October 8, 2004

5 candidates hope to oust 2 incumbents in ESUHSD board race

CSEA forum seeks candidates’ stance on issues

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

With five weeks left to the election, the seven candidates vying for two seats on the East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) board of trustees promised to reduce the dropout rate, offer ethnic studies courses and improve communication with immigrant students and families.

The seven candidates vying for two seats on the East Side Union High School District board of trustees engage in a debate of education issues. Photo by Sheila Sanchez

They also vowed to preserve key positions and quit deficit spending in a 23,000-student district that has suffered from weak financial oversight and loosely monitored policies in the past—problems that Superintendent Esperanza Zendejas has been tackling since she took office Aug. 1, 2003.

During a poorly attended candidate forum at California School Employees Association (CSEA) headquarters Sept. 11, newcomers Cecil Lawson, Lan Nguyen, Khanh D. Tran, Theresa A. Horiye and Xavier Campos did their best to show voters they’re a better alternative than the two incumbents running for re-election.

Incumbents Craig Mann and Juanita Ramirez, however, more than once gave the board’s official response to quality of education concerns raised by parents and students.

Improve college placement, curb dropout rates
San Jose District 8 Councilmember David Cortese, as moderator of the CSEA forum, asked the candidates about their plans to improve college placement and curb student dropout rates. All candidates said the district needed partnerships with universities to offer students college nights and programs to reach low-income immigrant students.

Lawson said he found it ironic that the majority of students who attend San Jose State University are not from the area. To reduce the student dropout rate, Lawson said he would strengthen the San Jose Police Department’s Truancy Abatement Program, which rounds up youths on the streets and brings them back to school.

“We need to ensure that every child is in school, that we know where they are and we need to communicate better with parents when their children are not in school,” said Lawson.

Nguyen said the district needs more recruitment officers to explain to students the college admission process, college entrance requirements and college preparation classes.

Ramirez touted the district’s programs saying, “Everything we do directly affects access to students getting into college and addressing the dropout rate.”

While on the board, she said she has worked on strengthening and providing more advanced placement classes and getting more students enrolled in those classes. She said the board has also tried to improve its communication with parents and community by making their Web site easy to use. The board has also made it possible to have people at the high schools to give information to the students about college placement with career nights, she added.

Mann said preparation is the foundation for college access. “Our students reflect our expectations. Low expectations get low results, high expectations get high results,” he said.

The board, he added, raised graduation requirements almost mirroring the California State University and University of California systems’ requirements. It also created three charter schools.

Campos said he’s worried about the high percentage of students not taking the SAT exam. He acknowledged that many high school graduates may not want to pursue a college career and would rather go into vocational training, but stressed the importance of Advanced Placement exams.

Tran, a professor at the University of Phoenix and National University, proposed leasing high school facilities after hours to colleges and universities so that students can “just walk to college.”

He said to keep students interested in school he would support after-school programs and activities that make them competitive, skilled and better achievers and learners. He said funding for these programs could come from corporate donations and sponsorships.

Ethnic studies
Asked whether they would support creating ethnic studies courses in the district, all candidates responded in the affirmative stressing that differences are an asset and that all nationalities have something to contribute to society.

“My family almost touches every continent on this globe,” said Mann. “We need to take time to understand each other. We need to teach our children that there’s value in diversity and differences.”

Lawson suggested incorporating individual cultural contributions into the core curriculum. He said some of the textbooks he’s taught from don’t recognize ethnic and cultural contributions including history, mathematics and language.

“Students, no matter what color, need to recognize they have no deficit, no hindrance, nothing to hold them back from greatness,” added Lawson.

Horiye, married to an Asian-American, said she would support ethnic studies beginning at the elementary school level. “We need to make our children aware of their cultural differences. Why are we asking this questions? It points to discrimination.”

Communicating with immigrant students
Asked how they planned to improve communication with immigrant students and parents on graduation and college requirement issues, all candidates said they would hire translators to help during district office events.

Lawson wants to move the board’s monthly meetings to the high schools and wants to publish the board’s actions in foreign-language newspapers.

Nguyen said the key to student success is parental involvement. “They’re [the parents] afraid to go to these meetings. They’re afraid they’re not going to understand the language,” he said. “If we let them know that translators will be at these meetings, more will come.”

Mann said the district needs to be more language sensitive, as there are more than 50 languages represented in the district. “It’s a must,” he said.

Campos added, “All parents need to feel welcome and their input is going to be heard. A lot of that has to do with the language barrier.”

Tran said teachers and staff need to reflect the ethnicity of the student body so they can interface with them and give them feedback. He also suggested investing in career centers to provide students with role models. “We need to let them know that they can succeed.”

Cuts to key positions
Asked whether they supported the proposed cuts made in March to school librarians, career center technicians and psychologists and how would they would balance the budget, all candidates said they were against the cuts and would work hard to pass the parcel tax in the upcoming election and get the private sector to invest in the district. [See page 1 for more details on Measure K.]

“When we cut, we lose services and the quality of education. When we lose our kids, we lose them forever,” Tran said, adding that taxpayers have a right to demand more education dollars for their children. “We need to invest in our children.”

