Four candidates spent Wednesday evening exchanging their concerns, solutions and educational philosophies at The Signal’s candidate forum for the two William S. Hart Union High School District board seats on the ballot next month.
Two seats are up for grabs, Trustee Areas 2 and 5, with a third secured by incumbent Cherise Moore, who is running unopposed in Trustee Area 3.
All four candidates accepted their invitations to the forum, which is available for viewing online at BuzzSCV.com. Bryan Biggers and Julee Brooks are both seeking the Trustee Area 2 seat, left open by longtime board member Bob Jensen’s decision not to seek re-election. Board President Joe Messina is being challenged by Stacy Fortner in Trustee Area 5.
Trustee Area 2 covers four schools in the southwestern pocket of the school district, which covers virtually all of the Santa Clarita Valley. Trustee Area 2 includes Placerita Junior High and Hart High School and extends north to include West Ranch High School and Rancho Pico Junior High.
Trustee Area 5 is mostly Saugus, including Arroyo Seco Junior High and Saugus High in its boundaries in the northeastern portion of the school district.
Trustee Area 3 is sandwiched between areas 2 and 4 in a south-central portion of the district, covering La Mesa Junior High, Golden Valley High and Bowman High, the district’s continuation school.
The candidates were asked about the biggest issues facing the school district, the role of the parent in education and one priority for improvement, among other items, during the hourlong forum.
Trustee Area 2
Brooks said her priorities align with the most important issues facing the district, mentioning safety first.
“One, student safety is something that I know is on the top of mind for every parent in the district, every staff member, and that to me is a full continuum, right?” she said Wednesday evening. “From our partnership with our Sheriff’s Department to mental health supports to extracurricular and co-curricular activities to make sure that young people have places to belong.”
Biggers also mentioned multiple concerns, but first brought up the fiscal challenges facing the district.
“Timing has to do with which ones we are facing currently,” he said, “but what is, I think, most pressing is the fiscal pressure that has been mentioned. That’s fueled by declining enrollment, which is a trend that is hopefully settling, but it just requires that the board operate with serious fiscal prudence and diligence as they move forward.”
In discussing the role of the parent, each candidate brought a slightly different perspective to the table.
Biggers said the role of the parent has been established since a pair of Supreme Court decisions in the 1920s that ruled the 14th Amendment protects parents’ and guardians’ educational choices.
“I will always fight to protect those rights. These schools serve our families,” he said, but then added that doesn’t mean a teacher has to provide 38 individualized lesson plans to address every family’s issue. “Now, if you’re a helicopter parent or a bulldozer parent, that’s not a pass for you.”
Brooks said she comes to the panel as the only candidate with children currently in the district and said high school education requires a unique partnership.
“It does come down to a partnership with teachers, trusting teachers, but being active. And I have been active, so I understand the most critical parent partnerships.” She praised the district’s communications when problems arise. “And (the state’s Education Code) already allows for opting out of controversial materials to ensure that parents have a voice in education.”
When asked for one area of improvement, the first thing Biggers mentioned was the district’s communications, as a way to engage and inform parents.
“There’s a lot of communication breakdown between them and the district, the administration, the ways they feel supported, the responsibilities they’re asked to accomplish, and so I do think there’s an opportunity,” he said, “because I see great actors at all levels, at the board level, at the school administrative level.”
Brooks said she’d take a districtwide look at parity in educational opportunities and academic success.
“We need to be looking across the district to ensure that all students are succeeding at the same levels. There are vastly different outcomes when it comes to A-G completion rates and UC readiness scores across our district,” she said, “and we need to make sure that every school and every student in the school has the opportunity for success.”
Trustee Area 5
When asked about the biggest issues facing the district, all four candidates mentioned some level of fiscal concern, because California schools’ funding is based on enrollment, which is projected to decline statewide and in the Hart district.
Fortner said she had three “pretty clear priorities” in addressing district challenges: ensuring the Hart district’s academic opportunities continue to grow, fiscal responsibility to ensure long-term stability, and listening and building trust. “If elected, I will come to every decision with three questions in mind,” she said. “Is this in the best interest of our students? Is it financially responsible? And have we listened to the people most affected?”
Messina said the biggest priority was the concern everyone mentioned, “money, money, money,” because the district needs more, but enrollment is declining. He said the district is losing student and teacher families due to affordability concerns.
“We have a 28-acre parcel. My proposal is that we build either apartments or condos,” he said, “to house teachers for the first few years they’re in town, so they don’t have to spend as much money to live here.”
Both Fortner and Messina emphasized the importance of parent engagement when asked about the parent’s role in a child’s education.
“Parents have a right to know what’s going on,” Messina said. “I’ve said this a million times. I’m going to say it here tonight. Anyone who wants to hide information, any teacher, staff, or anybody who wants to hide information from a parent on what’s going on with their child does not belong on the school board. Be aware of what’s going on around you.”
Fortner described the high school years as a “runway” to adulthood. “When it comes to the school, the parents have access. You have your parent portals that you can go in. You can look at the children’s grades,” she said. “So I kind of view … these high school years as really getting to know your child and the person that they’re going to be as far as interactions with the school itself.”
When asked for one priority for improvement, Fortner said hers would be “protecting the classroom.”
“When families send their children to school each day, they expect us to provide a high-quality education, and I believe that we have a responsibility to protect that above all else. If the district faces financial challenges, my first question wouldn’t be, ‘What programs do we cut?’ It would be, ‘How do we operate more efficiently and make better use of the resources that we already have before reducing opportunities for students?’”
Messina said his priority would be working to fill more seats in Hart district classrooms, which have lost about 1,500 students over the past six years. A big step would be improving affordability, he added.
“People can’t afford to buy houses, so you’ve got to make the affordability better for them to be able to move up here,” he said. “You get more (funding for increasing attendance). It helps on the financial side of things, and it helps put more kids in the classroom.”
