should play in their child’s education and in choosing the curriculum?

I have three sons.  And every year, I have to sign a syllabus that says, “Here are the books that my children are going to read.”  I happen to be a parent who thinks they should be able to read whatever and we can have a discussion. If in my family I don’t like certain topics or certain language or certain whatever, then I would use that as a teaching moment for my family and sort of review the values that we have.  But, in a classroom setting, you do live in a broader society so navigating those avenues with somebody that’s trained to help you sort of expand, you learn a lot of literature. I’m a big English – the biggest fight I ever got into with my son was he told me english wasn’t important. Now, granted, he was about four and really liked science.  But, I really couldn’t look at him for awhile because I think that being able to communicate and being able to learn through books, that’s just powerful, so I think parents have a role when their own child’s curriculum – curriculum is set by the state with teachers crafting it – should a parent be able to, if you’re having a curriculum committee, should there be a parent of two on there? I think that’s a good idea.  But, that would be to inform the educators about how that might hit a parent because I work with a lot of teachers and administrators. And a funny thing happens when you’re in a meeting with them. Sometimes they forget that they’re parents, so I will, I’ve had this conversation with a number of them, said “okay wait a second, take your teacher hat off and put on your dad hat or put on your mom hat, now how does it hit you?”  And they’re like “oh yeah, maybe we should redo it, maybe we should come at it differently.” It’s just a reframe cause they may come to decision, and they’re just gonna put it in a different context and do it in a way that’s better for kids which is really the ultimate and only goal and for teachers because they have to be able to manage the workload.

Apart from the book policy, what other issues do you think are most important in this election and what are your stances on them?

The most important issues in this election, I think, are rebuilding the trust and the communication between all stakeholders.  I think we are woefully broken. Morale in the, amongst – once we hit the kid level, that’s when I sort of got involved. You could see the trickle down.  You know, morale was bad for a while, then it got really bad, and then, it started affecting the teachers which affects kids in the classroom. So, I think we need to rebuild that public trust in our schools.  We used to be known far and wide as a model for other districts. Now, I have friends that work in Monte Vista in Maintenance, in Pow– in technology, and they’ll call and go, “What the heck is going on in the Conejo?”  Because, we’ve made national news, not for any great thing that we’re doing, cause really, some of the stuff that we’re doing – I mean, you guys are all part of award winning programs, around you, art, music, athletics, educational opportunities, programs like you know Westlake High School, your cadaver program – there’s only one in the country! Why are we not talking about that? Why are we not celebrating that? Why are we not getting more things like it to draw people in, shouting our successes? Admit we have some issues, but I think we need to rebuild that trust and open communication because nobody talks to each other, they’re all afraid, and that part is so sad.

Are there any new programs that you’d like to see added to the school system?

You mean brand new that have never been done, or beefed up?  Like here at Thousand Oaks High School, we have the lunch bunch peer mentor program.  I think that piece could be expanded and actually brought to all the high schools because it really focuses on social and emotional well-being of kids.  The BreakThrough program – I don’t know if you guys are aware of it, okay, if I say BreakThrough, does that mean anything to anyone – So, BreakThrough started off as a way to mitigate suspensions or expulsions for drugs, violence or smoking, right?  It’s a holistic approach to get kids and families the tools that they need to be successful because usually those things aren’t – they don’t exist in an island, there’s a reason why those things are happening, right. So, you go through the BreakThrough program, and it used to be mandatory, right, you got referred and then your suspension was expunged.  It’s morphed to kids who are in crisis, kids who just are overwhelmed for all kinds of reasons. You can go, you can self-refer, your parents can self-refer and you go through the BreakThrough thing, and they are, they do phenomenal work, and they have a counselor who will just come in and check on you. And one of the things we do with the Foundation is we got, we piloted another, they had one and a half counselors which was not enough because with the amount of vaping that’s going on, they could have spent, you know, their entire time dealing with vapes and there’s way bigger issues than vaping, I mean in terms of real crisis…

What experiences do you think would make you a valuable school board candidate?

I can say that I can bring an experience to this that no one else has. I have been an active parent, I am probably am that one parent where you would go ‘mom don’t do that,’ my son has probably done that a number of times. I am the chairperson for the District Advisory Council, and I help foster parent voices. With Conejo Schools Foundation, I help build bridges… One thing that is often said about me is that I have an ability to sort of calm a room down, have everybody feel valued and respected, and I think everybody deserves that, and then to build a consensus that weaves everyone’s ideas together, and they all feel like it is their idea. That’s huge. I don’t think of it as a skill, because it is just something I have always done, but I think that our board needs some of that. I don’t bring an “us and them” mentality, I just bring “us.” People joke, because I say “there is you in CVUSD,” and we forget that, and I think it is important. I don’t mean that everybody has to do the exact same thing, but it doesn’t mean we are all individuals. Yes, we are all individuals, but we are all part of a larger group, and I think that that perspective and always, always keeping students first, that’s a, I have a proven track record of just saying, “is that good for kids?” And if the answer is no, I am out. Every school board candidate is going to tell you that they are kids first, and I would hope so because this is not something anyone should do if they don’t think that that is important. But I can say I have a proven track record of doing that, and if you want to know what I’ll do, look at what I have done. And I only want to go, I just, someone said to me ‘what took you so long, it is just the logical extension of everything you do, all day every day,’ and for me, it’s never been about me, and even this is not about me, it’s about you, and it’s about your teachers, and it’s about the levels in this organization that support you… all of the 18,000+ kids out there… It’s the momma bear thing.

We talked about being on the cutting edge of education, do you think technology would be a part of that? So do you support technology in the classroom?

