Welcome everybody to the DJUSD school board candidates forum sponsored by the Davis Vanguard. I will be your moderator this evening. My name is David Greenwald. I am the director of the Davis Vanguard. And I'd like to start out by thanking Davis Media Access who will be videoing this event and it will be posted on their site broadcast on their cable access channel and as soon as we get the in-bed code we will post it on the Davis Vanguard site so that the entire community can watch as they'd like. I'd also like to thank Vanguard board members Tia Will, Bob Fung and Cecilia Escamilla for coming out tonight. Cecilia is going to be keeping our time. Feel free in the back to pick up literature from all of the candidates at your leisure. I think it's all on the back table back there. I'd also like to request that people not applaud even if they like what's said and certainly do not boo if you don't like what's said. Let us keep this civil and remember that people will be watching this in the community. Finally after the regular portion of the questions and answers which I will explain briefly in a moment we will have some time for audience questions. So my daughter Jasmine who is in the yellow dress here is going to be walking around and handing out note cards. So feel free to fill out a question and return it up to that table and then after the other portion of questions we will probably have about half an hour to take audience questions. So the way this is going to work is each of the candidates is going to give a two minute introduction. They are free to talk about whatever they want during those two minutes. Then each candidate will have one question that they will ask the other candidates. Everyone will have two minutes to respond and then the person who asked that question will answer their own question at the end. So Jose will ask the first question of Susan. It will go around back through Alan and then Jose will answer his own question. In addition to those each of the candidates has two one minute challenge answers that they can use at any point in time and one 32nd. So that will make for a much more lively debate. After each one of the candidates asks a question the vanguard has three questions that will be answered and again it will be two minutes and then each candidate will have a chance to close after we do the audience questions. So at this point we are going to get started and Alan will give his two minute statement. Well good evening everyone and thank you all for attending tonight's forum and thank you to the Davis vanguard for making such a forum possible as I think this is probably one of the most important endeavors in any election. So thanks everyone for their collective efforts. My name is Alan Fernandez I'm currently a trustee on the Davis Joint Unified School District Board of Education. And I got to that point sort of in a longer path I would say I've been in this community for over 20 years. I came here to attend the university as is often the story you hear around town. I met my wife who grew up in Davis schools DPNS all the way through UC Davis got married had children and decided to raise our family in this community. We are joiners we are doers and we believe deeply in public service and indeed our career paths went in that direction. I attended law school and worked in private practice after my schooling and immediately immersed myself in the community worked as a commissioner on the business and economic development commission in the city of Davis became chair from there worked on with dedicated community members to create the California Bicycle Museum which ultimately led to the U.S. Bicycle and Hall of Fame. In addition I've also been involved in many other organizations but as we had children I as many of us do made our singular focus almost exclusively around education in our schools. And that's really what led me to be in this spot. I ran in 2012 because I felt diversity of perspective was important in a joint unified district and I have children of a very young age there in our elementary school system and I felt at the time that focus needed to be throughout our entire district from kindergarten through twelfth grade. I was ultimately appointed two years ago as a result of a vacancy and I think I've worked hard in my two years on the board to establish the trust that was in question at that time. Last year I was president of the school board and I was proud to lead the new school board into a culture of focusing on the well-being of every child and I'm happy to say that that work continues. Thank you. Jose? Make sure you push that button. Good evening. I'm Jose Granda. I have lived in Davis for 36 years.  Well then let's get restarted this. Well that's not the time. Just restart the time. I have lived in Davis for 36 years. I went to school at UC Berkeley and then I came to UC Davis to obtain a PhD in mechanical engineering. I have been a professor for 34 years and my entire life has been dedicated to education and to this community. I raised four children in this Davis schools and my concentration and the contribution that I believe I could make to the school district is that is in the area of STEM science, technology and engineering to see that students and teachers are supported towards the end. Each of us has several extremes but that one is mine. I also speak four languages. I speak English, Spanish, French, German. So languages are a priority and I believe education also should have that priority. I believe an equal opportunity for everybody and therefore the AEM program should be open to every single student and I'll explain what they mean with that. I also oppose major age. I have paid those parcel taxes all these years including now. Although three years ago I could have taken an exception, I didn't because I want to fight the system from inside the way it should be and I believe major age is the if you are prepared to pay $4960 and accept the duplication of the current taxes then you should vote for it. Other ways you should really think about that this measure is totally and reason all is different than the others and you should vote against major age. I have put a literature on the back explaining in more detail. Thank you, Jose. Okay, Susan. Good evening everybody. My name is Susan Lovenberg. Thank you, David, for you and the Vanguard Board hosting today's forum. It's a nice opportunity for the community members to really get a sense of all of the four candidates. So it's my pleasure to be here tonight. I have served on the Davis School Board since 2007.  My daughters are 1820 and 26 now. So they all went through the Davis school system. They are all now including the last one who graduated last spring. Graduates of Davis High and attending or graduated from world class higher education institutions. So Davis did very well by their education. I work in my day job for an organization known as California Forward.  We were created in order to help the state of California overcome some of the dysfunction that was in place in 2007, 2008, 2009 years. So we have done things like citizens redistricting top two open primary majority budget and term limit reform. I run a couple of projects for California Forward. One is called the California Economic Summit and the other is a collaborative of school districts working with the California School Boards Association. I am past president of the Davis School Board and also of the Yellow County School Boards Association also a delegate of the California School Boards Association since 2010. I've been honored to serve on the Davis School Board helping to leave exciting positive changes in the term that I've been here amid what were challenging times. We did have an economic recession and a period of unfortunate budget reductions and a time in which the community stepped forward to support the schools by passing a number of parcel taxes to protect programs. In addition we've had an opportunity to be working on a strategic plan, something that we've put in place over the last few years. Thank you Susan. Okay Bob, Bob make sure you speak into the mic. That would help too. You guys are, I had a lot of experience. So just I want to thank everybody that's worked so hard on my campaign. It's a tremendous privilege to be working with so many dedicated folks and I think one of the most enjoyable aspects of the campaign is actually getting out and talking to community members and hearing incredibly diverse opinions about public education, what we should be doing and what we shouldn't be doing. And I'm amazed at the creative ideas that they come up with and if you just listen you can learn a lot.  School is tomorrow. As most of you know I ran for school board in 2014. I would encourage anybody that's interested to go back into the Vanguard Archives or the Enterprise Archives. I wrote a lot of stuff on a lot of different topics from world languages to housing affordability for teachers to public schools contribution to community economic development. I am an educator. I've been an educator for almost 30 years in public universities, not quite as long as Jose, but certainly long enough. I spent countless hours in the classroom looking at a lot of diverse learning styles so I really have an appreciation for that. I've served on committees looking at curricular issues and teaching effectiveness. In the district I have been on the professional development action team when the LCAP first came out, the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee and the CTE Career and Technical Education STEAM Strategic Advisory Committee. And I've also worked with Jesse Ortiz in his effort to get universal quality preschool funding which would put Yolo County at the forefront of counties in California. So I will stop there. Thank you, Bob. Okay. So now we are going to go into the round of candidate questions. Jose is going to go first. Hopefully he remembered to print off copies. Oh, excellent. No, you read the question. You read the question and then Susan will go up first and answer it. All right. Just to make sure I don't make mistakes. All right. One of the measures from K-12 student success is their preparation and ability to attend college. We hear a lot about Davis schools are very good. The proponents of measure H imply that such parcel taxes maintain the quality of the schools. So my question is, what is the evidence of the impact of the parcel taxes on the admission to college of students in the Davis district? Do you know what percentage of students graduating from Davis having accepted to our local university, UCD, or other universities? Okay. Susan. Okay. So two minutes. Correct? Yes. Okay. So thank you for the question, Jose. Our graduation rate, I think, is about 96 percent. A large percentage of those students do go to college and university, probably around 90 percent. I would refer you to the district's local control and accountability plan, which is the state brought in the local control funding formula, which changed how school districts are funded, required districts to begin to create a plan with community to set budget priorities. That plan is very detailed. It's 167 pages, I believe, this year, which is good. That means it's a lot of detail. And it has had a lot of community input throughout the year in order to develop those priorities. So as we are working on closing the achievement gap, our strategies, our goals are there. Our strategies are there. And the progress that we are making towards those goals is there as well. So you'll be able to see the specific graduation rates that apply to all of our students. Regarding your question of does the parcel tax, what's the evidence that the parcel tax maintains the quality of schools? I wouldn't necessarily say that parcel taxes mean you have high-quality schools. I think high-quality schools exist in communities like ours, in university communities. And our communities like ours are far more willing to step up and to be able to pass a parcel tax in order to provide additional programs for our students. Davis is one of very few districts in the state of California who actually are able to pass a parcel tax. I think most of you know that is a two-thirds threshold. So two need to vote yes for everyone that votes no. Measure H, which is on the ballot this November, is a $620 measure that continues the programs that are already in