Movie and Complete Transcript

Here is a complete movie of the League of Women Voters Los Altos School District Board Candidates Forum of Sept. 17 at Mountain View High School.  There is a complete transcript of this Los Altos School District election event below. But first we present you with a schedule of when each candidates or each question starts. Jump to 8:30 minutes if you want to skip the formalities and get right to the candidates speaking. Later we will publish a candidates score card – summarizing their positions and skills across 20 items.

Jump to 8:30 minutes if you want to skip the formalities and get right to the candidates.

 

Movie Timing

0:00 Opening formalities

8:30 Substance starts

8: 30 Opening Statements

Vladimir Ivanovic 8:30

Pablo Luther 10:15

Amanda Burke Aaronson 12:30

Steven Taglio 14:30

16:30
Question 1: If the November tax initiatives on the ballot do not pass, what would you recommend  Los Altos School District do to accommodate the budget constraints? Specifically what is your philosophy on the use of district reserves?

21:00
Q 2: How do you propose to deal with the increased student enrollment, specifically in north Los Altos?

25:30
Q: How should the Los Altos School District educate the high achieving and the gifted end of the spectrum?

29:00
Q: How would you resolve the Bullis Charter School’s site issue without more litigation?  And. Should Hillview be considered a 10^th site?

33:30 Q:  Would you support the use of Kahn Academy in all our schools?

37:00
Q: With what seems to be an escalating trend towards privatizing elementary education, what do you see as the role of public elementary and middle school education.

41:00
Q: One of the great appeals of the Los Altos School District is kindergarten to 6 and the 7,8 grades… school configuration, so that middle schools are small compared to other districts.  Are you committed to maintaining this configuration or would you support changing to a k-5 and 6-8 middle school to make more space for the influx of new students?

45:30
Q: Will you commit to disclosing your campaign donors prior to the election?

46:30
Q: Palo Alto, Cupertino, and Mountain View all offer a variety of programs in their schools. Foreign language, project-based learning, parent participation, etc.  Los Altos School District still adheres to the one model fits all families and all children. Do you agree with that, and if not what meaningful change would you make?

51:15
One-minute closing remarks

Steven Taglio 51:15

Amanda Burke-Aaronson 52:00

Pablo Luther 52:30

Vladimir Ivanovic  53:30

FULL TRANSCRIPT

 

Vladimir Ivanovic 8:30

I’m Vladimir Ivanovic. I’m the parent of two kids at Gardner Bullis. And I started getting involved with the school board with the attendance of my son who is now in second grade. It started about two years ago. And I’ve been attending board meetings trying to acquaint myself with topics and laws and all the various kinds of constraints that board members seem to operate under.  I’ve been doing that for a year and a half.  So I’ve become familiar with the issues in the school district.  The main points that I want to emphasize for what I think we should do or what I’d like to do. First and foremost, I don’t want to close a school, in order to accommodate another school. I think that is very important.  Secondly, we have a very large financial structural deficit in the district and we need some way of addressing that.  Thirdly, we need to engage the community. I think that in the past we’ve seen difficulties in engaging the community and we need to do that more.  Finally we need to start to focus again on what we really think is important and that is the education of our kids.

 

Pablo Luther 10:15

My name is Pablo Luther. I’m an ex-parent. I’m a parent of kids who were in the school district. My kids went through the school district. They started in private school for about 3 or 4 years and then we went ahead and moved them to the Los Altos public school district.  They’ve been through Loyola, Oak, Blach and now they’ve moved on. My two sons are in college and my daughter is in Mountain View High.  Having had kids go through the Los Altos School District has given me a pretty unique perspective especially as compared to the private schools that we’ve been to. And I would like to bring some of those perspectives to bear as we keep developing our school curriculum and our teaching aides in this district.  In addition given that I don’t have any kids in the school district anymore makes me very objective, given everything that’s been going on in our district today.  It gives me an objective and fair view of how to attempt to resolve some of the issues we’re facing right now.  In addition I have also been on CACF Citizen Advisory Committee for Finance – for the last seven years.  And over the last 5 years I’ve actually led the facilities subcommittee, which has as you can well imagine, has dealt with some pretty contentious issues over the last few years.  Given this background that I’ve had, I’ve come up with three main things about our school district that form the basis of my platform.  I believe academic excellence and innovation is key to keeping our the Los Altos School District among the top ranked schools in the state, if not west of the Mississippi.  I believe collaboration and community involvement is key to resolving some of the issues that we are facing today in our school district.  And financial discipline.

