League of Women Voters of California Education Fund
Santa Clara County, CA November 4, 2008 Election
	Randy J. Scofield Answers Questions Candidate for Board Member; Cambrian School District

The questions were prepared by the Leagues of Women Voters of Santa Clara County and asked of all candidates for this office.
Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

Questions & Answers

1. How would you determine that the schools are using federal, state and local funds wisely and fairly and how would you report your findings to the community?

As a school board member a top priority is the responsibility to wisely manage the public's money. To meet this responsibility, I look at a variety financial reports and district plans to ensure that the resources are being used wisely and fairly. The annual district budget, the mid-year and year-end comparisons of actual expenditures to budget, the annual audit reports, school plans, monthly warrant reportst(the detailed list of expenditures) are a few examples of the information I review. As part of our five-year modernization program, we established a citizen bond oversight committee that reviewed and monitored those program funds. I worked with my fellow board members, the program manager and the district administration to develop a reporting system that enabled the Board to carefully monitor construction costs, monitor state and local funding sources. From these actions, we were very pleased to complete this five-year project last year on-time and on-budget.

As mentioned above, a top priority is to have strong fiscal responsibility, but it needs to be aligned to the district priorities. As part of this process Cambrian last year conducted a community survey with the results provided to a strategic planning task force which I was a member of. This task force was comprised of community members, parents, teachers and staff, and administrators whose charge was to update the district mission, vision, goals and priorities. These results were adopted by the Board and all administrators and school site councils have been asked to prepare school plans in a format that reflects the alignment of programs and related budgets with the District's priorities. The school plans communicate this information to the community and are available on school websites and are discussed publicly at meetings of the Home and School Clubs, School Site Councils, and meetings of the School Board.

2. Are the schools offering instruction appropriate to the diverse educational abilities of all the students?

The district offers a variety of programs designed to meet the needs of students of diverse educational abilities. The differentiated instructional strategies that all teachers are trained in, materials provided to support this are base of our approach to meeting all students' needs. Cambrian continues to look a innovative ways to meet these needs as an example, we introduced a program last year that took a portion of the language arts time to group all students across each grade level by their level of complexity teaching the same standard at the same time across the entire school. This coordinated effort provides a seamless transfer of students to different levels of instruction based on the individual needs of each student. The additional challenge or support needed by students is focused as a single objective of the entire school. This is just one example of efforts by Cambrian to provide effective and appropriate instruction to students. The variety of programs and our differentiated instruction in all classrooms and all subject areas are supported by our partnerships with the community in homework centers, before and after school tutoring, a wide variety of Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) and enrichments programs and special education services. I support Cambrian's efforts to continuously improve and look for innovative opportunities to help children learn.

3. Where do you want the District to be five years from now? What steps should the District take to get there?

I believe in encouraging a district culture that values collaboration, innovation, and effective communication and challenges itself to reach their common goals. I participated in the District's strategic task force and as a board member voted to approve the Strategic Goals for the District.They are reviewed by the community and updated every three years. They are:

• All students will meet and exceed student learning goals at each grade level.
• All students will demonstrate and apply critical thinking skills.
• All students will exhibit effective interpersonal skills and value diversity.

The district has programs in a variety of academic and social areas to meet these goals. Achieving the goals requires an ongoing and deliberate focus. We have adopted a methodology across all schools that enable the specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely goals (SMART) to be set at each level of our district. Our goals are aligning in support of our common vision and strategic view. This is the foundation on which we move forward to meet the future.

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Responses to questions asked of each candidate are reproduced as submitted to the League.  Candidates' responses are not edited or corrected by the League.

Read the answers from all candidates (who have responded).

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Created from information supplied by the candidate: October 26, 2008 09:04
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