So, that is a trick question, because how much technology is too much technology? Are you just having a device because it’s cool, but it doesn’t further the lesson, or the connected nature? And then, how much screen time is too much screen time? A question we have asked forever, and you guys will probably say, ‘oh there is no such thing as too much screen time,’ and some parents are going to go ‘five minutes is too much.’ But somewhere in the middle, but yes, technology absolutely has to play a role, but it is not the only thing that makes something cutting edge. Like, for example, I am going to go back to Thousand Oaks High School, only because I know it best in terms of some of their programs. The Ethos program is an entrepreneurial program, so some of it is we made lip gloss that could be carried a different way, and actually it was pretty cool when they got it done, but that’s a cutting edge program, because that allowed kids to do things differently and experience the learning, connect with it, and make it relevant. That to me is cutting edge. Making it relevant. You don’t need to know, people are going to kill me for this, you don’t necessarily need to know all of the details of the battle of Hastings, because that is what your best friend Google is for, but you need to know how to use that information, and you need to know what sites are actual sources and which sites are just not as credible. So, those are skills, those are cutting edge skills that are going to make you competitive in the global market. Because it is increasingly huge and and small all at once.

On another note, what are your views on high school journalism programs and would you change anything to them?

So first of all, I am going to say something I told Mrs. Bodewin earlier today, which is, and I have told Saremi, and I just met (the Arrow) advisor today, so I haven’t had this conversation, I think some of the best reporting that has come out of the Conejo Valley, including our little beloved Acorn, is you guys. You’re on it, and you’re there, and I would have to ask you more about your programs, how they run and how you see them, but I think letting you do and learn is spectacular, it is the First Amendment in action. It’s amazing and I always know that when you guys are going to put out an article, I go and read, I’ll put it up on Facebook, I Twitter it, all of those old people things, because I don’t do Instagram, because I’m not a picture person, you can tell because in 15 years of doing stuff in schools, there are no pictures of me doing anything, because I am the picture taker not the picture object, but I would have to know more about your programs to know what I would change, because really I think that would need to be driven by you, with certain constraints, given that you are in a school setting and we can get into the whole thing of why you had some changes, that whole thing is just…but I think…

So California just voted to ban school from starting before 8:30, what is your opinion on this and how would you implement it in schools?

Well, if it becomes a law, I would say that it goes along with a lot of the research that has been done, and from personal experience, you guys are going to stay up until whenever you stay up anyways, doing homework or whatever, so to start time a half an hour later is good. I think it throws a huge cog in the wheel for working parents, that said, they are going to make their kids get up anyways so, you’d have to probably stagger start time, just like we do now. It’s a whole butterfly effect of things that have to happen. I’m not sure it will get passed. Do I think starting later is a good idea, yeah, it’s brutal. My youngest has a 7 a.m. class, that whole A period thing, and my older two did it at various points. I am not a fan because I have to get up too, but when you guys have to go to school in the dark, and then you are there until all hours, then it is just not good, it’s not fair. And it is proven that sleep is your best weapon to a successful day and a successful life, so if you can sleep a little more, that would be fantastic.

How will you bring unity among different personalities in the school district?

Well, you start by bringing them together and having them get to know each other as people, and having them actually have conversations. So sometimes it will be on a campus even, and this department is doing something really cool that that department could really benefit from, they don’t talk to each other, and I’m just like, have you met that person? Those connections and encouraging dialogue is huge. Systemically bringing people in and having them feel valued, instead of making a decision from the top, making a decision that’s an informed decision where stakeholders can all have some piece of it so they all take ownership, and not pit people against each other. There is a lot of great things at Newbury Park High School. There is a lot of great things at Westlake High School. That doesn’t mean you can’t have some friendly rivalry, but you have to remember that there is a friendly rivalry, the friendly part is what gets missing. I mean, on the football field you guys are going to knock each other over and stuff, but in real life, that doesn’t serve anybody well, that hammer. I just say, how I do it, I don’t know how I do what I do, I just do it. It seems to me my board, the Foundation Board, is made up of very very strong-willed individual people who all are alphas, and yet they all work really well together, because they have learned how to communicate, and I think that piece is huge. Communication is always the key. And not ascribing motives to other people that are bad. Don’t assume that someone is coming at you because they want to steal all of your, you know Westlake is going to do this, oh because they want to take all of our kids. No, they want to offer a good program. So, building understanding, and actually being aware of what is going on. Do we share information? A great example, people learn from each other like ‘oh that is a really good idea, we’re not going to do it the same way, but we can do it here differently so it fits our culture and our campus.’ But it makes you stronger, it makes you stronger and you know, go with the commonalities.

How do you feel about the Vote 17 proposition that would allow more high schoolers to participate in local elections?

I’d be curious to know if they would actually vote. But, I don’t have any problem with 17-year-olds, you can drive, and functionally, the difference between 17 and 18 you are sort of, everyone is maturing at a faster rate than they used to… If you look at pictures of my parents, they were really old when they were your age. I think that an informed 17-year-old is as informed as an informed 18-year-old. I’m not sure if (voting) would change if people would actually get out and vote, but this season, I think it would change a lot. I think it would be a game changer. Could that be sustainable? Maybe. Maybe if the example is set that you start when you are your age, like those Parkland kids, they are spectacular. When kids come and speak at school board meetings, they are the best speakers and the most powerful advocates, and I’m not just saying that because I am in a room full of kids, it’s true, and you can ask around, I say it all of the time, they are the best spoken, they make the best points and the best arguments for why a vote should happen one way or another.

Who do you think should have the highest jurisdiction over student rights and the curriculum, the final say?

