School Board Candidate Interview Questions

EMILY BLOOMFIELD

1. Why are you running for School Board?
   
   I am running for re-election because I want to see through the education reform agenda put into place in the last five year. As we bring in many new leaders at the senior administrative level, I believe that I will bring continuity to the efforts underway. These efforts center around initiatives designed to increase achievement for all students while simultaneously closing the achievement gap. They include the redesign of Samohi, staff development focusing on differentiated instruction and teaching to the state standards, and holding administration and teachers accountable for high levels of student achievement.
   
   
2. What has been your personal involvement with education in our community?
   
   I have served on the Board of Education for the last four years. In that capacity I have served as liaison to the Childcare and Child Development DAC, Health and Safety DAC and participated in committees such as the Master Facilities Planning committee. Prior to that I was PTA Recording Secretary and Site Governance Representative at Roosevelt Elementary School and was on the district's Strategic Planning Design Team that organized and facilitated the strategic plan for our school district. I have also been active in CEPS for the last five year. I have walked for passage of parcel taxes and plan to campaign for passage of Measure BB.
   
   
3. What makes you stand out among the other candidates? What special attributes, talents, and abilities will you bring to our district?
   
   I believe I am conscientious about understanding all the issues before the board, I am thoughtful and balanced in my consideration of decisions and non-ideological in my votes, statements and behavior. I believe that I make my decisions based on what I think is in the best interest of our students.
   
   
4. What do you feel is the number one challenge facing our schools today?
   
   I believe that budgetary constraints are the number one challenge facing our schools today. We do not face the deep crisis and cuts in funding of my first two years in office. However, we face the pernicious and ongoing under-funding in education that has persisted since the passage of Prop 13.
   
   
5. Are you familiar with and do you fully support the agreement negotiated for the City of Santa Monica to provide funding to the School District? What was your role, if any, in crafting, supporting or negotiating this agreement?
   
   I was the School Board Vice President and President at the time that the district negotiated and subsequently signed the contract, and I participated in many CEPS meetings to strategize how to achieve the outcome we did. I have a very deep and detailed understanding of the contract. I fully support this agreement.
   
   
6. If the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District faced a budget crisis brought on by circumstances outside the District's control, such as by funding cuts from the State of California, would you be willing to advocate for crisis funding from either of the cities beyond the City-School District funding agreement?
   
   Absolutely.
   
   
7. Although standardized test scores show increasing improvement in our schools, significant differences among economic and cultural groups still exist. What can the District do to continue the overall success in academic achievement while significantly closing the achievement gap?
   
   So far the district has taken a more holistic approach to raising achievement for all and narrowing the achievement gap, and it has been very successful on a large scale. However, there are still gaps, and now it is time to drill down to the next level and examine where there are clusters of students who are not succeeding (e.g., male minority students) and understand better what are the barriers to success. We can then fine tune and target the types of resources and support that we provide to address more specific areas of underachievement.
   
   
8. What is your view of the redesign of Samohi? What do you think should be future priorities for Samohi?
   
   I have been very supportive of the redesign of Samohi. I think it's had a demonstratively positive impact on student achievement (witness the increased test scores in the last five years, and particularly in the last year). I think one future priority should be to strengthen the house system in 9th and 10th grades in particular, since those are the grades where students have the majority of their classes in house. I think it would be beneficial for houses to develop more pronounced identities, and introducing a variety of intramurals would be a positive way for students to identify more with their houses. I think another priority is reducing class sizes at the high school to improve personalization in the classrooms.
   
   
9. What are your views on the district Gift Policy/Equity Fund? What is the value of using a student-weighted formula in the distribution of funds? What changes do you think would improve the implementation of the Gift Policy at our schools?
   
   I am very supportive of the Gift Policy/Equity Fund. I think the student-weighted formula is the best basis for redistributing those funds returned to the school sites. I do believe, however, that a greater share of the Equity Fund should go into district-wide intervention programs since I think the money has a greater impact when collectively used for services that target underachieving students (e.g., intervention summer school). For instance, right now summer school is limited to students who receive one or more F's. However, there are many parents whose children technically pass a class with a D, but rightly believe that their child should re-take that class or risk falling further behind the next year. I believe using the Equity Fund to expand summer school to students receiving D's would have a big impact on student achievement. One other change that would benefit implementation of the Equity Fund is more consistency in collecting money from high school clubs. That requires ongoing training of school administrators and their backing in explaining and enforcing the requirements (and benefits) to clubs.
   
   
10. What are your thoughts about how the district and school sites can encourage involvement and participation from families who have felt disenfranchised from their local school communities?
    
    I think well trained community liaisons with consistent job descriptions and expectations is one way to help encourage more involvement and participation from all families. I also believe that when teachers proactively communicate with families this encourages more involvement. I suspect that PTA's must go out of their way to invite parents of families who have traditionally felt disenfranchised to participate because otherwise a more passive approach will not yield much success. I believe that hiring more staff and electing more PTA representatives who reflect the makeup of the student body helps in this regard.
    
    
11. Do you endorse Measure BB, the Santa Monica-Malibu School Safety and Repair (Bond) Measure on the November 7, 2006 ballot and will you actively campaign for its passage?
    
    Yes.
    
    
12. What is a priority concern you might have regarding the district that has not been raised?
    
    I think that the issues raised in this questionnaire are all the big ones that the district faces. There are many smaller issues that can be rolled up into these big ones. For instance, budget constraints yield other types of issues such as overcrowded classes and an insufficient number of maintenance and operations staff to maintain our campuses. I also think we need to offer alternative types of educational programs to high school students from Freshman year onward. These would be targeted at students who are disengaged from our traditional high school or need a much smaller environment to succeed. (Olympic High School, which is currently our only alternative high school, is a continuation high school that is generally for students behind in credits and in some other type of difficulty, and it's almost exclusively for 11th or 12th graders.) I also believe that we need to offer vocational options and internships to students who may not want to pursue a college degree but who would benefit from training for higher wage jobs in growth sectors of our economy.