Students Put Santa Barbara School Board Candidates to the Test
At Open Alternative School, ice cream and playgrounds are top issues on the minds of the young moderators.
Move over, Tom Brokaw and Jim Lehrer, and make room for the students of the K-8 Open Alternative School on Foothill Road in Santa Barbara.
On Wednesday, the students served as the moderators of the final forum for the Santa Barbara school board race, where five candidates are vying for three open seats.
The litmus test of a good forum is whether it can draw out differences among the candidates, and on this score, the students didn’t disappoint.
The students’ questions touched on issues both macro and micro. They asked candidates to share their new ideas, and to opine on the virtues of outdoor education — an important facet of the school’s core educational curriculum. And like any good town-hall forum, the students asked what the candidates can do for them, touching specifically on a couple of matters that have long chafed the school’s adherents: the lack of grass on the playground, and a shortage of playground equipment.
A student asked the candidates whether they would help the school bring back “ice cream Fridays,” a fundraiser that was prohibited by a new school board policy minimizing junk food on campus.
On this, two candidates — Susan Deacon and Jacqueline Inda — said they would be open to it.
“Sometimes common sense tells you you don’t have to be so rigid,” said Deacon, a former Santa Barbara City College journalism instructor and current president of the South Coast Community Aquatic Center. “I think ice cream one day a week is something we can definitely do.”
Inda, one of the founders of a new advocacy group to stem gang violence called Esperanza, said she remembers ice cream day as the “funnest day in the whole entire week.”
“I think sometimes we look past the real impact of what’s really going to help our kids,” she said. “With things like ice cream day or any kind of fundraiser, they’re really not created to keep the kids in a bad habit, they are really created to keep that bonding.”
Candidates Ed Heron, Charlotte Ware and Annette Cordero weren’t so sure.
Cordero, the race’s lone incumbent, admitted that she is one of the board members who made the decision to minimize sweets.
“There are lots of nutritious alternatives to ice cream that are also really delicious,” she said. “Ice cream is not the only thing you can sell to do a fundraiser. … There are lots of people who are lactose intolerant, and who have allergies to dairy products.”
Ware, immediate past president of the Dos Pueblos High PTSA and a former engineer, suggested that students hold a fundraiser by putting on a farmer’s market. Heron, a retired business executive and the immediate past president of the nonprofit Partners in Education, said he supports any choice that is healthy.
Kate Smith, who last week was disqualified from the race for living outside the district’s boundaries, nonetheless showed up at the forum. She, too, was a proponent of ice cream. “John Hopkins University declared that chocolate was medicinal,” she said. “Do you know what medicinal means? It’s medicine for your body. It releases endorphins in your brain, and it makes you feel good.”
As for new ideas they would bring to the district, the three candidates who answered most succinctly were Deacon, Cordero and Heron.
Deacon said she would try to get the district to stop hiring so many teachers on a temporary basis. “Everybody knows that having job security is good for how you feel,” she said, adding that she would like to see more teachers get hired on a permanent basis.
Cordero said she would like to see school board meetings held at school campuses on a more frequent basis, instead of nearly always happening at the downtown district headquarters. “So that your parents and your teachers and the principal and the people who care about your school would be able to come to the meeting and talk to us about the things that are important to you,” she said.
Heron, whose experience with Partners in Education included a successful program that refurbishes used computers and places them in the homes of low-income families, said he wants to bring more technology to the classroom. “Everybody needs technology in this world to succeed,” he said. “You need to be exposed to it.”
Inda said she would like to see more after-school activities. Ware said she would want to ensure that different schools and other stakeholders work together and communicate to solve important issues.
Smith said it’s time for a new paradigm. “We can no longer have an elected board like this,” she said. “We have to have a group of very wise people who understand educational philosophy. … We know from Aristotle: ‘That which we need to learn, we learn by doing.’”
Ware showcased her PTSA skills when answering the question about how the school can find a way to plant grass.
“I have volunteered on the campuses for a lot of years, so I have some ideas for you,” she said.
Ware said she could provide the school names of landscape architects who may give them a design for free, and suggested that different classes take turns watering the grass to save maintenance costs.
In response to the question of whether the candidates would find money for the school to receive new playground equipment, Cordero offered an answer that was brutally honest, saying the fiscal realities at the district are bleak.
“It would be easy for each one of us to say, ‘Yes, we will be giving you whatever you want, because we want you to vote for us,’” she said. “But I really can’t make that promise.”
