EDUCATION – School board forum addresses hate crimes, parcel tax
by Mark McDermott
The three candidates who appeared at last week’s League of Women Voters school board candidate forum were largely in agreement regarding many of the issues facing the Manhattan Beach Unified School District, including the need to aggressively counter the recent spate of hate crimes on MBUSD campuses, and to arrive at a community consensus for a new parcel tax. The debate took place Wednesday at the Mira Costa High School Small Theater.
In their opening statements, each candidate highlighted their experience. Shivpuri said she would bring both her professional and volunteer experience to bear. Shivpuri works as a technology consultant, and studied mathematics and computing at UCLA, “where I honed my skills as an effective problem solver,” she said. “I credit my success in business to team building and mutual respect.”
Shivpuri has children in three MBUSD schools, and has volunteered in a variety of ways, including with MBx, and as a vice president of operations for the Mira Costa High School marching band.
“Having my boots on the ground in our schools, alongside parents like yourself and staff, has deeply connected me to our school community,” she said. “Whether you’re a student, grandparent, parent or community member, teacher, staff or administrator, we all share the collective goal of expanding the academic excellence in our district. In order to do so, it must be our priority not just to support our students in times of crisis but also to foster empathy and social competence. I know how unique MBUSD is, and want to preserve and protect that.”
Wysh Weinstein, perhaps best known in the community as a leader of the Measure A parcel tax campaign earlier this year, counted it as among her foundational experiences within MBUSD.
“The community let us know in 2018 that Measure MB spoke to what Manhattan Beach wants,” she said. “This past spring they let us know that Measure A was too ambitious. The most successful people learn from their failures. I am one of these people. I know firsthand. what works and what doesn’t.”
Weinstein has three children in the district, and referenced her background as a teacher as well as her decade-long experience as a volunteer, including as PTA Council president, and as a member of the district’s budget advisory committee, as vital to her understanding of district finances and educational programs. Weinstein also said that she pushed effectively to get students back in classrooms as the pandemic’s impact waned.
“During COVID, I was one of the first parents to successfully advocate for getting our kids back to school,” she said. “I didn’t do it by attending a rally or yelling at school board meetings, but by going to the cabinet and the board with suggestions.”
Jen Fenton, the only incumbent in the race, likewise spoke of her longtime involvement as a volunteer and mother of MBUSD students. She also emphasized her experience as a board member over the last four years, including a nine-month term as president during some of the pandemic’s most difficult days.
“My term has been challenging, but there’s a lot to celebrate too,” she said. “We had Measure C’s innovation, and renovations on every single one of our campuses. These buildings represent the scientists, authors and engineers of the future. We delivered a state-of-the-art athletics facility both on time and on budget. We approved several new AP and honors courses. We won CIF championships, had an educator named California Teacher of the Year, and earlier this month, Mira Costa was named the number one public high school in the South Bay. There is a lot to be proud of.”
She identified three main priorities going forward: maintaining MBUSD’s “top tier” academic excellence by investing in curriculum programs and technology, maintaining a balanced budget with 5 percent reserves while passing local control funding measure that reduces reliance on state funding, and spreading academic innovation districtwide.
“Let’s reimagine MBUSD,” she said. “We should be creative with the funding that we have. Mira Costa offers an array of pathways for students to find their passions both inside, and outside the class. Let’s mimic that at our elementary and middle schools — create STEM language immersion programs, so every student can access specialty classes. I bring stability, continuity, and much-needed institutional knowledge. Experience matters.”
All three candidates were bullish on MBUSD’s academic achievement. Asked to grade the district, Weinstein and Fenton both gave it an “A minus” while Shivpuri assigned it a “B plus.”
Fenton spoke of MBUSD’s academic growth in recent years.
