The Morgan Hill Times gave each school board candidate a slate
of eight questions. Here are the answers from Armando
Benavides.
The Morgan Hill Times gave each school board candidate a slate of eight questions. Here are the answers from Armando Benavides.
- What prompted you to run?
I want to use my skills and experience as a licensed attorney, community advocate, and a volunteer in community committees and organizations, to bring about new focus and vision to the governance board. I am aware of the many issues the District faces and want to be an active participant to make the hard choices that the Board will be forced to make. I am optimistic that I will make a positive contribution and be a leader to make the District more efficient and responsive to the needs of students and parents and all stakeholders. I also want to work to make the District more transparent as it grapples with its many challenges. I want to serve as a positive role model to our ethnically diverse community to encourage others like me to run in the future.
I have the practical experience necessary to immediately start working on important issues. As a member of CoLEAD, I got involved in working with the parents and ELAC officers of Jackson Elementary school to identify the issues that were keeping the school on Program Improvement (PI). We identified problems and sought to resolve them through the system. CoLEAD’s participation was crucial in bringing about the changes at Jackson Elementary that will improve its success in getting into safe harbor and out of PI.
As a member of CoLEAD I have devoted much attention to bridging the achievement gap for all students throughout the District. I have researched the best practices of our most successful schools and have advocated for their implementation across all schools. I have advocated that all students performing below proficient be identified and programs be implemented to move the students into the proficient range. I am seeking District wide interventions and solutions.
On behalf of all English Learner Students (ELS), I analyzed the ELS Dependent Charter School proposed last year by the District and concluded that it was too general and lacking in specificity as to its budget, program to be provided, impact on other students in the District, and its possible exposure to legal challenges. I also concluded its programming should concentrate on math and science. I spoke of my concerns to the Board and the body postponed implementation for one year and directed the superintendent to add more specificity to the charter proposal.
On behalf of CoLEAD, I organized community meetings to educate ELS parents as to the nature of a charter school and what was being proposed by the District. I sought a professor from Stanford University to make a neutral presentation on the pros and cons of a charter school. The focus was to empower parents and educate them as to issues raised by the charter school.
I have been an advocate for transparency and inclusion. The Board wanted solely to interview the candidates for the superintendent position. I advocated a board meeting for the board to include in the process other stakeholders such as the leaders of the teacher and classified unions and community leaders. The Board did in fact agreed to include in the process representatives from the school unions but not community leaders.
I, as a leader of CoLEAD alongside Padres Unidos, organized the first ever Latino parent assembly attended by over 300 parents, students, teachers, management staff, and community leaders to welcome Dr. Smith as the new superintendent. The assembly was a success and brought pride to the Latino community. The groups formulated a list of five priorities to improve the academic experience for all students. Dr. Smith has been working in implementing the priorities.
As a member of CoLEAD, I have advocated for the examination of the District’s hiring practices and procedures to ensure that the District gets qualified personnel that reflects the demographics of the District.
I have been an advocate for student achievement through my participation as coach and assistant coach in many sports throughout Morgan Hill and its surrounding areas. As a sport coach, I have a basic knowledge of the skills it takes to motive kids to want to be successful and achieve. Over the many years that I have coached I have had an impact on hundreds of students. I demand hard work, concentration, and focus. I emphasize that school achievement is paramount. I push all kids to practice hard and stay focused on their education. In sports and for school I demand 100% effort from my young players. I keep the parents informed at all stages of the process from practices to game results. This keeps the parents excited about their kids and the sport. Currently, I am an assistant coach for Morgan Hill Raiders Pop Warner Youth Football. I also serve as coach for Gilroy/Morgan Hill National Junior Basketball, both for the fall and spring seasons. It is exciting to see the results of my coaching when my players compete in games.
I have broad base experience professional and practical experience to serve and be a leader in the Board. I will bring a new vision, focus, and transparency.
- The 2012 school year is forecasted to be the worst in terms of the size of the budget deficit, which is projected at $12 million. Do you have any ideas on how the school district can save money?
I am aware of the tremendous negative dollar value of the budget deficit. Because of its large size, I would focus attention on the budget year round and treat it as a priority issue. I will strive to be transparent and keep the community involved in all aspect of the budget process. I would start the budget process early to identify ineffective programs and discretionary (and not mission critical) programs to see if they could be trimmed or cut.
I would set caps on discretionary spending and professional development while making it a priority to channel resources to the classroom. I would seek feedback from parents, teachers, classified staff, the school administration, and the community to assess our priorities. If possible, without jeopardizing quality of instruction, I would recommend that we not fill vacancies. I would collaboratively work with the District unions to see what concessions they are willing to make to reduce the budget deficit. I would seek a 5-10 percent budget cut for all programs, schools, and central management. I would also seek to postpone or suspend building construction, proposed or in the planning stages. I would recommend that we create a Budget Finance Committee to assist in the planning and implementation of any of the above possibilities to save money.
I would ensure that we are receiving cost effective legal services for the many lawsuits that we are defending now. I would also support fundraising and donations in-kind or of money from business and the community, including beefing up the Home and School clubs to grant them wide scope to raise money and run fund raising activities.
- What three priorities would you like to accomplish while on the board?
A) Strive to have a balanced Budget while ensuring that we provide top quality education to all of our students. We need to preserve the high standards of education for all students as we deal with the budget crisis while keeping our spending within our budget limits.
B) Effectively tackling the achievement gap that insidiously affect all ethnic groups while maintaining a rigorous academic program that is challenging to all students. I would identify the best practices that are being implemented by each school and work with each school to implement best strategies to deal with its achievement gap. I would encourage parents, community, and school staff participation in the process. I would encourage the District’s unions to get on board and assist us in coming up with creative ways to tackle this problem.
