SBUSD Board Wannabes Debate Hilda, Equity & Racism, Charters, Literacy & Qualifications

So glad there were no injuries.

Is Banales actually advocating for Oaxacan, Guerreran and other linguistically- specific translators and aides in classrooms? (22:50…). Totally unrealistic. Not happening.

Can't get my kid through high school fast enough!

Was Dan LaBerge asked why his kids were not attending nearby Franklin School but instead at the Charter School, Adelante?

E Banales is running as a "chaos" candidate and is aligned with the "nutty nine" below...beware and follow the money. Not a good choice!

Gabriel Morales
Caroline Abate
Christy Lozano
Sharon Jegottka
Debi Stoker
Efigenia Banales
Rosanne Crawford
Colleen Estrada
Dani Blunk

Your*

"La Berge traced the gap largely to differences in "parental engagement," with privileged white families having more time and resources to be involved with their kids' schools and study."

Not sure about this. Parental engagement has nothing to do with the color of a persons skin. I agree 100% that parental engagement is a key root cause that contributes to a kids educational success. The majority of kids who do well in school have parents that care, the majority who do not do well have parent who do not care. There are exceptions on both fronts.

To continue this narrative of "white privilege" is extremely racist towards hispanics who are actively engaged in their kids educational well being. All of the private schools are full of hispanic kids because their parents want them to have a better education. They realize public schools have lost their way. It is no wonder based on the rhetoric spewed by these liberal candidates.

La Berge and Escobedo represent the downfall of public education. Then again that is what the liberals want - more uneducated people who rely on government handouts.

Jerry Roberts and Josh Molina's interview is an important public service. They asked good questions. I appreciate the question on whether or not the district should use the current balanced literacy or cueing system approach or the science and evidenced based approach called "science of reading" which includes 5 components, phonics, phonemic awareness, reading comprehension, vocabulary and fluency. Balanced literacy is based on guessing at a word from contextual clues. Balanced literacy does not work for most students because it does not teach how to "decode" words. Studies have been done using brain imaging MRI where students were reading with science of reading approach and it clearly showed parts of the brain activated for sound letter correspondence. This did not occur with balanced literacy approach. With so many EML students stuck not passing english test and only 2% get to take the A- G courses required to apply to a UC.; only 6% of those with learning difference ever take the A-G's SBUSD graduates many vulnerable students with a diploma that is limiting their opportunity because they can't read proficiently and can only get into SBCC or trade schools. Even there many struggle to keep up. This is all about equity. Only students who parents can afford outside tutoring sometimes costing 150 an hour ever make up for the fact that balanced literacy does not work for most students. And it particularly does not work for dyslexic students(20% of student body) and EML's, foster youth, homeless and students with socio economic hardship..( 40-60%). So why do we continue down a path that leaves so many students without ability to read. Those who can't are 4x as likely to drop out. This affects our entire community. And perhaps the schools can't do it alone and our community needs to demand change that lasts longer than the damage one Superintendent can do. Our community needs to own this problem and offer free summer intensive interventions for all students who are behind. We have a moral obligation to give a free and appropriate education. And 60% are not getting that. LCAP monies 13.9 million dollar fund needs to prioritize literacy and be a transparent document . We have the resources but we don't spend them well . If we did automatic testing, used science of reading, added outside reading interventionist, trained our teachers in science of reading and offer summer intensives to all we could close the achievement and equity gap. Looking forward to voting for school board members who understand this. 22 states have banned balanced literacy and shown success. Why do we cling to a failed approach and allow so many students to be cheated out of their right to learn to read.

22years ago we lived and worked in Mexico. If you wanted your children to learn in English you had to send them rTo a English school. We were not able to do that. They were put in regular school spoke to in Spanish. We were in their country we learned their language and didn’t expect especially treatment after all we choose two move and work there. My son went on to a great college there and is now a Doctor. He is still livi ng there. No special treatment hard work. We started there living in a old RV so no white privileged excuses here. We all worked and helped our children thrive and become good adults

LovepeaceSB thanks for the list of 9
Candidates, I will be sure to
vote for everyone of them.
The status quo needs to go, our schools a mess.

I am not against teaching in Nahuatl. The hard part is aggregating all of the Nahuatl speakers to be efficient or do we use one teacher for two kids here , one over there etc.
As we've seen recently from those 3 Democrat Hispanic LA City Council people, racism towards Oaxacans from other Hispanics of Mexican roots is quite prevalent. The color of their skin and their unique language(s) are particular points of ridicule

990: EML stands for Emergent multilingual learners which is a title our district came up with for our english language learners. LCAP is a fund that the state gives districts for the most vulnerable students. It stands for Local Control Accountability Plan. It is a 13.9 million dollar fund which is meant to go to the most vulnerable students, namely emergent multi lingual learners, foster youth, students with socioeconomic hardship , those with learning differences and homeless youth. It musts be spent in "the most effective use" for these high needs students. Since most are years behind in literacy it is appropriate to spend it on reading interventionist . Lastly A-G's are a set of required courses student take in high school. However many of our vulnerable students reading skills are weak and they are unable to take these required courses. If a students does not take them they cannot be eligible to apply to the UC's . They can go to SBCC or trade schools but many still struggle in these environments because they do not have basic reading proficiency. Thank you for asking for clarification. Sorry I did not explain that earlier. Our emergent multi lingual learners only 2% take those required courses. For students with learning differences only 6% take those required courses. This means there are less doors open to them. Teaching students reading in the way they learn best is the key to turning this around. Currently our district still supports a deeply flawed approach to teaching reading. The evidenced based approach used by successful districts is called "the science of reading". It works because it teaches students how sound and letters correspond and teaches "decoding" which is breaking words into syllables, parts and getting mastery at this. The current approach the district clings to teaches students to guess at words from pictures or contextual clues but not from decoding. Most students do not learn to read by balanced literacy approach. Google NY Times where this information is explained in depth and has gone main stream.

None of the candidates was the least bit impressive, IMO.

Let’s say the government wants to help hungry people. So what do they do, they open up 10,000 government grocery stores all across the country and then you’re assigned one based of your address which you have to use by law unless you can afford an alternative. Now, you don’t have any say over the groceries you get, that will be decided by a government approved board, and if you want to make any sort of meaningful change, well prepare for a multi-year battle at your local, state an federal levels in order to try and make that happen. In addition, all the people working at this government grocery store will not be rewarded based off their ingenuity, results, or work ethic, they will only be rewarded based off their seniority. Doesn’t sound like a very good way to solve the problem but that’s exactly how were handling public education.

I think summer school is a fantastic idea for the candidates to debate and us parents to hope for. It could be for all kids or perhaps those who need to try and catch up. The problem I see is that this will go over like a lead balloon with teachers and their union reps.