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5 candidates seek 3 Santa Rosa Schools seats
Published: Monday, October 25, 2010 at 5:09 p.m.
Last Modified: Monday, October 25, 2010 at 5:09 p.m.
The race to serve on the board of Sonoma County’s largest school district features familiar faces and one relatively unknown challenger.
The three incumbents seeking reelection have 40 years of combined board experience. Frank Pugh, first elected in 1990, Bill Carle, elected in 1998 and Wally Lowry, serving since 2002, say they have the institutional knowledge to steer Santa Rosa City Schools through the current financial crisis.
Newcomers Ron Kristof, a retired teacher who spent 28 years in Santa Rosa City Schools classrooms, says he brings first-hand knowledge of what teachers and students face in K-12 classrooms. Financial advisor Gilbert Hawkins contends district officials have lost sight of teaching the district’s 15,500 students basic skills of reading, writing, math and verbal communication — something he would focus on in crafting budget priorities.
Santa Rosa City Schools is facing cuts of approximately $2.7 million in the 2011-12 school year and $6.9 million in 2012-13.
Although the district got a significant reprieve from what was earlier estimated as a $13.9 budget deficit next year, trustees still will be asked to make millions in reductions on the heels of $5.6 million in cuts to the current school year. The sitting board eliminated classroom days, reduced library and maintenance positions and increased class sizes to create a balanced budget in the face of dramatic funding cuts from Sacramento.
Pugh, 55, is a 32-year instructor and counselor at Santa Rosa Junior College and the current president of the California School Boards Association, a non-profit group that represents 965 school districts.
“Because of my involvement with the state association, I have been able to participate in activities nationally and bring thoughtful, good ideas that have been implemented in our district,” he said. “There is a certain quality and benefit to stability in times that are confusing and threatening. I feel that is a quality I provide.”
A long-standing critic of Sacramento’s leadership and funding of education, Pugh has been a public face on CSBA’s lawsuit against the state alleging a failure to adequately fund schools.
“There will have to be a statutory connection between expectations and funding. That has to happen,” Pugh said. “Everybody has an opinion on what we ought to be doing and the resources to accomplish it just don’t materialize or they come for a year and disappear.”
Pugh floated the idea of a Spanish immersion program in Santa Rosa and programmatic overhauls at schools suffering years of declining enrollment such as Doyle Park Elementary and Comstock and Cook middle schools.
He is endorsed by the local California Teachers Association union.
Carle, an attorney, said 12 years on the board have given him the tools to be an advocate on the state level for more consistent funding and more local control on spending.
“This is a really difficult time,” he said. “It needs strong leadership and advocacy at the state level on budget issues and we need to continue to get our gains that we have been achieving over the last five years.”
Carle, 55, said he will fight for more local spending control by advocating to make permanent many of the suspension of spending rules in place because of the budget crisis.
“We are dealing with a structure right now that isn’t acceptable,” he said. “There are a lot of things we need to be getting back to, with some kind of fiscal stability.”
Carle has backed class size reduction at the K-3 level as fiscally sound and has been a public champion of sports programs, rallying behind the district’s energy savings and food-sales program to support middle and high school sports.
He points to the Santa Rosa Charter School for the Arts, established in 2007 on the campus of the then-struggling Fremont Elementary School, as a model for other low-enrollment campuses, including Doyle Park, Comstock and Cook.
“I think the focus of those (schools) has got to be a specialized program to make them viable,” he said. “Look what happened at Fremont .
That campus “clearly needs to be expanded. I don’t think there is any question about that.”
He is endorsed by the local California Teachers Association union.
Lowry, 76, points to his years in finance as a key reason to return him to the seat he has held for eight years.
He is a retired professor emeritus from Sonoma State University’s School of Business and Finance, earned a bachelor’s degree from Stanford and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.
“I have fantastic financial background,” he said, including work with private industry, not-for-profit groups and education.
“I feel I have a great deal to add, with the support of staff,” he said.
Lowry said as long as the financial subsidies are coming in, class size reduction in kindergarten through third grades makes fiscal sense, but in upper grades, growing the student-to-teacher ratio should be considered as a money-saving measure.
“There have been no studies, let me repeat, no studies, unless you get down below 12 (students per teacher), that say small classes will improve education,” he said.
Lowry said he is open to discussing reconfiguration plans for some of the smallest schools.
He said the current budget woes, although less dramatic than had been predicted this summer, likely will mean another shorter school year next year.
“There is a high potential for three to five furlough days, which doesn’t lay off anybody,” he said.
Retired teacher Ron Kristof, 64, says a key reason he jumped into the race was to improve employee morale and reach out to what he called underserved communities.
“I think teacher morale is pretty low,” he said. “There is a need to come back and say ‘We are going to get through this mess. You guys are valued.’ And I have the energy to do that.”
He said the key to the success of shrinking campuses such as Doyle Park and Comstock is reaching out to area families to determine what programs will thrive. A successful program will draw additional families, he said.
“The last thing I want to do is shut a school,” he said. “If we can keep those schools open my preference would be to have additional enrichment programs after the regular school hours and to have summer school programs that are not just remedial.”
He is endorsed by the local California Teachers Association union.
Newcomer Gilbert Hawkins, 63, a professional financial advisor, said Sonoma County’s largest district has lost sight of the basic educational priorities: teaching reading, writing and arithmetic.
“I would certainly cast my vote for funds, time and energy to be first directed toward those basics rather than anything else,” he said.
Hawkins said he has hired recent Santa Rosa City Schools grads to do work on his horse ranch and has been regularly disappointed.
“They don’t read very well,” he said. “Their basic math skills without a calculator are horrible. Their ability to speak and communicate is probably even worse unless they are texting and (sending) e-mails.”
Hawkins said strong teachers can handle larger class sizes and he endorses linking teacher pay and benefits to student performance.
“I can offer diversification,” he said. “I can offer change because I’m coming from a different point of view.”
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