On Sept. 9, student journalists from The Westlake Wire, the Panther Prowler and The Lancer held a panel with CVUSD school board candidates running for the position of school board trustee. The candidates on the panel consisted of incumbent Karen Sylvester from Area 1 and Nancy Van Volkinburg from Area 1, along with Lauren Gill from Area 5 and Frank Enderle from Area 5.

Throughout the panel, each candidate was asked the same questions and had each two minutes to answer. Nearing the last twenty minutes of the panel, each candidate was asked specific questions about their platforms.

The video footage of the panel can be found above. 

Reporter Boggs: Thank you guys all so much for taking the time to come and talk to us, with the student journalists of the Panther Prowler, The Westlake Wire and The Lancer. During this panel, we plan to discuss topics that will play an important role in the CVUSD education system, and we ask that you please limit your responses to two minutes. We’ll have a timer going, so that everyone can share their views in a timely manner. Additionally, we ask that you please give each candidate their allotted two minutes, and once we move to a new topic, please do not revisit previous questions. Again, just thank you so much for all coming to talk with us. I have the first question, starting with Ms. Gill and ending with Ms. Van Volkinburg. We ask that you move down the line. 

Reporter Boggs: Can you please start with describing your current occupation and your background and how it has influenced why you are running for school board? 

Candidate Gill: Sure. First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity. It’s wonderful to be here together with all of you. My name is Lauren Gill. I was elected to the Conejo Valley Unified School Board in 2020 so I’m running for re–election. You all are my “why”—you all and the other 15,000 some students and the ones who will come after you. I am a parent. I had two kids go through the entire system, one on an IEP, and I’m the only member of the board who can say that. Representation is important. Professionally, I am the California Deputy Director of the National Wildlife Federation. We are currently building the world’s largest wildlife crossing right here in the Conejo Valley. You may have passed under it on your way down the 101. In my first term, I worked hard every day to deliver on our shared priorities, which are a safe, supportive path to success, wellbeing for each of you and all of your peers, a fiscally resilient district, so that we can deliver on our promises to you and making sure that we provide all of the resources and support our educators need and deserve, that’s really important. I’m pleased to tell you that the state of our schools is very strong. We have a high performing district that ranks in the top two and a half percent in the nation, and my work going forward is to make sure that we continue on that path pursuing excellence and equity every single day in our district, and that we are careful to find the gaps where we have students who still need some support and access to resources that we haven’t reached to the extent that we absolutely are capable of and making sure that we do that work.

Candidate Enderle: Hello, my name is Frank Enderle. I’m a realtor in the area. I am a top–grade realtor at Keller Williams over in Westlake Village. As a realtor, you negotiate every day of your life, you problem solve when you get that problem, you fix what’s broken and facilitate closing into escrow. I’ve been a coach for the past 14 years. I’ve had my two boys go through football, lacrosse, baseball, basketball. I’ve coached all the way through. Once they got to high school, let them take the reins to let them do what they needed. But when I stopped coaching, I started with being in the booster board, so as president of the football booster at Westlake High School, also a member at large for the lacrosse program. I’ve seen what has happened and what was happening through covid, I saw that, you know, the board really didn’t do what they were supposed to do. They didn’t. They didn’t. They were asleep at the wheel, straight up. I was looking at USA news, and I saw, yeah, our test scores have been in the low 40s and 50s. So, yeah, they’re average, but they’re not average according to a grade level. So I think that we need to get the test scores higher. I’m disappointed that Newbury Park is the lowest of the three, because I think Newbury Park is a great school. The top echelon is fine, it’s everyone. So we need the whole school as one to get back test scores and their test scores being better, better academics. I also think that we need to protect parents, and let them understand that they get a say in what you guys do. There’s a lot, there’s fiscal responsibility, there’s a ton of–

Reporter Zhang: Thank you Mr. Enderle.

Candidate Sylvester: First of all, I want to thank all of you for being here today, for coordinating this, as well as all of the journalists, the work you do on behalf of the three high schools, and honestly, an appreciation for your civic engagement here. Because you know [with] this race, the group of people that it will affect mostly is you guys, you and your co–students. So this is important, and even if you can’t vote, you do need to be engaged and to see what’s going on. My name is Karen Sylvester. I am currently the trustee at Area One of the CVUSD Board of Education, which is primarily the Westlake Village side. I have three kids who went K–12 through our schools, and from the minute my oldest started kindergarten in 2001 to the minute my daughter graduated in 2020, I was a super involved parent. I was president of the PFA at Westlake Hills. I was president of PTA at Westlake High School. I pretty much held every executive position on any board. I also spent about 10 years as a representative on DAC [District Advisory Council,] as well as paid DAC for a couple years. I sat on the site council for all the schools my children attended. In a prior life, way before my children’s journey, my background is all business. I have an undergraduate degree in Business Economics. I have an MBA. I spent about 15 years of my life consulting with various financial organizations, other types of organizations, helping them with operations and marketing and strategy and all that stuff, and that was often the lens I use when approaching problems or issues on the board. I’m part of the budget LCAP committee, and it’s near and dear to my heart again, because I have that background, and I find that my ability to analyze data, look at numbers I’m very comfortable with that has been a massive asset on the board, both in that committee as well as financial discussions. So, I look forward to speaking more, I see the timer.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Hi my name is Nancy Van Volkinburg and I have been a resident of this valley for 28 years. I, unlike [Sylvester], don’t have the business degree, but I was on track for it. I have three years under my belt. And then I started my family, which consists of six children that are adults now, and I have seven grandchildren. Two of them live in the Thousand Oaks district, well, technically, I guess it’s Westlake. Anyway, they are poised to start school very soon, and they are my life, along with all of you as well, because I know that you are the committed students. The fact that you’re here after school hours tells me that you’re all very dedicated. So basically, I have been watching the school board meetings online for two years now, and I have not been hearing that you are in the top 2% in the nation, I would really like to know where that statistic comes from, because I if that were true, I probably wouldn’t be sitting in this chair right now. I’m here because I want academic excellence for all of you. I went to school in public schools in California back in the 1970s, and we were ranked number one in the nation. To me, based on what I’ve read, it looks like we have gone down the lower half. Now that’s disturbing to me, because I’ve seen this steady decline with all six of my children, and because I do have so many children, I feel like I know a lot about schools. And yes, I was a hands–on parent too. I was involved with Girl Scouts and karate, and I joined the PTA, but at some point, I pulled my kids out of school and home for a while, and they wanted to transition back when they went to high school. So I have two that were Lancers, go Lancers, and the others went to Oak Park in Agoura. So I know a little bit about schooling, and I know about the differences in developmental abilities. So I just wanted to address the basics of academics, mostly within that platform. Thank you. 

Reporter Inouye: Our next question is, what impacts have you made in the community and for our incumbents, what impacts have you made on the school board? We’re going to start with Ms. Van Volkinburg and then work our way back down.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: As far as impacts within the community,  I’ve been a member of numerous clubs that are philanthropic, and we’ve done a lot of donating of diapers, we’ve done community breakfasts, one year we gathered shoes for the foster children in Ventura County. That’s just to name a few. As far as within the schools, as I mentioned, I was involved with the PTA. I served on a school board up in Northern California about 15 years ago. It was a small rural community, but basically, the rules are applicable whether you’re in a city or a small community. The Brown Act is still the Brown Act, and budgets are still the same. So balancing budgets are still the same. I don’t really know what to say. The last half of the question is..?

Reporter Inouye:  Just for our incumbents, what impacts have they made on the school board.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Well, obviously, that doesn’t apply to me, but I did impact the other community where I was a school board trustee. 

