Patricia Love
Schools have been under tremendous pressure during the six months I have served on the San Mateo County Board of Education.
The administration in Washington has employed a bulldozer to drive reform, leaving a swath of fear and damage in its wake. In place of strategic guidance and a thoughtful playbook for change, schools are left scrambling to keep up with the chaos of executive orders, threats of funding and program cuts, and lawsuits.
Immigration raids and threats to Medicaid, nutrition programs and early childhood education add to the stress. The list goes on. None of these efforts, however, is focused on addressing the needs and interests of the youngest members of our communities and country.
Given all the disruption in Washington, education at the local level has never been more important or in need of our support. Thankfully, schools in our county continue to keep students at the center of their work, providing them with a safe and supportive environment in which to thrive. The San Mateo County Board of Education oversees the Office of Education’s Court and Community Schools, which serve students engaged in the juvenile justice system and those who may need an alternative setting to help them reengage with their learning or regain mental and emotional stability. Amidst the political turbulence, the leaders of these programs have successfully maintained their focus on improving outcomes for their students, and their efforts are making a positive impact.
I saw this great work in action during a visit this spring to Hillcrest, the court school that serves students engaged in the juvenile justice system. The students were participating in a career technical education course that combined math, language arts, and learning in other areas. Not only were the students engaged, but their grades in A-G courses, which are required for admission to the University of California and California State University systems, have begun to soar. As a result, the students look forward to a brighter future. On May 28, I had the honor to congratulate students at their graduation from Hillcrest. The school’s gymnasium was filled with graduates and their families, celebrating this important milestone and recognizing the long and hard journey these students have made to walk across the stage and receive their diplomas. The turmoil of the world was set aside briefly during the ceremony.
To support students and schools across the county, I am working alongside school district leaders to understand and address funding inadequacies for school districts in high-cost counties like San Mateo. For example, some school districts in our county receive half of the state average per pupil funding despite the high cost of living here. San Mateo County also receives only $2,975 per student in education funding — the lowest in the state — and the county’s Office of Education sends $38 million in revenue paid by county taxpayers to the state to support the court system. None of this math makes sense, so we are looking for solutions. Given the proposed cuts to federal funding and programs, these efforts have become increasingly urgent.
More than ever, our schools and education system need our attention and time. We need to be attentive to what is happening in education and engaged in supporting our students and schools. Whether that means spending more time getting informed about education policies coming out of Washington, attending school board meetings, talking to legislators, supporting bond measures, volunteering at a school or talking to a student, every action matters. Nothing less than the future of our students, county and country is at stake.
Patricia Love is a member of the San Mateo County Board of Education. The views expressed are her own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Board of Education as a whole or its individual members.
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(2) comments
San Mateo County has some of the richest school districts in this state. A lot of it is wasted by district administrations on things like:
- San Mateo and Redwood City are violating the law by refusing to integrate their schools (magnet programs are tools to foster desegregation, Magnet Schools are tools to create school segregation).
- Redwood City spends more money on replacing light bulbs than what they spend on all teacher salaries.
- while cities are closing their public pools because of cost of maintenance, "poor school districts" can afford pools and the nicest athletic facilities at every high school. The community college systems has spent millions on "Wellness Centers" that are hardly used by students.
In fact the County Board of Education is exempting many school districts off their duty of spending 60% of their general budget on classroom education. Even the "best" school districts spend only 40% - we don't have to be surprised that San Mateo schools can't teach math and reading anymore.
So if the Board of Education wants to stop 'Virtue Signaling' and instead get something done for Education - the county residents would appreciate real effort. Stop asking for more money, when more professionalism and more empathy is what's really needed.
Patricia - with all due respect, many of the activities that your Board is endorsing are not essential or even directly contributing to traditional education. It is time to take another look at the essential mission of our education system. Many of the programs that you list should be the responsibility of parents. Moreover, the proliferation of school system overreach has not resulted in improved test scores, in fact just the opposite. More funding is clearly not the answer. That should tell one enough. Go back to basics, plow available money into useful classroom instruction and learn to live within your means.
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