The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.     See below for questions on Finances, Instruction, The Future

Click on a name for candidate information.   See also more information about this contest.

Answer from Eric D. Madison:

I feel that proper use of funds are driven by three dynamics:

1) All the the children in our distict must get a well-rounded quality education that prepares them for entrance into the workforce.

2) Our teachers and staff must be properly trained and compensated.

3) Our school faciities provide a fun, safe, clean, and child focused atmosphere for learning.

If all three are in balance, then the funding is being used wisely, regardless of the source.

I would monitor and audit each of the dynamics, present my findings to the community in "State of the Distict Reports" and adjust the funding accordingly.

Answer from Janice A. Hector:

As a board, we've put in place a process that involves our community in budget preparation and adoption. By including parents, teachers, administrators and staff in the entire budget discussion, we get better decisions and have a better opportunity to ensure that we are meeting the needs of the district's children. We maintain a district-wide budget committee comprised of parents from each school site and representatives from our employee groups. We, as a board, ask tough questions to ensure that we are spending our money wisely and fairly. Having worked as a product manager with multi-million dollar budgets at a Fortune 500 company -- and having worked with school district budgets for over a decade, I'm familiar with the complexities of the budget and I know that our questions help insure that we are considering the needs of all students as we finish our budget. It's a complex process with thousands of line items, but the basic issues are clear. Just as with a household budget, there isn't enough money to do everything that everyone would like to do. So we make tough choices, always putting the interests of the children first. Because we've been careful in how we've spent in the past, Union School District continues to be able to provide programs that aren't available in other districts in academics, performing arts, science, and sports. We've been able to maintain those programs and relatively small class sizes while keeping employee compensation competitive and providing better training for teachers, administrators and staff.

In addition to the budget process, we also conduct an annual audit of what we have spent in the past year. We publish information about our spending in a quarterly newsletter mailed to the entire district and on the district website. If there are important spending issues that need more attention, we involve the community in reviewing these issues and in helping to guide us to a good decision, as we did with the initiative that led to passage of a $92 million bond used to modernize our schools.

Answer from Janice A. Hector:

The key to providing education that meets the diverse needs of our students is what happens in the classroom. As a district, our goal is to equip every teacher with the skills to identify and the knowledge to respond to the educational needs of a wide variety of students. We provide regular training sessions that give not only teachers, but staff and site administrators, the tools they need to handle a multi-cultural student body with learning abilities that vary widely. Within each classroom, we equip teachers to develop strategies for differentiated instruction. We encourage them to use appropriate techniques to involve and educate students with very different backgrounds by engaging each in a way that is appropriate to the student's heritage, learning style and ability. Our curriculum is focused on California standards, but we supplement our core curriculum with other educational opportunities, including offerings in the arts, music, and athletics. The biggest challenge for the board is to ensure that we've created an environment that attracts motivated and talented teachers and staff. That means ensuring that pay and benefits are competitive, that training is available and worthwhile, and that teachers, administrators and staff are able to make decisions that improve how things are done in the schools and in the classroom.

Answer from Eric D. Madison:

Union School District is a great district and does a good job at addressing the whole child but there is always room for improvement.

I feel there needs to be a formal review of curriculum and teaching practices for all ability levels.

From the top performing student to the special needs child, all children deserve a quality education.

Answer from Eric D. Madison:

In five years I would like to see a drastic increase in funding to the classroom. I would like to start the process by cutting overhead expenses and all funds would be diverted into the classroom for teacher discretionary spendng and enrichment programs.

Here are a few of the ideas I have for cutting overhead.

1) Solar Powered Schools: I would like to see our district to be the first completely Solar Powered School Distict in California. The current PG&E Solar Schools program is a great program for underserved communities but needs to be expanded to all California Schools.

2) Partnering with local business to reduce the cost of supplies. If each local business in the district donated just 2 office supply items each year, it would save the district thousands of dollars a year.

3) Being in the heart of Silicon Valley, I feel that our schools deserve and require affordable technology. Partnering with our technology giants to keep our classrooms up to date will better prepare our children to be the next generation of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. This valley needs to start investing our it's future!

Answer from Janice A. Hector:

As educators, the issues we face are global as well as local. Our children are growing up in a world that is shrinking and becoming more competitive. Students in India, Japan and China will grow up to compete with our students for jobs and opportunities. As a result, it isn't enough to compare ourselves to other local school districts. We must look outside the U.S. to ensure that we are asking enough of our students. In math and science, we need to recognize that students in other countries are ahead of those in the U.S. Our best students need to be inspired to compete with these students and all students need to understand that education will be critical to their success. It won't be easy to get this message across. Too many of our state's students enter college without the basics in math, English, history and even geography + knowledge that Union School District's teachers are imparting to our children. To meet this challenge, the district needs to make large investments in infrastructure to take advantage of the Internet and technology which will continue to offer better tools for teachers and students. While the district has put in place the basic groundwork, technology quickly becomes outdated and it will be critical over the next five years to continue making those investments. We must remain vigilant in seeking out the best tools for teachers and students and in providing proper staff training to encourage the most effective use of these tools.

The order of the candidates is random and changes daily. Candidates who did not respond are not listed on this page.