Candidate Sylvester: I am a sitting trustee, so I will talk about what I’ve done, in some kind of coaching order and quick list. I mentioned before that I’ve been on the budget committee, so I was very involved in that. Something I’m particularly proud of is I was on the inaugural visual and performing arts, or VPA committee. It was a strategic planning committee, and I sat on that for a couple years, and as a result of that, we now have credentialed music teachers at each one of our elementary schools. This is brand new in the past two years, every first through fifth grader now gets 30 minutes of music instruction per week. We also have developed a strategic plan for VPA, which involves integrating arts education into all of our curriculum. Under our watch, we have become compliant with health and healthy feedback. It’s something that we have not been compliant in since 2016 and we now offer medically accurate age and appropriate comprehensive health education to all the middle and high schoolers. We have an educational framework called Universal Design for Learning, it  was brought in initially for our Special Ed. students as a way to help them, teach them in the way that they can best learn, whether it’s visually or manipulating something, as well as assess them, so we can see how they’re doing in the way they best learn. And I always use the example of one of my children who had been in one of his high school classes. The final exam was “go do a video.” This was like calling for him. So he did a video and got an A+, and he would have been a valedictorian if every single class asked for that. But that’s what UDL does. It’s designed to help us better understand how our kids are learning, and that is now the educational framework for all our students, whether they’re engaged or whether they’re Special Ed. or whether they’re just general ed. students. We’ve done a lot in terms of diversifying literature, so that it’s not the same books that have been read in English classes over the past 20 plus years. So we have protagonists and authors from a diverse background that I see is represented.

Candidate Enderle: Hello, okay, so as a football booster president, what I did is, the first thing I did when I was elected president was make sure that the cheer, band, and football teams were all united as one, because it seemed like, when I got there, the girls weren’t happy. The band felt like they were left out, and the football team thought they were all that. So I brought them together, so it became all one, and the girls, the band and the team work as one unit, which I think is really important. There’s no difference, “one one team plays, so the others support,” they are all one. That year we had the Woolsey Fire, and I was stoked that the community came together. We did a charity drive. We used the Conejo Valley Unified school buses, and literally, they couldn’t keep up with the stuff that we got to donate to the community. We kept donating and donating and donating, which was phenomenal. And then me, as a realtor at Keller Williams, every May we have red day. So Red Day is getting back to the community. And what you do is you go to either Manny Mansions, you go to some of the other places, and you hit the ground with shovels, paint brushes and spackle, and you help, what where they need to be held. Some of my friends were going to the shelter for the animals, which I think is important, because God knows we all love animals, so it’s, you know, not a lot, but you know, everything, every little bit helps, and as long as you try to help the community, it’s a beautiful thing. Thank you.

Candidate Gill: Trustee Sylvester mentioned the Visual Performing Arts plan. It’s the first visual and performing arts strategic plan in the county, and we’re quite proud of that. I’m very proud that this community supports the arts. I’m very proud of the arts at this particular school. I can’t tell you the number of joyful moments that I have spent sitting in the PAC [Performing Arts Center], and there are many more to come, I cannot wait. We’re really proud of the way that we engage our parents and our community and our families. So during the first term of trustee Sylvester and myself, we added two more of our advisory councils, one for African American District Advisory Council, one for LGBTQ+. And this gives us extra representation. It tells the community that we care. It tells our students that we care. We also, in this district, treat our multilingual learners as huge assets. And so one of the things that I’m very proud of is our strategic plan for multilingual learners and the fact that we have a dual language immersion program at Conejo Academy, that is, again something that is first in the county for us, very, very, very important. These are sort of, when you look at the places where we still have room to grow and progress that we still need to make, you might look at English learners as an area of focus, and trust me, when I say that all of the trustees have this in mind, and the way that we’re attacking this problem is by using evidence based practices, like beginning a dual language immersion program, like having English language advisory councils at each of our school sites, so that those families directly impacted are brought in and are part of the decision making process. So those are just a few of the things, we’re running out of time. And I will say that I am a core volunteer for Safe Passage Youth Foundation and for Adelante Comunidad Conejo. Those are two trusted nonprofits that work directly with our CUSD families. 

Reporter Koniares: The third question is, in your opinion, what are the most important issues in public education right now, and how do you plan to address them? Ms. Gill, if you could please start and then go down the line. 

Candidate Gill: Okay, I always answer this question first by saying that the most important issue, always for us, is full and fair funding. We are not fully and fairly funded. We should be. California is the fifth largest economy in the world, and we’re very close to being the fourth largest economy in the world. There’s no excuse whatsoever for us not fully and fairly funding our public schools. So I advocate for that with my governing partners at the local level, at the regional level and at the national level, very consistently, we need the funding and the resources to provide the robust programs that all of you deserve. So that’s the first, and that’s always an evergreen concern. Another concern that I have that is particular to this community is the mis [information] and disinformation campaigns that we have seen that are designed to undermine trust in public institutions like our public schools. This has a direct impact on the people who work in our schools. It dishonors our teachers. It dishonors our administrators and our school staff. It’s personal to me, because this district is personal to me. This is our community… is made up of people who work very, very hard, and so it’s a concern to me when I see propaganda papers landing on people’s driveways and our community that are attacking and spreading information that is not at all true about what happens day–to–day in our schools. So that’s why I’m so happy that you all are doing the work you do, and submitting truthful reporting and getting the word out about what’s really happening day to day in our schools. Thank you for that.

Candidate Enderle: What’s really important to me is test scores. You know, you look…you look at what everything is and the way everyone views everything. I’m in finance. I do finance, and you look at numbers, and you look at people, everyone says, “Oh, well, that number doesn’t match up to this number. That number doesn’t match up to this number.” You know, you got…Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake… below average test scores in the fundamentals. And that’s from the US News, which you guys can look at. And what’s disheartening…it’s not really the ranking, but Newbury Park’s 300–something below Westlake, or Thousand Oaks is 198 schools below Westlake. Westlake is ranked higher, but if you look at it, we should be a lot better than this. Fiscal responsibility is a big one. You look…it’s like Moorpark did phenomenal. The Moorpark School District did phenomenal. About 10–15 years ago, they put LED lights on the school football field. None of our schools have that. You walk by a school…every single room is air conditioned. It’s because, you guys, the schools aren’t responsible for paying for the electricity, so they don’t use the electricity. If they saved that, they wouldn’t get reimbursed, because that’s not the way it works. So that whole system of the way the government works needs to be revamped to save us money. We’re getting 20%, in two years, it will be 20% higher than spending in utilities, and we need to balance the budget. You can’t have a great school without a balanced budget. There’s a lot of work to be done. I’m not saying we’re bad. I’m just saying that we’re not efficient. 

Candidate Sylvester: I do agree, you can’t have a great school without a balanced budget. And just having looked at our last year’s numbers, we got a first glimpse, and actually our expenses equal our revenue, so our budget is balanced. As far as important issues…the first one that comes to mind is what Trustee Gill mentioned, which is full and fair funding. And it is really a disgrace how California funds its schools, and they fund it by enrollment, and they don’t give us really enough money for things like special education. So we need to do better. And in a state where enrollment… up and down the state is declining at every school district, with almost every school district, why? Young families are putting off having children. Some families are leaving the state, and here, specifically in Thousand Oaks…I’m sure Frank can attest to this, home prices are so high that young families with kids can’t move in, and when that enrollment starts sinking, the dollars that go with those students go away. But the fixed costs associated with students do not. So that is a tremendous issue that needs to be addressed. Another issue is, and we’ll circle back to test scores later, but what test scores can show you is how specific student groups are doing. That is a more relevant use of a lot of the data to look at how students with disabilities or English learners are doing, and while we’re making great strides in bringing them up, we still need to focus on that. We’ve revamped the way we set our goals in something called LCAP, so that it is a more focused document that is actually addressing that. And the final thing, which is probably near and dear to all of you, I think we’re gonna have to look long and hard at technology. At our last board meeting, we had a long discussion on cell phones and cell phone usage and what that will look like. And I think artificial intelligence, which personally excites me…but there’s some risks in that, and there’s a lot of benefits, but the reality: that is where the world is moving and our job is to prepare you guys to be able to thrive and survive in this world, and that might fall working alongside artificial intelligence. 