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson 12:30

I want to address who I am a little bit.  I am a neonatal nurse and I am a professor at the University of San Francisco.  I’m also a Mountain View resident. I began my experience with the Los Altos School District with my oldest daughter. She started at Santa Rita.  We were interacting with the Los Altos School District board of trustees when the boundaries were redrawn the last time. [sic 2007-8] At that time I was involved in that decision – I was on the attendance area advisory committee.  I live north of El Camino and we worked to represent the needs of, not only the individuals there, but also the English Language Learner community. They were fairly underrepresented.  We worked really hard to make sure their needs were meet. Then when that issue resolved, decisions were made, and as they were, everybody moved to their schools, we worked hard to maintain the community and to heal. And we came back together in a very nice way.  So the basis of what I’d like to do involves the fact that there is such a divide in the community around facilities. I really believe that community healing is at the forefront.  Whatever happens now, we need to move forward and build ourselves up as a community. We need to work on communication between the district, the parents, and the greater community as well.  It’s not simply a parental issue, it’s now become so much greater.  Further, we need to look at innovative ways to keep Los Altos School District on top.  I think interacting with the community is the best way to go about that.

 

 

Steven Taglio 14:30

I’m Steve Taglio, the appointed incumbent. I got involved with the school board after two years of being PTA president at Covington elementary school. I started to attend the board meeting to see what decisions were going on with the board that were having impact at my specific school.  And trying to make sure that we could bridge and cope with the decisions coming down.   For the last year I’ve been involved in the discussions with the charter school…the intitial informal discussions that led into the mediation and was a part of that group… we laid the foundry, the foundation for what came to be the mediated discussions.  We are currently looking at how to keep Los Altos the high performing school district that it is.  I think the last thing we want to do is sit back on our laurels. We should be looking forward at what we can do to evolve education and to make sure that the delivery continues to be at the high standard, but it should adapt to current need.   I think there has been a statement out by the district office that we are currently teaching children to participate in the 1985 economy, or 1985 society, and what we really need to do is move education forward, so it really reflects what children are going to be facing moving forward.  What I am hoping is that we will create lifelong learners.  Children who are interested and engaged in the learning process so they will be ready to address the things of the future.

16:30

Question 1: If the November tax initiatives on the ballot do not pass, what would you recommend  Los Altos School District do to accommodate the budget constraints? Specifically what is your philosophy on the use of district reserves?

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

We have  fortunately ended up last year with a little bit of extra money. And that has gone into a separate fund specifically to deal with the possibility that  Prop 30 won’t pass.   Whether we like it or not, we are on a path to draw down our reserves and become insolvent. And whether Prop 30 passes or not…the only thing that is going to change is … two or three years out in the future. So we need to deal with this issue.  We need to find some way of resolving our structural deficit.  [ sic the pension problem]  And that required input from everybody. And that requires some creative thinking from people. And it’s going to cause pain on various people’s parts. We are going to lose programs. And we will have to raise some money elsewhere. But we have to deal with it.  The fact that Prop 30 passes or doesn’t pass…. STOPPED BY TIMER

 

Pablo Luther:

I hope both 30 and 38 pass. Everybody here should vote for both propositions. In case, in the unlikely event that neither one passes, in the CACF we have been looking at the reserve levels of our school district for the past few years. My personal philosophy is that we need to have a sufficient level of reserves that we actually maintained and built upon over the last few years to accommodate the economic cycles which have been in waves.  So once we have an appropriate level of reserves, which I believe we do right now, I believe that should be sufficient to carry us through a cycle, in case that were to happen, although from everything we are seeing right now, we are probably going to see an uptick rather than a downtick in the economic community in this point in time.

