6/11/08 School Board Meeting

Here are a few highlights from last week’s school board meeting (agenda and background packet).

This meeting was a meeting of recognition and celebration. From elementary spelling bee winners to teachers and administrators of the year. But two in particular were special to me.

Recognition of retiring Superintendent Doug Gephart
On a personal note, I've been a new board member twice now -- once in 1991 as a student board member and once as an appointee in 2006. Each time it was the superintendent that helped me succeed.

In 1991, Superintendent Raphael Belluomini served as a mentor and a friend to me. He helped me through difficult times including budget cuts as bad as what we face next year. But I will never forget two pieces of advice he gave me.
  1. Budget your time.
  2. Don't worry.

Superintendent Doug Gephart has also been an advisor and a friend to me. I really got to know Doug Gephart while I served on the board in 2006. I echo all of the board's remarks. He is well respected by staff and community and a man of integrity. I admire how he built up a district team that has achieved and will achieve great things for our district. When I was on the board in 2006, I pushed hard for the board to adopt district wide goals, but Doug was the catalyst that really rallied the district around these goals and made them happen. We worked together as a team.

Doug, you will certainly be missed at FUSD. Thank you for all you've done for Fremont.

Recognition of Student Board Member Eric Chen and SURF Board E
As a former student board member, I have tremendous respect for the contribution that Eric Chen and the SURF Board E made to the board and the district. For those not familiar, the Students United for Representation to the Fremont Board of Education (SURF Board E) is a board of students (2 from each high school) that come together to jointly represent all 30,000 Fremont students.

It is important to always have them there at the board meeting reminding us all why we're here -- for our students. More than that they bring a fresh perspective to issues from the people we are serving. We should never underestimate what their contribution is.

Strategic Goals Year in Review
This is the annual update from staff regarding the district's progress on the board's strategic goals adopted in 2006. There has been tremendous progress this year.

From the board agenda:

Over the course of the past two years, the Board of Trustees defined their overall organizational priorities for the Fremont Unified School District through the establishment of Strategic Goals. ...

Strategic Goals:

  • Organizational Development

  • Budget (Strategic Planning)

  • Student Achievement

  • Student Housing

  • Communications and Customer Service

  • Employee/Employer Relations and Contract Negotiations

  • Safe Schools

  • Technology

The Strategic Goals provide long-term direction for the school district and do not fluctuate from year- to-year based upon trendy ideas.


I helped put these goals in place while on the board in 2006. It is exciting to see the progress made. It is also sad to see the things that are working (Springboard staff development training to name one), but will likely be cut next year due to our state budget

While there have been huge leaps forward for the district, there are definitely improvements I want to see. I would like us to measure how we're doing. Each goal should have 2 or 3 key measures we use to show that all our work is having results we expect. Picking this measures won't be easy, but it is crucial to understanding our real progress. As management guru Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets managed.”

Sex Education Compliance
The board also address compliance issues with the district's junior high school curriculum.The Argus summarized this discussion best.

In response to findings that its 7-year-old junior high school sex education curriculum is an abstinence-only program that violates state law, the Fremont school board this week instructed the district's health and sex education advisory committee to recommend a new, comprehensive curriculum by January. The new curriculum should provide unbiased and medically accurate information about sex, contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases, as well as a discussion about abstinence, the board decided.


Read the article here for more details.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/localnews/ci_9570148

Technology Year in Review
The district CTO, Dr. David Hotchkiss, entitled his update "Raising the bar" in reference to the fact that the technology department has made huge strides in improving services. Two examples:
  • Network bandwidth has grown tremendously at school sites - from 7 Mbps to 50 Mbps. Projecting next year it will start at 60 Mbps and grow to 100 Mbps. Reliability is up from 95% to 99.414%. This is huge as one of the major complaints has been around slow and not working Internet. They now have real-time network monitoring.
  • Customer service has improved too. There is much better tracking of work order and service calls. The new service desk has helped solve 30% of service calls remotely without going out to the site. Only missed 15 calls out of over 5000 calls.

Especially touching were to two special technology projects:
  • Establishing a video conference link between Niles classroom 2 and Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital for Luna Martell, age 6, Niles first grader in Mrs. Jackson’s class. She has Stage 4 liver cancer. Through a video phone link she and her classmates enjoyed their Valentine’s Day 2008 party. And she used it again to tell class she had a liver donor!
  • A video conference link was also established for Matthew McCullough, age 11 between Mrs. Chudler’s classroom at Avery Middle School and Matt’s grandmother’s home in Fremont. Matt has a malignant brain tumor. The computer link allows him to attend class and socializes with classmates & relatives.

Doug shared this with the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. They want to talk to David to find out how they can get more directly engaged in supporting and spreading this program. This is just the beginning of a huge experience for kids.

Next year: Pressing on. This year the focus was on the Wide Area Network (WAN). Next year focus on the Local Area Networks (LAN's) at school campuses.

Fremont Bulletin: "Three candidates so far for school board race"

The Fremont Bulletin just posted an article on the Fremont school board race -- Three candidates so far for school board race. I believe it will appear in this weekend’s issue. Here’s an excerpt:

Three residents have thrown their hats in the ring for seats on the Fremont Unified School District Board of Education, but so far there are only two seats open.

Bryan Gebhardt, a former school board member, and residents Desrie Campbell and Lily Mei have officially announced they'll be running for two board seats this November.

Incumbents Peggy Herndon and Nina Moore have said they will step down from the board this year.

Board President Ivy Wu has not announced whether or not to run again. Wu said she most likely won't decide until August.


And about me:

Gebhardt, 33, is a Fremont native who graduated from Washington High School in 1992. He currently works as an engineering director at Fremont-based start-up Digital Fountain.

"It's been a passion of mine for years (to be on the board)," he said. "Being a school board member is where I think I can make a difference."Gebhardt, a student board member during the 1991-1992 school year, said as a student member and an appointee in 2006, he's dealt with issues such as budget cuts, facility upgrades and equity, among others.

But he said his main priority if elected in November is to make sure Fremont students get the best education possible, bringing them to their full potential.

"It all starts with the students," he said. "Board members have the experience and vision to put students first, and student achievement is key for a successful district."Gebhardt also hopes to see the board keep a balanced budget and make sure students have the best facilities possible for education.

"Education is the foundation of our society, I believe," he said. "That's why I've put so much into supporting it. Seeing students achieve is important to me and the most rewarding."


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