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Basically, I am here for academics. I have a philosophy of going back to the basics with reading, writing and arithmetic, which may sound antiquated. So yes, we can throw in science, technology, AI…all of that, and I admit that that is the future. But before we can throw in all the science and technology, we have to get the majority of students up to par with regards to their writing skills and their math skills. When I was in public school, we had art, we had music, we had more sports, we had incredible extracurricular activities, which unfortunately, is not part of the budget anymore. So yes, it would be nice to have those things, but I don’t know if you guys know that public schools started in 1635. That was 15 years after the Pilgrims arrived, and the purpose was so that the population, not just young students, but everyone, would have a level playing field with regards to the reading and math. Do you want to know why? Because they had to deal with contracts. There were farmers that were harvesting, and they needed to make sure that they weren’t being swindled when they did contracts. So the concept of why schools began in the first place has kind of deviated to fluffy stuff that, yes, it would be nice, but I feel like there’s not enough classroom time to do everything, and we really have to prioritize. So that would be my focus. Then secondly, I was happy to see during the recent board meeting that they were break even on their budget because the prior one in June didn’t show as well. It said that in three years, if they kept spending on the same trajectory, that they would be depleting their reserves too dangerously low. There’s a bright orange slide with that presentation, and… you could hear a pin drop during that meeting, I think. Anyway, my focus is great, and unlike somebody else on this panel, I don’t focus on test scores because of my six children, I had one who [was] brilliant. She’s brilliant, but she can’t test worth beans. She just becomes paralyzed… maybe like I feel at this moment. 

Reporter Zhang: So the topic of the next question was discussed at the school board meeting last week. The diversity, equity and inclusion plan was brought forth by students in 2020. How do you believe the resolution should or could be modernized to pertain  to 2024? Also in general, how do you plan on promoting equity and inclusion on our school sites?

Candidate Van Volkinburg: This is going to be an interesting topic because I’m not really a fan of diversity, equity and inclusion in the sense that you have all been taught. I grew up in the East Bay of Northern California, where diversity was already a thing. I spent many years riding my bike up to Berkeley. I went to school with Asians, Hispanics, Blacks, you name it, but I didn’t even think about it. The truth of the matter is, I feel like we’ve gone backwards. So how I plan to deal with it is probably not what you want to hear. I feel like that’s one of the fluffy things that you don’t need to do. When you look at your classmates, do you see what color they are? Does it bother you? I never gave it a second thought, so it’s pretty low on my priority list.

Candidate Sylvester: Okay, there’s a lot in that question. The equity resolution, which was primarily written by a group of students in 2020, probably needs a little bit of a refresh. There’s some language that could be updated. We’ve done a lot since that was written, and the district is going to take another look at it and bring it back to the board for consideration. I do think DEI is important. Obviously, I think schooling and subjects are incredibly important. But under our watch, we created and hired the position of assistant director of DEI…that is a position that did not exist four years ago, and he has done quite a bit. In terms of diversity, we diversified, as I mentioned before, our literature. We try to have a curriculum that is inclusive. We’ve expanded how we hire and staff so that our teachers might be more reflective of the students they teach. From an equity lens, we put money with the kids who need it the most, and that’s really what equity means. We have expanded learning programs, we have early back for summer, we have summer learning camps. And as Trustee Gill mentioned, we added two additional DACs, an African American DAC and an LGBTQ+ DAC. And listening…and I go to all those meetings…and listening to the stories these parents are relaying about the experiences of their children, reminds me why we’ve done all of this. Why we’ve hired the Assistant Director of DEI, why we have an equity resolution. Because these kids…maybe we shouldn’t notice anyone’s differences, but in a lot of these cases, these kids are being harassed. They’re being bullied. They’re not feeling comfortable in their own school. So the more we can do, whether it’s having literature that they can see themselves in, whether it’s having strong anti–bullying or harassment policies, whether it’s including everybody in everything. I don’t want to hear those stories anymore at those advisory committee meetings. So thank you.

Candidate Enderle: Equity and inclusion. My brother, when he was in high school, wanted to be a fireman. He was an Eagle Scout. He was getting hundreds on every single test he took. He was getting 100 on his oral, 100 on his written, and it took him ten years to get to the fire department. Equity and inclusion. You look at it, I’ve talked to a lot of people, and the catchphrase is, “What do you think as opposed to race?” It’s not about race. It’s real simple; it’s social economics. A rich Black man, a rich white man, a rich Asian or Hispanic man…they’re fine. People from a…mother and father running the household, a normal household, they’re fine. It’s the people…and it’s not the color…it’s the people who come from a broken family. It’s the people that come from economics…they don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Not their color. And if it’s color, you know what, we need to help them. But someone makes fun of a student because of the way that they look…is unheard of. In today’s society, that’s over. I coach. So when I coach, I look at my ball players like my ball players. I had one person…she brought her son in, he wanted to play flag football. She’s worried about him because he’s special. And we’re going through…she got on my field…I told her to get off my field. I yelled at her. And he played. He did as best as he could. Eight years later, he was playing football at Newbury Park High School. Wasn’t great but he was good. A parent came up to me and said, “You were the best thing that ever happened. You treated him like he was equal. You didn’t treat him like he had a problem. Didn’t treat him any differently.” The problem is social economics, and the problem is family.

Candidate Gill: Two and a half years ago, I got a phone call over Memorial Day weekend. And I went down to Maple Elementary school, where someone had scrawled hate speech in very big letters: “Pervs work here.” Across our beautiful elementary school. And I spent the next several hours scrubbing the walls of our beautiful elementary school. So I know that we have a problem. And I draw a direct line between hate speech, mis [information] and disinformation and acts of hatred and intolerance. I agree with Trustee Sylvester…I was very glad to see us bring forward the racial equity resolution that the board adopted four years ago, so that we could recommit to it. So that we could measure our progress. So that we could update our language, and so that we could identify the work that we still have to do. And make no mistake, we have hard work still to do. We really do. This is a caring school community who supports the rising generation, but the fact that I spent Memorial Day weekend scrubbing hate speech from the walls of our elementary school tells me we’re not where we need to be. And I will work hard until we get there.

Reporter Pineda–Dominguez: What are your views on including LGBTQ+ and non–binary gender topics in CVUSD’s sex education curriculum, and if you’re elected what are you going to do in response?

Candidate Gill: Let me make sure I understand the question. You’re asking specifically about the sexual health education curriculum, or are you talking more broadly. 

Reporter Pineda–Dominguez: More broadly.