 

Amada Burke Aaronson:

What I would like to see is a little more creative thinking on in terms of using our community as potential volunteers. I know that this would involve some very heavy discussions with the Teachers Associations. But I believe that our community is so rich with people who can contribute to individual programmatic potentials . It may involve some after school time. But again, looking at how our teachers time is used and compensating them accordingly. I do believe we have a fabulous rich community that can help us in so many ways to look at art and to look at music and to look at physical eduction as well as science.

 

Steven Taglio:

The Propostions 30 and 38, if neither one of them passes, currently the Los Altos School District could lose 2 to 2.2 million dollars from state funding. We have set that money aside for the first year. So we’re ok for this year if it doesn’t pass.  That could create a long-term issue for us.  If it passes, we’re in better shape obviously.  Between that and the parcel tax that came through we have a growth path coming out. We are just starting to look at future planning for a six year horizon of where we are headed. At this point given both the rebound in the economy and what we are starting to see in terms of property tax revenue, we might be able to shore up and actually bridge across, without having to worry too greatly about the cost envelope – at least not for another 5 or 6 years – and then we can take a look at how we are doing.

 

 

21:00

Q 2: How do you propose to deal with the increased student enrollment, specifically in north Los Altos?

 

Pablo Luther:

If I look at the last 10 years. We’ve had an enrollment increase of  about 1000 students over the last 10 years in our school district. We have demographers that have been looking at future enrollment. And the projections are all over the map at this point. However, I believe we will have another 500 to  1000 kids joining our school district over the next 5 to 10 years. Given this I also believe, that we have to keep the quality of education , keep our density of population of our kids in our schools, we will need to look at another site.  We will we need to have another 10^th site for the 5000 students in our school district.  This includes the Bullis Charter as well as the Los Altos School kids. So I think we need to look at alternatives around Mountain View and Los Altos, to identify potential sites that could accommodate the increase.

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson:

I think that right now those kids would be headed to Santa Rita and Almond. And right now they are in towards Santa Rita. And that raises a certain facilities question. Bullis   [sic charter?]is placed in one of the spaces for a site optimal for that particular area.  And if we are looking at being flexible, there may some facilities sharing that may be able to be going on, to support a small school in that area.  I think we can look at some space sharing and grade configuration that may involve flexing out middle schools a little bit and allowing for space in our other schools. And then drawing kids to the other schools away from some of the more crowded schools which may be along the lines of magnet programs. So we need to be a little more out of the box than we currently are on the facilities question.

 

StevenTaglio:

Given the growth projections we’ve seen, we do need a 10^th site.  It’s not just a matter of reswizzling the space that we have. Let’s get a little more creative about sharing space and get out of stove-piped mentality of “I have district facilities,” “I have city facilities,” “I have these facilities.”  We have to look at better ways of sharing across boundaries. And making better use of space. Covington has a space that could be used for senior center groups. We have space on our campuses that could be used to build pool space. Things like that need to be open for discussion to a lot of community input to see if it works.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

 

25:30

Q: How should the Los Altos School District educate the high achieving and the gifted end of the spectrum?

 

Amanda:

I think the current xx progams, is a particularly the interesting idea. There are other possibilities including free-range grade learning. Growing up in Palo Alto we had two- grade classrooms, which was just a consideration where students could float between grade levels on subjects in which they were particularly strong, but also be accommodated where they might need a little more time. It’s another one of these ideas we need to look creatively at and not assume any one student is going to be completely strong in all areas, but rather be able to accommodate their needs in various areas.