place. There are no new programs funded in Measure H. Thank you. I timed that one well. Yeah, that was good. All right, Bob, you're up. So for me, I mean, the parcel tax is so critical to quality schools in Davis. If you just go through the list of programs and areas where that parcel tax is used, for example, librarians, funding librarians, funding science teachers, supporting the World Languages Program, we are very fortunate in Davis to have five language options. They support, the parcel taxes help support counselors. They lower the class size in first through third grade. So I think those all contribute to a quality school system. And I would not want to take the risk of what our schools would be like without that parcel tax. It's 12 percent of the district's budget. Most of that money goes to positions. So you know, without that money, we wouldn't have the librarians. We wouldn't have the science education in our elementary schools. And I think, particularly the early intervention is a good predictor of success. I don't know exactly what the percentage is in terms of students that are accepted into UC Davis or where, but they go to the top universities throughout the country. So you know, I think that that's proof that we do have good quality schools. I think the one thing I am concerned about, and I have been told this, that in Davis, the seniors that wind up at Sac State, about 40 percent have to take remedial courses. So I think that is a fairly high percentage. It looks good compared to Woodland, but it is something that I think probably deserves a little bit more attention as to why that is. Okay. Thank you, Bob. Alan, you are up. Thank you. So what is the evidence of the impact of the parcel tax on the admission to college of students in the Davis district? Well, I mean, I see the evidence on the face of the kids that get reading specialists that go walk into the libraries. I see the evidence of the face of the librarians in our schools. I think as Bob and Susan articulated, 12 percent of our budget comes from the parcel tax. I guess I really can't answer the question with some level of specificity other than a great deal of evidences out there and that really we owe a debt to our community for continually passing the parcel tax because it has for so many years given us the things for our students to compete to earn a spot in college. As for the second point, which is what is the percentage of students graduating from Davis that have been accepted to local University of UC Davis? That's sort of unknowable because I don't know how each individual applicants' results have come back, but we do know that roughly around 10 percent of our graduating students attend local universities, UC Davis. But again, it depends how you phrase this question. Either way, I think that it focuses on university and one of the things that I'm proud of is that really when you come to DJUSD, hopefully the world is open, that if you pursue a pathway towards a four-year university like UC Davis, you have the ability to go in that direction. I hope that if a child wants to pursue a trade or some other passion of theirs that isn't the university, that they too have that access by attending our schools. So I think that it is certainly important to focus on higher learning and sure as heck our community does and I'm proud of what we do in that regard. Thanks, Ellen. Okay, Jose, you get to answer your own question now. I am running on the theme that elect a different candidate. And you may notice that the three candidates did not really answer my question. They made assumptions as to what they might think it is. And I think perhaps Susan came close to when she recognized that parcel taxes are not what maintains the quality of education necessarily is an addition. But that's not what is being told to the public. The public is being told that major age maintains the quality of schools and I wish those people who are for the major would be a little more honest about that. And I think Bob also, although he didn't answer the question, he really hit on a problem. Other universities too, as I graduated from here, they remediate classes particularly in math and science and that's not good. And I can tell you having gone through a promotion just in the last two years of children going to college as freshmen, I would say of a hundred kids that we know, maybe three or so, got into UC Davis, totally embarrassing. I think also it's mentioned the 12% budget of the district. I think it's an embarrassment that the district, although has asked the community for help, hasn't made any single plan to mitigate the need for those parcel taxes. And despite the fact that we passed Proposition 30 and the district receives $10.8 million a year from it, they still want double tax in the community. We step up, including myself. I voted for Proposition 30 because I believe in funding the schools. I'm just abusing the taxpayers and I believe major age is a total disaster. They should be very honest about it. Thank you, Jose. Okay, anyone want to use their one minute or 30 second, Bob? Yeah, I'll just use a 30 second slot here. I think it's important to let the people in Davis know that there is the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee. That's a group of community members that sits down with Bruce Colby on a regular basis, I was part of that for the last two years. And I feel very confident that the parcel tax money is being spent the way it was intended to be spent. And I don't know other communities whether the Parcel Tax Oversight Committee is a routine thing, but that is in place in Davis. And I think that should assure people in the community that we're doing a good job with that money. Okay, thank you. Anyone else want to use a challenge? Yeah, I do, because I believe- One minute or 30 seconds. The 30 seconds. Okay. I think Bob is wrong, because the Oversight Committee is appointed by the school board. It's not the independent body from the community or a professional, nor they have any authority to whether they are able to spend the money on one way or the other. I have read those reports and I have never seen anything that is likely would suggest an improvement or something that is not doing well, as opposed to the real audits that the district has had. Thank you. Okay, any others before we go on to Susan's question? You are reading. Hey, the district has a growing ethic of meeting the needs of each and every student to improve both their academic success and their social emotional well-being. Where have you seen good progress in this regard and where would you encourage more? Bob, you are up. Okay, well, I realize that that is an area of emphasis for the district, certainly dealing with the achievement gap and trying to get kids off to a good start. And I think there has been progress that has been made. I think there's a lot more progress that needs to be done. And I'm a firm believer in investing early. That's why I was supporting the idea of an increase in sales tax in the county to guarantee a quality preschool for many of our children in the county, but that also includes Davis. I was looking at the information I did with the school district and there was a deserving trend in terms of success of some of the English language learners later on in their education. And it seemed to be a trend that was downward. And I think that would bear some looking a little bit more closely at to see why that is. But I think we do need to invest early. And I think some of the programs that encourage reading are excellent. I think the bridge program has a good track record. I would encourage even more investment early on. Because if kids can read at grade level by third grade, that is a predictor of long term success. I would advocate, I'm on the Explorit Science Center Board. And that is a local institution that has tremendous experience with hands on inquiry based learning at the elementary school level. And I'd like to see the district partner with Explorit to offer after class science lessons. And I think that would be a big help for at-risk kids to have that experience. Thanks, Bob. Okay, Alan, you're up. Well, the question in two parts is, where have you seen good progress in the emotional well-being of our students and where would you encourage more? And so for the first part, I would say, as I mentioned previously, I'm proud of the new board, how we have established a priority of the well-being of every child. In that effort, we have looked at things that are sort of outside the box. I say outside the box because we were the first district really to move aggressively towards the later start. And while it might have been sort of controversial for some parts of our community, the evidence was overwhelming that it affects in a positive way the mental well-being of children, particularly at the high school age. And so I was proud of our board in that regard in charging ahead to accomplish that. Also, we added some school nursing and school counseling for children in elementary, and I was proud of that. So I would say those are some things that I was encouraged by. But I really like what Bob was saying with regard to the English learner development later on. I think that's a great point. And I would attach myself to saying that that's something that we ought to be looked at and concerned with. And I would also encourage more look at that as he indicated. But I would also say that preschool, too, which is something that was mentioned. A couple of weeks ago, we had a school board meeting in which we had a discussion about preschool as a way of closing the achievement gap. And one of the things I was struck by was that 70%, roughly 71% of the children in DJUSD attend preschools, our graduation percentage is 96%. I said, why don't we have a goal of establishing our preschool rate to match our graduation rate so that we're ensuring that continuity throughout our entire system? Thank you. Jose? Just as I point out things that I disagree with, I point out this question is very good to let you know what I agree with. I think one of the greatest things that the school district has done is the Spanish Immersion Proof. I was one of the group on the first families on this program. And I have seen it from the very beginning, how it has flourished and progressed, including mixing language with math and other things that make learning really fun. I think that's one of our greatest accomplishment. And I'm glad that the program is still going on. I think that the second part is an idea that I would like to put forward to the board is that we should bring people who are expressing many fields to be teachers. For example, somebody who goes to studies math or science in school cannot directly go and teach. There's so much red tape about the credentials. And therefore, my suggestion would be to make it a little easier for people who have degrees that not necessarily went to be teachers, but that they could be progressively brought into teaching in such a way that would enhance the quality of the schools, would increase the number of jobs and the quality of teachers. Okay, Susan, you get to answer your own question. Okay, thank you everybody. It was good discussion. Just a few things that I would like to highlight that we have done that I think is really good significant progress, particularly over the last couple years. And I want to echo what Alan said. I've been really proud of our board and its willingness to really focus on identifying priorities and then aligning resources there. So we have been investing in common core implementation, which provides deeper, richer, and more relevant instruction for our students, as well as professional growth to help our teachers better differentiate instruction in their classroom across their classrooms for all students. 