As a socio-cultural anthropologist, I have had the opportunity to immerse myself in a wide variety of societies and cultures. If there is any experience that is characteristic of my approach to public service, it is the moment of arrival in a new fieldsite. To step off the bu and take in the overwhelming surge of impressions, sensations, and thoughts, to meet strangers with only an open smile and a ready handshake to recommend me and begin building relatinoships, identifying patterns, understanding institutions, mapping social structure, mastering customs, discovering and navigating the distribution of power. These experiences, perspectives, and skills are precisely what I've brought to our first year and a half at the Board of Supervisors, working to build relationships with senior staff, to understand the formal processes of county governance, and to socialize our values and goals with diverse stakeholders within the adminstration and in the community. Politics is relationship work. Governance requires bringing diverse stakeholders together to collaboratively solve complex problems. It doesn't matter where you go in the world--an indigenous village in the Andes, a large government bureaucracy, a quiet suburban neighborhood--the qualities that contribute to building and maintaining vibrant, resilient communities are the same: honesty, fairness, competence, attentiveness, curiosity, creativity, wisdom, compassion, selflessness, industriousness, resourcefulness. I'm committed to doing my utmost to embody these qualities and to help to foster and support these qualities in the District's students, teachers, staff, and families.

The three biggest challenges facing our region over the next decade are lack of affordable housing, widening inequality, and climate change. These three are not only interconnected, they deeply impact and are impacted by public education. San Diego is currently the most unaffordable housing market in the country and young families are increasingly unable to afford to raise their children here. The cost of housing is a significant factor in declining enrollment. Many student families face housing insecurity, crowding, and even homelessness, all of which can severely affect the ability of children to learn and thrive. The lack of affordable housing doesn’t only impact students and their families—many teachers and other staff also can no longer afford to live in the communities in which they teach. The District needs to invest in teacher and low-income student family housing and to increase its engagement in the socio-economic context of learning. Nearly two-thirds of San Diego Unified students qualify for Free and Reduced Price Meals. California has the highest poverty rate in the country and there is a strong correlation between the growing wealth and income gap and the academic achievement gap. We need to adequately fund schools to ensure that high poverty schools get the resources and instruction they need to overcome the social and economic challenges that many of our students face. Finally, in relation to climate change, the District has the opportunity to develop comprehensive climate curriculum and take a regional leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. We need to complete the District’s paused Climate Action Plan, expand from 50% rooftop solar to 100%, electrify our bus fleet, invest in neighborhood schools to reduce the need to commute in order to access advanced or specialized instruction, and work with SANDAG and MTS to ensure that students and staff have safe, convenient paths to walk and bike to schools.

As a Torrey Pines Elementary School parent, I am extraordinarily proud of our school for recently welcoming many Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban to our campus. The teachers and families of TPES went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the students and their families received the instruction and resources they needed to help ease their transition to our country. The SDUSD Board has repeatedly affirmed the District's commitment to protecting its immigrant and undocumented students. All students in California can and in fact must attend school, regardless of immigration status. SDUSD does not allow immigration enforcement on its campuses and will not release information to immigration authorities unless compelled by court order. More broadly, nearly 27% of San Diego Unified students are English language learners, the significant majority of their families migrants from Mexico and Latin America. There is a significant gap in achievement for Latinx and English language learner students, which has widened as a result of the pandemic, and narrowing it is a priority for the District. The District has a Local Control & Accountability Plan (LCAP) and receives Supplemental and Concentration Funding through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), much of which goes to supporting the learning of English language learners. In spite of these investments, the District can do more to support immigrant students and their families. Implementing the Community Schools model will enable schools to intervene in the socio-econonic context of learning and academic achievement, providing nutrition, mental health services, enriching after school programming, and other assistance to students and their families. The District has also struggled to effectively communicate with parents, particularly immigrant parents who may lack English proficiency and familiarity with the school system. These families can benefit from improvement in the District's pro-active family and community engagement. 

My commitment to this district can be illustrated by my activities for the past eleven years.  I have been an actively involved parent/volunteer in the school district since 2011. I started out as a classroom volunteer and room parent for my kids' classes in elementary school. I then became the PTA treasurer, then the PTA president.  When my kids' school - Barnard Elementary School - was on the school closure list, I became involved on the district level to help save our school.  We were successful in saving Barnard and it’s now a thriving mandarin immersion program in Pacific Beach. This taught me to get involved at all levels so that all students can get the best education possible.

I have been the cluster chair for the Mission Bay Cluster, twice. This role was especially important because it brought together teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community members of all six schools in Pacific Beach to work together to develop pathways from the elementary schools through the middle school to the high school. Through this work, Mission Bay High School has had the highest enrollment in decades, even adding students through the pandemic.

