Candidate for
Governing Board Member; Biggs Unified School District

Our Platform: Terry Lattemore & Dennis Slusser

1. Improve Assessment Scores

As a District, we have an obligation to the students and their parents to do everything possible to help every student develop academically and by doing so provide a foundation for a lifetime of learning and achievement.

2. Improve School Ranking Year over Yyear

By accomplishing our goal of improving assessment scores, we will also accomplish our second goal of improving our school rankings. We are committed to a continuous effort to improve each school's ranking in the District with an expectation that we can achieve a rating of "10" for each campus.

3. Fiscal Responsibility

We must cultivate a mind-set within the District of fiscal awareness and thrift. If we aren't spending every dollar to accomplish goal number one or goal number two, we are wasting money. Every expense must to be held up to the question: "By spending this money, how will this help to achieve our two primary goals?"

4. Transparency

The District has an obligation to the taxpayers, parents and students to operate in an open, above the board manner. Financial assessment and improvement plans as identified by various means must to be available, not just on demand, but in ongoing communications to parents, staff, local, state and federal entities.

5. Effective Communication

The board, superintendent and principal must maintain an open door policy to promote the open and unfiltered distribution and collection of information pertaining to the welfare of the District. Teachers must effectively communicate with parents regarding student needs for improvement and student achievement. Teachers and the administration must listen and respond to parent and guardian requests for information or assistance with their respective child's academic needs.

To accomplish the stated goals above, our emphasis will be on the following:

1. Improve communication between administration, parents, faculty and staff.
2. Become fiscally sound through prudent spending.
3. Involve parents more thoroughly in the parent-student-teacher triad.
4. Identify areas of improvement throughout every aspect of the educational environment.
5. Once improvements have been identified determine effective means of implementing these improvements.
6. Establish working groups of cross departmental individuals where they can have a meaningful dialogue about areas of needed improvement or a means of airing grievances between the various functions within the District.
7. Establish a District wide sense of pride in the students, staff and faculty.
8. Establish a means of recognizing the small miracles that happen every day within the classroom environment and then celebrate them.
9. Adopt a District-wide view that every student has the ability to accomplish outstanding results.
10. Embrace the notion of small incremental change as a means of accomplishing large results.
11. Do not engage in passive resistance to new ideas.
12. Throw out the notion when suggestions are made to argue "that won't work here," instead adopt a view of saying "let's figure out how to make this suggestion work."
13. Resist the temptation of saying "we've always done it this way."