Candidate for
Board Member; Redondo Beach Unified School District

Building Partnerships For the Redondo Beach Unified School District to reach its full potential, we must maximize the intellectual and financial resources of this great city. As elected members of your School Board, we will build partnerships with the business community, our extensive alumni network, and other elected officials. We will use these partnerships to seek new revenue sources for the District, while also developing a stronger link with the entire Redondo Beach community.

For our children to reach their full potential, we need a partnership of parents, students, and teachers. The learning process is constant, so everyone must share in the responsibility of preparing our young people for the future. Parents have to be involved in the education of their children and teachers must encourage and embrace their involvement. As elected members of your School Board, we will encourage parent-teacher partnerships as part of a collective effort to improve student achievement.

Preparing Students For The 21st Century Our children need to master basic skills and our teachers are doing great work toward this effort. However, the basics of today are not the same as the basics of the past. As elected members of your School Board, we will promote "Basics for the 21st Century" to prepare students for college or career. We must incorporate computer skills, critical thinking, teamwork, vocational and technology training, and expanded foreign language options into the learning experience.

Additionally, we must teach basic life skills to prepare our students for the future, including responsibility, respect, and self-discipline. Students face a changing world that demands accountability, so they must embrace high expectations and work hard for their success as part of a challenging and dynamic curriculum.

Finally, as elected members of your School Board we will promote a healthy lifestyle program for all of our schools. Unhealthy students are too often unsuccessful students, so we must teach our young people how to eat right and live healthy. We will work with food services personnel to provide lunches that are low in fat and sodium, while encouraging the expansion of physical fitness programs for every grade level.

Keeping Money In The Classrooms As state budget problems continue, local districts must have clear priorities when it comes to spending. As elected members of your School Board, our priority will be classrooms over bureaucracy. We must invest our resources in arts instruction for all grade levels, smaller class sizes, new technology, and a cutting edge curriculum. We must improve salaries and health benefits for teachers and campus support staff so we can recruit and retain highly qualified people. Our District must invest in kids by investing in the people who teach them.

Shared Decision-Making Despite progress in many areas, our District still falls short when it comes to communication and collaboration. As elected members of your School Board, we will empower teachers and support staff in the decision-making process. Our teachers are on the campuses and in the classrooms, working with students every day. They understand the issues facing public education from a first-hand perspective so Board members and district administrators should respect them as partners. Our District should have a culture of communication, with problems being identified and resolved as part of a collaborative structure encompassing all stakeholders. We will talk regularly with teachers and support staff to gain a better understanding of day-to-day issues, then utilize their ideas and expertise in dealing with those issues.