The Cupertino Courier
Education
Six candidates are seeking seats on Fremont Union High School District school board
Michael Flores
Michael Flores would like to see an improvement in the students and teachers in the Fremont High School District.
"I taught a semester down at Gilroy in a junior college, and it taught me a lot of stuff about incoming freshmen," he says. "One of the things I have found with the local schools is that they don't seem to teach the students to be able to analyze problems and come up with their own conclusions."
Flores, who studied aviation and engineering at San José State University, is now working on obtaining his adult teaching credential from UC-Berkeley. He has lived in Sunnyvale since 1976, and two of his three children have graduated from the district. His youngest son is currently a senior at Fremont High School. Flores is concerned as well about what he perceives as the inequality among the district's five high schools.
"Right now there is a big clamor to go to particular schools," he says. "I think one of the reasons for it and one of the problems is that the teachers have a clamor to go to those schools."
He believes the less "prestigious" high schools are left with new teachers, who may not be as qualified, which he says ultimately hurts the students. Flores would also like to see an expanded support system for first-year teachers, pairing new teachers with more experienced ones in the same subject area from across the district.
Flores believes one of the biggest items facing the district is revenue. He says the trustees are not straightforward when it comes to their reasoning for ballot measures. He used the parcel tax of a couple of years ago as an example.
"They said this is to support and keep our high level of education and qualified teachers instead of saying 'This is to keep our salaries,' " he says. "The way in which they did it I thought it was sort of sneaky and conniving."
Asked if he favored giving the superintendent contract to acting superintendent Polly Bove, he said he was not familiar with her.
"I did not realize they had let the other guy go," he says.
Flores wants a superintendent who responds to the board's needs, is creative, has experience and can handle both the board and the teachers. He believes whoever is hired should get only a one- to two-year contract.
"Most of us working out there in the working world, how much of a contract do we have?" he asks. "Thirty days, two weeks or immediately. Why should teachers and things have anything other than what we more normal, mortal people have?"
--Erin Hussey
Kathryn Ho
Kathryn Ho describes herself as bridge between schools and families, a role she finds particularly suited for her position on the school board.
An incumbent, Ho first became involved in school leadership 10 years ago through the Parent Teachers Association at Lynbrook High School.
"At that time, as more Asian families moved into the area, I played a role as a bridge to connect families and schools," she says. "A lot of families didn't feel comfortable coming in and talking to school administrators."
Initially, Ho, who moved to the United States from Taiwan 35 years ago, chaired a PTA program that helped bilingual families. As a result, she was encouraged to run for the school board, winning her first term eight years ago and re-election four years ago.
If she is re-elected this November, Ho says she will work hard to maintain the district's high standards, both for academically at-risk students and the high achievers.
"Four years ago there were budget cuts, and programs were eliminated and a lot of A.P. classes," she says. "There are still things we can reinstate, such as more A.P. classes and more programs such as the Phoenix program for at-risk students, and I will fight for that."
Ho also says she will seek certain qualities in superintendent.
The school board fired Stephen Rowley in August after a combative summer that included the resignation of a popular Monta Vista High School teacher and an errant email in which Rowley stated he hoped the resignation might make things difficult for one member of the board. The controversy has dominated school board meetings since June and angered many district parents and students.
Former assistant superintendent Polly Bove has replaced Rowley on an interim basis, and Ho says she is impressed so far. "I would definitely welcome her as a candidate," she says. Ho was one of three board members who voted for Rowley's dismissal.
Regardless of who becomes chief of the 9,800-student high school district, Ho says that person should be a team player, be accountable to the board and be a top manager and visionary with a long-term plan. Character is especially important to her as well.
"The person is more important than what the person can do," Ho says.
--Hugh Biggar
Avie Katz
School board service has been a part of Avie Katz's life for as long as he can remember.
"My dad served as a school board member in a little town in Wisconsin that we lived in, and he inspired me to pursue a career in education," Katz says.
Subsequently, Katz became a teacher. In his career he taught with the Fremont Union High School District and then spent 23 years working with at-risk youth in Santa Clara County.
Although he retired from the classroom after 32 years, Katz says his passion for education led him to run for the FUSHD school board, which governs five high schools and an adult education program.
"I ran to make positive changes in education and my community," Katz says of his initial run. "I am running for a third term because I want to bring student learning to a level that reflects that of new world educational standards," he says, pointing to the need to prepare students for a global economy. "I also believe very strongly that we need to reconnect the district with the various ethnic groups that make up our community."
Now in his second term, Katz says he is particularly proud of his efforts to encourage cultural awareness among district leaders, and the district's high standards for students.
Those achievements, though, have been overshadowed by a volatile summer for the district. The controversy included Katz's alleged role in the departure of two popular Monta Vista High School teachers and the unexpected firing of Superintendent Stephen Rowley. Rowley had two years left on his contract.
The controversy has dominated school board meetings of the district since June and led to rancorous discussions between board members and between the board and members of the community.
The FUHSD has since hired an independent investigator to look into those issues and, if elected to a third term, Katz says hiring a strong new superintendent will help end the divisiveness.
"If we put a new, unifying leader in the superintendent's position, I am confident we can work together for our students' best interests," he says. "Our district's leadership needs to be unified in its pursuit of the best possible education for all students."