 

Steven Taglio:

I agree with Amanda’s comment on that.  That’s a good way to look at it.  I think that’s why it’s a good idea to build that into our neighborhood schools versus going to a magnet type approach…it  makes a lot of sense because it gives children a chance to shine in the areas they are interested in. And continue to be supported in those where they are at grade level rather than moving to a magnet approach.  I’d rather see us try to figure out how to bring that idea in, using technology, and other ways into the existing schools we have.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

One of the things I’m willing to look at and I think we ought to look at is the approach of magnet schools. Or magnet programs if that is too much. I know that in the past the district has been very, very reluctant to differentiate between different schools. But we already have effectively a magnet school, BCS in our district. So we are dealing with it in one way or another.  Beyond that I’m a little bit reluctant to separate students who are higher achievers from those who are “slower.”  Because its creates some feelings of animosity among students.  You are in the slow class as opposed to the high class. On the other hand we do need to provide some differentiated learning.  I think that is the responsibility of the teachers. I’m not a teacher. I’m not an expert there. It’s up to them to come up with a solution.

 

Pablo Luther:

I think the idea of magnet schools is very attractive. I think we should implement some form of that. In addition I think we can also borrow a page from the high schools where we have AP programs, and regular classes, and we have honors programs. I think we do have a couple of these programs in our middle schools at this point, with our math instruction.  Maybe we could expand that to other subjects also and have an honors type, or an accelerated type, or an advanced type of course, that students can actually test into. And those programs would cater to their level of expertise on that particular subject.

29:00

Q: How would you resolve the Bullis Charter School’s site issue without more litigation?  And. Should Hillview be considered a 10^th site?

 

Taglio:

I’d like to see us focus on the future [rather than] here – the 2012-13 school year – and see us move beyond the rehash of what we are doing in any given year. I think the mediated attempt that we made last year put strides towards that.  And I think we need to up those efforts again.  Hillview is an option. But I think there are other options to consider moving forward. We have committees put in place to look for sites. And they are rolling up options of what that would look like and what the pricing structure would look like.  So at this point we are still at [sic the point where we]  bring in the community, have that conversation.  We just put together a growth task force.  Part of their job is to start looking at how, what is the growth we need to accommodate and what do we have to do to have facilities to map to that.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

Of course I’m going to sit up here and solve a problem that hasn’t been solved in 10 years or something like that!  [ sic ironic tone of voice ]We do have a long-standing dispute with the Bullis Charter School.  I think the mediated agreement was a total disaster and was soundly rejected by the [sic parent] community. And it is not a basis at all for moving forward. I do think that Hillview should be considered.  I’m very, very disappointed in Los Altos City Council in its reluctance and intransience to discuss with the district issues that have to do with Hillview.  Because I think there is a possibility – this is a creative thinking thing –  a possibility of using Hillview and some other schools in some other way – that will benefit the entire community.

 

Pablo Luther:

This isn’t  a one night answer or even a one month answer. We have been struggling with this for the past seven years.  From my perspective of being on the CAFC for facilities…there are a couple of things.  The Bullis Charter School is here to stay at least for the next 4 and half or five years.  I believe we need to accommodate all 5000 students we have in our district. It’s not just Bullis Charter students, and it’s not just Los Altos School District students, it’s all 5000 kids.   I believe we need to look at all possibilities out there, with community involvement, set up a task force of representatives from Los Altos School District, BCS, the three cities affected – Mountain View, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills – put a moratorium on the lawsuits that have been flying around.  Give the task force a year to vet out a bunch of different sites and make their recommendations to a joint council meeting, and take it from there. Collaboration and community involvement, I believe is key to solving this problem.

