Last of a series.
How to distribute the $106 million from last year’s record-breaking bond measure has been a central talking point in Scott McVarish’s joint campaign with partner Anne Burke to capture both open seats in tomorrow’s School Board election.
Speaking in bold-faced words, the attorney has emphasized his deep roots in the drive to pass the school improvements measure. “I was involved before the bond was passed,” Mr. McVarish said. “I was one of the strategists.
“I have been to countless meetings of bond study sessions, the Bond Oversight Committee. I have spoken at School Board meetings on the bond, prioritization meetings at the schools.
“Anne has been almost as involved as I have,” Mr. McVarish said. “(Candidate) Kelly Kent has not been to any of those meetings.
“She is focused on changing how teachers teach, which I grant is her primary interest.”
Mr. McVarish said Dr. Kent, whom he perceives as a latecomer, is pointing in the wrong direction.
“For the next four years, the School Board has to be focused on how we are going to prioritize and spend $106 million of taxpayer money,” he said. “You can’t just learn that in a month.
“Decisions are being made in November, December and January. There is no time to be introduced to those things.”
In campaigning for the last 3½ months, has Mr. McVarish gauged whether voter patience is ebbing over the lack of overt evidence of bond spending?
His response:
“I prefer to focus on what I would do if I get on the School Board,” Mr. McVarish said. “I will be able to be involved in complex, difficult, number-driven decisions, literally from day one.
“That is just not true of Ms. Kent.”
As for Strategy
On a typical day, Mr. McVarish said, he and teammate Ms. Burke will be accompanied by four or five volunteers.
He calculates that the two of them each has been knocking on 20 percent of doors and their volunteers on the remaining 60 percent.
“When I am at a door,” he says, “I promote Anne. When she is at a door, she promotes me. I talk about what we are bringing to this campaign – first, our idea about academies at the high school, particularly the industrial arts and trades academy.”
Industrial arts, once a staple, vanished, Mr. McVarish said, “because of budget cuts and a parent population of those students unable to advocate for the programs.”
I am thrilled that Scott McVarish is running for school board. He is a thoughtful candidate who pays attention to all of the schools in our district. He is a champion of the importance of the parent-voice, and the necessity for our school district to understand that as advocates for our kids, parents are key stakeholders in decisions made top-down and bottom-up. Scott McVarish and Anne Burke have earned voter trust, and they have earned my vote.
But there are possibly issues of financial impropriety or irresponsibility that voters are clearly worried about with this candidate:
http://www.culvercitynews.org/latest-news/political-campaign-works-prepares-ccusd-candidate/
““For the next four years, the School Board has to be focused on how we are going to prioritize and spend $106 million of taxpayer money,” he said. “You can’t just learn that in a month.”
Given the pace of construction planning and approval, Board choices regarding the spending of that $106 million bond will be made over the next decade or more. During that same time frame, CCUSD will make choices regarding the spending of $600 million more in taxpayer money on stuff like teaching. To say that the School Board must be “focused” on the former at the expense of the latter seems, to me, incredibly myopic. Heck, what’d the School Board do *before* there was a bond to spend? Hang out and play bingo?
Not to downplay the importance of the forthcoming bond choices– of course they matter– but speaking as someone with two young kids in this district, I personally believe that there ought to be at least *one* School Board member whose focus is on cognitive function… exactly what and precisely how are my two children to be taught? Speaking only for myself: I care more about that than I do about drip timers and LEED certifications.
Dr. Kelly Kent, if elected to the School Board, will be able to be involved in complex, research-based curriculum discussions, literally from day one. That is just not true of Mr. McVarish or Ms. Burke.
You can’t just learn Neuroscience in a month.
I watched a video about my childhood idol, Mr. Rogers today. On receiving an award, he said, “Fame is a four letter word, and like “tape” or “zoom” or “pain” or “life” or “love”, what ultimately matters is what we do with it.”
I’m going to add two more words: “blog” and “post.”
