By Will Carless
We’re two weeks out from the primary elections, and you might not have paid much attention to who’s running for a seat on the San Diego Unified School District board of trustees.
So, you should take a few minutes now to get schooled.
With city schools facing an unprecedented financial crisis, the makeup of the school board could be vital in determining whether the district remains solvent in the next couple of years and, if so, what cuts are made to keep it afloat.
We’ve made it easy for you to quickly find out where the candidates stand on some of the key issues.
The candidates are:
• Bill Ponder and Marne Foster, who are running in sub-district E, which is being vacated by Shelia Jackson. Sub-district E encompasses most of southeastern San Diego. (Map here).
• Mark Powell, Jared Hamilton and incumbent school board President John Lee Evans, who are running in sub-district A, which encompasses Clairemont, University City and Mira Mesa (Map here).
Each of the candidates was asked the same series of questions. Every candidate responded except Foster.
When I last connected with Foster on Wednesday, she told me she was working on her responses. I cautioned her that I would need hard-and-fast answers to all of the questions. For example: Would she support asking teachers to cut their pay to help fill the deficit gap in 2012-2013? Foster sounded rather flustered. “That’s very difficult for me to do,” she said. Nevertheless, she promised me the answers to the survey by 4 p.m. Wednesday. That was the last I heard of her. She hasn’t answered my calls or texts or emails since.
Without further ado, here is the 2012 Report Card for the school board candidates. Click on the graphic to enlarge.
Click here for analysis from Voice of San Diego