2 seats on ballot for San Bruno Park School District

“We still need to have voices represented on the board from our underrepresented and marginalized populations, our at promise students, sometimes those voices aren’t being brought forward at the dais,” Blanco said. 

Ma, on the other hand, is focused on making the board and district administration work more hand in hand — a matter that has been cause for concern in recent years, with a consistent turnover of superintendents. Ma said there have been raised concerns about micromanagement, as well as lack of autonomy and trust between the two. 

“Let’s have a stable cohesive board that works together as a team,” Ma said. “That doesn’t always mean always agreeing with one another, I’m a big fan of open dialogue and having debate.”

Ma, who has two children in the district now, would credit teacher and staff turnover as a result of trickle-down dissatisfaction over inconsistent leadership. He said the goal should be a trust-based relationship with an accountability system to promote “stability at the top.” 

Blanco said retaining staff is more about maintaining strong communication. 

“It’s important to have a superintendent that understands the power of relationships and communicating with their community, especially when times get hard and when the budget is not there to always give unions what they want,” Blanco said. 

A limited budget is something with which the district is familiar and, until this November, when voters will consider otherwise, it is the only district in the county that does not have a parcel tax. 

Though Blanco said she thinks current Superintendent Matthew Duffy could continue working on building connections with the community, she thinks “we have a good team” when it comes to navigating the district’s financial state. 

“Having a very knowledgeable, well-versed [Chief of Business Operations] is the glue to make sure we don’t go down a path that we don’t want to go,” she said. 

Both Blanco and Ma recognize the need to pay teachers and staff competitive wages to keep them around. Ma said the district is ranked 16 out of 19 in the county in how they pay their staff, and said it would be his goal to relook at the budget to increase their rates. 

Blanco agreed staff should be given appropriate wages but, when the budget doesn’t allow it, it remains the responsibility of the superintendent to mitigate concerns, because transparency is what will help retain staff as well. 

“When you have these types of situations between the staff and superintendent, and they feel they’re not being heard, that they’re not being respected and they’re not being valued, that’s when you have a mass exodus of staff,” Blanco said. 

In regards to increasing the success of students, Ma said it’s important to make sure the foundations are addressed first. 

“Fundamentally, at some of our school sites we need specific and pointed programs to really help these students who are underserved and are socioeconomically different than other school sites where English-learning isn’t as big of an issue,” he said. 

Focused on establishing strong science, technology, engineering, art and math curriculum is a focus for Ma. 

“We need to look at where do we need to invest in resources and programming to help these students,” Ma said. “And then, we can layer on these additional programs. It’s a leaky bucket, if you’re putting things at the top that they don’t need, it doesn’t matter because you are constantly trying to fill that bucket. 

Incumbent Andriana Shea is not seeking reelection, and parent Caroline Tambe is running unopposed to take her seat in trustee area 4. There is also a measure on the ballot to limit terms to three consecutive ones and create a four-year space between terms should a former trustee want to run again after serving three.