 

Amanda Aaronson:

I believe we can work with the facilities we have. I believe the community needs to be involved. We need to be creative with the sites that we have.  We need to consider a combination of options including grade configuration, the possibility.  I think that removing eminent domain…might make the city council’s more comfortable with talking to us about the possibility of using Hillview.  I think that Covington is a very large campus, that with the possibility of changing the grade configuration, and working with the city council for the possibility of sharing Rosita a little bit… there is a possibility of a site share there.  Maybe not sharing facilities, but co-locating two schools on one campus.  So I think that’s what we can do with the finances and the facilities we have. I think we can actually look at this issue very creatively. Lawsuits need to stop.  Mediation needs to happen. And we all need to be able to reach across the table.

33:30

Q:  Would you support the use of Kahn Academy in all our schools?

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

The Kahn Academy is a technology program. I have some reservations about the Kahn Academy and the reason I have reservations is I don’t like this idea of a screen being the way you get education.  I think education is a personal one to one, and multi-to-one, situation.  So I guess I’d say, I’d be reluctant to impose the Kahn Academy on all our schools.  I think we can do better than that.

 

Pablo Luther:

I think the Kahn Academy is a surrogate for technology. I have very specific views on how technology can factor into education . I believe education is and will continue to be a high touch model.  The teachers teach the whole child. They teach academics, curriculum and value systems, etc. So they teach the whole child. Having said that, I believe in a high touch, high tech model.  Technology can augment the personal touch of teaching. I don’t believe that technology can replace it or substitute for teachers.  So the Kahn Academy is good vehicle for augmenting the academic curriculum taught by teachers.  I don’t believe it will ever replace it. There are other technological advancements that have taken place that can also help augment teachers and their teaching aides and make them much more effective in the near future.

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson:

I think that Kahn Academy is an fabulous program. I think that Saul Kahn has done an amazing job with this program.  I’m in line with Pablo Luther in that it is a great way to supplement education.  To take it back a couple of questions, this may be a very creative way to address the learning differences in our children.  But I absolutely do agree with Vladamir that we do need to continue the one on one and not use it as an isolated teaching tool. So it needs to be used very creatively and carefully. But I think it can be an absolutely fabulous tools for the teachers in our district.

 

Steven Taglio:

I may be mistaken, but I believe it has been introduced across all the schools in this district.  We started out with a pilot a number of years ago.  We definitely use it a 6,7 8 and I believe we’ve pulled it into 5^th already.  They are using Kahn as a supplementary tool to deliver. This doesn’t replace in classroom instruction. There is a theory in education called blended learning. Kahn Academy actually supports that idea of allowing children to use technology to do one on one study, to investigate how you learn things. But then xxx are supported and come back to instruction with a live teacher. So I think the idea of a blended learning model has a place, moving forward, outside of just math where we use it today. It’s not a replacement for live instruction.

37:00

Q: With what seems to be an escalating trend towards privatizing elementary education, what do you see as the role of public elementary and middle school education.

 

Pablo Luther:

Having had experience in both private and public schools I believe both serve their own needs. They both have their own place in our society. I don’t foresee either one replacing the other. Private schools are about choice.  Public schools is about neighborhood schools and community. I believe that in a city like ours – Los Altos – our public schools are highly ranked public schools, one of the top ranked in the state. And we coexist with a lot of private schools within our city’s confines which are also fairly highly ranked. So I think they can coexist. And I think they both serve two different segments of our community.

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson

As a parent who cannot make the choice to choose a private education, our public schools are an amazing option.  I think we should have more choice within our public schools if anything, which is why I support the idea of magnet programs within our schools, and maintaining our neighborhood schools as an ongoing option.  So having programs within the individual neighborhood schools, that then people can more toward, is a great idea. Private schools are a great choice for some families, but not for all.  I think choice is a good thing.

