Newport-Mesa school board candidates field questions during forum
Six candidates for the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board exchanged thoughts Wednesday on term limits, earlier school start dates, the high wages of district administrators and parent involvement during a forum presented by the Harbor Council PTA and the League of Women Voters.
An audience of about 30 filed into the Costa Mesa Neighborhood Community Center to hear current trustees Vicki Snell, Martha Fluor and board President Dana Black and their challengers — Amy Peters, Leslie Bubb and Michael Schwarzmann — sound off on various district topics.
Three of the board’s seven seats are open. Snell and Schwarzmann, a Costa Mesa resident who directs an accounting and technology firm, are running for Trustee Area 1. Fluor and Peters, a Newport Beach businesswoman, are running for Trustee Area 3. Black and Bubb, Newport Beach trainer of teachers, are challenging one another for Trustee Area 6.
During the two hour-long forum moderated by League member Charlotte Pirch, candidates each took turns answering questions written on note cards by event attendees.
Among the first ones asked was what the candidates would do to improve and maintain parent involvement. Fluor said the idea that parent involvement is low at Newport-Mesa Unified is a misconception.
“If you walk onto Whittier campus, for example, there’s a parent center” where many come in to help their students, Fluor said. “The same thing is happening on many of our schools.”
Bubb believes that parent involvement can increase if principals, school board members or superintendents include them in establishing a vision for what needs to be accomplished at schools.
“Communication is the key to getting anything done … not in the form of, ‘This is what we’re doing’ and, ‘This is where this event is’… communication is talking about why something is important and getting people involved in the process of creating that,” Bubb said, adding that ice cream socials and potlucks help build a sense of community and bonding between people.
As the candidates were asked about how high salaries paid to administrators could be justified, a few murmurs were drawn from the crowd.
“If you’re at a company and you want to hire a CEO, you want to pay that CEO like other successful companies … and it’s the same at the district,” Snell responded. “Our superintendent, he is not making the most of all the superintendents in Orange County.”
Snell called Supt. Fred Navarro’s annual salary this past school year, recently upped to $275,945, “in the middle.” The district serves about 22,000 students.
“We don’t just come up with the salary on the top of our heads,” she added. “We look at what superintendents are making throughout the state of California.”
In the same year, the Irvine Unified School District, which has about 30,000 students, Supt. Terry Walker earned $275,516 while Supt. Gregory Franklin of Tustin Unified School District, which has around 24,000 students, earned $320,190.
“In the business world, your salary is based on performance, and if you have under-performed for your schools or your district or your business, you don’t get a raise that year,” Peters said. “When you see your top officials getting raises after firing their human resources officer … that’s not good business practice.
“If you want a community of people that believe in you and students that are successful, you can’t have this top-down-style management.”
Black said she is curious as to why people want the best but they don’t want to pay the best. She also mentioned that if the district wants to attract potential administrators or teachers to Newport Beach or Costa Mesa, then the district has to be able to pay them in accordance with the high cost of living in both cities.
As Schwarzmann expressed his support for beginning the Newport-Mesa school year earlier to August, Peters and Bubb backed him up.
“I believe starting the school earlier will give students more time to prepare for standardized [and Advanced Placement] tests,” Schwarzmann said. “If other schools are starting two, three, four weeks earlier, then they get two, three, four more to study for the test. Why don’t we give our kids the best chance?”
When discussing board term limits, the incumbents shared that while they’re open to exploring the idea, attaining thorough knowledge of the district takes years on the board and that the longtime trustees have established a “history” and “wisdom” of the district.
Earlier in summer, the challengers proposed board term limits to trustees, saying that the panel needs new blood, fresh perspectives and that habitual incumbents hold organizations back.
The school board, however, voted in July to table any further discussion about term limits until after the November election.
Twitter: @AlexandraChan10
