001foreign [Music] hello my name is Hope Welty and I would like to thank you for joining us in Del Campo High School's coog media Studio as you take the time to speak with candidates for the San Juan Unified School District's Board of Education each of our videos will start up with a two-minute introduction by the candidate then I will ask the candidate a series of questions that our parents staff students and community members submitted and our student staff help select each candidate is asked the same questions so if you'd like to hear another canvas response you'll be able to in their video candidates have up to two minutes to respond to each question to make sure that we get all the questions in and that all candidates have an equal opportunity to respond our district
002office friend Elizabeth zelidon will keep track of time and let us know if we approach the two-minute mark after questions the candidate will have a two-minute closing statement so be sure to watch all the way through to the end now let me introduce to you marad Mo Sama who is running to represent trustee aois 7. hello candidate sarama please begin with your opening statement well thank you for having me here today uh I have decided to run to represent parents perspective on the board and will work in collaborations with teachers staff and and the administration to benefit our kids earlier in the pandemic I watched parents and Educators alike rise to unprecedented challenge everyone worked harder than ever to protect the education to which students are entitled this deep commitment to the success and education
003of all children must be the foundation of all the work taken by the San Juan Unified School District board I am the only candidate for the trustee area that has kids enrolled in San Juan Unified School District in fact I moved with my family to Citrus Heights antelope Roseville station two decades ago to enroll my children in the district my three daughters have since graduated while my adorable little man still enrolled in elementary school I bribe myself coming from a family of educators two of my sisters were School teachers in New York City while my older brother was a superintendent for one of that City's largest school districts I'm very proud to be endorsed and supported by Educators Community leaders my neighbors and parents to be your next board member I'm ready to roll my
004sleeves and get to work for our kids to have the best experience in a safe and nurturing environment at the San Juan Unified School District thank you your first question San Juan Unified stopped providing home to school transportation more than a decade ago what can be done to help make sure that students can get to and from school safely I believe in safety being a precondition in the San Juan Unified School District in every campus and I believe when elected I will work in collaboration with the administration to make sure we provide Safe Transportation while working with them classify the staff folks to make sure we are recruiting folks to come in and drive our buses or find alternative transportation for them to get their safe and um to school from school and to um
005the school campus from home until the school's Camp is safely I will work also with the administration to make sure each and every campus have a safe drop off for our kids and safe pick up for our kids while we have Staffing available during drop off and during pickup to make sure it is a safe experience for our kids thank you many families were impacted by the change to start times this school year whether it be by a lack of supervision in the morning before school or a time crunch after school trying to fit in activities what supports did you see the district Implement to help families adjust and what else do you think can be done I think the challenge is the district um has like many districts across the state is Staffing and
006it's been a challenge for not only School District but every business across the state and when elected I'll make sure we work to get on recruit talent to our district and make sure we work again with our classified staff folks and with the administration to make sure we have a good paying jobs for these to be able to get and stay and retain our good employees to be able to have Staffing again early in the morning and staff in later in the afternoon as needed most districts in California including San Juan Unified are facing declining student enrollment at those schools why do you think this is and what ideas do you have to combat declining enrollment indeed it is unfortunate to see that when I had my kids enrolled two decades ago in the school
007district it is unfortunate that enrollment rate was a little bit higher and again rate not per um student number I will work in collaboration again with the administration and the school board to look at the root causes of that declining in enrollment if one of them is the scores that we have the test scores that we have we need to work again with collaboration with the administrations our teachers uh to look at the root causes why is that happening and provide the assistant needing needed for each campus and each classroom to make sure these test scores be the best in the region so we can gain enrollment back in our school district what can San Juan Unified do to provide classes that have meaning to students and learning that can be used in the real
008world like right here CTE classes I'm a big proponent of bringing more CTE classes to the San Juan Unified School District matter of fact I believe when the student graduate from San Juan Unified School District undergraduate on the graduation day when they walk they should have that certificate that could go the following Monday and earn 40 to 50 an hour because they had programs like these CTE programs that offer certificates to prepare him for the word and for the job market as well I'm a big proponent once again for CTE programs across all campuses and this studio right here should be replicated in many other campuses across the district what role does the Board of Education play in making sure that we have the highest quality teachers and staff to serve students and Families thank
009you again I mentioned retention uh being one of the biggest thing I want to go and bring into the board and work in collaboration with the administration how can we retain our teachers I asked that question to my kindergarten teacher my kids kindergarten teacher she taught my daughter who's college student and now she taught my kid just a year ago he was in kindergarten what make you stay at the San Juan Unified School District what make you stay of course the passion to the education and and other um things that she mentioned to me that made her say so I'll make sure that environment that was provided for that teacher is we provide it for every teacher across every campus and I will work in collaboration again with Administration and with the teachers with the
010San Juan Teachers Association to make sure they have a good band jaw a good band salaries for every teacher to retain it with more than win and community supported bond funds San Juan has been able to do a lot to improve and rebuild facilities do you support more Bonds in the future and how would you prioritize which schools the funds are spent at thank you yes I do support that and I support um re-innovating each and every campus that we have a lot of our campuses actually have not been renovated for quite a while um and again funding to those campuses funding to the school district will help us to go ahead and renovate and have state of art facilities and build more like just recently in my district Mesa Verde just got just got