Your Culver City neighbor,
Jeannine
PS: “Vote”
And to to Ms Wisnosky Stehlin, you sit on the Citizen’s Bond Oversight Committee. You have a responsibility to ensure that any School Board Candidates that you are promoting have an impeccable background of financial honesty and trustworthiness. You have failed to do that with Mr McVarish.
We the citizens are not convinced by this small but vociferous Cabal that you appear to belong to.
Yes, I do. I take my role very seriously.
Jeannine
Patrick, clever post. But clearly you have never been to a school board meeting or committee meetings if you think neuroscience comes into play. It’s a great theory that somehow having studied neuroscience will give an advantage to a board member. But the one line of questions never answered has been: what is the CCUSD doing wrong in how it is teaching kids and what would neuroscience or Ms. Kent have us change?
Scott, I *have* been to a School Board meeting, several in fact, and if the learning process is not currently discussed there, then perhaps it’s because a voice like Dr. Kelly Kent’s is not currently represented on the Board. All the more reason why her candidacy is so very important.
And to answer your question, I allude to another question, one my daughter emailed to the moderator of the kids’ forum, in hopes that it would be asked of you candidates (alas, it was not): “Most of my classwork is too easy for me. If you are elected to the School Board, what would you do to make sure that students like me are challenged in class?” I gotta say that I agree with my daughter: CCUSD is currently failing to teach advanced students— at least at the elementary level— in a way that engages and challenges them (fwiw, the standard default seems to be to just give advanced students *more* work and call it a day). I can’t say that I know the solution, but I *can* say that the only School Board candidate who has demonstrated the capacity and the propensity to even *consider* such an issue is Dr. Kelly Kent. From you, by contrast, I’ve heard that raising such curriculum questions amounts to “micromanagement”, and that our role is but to defer to the Superintendant and trust in the wisdom of this administration and for God’s sakes we mustn’t displease Kati Krumpe. Well that’s not an acceptable answer. At least not to this citizen and voter.
Are you needing additional ways in which CCUSD is currently failing to teach our kids? Well, as you yourself heard directly from scores of CCHS students, CCUSD is currently failing to teach them math in a way that is coherent and comprehensible to them. Furthermore, hundreds of us Lin Howe parents are currently declaring (with our own wallets and checkbooks) that CCUSD is failing/neglecting to teach a foreign language to our children (or Farragut children, or El Rincon children)… and at the exact developmental stage in which such instruction is most effective and vital. At this little Title 1 school, parents shouldn’t have to pass the hat in order to get Spanish instruction for our kids, but that’s exactly what we’re stuck doing (to the tune of $17,000 this year for curriculum and teacher pay), all because CCUSD has failed to provide it… or else hasn’t even bothered trying.
Addressing curriculum deficiencies like the ones above in a finite-resource environment will require us to make complex choices. Our best chance at making the right ones— the ones reflecting the most effective and efficient uses of our time and dollars— lies in electing a School Board member who can say words like teaching and cognition without rolling his eyes and using scare quotes.
Sure, maybe there’re some folks out there whose primary concern is bond hearing attendance, but I just don’t happen to be one of them. As a parent of a kindergartener and a 5th grader, what I care about— what truly matters to me— is the question of what and how my children are to be taught. Dr. Kelly Kent has spent years studying exactly that. Her expertise, in my opinion, is exactly what the School Board needs, and that’s why I’ve spent the past month giving her my active and vocal support.
All the above having been said: you’ve run a really good race, Scott. Best of luck to you at the polls.
Beautifully said, Patrick. Thank you for artfully articulating what many of us parents think and feel, particularly when it comes to providing adequate academic challenge for our students. (I’ve always said that a gifted child is a special needs child). While it’s a lofty goal, it is the mandate of our public schools to educate every child, including those who needs extra support and those who need extra challenge. And thank you for once again supporting our 2nd language program at Lin Howe. You are, again, absolutely right – every child in every CC school deserves the opportunity to learn a 2nd language without us parents having to make it happen financially and/or with our own blood, sweat and tears. I envision the day when this becomes a reality.