Candidate Gill: More broadly, okay. So, let me start with the comprehensive sexual health education curriculum that we adopted that finally brought us into compliance with the California Healthy Youth Act. As you know, we had been out of compliance for a number of years while the existing board wrestled with how to accomplish that goal, we did accomplish that goal. So those topics are covered in the way that they should be, with medically accurate, age appropriate curriculum materials. More broadly, I would say that LGBTQ+ students are a part of the student body and must be reflected and represented in every aspect of curriculum. So you probably know that back several years ago we had some conversations about book banning in our school district. And I wasn’t yet on the board but I was at every board meeting and I was speaking very publicly about how it was important that we not ban books, and we not restrict the literature that you are allowed to read. So, I feel quite strongly about the efforts that we’ve made to diversify the literature program that we have. And I’m very much in support of the teachers who are doing the very hard work to find and select those new texts for you, and the hard work to develop the curriculum behind them, which isn’t always, that hard work isn’t always recognized, but I do recognize it and I appreciate it. So I would say that all of you reflect our community, and deserve to be reflected in our curriculum materials fully. 

Candidate Enderle: LGBTQ. What are we teaching in school? Math, reading, history. It’s like, do we really need to teach what sex you’re going to do? I didn’t know that word, when I was in school, we didn’t teach about who’s sleeping with who. You know, I kind of think that that’s kind of left to the parents. You know, I read AB 1955, I was reading it, and it talked about LGBTQ, it talked about how you should protect, 100 percent, it talked about you shouldn’t make fun, 100 percent. But then it said, “don’t tell your parents”, the words were, “don’t out them to their parents”. So when the government tells you that you shouldn’t tell the parents what the kids are doing, run. That’s not good. It’s totally not good. And to support that? Run. It’s not good. I’m not saying that you should beat them up, you should do this, because no, they can do whatever they want. No one cares what, we’re not teaching what you guys are supposed to have sex. Who you’re doing it with, how you’re doing it with. That’s what you’re going to learn on your own. We don’t need to help you, and we certainly don’t need to hide it. And then when you, when you get into this, because now, now they’re playing around, which I was discussing with, mind you, I’m not making any judgment, except for you should never, as a man, hit a woman, ever. And to have an Olympics that an Olympic athlete was disqualified from boxing because she tested as a man, in a ring, for a sport, to hit a woman, is unburdened. 

Candidate Sylvester: I’m not going to retread over a lot of what Trustee Gill said, she did a nice job of detailing some of what we’ve done. I will say this. We live in the state of California. And as such, we follow the laws of the state of California. One of them, and we follow Education Code[s], one of them is the California Health and Youth Act, which mandates that we teach comprehensive, medically accurate, age appropriate, sexual health education to seventh and ninth graders. So we were following the law when we put that curriculum in place. I fully believe that if parents do not want their children to learn it, they can opt out. We do not insist that the children take the class as offered. Two, in terms of the legislation that Mr. Enderle is speaking of, again, we live in California, it is the law of the land. If a child wants to change their gender or their pronouns at school, and they do not want to tell their parents, we cannot override their rights and go around them. Why? Because, number one, it is the law. Number two, those districts who have decided to, hey, we’re going to go our own way, and we’re going to create our own policies, guess what? They’re being sued by the state. They’re being sued by their labor unions. That costs money. Money that has to be spent, spending something, and money that is not going to our children, their children. Third, liability. Let’s just say we go down the path and we put one of our students in a dangerous situation. And let’s say, God forbid, something happens to that student. We haven’t followed the law. So guess what? Our insurance company is not going to help defend us. We will be liable, again, it’s a money issue because we will have to pay money out of our general fund, and we won’t be able to not run a deficit. So quite simply, we live in California, and I think we’re lucky we have these protections, but as school board trustees, we need to follow the law.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Well, coming from Northern California near Berkeley, the LGBTQ community was strong back when I was there, 40 plus years ago. It’s always been in existence, and in my experience, they weren’t persecuted for it. I have family members who are loved and adored that fall into that alphabetic category. Again, I’m going to circle back to academics. I just want to see all of you exposed to the most mathematical classes that you can benefit from, and the reading and writing and grammar. It’s also important when you go off to be whatever you become as adults. Sexuality, in my opinion, is not something that we need to talk about in school. That’s something that truly is sacred. It should be safe for someone that you care about. I’m not saying you have to wait until marriage, but you should wait until you’re in a relationship, and you’re going to learn how to do it on your own, trust me, I have six children. So talking about the books being age appropriate, well, not every student develops at the same rate. So what’s good for her might not be good for him or anybody else in the room. I just think that it’s a topic that really should remain behind closed doors, because you will learn from your siblings, your friends, whatever, it’s taking away from precious classroom time.

Reporter Ko: At the June 20 Board Meeting, Dr. Hayek, Deputy Superintendent of Business Services, said the 2024–25 operational deficit is 15 million dollars, followed by projected 12 and 7 million dollar deficits in the next 2 school years. How should the Board go about the budget cuts, and what items do you see being cut?

Candidate Van Volkinburg: I actually watched that board meeting, and it terrified me. I’m concerned for all of you, well you’ll be gone, most of you, but, it terrified me for my grandchildren. I believe in the public school system, and I believe in a balanced budget. I do have a background in accounting, even though I only had three years of college before I left my business path. My husband and I own a business, I’ve been the accountant for it for almost thirty years, we’re doing really well. So can I say specifically what I would eliminate from the current budget? Not at this time, because I haven’t had an opportunity to see everything line item by line item. But, yes, there would be some trimming of the fat for sure. Again, it all goes back to academics. I want to see the most money spent on your education, not on fancy bathrooms, not on painting some room that might have three more years worth of paint left in it. Not on infrastructure.

Candidate Sylvester: I too was at that board meeting, and I too do remember the slide that Dr. Hayek showed us. And I too was alarmed by that. So every school budget, we are required to go out three years. We don’t have a lot of information, but we have to, to be certified by the state, show a three year budget. This was the first time that year two was not looking so good. And I was concerned, honestly concerned and knew that we need to start taking action and we need to start thinking about where we can, if we had to, make cuts. So a couple things. Since then, as I said, we had a meeting last week where Dr. Hayek presented our unaudited actuals for 2023–24. So when the budget was done, and we looked at it in June, it was based on what we thought was going to happen in 2023–24. And in fact, what actually happened in 2023–24 is our income, our revenue stayed about the same as we had projected. Our expenses were $30 million lower than we thought. So we are going into 2024–25 with more money, more assets in our bank account, and that will soften a lot of the blows and soften some of the reserves that Dr. Hayek was showing we would have to cut into. With that said, we do have to be prudent, but we also have to be mindful of the fact that dollars we get in any given year need to be spent on students that year, unlike a business or even a city council, we cannot just save for [a] rainy day, or maybe even in your own household. We have to spend what we take in. We are mandated to not keep too much in reserves, the state doesn’t like that. So we really have to spend. That said, again, there can be some bumpy times. I talked earlier about declining enrollment. 85% of the budget are people, 85%. So where do you cut? Who do you cut? Well, number one, you keep it as far away from classrooms and students as possible. That is the mantra there. Thank you. 

