What did you accomplish the first time you were on the board?
Other Questions
Please email your questions to: chrisformv@outlook.com
What do you see as the role of the school board?
At its core, it's an elected body that makes decisions as a majority (a single trustee has no authority) to direct the superintendent and oversee district policy through voting on key district decisions.
Superintendents don't always see the value of public process, not for any nefarious reasons, but simply because they want to get things done quickly to help children. As a result, public engagement may been as a means to convince the community, rather than co-construct with the community. This can often leave a district less informed of all the possibilities. It's the job of the board to have a pulse of the people they represent, primarily by being good listeners, to bring these diverse viewpoints to the superintendent, and to ensure the public has a welcome venue to present directly to the district. It takes a very strong culture for those working for the superintendent, or even parents, to feel safe to speak their mind freely, so at times, a board is a voice for those who have something to share.
Increasingly, technical decisions are brought to the board, like what makes effective online learning? (answer: build teacher leader processes to let teachers tell you), to what is worth buying or building with a twenty-year community bond? (things for children that last nearly that long) The board must always examine what other districts are doing to properly assess what is indeed possible.
A seasoned board member realizes that their role is to create a climate for diverse ideas to be safely exchanged. When everyone shares freely, the best ideas most often rise to the top.
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Why now? Why are you running?
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If it were not for this pandemic, I would not be running. All of us teachers had to learn how to teach a totally new way, but the experience of teaching through a 1-1 device program isn't new. I piloted my first 1-1 device classroom in 2009, and the last decade of experience as a teacher and edtech coach has taught me that this crisis can be a once in a generation opportunity to leapfrog instruction. I enter this race now because remote learning can lean on those who've done it before. I was alarmed by the chaotic remote learning experience many MVWSD families experienced last term. This is no fault of the teachers, the teachers did the very best with the guidance they received from the district. I am running to improve remote learning, as well as address the social-emotional crises and equity concerns that come with it. These laptops are here to stay, yet whether we emerge with teachers and students far more ready for the future depends on if technology is used to consume or create.
This crisis can lead to a revolution in moving away from test-driven instruction to more project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and self-directed learning. These are not just phrases, these are the essential skills needed for future jobs and for a love of learning.
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Why did you resign from the school board in 2015 rather than finish your last year?
In 2015 my daughter was entering kindergarten. My wife and I are both teachers, we decided it was logistically better for us for her to attend where we teach. Our home in the Santiago Villa Mobile Home Park is one of the remaining pockets with no neighborhood school, it is in fact the furthest away from its zoned school of any community in MV, making drop off and getting to our own schools very difficult. I had decided I would not run in 2016 because we had only one parent on the school board at that time, and we needed more parent voices.
I was increasingly worried the public was not aware of governance issues facing the district before the next election, and I felt I could share more freely about that from outside the school board.
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In hindsight, leaving was a mistake. While the departure drew attention to the board disfunction, the board issues did not approve under new scrutiny. And while the appointment and subsequent elections added more parents to the board, that did not lead to a safer place for more diverse discussions that I aspired for MVWSD.
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That new board, this current board, then approved to change half the district's principals, eventually ratcheting up to 14 new principals (for a district of 11 schools) these last 3 years alone.
The new board while more civil, stopped appointing board officers by rotation, and rather selected them by ideology. I would not have supported those decisions that sent a message that different opinions would not be tolerated. MVWSD has increasingly closed itself off from a world of diverse viewpoints.
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I am proud of the work I completed the first three years on the board. I believe parents and residents from that time will remember that I attentively responded to every email and meeting, and treated every person with care and respect. My votes always put kids first.
A seasoned educator knows the magic is in investing in the classroom, and not the district office or board room. I do owe the voters an apology for not completing my final year of that term. I was elected to do a job. I am running to finish the job I started.
During this COVID-19 crisis, my experience is a valuable addition to a diverse school board.
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Since you already were trustee, what have you learned from the first time?
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An educational institution must be about a growth mindset from the board, to the superintendent, to the principals, to the teachers, to the students. Everyone needs to be open about their mistakes.