63% of our teachers participated in professional learning and differentiated instruction last year, and there are more opportunities this year. We've invested in technology to support that differentiated instruction. We are now at one device to almost every three students and we're using Chromebook netbooks. They are fully integrated into classroom instruction and we have Wi-Fi and all of our schools to support that. As Alan said, we've invested in elementary counselors and crisis counselors, nurses and mental health interns to support the social emotional well being of our students. We've introduced restorative practices and trauma informed care, which is a different way of dealing with disciplinary issues and students sense of connectedness to school than our typical disciplinary practices. We've implemented a youth truth survey to be asking students how they're feeling about their school, whether how they feel about their teacher, whether they feel comfortable and connected to the school environment. And we've worked with the city most recently on the 1,000 mentors for you to be able to bring more community volunteers into the classroom environment. In terms of continued progress, I am a big advocate of Michael Fulans work on coherence, his most recent book, The Right Drivers and Actions for Schools, Districts and Systems. It really is about how the board sets focus and then we align resources. Okay, now Bob gets to ask the question and Alan will go first. So the question is UC Davis is an integral part of the Davis community and a world class public university. The parents of many Davis children are employed by UCD. What have you personally done to help utilize the vast educational resources of UCD for the benefit of the school district? How can the district more effectively partner with UCD to improve school programs and educational opportunities for Davis children? You're up, Alan. Thank you, now great question. So what have I personally done to help utilize the resources at UC Davis? I mentioned earlier I was on the Business and Economic Development Commission and part of that work actually resulted in a town gown conference that Gary Sandy did a number of years ago. And it really got me invested into the work of something we call community, the city, the community and the university. And so I worked with him and learned a lot about ways to partner not only with university but our surrounding communities, cities, counties, school districts. And I actually wrote an op-ed about 10 years ago to the Davis Enterprise about how we as a community can strengthen our ties with the university. One of the critical and what I have done personally is really the work around the bicycling hall of fame. And that was a joint project in which we also worked with schools to establish tours of the bicycling hall of fame and the California Bicycle Museum to really integrate bicycling, which is so ingrained in our community, and not only just the other aspects about healthy living but the engineering and mechanical aspects of bicycling. But having said that, I think there's a lot more work to do, quite frankly. And I know that oftentimes people talk about we are under utilizing our connection to the university. But I know that we have over the recent years worked with the School of Education on studies and what have you. And I remained a partner in any endeavor that seeks to really leverage all of the resources at the university to bring them here locally. Thank you, Alan. Jose. My personal experience with this during engineering week, a couple of years ago, I cooperated with the students here at UC Davis and with the College of Engineering to organize the engineering Mary Batch and we used the Boy Scouts which are children in the Davis schools here to motivate them to be engineers. And at first, even on the trip that my son was there, they were a little very reluctant as to what this would be. We ended up with 54 students from the Davis schools taking that experience. And we use the UCD labs. We use the UCD professors to inspire them. I also came here to help. And so this is what I have done personally in regards to this question. One thing regarding the second question, as you can see, I am concerned about the students in Davis schools getting into UCD. Quite honestly, I don't see it happening now. Very few get in and that's not right. That needs to be fixed. I think if the UC Davis and the community is supported by the structure of the city, there has to be a better relationship and we need to get back to some consideration of the admissions of Davis residents. Right now, they are not treated with any distinction at all. And students in Davis have a very hard time getting in. I am pretty sure that you have friends and parents who feel the same way as I do because they have experienced this. Thank you. Okay, Susan? So in my nine years on the school board, there have been a number of opportunities to interact with UC Davis and so I noted down just a few of them. Most recently, through the 1000 Mentors Challenge that we're working on with the city of Davis, the school board and the city are partnering, we've connected into the Student-Led Community Resource Center there and so they have been blasting out the volunteer opportunities to all of their students to participate. We had a number who have stepped up and been working in our classrooms. Some work with the Davis Bridge Foundation, the work study tutors that have been participating. I've been involved with and helped smooth some of those pathways over the year. I personally involved through my own connections with setting up student internships, connections into the future farmers of America just because I have some personal friends in the Animal Science Department. Worked a couple of years ago on an effort called Healthy Youth, Healthy Yellow which involved Jonathan London's Community Center for Regional Change and they have a data set called Putting Youth on the Map which shows youth well-being and then opportunities for improvement from around the state. We did a number of public forums in association with YCOE, the Yellow County Office of Education and the Yellow County School Boards Association and then a number of different opportunities just in things I've been involved with. School of Education has partnered with us in a number of forums for the Yellow County School Boards Association, class size reduction, school financing, lots of interesting topics to parent community members. Also in my work with Saving California Communities and Yellow Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, we have partnered with the university, the associated students as well as the administration to both host and encourage participation by university members along with community members. Thanks Susan. Okay Bob, you get to answer your own question. Okay, so we have a university with 35,000 students, I don't know how many faculty, probably close to 3,000. Again, a world class institution and there have been a lot of partnerships that have been established but I think it is a little bit too ad hoc, it's too ephemeral and what my goal would be is to make it a more of an institutional goal for the university to interact across the spectrum of programs with our school district. So when I found out the high school was starting a veterinary science course I went to the vet school leadership and the vet school is willing to put in some resources to help support that program but next summer if everything works out we would have four paid summer internships for high school students to spend six weeks in the veterinary school, paired with a veterinary student doing research. So if you expand that across the university there should be a tremendous number of opportunities. Summer programs, I think it would be wonderful because probably many of us in this room have sent our kids to the summer camps at UC Davis that cost money. I would like to see some slots allotted to children that can't afford summer camps because that would be a tremendous experience, it would get them on campus and it would prevent the loss of a lot of learning over the summer. I was talking to somebody at the farmer's market on Saturday. The National Science Foundation now requires any grants that go into the foundation to have a community outreach component to that grant and he was telling me that some universities have coordinated across a number of grants to help support the community outreach and make it more strategic to coordinate what that outreach might be. And I thought that was an excellent idea that probably wouldn't cost that much money and probably could bring in a fair amount of money for. Thanks Bob. Okay, anyone wanna use a challenge in this round? Okay, Alan, you are up with the last question of the round. I guess when you said print I took it literally and printed it out for you. Printed it out. Remember, we can still write with our hands. Well, that's okay, cause I'll read it to you as well and I'll read slowly. What about your professional background prepares you for the work of a trustee? Okay, and Jose, you are up first. For 34 years every day I live and practice and I make my living in education. I have always, since I was a little kid, had the desire to teach and that has been my life. And so in regard to the question, it's pretty obvious that reaching the level that I am now in education, expand a long career and dedication to the educating the youth and seeing them successful. I have guided my students. I have like four of them doing their PhDs and many students I was able to motivate them from the very beginning where they say that that wasn't for them to actually guide them and mentor them so that they would go into an engineering career. I mentioned at the beginning, this is my strength. What I would like to share with the district and participate with the children and the youth of this district is if the voters would allow. We might disagree on some issues, but I think in the concern of who we need to care for the students and I think all of us agree and I am well prepared to meet that challenge. Okay, Susan? Okay, well I'm on my third career. So I've got a little bit to talk about. In my early years I was a professional librarian and so I've always found that very akin to the teaching profession. It is really about how do we bring the community in, make information available, accessible. It's a real service-oriented profession. Also very organized, good skills for life in general. And then when we first moved to Davis in 1997, I had an 18-month-old who I had been working full-time before we moved here and I decided to take some time off to spend with her and then ended up getting pregnant with our third daughter. So became for 10 years a stay-at-home mom and a volunteer. So working in at Willett Elementary, Emerson Junior High and Davis High School on things, I was a garden coordinator at Willett for a number of years. I did newsletters at all of the schools, websites, parent information. So really spent my time making sure that parents had the information they needed to feel connected and to be able to support their kids. And now since 2011 I have been active and a full-time employee of California Forward. I came to California Forward through my work on the school board. It was at the time that we were having those budget reductions and it was clear that it wasn't just about adequate funding for education, although that is very, very, very important. There were also structural issues that were in play. And so when I decided I was ready to go back into the workforce, I did go to California Forward. We focus on governance and finance issues, really helping governments understand how they can work better. Just two projects that I wanted to talk about, briefly there. So I staff a collaborative of 15 school districts and two county offices of education with the staff of the California School Boards Association. And the purpose of that is to help those 15 school districts and two county offices of education better implement the local control funding formula and their local control and accountability plans. So bringing in parents for engagement, et cetera. Okay, Bob, you are up. Okay, well like Jose, I have been a university educator for almost 30 years and I have taught in just about every learning style there is, every format from lecture halls to problem-based learning to laboratories. And I think that one of the things that that experience has provided to me is I can relate to teachers in terms of how much work they put in to make it look easy in the classroom. And so I really appreciate all the work outside of the classroom that teachers do. I've been involved in looking at curricular change. We went through that at the veterinary school and we're five years, six years into that curricular change and there's still some issues with that. And so I can relate to something like Common Core, how