Santa Barbara school board candidates were faced with their toughest critics yet on Monday — the students.
Inside Joanie Caines Theater at La Cumbre Junior High, students asked the four candidates about their goals, addressing racism, the use of artificial intelligence, and the recent policy restricting YouTube access.
The candidates for Trustee Area 1, financial analyst Mark Philibosian and activist Jacqueline Inda Karlsen, were joined at the forum by the Trustee Area 4 candidates, incumbent Rose Muñoz and sales manager Valerie Amparan.
Kevin Guay, who’s also running for Trustee Area 4, was not present. He also didn’t attend a recent forum hosted by the Santa Barbara Reading Coalition.
The forum was moderated by student school board member Victoria Martinez Peñaranda and Daniela Espinoza Aguilar, vice president of Future Leaders of America Santa Barbara.
When asked what they hope to accomplish by the end of their term, Karlsen said she wants to build more collaborative relationships with surrounding school districts, such as Carpinteria Unified and Goleta Union, which have students who end up in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
“We ought to be working together with our city partners, our colleges and all of the feeder school districts in order to build better success for our kids,” Karlsen said.
Philibosian said he wants to see an increase in math and reading scores, balance the budget, and ensure students feel safe and protected.
“When I think about the end of the term, if I had made progress on all three of those, I would be a happy camper,” Philibosian said.
Current board member Muñoz said she wants to see increased proficiency in reading and math for students, especially emerging multilingual learners and special-needs students.
Amparan said she wants to ensure fiscal sustainability by having a balanced budget, increase math and literacy proficiency from 50% to 65% to 70%, and rebuild trust within the district.
“We do that by creating an open arm policy where we welcome partners who want to collaborate and give their free time,” Amparan said. “We invite increased grants and partnerships, which will bring revenue back into our district, as well as ensuring feedback loops so that everybody feels heard.”
During the forum, the audience had a chance to write down questions for the candidates. In the wake of a recent blackface incident at San Marcos High School, one audience member asked what actions they would take to address racism in schools.
Amparan said it’s not enough to make statements and policies, and that the consequences should meet the actions.
“We have to ensure that there’s an educational component of why that is such a big deal in our schools, both for teachers and for students to ensure that the reporting happens quickly and swiftly,” Amparan said. “The students (need to) know why their actions were not OK, they can learn from them and get the history lesson of our history in the U.S. on racism.”
Philibosian said there need to be policies in place to prevent harassment and racial bias, and that management should be held accountable to ensure proper actions are taken.
“We need to take action as leaders,” Philibosian said, “and the board needs to ensure that management is held accountable if there are repeat occurrences that are not being addressed in a timely manner.”
Muñoz said there are policies in place to address those issues, as well as the Combating Anti-Blackness Working Group that brings regular reports to the board with data and information about racist incidents.
“Once you’re elected on the board, you’re able to ask questions and also make any policy changes that you see fit, which I think would be of great benefit,” Muñoz said.
She did not specify what she would do or whether she would propose or support any policy changes to address racism.
Karlsen said there needs to be a neutral and confidential reporting system and collaboration among committees and community organizations on responding to racist incidents.
“We can assess what we can do within our schools in a targeted, specific area one piece at a time,” Karlsen said.
The candidates also got to weigh in on the use of artificial intelligence and the district’s new “tech with intention” policy, which banned YouTube on all iPads, among other things.
Teachers can still link to videos through the online learning platform Canvas, but students can’t watch anything else on the platform.
The policy has been controversial among students who say they use the platform to get extra studying help.
Muñoz said the board should listen to students’ concerns on the tech policy and AI use.
“It’s something that’s going to keep evolving, and I think that the voices of the students are going to keep being very important in keeping that very much in the forefront,” Muñoz said.
Amparan said there should be guardrails around AI use, but the district should be on the cutting edge of AI use, and not shy away from it.
“My hope is that we jump on this AI and really give a thought about how we are going to roll this out and how we’re going to utilize this tool because, whether or not we like it, it is here,” Amparan said.
As for the tech policy, she supports a new tool the district is working on that filters content for certain age limits.
Karlsen said the district should reach out to the Santa Barbara County Education Office for best practices around AI use.
“We don’t need to reinvent the wheel, and we don’t need to continue to assess internally,” Karlsen said. “What we need to do first is reach and find out what those entities that are fully funded to do the research on this can guide us toward with their best practices, utilizing those best practices then to enforce change within our school district.”
As for the new tech policy, Karlsen said the board shouldn’t be afraid to slow down if needs are not being met and re-evaluate the policy.
Philibosian said those should not be one-time decisions and that the board should think about how to use the technology and what learning outcomes they hope to see.
“I think that there isn’t just a single policy,” Philibosian said. “We’ve really got to establish a long-term strategic approach and stay true to that approach, and make all our decisions through that.”
Voters in Trustee Areas 1 and 4 can decide between the candidates on Nov. 3.