By law, the school board adopts, the school board approves the curriculum that the teachers have vetted and done. That’s the law, so they have the ultimate say, but I think without everybody’s input, I don’t believe the school board has the right. It is not their job to create the curriculum, it’s just not. I can want to, but that doesn’t make it right. The curriculum should be crafted by the teachers with the informed, being informed by how it worked in the classroom because they know what the goal is, they know what they need to teach you, how it is it going to best benefit you, to get you your best self.

Jenny Fitzgerald

Why are you running to be a board member and what experiences do you think have prepared you to be a board member?

I’m running to be a board member because we have two kids currently in our school district, we have a fourth grader and a sixth grader, and to be honest, as a parent I’m really tired of watching the divisiveness that’s been created in our community and the time that’s been wasted on that and furthering that divisiveness and environment of fear instead of on real issues that are impacting our students and our schools that need to be worked on. I think I have the skills to bring to the board that will enable us to actually make some positive improvements in our school district. So, I guess my background starts back in college, I served as the student trustee on the Contra Costa Community College board up in Northern California, where I’m from, and that gave me really good experience with educational policy and learning to listen to students and teachers and concerns from people that were in that community college district. I’ve interned in the local office and in the capital office for two state representatives. That gave me a lot of experience working with constituents and undressing their concerns even with constituents that disagreed with the member that I was working for. And I have a background, I’m an attorney, and for me, that means that i can bring skills to the board such as negotiating, forging consensus between opposing viewpoints, which i think would really benefit us on the current board, and advocating. I think we need someone on the board that can effectively advocate for our students and our schools, not just locally, but also at the state level because a lot of the decisions our public schools in California are made at the state level. And then, as I mentioned, being a parent, I’m on the frontline of issues that are currently happening in our schools and our kids are going to be in our districts schools for a number of years to come, so I think that gives me a good perspective on what’s going on.

So often kids exit high school, or pass the last election time come of age to vote, how do you feel about the Vote 17 Act passed in Berkeley that allows 17 year olds to vote in local elections?

So we were actually having this convo with our kids because you know in running for office, our kids are involved a lot with what’s going on, they come to a lot of things so they ask a lot of questions and one of their questions was, if you only have to be 16 to drive, why do you have to be older than that to vote? And for me, you know, I’ve heard the arguments that your frontal cortices aren’t fully developed until your an adult and those arguments that people have. But Local elections uniquely impact youth in ways that national and state elections don’t. For me, I think it’s important for our youth to be able to have a say in what’s going on and voting is an important way to do that. I also think it’s important to get students registered and to teach them the importance of voting when they go off to college and haven’t hit that voting age yet.

Who do you think should have the highest jurisdiction when dealing with policy relating to students, should it be the teachers, administrators, school board, the students themselves, parents?

It shouldn’t be a hierarchical system, the board’s job is to work with all stakeholders. Students have an obviously really important perspective, teachers actually implementing the policies the board passes have a crucial perspective, parents have concerns that they should be able to express and provide their input. So for me, it is striving to have more of a positive environment where all of those different stakeholders feel like they can speak up without fear and knowing that their concerns and views are taken seriously.

What are your views on high school publications and is there anything you would change about them?

So, I love high school publications, I was on the student newspaper for my high school for one year, so I wasn’t one of the, I wasn’t an editor or anything like that, but I got exposure to the students, asking questions and investigating things, and for me, students have the best perspective about what’s going on with students. If you want to know what’s happening with students, you need to ask students. So I think that they play a really vital role in our schools and if I had to change anything about it, it would honestly be that they are given more respect for what they do. I think sometimes what happens with anything involving students is there’s a tendency from people who are done with school to look at them kind of look down upon them, or not give them the look that they deserve.

Our school has been getting more and more Chromebooks every year, how do you feel about technology in the classroom setting?

So I am a fan of technology in the classroom setting. When I was in law school, this is going to age me but, when I was in law school, it was the transition of students taking notes on paper to taking notes on laptops and people taking the state bar on laptops and they were still crashing all the time and then so there was all of that. So just sort of came into that in law school that whole technology phase, but having kids, our children are growing up in a completely different world, where technology is a part of our daily life and we have to make sure that our students are prepared to be able to keep up in a world that is constantly, on a daily basis, evolving in terms of technology. That doesn’t mean that we should let go of also teaching and instilling habits of being able to carry on a conversation in person with somebody and being able to write your thoughts down and communicate your thoughts verbally, but we do have to make sure that we are keeping up with technology in the classroom.

California just voted to ban schools from starting before 8:30. How do you feel about this and how do you implement it into our district?

I believe that it should have been left up to local areas to determine what was best for them. California is a huge state and each area in our state has different needs based on its population. I’m a working parent and our kids have gone to morning and afternoon childcare at times and we’re lucky we have that. There are families in situations that aren’t as fortunate as ours, who an 8:30 start time is really difficult if you’re a working parent, and even if you’re not a working parent. You have other things going on in your life, that could be a difficult situation. I also think, with as much as we are expecting of our students, particularly in high school as they’re getting ready for college, that time frame can really impede that progress, so for our district, I think we’ll have to take a close look, but most importantly is talking with stakeholders in our district. So, that’s going to include students and teachers on the best way to implement that policy.

So student health is newly addressed, since mental health is still stigmatized, how would you promote a healthy lifestyle both physically and mentally for students?

So the first thing is, well on the physical side, I think we are so lucky in our district because we have a lot of funding that comes from parents and from local businesses, and while there are discrepancies in most schools in our district we are able to support things like physical education. For me though there needs to be a huge focus on the mental health side, it starts with destigmatizing mental health. We need to be able to talk about it like we would as if someone broke their ankle, right? I mean that’s what this is, we need students to be able to know that it’s normal, that many people experience it, from childhood through adulthood, and know that it’s okay to ask for help. And then we have to be able to back that up. We have to be able to provide that help. And right now in our district in our counselor to student ratio is just not workable for that. students have to go outside of school oftentimes to get the mental health help that they need which makes it, in my opinion, less likely that it’s going to happen whether it’s just logistically, financially, all of those are important factors and we need to make it as easy as possible for students to access those services. And as adults, we need to talk about it, when there are issues, we need to not push them under the rug. I’ve seen over this past year there have been students from our area and adults from our area that have written articles about their own mental health struggle and I think that’s so important because it reaches people and tells you that it is okay to feel that way and you can get help and feel better.