long it may take before we can find out whether it's a successful transition or not. Being a university professor, I think one of the skills you have to learn to be successful is to collaborate. You can't do anything by yourself so you tend to work with teams which would be very similar to working with five school board trustees. And I think one of the things that's very important is I think we need a scientist on the school board. I think we need to have somebody that understands STEM subjects, understands career and technical education and somebody that could sort through data to judge whether it's good data or bad data. Not all data is created equal. And I think the critical thinking that looking at what the evidence is and how good that evidence is, I think is a very important attribute that I could bring to the school board. And plus I've been in enough faculty meetings that have lasted two, three, four hours. So, you know, I, I, I. Yeah, if it doesn't get out at midnight, it's too early. Okay, Alan, great. Well, thank you all for the answers. I, you know, the reason I asked it is I think it is very important that our board be a diverse board and have really input from all segments of our community from, as I mentioned early on, elementary all the way through. And likewise, I think it's important to have a diverse board. When I asked about the role and the work of a trustee, being a trustee is, is multi-fold. It is, you are, though, at its core, a local government. And that's what I bring. That's my background. I, I'm a lawyer by practice. I specialize in public law and government law. 80% of our money comes from the state government. I've spent the last almost 20 years of my career understanding the state budget process. Certainly we are, we have outstanding representation with our current president on the board from university professor and administrator. And the, the goal you put forward about institutionalizing that connection, I think is a great one. And I think, you know, our current president will help it, but I stand with you to partner if, in that endeavor, because I do think it's important. But really, at the end of the day, what we are is a local government in our community that has to work with our city, county, the university and others. I'm on the board of the Institute for Local Government. It's a statewide organization that focuses on ethics for local government, but also establishes interconnectedness that is so vital to really tap all resources to be a successful school district local government agency. And I think that that is one of the things I'm able to bring to the board is that expertise in local government law policy. The connectedness to the state government, which is so important to our organization's health in the years ahead. Thank you very much. Okay, that concludes the candidate round. And I have to say, you guys are way too nice to each other, so I have much tougher questions coming up. However, before we get there, I'm going to have Jasmine come around and hand out note cards to anyone who wants to ask questions. So if you have questions, raise your hand, and she will deliver the note card to you, hopefully. All right, so I have to apologize to the candidates. I've made a big deal out of each of you printing out the questions, and I neglected to do so myself. So that is completely my fault, and I will, I think these questions will be easy enough to follow, so I'll just read them real slowly. So we're going to start with Susan answering the first question. It's going to go around to Jose. You guys are welcome to use your challenges and everybody has their one-minute challenges, and half of you have the 30-second challenges. Sorry, just a clarification on process. We're reversing order? No, I'm asking you first because Jose answered the Alan's question. Okay, so then we're just continuing. We're going to keep circling. Okay, I thought we were reversing direction. Sorry for the confusion there. All right. We're answering your question.  All right. First question, and I have three of them. DJUSD is a district with average funding. It is disadvantaged by the LCFF formula due to the affluence of the district. That means that effectively the district receives less money from the state than other districts. How can the district with those constraints be able to provide the resources needed to produce excellence in education? Should I go ahead? Yes, okay. Well, obviously, I want to talk just a little bit about what you just said in terms of average funding for the district because I'm not sure that everybody kind of understands how the local control funding formula works. So the district receives a base grant for every student. It receives an additional amount of funding for students who are high-need students so those are English language learners, low socioeconomics, so children in poverty, foster youth or homeless youth. So an additional grant for those students. And then if a district has more than 50%, 55% of high-need students, those districts get a concentration grant. Because we have a lower percentage of high-need students, we don't get those additional funds. We get some supplemental funds for our students who are at risk around 27, 25, 27%. But we do not get a concentration grant. But the intention is those additional funds come to provide services for those students who need them. So the base grant should be funding the base program. Unfortunately, the base is underfunded in California. So I think where we need to focus is we're talking on adequate funding for public education is on increasing the base grant and that's for all districts, not just for our district. And then those additional supplemental and concentration funds will go to surfaces for the high-need students. So what was the second half of your question? So the basic question was how can the district with those constraints be able to provide the resources needed to produce excellence in education? So the parcel tax is exceptionally helpful here and I just want to say quickly, math and reading instruction, elementary science, music programs, librarians, counselors, all of those things that are funded through the parcel tax are things that our district is able to provide because the community steps up and funds. So while we may be challenged, certainly with the base grant, we do have opportunity in the parcel tax. Okay, thanks, Susan. And remember, you can always use another minute after the round goes through. Bob, do you need me to repeat the question? Are you good? No, I've got it. You know, unfortunately, we're in a state that doesn't fund public education very well. I think the last time I looked and other people have mentioned that we're 41st when we used to be fifth. And what became very clear from talking to district administration during the candidate information night is that Sacramento isn't gonna be helping us out. There's not a lot more new money coming to K through 12 education. So I think this goes back to one of my areas of focus. We have to partner. We have to partner with the university. We have to partner with the city of Davis. I think an excellent idea would be if those three institutions could come together to fund a professional grant writer. I think that person would probably pay for themselves fairly quickly. And I think we have to go for bigger grants. Just in the New York Times on Thursday, Brooklyn School and nine others went 10 million dollar grants to rethink education. And I think we should be in that mix. The characterization is they are using time in very flexible ways. They are ensuring personalized learning using tech and time embedded with rigor. That's what each of those schools that got that money have in common. So I really think the pie is not gonna get bigger from the taxpayer. I think we have to be creative in terms of going out and finding money from foundations, from private companies to help fund our programs. And I think it's doable. I think there's no reason why with the level of expertise that we have in this community, we can't come up with ways to increase the pie through those mechanisms. And I might also say that I think we do have to sort of look at the way we conduct business and make sure we're doing it as efficiently as possible so that we're not wasting any dollar that could be going into the classroom. Okay, Ellen. Can I, what he said and she said? Uh-huh. I don't know. Uh-huh, if you'd like. Because no, in all seriousness, that's the answer, people. It's everything. We need to be doing everything we can possibly be doing to increase the resources for the exact reasons they said, which is 80% of our money comes from the state. 12% comes from the parcel tax. The remaining comes from federal funds and other sources. So there you have it. That's the pie. So what do we do? Well, we look at all of those things. We look at grant funding. I 100% agree that we do need to do more about aggressively pursuing grant funding. But I'll tell you what else we need to do. And I think people just write off the fact that, oh, the state funds us by 80%. That's what we're gonna get. No, folks, no. The, on the ballot, Prop 51 is a school facilities bond. We can get more money if we do a bond ourselves to enable ourselves to have matching funds. It's about thinking smart and about looking at the rules that the state has set forward to really maximize how we can increase sources outside of just merely our LCFF funding. Perhaps we can do a pilot program that would engage the legislature to invest a little bit more in some innovative program that we do. So the answer to the question is all of it. And I think I'm well positioned to really know where those opportunities lie in Sacramento and really put, position our district in a way that we can really access those monies should they be there. Thanks, Salon. Jose, you had the last word. Although the question is railroaded to justify the parcel taxes, I think it's very important to understand the confusion that the community faces with this right now. When they talk about basic grant and the funding from the state, all students are funded the same way. So there's no such a thing as divvies as a disadvantage. You know, if I am on this leadership team, I'm not gonna be looking sideways to see where I'm going. And that's exactly what they're doing here because the other districts are funded because they have other needs and they have other kinds of students. They have poor students and they have English learners. Well, that money is going to that. And of course it's going to have more money. And by the way, compared per student, the funding is the same from the state. So it is actually a mathematical error and a public opinion manipulation to mix both of those. The second thing is I am very pleased that finally somebody agrees with me. In 2014, I ran last time, I made exactly the proposal that Bob is saying right now. And I agree with him. I think we should, as a district, go and do professional grant writing and have a department precisely that that's just that. Parcel taxes will look like pennies compared to what you can do. And it would not be this unfairness that we have now that only those who have a home here pay the bill for everybody else. When the seniors don't pay, when the people who are temporary in Davis don't pay and people who don't live here but have a job here also don't pay, but they send their kids to schools here. That's not fair. I think we need to finish this. And I believe we should turn major H down and bring perhaps a different major to the board so that they can fix this. Okay, did anyone want to use their one minute challenge, Susan? Okay, I would just caution both Bob and Jose, I do remember from the last round of our forums when we were both running in 2012, you repeatedly recommended grants.  