Palm Springs school: 3 district seats uncontested, 1 newcomer, 2 return. Here are their ideas
Palm Springs Unified election: 3 district seats uncontested, 1 newcomer, 2 return. Here are their ideas Joseph Hong 1:05 a.m. PT Sept. 16, 2018 | Updated 8:09 Palm Springs Unified School District building in central Palm Springs. (Photo: Lyle Boatman / Special to Desert Outlook) All three open seats on the PSUSD’s Board of Education will be filled by uncontested elections. Two incumbents will hold their positions, while one newcomer will assume the spot of current board President James Williamson, who is stepping down to pursue his work in political advocacy, specifically surrounding reproductive rights for women. The candidates
Karen Cornett, 2018 candidate for PSUSD school board (Photo: Courtesy of Palm Springs Unified School District) Karen Cornett — Area 3 Cornett is seeking her third term on the PSUSD Board of Education. She retired from PSUSD after 35 years of serving as a teacher, assistant principal and elementary principal. She declined to answer questions about the issues discussed in this article.
Tim Wood, candidate in 2018 election for PSUSD board (Photo: Courtesy of Timothy Wood) Timothy Wood — Area 4 Wood, 55, has been a full-time resident of the Coachella Valley since 2012. After receiving an undergraduate degree in economics from University of California, Irvine and a law degree from Western State University, he entered the insurance industry. He worked in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to New York and Seattle, and eventually moved to Palm Springs and joined Travelers Personal Insurance as a regional vice president. He then opened a State Farm agency in Cathedral City in 2016 so he could be more involved in the community. This would be his first time holding public office.
John Gerardi, candidate in 2018 election for PSUSD board (Photo: Courtesy of John Gerardi) John Gerardi — Area 5 Gerardi, 61, first moved to Palm Springs in 1990 and then to Desert Hot Springs in 2002. He works as an assistant professor of accounting at College of the Desert. A licensed CPA, Gerardi is finishing his first four-year term on the school board. He previously served on the Desert Hot Springs Planning Commission for 10 years, five years as Chairman. More: Coachella Valley’s top election financiers are usual suspects The issues School security has been at the forefront of conversations surrounding education. This week, it was revealed that Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education, is considering the use of federal dollars to arm teachers. What is your position on arming teachers and what will be your personal approach to school security? Wood: I would agree that we need to manage the issue of school safety and security realistically given the number of guns that exist in our society today. To me, this may include screenings at points of entry, zero tolerance policies regarding guns at school, anonymous tip lines and teacher education on how to spot potential problems before they become real problems. I do not think that putting more guns on school property is the answer though. The students will find a way to get to those, we will have more accidental injuries and we will have more deaths. Additionally, most teachers become teachers because they care deeply for our students. I don’t believe that every teacher has the capacity nor the ability to use a gun and shoot a child, even if that child poses a risk. Arming them would just provide another weapon at that critical time were the situation were to arise. Gerardi: Keeping our children safe in our schools is the district’s number one priority. I believe schools should be weapon-free zones, so I don’t support arming teachers. As part of the district’s Comprehensive Safety Plan, we have a board policy which prohibits the possession of a fire arm within 1,000 feet of school grounds except under specific circumstances as specified in the penal code. I support that board policy. For several years, African-American students have been suspended at disproportionate rates in the district. What is your response to this disparity and what is your approach to school discipline Wood: I want to be clear before I begin to answer this question, this response is not a critique of PSHS. I currently have very limited information on what is driving the alleged result that is the premise of this question. I will answer in the abstract rather in the specific so that there is no misunderstanding. With that said, I believe that discipline needs to be blind as to ethnicity or any other factor. But, just as a blind person has to heighten their other senses, so must we heighten our sensibilities when handling these issues. We need to be sure we are culturally aware of the student’s entire life experience. This does not mean we excuse bad behavior or allow it to continue, but we may need an educational process around what is acceptable behavior with clear communication of rationales and consequences. We are trying to provide an environment of learning for approximately 24,000 students, all coming to us with widely varying maturity levels, prior education and life experiences. In this school environment, giving them the tools to succeed has to be the goal of all our interactions and this extends to managing behaviors as well. Gerardi: First, it should be noted that a large majority of our African-American students enjoy tremendous success in our schools and are true role models for all students. With that said, the disproportionate suspension rates of our African-American students is concerning and the district has implemented multiple measures to address this issue. The district has provided teachers and staff with unconscious bias training to help them recognize when they may be misinterpreting a student’s actions and/or behavior that may unnecessarily lead to disciplinary action. Our Family Engagement Center is working with African-American parents to reinforce the importance of parental involvement and provide them with the tools to better support their children and help guide them through the educational process. Teachers and staff are also working with our African-American Parent Advisory Council to help identify the individual needs of our African-American students, so we can offer these students with the support and guidance they need in the most effective manner. Earlier this year, the local control funding formula was fully funded by the state. The intention of the formula its implementation was to bring equity to schools. In your opinion, has this improved district schools? What will you do to make sure the plans are designed with community input and implemented with transparency? Wood: In terms of the design with community input, my personal management philosophy has always included a bottom-up process for building a plan. That means getting input from not just those implementing, but those “consuming” our product. In a business environment, this is sometimes referred to as the “Voice of the Customer”. To me this means having regular feedback sessions with teachers, parents and, potentially, students. I know that in that kind of environment we cannot use every idea presented, but if we have clarity about the process and how to be involved we can have our stakeholders “buy in” to the resulting plan. Regular visibility within the district is a key to having these stakeholders participate in planning. In terms of transparency, I have been spending lots of time on the PSUSD.us website and the LCFF and LCAP are listed under the Parents tab. The board meetings are pre-scheduled and published, there are transcripts and tape recordings of the meetings as well. Given the California Department of Education site that has the PSUSD results also very clearly laid out and all the data on the PSUSD site, I believe the district is very transparent now. My personal intent is to spend more time directly with parents and teachers to understand their concerns. For now, I am also a member of the Facebook PSUSD Parents/Teachers Group. Once added to the Board I will be able to communicate more using that venue, but for now I am looking to learn from our parents and teachers so I do not comment. Gerardi: Since its implementation there has improvement with the community’s involvement in formulating the local control accountability plan. More stakeholders are participating in the development of the LCAP to help identify educational priorities throughout the district. The district also works hard to communicate results of the LCAP and the programs developed to address the priorities identified. In my opinion, the implementation of LCAP programs and corresponding funding formula has had a modest impact on student success at best. Unfortunately, there is still much work to do, but I believe we should continue along this path. The district needs the greater community to be involved in the education of our students. And we must recognize there are various inequities among some of our schools that have a negative impact on the entire district. We need to identify these inequities and develop programs and supports to provide all our students with best educational opportunities possible. Joe Hong is the education reporter for The Desert Sun. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jjshong5. 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