My children have been through five of the six schools in Pacific Beach.  At each school, I was on the School Site Council and the Site Governance Team to work with teachers and administrators to allocate funding for specific programs, look at student achievement trends, and make operational decisions to best serve the school sites. I’ve also held board positions on Parent Teacher Association (PTA) or Parent Teacher Organization (PTO), helping with enrichment and fundraising activities to supplement many programs that were cut by the district.

At the district level, I was a member of the Calendar Committee; the District Advisory Council for Compensatory Education (DAC) for many years, which advised the district on our low-income students; and the inaugural Local Control Accountability Plan committee.  In addition, I was a vice-chair of the Gifted and Talented Education District Advisory Committee (GATE DAC) – I got involved in this committee because my daughter was designated “gifted” but I had no idea what that meant.  I also served as the Mission Bay Cluster representative to the Cluster Congress, made up of leadership from the 16 clusters of San Diego Unified.

In a district with 26.5% English Learners and 60% low-income student, I have a shared experience with these students that can only help me in my role as a board member.  I came to the U.S. at the age of nine and had to learn English while my parents worked two- to three jobs at any point in time.  My brothers and I even helped them clean office buildings at night. Rather than participating in sports or other extracurricular activities I spent my middle and high school years working for the family businesses. 

I can hit the ground running on day one because I have been entrenched in this district for over a decade.  

The three biggest challenges are:

1.      Population decrease = fewer kids in schools

2.      Affordable housing = fewer kids in schools

3.      Climate Change

Through our last census, we have seen the population of San Diego proper decrease.  This affects schools because smaller population means fewer number of kids in schools.  Much of this has to do with housing affordability and quality of life.  I know several families who moved out of the area because they were not able to purchase a house and the high cost of living negatively impacted their quality of life.

I would like to work with our governmental organizations – local, county, state, federal – to add affordable housing so that San Diego is continued to be seen as a great place to raise a family.  For example, I attended a presentation by one of the developers for the Midway district, which is in District C.  The school district must be intimately involved in activities such as this so that we can advocate for our students, families, teachers, and other employees of the district.  Having elements such as a childcare center and open spaces as a part of the community to assist with pre- and after school care is imperative.

We have seen a 20,000 decrease in enrollment in the past ten years.  Yes, some of this has to do with population decrease in all of San Diego but some of it has to do with families leaving the district because they don’t feel like the district is addressing the needs of their students. Many families left just in the last two years due to how the board addressed the pandemic.  Ultimately, the district will need to figure out how to run smaller schools yet offer the same wide range of classes and services.  This is where my experience with large budgets will come in extremely useful.  I’ve managed multi-million-dollar groups at large corporations.  I am not afraid to dig into the numbers and develop a plan so that no matter how small, every single one of our students stays competitive with other students across the nation.

The negative effects of climate change are real in San Diego. Our coasts are at risk of shrinking. Lack of water is a reality.  We must teach our students how their daily actions in our community can affect the world.  The district must also take steps to counter climate change immediately.  I believe we should have had solar panels up years ago – this not only helps the environment, but it also helps our bottom line.

Having been an immigrant and an English Language Learner myself, I believe the district is doing just an OK job of serving our immigrant population.

Our immigrant population needs all the wrap around services that are needed to get someone settled in a new country.  What documentation do you need? How do we apply to schools? How do we get the necessary immunizations?  The district should have a designated department/group to lead our new families through the process. Much of this is currently done by parent volunteers.  I’m hoping our community schools model will help address some of these needs but only five schools are being piloted right now.

I’ve worked closely with our English Learner Advisory Committee (ELAC) chair for the past few years on a few projects to make sure our EL community is being served.  Ultimately, the issue is the same for all district advisory committees – the board does not listen to them.  The members of all advisory committees know their population, whether it’s the low income, English Learner, Gifted and Talented, etc. The committees are made up of the families who represent that community.  Who better to listen to than the people that have first-hand account of experiences?  But, too often, the recommendations of the advisory committees are not taken because the board thinks they know better.  I’ve experienced this firsthand as a member of the committee addressing low-income students and the Gifted and Talented advisory committee.  

We must have teachers who are knowledgeable about the best practices of teaching English learners.  We are so short staffed right now (due to mismanagement of our budget) that I’m not sure there are enough people with the right ability to address the many different immigrants coming from various regions of the world. Our teachers need additional training, not just a day or two of “professional development” that is currently conducted.  In addition to teaching our students, how about having some classes for other family members while the kids are in school? 

Again, let’s ask them!  Different communities may have different needs.