There is a disconnect between community and board, how would you facilitate better communication?

I think as board members, your job is to represent the community, not just a particular subset that agrees with you. And first and foremost, the biggest change that has to happen is simply in conducting yourself in a respectful manner and let people know that it’s a safe space to talk about their concerns and opinions. Not everyone is going to agree with the policy that gets passed it’s just not realistic, but when you involve the people in the community in that policy and you kind of worked things through to the best you can, there’s less anger and resentment when that policy gets passed.

If you had been on the school board last year, what would you have done differently?

So that one is pretty easy for me. I think that when the literature policy came up, and you had a group of teachers that were willing to sit down and devise a formalized policy to address the concerns of parents in our district who wanted their children to have a formal option to opt out for whatever reason— I don’t really think there’s that many people that disagreed that there could be really legitimate reasons that someone might want their child to opt out of a particular book— but that would have been the approach, right? You would have taken those concerns, you would have sat down with those teachers, and figure out a policy that would work in the classroom for them and for the rest of their students.  And I would have not written the policy on my own, not (?) the job of school board members [Chuckles] I mean, it’s true, it’s not the job of school board members to write the policy on their own. I would have made sure that before it was passed, it didn’t contain errors in it. I would have made sure that before it was passed, we had a fully functioning plan to implement that policy, and I think honestly, had that process been followed we wouldn’t have had many of the very long and contentious school board meetings that we had.

So you talked a lot about the achievement gap, so what specifically would you do to address students whose needs aren’t being met, such as special needs kids, ESL students or underrepresented groups in school?

For the English learners, I think the programs that are starting to be implemented at the elementary school level such as English lessons for parents, there’s also some new technology use at the elementary level, for English learners— and it’s been shown that the school that’s using those programs has drastically decreased the achievement gap. So something right is going on there, that I think we can apply to other schools. We have a child with special needs, so that hits close to home, and it worries me that our child’s getting older, school  gets more difficult, and that gap grows. And it’s one of the main concerns that I hear from parents, even when I’m canvassing and going door to door, that issue of what are we doing to address the needs of our students that have special needs, comes up on a very regular basis. So I think we need to look at ways we can prioritize funding and also that’s why Im talking about advocating at the state level for funding, because that’s where it all trickles down so that we can find ways to diagnose children earlier and provide the necessary services in school on campus during regular school hours. Because what’s happening is our resources are so thin that many students who have those needs don’t get diagnosed till a much later date, and you’ve kind of missed a realy  prime opportunity to help them and when they are diagnosed it sometimes takes parents going outside the district to pay out of pocket for that diagnosis, and then also having to go outside the district to get the services they need to help them. That’s logistically difficult for many families and financially really difficult for many families. So I think that’s one of the main things we can do but it does all come back to funding.

So what role do think parents should play in determining their child’s education and in what ways should they be involved with the board and community?

So as a parent, I support parental involvement. As parents, that’s part of our job, we should be involved in our kids lives, We want to know what’s going on with them when they’re in school and outside of school. So when parents say they want to read what their kids are reading in class, that’s fantastic because you can talk to kids about what they’re learning after and that helps them grow and develop. SO I think we should support that type of involvement as much as we can. There’s a difference between that and directing policy. So parents should be able to come to the board with a problem, they should be able to ask the board to address that problem and they can even be a part of coming up with the solution. But it’s never to the detriment to another group of parents, or should never be to the detriment of another group of parents and it should never be in a silo. it should be, again, a collaborative effort with teachers and district staff and other people that have a stake in whatever that policy is.

What other issues that haven’t been brought up do you think are really important in this election and what are your stances on them?

So one of the big issues that we haven’t talked about is transparency. To me it’s really important that as community members, we can trust what our board members are doing. When we have funds being spent without other board members knowing, against board policy, that’s not good. When we have policy being made and violations of the open meeting act because we’re not handing out changes to policy to our community members, that’s not good. And when we don’t have transparency, to me, that signals that something is wrong and we’re trying to hide something, and that grows distrust within our community, which leads to a very unproductive environment. So that’s one (of the issues.)

I think we hit on all the bigs topics that at least I’m running on. Wait, can I add one more? Students. So, to me, that is an area that we haven’t tapped into enough. And one of the issues that I looked into was student representation on our school board.  I know that we have student reporters come. I was to curious as to why we don’t have a student member, at least one that is an advisory vote. When I was on the community college board, we had at least an advisory vote, and we were part of everything that went on on the board. I did look into it a little bit. I guess in California they passed a law that allows students to petition for a board member seat with an advisory vote. I believe LAUSD did that a year ago or so, and that’s something I’d like to see in our district because we need that perspective. I love student reports, they’re one of the highlights of school board meetings, but we need a student on the board who is giving their perspective and who is reporting back on how students are feeling about the issues that the board is addressing. So that’s something that I would encourage students to look at because it’s there. The board actually just talked about the policy at the last meeting. You have to get a certain number of signatures and then the board should approve it, and I think that would be a really good positive step in the right direction of us taking account of what are issues for our students and how they feel about things the board is addressing.

Patrissha Rose Booker

Summarize why you’re running for school board and what experiences have prepared you for this position.