“If you look at some of our testing data, for our English language, in the last four years, our scores have gone up 11 percent,” she said. “Our math scores for the same period have increased about 9 percent. And when you compare scores to South Bay schools in the area, whether it’s El Segundo, Redondo Beach or Torrance, scores are about 10 to 15 percent higher than other districts. Why is that? Because we hone in on the individual learner. Are we perfect? Nope. Have we made mistakes along the way? We certainly have. But we’ve learned from those mistakes. We have a culture of care. Every student has to feel safe, has to feel protected, and has to feel welcome. And we’ve been doing that from kindergarten through the 12th grade. It is something that we believe. We believe in core academics.”
Weinstein pointed at the recent anti-Sematic graffiti as a troubling development in an otherwise well-functioning school district.
“I do feel like there is a lot that is going really well,” she said. “Recently I’m very upset, and I’m sure many of you are in the room as well, about some of the vandalism that’s been happening. I think that’s an area that we can definitely improve. We have incredible academic programs. We have incredible teachers. We have motivated students. But there’s always room for improvement.”
Shivpuri said it is almost impossible to sum up the district with a simple grade.
“How do we rate as far as academic excellence? Well, everyone has a different answer for that,” she said. “Is it test scores? Is it GPA? Is the number of students entering the top 25 universities? It’s actually all of these things. It’s not just one line to success. We’re going to have to look at all these paths.”
All the candidates emphatically addressed the racist messages recently scrawled on campuses, as well as reports of students from the Black, Jewish, and LGBT communities feeling hostilities on campuses.
Shivpuri said this issue is one of the reasons she is running.
“This topic is absolutely one of my passions and one of my platforms,” she said. “I’ve been on the ground. Just having a son who’s actually finished and gone through the 12-year cycle here at the district and still having a child in elementary, I knew that there were things we could do at the elementary schools. So what we’re able to do, independently, all of the five elementary schools were starting some grassroots programs relating to culture of care…and they were aligning themselves with [the Anti Defamation League’s] No Place for Hate.”
Weinstein said more must be done.
“It starts with us. We are the role models,” she said. “Our kids are looking to us. All of these acts that are happening right now, any child development expert will tell you that this is a cry for help. They are looking for where the line is, what is okay, and what is not okay. And we need to send the message that what is happening is not okay.”
Fenton was also adamant.
“Let me be candid, what’s happening on our campuses is unacceptable. And it’s something that we all need to use as a teaching moment…We have to teach history thoroughly. We have to reinstitute our field trips to the Museum of Tolerance. We have to have our cameras up and running to ensure we can catch those who are committing vandalism….This is a teaching moment for everybody.”
All three candidates also expressed support for a new parcel tax to address the impending “fiscal cliff” MBUSD faces.
Weinstein was the co-chair of the Measure A committee. That ballot measure would have implemented a $1,095 parcel tax, but failed dramatically at the polls. She said she’d learned “about 100” lessons from the experience.
“I could talk all night about it,” she said. “But the most important thing for everyone to understand is that I heard the community. There was an overwhelming response and we need to do better about involving the community in deciding what is a comfortable number for them. It’s just really important that there isn’t a barrier to sustainable funding because one-time funding doesn’t really do anything. You can buy something one time, but you can’t start a program with it. You can’t hire teachers with it. I’m open to other ideas and other suggestions, and I’ll be the first person to knock on doors to help get it done.”
Shivpuri suggested a new tax be approached similarly to the school bond efforts over a decade ago that were built on extensive community input.
“We need to assess the community and then agree with what we want to accomplish, and put it on the ballot,” she said.
Fenton, who co-chaired the successful Measure MB parcel tax in 2018, which was $225 per parcel, and was approved by voters, said another such tax is needed when that one expires.
“I understand the importance and need of a local control measure that allows our district to no longer be reliant on Sacramento,” she said. “We do need another parcel tax. I passed one in 2018. Support was over 67 percent of our community. It was a group effort. We need the engagement that Wysh brought to our entire community to understand school funding…As a parent, as a board member, as a community member, I would be remiss and I would be very disappointed if we could not keep your students in smaller class sizes, provide some additional programming, and provide additional counselors and social workers. I really hope we come together.” ER