Many, many, many of those grants are targeted to high needs districts and we're not one. Our percentage of students of high needs students is much lower than most districts in the state of California, which means we're not competitive for a lot of grants. So that doesn't mean that we are not competitive for any grants, but we definitely need to do your homework on those. I just wanted to refer people to districtdollars.org, which is a site that we have been able to create and maintain locally in Davis that shows how the school district receives its funds and then how it spends them, so you can learn more if you would like to there. And then I just want to reiterate again that Measure H will renew Measures C&E that we are currently paying. It will fund existing programs, $9.5 million in the school district. Thanks, Susan. Okay. I would like to use my minute. Go ahead. Susan, I really have an issue with what you said. You said renew. Renew in English means, although that's not my first language, it means to do it over of what you have. That's not what the district is doing right now. The first thing you did, instead of the $531 that both of those measures produced, you raised it to 620, 17% increase with no justification whatsoever. And then they double the time that the measure lasts so they double the amount. So now you pay, if you vote for Measure A, you better pay those $5,000 because that's the result of doubling the tax plus 17% increase. Okay, Susan's gonna use her 30 second. I'm using it all up here. I do just want to say that we are continuing the same programs in Measure H that are currently funded by Measure C&E. The difference is that we can no longer assess the multifamily rate and Jose, you know that because you were involved in the lawsuit that required the district to change the way we structure the tax. So I find it disingenuous that you're raising this as a concern now. Okay, any other challenges? Okay, so now we are gonna go to the second Vanguard question. Again, I will try to read this slowly and clearly if you have questions I can repeat it. The district is changing demographically with more than a quarter of the students now considered Title I and nearly half now children of color. There's been a lot of talk about the achievement gap but how can the district better ensure that there is equity among resources particularly across the elementary schools? Bob, you are first on this one. Could you repeat the question on this one? Okay, I will. I'm gonna read it again. Yes, I'm gonna read it again. That's fair. And again, I apologize for not printing these out. The district is changing demographically with more than a quarter of the students now considered Title I and nearly low income, needing lunch assistance, no, quarter. Half are now, nearly half are now children of color. It's like 47% or something like that. There has been a lot of talk about the achievement gap but how can the district better ensure that there is equity among resources across in particular the elementary schools? Bob's first. Well, that's an excellent question. I think that from outside looking in, I think that certainly the district has tried very hard to provide extra resources in areas where there is a high concentration of low income students in families. I've certainly heard that some issues with regard to the ability of all the elementary schools through the PTA to raise enough money to maybe support some of the programs that the parents would like at a school. I think that that would be an interesting thing to look at to see if there couldn't be some sort of coordination among the PTA to again increase the pie to provide more resources for every elementary school. I think one of the things that can be a challenge in terms of concentration of students in one particular area, particularly with low income students, is that maybe there's some other programs that they could take advantage of, but there's inadequate transportation. And I don't think really we've examined that in the district in terms of maybe some students would like to go to another program. And it may be a difficult task to actually get them there at the times that are appropriate. So that's probably all I have to say. Okay, thanks, Bob. All right, Alan. Thank you. Well, thank you for the question. As some know, I was appointed to the 26th member strategic planning committee in 2014. And it was the charge to really revise our mission statement, our values, et cetera. Every year we look back at the work of that committee and see whether or not the district is on course or not. This year, one of the topics that we discussed was equity, that we as a district should strive towards equity. But the work of the committee couldn't really get past, well, what does equity mean? Because that means different things to different people. To me, it means that we are making sure that we're providing all of the resources that are needed for all of our children in our elementary. And I'm proud to say that when I first got on the board, one of the things that I looked at was our district's reliance on soft money to fund permanent positions. When that occurred and the budget crisis struck our district, I think our district, rightly, was trying to take any resources available to it so that we didn't leave any children out. Unfortunately, though, that did result in some inequities around our elementary campuses. And so I made it a priority, and our board agreed to really eliminate or unwind from that soft money, that one-time money from PTAs to fund staff positions, because when you do that at one site, it means that other sites are left behind. And so really, what it takes is a continued focus on our board, which I think we're there now that resources are coming back from the state, to really be vigilant and making sure that every child has all of the same kind of access and opportunities at no matter what school site they're at. And it's been a priority of mine since being on the board, and it's one I'll continue to look at moving forward. Okay, who's that? I made a proposal last time that I was running, and I was opposed to the sale of the granted property. A proposal that I made was to create a tutoring center precisely to cure the achievement of any student, whether it's a low income or whatever it is. But I am critical of the board, they sold the property, and now they, you know, something like that could be very beneficial to our students, precisely to have like a tutoring center or strengthening some after-school programs so that they can combine learning with having some fun. But I believe that that's where the answer might be because during the day, there's the teachers and everybody is doing the regular program, but we need to pay attention to these students that are behind, and my answer would be to promote after-school programs with the idea of tutoring or create a tutoring center so if not the granted property is gone, maybe look for another site, but think it out that way so that to help these students. Okay, Susan. So the Grande property was surplus, it was not needed as a school site, we do provide tutoring opportunities before, during, and after-school on all of our school sites. And I hate to sound like a broken record, but I just wanna go back to, our tool for closing the achievement gap is the local control and accountability plan. It is the place where we are looking at the data, it's the place where we are spending our money, and it's the place where we can see whether we were making any progress. So the local control funding formula was designed to create equitable education opportunities for all students, and we have been on the low side because our high-need student population is not as many, it's growing, as you point out, and that local control and accountability plan is our tool to be closing the achievement opportunity gap. And then I just wanna say, the parcel tax, the investment that this community makes through a parcel tax is an investment not just in our own individual children, we don't put our children in private school in Davis, we put our children in public school, and we invest our tax dollars in supporting those kids. So that is just, we are unique, not we are not the only district who does that, but we are certainly rare, and it is the reason that I chose to live in Davis, why I choose to stay in Davis, and why I am honored to serve on the school board. This is a community that supports all our kids in all of our schools. Okay, thank you. Does anyone wanna use their challenge for this one? No? Okay, so here's my last question. When we are done with that, we're gonna take a five-minute break so that I can quickly go over the cards. If you have a question, make sure you've written it down and gotten it to Jasmine so that we can do this as expeditiously as possible. All right, so let's see, it's Alan is first. This is the AIM question. Do you support the current changes to the AIM program? Do you believe the changes have been beneficial to the school district? Why or why not? Well, certainly I support the vote that we all took and it was a unanimous vote on revising the criteria for the program. But I do, I mean, there's a subsequent vote as it related to how then we implement those changes that I had a different perspective on. I mean, look it, the bottom line is public policy is something that isn't, you put all of the elements in a magic box and push out comes the answer to solve all problems for all people. I think where the original desire started from was a desire to really do better in our education system at reaching every child. So-called differentiated instruction. What are we doing as a community to make sure that we are in fact caring about every single child in every classroom seat? And that was really how I always viewed the gist of that first initial motion. Subsequently, we learned about the best practices and the way certain tests are administered to result in allowing for entrance into a program and we made some changes. But I think I've been very vocal in saying that I think this is something that we need to constantly revisit to make sure we're doing our best and to make sure that we are truly in fact doing what we set out to do as a district, which is make sure that every student in our district has the ability to achieve their highest maximum potential and so I support what we did, but that by no means means that I would not want to and indeed change the direction that we took to perfect what we are trying to do. Okay, thank you, Alan. Bob, or sorry, Jose. All right. Again, I am very different on this because I believe this was a disastrous decision and I believe it needs to be scrapped. I think they're never going to include people, particularly Hispanic students and I believe it's a lack of understanding, cultural understanding, and instead of embracing the students, they segregated students. I believe that this needs to be changed completely with a new system where everybody would have the opportunity to get in. The parents, my proposal would be that the parents manifest themselves if they want their child to be in this program and that the school established is progressive classification of students and anybody from any status should have the opportunity to get in. I went to the University of California, Berkeley, why? Because they gave me the opportunity and look where I ended up. If they wouldn't have given me the opportunity, I would not have been able to get into 98 percentile or numbers that they put in there. That is totally wrong. I think we need to do our way completely with the system and open it to everybody and those who are able to stay in the program keep going until they achieve their maximum potential. That's what we need to do. Okay, thank you, Bob. Susan. Thank you, God. Okay, thank you, Jose. Susan, I don't know why I have Bob on the mind. So, certainly I support the changes having been involved in the board that implemented the changes. And it harks back to your earlier question on equitable education opportunities. It is critically important, I think for our district, to understand the learning needs of every child and to provide an opportunity for them to have an academically rigorous, well-supported program with high expectations for every child in our district. I shared this during our discussions at the board on the aim discussion, but I wanna just share it again. Solomon Kahn, who wrote the book, The One World Schoolhouse Education Reimagined, said to be successful in a competitive and interconnected world. We need every mind we have to solve our common problems regarding relations among peoples and the health of our planet. We need all the talent and all of the imagination that we can find. And we really, as a district, need to, I feel like, embrace that as our mantra, that everything that we do is to help every child be successful. So, all of that said, yes, I support where we are. We're