Candidate Enderle: Yeah; the finance is really in the toilet, straight up. You know, as they said, we were at par; we were [breaking] even this year. It was realized versus actual. They didn’t add other numbers. The numbers that were in a hole, in a deficit, or were in a positive because we get grants, and the grants are paying for them, [but] it’s not actual money. They’re in the toilet. Straight up. Straight up, it’s real simple guys. How long have you [known] about solar electricity? Why is it that we do not have solar electricity on our campuses? Why is it that we have those incandescent bulbs at our football stadium that [are] extremely expensive to run, run 24/7 almost, with no one on the fields. There’s no oversight. The way our system works is, again, [that] the school doesn’t pay the full electricity; if they don’t use it, they lose it for the following year. It’s set up all wrong. You know, get the LED lights in there. You know, we’ve got Measure I; we’re making pretty here, worrying about co–ed bathrooms which I’m totally against. We don’t need co–ed bathrooms. And you, look, use some of that money; because under that measurement, it does say utilities. So you can [have] utilities and upgrade our utility to save the cost. In the meeting, they said in [the] next two years, our electricity bill will go up 20%. That’s a way to cut it right there. Let’s just keep doing it. I know the school spent thousands upon thousands of dollars to redo the electricity. The lights are off on the field. You know, you go to a classroom; let’s take a walk; and let’s see how many rooms have the AC running. We’re in Newbury Park. It drops down to seven degrees around, probably around seven o’clock tonight. This is a hot week, so it goes a little hotter this week, but usually it’s about 70 degrees. Don’t run the AC 24/7. There’s a lot we can save. And a lot we’re not. 

Candidate Gill: Trustee Sylvester talked a little bit about the challenges of school finance. It’s really extraordinarily challenging, and there’s a lot to learn, and it’s fascinating, but it’s challenging. We are required to offer a three year projection, but we are not given from the state three year accounting [predictions] of what the revenues will be. So it’s really a challenge. And she also pointed out that the revenues that we take in, we are required to spend on the students in school for this year, so we can’t bank money for a rainy day; there’s only a certain portion that we can keep in our reserves. This was a challenging year, as you recall. The tax deadline was put off because of all the storms we had, and then the projections came in, starkly different from what was expected. Now, back in June, we were examining [if this is] the beginning of a cycle or an outlying year? It is beginning to look like this may have been an outlying year because tax revenues coming in right now are much stronger, so we may just ride out this particular little blip of a storm, but we may not. And so we look at short, medium and long term plans. At the June meeting that we spoke about, I asked Dr. Hayek, “please give the Board scenarios for a 2% budget cut, a 6% budget cut and a 10% budget cut.” We don’t want to do any of those things, but it is the board’s responsibility to balance the budget each and every year, and we will do our job. Now, don’t let anybody tell you there’s fat to be cut. There’s not. Almost 90% of our budget is spent on people. There is no way to keep the cuts out of the classroom. That’s what we spend our money on— on people. But we will do it in the absolutely most prudent way, if we have to cut, we’ll do it far enough out that we can make it the minimum possible. But right now, it’s looking like this year may have been a blip, and that we’re going to ride this out. We will continue to keep a very close eye on it, and we have won awards four years running now for our fiscal transparency reporting. 

Reporter Nese: Why do you think CVUSD has faced declining enrollment for the past several years, and how do you hope to combat that? 

Candidate Gill: That’s a great question, Caroline. Unfortunately, there’s not a happy answer. Trustee Sylvester spoke about some of the factors. We know that housing is really expensive here. It’s expensive in California; it’s really expensive in this particular area. And you may know people who would like to move into town who are struggling to find an affordable place; that’s tough. So as a board, we have appealed to our governing partners of the city council to please work on affordable housing options, and we have seen some movement. They are responding to us. It takes some time. So that solution is not going to solve our problem next week, but the declining enrollment  is a trend that is statewide, is even nationwide, and a lot of the same factors are responsible. People are delaying having families. They’re having trouble affording housing. We’re not going to be able to solve that problem here. What we’re doing is trying to have more affordable housing in town, pushing to work with our governing partners, at the city, at the region, at the state level, on those solutions, and then just examining, how can we make the best use of the facilities that we have, with the group of students that we have, and spend the resources in the smartest possible way, so that we don’t feel as though we’re experiencing cuts. You know, in fact, there’s no ideal number of students for this district. The ideal number of students that we have is the number that we have. It’s up to us as a board and our chief business officer and his team to figure out— how do we make the resources stretch to cover all the robust programming that you all deserve?

Candidate Enderle: How do we deal with declining enrollment? [We] make the school better, make it more exciting for the kids. We came from a COVID–year that too many problems were gone through, too many problems. “Let’s freeze all grades.” I was looking at all three schools, 47, 57—I don’t know the exact number of how many valedictorians we have in the year from the school. That top one [spot]. You know that that’s the elite of the elite. You’re having an award for the elite of the elite, and we have 47. Make another award. Valedictorian is the top student. Make it challenging for you guys. Make it exciting for you guys. We have open enrollment. We can get Calabasas or LA Unified in here, if they want. They’re allowed to. I’ve seen it happen with the sports programs. So make our schools better. Make, you know, stay away from “let’s do all this fluff,” [and] let’s follow the law. How many parents are going to say, well, Pineau Valley Unified School District is following the law, and we’re going to hide things from your parents. Well, I wouldn’t have sent my kids to school. So, let’s stand up. It’s not about the money. You know you’re talking about, “Well, it would cost us a lot of money.” Well, you’re worth more than money. I don’t care how much it costs. You know, you could trim fat. We don’t need to trim fat. What we need to do is be more efficient. There’s no efficiency here. I’ve seen it, and I’m not saying we’re in the toilet, but if you have a product that everyone wants to go to, enrollments can be huge. Why is it that the kids, you guys, don’t want to come to class? Because it’s boring. You’re [saying], “Well, yeah, I don’t need to do this, except for going to class, to take the final” because this is, this is easy, you know. Make it exciting. The kids will come. It’s not about, you know, affordable housing. [I’ve] been hearing that for years. You know what when I moved here it was really cheap. Now it’s expensive. Move somewhere else where it’s really cheap, and then it becomes expensive. I talk a lot; that’s just who I am. 

Candidate Sylvester: In fact, from the census numbers from 2010 to 2012, the population of Thousand Oaks was flat. The average age… like literally nobody wants to leave Thousand Oaks. And there’s a lot of programs to help a lot of our older adults age in place. So that is kind of the reality that we’re faced with. Along with people delaying having children. Work rates have definitely gone down. So what do we do? Well, I do agree that we need to retain our existing students. We need to retain the students within our own borders who might be opting to go to a different school or private school, and we need to attract new students. How do we do that? I don’t want to call it fluff, but we have award winning performing arts programs. We have top ranked sports programs. These get kids excited. These get parents excited and they want to stay in the district. In addition, we have done over the past years a tremendous talk about rebranding a number of our elementary schools. We now have a dual language immersion program at canoe Academy. We have an International Baccalaureate elementary years program at Cypress Elementary. We have several magnet schools, including birds magnet, and one of our junior elementary itself is the STEAM Academy. This keeps kids in the district, and this could attract kids and students from outside of the district. So I think that is one of the most important things that we can do. So I think we set it all okay, finding a moment. 

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Why do I think it’s happening? Yes, a good portion of it has to do with the real estate market and the fact that there aren’t very many startup homes in this valley anywhere we had. I also have a real estate license, so I basically did it for my own benefit of buying and selling properties. And yes, I had access to the MLS, so I can see that condos now are $900,000. That’s outrageous. However, that’s not the only reason that enrollment is declining. We have a mass exodus of people who are going to homeschooling and private schooling and leaving the state, and the reason that they’re doing that is because they get unhappy with the school system. As it is, I have spoken to all these people. I am not sure why they chose to do that, but from the people that I have spoken with, it’s because they were concerned about academics. You know, it’s my favorite word. Like some of the people on this panel have said, there are great programs within this district, and I know that many students take advantage of them, but why is it that some of them are not interested in that they end up skipping school and missing classes on a regular basis, it just fabulous me that they’re not interesting, and therefore I do agree with the concept of making it more exciting when you have great teachers. And I think we do. I honestly am not bashing teachers in this district at all. I think that they have a lot of busy work that they have to contend with that is mandated by the state. So they’ve lost their zeal for what they’re doing, and it would be really nice if we could get them motivated and attract high caliber instructors to inspire you guys to keep going and persevere through hard times because covid was challenging for everyone. 