 

Steven Taglio:

I think you are talking about the privatizing of the existing public school system, which I do have a concern about.  Because basically you are creating a two-tier system, or one that could easily fold into a tiered system of delivering education.  I think the good luck… one of the strengths  is of Los Altos School District is that we have a uniform delivery of education across the district that’s unique in looking across the state and across the nation. If we start to privatize, what it means is that schools can augment with private dollars to achieve more in different schools.  And I think that is a mistake. A cornerstone of a strong nation is a strong school system. And I think if we move to a privatization model, we could very quickly slip into a problem we are not anticipating.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

I also have big concerns about privatization of public education.  Mainly by charter schools.  For me, charter schools in high-performing districts, I’d like to treat them just like magnet schools.  I’d like them to behave like magnet schools.  In low performing districts, charter schools are a disaster, because they cream off the best, the most motivated students and leave the districts they came from worse off.  So I have a big reservation against charter schools in low performing districts.  In higher districts like ours, it’s less of an issue.  But individual circumstances have made our charter school – district relationship very contentious.

41:00

Q: One of the great appeals of the Los Altos School District is kindergarten to 6 and the 7,8 grades… school configuration, so that middle schools are small compared to other districts.  Are you committed to maintaining this configuration or would you support changing to a k-5 and 6-8 middle school to make more space for the influx of new students?

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson

I believe that this is one of those issues that I would like to hear from parents and community members on.  I don’t believe it’s a choice any one of us can make as a board member by ourselves in isolation.  I do support the idea of a 6-8 and I know the educationally xxx supports the idea as well. But I also know that we are holding out as a 7-8, and there is a reason for that, and I’d like to understand more about what our community would like to have happen.

 

Steven Taglio

We started looking at the idea of moving to a 6-8 model.  The research that they originally came back with from the taskforce was actually divided. The idea was that the delivery model doesn’t actually impact the outcome of the student. That said, we’re trying to reduce, or struggle with the idea of maintaining teachers at the sixth grade level in our current configuration.  I’m still on the fence about it.  I’m looking to get more detail and more reports back from the district on how should we shift that model, IF we should shift that model.  The other one that got left out of that conversation is k-8.   I went to a k-8. That is certainly an option as well.  So if we are looking at reconfiguring, we should look at all the options on the table, not just one of the options.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic

Alyssa Gallagher is the assistant superintendent for instruction.  She did a study of the split between districts within the state. She found there were way more districts that had a 5-8 model, than the model we have right now. But she also commented that the reasons for going from one model to the other model didn’t have anything to do with education.  They had to do with the facilities or other things like that. It wasn’t a pedagogical issue, it wasn’t a curriculum issue.  And they seemed to perform equally, so I don’t think there is a big difference there.  But one of the potential benefits of going to a 6,7,8 model is that we can change the loading in our schools. And if we can change the loading in our schools in just the right way, perhaps we don’t have to spend $20M or $30M for a new campus.

 

Pablo Luther

There is a preponderance of schools in our state and in our country that go with a 5-8 and 6 to 8 model as Vladimir was talking about.  Given that, there has to be some merit to that. I do believed we’d need community input into this, because everybody’s kids are going to be affected.  There will be issues of status quo. We have a comfort zone in our school system, and it’s always easier to maintain that.  We do have a study ongoing as Steve mentioned. I’m not sure how conclusive that was. We may face a situation down the road where elementary schools which are 10 acres, and out middle schools, which are 20 acres, may have some load shifting issues if we don’t identify a 10^th site fairly soon.   In which case, we may or may not have a choice, but to look at this issue more in focus.

 

45:30

Q: Will you commit to disclosing your campaign donors prior to the election?

 

Steven Taglio:

Absolutely. It’s me.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

It’s easy for me also. It’s my wife.

 

Pablo Luther:

So far it’s me, but I’m hoping that by the time everyone get’s out of here, and picks up my flyers, looks at the address where they can mail a check to, and goes to my website…I’m hoping that it will be many more.