C) Recruiting and retaining the best qualified teachers, classified staff, and management staff, with the focus on hiring personnel reflective of the demographics of the District. Human personnel at all level are the most important asset of our schools. We need to find those good teachers and give them the incentive to keep them working in our District. We need to develop a supportive and encouraging working environment that values the District employee’s work product to promote excitement in their work. We need to ensure all of our employees feel they are stakeholders and active participants in the education of our students.
- How will you pay for any programs or services you want to retain or add?
Any program or service that I would add or retain would have to be deemed critical to the mission of educating children. I may recommend that we shuffle money around from one program to another, or that we terminate or reduce one program to get funding for critical mission programming. The problem is that the budget really is a limiting factor. The most important service for me at this time is the after school tutoring programs for all children and any program or service that seeks greater parent participation. One possible source of funds would be to seek private and public grants or donations that may provide funds for a particular or general program or service.
- What are your ideas to close the achievement gap?
Focus on the students and their family. We must get the entire family involved and excited about the education of their children and make them feel like that are all active stakeholders and that they can make a difference. We need to identify all at-risk-kids and kids performing below proficient. Teachers need to collaborate to identify the level and needs of each student. We need to get the entire community and school involved (parents, retired community individuals, business) to provide single student or group tutoring. We need to involve other community members to participate such as college students and counselor volunteers. We need to evaluate teacher performance to ensure we have best most qualified teachers and ensure all District employees buy into the process as stake holders. I will work closely with Dr. Smith to ensure that he focuses his knowledge and energy to close the achievement gap for all students while maintaining rigorous academic standards for all students. We need to set benchmarks and have regular program evaluations to ensure the students are in fact achieving.
- Explain your understanding of the school board’s role?
I will represent the front line leadership for the District. My role would be to put in place a solid school environment where students can learn and achieve at the highest level that each is capable to reach. A priority for me would be to raise student achievement and involve parents and the entire community to participate as stake holder in the District schools. I see my role as having the responsibility to envision and formulate goals, define the outcomes, and set the right course to ensure we have the best schools in Santa Clara County. I must ensure that the District sets the highest standards for performance, and have a plan to evaluate how student’s are meeting the standards.
I also see my role to include building collaborating relationships with all stake holders in the system, be open and transparent, and accepting of all suggestions.
A very important role is to approve the annual budget and to hire and evaluate the superintendent’s performance. I will work in collaboration with the superintendent to set the policies of the District and provide a vision and direction for the District, provide accountability, be an advocate for education, and to instill pride in our community for our schools. I also see the role to be a team player, to work as a team player with other Board members.
- What are the top challenges facing the district?
A) Foremost is unprecedented budget crisis, described as a 12 million dollar budget deficit. This has tremendous consequences in terms of forcing the District to trim down programming and services, potentially increase classroom size, and create conflict as groups vie for the limited resources.
B). Another challenge are all of the schools that are in program improvement (PI), especially those that are in 3rd, 4th , or 5th year PI. Those schools are in danger of facing draconian measures if they are unable to get into PI safe harbor. It also drains resources from other programs. For example, we are diverting management time and resources to address the 5th year PI at Jackson school. We are paying, this year, up to $50,000 to a consultant to provide expertise to get Jackson out of PI. I would have preferred to use that money for summer school. I would divert attention and resources to any school on PI status to put in place effective programming to get them into safe harbor and eventually out of PI.
C) Student Achievement Gap. This insidious failure of the education system effects all subgroups. Even for the groups whose students reach 80% performing at proficient, 20% of students from those groups are performing below proficient. We need to apply best practices to ensure the District’s students perform at proficient and above. We need to do a better job to get parents more involved and supporting our schools and working to ensure we close the achievement gap. We have to not accept the status quo and devote time, energy, channel resources, and overcome all obstacles to overcome the achievement gap. We need to work proactively to ensure all of our students achieve at the minimum at proficient.
D) Challenge serving all interests among student subgroups. There are many students subgroups who have challenging needs such as special needs, English learners, At Risk Youth, Migrant children, charter school students, gifted students, and many other students with diverse needs. The challenge is to do good things to ensure that we use all of our budget resources to provide quality programming and services for these groups sufficient to ensure they get the best a top quality education while keeping within our budget restraints.
- In light of the Cinco de Mayo incident at LOHS, what steps would you take, if any, to improve race relations? What policy revisions should be made prior to May 5, 2012?
The Cinco De Mayo incident was a wake-up call to our community that racial tensions exist among some subgroups in some of our schools. I am a strong advocate for the improvement of race relations. I would recommend that we coordinate meetings with the stake holders of the school (parents, teachers, classified staff, and management), to discuss varied perspectives and develop suggestions and recommendations to improve race relations at school.
To improve race relations I would encourage communication with the students and parents focusing on strengthening racial tolerance, the acceptance of differences, and fostering collaboration among the diverse student population. I would also foster understanding of different viewpoint and life experiences and for students to value and appreciate the differences. I would attempt to create an environment which encourages students to work together for the spirit of the school. We can develop and show a video that explains cultural differences and tolerance. We must get students to talk about race relations. We must involve all stakeholders.
For some Latino students celebrating the Cinco De Mayo is a reflection of ethnic pride. Celebrating that day in no way negates their patriotic American spirit. But in that day of celebration some students want to emphasize their American patriotism. Tolerance goes both ways and I would also opinion that any student that wants to display their American patriotism any day of the school year has a right to do so. True racial tolerance is reflected when all groups value and tolerate the differences of other students. The entire school system and all employees need to serve as role models and foster improved race relations. We could set up poster or fliers that encourages all students to work together to overcome racial tensions and to work toward mutual goals. We need to start planning early to ensure the next Cinco De Mayo becomes a showcase of tolerance for all student to bring pride to our school District.
