School board candidates discuss areas of concern
In the interest of preserving space, the candidates’ responses have been shortened. To view the full transcript and video, visit www.pantherprowler.org.
All photos taken by Isabelle Cipriano/Prowler
Introduction
On Monday, Sept. 9 at 5:15 p.m. in the journalism room at Newbury Park High School, the student journalists from the Panther Prowler, the Westlake Wire and the TO Lancer hosted a panel
interview with the four candidates running in the upcoming Conejo Valley Unified School District [CVUSD] school board election. Frank Enderle is running against incumbent Lauren Gill for
Area 5 and Nancy Van Volkinburg is opposing sitting trustee Karen Sylvester for Area 1. The candidates were all asked the same questions and given two minutes each to respond, with the last 20
minutes dedicated to personalized questions based on their campaigns and individual views. Questions for the candidates covered relevant, key concerns including issues within public education,
cell phone policies, budget cuts and declining enrollment.
Meet the candidates
Lauren Gill
As the current trustee for Area 5 of the CVUSD Board of Education, Gill is running for re- election and aims to continue to secure CVUSD’s place as a “district that ranks in the top two and a
half percent in the nation.” If re-elected, she hopes to ensure that CVUSD schools receive equitable funding. Gill has two children, both of whom attended school in the CVUSD system. Outside of the school board, Gill works as the California Deputy Director of the National Wildlife Federation.
Frank Enderle
After coaching for the past 14 years, Frank Enderle has been an involved part of Westlake High School. In addition to being a fulltime realtor, Enderle has been involved through sports and booster organizations throughout his sons’ time through the public school system. If elected, Enderle plans to help raise test scores because “they’re not average according to a grade level” and keep parents involved in the educational system of their children.
Karen Sylvester
Current trustee for Area 1 of the CVUSD Board of Education, Karen Sylvester has been involved with CVUSD schools since 2001, when her child started kindergarten. Sylvester has a background in business, with an undergraduate degree in Business Economics from University of Pennsylvania and an M.B.A degree from Harvard Business School. If appointed, she hopes to address full and fair funding in schools and continue the conversation about technology decisions within classrooms.
Nancy Von Volkinburg
As a Conejo Valley resident of 28 years, Nancy Van Volkinburg has seen her six children through the public school system. Van Volkinburg has been involved with Girl Scouts, karate and the PTA around the community. Her children went to both Thousand Oaks and Oak Park High School, which has given Nancy insight into the “steady decline” in Conejo Valley’s schools. If elected, Van Volkinburg wants to focus on the basics of academics (particularly reading, writing and arithmetic) and address the board’s previous budget issues.
Why do you think CVUSD has faced declining enrollment for the past several years, and how do you hope to combat that?
Candidate Gill: “As a board, we have appealed to our governing partners of the city council to please work on affordable housing options, and we have seen some movement. So that solution
is not going to solve our problem next week, but the declining enrollment, this is a trend that is statewide, is even nationwide, and a lot of the same factors are responsible…And then just examining, how can we make the best use of the facilities that we have, with the group of students that we have, and spend the resources in the smartest possible way, so that we don’t feel as though we’re experiencing cuts.”
Candidate Enderle: “Make the school better, make it more exciting for the kids. I don’t know the exact number of how many valedictorians we have in the year from the school. That top one [spot]. You know that that’s the elite of the elite. You’re having an award for the elite of the elite and we have 47. Make another award. Make it challenging for you guys. Make it exciting for you guys. So make our schools better. It’s not about the money, you know you’re talking about, ‘Well, it would cost us a lot of money.’ Well, you’re worth more than money. I don’t carehow much it costs.”
Candidate Sylvester: “We have award winning performing arts programs. We have top
ranked sports programs. These get kids excited. These get parents excited and they want to
stay in the district…We now have a dual language immersion program at Conejo Academy. We
have an International Baccalaureate elementary years program at Cypress Elementary. We have
several magnet schools. This keeps kids in the district, and this could attract kids and students
from outside of the district.”
Candidate Van Volkinburg: “We have a mass exodus of people who are going to homeschooling and private schooling and leaving the state, and the reason that they’re doing that is because they get unhappy with the school system. I am not sure why they chose to do that, but from the people that I have spoken with, it’s because they were concerned about academics. There are great programs within this district, and I know that many students take advantage of them, but why is it that some of them are not interested in that they end up skipping school and missing classes on a regular basis.”
How should the Board go about budget cuts, and what items do you see being cut?
Candidate Gill: “It is beginning to look like this may have been an outlying year, because tax revenues coming in right now are much stronger. It is the board’s responsibility to balance the budget each and every year, and we will do our job. Almost 90% of our budget is spent on people. There is no way to keep the cuts out of the classroom.”
Candidate Enderle: “Why is it that we do not have solar electricity on our campuses? Why is it that we have those incandescent bulbs at our football stadium that is extremely expensive to run, run 24/7 almost, with no one on the fields? There’s no oversight. The way our system works is, again, the school doesn’t pay the full electricity, if they don’t use it, they lose it for the following year. It’s set up all wrong.”
Candidate Sylvester: “We do have to be prudent, but we also have to be mindful of the fact that dollars we get in any given year need to be spent on students that year, unlike a business or even a city council, we cannot just save for rainy day, or maybe even in your own household. We have to spend what we take in. We are mandated to not keep too much in reserves, the state doesn’t like that.”
Candidate Van Volkinburg: “There would be some trimming of the fat for sure. Again, it all goes back to academics. I want to see the most money spent on your education, not on fancy bathrooms, not on painting some room that might have three more years worth of paint left in it.”