Reporter Prapaniku: Moving on to our next question, do you have any plans to further bridge the influence of student voices in our district? If so, what specifically do you plan to do? 

Candidate Van Volkinburg: I don’t see that we have a plan to implement, but I intend to visit as many schools as often as possible. I do not have a full time job. I like building my hours, and I would like to talk to each and every one of you individually and find out what your hopes, dreams and goals are in the future. And that would be true even for the kindergartners. I want to know what is troubling them, I especially want to know what is bothering those of you who actually had to do online schooling for a couple of years. I wasn’t happy with the scenario when many schools in the state were opening up and allowing students back into the classroom. Valley did not you guys stayed at home longer than other districts. So why do you think that is? I’d like to know. Maybe there’s a good explanation for it, but from my perspective, not so much.

Candidate Sylvester: Student Voices. I wish I could take credit for the creation of the student district Advisory Council, the last step started before my time on the board. But that is a robust group of some I don’t know if any group set up a stack here, probably very involved with your journalism class. That is a very, not a shy group. They are very engaged. And I go to all of their meetings so I hear what they have to say. We also have a student trustee, and then we have tier five for that. This year. He is a member of the Thousand Oaks high school class. So he is also one way that, as a board member, I get to hear what students have to say, and we listen to what our students say. We go to the student DAC meetings. I also do a great job getting on school campuses, whether it’s I was on a preschool campus or we made preschool just a couple weeks ago, getting on campuses, hearing directly from students. I have students reach out to me via email. I’m always happy to talk to students. I’m not in the trenches anymore. My youngest did graduate in the midst of covid in 2020 so it’s really hearing from you guys. But I have to say our student DAC is really a great source of input to us. I love our student journalists. It was so nice that at our last board meeting, looking out and seeing some students in the front row. So I would encourage you to come to our board meetings and offer our public comments. We have students also do that. We also have some of our Parent Advisory Council that our LGBTQ plus are partnering with the corresponding state alliance with high schools. So that’s another way that student voices can work with some parents to the board and to the administration.So there’s multiple ways. But again, I encourage you all to come to a board meeting, offer public comment, email me with questions, and comment on a concern or even something that’s not, I’d like to hear it. Thank you. 

Candidate Enderle: Okay, being a realtor for the past 20 we don’t even remember long time, let’s just say, a long time. I can’t believe I’m 58 but my ongoing policy with all my clients is I work for you. You’ll never hear a politician tell you that this is the lowest grade politician. I just, I look at this as I see a problem. I want to fix it this right now. It’s like it was. I was talking to a couple of my colleagues about coming here, this most important debate, or debate or gathering that I believe we should have, because I’m not working for them who are voting. Hopefully you guys are 18. You can vote. You’re in my district, but you look involvement. I encourage you to pick up the phone. Google me. My numbers there. I pick up. Don’t block it. I won’t block it because I’ve had some some bullies try to do whatever, and they want, you know, nonsense, and I talk on speaker, my kids started, and it’s just, everyone wants, everyone wants to be heard. But the kick, the kicker is, is, you’re the future. It’s kind of like when I talk to my ball players, when they get to freshmen. It’s like you talk you’re with the parents. You talk to the ball players. You go, which one is it? Which one is going to be make a mark. You guys are going to be off to college right now. What are you going to do? The deal is, is make a mark. Either this is your community right now, your your juniors and seniors, I assume maybe a freshman in here somewhere, maybe, I don’t know, but the whole point is, make your mark. Don’t take no. Doors open. Doors open. You can pick up that phone when I’m elected, or if I’m elected, pick the phone. Say, “Hey, you know what? I have a problem.” I’m not going to put you on a four minute card so you can talk in front of the board. I’m going to talk to you now. Again, that’s against the rules, right? But rules are meant to be broken if it takes care of the kids. It’s always you know, there’s risk versus reward, and you know what? You’re worth it. 

Candidate Gill: Thank you, I’m just going to do a quick fact check. We brought our students back just as soon as it was safe, as soon as it was safe for our teachers and our staff, when we had vaccines and when we had spent the investment to clean the air in our classrooms and at our school sites. Not a moment before it was safe, but as soon as we could, once it was safe, and we were ahead of a lot of other districts. So just a short fact check, I am fortunate–

Candidate Enderle: Actually, Moorpark–

Candidate Gill: Excuse me, I’m speaking. I’m very fortunate in that I sit next to the student trustee, and I attend our student DAC meetings. We, in addition to the student DAC meetings, we have a middle school component to student DAC that is a new component. I work directly with our students in the community. When I am working with the Safe Passage Youth Foundation and in Adelante, I’m proud of that, and I would like, if students are open to the idea, to hold some office hours when it could be virtual or in person, just for a drop–in to ask questions or to share information. So, I’d be very happy to start that as a new practice.

Reporter Shulman: Given the recent school shooting in Georgia, how do you plan to ensure that students actually feel safe? 

Candidate Gill: Yes, thanks for that question. The question of how to feel safe is a really difficult one, isn’t it? We have taken all the measures that we think are appropriate, that the advisors have told us to do. We have added many, many security features to our campuses, including crash doors and cameras, and we have safety plans that cover every single classroom in every single school site. But it can still feel unsafe. At the board level, we have passed resolutions about safe firearm storage, and I remind people that if you are in a household that has firearms, make sure that they are safe, because prevention is obviously the best strategy that we can deploy to make sure that we don’t have an emergency or a tragedy in this community. And we have had that experience, and I think that that makes us a trauma impacted community. That and some other things that have happened here. So I hear the question about feeling safe. I think the best that I can say is that the board is well aware. It is the commitment that we have to wellness services at every single level, every single school, intended to make sure that, again, we employ prevention. If somebody is not feeling particularly well and they can’t focus on their studies, we try to address that before it becomes a critical situation, and we are constantly monitoring and trying to upgrade our safety procedures and equipment and infrastructure at the school sites while we ask for the legislation at the state and federal level that will truly take those weapons out of our communities. 

Candidate Enderle: School safety is huge, guys. You know, you can’t stop it unless you have roaming police officers periodically stopping at schools. Right after one of the shootings, there was one over by Sycamore Canyon. It’s a deterrent. The board, saying that they’re on it, and they’re going to talk to this, try to do this. My son started Westlake High School back in 2016. I was on as the booster president, to make that campus a closed campus. Just last year, they finally put a fence up after they built their building. So your campus was not safe until the building was built. I also spoke to the principal about why the cameras are not working on the football field. It’s, you know, it’s all good at practice, but you need to go to the schools. You have to find out. It’s like, you know, to stop it, you have to be proactive. There’s a gun problem. I firmly believe a 14 year old should never have had a gun. And if he had a gun, it should’ve been locked up. That’s crazy. No one’s ever saying, oh, let’s have everyone have free guns. Because that’s not the way a normal society works. But you know, you have all these politicians pushing an issue, and the issue is, be proactive. Why are police not here a little bit more? Their excuse is it’s going to scare our children. When have you ever been scared of a police officer? It’s like if he walks the halls and he’s just walking around, God bless. It makes you feel a little safer. Maybe cameras that work. That would work. Has the board done an audit and see how many cameras work? I know for a fact that the high school doesn’t work. Except, you know, the fence, the fence came in after they built their building–

Reporter Shulman: Thank you so much, Mr. Enderle.