I support every child learning a second language here in our schools, as do Scott McVarish and Anne Burke. If LinHowe parents want it, if more parents at more school sites want an immersion or other language acquisition / education model for their kids, then why not?
La Ballona’s last year’s Spanish Immersion 5th grade graduates are now the first La Ballona immersion 6th graders at CCMS. I think this is wonderful.
I was on the Language Immersion expansion committee, so I am very proud that our District is giving more kids an opportunity to participate in a dual-language program. I am also proud that we’ve managed to expand immersion to CCMS (one elective and one core class) and now onto CCHS. The upshot is that there’s a clearer path to bilingualism/biliteracy than ever before.
A bit of history:
The immersion program in our district is over 40 years old. In fact, I was on the celebration committee.
You might not be aware, but the only way our District those 40 + years ago would finally agree to having a language immersion program, was if it “was at no cost to the District.” That’s why El Marino has ALLEM (Advocates for Language Learning El Marino). It’s to help raise the additional funds necessary for the program, which now has a 25 year old Japanese program as well. ALLEM works very hard to continue to raise those funds. Yes, is a LOT of blood, sweat and tears. And, it’s not getting any easier. so I feel your pain.
So, what do we do? Do we pit schools and parents against each other, when we all pretty much have the same goals, which are to support, nurture and education our children to help them become successes in whatever they choose to do here on earth? I hope not. That sucks. It’s also not necessary.
I propose we work together.
“I propose we work together.”
Absolutely, Jeannine. 100% agreed.
Mr. McVarish,
Rather than dodge the question with speculation about neuroscience and education (which isn’t a hard connection to make, as a simple Google search will show you), why have you constantly refused to answer questions about your fiscal prudence — which is of far greater concern to the electorate?
You can keep ducking it, but we’d still like an answer as to what happened in Long Beach, and why it won’t happen again here if you’re elected. You’re asking the voters to trust you to oversee $106 million, and yet when you were put in charge of a lesser amount by a teacher’s union, you were shown to be “fiscally irresponsible” and left a trail of damage in your wake, including an appalling amount of expensive, needless litigation.
http://www.culvercitynews.org/latest-news/political-campaign-works-prepares-ccusd-candidate/
Mr. McVarish,
As you know, the role of the School Board is to establish policy, to set the vision and goals for our District. And as you know, the ‘business’ of the School District is the education of young people.
It’s hard for me to believe that you could argue that a background in preparing teachers how to use the latest in brain science to enhance learning will not be pertinent to the decisions that the Board of Education makes.
This line of argument, suggesting that somehow it’s more important to attend meetings about a school facilities bond in order to be prepared for the policy making that a School Board is charged with, just baffles me.
There are so many exciting developments in neuroscience every day that affect teaching and learning, that what you are suggesting is really inconceivable.
This is the most critical: until very recently, it was believed that you came into the world with a set level of intelligence that could never be changed. But now we know that due to a property known as brain plasticity, our brains are constantly changing.
Could you really argue that someone with this knowledge doesn’t have something to contribute to our the governing board of our community’s most important learning institution?
I work for a School Board member and yes, it’s true, Boards must deal with many administrative decisions.
But, that is not the most important work. Kelly is enormously well prepared for that which matters most.
Claudia, for someone who has been confessing on FB about how you have been just sticking to the issues and not badgering and smearing etc. You did a pretty off the wall job with your postings here.
Michael, thank you for acknowledging that Scott has run a very good campaign.
Polly, I just feel sorry for you.
“Michael, thank you for acknowledging that Scott has run a very good campaign.”
My name’s Patrick, and you’re welcome.
Sorry Patrick. I truly apologize for the error. Life is just not as perfect as I would like it to be.
It’s not a problem, Madeline. Hope you have a good party tonight!
I’m sorry Madeline, but am I missing something? I fail to see where Ms. Vizcarra is engaging in any kind of “badgering” or “smearing”. It seems to me she did a good job of sticking with the issue the Mr. McVarish raised while saying why she thinks Ms. Kent’s background will be valuable to the board. I enjoy reading this kind of civil exchange of ideas and I think it’s vital to the community. Bravo!