In your opinion, what are the most important issues in public education right now, and how do you plan to address them?
Candidate Gill: “I always answer this question first by saying that the most important issue,
always for us, is full and fair funding. We are not fully and fairly funded. Another concern
that I have that is particular to this community is the mis [information] and disinformation
[in] campaigns that we have seen that are designed to undermine trust in public institutions
like our public schools. This has a direct impact on the people who work in our schools. It
dishonors our teachers. It dishonors our administrators and our school staff.”
Candidate Enderle: “What’s really important to me is test scores. You know, you got…
Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake… below average test scores in the fundamentals…
So that whole system of the way the government works needs to be revamped to save us
money. We’re getting 20%, in two years, it will be 20% higher than spending in utilities, and
we need to balance the budget. You can’t have a great school without a balanced budget.
There’s a lot of work to be done. I’m not saying we’re bad. I’m just saying that we’re not
efficient”
Candidate Sylvester: “It is really a disgrace how California funds its schools, and they fund it by enrollment…What test scores can show you is how specific student groups are doing. That is a more relevant use of a lot of the data to look at how students with disabilities or English learners are doing, and while we’re making great strides in bringing them up…And I think artificial intelligence, which personally excites me…but there’s some risks in that, and there’s a lot of benefits, but the reality: that is where the world is moving and our job is to prepare you guys to be able to thrive and survive in this world, and that might fall working alongside artificial intelligence.”
Candidate Van Volkinburg: “I have a philosophy of going back to the basics with reading, writing and arithmetic, which may sound antiquated. So yes, we can throw in science, technology, AI…all of that, and I admit that that is the future. But before we can throw in all the science and technology, we have to get the majority of students up to par with regards to their writing skills and their math skills.”
What are your opinions on the recently discussed cell phone ban and how do you plan to implement a policy, or do you plan to implement any policies?
Candidate Gill: “We’re examining the larger question of digital devices, and these are personal devices, so there are some questions there about the rights that you have, the rights that your parents and families have. So we’re in a very open, sort of fact-gathering listening mode, while we collect as much information as possible before we go back and compare AB 3216 with the existing written policies that we have decided for any changes we want to make.”
Candidate Enderle: “Be respectful. You’re in class. This is not note-passing on steroids. So in your class, when the teacher is lecturing, keep the phones away. I had a brilliant idea, I thought, because it’s real simple. We have the technology, just put scramblers in the classrooms. Once the bell system goes off, the scrambler works. You can’t text, you can’t use the internet. You can use your phone, though. So if there’s an emergency, you can use your phone. I don’t think we should get rid of your cell phones, but be responsible.”
Candidate Sylvester: “We put a policy in place in 2021, which does restrict cell phone usage during instructional time…[For] our TK through eight, I believe phones should be off and away from bell to bell. And in high school, they should be off and away during all times except for lunch and nutrition…We need to hear what students think. We need to hear what teachers think. We need to hear what parents think. Once we’ve gathered all of that information, then we will write [a] policy.”
Candidate Van Volkinburg: “My personal opinion was that when my students were on campus at the high school level, it certainly came in handy when I went to pick them up…But cell phones for elementary age students, I don’t really see the purpose unless they’re doing the same thing that my high schoolers were doing. So maybe there is a way that we could restrict cell phone usage during class time.”
Personal Questions
How do you plan to create programs in our high schools to more specific career paths?
Candidate Gill: “One of the challenges of having such robust program offerings, especially at the high school level, is that it can be difficult to navigate your path, and we don’t want students to miss out on opportunities to explore classes that they might be interested in if they only tried…So we also hired some college and career counselors. We already have academic centers and we have our wellness staff,[…]and then we have our whole career technical education program, which is incredibly varied.”
What would you [implement] to focus more so that students are getting more attention, and test scores can increase?
Candidate Enderle: “I am working with the colleges to try to do study groups at off-site places…Let’s try to [be] proactive, not reactive… You guys would look up to the college to be tutored. So then you guys would get high school credit, or figure out how to do an elective or something instead of teacher’s aid, and go to the elementary and work it down so that the kids will work…I got more results from my athletes by motivating them than making them run… If you motivate them, it’s infectious…To listen to the kids…and see what motivates you. The question would be, what do I need to do to keep you from going to the beach or hanging out at the park on your phones, on the internet, and not going to school?”
What do you hope to further do in the future, building on what you’ve done in the past four years?
Candidate Sylvester: “If our children are not emotionally, socially and mentally healthy, they are not going to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. So we need to focus on the whole child and having initiatives like the wellness centers and wellness services. I really believe…children need a reason to go to school. And sometimes it’s because they love calculus, but often it’s because they love theater and they’re part of the theater community, or they love football and lacrosse and they’re part of a football and lacrosse community. The more we can have those kinds of opportunities for our children so that we don’t put financial barriers in place, the more motivated they will be to go to school and to pay attention to school.”
You previously stated that… [parents’] rights are being compromised by bills such as AB1955. Can you clarify your thoughts on bill AB1955 specifically?
Candidate Van Volkinburg: “AB1955 is a very controversial bill that has to do with transgender community and transitioning, and this goes back to the misinformation and disinformation. [AB1955] says that the staff is prohibited from contacting a parent if their child wants to identify with a different pronoun or wants to transition. In my mind, 1955 prohibits the staff from telling parents. I urge all of you to go and read AB1955.”
Conclusion
The school board election will take place on Nov. 5, and information on how to register to vote can be found on vote.gov. Voters in Area 5 of Newbury Park or Area 1 of Westlake have the
opportunity to vote for their respective candidate.