Similarly, Campos said he supported passage of the parcel tax and suggested making state legislators lobby more aggressively in Sacramento to “change the revenue stream” so that Silicon Valley is looked at differently, by having a special category that allows the district to receive more revenue to preserve key education positions.

Mann clarified for the audience that the district wasn’t considering cutting those positions anymore and explained the proposal was part of the 2004-05 school year, but was saved by the board, which cut $1.3 million from the district office bureaucracy.

He explained that much to the chagrin of East Side Teacher’s Association (ESTA), the board increased class size ratios from 28-1 to 30-1, but that the district still has the lowest class size ratio of comparable high school districts in the area.

To balance the budget, Mann said the board might consider increasing the ratio even more and getting additional funding such as grants the district has received from the GATE foundation, with one donor recently donating $200,000 for a math program.

“More cuts in the administration, more efficiency, more creativity. We’re going to do what it takes to save our kids’ programs and save jobs and be responsible,” Mann said.

Nguyen said the board saved the positions by a successful organized protest by CSEA, ESTA and students who convinced the board and superintendent to save the positions for one year, at least, pending passage of the parcel tax, but even with the passage of the measure, Nguyen said Zendejas has told him the positions could still be threatened as the district faces a $4 million deficit.

“If you have to cut, you cut the middle man. That’s what you do in the private sector and I believe that’s what we need to do here,” he said.

Horiye said ideas have to brainstormed, maybe having district administrators take a 15 percent pay cut. “If it saves a librarian’s job, then maybe that’s what we need to do. Maybe they need to take the brunt.”

The high school exit exam
Most candidates said they supported the controversial high school exit exam, approved by the California Board of Education in May, but suspended until 2006 because of the threat of lawsuits and discouraging test results that revealed thousands of students would be denied a high school diploma.

Horiye, whose son is developmentally disabled, believes that while the district needs a vehicle to measure student success, many students who are poor, disabled or still learning English would never pass the exam. She proposed making amendments to it. Candidates Lawson, Nguyen, Ramirez, Mann and Campos support the exam. All candidates said teachers and students need adequate resources such as textbooks to prepare for the test.

Tran said the test wouldn’t measure students’ progress. “I know some of my college students don’t do well on tests, but they do great in everything else. The results of a test like this can’t describe the life-long learning process of the students. It’s not a fair test.”

Deficit spending
Asked what steps they would take to stop deficit spending in the district so that it will not negatively impact students, the candidates said they would look at alternatives and determine which cuts would be necessary. They also said they would try to be creative to bring other revenue to the district.

Mann said the board has stopped deficit spending by cutting $1.3 million from the administration, making a one-time transfer of funds from the Quimby Road land sale and by not replacing positions vacated by retirement. Altogether, he said the board made a total of $7.5 million in cuts in the 2004-05 budget.

With 85 percent of the district’s budget being spent to pay for teachers, classified employees salaries represented by ESTA, the CSEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Mann said there’s little left that can be cut.

“I’m continuing to shrink the bureaucracy, but there’s only so much we can do. Unless somebody is arguing here that we should go bust up labor agreements to save money, there’s not a lot of ways to reduce our budget woes. We have to raise revenues, pass the parcel tax and be creative about bringing other funding sources for the benefit of our students,” said Mann.

Increasing college enrollment
Asked what they could do to increase the number of students entering California State University and University of California schools, the candidates said they supported giving them scholarships from the private sector, motivating them by investing in teachers and increasing the availability of advanced placement classes.

To ease overcrowding at Evergreen Valley and Silver Creek high schools, the candidates promised to look at other options and whether construction of another school is necessary.

Mann and Ramirez said the district is in the planning process of adding a building to the campus at Evergreen Valley High School that will accommodate 450 students. He said the district also opened the Biotechnology Academy at Evergreen Valley College and will get other high schools in good condition to relieve overcrowding.

They also promised to begin building a new high school in the southeast part of the district in the next five years.

The forum attendees
Independence High School student Lancy Eang, 17, attended the forum to hear how the candidates stood on the issues. “Even though I can’t vote, I’m here to give voters an idea of how the students feel about the candidates,” she said.

Parent and district employee Julieta Rodarte, 40, whose son attends Piedmont Hills High School, said while she liked the incumbents, she wants to give two other candidates a chance to serve on the board. “I’m worried about our budget and the safety of our students,” Rodarte said.

Roland D. Smith, a volunteer who heads the legislative committee for the CSEA, said the union wants to do more community service. “We’ve not taken political action in this area for years,” he said. “We need to get more involved in these issues.”

Parent Anabel Velasquez, whose daughter attends Santa Teresa High School, said candidates need to start speaking about concrete ways to help students and teachers succeed. “They have so much to do with so little time and such few resources, it’s just not right,” she said.

Velasquez hopes the newcomers will oust the incumbents as she said their leadership has ignored student and teacher concerns. “It’s been what’s most convenient for them. It hasn’t been pro-student or pro-community. It’s what the administration has wanted and if that’s what they’re doing, they’re not here for the right reasons.”

ESUHSD has 11 comprehensive high schools and three charter schools including the Latino College Preparatory Academy, which is run by the National Hispanic University and Academia Calmecac, run by the Mexican American Community Services Agency. For more information about the district, go to the Web: www.esuhsd.org.