not done. This is a work in progress. And we have taken it incrementally and we have slowed down when we needed to in order to understand the implications of where we are with each step in our decision-making process. We are receiving information. We are constantly evaluating. We are looking forward to response from the Office of Civil Rights to provide some recommendations as to what they might like to see us do in terms of making sure that our program really reflects the diversity of our student population. So, all that to say I am open to how the changes that we have been making are working for our students and to making sure that as we go forward with each decision point, we're making the best decision that we can for all students. Okay, thank you, Susan, now to the actual Bob. Thank you. Well, I support a fair and effective aim program. And I also support the fact that we need to try and meet the needs of every child the best we can. I think the children that benefit from the aim program, I think they got lost in the shuffle in terms of what those programs are designed to do for a certain subset of children that learn and think differently. And I use as a mantra the California Association for the Gifted, they have position papers. And if you read the paper on characteristics of gifted children, it is a unique subset of children that these programs were designed to address their learning needs. I think the changes have been too rapid. I think that there should have been more piloting of program options. We instituted a lot of new assessment tests and obviously the tests that were used have not been effective at reflecting the diversity of our student population. So there's something that needs to be changed there. I would put a pause on changing it to 98 percentile to see where we are at this point. Now having said that about aim, I also think we have to have programs that address the needs of high achievers. And I would like the district to actually look at the possibility of an international baccalaureate program, particularly for elementary and junior high students. And I think that that would be something that could meet the needs of the high achievers. Differentiation I think sounds very good, but only 63 percent of the teachers have taken a course in differentiation so far. It should have been a hundred because we're relying on that as a major area of emphasis. And so I think that that is a deficiency that we need to correct. And I don't think differentiation, the other thing is that you didn't establish it. Thanks. Okay. Yeah, you can do, you have a one minute. So I did just wanna share with the audience my experience in actually seeing differentiated instruction happening in classrooms around the district. This is not something that is impossible to do. It's not even all that hard to do. It's a reorientation of how we do things. And so it involves having different learning stations going on in the same classroom, children moving at different levels regarding what their needs are. It involves allowing students to cross grade levels. If they are particularly good at math, it involves allowing kids to cross schools if where they need to be, is it the high school when they're in junior high or if they need to be at the university when they're in high school. It really is tailoring the educational instructional program around each student. And it can be done, it can be done and it is being done in classrooms across Davis. 63% of our teachers participate in professional learning. Professional learning is something that goes on every year, all the time. You never move everybody into one program and expect them to learn it all at once. Okay, anyone else wanna use their challenge? Yeah, I'll take a minute here. Is it a minute? You have a minute, yes. All right, I think if differentiation is shown to work, I mean, I think that's what should go on in every classroom. I have no problem with that. And what my concern is is there was not a focus on what is unique about those students that benefit from an AEM program. It is not just students that can't function in a regular classroom. That's not what CAG believes. And so I think we're going to potentially affect a lot of children whose needs are not gonna be met. And I think differentiation, the other point I would like to make is that when the school board decided to go that route, which is not necessarily a bad decision, I don't think there was any monitoring put in place to assess the effectiveness. You could say that it's working, and I'm sure in some classrooms it's working well. But if a third of the teachers have never experienced differentiation as far as a professional development, then how are they doing? Okay, any other challenges? Okay, we're gonna take a five minute break. We are gonna come back precisely at 35 after by that clock, and then we will have the audience questions. So, thank you. So I wanna say a lot of these have been excellent questions. We're only gonna have time to do four. However, on the Vanguard, we're gonna do weekly questions. And so some of these may come up later on. But I'm going to ask four of these questions. Let's see, we left off with you first. So Jose will go first on this one. And these are gonna be one minute questions. We don't have our timekeeper. Okay, I get an eyeball it, okay guys? So that we can get started. All right, the first one is two-way bilingual education is currently illegal in California, yet DJUSD voted to implement such a program. Why and how do you square the conflicting philosophy of two-way bilingual education and Spanish immersion? I'm gonna read it a second time, but it's not my question, so I can't really clarify, but there is a two-way bilingual program in the school district. The question is, two-way bilingual education is currently illegal in California, yet DJUSD voted to implement such a program. Why and how can you square the conflicting philosophy of two-way bilingual and Spanish immersion? So one minute answers on this round. Well, the question suggests the district is doing something illegal, so hopefully they fix it. I understand this very well, because of the languages that I learned, and also because I promoted the Spanish immersion program. What I can tell you is this, Spanish immersion is the best for English-speaking kids. Bilingual education is not very good for Spanish-speaking kids, because they need to learn English. While in an immersion program, somebody, some student who already knows English learns Spanish, that is perfectly fine. This is the best way to learn a language while you are not immersing another country. So that's the difference. I think that we need to promote Spanish immersion programs for English-speaking kids, and we need to promote English regular classes or perhaps a special class, but totally not for Spanish kids. Okay, Susan. So I'm not quite sure. Well, first of all, it's not illegal. I understand kind of where the question was coming from. I think in early days when the proposition first passed, we had to have a waiver to continue the Spanish immersion program. I do not require we need a waiver anymore, so I'm confident that what we are doing is completely legal. I also don't know conflicting philosophies between Spanish immersion and dual immersion. Dual immersion has more native Spanish speakers in it, so you have an even mix of native Spanish speakers and native English speakers, and they learn from each other, and you bring those assets together, and that's why we placed that program at Montgomery or changed that program. We allowed the Spanish immersion to age out, and then we brought in the dual immersion behind it to really provide a program that was targeted for the needs of the Spanish-speaking families there, as well as the English-speaking families. Thank you. Bob? Well, I can't comment on the legality of the program. I assume the school district did its due diligence and would not have done something that was against state law. You know, I think my one comment would be, and this applies to a lot of the programs in Davis, that so the two-way bilingual program is relatively new, and I guess I would like to, that sort of the scientist in me is say, okay, what were the outcomes we wanted, and how do we measure whether we're achieving those outcomes and see if the program is effective or not, and then make some sort of decision either to improve the program or to change the program, and that's what I would say. Okay, Ellen? So one of the things in our mission statement, it really calls on us to develop an education system where our children are evolving and increasingly connected in the world. And to do that, I think, is an acknowledgement by our district that we provide access and all different kinds of learning opportunities and our immersion programs do that. The legality of a blanket statement that is illegal is really sort of, I think, misleading to the notion that it's something that could not be offered on our public school system. Indeed, it can, and we do, and we have. And I think that we as a community and as a school district should do everything we can to ensure that we are enabling learning in all ways, including our languages, because not only do we enable certain members of our... Thank you. Okay, I'm gonna truncate some of these questions just to make them go quicker, especially for one-minute answers. This is a measure H question. Too much, too little, or the right amount. Susan, you are up. So it's the right amount because it continues the programs that are already in place in Davis schools. And we've talked about what those are already, so I won't go through the list. And it brings in 9.5 million in supportive programs that our children are already partaking in and being advantaged by. So there was discussion at the board and Alan and I were both advocates for going a little bit higher with the tax to be able to provide some additional programs that we knew would be very valuable to our students. Ultimately, the board came down on a decision to go with a 6.20 amount that would continue the existing programs. Thank you, Bob. Too much, too little, just right. That's a tough question. Personally, I probably would have agreed with Susan and Alan that perhaps this was undershooting a little bit. I don't think the surveys were necessarily handled quite right because they didn't quite find the sweet spot there where we might have gotten the 2-thirds vote in favor of a little bit higher. So I think had I been a board member, what I would have liked to have seen was for the current measure H, this is what we get. For $750, this is what we could do in addition. For $960, these are the programs we could have. And I didn't see that discussion and I think that would have helped sell perhaps a little bit higher parcel tax. But it is what it is and we're hoping for the 66%. Thank you, Alan. I agree with both Susan and Bob also that I certainly was supportive of a higher amount but is this the right amount? I think today it is. But I do wanna continue the discussion along the lines as Bob suggested and indeed our board said that we need to continually look at the uses of the parcel tax to make sure it aligns with the priorities and mission of our district and what we set out to do. And so I believe that we as a community really need to really understand how LCFF affects our district and in less than until we do that will we be able to be in a position to really bring to the community a question of additional funding, should that be the case? But the parcel tax is so vitally important to our schools and I just can't accept the notion that we should vote it down because I think it would tear apart much of the good that we have built over the years. Thank you, I suspect we will get a different answer from Jose. Well, you see, everybody is addicted to parcel tax except me and they also lack math skills here because what they have done is duplicate, double the tax. They went for four years to eight years so they double the amount. So when you vote in their yes, they are voting for 620 times eight which is 4,960. How is that less or little? How is they even raise the question that is too much, too long for too few? Thank you, could I do a little challenge on that? Sure, math problem.  