First of all, I have three degrees: one in sociology a B.A. in sociology, a B.A in social science and a Master’s in organizational management which I think would be very good on the school board to facilitate and mediate. I’m running because i know there are a lot of voiceless people in the community and I’m running because I know there are at risk youth in the community and I’m running because I think there should be unity on the school board and I think I can bring that because I can get along with everybody. I’m friends with the most conservative Republicans and we have our differences, but I can sit down and have a conversation with them. I think that’s why I’m running, so the focus can be brought back to the students. I think all the devices and the grownups sitting and arguing are ridiculous– it’s not about them it’s about the students. If I accomplish that then I won’t ever run again. If I can accomplish unity that’s very important to me.

I attended many board meetings, noticed public comments are overlooked. How would you facilitate a bond between board and community so it’s more of a communal decision-making process?

That’s a good question. Like I said I’m about bringing people together. I would talk to every board member. I would say, “Look this is not about you, it’s about the community.” Because that happens at the city council to, the public comments are just dismissed and the way to (address this) is just to keep speaking out and that’s what I’ll do. I don’t have any problem going to the city council and if you can speak at the public comments at city council, you can speak about anything. If I had to, I would embarrass the school board. I would go the city council and say, “Look this is going on,” because the community needs to work together as a whole, from the lowest to the highest elected officials. Some of the elected officials, they back away and don’t want to get involved because there are higher officials and I think that’s wrong and that’s when I would talk to them and say you need to come in to the school board, you need to state your opinions. That’s when I think we can have change because in the community we have to work as a whole. That’s what I’m about and I have talked to several of the (elected officials): Henry Stern, Jacqui Irwin. I go in if I have a problem. I know some of them get sick of me, but I say,  “Why won’t you come?” This is what will make a difference. Who cares if they don’t like you speaking? If they think you’re in their territory. No, it has to be on the whole is what I think. They keep too much division: this is your area. No, you need to (enter into) their lane.

What are your views on high school journalism programs and would you make any changes to them?

I think they’re amazing. I was given your paper to read and I think it’s amazing. I think (the articles are) well written, more well written than some adults would write. Whatever support you’d need, I’d make sure you would get it and that’s the way all these are. I’m about the students and some people are about policy. I’m about the students.

Our school has been getting more and more Chromebooks every year, how do you feel about technology in the classroom setting?

I think there should be as much technology as possible. It’s amazing, but I think the old and the new together is the best way and that’s the way it should be.

What do you think about the IB program and do you think it should be implemented in other schools or should IB schools implement more AP classes?

I think AP classes are important because you’re getting ready to go out in the world and go to college. It’s a lot with the financial aid and student loans and there should be a way where it is easier for students to get a higher education starting in high school. I don’t know how that would be, but that would be (one) of the things I would research because there has to be change because not everybody’s going to be able to afford to go to college. Nobody wants to be drowned in student loans. I know because I am, so I think there should be other avenues even if the school district partners with some of the universities. You can even take classes to get a BA degree in high school if that’s what you want and it wouldn’t cost the student a thing.

Do you think there’s open communication between the school board and the students and if not how would you help increase it?

From what I’ve seen, there’s not much I know, there’s maybe a couple of members that try to do that, but I would host events where the teachers and administrators get up and sing karaoke dance routines, have a party and then if the students see them be real then you can interact with them on that level. When they’re at that authority level it can be intimidating. That’s what I would do.

So often kids exit high school, or pass the last election time come of age to vote, how do you feel about the Vote 17 Act passed in Berkeley that allows 17 year olds to vote in local elections?

I think they should be able to vote. From what I’ve seen from the young people, personally with the gun violence and the schools and how they’ve taken a stand, I think they should be allowed to vote. There needs to be a shift. I’m all for it.

Who do you think should have the highest jurisdiction when it comes to students rights and curriculum?

I think teachers should have the first voice and the last voice and then everything go from there. That’s just what I believe. When I was growing up I remember going to school and saying well I got a test from so and so and wish I had this because they were allowed to set the curriculum and it was different for each classroom and I think the teachers should be the first and last voice I think what’s happening with the literature is insulting to the teachers and I just don’t like it at all. When she sees your children at school you trust the teacher with your children but you’re not trusting what she’s teaching I’m talking about the school board not the parents they’re sitting here and the way the school board is it cannot be one sided like it is it’s very one-sided right now and it’s going to create a lot of problems and like I said there may be potential lawsuits in the future I was at a council meeting and a man got up and spoke at the comments. He said he was thinking about taking his family and moving out of the school district because he did not like how the school board was operating and I thought that was so eye opening. He was the first parent to say they were going to just take their family and move.

How would you promote mental and physical student health?

I think having people come in and tell their stories invite people to come in and tell their stories because it stigmatizing for me because will people will say oh your hands are shaking your hands are shaking and I’ve had a couple of friends say that I think you need people to share their stories sometimes I think students need a mentor or someone they can talk to. I was a peer adviser when I was at community college and I think that helps a girl came up to me at a booth when I was at community college and she told me I have a really bad drug problem I don’t know how to tell my parents and so I had to get the lady the head of peer program so that’s why think you have to be approachable you have people on campus who are accessible approachable if someone came to me and said I have a mental health issue I would do what I could to help them and so that they would be successful. I mean I’ve done it and I’ve done it with my own friends and it’s not a hard call for me to help somebody and convince others to help somebody I can do that too.

If you had been on the school board last year, what would you have done differently than the current school board members?

I would promote unity. I’m all about promoting unity and it seems like the school board is kind of divisive. I have taken courses in mediation. I’m just about promoting unity and I know how to talk to people and I think I can bring people together. I think you need to find common ground so you can get back to what’s important, which is the students. So I would promote unity.

