Ina

Ina's Answers To

League Of Women Voters

2010 Questions On Issues

Click here to see Ina's webpage on the League of Women Voters website

Question 1: How would you determine that the schools are using federal, state, and local funds wisely and fairly and how would you report your findings to the community?

What will I do?

A Trustee’s primary fiduciary duties are ensuring responsible fiscal management with educational equity for all students, and holding Administration accountable for cost-effectively implementing the Board’s direction. In the 2010-2014 term, our Board will have two immense and far-reaching jobs, both of which impinge on these fundamental duties: hiring a new Superintendent and implementing a new long-range strategic plan.

I will advocate for a broad and robust Superintendent search, rather than merely “promoting from within” as our District has sometimes done in the past. My professional experience in Executive Search will add value to my role as a Board Member, in this endeavor. Our District’s next leader must have the courage and strength to make needed changes that narrow and ultimately obliterate our achievement gap, and truly meet the learning needs of every child. He or she will also need the team-building skills to inspire all stakeholders to embrace and take ownership of those changes. (See next Q/A, below).

The 2010-2014 Board will also need to develop and begin implementing a long-range strategic plan to deal with our increasing enrollment and changing demographics. This difficult and sometimes painful decision making process will necessarily involve reopening closed schools, expanding existing schools, restructuring schools, acquiring land for and building new schools, and even changing some school boundaries. As the local economy recovers and developers resume previously-planned building, we will need to negotiate contracts for purchasing land and building new schools. My experience as an Attorney and Real Estate Broker, and my Masters education at Stanford Business School, will enable me to add value to the Board’s decisions and implementations.

How will I keep the Community informed?

The Board acts as a unit, so formal reporting to the Community on behalf of the District must come from the Board through its Actions at Public Meetings. In that context, I will continue my advocacy for open and transparent governance on the part of the Board and the District, with full compliance with all “sunshine laws” both in their letter and in their spirit. I will also continue to ask questions when clarification is needed, to share my perspective during Board discussions and deliberations, and to actively encourage all other Trustees to do the same, to ensure our Public fully understands our reasons for voting one way or another, on any given Agenda Item.

In addition to our responsibility to provide insight to the Community by asking questions and providing our rationales behind our votes at Board Meetings, I believe each Trustee also has the duty to reach out and be available to Community Members who have questions or concerns. This way, we stay in touch with the people whose interests it is our job to represent, and to whom we are ultimately accountable.

Question 2: Are the schools offering instruction appropriate to the diverse educational abilities of all the students?

During my 2006 campaign I advocated passionately for expansion of our successful Basics programs and for readiness-leveled classrooms, because this combination of educational methodologies provides the most cost-efficient and effective way to attain top achievement for every child. During my first two years on the Board, I met substantial resistance on the part of Administration and some fellow Trustees, but during the past two years I've been gratified to see progress on both fronts. Our 2010 CST scores demonstrate that emphasis on mastering Basics and creating classroom environments geared to meet each child's readiness to learn, especially in Math and English, can result in total obliteration of the achievement gap with 100% proficiency before the end of elementary school, regardless of socioeconomic backgrounds, race, culture, or native language. (See below.) This year our District is expanding our readiness-leveled approach to learning in some additional Title One schools, and we plan to expand our Basics-plus Open Enrollment program at Millikin Elementary School.

This is a good start, but it is just a start. While it's true that not every child will thrive in a Direct Instruction, Basics, Readiness-Leveled Classroom environment, it's also true that every year many hundreds children whose parents see this as the best learning environment for them, are denied the opportunity to access it. Merely expanding Millikin by one or two classrooms for each grade level, or adding a section or two at Peterson Plus is not nearly enough to meet this growing need. Therefore, I will continue my impassioned advocacy for continued expansion of our Basis programs at both the Elementary and Middle School levels, until we have sufficient Basics-plus spaces to meet our children's needs.

Our budgetary challenges have necessitated reductions in staff, increased class sizes and cutbacks in important ancillary programs, and have prevented us from giving our fine teachers and staff the kinds of compensation increases they merit. Yet, I was the only Trustee who advocated and voted against spending our scarce monies on Administrator promotions with pay raises and on huge expenditures on consultants, one of whom we paid $130,000 annually for two years in a row over my strenuous objection. I will keep my firm commitment to spend whatever discretionary funds we have to support our Teachers and Staff in our classrooms and schools, rather than to promote Administrators and hire expensive consultants, so our children will directly benefit.

Question 3: Where do I want the district to be 5 years from now? What steps should the district take to get there?

The Board you elect will hire our new Superintendent, and by 5 years from now that person will have had ample time to analyze our strengths and weaknesses, get the Board's authorization for his or her recommended educational fiscal and management strategies, and implement changes to continue improving the education we provide our students and the accountability we owe our Community. I want to see a Superintendent in place who has expertise, creativity, vision, proven leadership qualities, and a collaborative style that invites inquiry, analytic thinking, and respect for varying views. To "get there," we will need to undertake a broad, robust search for the best-qualified candidate with proven effectiveness in implementing successful approaches to education, which will further our District's educational mission while at the same time fitting in with our District culture.

Regardless of what any Candidate wants, the Board you elect will realistically have many more students to educate 5 years from now, due to continually increasing enrollment and continued new housing development in our District. As a Basic Aid District we depend on property taxes to survive, so our ability to continue providing the best possible education, to meet all students' needs, will necessarily depend on how quickly the Silicon Valley economy recovers from its current downturn. The money that will flow to us from the new will have started to provide some respite, but not nearly enough to meet our needs. Therefore, in addition to wanting an end to the recession, which is not something you or I have much control over, I desperately want to see passage our Bond proposition, Measure H, without which we will not have the money to provide the facilities and infrastructure our students will need in 5 years. To "get there," every current Board Member and every Candidate, whether or not running in this election, must actively advocate for passage of Measure H, and every voter should weigh the small cost against the huge benefit so we have the funds we need to do our job. Please help us "get there" by supporting our District -- Your District! -- with your Yes! vote on Measure H.

For many years we have known, from our experience at Millikin Elementary, that an educational approach using Basics, practice-makes-perfect and readiness-leveled classrooms can result in 100% proficiency in Math and English for affluent children with well-educated parents. Now, our experience at Bracher Elementary has proven these methods can achieve 100% proficiency in Math and English for all 4th graders, and nearly as high in 5th grade, regardless of socioeconomic status or other challenging demographic characteristics. What I want 5 years from now is for these kinds of effective practices to become our District norm rather than our District exception. The only way to "get there" is for our 2010-2014 Board to search for and hire a Superintendent with the courage and skills to institute the changes we need to accomplish this throughout the District, and then hold Administration accountable for providing all children the top achievement we have proven is possible for us to deliver, regardless of whether they "win a lottery" at Open Enrollment time and regardless of what school boundary they reside in. This means that, "to get there," our Voters must elect candidates who have consistently advocate for the kinds of changes we need, and who have consistently demonstrated the courage to hold Administrators accountable.