We can't have a lump sum payment here. Budgets are an annual basis and so I think it's really not a doubling of the taxes. What it is, it is an extension of the sunset and that is true, that is what it is but it's not a doubling of the taxes. That's certainly a mischaracterization of actually what it is. Should we be able to receive it all in a lump sum like we have that option for the lottery ticket we purchase? Well then maybe I would consider your argument in that regard. I need to challenge that. Well this is the difference between an attorney and an engineer because for them the word is gray, for us the word is black and white. He mischaracterized what I said. I'm not saying that everybody has to pay 4,916 a lump sum. They make it easier, six, 20 for eight years. There is even a valid argument that is even more misleading. This is $52 or $55 per month. There's somebody else who decides $2 per day and they leave to the border to do the math. That's totally dishonest. Let's say exactly what it is, 4,960 and you have eight years to pay. Is that okay? Okay. We are going to push on here. I am going to paraphrase this next question to be that the district is having trouble attracting new teachers. Do you believe that we should increase teacher pay? And if so, what would you cut to provide that extra money? I believe Bob you are up first on this one. Okay. Well I think it is a serious problem for the district. I think the district is being outcompeted for teachers and we are losing teachers. So the retention is an issue and I don't see that necessarily correcting any time soon given the resources. So I think that we are going to have to be creative in terms of trying to help teachers out in the classroom and make their work here in the Davis School District more enjoyable and one of the things that always disturbed me and this is I don't know how much money is spent out of pocket by teachers, but I know what happens. I think that is not right and we should come up with a creative way to provide teachers with the supplies that they need. I'm an advocate for trying to maybe come up with some creative ways to make housing more affordable for our teachers in Davis and I think other districts, other elsewhere have come up with some solutions and that might have been a good use of some surplus district land that you could maybe build houses for teachers. So I know there's controversy regarding that but I think those are some of the things we can do to try to mitigate the lack of being competitive as far as salary. Okay thanks, Ellen, you're up. So yes, I mean as part of the strategic planning committee as I mentioned annually we look and see whether or not we are aligning where we say we wanna go with the priorities and policies that we adopt and then in part of that process we identify what are the most significant challenges and there are two things that came out of it. One I already referenced the desire to define what we mean by equity but really the overwhelming thing that we all agreed on was our biggest challenge which is the long-term ability for our district to recruit and retain our high quality teachers and I would support we are as Bob mentioned lower than the region and unfortunately with the LCFF it will be very difficult to make up ground in that regard. I do support increases at every possibility at every chance we can do them and afford them for our district but in addition that's not gonna be the only thing that solves this problem. We're gonna have to think creatively about how to recruit a teacher. Okay Jose. If I were elected on the board the attitude that I have is to support our teachers I will do the best to see how they implement their salaries but salaries are not the only thing. I think we should promote to the teachers the kind of community we have this is a safe place and I totally agree with Bob. I think that this grant the property could have been used for housing of teachers precisely to attract teachers here. I don't believe in the so-called surplus. The surplus is something that you don't need and the sort of in the warehouse that land was not like that but if we could we should look forward to see if we could actually work with the city perhaps and we talk about affordable housing well let's talk about affordable housing for our teachers. Okay and Susan. So just very quickly I wanna say that the proceeds of the Grande property went directly to building an all student center on Davis High so those funds as soon as they were realized were reinvested in our students and we have critical facility needs. I just wanna make it clear I don't know that everybody knows that we have granted salary increases to our teachers for the last three years so it is a board priority to be able to increase those salaries. We also made a number of changes structurally within the salary schedule to make the district more competitive. There's more we can do there but the piece that I am most excited about is the opportunity to lower the cost of our benefits. We have very good benefits in the district but they're also quite expensive. It's because of the way our plan is structured. So this year the district has brought in the California Education Coalition for Healthcare Reform to be working with our Davis Teachers Association, our Classified Employees Association and the administration to be looking at our plans and figuring out how we can offer different options for our employees to be able to access and to improve our benefits for lower costs. Thank you, okay. Last question, we're back to where are we? I asked Bob first. Okay, so yeah. I knew I was gonna lose track at some point here. So I'm interpreting this one as a differentiated instruction question which asks how you can teach a class of English learners with gate or high achieving students without boring the high achieving students in one minute. Yeah. Well, so the question is how do you teach a class of English learners and high achieving students without boring the high achieving students? Right, and you can think of it more as a differentiated instruction more generally. Well, I mean, I think it's incumbent upon the teacher. I mean, this is where I wanna train our teachers and get them the best possible professional development instruction to be able to do that. That is critically important and that is fundamentally what the job of the teacher is to do. I think that there have, I've read a number of studies as we all have that when you do grouping with different abilities and skill levels that there is studies to suggest that you do achieve deeper learning at all levels and that teaching a subject or helping another person understand a subject actually deepens your own understanding of that concept. So, you know, that's the art of it and it is a difficult thing to accomplish, but that's why I think it's something though that it's important we strive to because at the end that's how we reach our children. Okay, Jose. Well, different again. I was there. That means I was in a class when I couldn't understand what the teacher said because I didn't know English and I don't believe that I bothered the high achieving students because I couldn't talk. So, we have to realize that in fact while there might be a concern about that it really the English learning students unless the teacher is paying more attention to them then that's a different story, but I don't think that would be an issue. However, it's incumbent upon the school and the teachers to be able to route the students in the levels that they are so that everybody is served. But as far as the English learners they need to be in English classes. Thank you. Susan. So, it can be done because I have seen it done and just to describe the classroom that the answer to the question is that you provide learning opportunities for every child to access at the point that they're at. And so, in a classroom instruction that I was visiting one day with English language learners in the classroom it was a math instruction. There was a whole group conversation about number facts. Then the kids broke into self-directed learning on our practice on different computer stations. They did small group with the teacher and two interns who were in the classroom. So, small group, very specific needs. There was a group of high achieving students who were off in a corner working on a project-based learning program, not a program, I mean it was actually, they were sitting around a large piece of paper working through a complicated problem together as a group and it had a specific real world outcome that they were looking at and then when children had finished what they were doing and they had time. Thank you. Okay, Bob. So, as I said earlier, I mean I think differentiated instruction is a very laudable goal and ideally it would be done in every classroom. I think one thing that I'm concerned about is the consistency of the ability of the teachers to differentiate effectively. And that's where monitoring and coaching and professional development is so critical. I think it was the Health Kids Survey, the California, they actually surveyed elementary students and I was actually amazed at how many elementary students said they weren't challenged. That is a red flag for me. Why do they, at elementary school, they say they're not challenged? So I'd want to look into that and this is an area where technology can help and I think we're starting to make some progress in that area but as a district we have historically been pretty far behind as far as technology in the classroom and hopefully we can overcome that and keep improving. Thank you. Okay, we're not gonna go to two minute closing comments starting with Jose. Okay. I hope that I have been able to come across to you that I am not against taxes for education. I am supportive of education and funding and being creative but I am against abusing the taxpayers. I think we have had 11 tax measures and this last one is a disaster when they have doubled the taxes and they want to basically be deceptive to the community by telling them one thing it's only a continuation of the taxes, a little bit increased when they are doing, everybody votes yes, they have to pay twice. They don't have the opportunity to review it in eight years. I hope that I have also portrayed to you my qualifications and my sincere desire to contribute to this district. I think that we have also to create sensitivity to the Hispanic students. There's 20% of our students in this district of Hispanic background. There's no 20% representation on the school board. It's about time to bring new ideas but although I'm one of them, I will be a trustee for everybody because but I am very sensitive to the cultural needs. I understand how they think and also I am a big proponent of creating opportunities, equal opportunities for everybody. That's why I believe that the IN program, the way it is right now needs to be reformed. I think there could be great things also to motivate our district to motivate teachers to come here and also looking to using our resources more efficiently. I will be an advocate of physical responsibility and high quality education using my skills in the area of my expertise. Thank you, Susan. So I believe that a healthy society takes care of all of its children and really provides the opportunity for each one not just to succeed but to soar in life. I love the phrase in our mission statement, ignite a love of learning. That's what we want for all of the children in Davis schools. I am deeply motivated to continue to contribute the knowledge, the relationships, and the experience that I've gained in my nine years on the school board so that our schools continue to excel and always that we're focused on improving what we do for kids and keeping every single individual child in mind. Just to recap some of the things that we mentioned in our earlier conversations here tonight but that would be my priority as I continue my service on the school board. Certainly recruiting and retaining high quality teachers, all staff is critical. I have an interest in the type of workforce development that Bob mentioned and I think we have some early conversations underway with the city. I mentioned lowering the cost of health benefits and increasing access for everyone. Improving school climate and working conditions through early stage mediation of conflict. That's something we didn't touch on too much tonight. We've seen significant improvement in our disciplinary practices