011approved to build a stadium in there that should not be done that should have been done long time ago by bringing those kind of bonds into the district what would you like to specifically see done to improve safety on school campuses as I mentioned safety should be a precondition on our school campuses for our students safety for the kids safety in elementary schools and others we have to have the resources available for them and I'm a big believer to evaluate all the others and all the root causes that might be a safety concern for parents students and also the teachers and staff so I will work in collaboration with each and every canvas to make sure we have these processes available as I recently asked Mr Allen one of the San Juan Unified School District
012cabinet members about what is the process currently that we have in place I did look at the process and we do have room for improvement Again by bringing more resources by optimizing the processes that we currently have to to be ready for any threat that can come into our school campus what is the single most impactful thing you can do as a board member to make sure that the district and its schools remain financially sound and have balanced budgets as a business person I ran budgets before and I understand how to be physically responsible to allocate budget in the right area I will make sure the budget addresses all the resources needed in our classroom without running into deficit any deficits into that budget as well as to make sure we have we have a
013look at we we have a location of a lot of funding or money in our saving account I call it the ones you know that account is when something happens within the district we don't have the funding available that number should be the biggest in our budget and I'll be big problem and bringing more into that account like many of the adults in our community some students are struggling with their mental health and resiliency what is the school district's role in supporting student mental health and what would you do as a board member to make sure it happens again that also rolled into safety of our students mental health is something should be we should provide all the resources needed to address any mental health issues on our school campuses by resources increasing the number
014of counselors that's available and each and every campus train our teachers and how to handle situations when they see it and how to get a report that to the right folks to make sure that we're addressing all mental health issues that's on our campuses and provide the support needing for our student do unions have too much power in California schools that question is do we support a good paying jobs yes I'm a supportive of good paying jobs and our teachers deserve a higher paid salaries and I believe our staff deserve a higher paid salaries again without running into any budget issues and allocating the right budget to our again our teachers and staff we trust those folks with our kids every day we drop them off and leave they should be paid a good amount
015of money for their service to our kids and yes um as I said earlier in the CTE programs a lot of these jobs I mentioned that make forty to fifty dollars an hour most of our union jobs as students we see Acts on our campus as a board member what would you do to address these concerns I'm sorry can you repeat that question hope as students we see acts of hate speech and bias on our campus as a board member What would would you do to address these concerns there's no room for hate speech I'm a Believer in free speech but when it gets to becoming a hate speech there's no room in our campuses for that kind of speech and I will make sure that gets addressed uh with that Administration in the right
016way so um each case is different but definitely there's no room for that isn't being somebody wrote something on a wall that's very offensive to any community that should be addressed immediately and we should be talking about it however I'm a big believer in how can we prevent such a hate from our school campuses what can we do to implement diversity equity and inclusion for our kids that what should be working on before it gets to that point there's no hate there's no hate in our school can be said we should not have we should not get to that point no students should be saying anything hateful or writing or drawing anything hateful to any group no matter what it is because it is our responsibility to teach our kids that is not acceptable so
017it is our responsibility as board members to make sure we address that and how can we go ahead and prevent that from happening what can we do to prevent that from happening what Roots causes that when an incident like this happened so I'm a big believer in working on this before it happens educating our kids make sure we have that dni clubs in every school canvas to talk about diversity equity and inclusion for our students have you seen the district listen to the voice of students and what other ideas do you have for how student voice can be expanded I tell you what I actually I enjoy students report on on the board when they come in when they go ahead and uh attend the board meeting and I listen I take notes I actually
018recently I took notes from the San Juan high school and I took notes from other schools before what concerns they have so these concerns should be taken seriously and also working with the administration and each School canvas to make sure we address other concerns and also they have a nice program going and they're in their own campus we could go ahead and actually replicate that program to other schools to make it happen so the students voice is very important to me and I will be a good listener to come in and visit each and every campus to see what students are looking for and what concerns they have and what things we could do better as board members because we work for you for the students we work for the parents and students and staff
019of and for the teacher and that's our job to do and again I will be a good listener for the voice of our kids in school our students thank you candidate sarama do you have a closing statement you would like to share yes as I mentioned in my last question I will be a voice for student safety on the board of the San Juan Unified School District safety should be a precondition on our school campuses as a parent and as a business man in essential industry I watch our community rise even when threats to our children increase we have the power to keep our children safe and set them up for success in San Juan schools our children win when parents teachers and staff and administration work together to benefit our kids I will work
020to expand the Career and Technical education similar to the studio that we have here today our kids should have a certificate when they walk on graduation day to be able to earn 40 to 50 dollars an hour as I mentioned earlier and a big believer in that and I will expand these programs on school campuses to make that happen and we cannot make that happen without the collaboration with the administration industry leaders and everybody involved in these programs and recruit more Educators uh in the CTE programs I will donate I will diligently ensure that our district never runs into any budget crisis again as a business person who ran large budget I know what it takes to be physically responsible and allocate our taxpayers money accordingly your vote is your boat is your vote your
021vote is a vote for your kids safety your vote is a is a vote for a parent that will bring your voice to the board thank you thank you so much for joining us don't forget to go and watch every candidates video and please go out and vote [Music]