Laguna school district candidates answer to public
Laguna Beach Unified School District board candidates weighed in on a host of issues on the minds of residents during Thursday’s forum in Laguna Beach High’s Artists Theatre.
The American Assn. of University Women’s Laguna Beach branch and League of Women Voters Orange County hosted the session, the only one planned for the election season.
Incumbent Jan Vickers and challengers Howard Hills and Peggy Wolff are each vying for one of two contested seats on the five-member school board. The top two vote-getters will join Ketta Brown, Carol Normandin and Dee Perry. Current board President William Landsiedel is not seeking reelection.
On Thursday, candidates answered questions that audience members wrote on notecards. Each had two minutes to answer all queries.
One question concerned whether candidates supported continued rollout of revised state standards known as Common Core, or whether the district should opt out and create its own benchmarks.
Wolff, past PTA president at Thurston Middle and Top of the World Elementary schools, favored the rollout of Common Core, which emphasize critical thinking and a greater reliance on nonfiction texts to support claims.
Some residents in the years since California adopted the state standards in 2010 criticized the benchmarks, claiming they “dumb-down” certain subjects.
“I respect teachers and know they have knowledge. But when they have a new standard coming up, we need outside experts to support teachers,” Wolff, a former elementary teacher in Newport-Mesa and Tustin school districts, said. “I see the difference in my own children about the breadth of knowledge. I see teachers excited to teach the content.”
Hills, a constitutional lawyer, author and Laguna Beach High alum, said he did not have a strong opinion on the standards’ merits, but centered his answer on the process.
“We increased the budget for bringing in outside consultants, paid a lot of money on coaching teachers, but should have invested in teachers themselves for them to build Common Core from the ground up,” said Hills, who has volunteered at school career fairs.
Laguna Beach Unified began preparing for the standards in 2010, said Vickers, who is seeking a fifth-straight four-year term.
“To name them Common Core does not do a service to the standards,” Vickers, a former Laguna district adult education and substitute teacher, said. “It behooves us to recognize the underlying issue is providing equal and the best opportunities for students across the country. If we removed ourselves...it would be to the detriment of students in the district.”
One attendee also wanted to know what the candidates thought about starting school in August instead of September. The question generated memories of 2013, when the district board reversed a decision to start the school year in August after community opposition.
“The manner in which this issue was addressed prevented dealing with the issue on its merits,” Hills said, claiming a “governance problem” within the district. “It was a policy by ambush. Only one member, Ketta Brown, questioned whether it was a good idea.”
Trustees and district staff apologized to the public, admitting they did not do an adequate job of communicating before making a decision. Teachers preferred using the two days before Labor Day as an introduction period to courses, and also reported many student absences during the first half of Thanksgiving week as reasons for the change, the Coastline Pilot reported at the time.
“The calendar item was discussed among staff and what came to board members was what staff felt was beneficial to students,” Vickers said. “As a collective group, we honored the request coming from the classroom educators but it obviously backfired.
“We don’t always know the trigger issues.”
“I agree it was not handled in the appropriate way,” Wolff said, adding a parent meeting would have helped sort through concerns and questions about a schedule change. Students preparing for Advanced Placement tests in May could benefit from an August start date, as they are playing catch up with students in districts that begin the year in August,Wolff said.
Twitter: @AldertonBryce