What is your opinion on the Core Literature Book Policy 6161.1 and how it was passed and then how it was implemented?

I did not agree with it at all, and that was one of the reasons I decided to run. I grew up in a household that was full of literature and books of all kinds, and I think for a selected few to make a decision in the way it was done, I think it was dishonest, I think it was insulting to the teachers, I think the students should have a voice. I mean, I heard, I was watching one of the videos online where it was said the students were cut off from speaking at one of the meetings. I just disagree with it, I mean, and I definitely don’t think there should be a committee with parents picked by the school board members because you’re going to end up having bias and it’s going to create a lot of problems and it will probably end up with the school district having a lawsuit. So, yeah.

What role do you think parents should play in their child’s education, like in what way should they participate?

I think they should be participating in every way. I don’t think many parents, because I live in a low-income neighborhood. I lived in…I grew up middle class. I live in a low-income neighborhood now, Los Feliz. If you don’t know where it is, Chef Burger, 7-11, that’s what I tell everybody. Near Conejo Elementary School. And I think a lot of times parents, because, that’s why the policy was easily passed, because some of the parents, they just figure my child is not cared about, ignored, and they feel voiceless, so they figure why participate. It’s going to be so, parents, I think there should be more outreach to parents in all neighborhoods. Mr. Rogers says…people outside your neighborhood. I don’t think school board members reach outside the neighborhood to find out and talk to the parents, and I’m willing to do that because I can talk to parents from low-income families to middle class. I’ve done it, I don’t have a problem with it, so. I think there should be more outreach. Parents should be completely involved.

In your opinion, what do you think it the most important issue in the election for school board, and then what is your stance on that particular issue?

You need to find common ground, and that’s what I want to do. I want to bring people together to the table, break bread, find common ground, and common ground is even like if you like chocolate cake or a certain flavor of ice cream, and you take it from there. And that’s how you find common ground and bring back the focus, because if you don’t bring the focus back to the students, the school board is going to continue to be like it is, so it has to start with the members of the school board. You have to unite it and you have to be able to find solutions that everybody will be happy with — parents, teachers. I think the school board’s members should be mediators. I don’t think they should be changing policies. I don’t think that’s their job. I think they should mediate and facilitate and bring everybody together and listen to what everyone has to say, and I don’t think that’s being done right now.

Are there any new programs you’d like to see added to the schools during your tenure

I, um, often go to the coffee with the chief of police, and I know that he was concerned after the Hitler speech was blasted over the Newbury High School intercom. He said he would like to see if a program could be implemented where people could go to the Museum of Tolerance, students could visit the Museum of Tolerance. I’m all for promoting diversity and understanding. I mean, I went to an all-white high school in Portland, Missouri, I was visiting my father. It wasn’t the first time I lived in Missouri, but it was an all-white high school. I was terrified. I didn’t want to go. I visited my dad for five months and… I don’t want to go, so he took me up to Springfield, which was like 50 miles away, there was another school, but they wanted all these requirements and it was like starting over. So I went back to the all-white school. I made some of the best friendships that I will never ever forget, and the school’s that I went to that were diverse, I was bullied, I’ll never forget it, but at that school I wasn’t. I did not experience any racism, so my life experiences which I would bring because I think diversity and understanding is important as we move into the future because, without it, there’s going to continue to be chaos, as you can see it’s chaos in the country right now. So, that’s my thing: diversity, inclusion, understanding, eliminating bullying and focusing on mental health. My issues are mostly social, because I majored in psychology, that’s my background, that’s what I bring. I bring me. I’m true, and I bring me, that’s what I’ll bring to the school board.

Marlon Williams

So if you were on the school board last year what would you have done differently?  

Probably just make sure that all of the a papers that needed to go out to public when they were asked for was taken care of, because that was a big deal last year, other than that I couldn’t tell you what I would have done differently.

What was your take on the core literature policy 6161 and how it was passed and implemented?

It’s a big thing that students are all learning and readings and that we offer books that are assigned to read.This is about the whole thing with the asterisk? The good thing is that now we have choices, people have the choice if they would like to read a book, or the option to read another book. Again there is always a parent involvement which is great, we need more parents that are speaking their opinions, saying “hey this is not acceptable for my child; we need more options.There are things that are inappropriate in a parents view for their children, our students and our schools. As long as we have the choice to read something, then I would say go for it.

What role should parents play in choosing curriculum?

I think that the parent involvement is the core aspect of a children’s educational development. I think the children need to have their parents involved at least more. I know kids do not like their parents being involved, but there are actually a lot of benefits. If we can get more parent involvement in their children’s education then I would say let’s try to do that.

What are the most important issues this election?

I don’t know how this election works, I really don’t, but there are cases that are not age appropriate then I would say you can’t use those books. We have libraries books, and there are a lot of issues we face as a society, and I think reading about them in an educational environment that is managed by teachers is better, I don’t think there is an issue, but we also have parent involvement and if they do not think it is appropriate for their child, then its their choice.

What are some new programs you would implement?

We are facing a lot of environmental issues, that aren’t brought up. If we can add educational programs that teach students how to manage their surroundings either through recycling , properly disposing of our wastes, using alternative sources of energy that is not so impactful on the environment, I would like to see more solar use. Also students just becoming more environmentally conscious.

How have your previous experiences with running help prepare you to win?

What I have seen in the past, school board members tend to be targeted, I’m not here to be a target, I’d prefer not to be. I know what it’s like. That is one thing that I do not look forward to. The other thing is that there are a lot of people that are involved that make the district run, it’s not just the board members. You have your administrators at the schools, you have students, you have parents, you have a lot of people just making things run smoothly and as a board member I think it’s very important to listen to what people’s concerns are, especially parents and staff members. Everybody here is working together, so as a team player I think that it is crucial for everybody to work together as a team that is what I would like to add to the board.