 

Amanda Burke Aaronson:

Wow, It would lovely if it could be me.  My donors have made the choice whether or not to contribute at the level where they would be indentified.  In which case, that’s their choice and it’s fine with me. [sic An individual can contribute up to $99 to a candidate or measure campaign over the live of the campaign, and NOT be disclosed.  Amounts at $100 and up over the life of a campaign must be reported on Form 503 (?) ]

46:30

Q: Palo Alto, Cupertino, and Mountain View all offer a variety of programs in their schools. Foreign language, project-based learning, parent participation, etc.  Los Altos School District still adheres to the one model fits all families and all children. Do you agree with that, and if not what meaningful change would you make?

 

Vladimir Ivanovic:

No I don’t agree with that at all. I think that by definition the one model fits all is the model which fits the lowest common denominator.  I just don’t think that’s the right thing for educating our children.  Some children are going to be good in one aspect and some children are going to be interested in some other aspect. I think we need to accommodate those children.  By definition, if we have magnet programs, magnet schools, we should be able to raise the total level of education in our district.   The problem is going to be where you put these children. How do you find money for doing it. But I think it needs to be done.

 

Pablo Luther:

No I don’t entirely agree with the premise of the question. I do believe we have enrichment programs. They may be fewer than what most people would like. And there may not be enough languages as some people would like.  However, we do have enrichment programs. Some of them are funded directly or indirectly by the community…in the past they have been. And I believe we can continue to add more programs. Are we at the level where we can offer every child every kind of program they would like? I don’t think so. However can we head in that direction.  I think there still is some room for improvement.

 

Amanda Burke-Aaronson

At a personal level I do not agree with that particular model.  But this isn’t about me. It’s not what I want. I think we really need to go out to the community again and find our what the community wants.  And if what the community wants is choice options, then I think that is absolutely the way to go. And I agree with that. And there does seem to be some demand for that. On the other hand, there is going to be some subset of the community, be they the large subset or the small subset, who really enjoys the model that we currently have.   So if that’s the majority than maybe that’s the way we need to stay. So my goal is to listen to everybody, and do what the community wants, and not just what I want.

 

Steven Taglio:

 

One-minute closing remarks

51:15

 

Steven Taglio 51:15

I got involved in the school district and the school board not only to help maintain the program we have, but to help evolve it.  I think we are doing well at educating children across the board, no matter where they come from. ELL learners, special needs learners. We address the entire community needs requirements.  We are looking at ways to evolve delivery of education into a more mixed use model, a project based learning model. We are doing some very innovative things.  I think we need to continue to give ourselves the room to do that innovation, and I want to be part of that.

 

Amanda Burke-Aaronson 52:00

I really enjoyed hearing everyone’s perspectives on this. I think one of the things that has come out of this forum is that we are so much bigger than the current climate of our district and our community. One of the things that I would like to see the most is us getting beyond the current climate of our community, the negativity and really healing as a community and coming together so we can strengthen the education of all of our children in the district.

 

Pablo Luther 52:30

This may sound like a cliché but the reason I got involved, the reason I am running in this election is because my kids have gone through the school district and I see what is happening, and it’s not something we should have in our town of Los Altos. I got involved because I wanted to give back to the community, give back some of my time, try to solve the issues that we currently have, and focus on three things. Focus on kids, because after all that’s what it is all about.  Focus on academic innovation. Focus on collaboration and community involvment, that I believe is extremely important in this town of ours. And finally focus on financial stability for the long-term because that is what instills confidence in students, in teachers, and in the community.

 

Vladimir Ivanovic  53:30

Just a couple of thinks about myself. I’m willing to ask questions and challenge authority, and I think that’s important.  But in this willingness to challenge, this willingness to ask questions, I am also willing to listen.   I have been a proponent of open meetings. I think that our closed meetings…I think the lack of community involvement was the origin of our BCS –Los Altos School District dispute. And the ongoing lack of community involvement has continued to aggravate the situation.  There is one other thing that I think is important.  I don’t have any “establishment” endorsements, and I think that is a good thing. Because I am very doubtful that this district can move beyond the current litigious situation with BCS unless there is a substantial change in the board.  Both boards.

 

54:40

Closing Announcements