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Alameda County, CA November 2, 2004 Election
Smart Voter

School District Challenges Over the Next Four Years

By John B. Ledahl

Candidate for Board Member; Dublin Unified School District

This information is provided by the candidate
While the ditrict ha made great strides in instruction, adding superior administrators, and instituting class size reduction - there are some major challenges facing us!
I think Dr. John Sugiyama has done a commendable job of turning the district into an efficient, safe, and robust teaching environment from a small town, more provincial institution. He has instituted accounting systems, instructional programs, and technological innovation. Most notably, he has brought in seasoned, highly qualified people from other districts to manage every administrative function better than their predecessors.

However, there is much room for improvement and innovation. These are just some of the problems or challenges over the next four years:

  • Need to prepare to recruit a new superintendent
over the next two years. Dr. Sugiyama and Dr. Sandy
Hare (Instruction) will retire over the next couple
of years.
  • Need to prepare for the HS exit exam in 2006.
  • Need more money for class size reduction
  • Need to improve College bound stats!
  • The teachers' contract is due for negotiation this year.
  • Need to plan for 2-3 new schools over the next four years.
  • We need a five year technology plan. Technology
should not be an option for students and teachers.

Besides those suggestions I have made above, here are a couple of more recommendations:

  • Save Our Schools, a program where Realtors such as myself join with the district to bring money to classrooms. Realtors sign up, pay an annual fee, then pay additional fees per real estate transaction. Founded in Danville, this program would work very well in Dublin. I intend to bring this program to Dublin.

  • Use Senior Citizens in the classroom, technology program, and sports fields. A natural fit.

  • I don't believe the communications between the school district and the community has been good enough. A comprehensive Public Relations plan with clear goals, messages, and tasks needs to be done and carried out. This needs to be led by the Superintendent. Example messages to promote include:

o We are the only California school district with four Distinguished Schools. o We have expanded our instructional minutes o We are building new schools in east Dublin o Over the last five years we have greatly expanded our instructional programs while reducing classroom sizes.

Possible communications actions include: o A new district video highlighting the many academic and other accomplishments. + The current district video is nearly ten years old!

  • Weekly/monthly reports on the district to the community via newspapers and Channel 30, where the administrative leadership rotates from Curriculum/Instruction, to Personnel, to Finance, and Technology to ensure a well rounded look at how the district is running.

  • Bring the large amount of untapped parents in the City with great interest and special skills back to the district with formal groups such as:

o Parent Technology Committee to help build a five year technology plan and help implement it.

o Parent Academic Instruction Group to use parent college, business and government contacts to increase resources for classroom teaching.

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ca/alm Created from information supplied by the candidate: September 27, 2004 07:45
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