How do you feel about the 17 Proposition in Berkeley allowing students 17 years of age to vote in local elections?

The issue is you should have a saying in local elections, everybody should.That’s what drives us countries, that we have a voice and if we can be comfortable with presenting ourselves, our voice, then we should express it. It’s our right.

What role do you think parents should play in a child’s education, specifically in the curriculum?

I think that parent involvement is a core aspect of a child’s educational development. The children need to have their parents involved at least more in school. I know some students don’t like their parents to be in school but actually there’s a lot of benefits in parent involvement. If we can get more parent involvement in children’s education, let’s try to do it.

What’s your opinion on technology in a classroom setting?

We are advancing in technology. It’s at a rate that we can’t even keep up. Every couple months there’s something new. We’ve gone through schools for hundreds of years, without this type of technology, computers and all, I’m concerned with the wireless, I’m afraid it’s going to be more harmful to us than it’s going to be helpful. If we are to go use our technologies, I strongly believe that we should go back to wires and stuff, not wireless. I have to say I don’t find that to be a good outcome in years to come. Computers help us find whatever there is that we need. We can look up any type of question we want and if it’s from a reliable source we can probably use it but I find that we’re going to end up in a really sticky situation if we keep up with the wireless technology in our schools.

California just voted to ban schools from starting before 8:30 a.m. What is your opinion on this and how would you implement this into our district?

It’s very important for students to get a proper amount of sleep. I would say eight hours of sleep is good. That means we should be going to bed no later than ten o’ clock maybe if we’re going to be waking up at six or something like that. But then again if school starts later then we end later, I don’t know how you guys will feel about that. If I were to have some sort of play in the timing of schools and days and stuff. I would like, me personally, to see us coming to school four days a week, Monday through Thursday. I think that’ll open up a three day weekend not to go out and have a blast but I think spend more time with families. I would say Friday could be the optional day of school for students who don’t have a choice because their parents are working. If we did have a four day school schedule then our four days would be longer. I don’t know how people feel about that, we’d also have longer days but less amount of days, get the hours all right. As for the timing, for starting after 8:30, it’s beneficial. I think that there will be a lot of improvements. I don’t think grades really completely reflect what people learn. I do believe that grades are a big deal and I think students should be working hard because it does carry them on through higher education, college and beyond. So the starting school not so early, like not before 8:30 that works if we find that students are more successful…cause who wants to wake up that early, some people do.

What are your opinions on high school journalism?

This your field, I don’t know, I should ask you those questions. It’s one of the extra curricular activities and I’m for that, it’s extra, it’s something that we could work on to develop ourselves. You might go into journalism after high school and find that this is something you can go to college, that you probably want to do beyond here. So the journalism stuff, it’s helpful for writers, it’s great for analyzing things. I think it’s helpful to make people think and I really think that’s how we learn just by thinking.

Amy Chen

Why are you running to be a board member and what experiences do you think have prepared you to be a board member?

I have a lot of experiences right now, I’m a doctorate, and I have my own children. I’ve tried many different modes of education with my children so I have two of them in public school. And so I feel my experience through homeschooling, private schooling, hybrid schools  and just the experience in this vast educational landscape that we have right now brings a different perspective to what we’ve been doing because as I’m sure you’ve looked at the figures, we’ve done a study (the district) and we’re losing over 200 students a year. That’s very concerning. because if you put it in perspective, there’s only about some elementary schools have 300 students. So we cannot afford to close any schools. They’re in neighborhoods and I really think that we can do better, we have a great school district. But we can do better, because parents these days have a lot of options and they’re looking for new, innovative ways and that’s why we’re losing families, because they have other options elsewhere. And besides that I think I can bring to the table– I am experienced with a language school the city of arcadia, which, if you’re familiar with what happens here every Saturday– Chinese school— I’ve had experience with education. And that brings me to what I think I can bring in is some diversity and I actually arrived here in ESL, when I arrived here in the states, I was put in ESL class, and at that time they didn’t have anyone that could speak Chinese and so I was taught how to speak English through Spanish that I had picked up when I was in Paraguay. So it was quite difficult, so I know the challenges we have about a 27% hispanic population, we have 10% Chinese population — we have a high ESL population and I think it just brings some diversity in this mix where I really do understand the struggles and of course I know of students struggling currently and I also work with the GATE cite council, so I think I have a broad range of personal experience and also my nephew is autistic and I know we have a lot of special needs students here to focus on. So it’s not just one group of students I’m trying to focus on, it’s just bringing some perspective and different experiences.

How do you feel about the Vote 17 Proposition in Berkeley allowing students 17 years of age to vote in local elections?

I think as of now, because the law says someone that is 17 years old is still a minor, to me that’s odd. And if you’re still a minor, I believe that voting should be restricted to adults.

Who do you think should have the highest jurisdiction when dealing with student rights and curriculum decisions?

I don’t think anyone should have the highest jurisdiction, I think this is a community and our public schools are really just public schools, it is paid for by taxpayer money, but it is so great because we have great administrators and great teachers. We are one of the highest ranking districts, so we do definitely value our teachers, their input, we love their curriculums but at the same time I’m sure and from experience, teachers love input from parents. They want parents to be involved in their children’s’ education. From studies, the biggest indicator of a student’s success is parental involvement. So I think it is teamwork, not one group can come in and say “This is the law, this is what we’re going to do.” I think that everyone needs to listen to each other, every group is valuable and important. Administrators should listen to students, parents, teachers, board members, really should account for every single group also, and the focus is really on the students. Consider all of that, and come up with a decision that makes everybody happy.

On a different note, how do you feel about technology use in the classroom setting?

