MONROVIA – Incumbents Ed Gililland and Bryan Wong will square off with five other candidates for three school board seats in a race focused on the district’s financial challenges.
The two incumbents are running against former mayor and businessman Rob Hammond, retiree David Crabtree, escrow officer Janeane Lechuga Covarrubias, businessman Ed McCarthy and entrepreneur Terrence G. Williams for seats on the Monrovia Unified School District Board of Education. The board’s third seat up for grabs in the Nov. 8 election was occupied by Claire Chesley, who resigned Aug. 1 as a result of a relocation.
Janeane Lechuga Covarrubias, a working mother with over 20 years business experience, said she is running “to bring a fresh perspective to the board.”
To deal with declining revenue from the state, creative solutions must be found to minimize impact on students. Those can include “insourcing additional services with the district as possible to minimize expenses, increasing publicity about outstanding school performance to raise enrollment, minimizing expenses, (and) not taking on any more debt,” she said.
“It is amazing how many local folks I talk to that are completely unaware of the amazing gains in academic performance and facility improvements that Monrovia has achieved over the past 10 years,” she said.
Crabtree, a retired teacher and school administrator, said he hopes to make a significant contribution to the district with his unique understanding of the public school system.
While the district has made gains in student achievement in the face of dwindling state monies and rising operation costs,”accelerating gains in student achievement remains one of the biggest challenges to the district,” he said.
The district should continue to utilize the Education Foundation to generate new income, implement a community mentoring program to accelerate student achievement and establish a fee-based parent participation preschool at each of the elementary schools, he said.
Gililland, who has served on the school board since 2006, said he is running for reelection because he considers it a privilege to be a part of the leadership that keeps MUSD on “powerful path of improvement.”
Despite reduced state budgets and new state mandates, the district’s faculty and staff are still providing a “quality education” for students. But it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so, he said.
The practical solution, he said, would becontinued “close, honest and transparent cooperation” between the district, teachers and staff, increased sources of local revenue for the district and increased involvement by parents and volunteers.
The district has a great collaborative relationship that has resulted in its ability to gain agreements to impose salary reductions to balance the budget, he said. It is also increasing programs to enhance revenue sources, such as promoting better attendance, offering a dual immersion language program, preparing a fee-based foreign student program and increasing facility use revenues.
Hammond, who served on the City Council for 12 years, said he believes the district is capable of doing a better job maintaining higher enrollment from residents in the district and attracting students from other districts with the appropriate programming.
“Offering programming the community views as valuable and beneficial to the educational success of our students” is one solution, he said. “Programming like music, arts, and vocational training are very beneficial to students and the educational experience.”
Hammond said he wants to ensure that every Monrovia student will be prepared to enter college, and would like to see more cultural awareness and opportunities for students to learn more about other cultures.
McCarthy said knowledge and experience he has gained from being both a MUSD student and parent will serve to help bridge the gap between parents, teachers, students and board members.
MUSD is a unique district with many different cultures that need to be identified in the proper manner “to help all students have a fair chance to succeed” at the next level, whether its college, trade school or something else, he said.
“One proposal would be that students be evaluated more frequently to meet their educational needs and offer them options to help motivate and chart out a future that would best suite each individuals needs,” he said. He said he would also propose more parental involvement to insure that each child is on track to succeed.
Williams said he’s running to bring geographical diversity to the school board.
“The entire community needs to be represented, and not just by some who reside in some areas of the school district,” he said.”Parental familiarity with their school board member who is a neighbor facilitates dialogue about their concerns … and offers more of a desire to help and be involved.”
Dealing with the budget and the district’s financial challenges are the most significant challenges, he said.
Williams advocates having more parental and community involvement with parental aids in the classroom, regular meetings between teachers, parents and administrative staff and commitments from volunteers.
Wong, an executive director at a nonprofit organization completing his eighth year on the school board, said he wants to “ensure strong leadership and to keep us on our present strong path of continuous improvement.”
In addition to putting pressure on elected officials in Sacramento, “we must continue to look for other revenue streams, large and small,” he said.
The district is already exploring programs, for example, to have foreign students attend school in Monrovia. It is also expanding food service opportunities inside and outside the school via catering services and is looking at ways to maximize use of “our world class facilities” at the high school, he said.
Wong said he plans to focus on seeking a reduction of class sizes, expanding language programs in the elementary and middle schools and challenging the district’s brightest students with more advanced placement opportunities and courses in math and science.
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