Candidate Sylvester: Yes, Westlake High School now has a fence around it. It was really nothing to do with the fact that we have a STEM building, but they do and in fact, for years they cannot quite figure out how to do it. If you’ve been on the Westlake High School campus we don’t just stand the complications on that, but I’m quite happy to talk. We don’t just talk about it at the district or board level. We have all of these measures in place. Every one of our schools now has a fence around it. We’ve monitored the entrance of egress. We have ID checking at every single school we really do, and we have cameras. And yes, sometimes they go out, but immediately they are fixed and put back into service. So we do everything we can to ensure as much safety as possible. We really do. We also are committed to the fact that we are an educational organization and it’s part of our job. If you look at who these school shooters are, the 14 year old, whoever they are, they are generally kids who might have been bullied or harassed. So to the extent we can have policies around that, to the extent we have wellness services and wellness centers to help address this, we don’t want any child to grow up or to be to become a shooter, and I think the schools do have some responsibility in ensuring a safe and supportive environment for all students, and to make sure that doesn’t happen. A 14 year old should not have a gun. We need tougher gun legislation. We absolutely do. That is beyond the purview of me as a school board trustee, but you know, everyone has a voice, and that is something that we need. As far as police on campuses, we are fortunate here. We do have three school resource officers. They are part of the Thousand Oaks police department. They are handpicked by the police department as people who can work really well with students, who can foster better relationships with the police because not every student has a great relationship with the police. And they are visible, and they do go to our various campuses, and they’re assigned mostly to high schools, but also to the middle schools. So we are fortunate in having that program.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Campus safety is extremely important to me, it’s right up there with academics because studies have shown that without campus safety, or I should rephrase that, when someone is fearful, they are unable to learn. They become paralyzed, and they just don’t absorb information and retain it. So yes, I was encouraged to hear that we have cameras and that we have resource officers, and that breaks my heart for there to be fencing around schools, but I understand that it’s necessary in today’s world. You are actually looking at somebody who has two children that have been abducted. So safety, actually, let’s back up for a second. One of them was seven. She was at a playdate, and she has never really gotten over it, even though she doesn’t even remember it. But, it was a traumatic incident. Fast forward, the week of the Woolsey fire, which was also the Borderline shooting. That was a horrible weekend, or a week, for our family, because our adult son, who is a police officer in Denver, had gone with friends to a football game, and he was drugged as he was leaving. He was shot in the neck with a sodium propanol drug that made him just drop to the ground like that. So yes, I understand trauma, and I, I’m sorry I’m kind of emotional at the moment, but yes, this is a big issue for me, and I will do whatever is necessary to keep you guys safe. To the extent possible, because bad stuff happens everywhere.

Reporter Barnes: Despite the recent introduction of the five star app, there have been many discussions about banning cell phones. What are your opinions on this topic, and how do you plan to implement a policy, or do you plan to implement any policies? 

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Well, I think the state is working on that, so we might not have a say in the matter. But my personal opinion was that when my students were on campus at the high school level, it certainly came in handy when I went to pick them up and say, “Hey, I’m by tennis courts,” or I might be at the opposite end by the Korean church. But cell phones for elementary age students, I don’t really see the purpose unless they’re doing the same thing that my high schoolers were doing. So maybe there is a way that we could restrict cell phone usage during class time. That would be ideal.

Candidate Sylvester: Okay, if you watched the board meeting, we had a very robust discussion on this, and over the past few months, we’ve had a number of parents and community members come and address the board on this topic. There has been so much written about the harmful effects of cell phones and social media on students, on young adults, people of all ages, and it’s very compelling. We do have a policy in place, we put a policy in place in 2021, which does restrict cell phone usage during instructional time. But it really has been up to the school site and up to the teacher about how they implement it. So the legislation just passed a law, If Newsom signs it, and it’s expected he will, basically saying that we’re going to have to come up with a policy to restrict software usage. So, I think a couple of things you want to look at, and I do agree, you know, creating a policy for a kindergartener or a second grader versus a high school student, I do think we need different policies for different grades. Our TK through eight, I believe phones should be off and away from bell to bell. And in high school, they should be off and away during all times except for lunch and nutrition. My personal opinion, this will come to a vote before the board. The other part of this law is it requires us to get information and input from all of the stakeholders, which, in a lot of ways, is a good way to write policy. So we need to hear what students think. We need to hear what teachers think. Our teachers union, I’ve been told, is putting together a quick survey that will go out to teachers, so we’ll get some input there. We need to hear what parents think. So we will go to each of our different parent advisory committees, and we have six of them, and get their perspective. And then once we’ve gathered all of that information, then we will write policy.

Candidate Elderle: So, now they want to take away your cell phones. Okay, it’s simple guys, respectful. Be respectful. You’re in class. This is not note–passing on steroids. So in your class, when the teacher is lecturing, keep the phones away. I had a brilliant idea, I thought, because it’s real simple. We have the technology, just put scramblers in the classrooms. Once the bell system goes off, the scrambler works. You can’t text, you can’t use the internet. You can use your phone, though. So if there’s an emergency, you can use your phone. Our laws are so backed up and backwards, the government says that that’s a SCC break, you can’t, it’s illegal. You can’t scramble. I’m like, well, you can’t scramble because of the fact that what it does is, it makes it hard for first responders. You can’t get contact. But if you use cellular, and you keep the data and everything away, it can actually work. So possibly, maybe go to our government, you know, this law was written when they first started. Let’s be a little proactive and go, guys, is there a workaround? You know, it’s ultimately up to you, because you know you’re playing with your cell phones because you want, you know they want to stop it when you’re moving from class to class, I think that’s fine, I think in the class, when you’re with the instructor, and I’m assuming you all have done it, but it’s rude, guys. You know, if I pick up my phone and start looking at it while you’re talking to me, that’s rude. So, you know, that’s the biggest issue, is, let’s be proactive. Some of these laws that are out there are antiquated. Now you got a law right now that you know that isn’t even in our justice system yet, that if you catch someone on video killing someone, it’s not proof that he did it. It’s like, come on, guys, that equipment wasn’t there, now it is there, fix the laws. So a little proactive, figure out how to do things. I don’t think we should get rid of your cell phones, but be responsible. 

Candidate Gill: So this is a complicated question, and it’s an active matter before the board, so I can’t go beyond what we talked about at the most recent board meeting, but to echo what Trustee Sylvester said, AB 3216, which we expect will be signed by the governor, does ask us to really open up and hear from all sectors of the community. So I do. I want to hear from you. I want to hear from our teachers. I want to hear from our administrators and our parents and families about what’s going to work and there are a lot of issues for us to parse out. You may know that we have addressed some of the harms of social media by joining a lawsuit against the social media companies. That sort of pulls out that social media component out from the device question which is wider, or broader, and that was based on my speaking to a lot of students, especially at the middle school level, about the impacts of social media. And while none of us are particularly litigious, we reached a point where we saw that the social media companies were not abiding by their own age restrictions for their products, the government regulations in place will be just completely ignored, and we were left with one opportunity to stop the harms to our students which was to join this lawsuit. So now we’re examining the larger question of digital devices, and these are personal devices, so there are some questions there about the rights that you have, the rights that your parents and families have. So we’re in a very open, sort of fact–gathering listening mode, while we collect as much information as possible before we go back and compare AB 3216 with the existing written policies that we have decided for any changes we want to make. 

Personalized Questions: 

Reporter Miller: Now, we are kind of going to move into more personal questions based on a little bit of what you’ve advocated for, things you have said in The Acorn, and things you have supported. So we are actually going to start with Mr. Enderle.