I feel technology use is very important. We have to keep, like I was saying, we have to keep up with innovative ways in education, and technology is part of education right now and we have to offer that– measure I does a good job of trying to put technology in the classrooms of course there is always a balance. No one will be happy with how much technology we have, how little we have. I know as a parent we’re always struggling with how much computer time you guys are on the computer. But technology is necessary today.

In California, there is voting to ban school from starting before 8:30. What are you views on this and how would you implement it in our district?

I think that is a perfect question for my son– I can’t get him up before 11. But I think it is a very very difficult question and I think it should be something that we have a forum and we have parents that decide what they want for their children in the school. We cannot satisfy everyone, I’m sure there’s a lot of parents that think their kids should not be up at 7 am and there’s a lot of parents that they do work and their work schedule requires them to be at work at 8:05. And so to say that their child can’t, which means they have to drop of at 7:30 and this is when I drop my son off also at 7:30, to say that now we can’t start until 8:30, that means some parents will be forced to buy child care for that extra hour. That might be difficult for some parents, and also the late hour that school gets out might be difficult for sports, which then delays sports and when you get home to start homework and activities. So I think there is a lot of things to consider I definitely think as teenagers sometimes hormonally it’s hard to go to sleep early and wake up early and I’ve read up on that and that’s actually a fact. Some teenagers have a very hard time sleeping at night and they just require that extra sleep. But if you do that, maybe some of the sports would start requiring that you do sports before 8:30.

School can be very stressful to say the least. How would you promote a healthy lifestyle both physically and mentally for students?

I try to do that all the time at home, and I think education and just serving and I think our school is trying to do a good job in the cafeteria, there’s salads, there’s fruits, and I think just promoting good eating habits and P.E. helps and just programs like that to promote good habits.

Often there’s disconnect between community members who go to speak at the meetings and make requests consisting of students, teachers, and other members of the community, and the board decisions and board action. How would you facilitate action agreement between the board and the community?

I’m a very strong proponent of getting the community involved and getting students involved. I really do believe that every single group is important. I promise, if I am elected, that I will listen to the community and the students. I have no special interest, my priority is the students. I have two children here, I am concerned about these students first of all, all of the decisions should be student based.

Under the current budget restrictions, how do you plan on accomplishing this goal?

This is exactly why we want this goal. Very often, if you ask quiet families or . We need to start offering these options so that we will have enrollment returned, so it’s making an investment into a program to bring students in. I think if we just stay the course, we will continue to stay the course of losing over 200 students a year and we can’t afford that.

Based on the graph on your website, there seems to be a disconnect between elementary and middle school. Do you have any thoughts on why that disconnect is there?

I think because I’ve tried many different modes of education, a lot of times parents are committed in middle school and don’t want to change their children’s educational mode because it’s not that easy sometimes. With younger kids, it’s easier to try a new school, it’s easier to try homeschool, but once you reach junior high, you’re pretty much set.

With the students producing impressive test scores, what will you do to make sure the district provides a cutting edge education in the future?

I think we’re doing a really great job with our ranking right now. Like you said, we have impressive test scores and I think we need to continue to support that. We need to continue to support AP classes, students that want different courses, different offerings, give you guys the support, bringing in new innovations. One thing that recently came up was Taylor wanted to take some electives and they were all full, so some computers, some graphics. There’s a lot of offerings that we can offer students and we can continue to focus on continuing to bring the test scores up.

If you had been on the school board last year, what would you have done differently?

There’s definitely… well I’m sure you guys have followed the school board meetings, it seems to be quite contentious sometimes but um to do anything differently, that’s an interesting question. Specifically in terms of… I’m sure I would try to work with everybody. I think teamwork would be great and presenting an united front that we are all just concerned about students and respecting every student, being tolerant of every student’s different views is most important and I think that’s really what I would just focus on, not the maybe perceived infighting or politics on that board.

What is your opinion on core literature book policy 6161 and the way the board has implemented and passed it?

As a parent I definitely appreciate a heads up on asterisked [books]. I’ve read the policy word by word and I’m sure you have too. It doesn’t take out any books and, interestingly, last year when it was implemented the second semester only five people chose to opt out. I did receive a syllabus from Taylor and it had an asterisk on it, and I decided that that book was okay. And so I don’t think an asterisk is the end of the world. I think it’s a very helpful tool because there are some parents that have six children and coming home with six syllabi and all the things that have to be signed, the paperwork, it is just helpful to have a heads up that the asterisk says that the CDE deems this book so have some mature content. I mean there are some controversies on which standard we should use, and I think the CDE standard is the least partisan for us. Any of us can sit here and argue that that may not be the best standard but who else’s standard should we use? And I believe it’s just putting a rating just like in a movie, if you guys were to watch an R rated movie—I’ve had paperwork come home before, where an R rated movie is supposed to be shown in class, and I just have to sign it and the teacher is just giving me the respect and just informing me that they’re going to show the movie.

So besides the book policy, what other issues do you think are most important in this election that you want to focus on and what are your opinions on them?

Well I think going forward the most important issue is really to solve our enrollment crisis and I think I’ve already touched on that because we need the money to implement all the programs that we want to implement in the school. We have a great school and we can’t keep losing students because every student we lose that means there’s a chance we might have to do some cuts.

You mentioned earlier good habit programs, are there any specific programs or just other new programs that you’d like to see implemented in our schools?

Yeah I think you guys have a lot of programs, I really like the anti-bullying program I know for middle school and high school you people come into the multipurpose room or the classrooms and talk to you about that and about respecting and tolerating everyone, and I think that’s really important in today’s culture to tolerate everyone and to respect everyone’s views.

Mike Dunn

Dunn did not attend the panel interview.

• Tweet
• Pin It