The Sonoma Valley Unified Board of Trustees has made two monumental decisions since Trustee David Bell took the gavel in December, the approval of the MacArthur Park Charter School petition, and selection of a new Superintendent for the District. Anna Pier met with the new President to talk about himself, these big decisions, and the challenges to the District.
What is an Aussie doing here? I grew up in a family that were big fans of the United States. As a boy I came to the States several times with my grandparents. Near Perth, where I grew up, the Australian Navy has a small submarine base, and it’s a port of call for the US Navy. When anti-nuclear protestors would be around the sub base, my grandfather would go out in a boat and hold up a big US flag to welcome the US sailors.
Why California? It’s the closest to Australia. I came here to go to Foothill Junior College, and then transferred to University of San Francisco and graduated with a BS in finance. I lived in SF for over 20 years.
How did you get to Sonoma? It’s the closest wine country town from SF, and I had a friend here. That said, I hardly drink wine. The weather’s great, it’s an easy commute to SF.
Why did you want to be on the school board? I saw an article in the I-T about the District test scores. Only 29% of all students met or exceeded the standard in reading. The “almost met” category hides the reality, doesn’t tell the truth. I went to a Board meeting. I felt not enough Trustees were telling the truth. So I decided to run for the Area 4 seat. I ran unopposed. I actually got to start earlier because Troy Knox resigned, and I was appointed to the seat.
What are some of the challenges of the job? There are all these ignorant and angry people online. For example, when I voted to close Prestwood, someone accused me of choosing it because I wanted to sell the real estate. I tried to respond, and offered to meet with the person, but they didn’t take me up on it. And there was an angry Prestwood mother who selected parts of an exchange with her, and posted them to show how bad I was. My one question to her was, why should 300 students from the Westside have to travel East, when only 100 students would have to go West.
That leads me to ask why you voted to approve the new charter school, whose petitioners were largely Prestwood parents? I’m fundamentally an advocate of schools of choice. Closing Prestwood was the right decision. I stand by that. And state law encourages charter schools, stating “they should be an integral part of a District.”
Does the new charter cancel out the savings from the closure of Prestwood? $1.4 MM was projected from the closing of Prestwood. The District estimates that $2.3 MM will go to MacArthur Park Charter. But the District is currently overstaffed. I think when we staff according to the number of students, between declining enrollment and students electing the new charter school – and teachers will go there – there will still be a savings realized from Prestwood’s closure. But we won’t know for a year. We have to do a better job of projecting the declining student enrollment. We lost about (150) students this year.
And what about the staff report asking, for instance, for a defined curriculum? We’re approving them to open a school in seven months. To ask that their application be perfect on Day 1 isn’t an honest look at the situation.
What is your strength as a trustee? I’m willing to say the difficult things. Everybody – teachers, parents, trustees, staff – is okay with the fact that 71% of our kids don’t read at grade level. The complacency of accepting this fact is appalling. I will propose a third-grade retention policy.
When you brought that up recently in a board meeting, Trustee Ching cautioned you that it is not the trustees’ job to set educational policy. I don’t think we can’t not tell staff what to do. Since COVID, there has been no improvement. At every board meeting we have a VMTA report, a CSEA report, a police report; we should get a report on literacy.
Are you willing to share your thoughts about the Board ‘s choice for Superintendent? Some of the qualities, some of the aspirations, that spoke to you about that person? No. Please see the January 16 press release announcing the new superintendent. This came out after all the vetting, background checks, additional reference checking was complete. The Sun’s January 13 front page online story about our likely choice for Superintendent was disrespectful to the candidate who may have confidential issues with their current employer. It was tabloid journalism, beneath what this District deserves.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the new Superintendent?
The new superintendent is fortunate to start now versus a year ago. The board has made many difficult decisions in that time and our acting Superintendent has done a really good job in carrying out the will of the board. We as a district are very fortunate to have such a competent and hardworking Interim.
The biggest challenge in my mind for not only the new Superintendent but all of us, is how we improve 3rd grade literacy. It is not acceptable that only 29% of these students meet grade level.
I can remember discovering the joy of reading as a child and the Louis Lamour westerns my grandfather gave me after he read them.
I hope our new Superintendent can deliver that joy to all our kids.
When you were a little boy, what did you want to be? I liked driving things. My dad had a trucking company. When I was a young man, I spent ten years racing motorcycles.
As you are someone looking hard at education, and very committed to making it work for the students in the District, I am interested to know why you left high school without finishing? I finished, but did not graduate. I was a very unmotivated student in my last year and spent more time reading the newspaper than studying. In hindsight, I should have started working sooner.
The silver lining was that after working for several years in mining towns in the Pilbara (a place where half of the world’s iron ore is produced), I came to the realization that college was a path I wanted to take. College was never going to happen for me unless I wanted it, despite what the adults were telling me.
What do you like to do in your free time? Any pastimes? Most of my free time is now spent on board activities. I used to enjoy running, reading and playing tennis.
Trustee Ching has strongly encouraged you – and other trustees too – to take the governance training. Do you plan to do so? Difficult right now to imagine having the time given the new demands of being board president. Catarina (Trustee Catarina Landry, previous board president) was not kidding. My tennis game will suffer this year.
Do you think you will run for another term as trustee? I have another 3 years left on my term. Too early to tell on running again.
Any final thoughts you want to tell the community? This job is way more interesting and complicated than I imagined and not for the faint of heart. And to all the critics, it’s safe to come out from behind the keyboard and have an old-fashioned conversation to exchange ideas. We both may learn something.
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