Don Mackenzie
Don Mackenzie, 30-year Cupertino resident and single father of three, says it can get complicated when a school board member has kids and relatives in the district. Pointing out that he doesn't have any anymore, Mackenzie describes himself as impartial.
"I come at this primarily from a parent perspective," Mackenzie says. His three children are all recent graduates of Cupertino High School.
"I understand the parent's point of view."
While his three children were in school, Mackenzie volunteered at numerous school functions and in 2004 was elected president of the Cupertino High PTA. Even though his youngest child graduated in 2004, Mackenzie was re-elected for the 2005-2006 school year.
In addition to his focus on education, Mackenzie taught parenting classes at the YWCA, chaired the Cupertino Cable Television Advisory Committee, worked as a financial auditor and was an eight-year member and chairman of the Cupertino Planning Commission.
"I learned how to work on a five-member board and as part of a team," he says. "As an individual board member, you don't have any power at all; you only have the power to bring your ideas, contribute your experiences and then the board as a whole needs to make decisions along with the staff."
Mackenzie believes in order to heal the district from its disruptive summer of resignations and firings, the board must focus on teamwork and reestablish its trust with the community.
"I think the most important thing is to listen carefully," he says. "Individual board members need to respect each other and listen carefully, and I think that spreads out to the community, too. People get very passionate about their schools, and it's important that all of them feel like they have someone's ear and that their ideas are being integrated into the decision-making process."
One major decision the board will have to make in the coming months is hiring a new superintendent. Mackenzie says he will look for three main qualities: a professional background in education, the ability to successfully run a business and be a dedicated team player. As for hiring acting superintendent Polly Bove, he says, while she was the natural and probably the only choice to run the district on an interim basis, she may or may not be the best fit.
"I think when we go to choose a permanent superintendent, the whole board is going to have to sit down and figure out their priorities," Mackenzie says. "I told you my priorities. I think it's important to hear what the other members' priorities are and what we can come up with, together, as an agenda, and then decide how we can best fit that."
--Erin Hussey
Barbara Nunes
Barbara Nunes' interest in education began when she was a business student at San José State University. "People in my accounting classes kept coming up to me for help, and I found that rewarding," she says.
Since then, she has worked in education for 37 years, including serving as a business teacher at Cupertino High School, a principal, an administrator and an accreditation consultant.
When Nunes retired, she says she wanted to find a way to serve the community and decided to run for the school board. She won her first term as a Fremont Union High School District board member four years ago.
In her first term serving the five-high school district, Nunes says she was proud to have helped get a parcel tax passed to help with school funding and to have worked on the district's long-range plan.
If elected to a second term, Nunes has several things she wants to accomplish.
"Certain classes have been cut, and I want to reinstate them," she says, providing Advanced Placement statistics as an example. She would also like to introduce an algebra program to help those with math phobias and a program to improve English language usage.
Helping students plan their futures is also important to her. "I want to prioritize a guidance system to help students with their post-secondary plans through personalized services," she says, pointing out that each of the high schools has only two guidance counselors. As a former business teacher, Nunes also says vocational education is a passion for her.
As a part of those plans, she would also like to work with teachers on staff development and introducing curricula. In the meantime, Nunes will be busy until the end of her first term with the board's selection of a new superintendent.
"The new leader has to care about kids," she says, "and be able to develop leaders in the community and develop community spirit about the schools."
Such spirit has been under siege lately due to recent controversies over the resignation of a popular Monta Vista High School teacher and the related firing of former Superintendent Stephen Rowley.
"The new leader should be open with the board and communicate as we regain the trust of the community, " Nunes says.
--Hugh Biggar
Bill Wilson
Bill Wilson believes his experience in academics, business and the community gives him a diverse background that complements those of the other board members of the Fremont Union High School District.
"The reason I decided to run was that I thought we have all the ingredients for a truly excellent school district, but I thought the board was sometimes acting in ways that distracted from that mission," he says.
Wilson, who has lived in Cupertino for almost 15 years, graduated from Princeton University and has a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard University. Following graduation, he taught math for nine years at Assumption College in Massachusetts. In 1983, Wilson moved to the Sunnyvale/Cupertino area and founded Arca Systems, an information security company.
Today, he lives with his wife, Judy, and sons, Matt and Kevin, both students at Monta Vista High School, and works as an adviser to new companies in areas such as product strategy, funding and executive recruiting. Wilson's two older children, Jennifer and Bill Jr., graduated from Fremont High and have since started successful jobs of their own.
Wilson would like to see the board refocus the district's agenda and present a more unified front.
"We need to return the focus to educating kids," he says. "We've been too distracted by other matters, which aren't really helping the education of our kids," referring to the events leading to the resignation of popular Monta Vista leadership teacher Tim Krieger and the firing of Superintendent Stephen Rowley.
Wilson says communication is key to healing the divisions within the district itself and its relationship with the community.
"There will and should be disagreements on specific items," he says. "But the board as a whole makes a decision, moves on and communicates in a united front." If the board is divided on an issue, he says, "our first reaction should be to go out and understand who it affects and what their thoughts are."
If elected, Wilson will also look for these strong communication qualities as well as passion for education and experience running a large organization in the next superintendent. While he believes acting superintendent Polly Bove is doing an outstanding job, he says it's too early to make a decision on whether the board should hire her permanently.
"The board and the superintendent are really a team of six people," he says. "We need someone who can work together with the board for a common goal."
--Erin Hussey