and we've done it through restorative practices that we've been able to bring in working with students and then mediation services that we're now partnering with the Yellow County Resource Center to be able to provide those to when, as conflicts begin to emerge, that we can actually help resolve them at an earlier level. Investing in facilities to improve school learning environments. We've done that with Grande. We have another surplus property nugget field. I would like to look at how we might do some workforce development. And then finally, always, always, always advocating for public, for adequate funding for public education. The base is underfunded in California. And as school board members, we have to continue to make that case. Thank you. Bob. So before I sum everything up, I wish we had talked a little bit more about CTE and STEM and STEAM. I think that would have been an interesting conversation. But so I think it's very important to consider the attributes that each of the candidates can bring to the board. And I believe I possess the following attributes. A willingness to listen and observe. A willingness to learn. I think I'm a lifelong learner and there's always something, I don't have the answer for everything, but I think if you tap into the tremendous creativeness of this community, I think we can solve a lot of problems. An openness to creative ideas and continuous improvement. A willingness to find common ground. A commitment to transparency and conducting business. A commitment to using the best evidence possible to inform our policy decisions. And a belief that collectively we can solve our problems even with limited resources. I think we need to live up to the mission statement that's on the district school board site that we need to be a center for educational innovation. A leading center of educational innovation. And right now I think we can do a much better job. We're doing well in a lot of different areas, but I think there's room for growth. Alan, you get the last word. Okay, well, thanks again to everyone for organizing this and thanks for everyone's attendance tonight. I would just like to close by saying that I am honored to be serving currently on the board and I'm proud of the service that I have been a part of in the last two years. Last year as president of the school board, I feel like I have maintained everything to restore some trust and accountability to the board. I believe that we have increased outreach. Part of the effort we did was to really assign trustee responsibilities at every school site. We started a board office hours. So this is a board that is wanting to learn more constantly challenge ourselves and figure out how to best possibly provide the best education we can to our students. I would agree with Jose. I don't see the world black and white. I do see it gray, purple, green, red, yellow and every other color because that's sort of the reflection that I see when I look at our children. I'm committed, frankly, to engaging all students and I have been since I've been serving on the board. I believe that investing in our teachers is critically important and it's our biggest challenge that we need to really come to terms with as a community. And I do think that one way we can do that is also looking at our school facilities. I think that it's been a long time since our facilities have been improved in a great manner in our district and I really would like to do that moving forward. In the end, what I'm gonna focus on if elected is to continue the collaboration, honor varying points of view. That's how we learn. Not shy away from the difficult decisions but in the end, in the end discern where the commonality exists so that we can ultimately provide the best possible learning environment for our children. Thanks. Thank you, Alan. I will now do a 10 minute monologue. Just kidding. I'd like to thank everybody first who were in attendance. I'd also again like to thank Davis Media Access for doing the video, which will broadcast this to a broader audience. I'd like to remind you that there is campaign literature in the back if you wanna learn more about the candidates and starting this Friday, the Vanguard will up until election day have a series of additional candidate questions and we may pull from some of these cards. So thank you again, everybody.


A number of years ago there was, I hope you might have heard of like LimeWire and Napster and so on and so forth, well there was a, I think it was a Chinese man, you know a man maybe about 17 years old and he developed this internet technology called Nutella, Nutella it was called, he has since committed suicide, but his gift to the world was file sharing, anything that could be placed on a computer in a digital form could be shared with anybody in the world, not like through Napster where it had to go through a central agency, but it could go computer to computer, six-measured all the billions of or millions of computers with people being able to share freely files and to me, the central monitoring agency like Mac Napster had, they shut down Napster, the music industry and so on and so forth but basically what this young man invented was just a symbol of where this is all heading, if there are no private minds and no private thoughts, there is no such thing as ownership and only the thoughts of God can be shared and you want to share them as freely as you can because the more you give them away, the more you remember them for yourself then you can see where this is, this kind of puts a hole in the free enterprise system and communism, socialism and any other form of economics, it's just called free, free, free you know and it reminds me a bit of, in the matrix you know, there's a scene where Morpheus is helping Neo train his mind and they're doing all of the martial arts thing and Neo's like saying, I know what you're trying to do with me and he's trying, free your mind, it's the scene when he leaps over across the building, that's really what the message of the Holy Spirit is, it's here to free your mind from every concept of the world so that you can come back to the kingdom of heaven where everything is free, you are created as a free spirit with free will, in free love, not like in the 60s generation-free love, but pure, pure, free divine love was given freely and the only way that you can know who you are is by extending that love freely, just as freely as it was given to you so that's why Jesus would say things in the Bible like freely you have received, now freely give you would tell the apostles so that's been something that I've been sharing, that's like a keynote I've been ringing for the last 17 years during the travel, it's been freely you have received, now freely give and in this world of scarcity and lack and possession there's nothing more striking than the joy of true freedom and it's nothing more that stands out in this world than this gift-free gift because everything seems to have a price in this world, everything costs something and my instructions at the beginning were to never charge money to just accept donations and to even to tell people okay and the donations will get used to travel more, share more, make more materials like the person was just saying you know get it out there for people so that people you know who would say oh I'm financially I can't afford it, it's like fine and take it, go ahead take it, it's for your joy and of course being down in South America you know countries like Colombia where you know 60% of the population lives like on two dollars a day you know or being down in Mexico you it's a whole different perspective on the human condition when you see people that are living on a couple dollars a day you know there's really no kind of touchdown for that up here in the United States or in Europe or whatever because it's maybe parts of Europe but other much of Europe in the United States and Australia it's so there's so much what seems to be material abundance there's really no kind of a context for that kind of life even though there's millions of people that live that way I know in Brazil it's very devotional spiritual but it's you know it's very different context I'm sure coming over here from Brazil but I think the thing I like too is there's a part in the matrix where Morpheus tells Neo the matrix is all around you and he says it's the digital projection of your mental self an interesting phrase and so now with everything going digital it's like well it's really all been digital it's always been digital it's just that the ego made it seem like some of it was physical and some of it was digital we have now new technologies that we're calling virtual reality you know where entirely you can put on the goggles we can use the computers and so forth and it's like a generated seems kind of like the Star Trek if you've ever watched Star Trek the holodeck would be kind of an example of virtual reality and now in the comic books and the virtual reality writings and writings from psychology about lucid dreaming more and more it's the teachings of the course are like are breaking through in in many many different areas as people start to realize that wow what's the difference between my nighttime dreams and my daytime dreams what's the difference between fantasies and the world and what Jesus has taught us is that that there is no difference that all of the world is fantasies and so when you start to take that in and it's like okay is there a helpful use for fantasies then and Holy Spirit says yes I have a helpful use for fantasies to inspire to bless and ultimately to lead you to a leaping off point where you can go into the stillness and let go of the fantasies entirely and come back to reality to the kingdom of heaven to pure spirit which is our natural state and the only state in which we can know who we are who God is and we have creations we can only remember our creations when we're returned to the state of the kingdom of heaven it's like Jesus is like they're waiting for you they're like cheering you on you could do it come home remember but it's not like a coming home in a linear way either no matter where you seem to go in this world or what you seem to do that really doesn't have anything to do with the home remembering the home it's a very inward experience like we were listening to Alyssa's song you know everyone was just you know kind of sinking inward and inward into an inner experience and then Alyssa at the end of one of them she just flopped back almost like yeah and the body can just relax you know it's not even like a song it's more like a prayer or it's an invitation for all this to go deep into that experience and to give yourself permission to do that you know in this seeming busy world so much to do to be able to say I'm worth it just to relax just to give myself time to meditate and sink inward and I feel grateful that we've had these cats around our house too over the years they just lay on their backs paws in the air it doesn't matter you know it's like you know I think I remember back in 2001 it's like I came home from meditation somebody had a television on and they're like the world trade centers have collapsed and smoke and plumes of dust and everything and there's tripod land on the back please you people still believe in buildings and terrorists and it's like just kind of slowly rolling your eyes can you turn the noise off please distraction and and meanwhile the world out is the shutting down the airlines and they're putting the president in the United States under a bunker and everything and travel with a little nub three legs in it I've had enough of this and but it just gives you a different perspective on on everything like like silence and stillness is natural and Shakespeare did call it much to do about nothing you know that was his play for the world you know and I remember Shakespeare had that famous line all the worlds of stage and everyone misplayed their part well the spirit reinterpreted even Shakespeare say all the worlds of stage and divine mind can play no part that really we have to give up this idea of park hole you know the sum is greater than the hole is greater than the sum of the parts so the old saying goes but the hole is real and the parts are not and when you've been identified with the parts it's really difficult you know it's unnatural to be identified with the parts