Despite being a leader on the board regarding transparency, my biggest mistake was that I could have done more to lead through community engagement and partnership. Misunderstandings with the public arose when we did not actively reach out often enough, provide enough information, and call enough board meetings to publicly show the thought processes behind tough decisions.
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That experience informs my belief now that the board should always make sure to be flawless on process, in order for the community's focus to be on the substance.
The second mistake is related to the insights above, regarding the severance for the outgoing superintendent. I should have called for more board meetings to build consensus around a more detailed explanation reflective of the entire board. I failed to present that incident in a way that captured the gratitude the board and community had for the outgoing superintendent's service.
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One of the wisest takeaways from my past service is the wisdom that emerged from gathering diverse people in a room and creating safe spaces for them to dialogue.
I also learned that superintendents aren't always right. I worked with two superintendents who were immensely qualified, both would state things as fact, when more often, any decision is a balance of trade-offs, and different superintendents reach different conclusions, be it teacher salary vs reserve, traditional vs modular construction, or other issues, a board member needs to insist there is a process of diverse voices to help ensure the best outcomes are reached.
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What does a teacher bring to the school board?
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A teacher also has zero-tolerance for wasteful spending of tax dollars by the district office and school board. As a teacher, I've lost count of the fundraising and grant writing to PTAs, school site councils, and outside sources that I've had to do. I have no patience for the scale of waste that happens the further you get from the classroom. It's tragic for inspiring teachers to pinch pennies on Donors Choose and MVEF to fund core STEM and art programs, all the while the district can spend:
$200,000 on audiovisual equipment for the board room and unknown more on an extravagant dais,
$500,000 by mishandling the math pilot,
$1.2 million home loan to the superintendent and 14% raise the year before, making our superintendent paid higher than LASD's superintendent, who has served twice as long.
Over $5 million* more was spent on"Professional/Consulting Services and Operating Expenditures" ($1,109 per pupil) than it did in 2015. *Much of this spending is on important essential services, the question is do we need to spend 329% the state average to provide those services? What is causing spending to double in four years (not including what we already funded before the increase)? Should we discuss whether legal and consulting spending is too high? Would we see even greater student outcomes funneling the spending growth directly into teacher-directed classroom funds?
MVWSD is at 329% the state average for "Professional Services/Consulting and Operating Expenditures." If you include "Subagreements for Services," MVWSD spends $1,003 more per pupil than Sunnyvale and $1,748 more per pupil than Evergreen for similar services. MVWSD is carrying million dollar annual deficits.
MVWSD spends nearly half a million on PR (if that had been spent on the classroom, that would be $1,000 per teacher). PAUSD is three times our size and does not have a communication director. It is worth asking if PR is the same as community engagement in terms of authentic collaboration?
Imagine if every teacher these funds to buy supplies for children, fund projects, take field trips, and provide the things that will truly equalize the socio-economic differences in our schools. When we increase spending, who should decide how, our teachers or the district office?
A teacher will tell you that the closer you get to the classroom, the more MVWSD feels poorer than it should (this is a basic aid district with average home selling at $1.8 million). At the district level, there are millions to allocate to "nice to have projects" like $8.4 million on a new district office when it was cheaper to renovate, office construction financed by loans against lease revenue that then starved the general fund, and had to be paid off by Measure T with thousands more lost in refinancing that construction. Nearby districts like PAUSD and Milpitas administrate out of portables. Up until this board, the school board was fine using movable tables and regular projectors, that allowed the board room to serve as a standard meeting room when not used by the board. The current board does not see why it's wrong to spend hundreds of thousands on updating the board room. Those dollars should be in the hand of teachers and their students or building things kids can use.
Old setup used without any issue. New setup with $200,000 display and audio.
SFUSD provided its teachers' funds to buy supplies to teach from home in this pandemic, in MVWSD the PTA had to do this. On the classroom level, teachers and parents work tirelessly for hundreds or thousands of dollars, the district and school board must be far more judicious on how it spends hundreds of thousands to millions.
