Political Philosophy for David J. "Dave" Williams

Candidate for
Governing Board Member; Mountain View-Los Altos Union High School District

In my view, the most important responsibility of a school board member is to make sure that all students are served by the district. This trust is passed to a board member by the community when he is elected to this position.

This advocacy is accomplished in a number of ways. Among them are, creating the policies that guide all the district operations, reviewing the performance of the district in all of its functional areas, insuring that the district spending is within its budget and that appropriate reserves are set aside for emergencies and to review the curriculum and delivery systems on an ongoing basis.

In order to accomplish these critical tasks the board must rely on input from all the district stakeholders. Teachers, parents, administrators and the surrounding community must all be heard by the board in order to guide their decisions.

During my tenure on the Whisman School Board, my colleagues and myself took these responsibilities very seriously. During that time we made it part of our yearly goals to have a board meeting at each school site during the school year. Various parent groups were invited to participate as well as presentations from the students and the staff. This was an opportunity for the board to interact with the community.