Ware suggested the students hold a fundraiser — selling not ice cream, but Smoothies.
After the forum, student Luca Vallino said his favorite three candidates were Smith, Ware and Heron. “I just liked their ideas,” he said.
Student Isabella Gay said she liked Cordero, Ware and Smith. “They did a great job and will help our school,” she said.
Alice Upton liked Ware and Inda. “I think they are really good, and are going to deliver a lot of extra stuff,” she said.
Noozhawk staff writer Rob Kuznia can be reached at .
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 04:52 AM
Kate Smith is no longer a candidate. Doesn’t anyone get it?
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 09:12 AM
Why on earth did the principal or teacher running the forum allow Kate Smith to be part of the conversation? She is not a legal candidate! In a democracy, we must all obey the election rules...sometimes that means you can’t be a candidate and sometimes it means that provisional ballots must be allowed. The lesson is the same and Open Alternative missed their opportunity to teach a civics lesson.
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 09:37 AM
Clearly, SB Native, OAS is afraid of her outlandish behavior, including yelling, screaming, making threats and NEVER listening to anyone who disagrees with her. And that includes the superintendent, assistant superintendent, school board, elections office and many, many more. She gives new meaning to the words “loose cannon.”
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 10:29 AM
What WAS Open Alternative School thinking to include Kate Smith. Rob, I can’t believe you didn’t ask the administrators why they did that. That’s certainly a screwy alternative lesson for those kids, though.
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 04:38 PM
I’m sure they allowed Kate Smith to be there because her daughter use to attend the school. But you are all correct....what lesson is this teaching our children...it’s okay to be out of line to get what you want????
Also, I’m not sure why selling smoothies is any more healthy than selling ice cream. Frozen yogurt has just as much sugar, if not more than ice cream.
» wrote on 10/30/08 @ 11:12 PM
SB Parent: Smothies, if made without the yogurt would be more healthier and solve the problem of kids with milk allergies. Instead of frozen yogurt, blend ice cubes and fruit juice to give it the correct consistency. The sugar content is still high, but it is not processed sugar, but natureal sugar which is better for you. It would also give kids a chance to be more creative and figure out what fruits taste best with what fruits.
» wrote on 10/31/08 @ 11:30 AM
Regarding SB Parent’s comment I don’t remember OAS teaching me to be “in line” in the first place, but that is another matter. I think OAS teaches its students to think for them selves and think in more complex ways than that.
I was at OAS when Ms. Smith was there with her daughter. I hesitate, because I genuinely like Kate, as long as we’re not both involved in something that I care about. Yeah she’s impossible, but her heart is in the right place.
Honestly I can’t see how her participating in the debate at OAS hurt anyone. I’ve seen her disruptive in other contexts, but it is my observation that she does have some respect for OAS and its teachers. Honestly if it doesn’t hurt any one it is much less disruptive to any organization to treat Kate and her opinions with respect and let her have or at least feel like she has her way. I’m always for giving people a chance to speak and if you do that with Kate and don’t put her on the defensive she normally is good about respecting others in conversation.
Also I doubt that they are aware that she wasn’t supposed to come. I can see what some of the kids said they liked her. Her world perception is rather childlike. She and the children both live in dream worlds. I don’t think it hurts kids to think about what might be good ideas if the world was completely different, people were naturally good, there were magic wise people who always have the right answers and can make thongs better and there were endless resources. Kate world is a brilliant waste of time for anyone actually trying to make any progress on anything in the adult world, but not a child’s.
Second point, I remember ice cream day and I was the kid with milk allergies. I don’t think I was traumatized. OAS has an organic school lunch program. Kids get fresh vegetables and salad on a daily basis. I saw what normal school lunches looked like in high school and that every day looked like way more of a problem than ice cream once a week.
» wrote on 10/31/08 @ 03:18 PM
Nobody knows where to find announcements about sale of houses in different regions our planet ?
» wrote on 10/31/08 @ 05:37 PM
Smith was invited to the panel before her disqualification and only asked to stay on because she had been actively disputing her removal from the ballot at the time.
Additionally, we like to allow our kids to decide on the validity (or irrationality) of a statement only after hearing it delivered; there’s hardly a better way than letting them engage with the people making those statements.
OAS has no connection to Kate Smith and in now way endorses any of her statements, methods, or claims.