League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 4, 2014 Election
	Greg Coladonato Answers Questions Candidate for Board Member; Mountain View-Whisman School District

The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

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?

Five years ago, our District had a group called the "Budget Task Force", which was made up of community members as well as board members, and which was the District's official forum for determining the best answer to exactly this question, and sharing its findings with the public.

For some reason, this group was disbanded a few years ago, and our community is worse off as a result. Our current Board does not appear to feel the need to publicly discuss how to wisely and fairly allocate our finite financial resources, beyond state-mandated review and approval of budgets presented by staff. Little in the way of substantial discussion of the tradeoffs involved has taken place during board meeting open sessions during the years I have been attending them.

Lately, this disconnect between the Board and the community has come to a head. The teachers' union has asked for an increase in salary that it claims is sustainable given the District's current fiscal position. The District has offered a lower increase; we are currently at an `impasse' in salary negotiations. Many members of the community have called for more transparency and clarity from the current board, but the district has been slow to respond, even as the impasse begins to affect students and families.

During this time, I have consistently and publicly called for the Board and the District to be more forthcoming with their justifications for current uses of federal, state, and local funds. I would like the local tax-paying and voting public to have the information it needs to determine for itself how wise or fair the current allocation of funds is.

On September 24th, I sent an open letter to the Board of Trustees (available here: http://www.electgreg.org/open_letter_on_sunshine_in_governance), requesting much more discussion about current fiscal priorities and their implications for budget projections, teacher retention, and educational effectiveness. The District has belatedly responded to this call, and I am hopeful for a more responsive and transparent Board in the future.

As a member of the MVWSD Governing Board, one of my first actions would be to re-establish the district's Budget Task Force, re-opening a forum for community members to learn about and offer perspectives on our spending priorities, and assess whether they consider them to be wise and fair.

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

In a word, no. One of my core beliefs about education and children (and I currently have 3 children ages 10 and under in elementary school) is that almost every child, if not every child, in elementary school has the intellectual ability to learn grade-level material and above.

There are a number of factors that make it difficult for some children in our community to achieve grade-level proficiency, including low parent educational achievement, low socio-economic status, and low English language proficiency. Of course, parents, teachers, principals and staff must all play their proper role in educating our children too.

While the District does make an effort to bring our students up to grade level, almost a third of our students still do not perform at grade level, and this situation has persisted for quite a few years. Our current programs and efforts are clearly insufficient.

There are a number of programs that work well at other schools that may work wonders for our own students, including extended school days, extended school weeks, and extended school years, and many other programs. Online resources for learning English, math and other subjects offer a low-cost means to deliver targeted instructional material to many students of diverse abilities at once.

At the same time, the district has recently discontinued administering GATE tests, which were used to identify students with an unusually high aptitude for academic achievement. Some of these students already get good grades, but are bored in class. Other students' boredom with classroom material sometimes leads to behavior issues and bad grades.

As a board member, my first action regarding student achievement would be to work with our teachers and staff to implement some targeted, high-impact programs to both lift students performing below grade up to grade level as quickly as possible, and to support all students reaching as high up the educational ladder as their abilities allow.

3. Where do you want the District to be five years from now? What steps should the District take to get there?

By five years from now, I want to see all students at or above grade level proficiency, most of our critical infrastructure projects built, our schools no longer overpopulated, and our teachers no longer feeling unappreciated. I believe all these changes can happen in five years, but it would take new ideas, new energy, and new leadership.

By five years from now, I want our District educating all of our students to grade level or above. Currently, 33% of our students are performing below grade level in English, and 29% in Math. When we are able to get all the students up to grade level, it results in better futures for our children, and opens the door to above-grade-level work for all students. Students in many other developed countries around the world are not only at grade level, they are one or more years ahead of our grade level standards.

By five years from now, I want all of our most critical infrastructure projects around district to be completed and in use. This would require updating our 5-year-old Student Facilities Improvement Plan, incorporating the latest information about housing development, student population and needs, demographic projections, traffic and safety concerns, and other information, and moving forward expeditiously.

By five years from now, I want our schools to not be overpopulated any more. Right now, the average neighborhood elementary school in Mountain View has nearly 70 more students than the average elementary school in Palo Alto. Our Mountain View K-5 schools have more students than Los Altos's K-6 schools. Our board has stood by as population in most of our schools has grown rapidly, beyond what is considered ideal for an elementary school. We need to think hard about how to address this problem, and which sites or locations make the most sense to open or reopen a school.

By five years from now, I want our teachers to feel valued for the excellent work they do. This will require new systems of evaluation, compensation, and hiring. I want the most effective teachers to be rewarded for their effectiveness, and retained by our district rather than losing them to districts to our north or west.

I believe all these changes can happen in five years, but to do so is going to take a school board with new ideas, new energy, and new leadership.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' statements are presented as submitted. The answer to each question should be limited to 400 words. Direct references to opponents are not permitted.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 27, 2014 21:17
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