Candidate Enderle: Frank, please. Just Frank. 

Reporter Miller: You have talked a lot about and emphasized throughout this panel that schools have failing test scores, and I know that is a huge issue for you. I am curious to hear what your solutions are. You talked about making more valedictorians or making schools harder. I was wondering if there was more specifics or things you could offer that would make these ideas bring higher test scores into action.

Candidate Enderle: Great, great, great question. When I was booster president, I tried to put a group of parents, who are doctors, in a study group with the kids to keep them CIF compliant. Low and behold, there is a law that states parents can’t help a child with homework on campus. To me, it doesn’t seem right. So, they put a kibosh on it. Right now, I’m working with Kevin McNamee, former mayor. I am working with the colleges to try to do study groups at off–site places. I think it would be great to, again, push the system. I am more into bucking the system than running along and watching them do it, and maybe get it so that we have doctors who want to be involved, like if one of your parents was a doctor, and she’s now a stay at home mom, and she can help with some of the kids, with their test scores. And I think tutors. We’re at college, because everyone likes to be with their peers. So you guys would look up to the college to be tutored. So then you guys would get high school credit, or figure out how to do an elective or something instead of teacher’s aid, and go to the elementary and work it down so that the kids will work. They’re like, oh, I got this high school guy. Because when I’m coaching, you know the little kids love the high school kids, the college kids, the high school kids love the college kids. That’s going to create excitement. So if you create excitement and you have the kids help the kids bring community too. And low and behold, there’s a law against it, but we’re figuring a way out, because we’re going to do it off site, but I’d like to get it on campus. And there’s ways to go around it, not lawsuits, but petition to go to Mr. Newsom and say, hey, bro, you missed it on the people sleeping on the streets, and now you’re going back on it. We all knew it was a wrong question, wrong law. So let’s try to [be] proactive, not reactive.

Reporter Miller: Follow up questions, just very quickly. And I think it’s great that we’re putting out the policies that our governor and maybe higher level decision makers should be putting into action. But if you will be on the board of the school board, what would you do to change the curriculum? What would you do to focus more so that students are getting more attention, and test scores can increase? What specific things will you focus on that’s not happening right now?

To listen to the kids, listen to kids and see what motivates you. It’s like, you know, the only way, only way to even deal with it. You know, when I was, when I was in school, I can tell you what I would have done then. We moved light years. The only way for me to know is to talk to you guys. The question would be, what do I need to do to keep you from going to the beach or hanging out at the park on your phones, on the internet, and not going to school? But what? What do we need to do to make you more—I don’t like the “penalize” thing, because if you penalize someone for, you know, if you don’t do this, we’re going to do this. I’d rather motivate you so you motivate someone to do it, I got more results from my athletes by motivating them and making them than making them run. Nobody likes to run. That’s consequences. [However,] if you motivate them, it’s infectious. Everyone likes to do it. And you get a couple, and you get people going. It’s just, you know, you get a couple colleges. Let’s say you’re going to UNLV, you go to a different college. You get a couple kids that are graduating pre, whatever your degree is, and they’re going to be at the school, and they’re going to help you, tutor and stuff. It would be, it would work. You’d show up. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just figuring out what motivates you to get you motivated to do the work. And it’s really all coming from you guys, because you know what, what works today won’t, won’t work in five years, because five years from now, it’s something different. 

Reporter Bell: You previously stated that parents have the right to provide for the care, custody, companionship, and management of their children. These rights are being compromised by bills such as AB 1955. Can you clarify your thoughts on this bill specifically?

Candidate Van Volkinburg: Yes, AB 1955 is a very controversial bill that has to do with transgender community and transitioning, and this goes back to the misinformation and disinformation. So first of all, we’ve heard a lot of those terms in the last few years, which never would have been an issue 10 years ago. So misinformation is something that is stated inaccurately, accidentally. Disinformation is when somebody imparts, not knowledge because it’s not necessarily knowledge, imparts statements that are done maliciously. So AB 1955, I’ve read it, and my interpretation of it, I think, is accurate, where it says that the staff is prohibited from contacting a parent if their child wants to identify with a different pronoun or wants to transition, wants to wear dresses. I remember back in my day, there was a student who would show up for school wearing jeans and a t–shirt and [go] to the bathroom and then put on a dress. Parents didn’t know, so nobody really cared at that point. And I don’t think it was an issue as far as the teachers were concerned, but now it is an issue. And so in my mind, 1955 prohibits the staff from telling parents. People have accused me of saying that as disinformation, and they say that it’s the opposite, that they are no longer required to tell the parents. I urge all of you to go and read AB 1955 for yourselves, because it affects you and your friends. 

Reporter Miller: The next question is for you, Ms. Sylvester, and this is a little bit about how you talked about wanting to create this environment where people feel physically, socially and mentally capable to participate in this environment and talking about fair funding. And so just what have you done to foster this environment, and even in the realm of test scores, how has this benefited student excellence and learning? What do you hope to further do in the future, building on what you’ve done in the past four years?

Candidate Sylvester:  In two minutes? Okay. I think that there’s a lot that we have done to make our students feel included and supported within our schools. And as I said earlier, if our children are not emotionally, socially and mentally healthy, they are not going to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. So we need to focus on the whole child and having initiatives like the wellness centers and wellness services, creating the position of Director of Mental Health. All of that goes toward helping our students, our children, feel better. In terms of inclusivity, we’ve talked a lot about [having] more inclusive literature and curriculum. I think all of that helps children when they’re on campus feel better. Test scores, okay. We’ve talked a lot about test scores, and I think the one that people keep looking at are CAASPP scores. And they say, you know, 60% of our kids can’t read or do math, and that is just fundamentally not true. That is the way you can interpret the CAASPP score, but that is fundamentally untrue. And if you look at all of the data, not just a single day in the life of an 11th grader, who really doesn’t want to be taking that test because they have a million AP exams and IB exams, etc, and we don’t teach to the test because we believe we should be teaching to the standards of the curriculum. So you’re looking at one data point and extending it. So the value, though, of the CAASPP number, is to say, how do we do against other districts? Because other districts also have 11th graders who are facing the same constraints. And guess what? We’re in the top 15% of all unified districts in the state of California in terms of our test scores. And when you look at the top districts, you know what they have in common? They’re very wealthy districts. They have low percentages of English learners. They have low percentages of low socioeconomic students. So their challenges are very, very different from ours. So I would caution against using one data point and making a sweeping generalization. It’s naive, and it’s inflammatory. 

Reporter Miller: And I do have a small follow up question, maybe you can expand on a little bit more. Mr. Ednerle talked about how there was a lack of motivation for students, and I think you bring up a good point, where students don’t want to take this CAASPP test because they have a million things that they care about. What is something you think the board can do to make students care more or have more incentives?

Candidate Sylvester: I do agree having great teachers, and we have great teachers, really helps, but I really believe, and I saw it with my own three children, children need, kids need, a reason to go to school. And sometimes it’s because they love calculus, but often it’s because they love theater and they’re part of the theater community, or they love football and lacrosse and they’re part of a football and lacrosse community. The more we can have those kinds of opportunities for our children that we don’t put financial barriers in place, the more motivated they will be to go to school and to pay attention to school, because if you’re in a co curricular and extracurricular, you have to sign a contract saying you’re going to maintain a certain grade point average, but if you go below that, you can’t play football, you can’t act in the play. So I think it’s really pushing all of those programs. Again, it was why I thought being on the VAPA committee, the visual and performing arts, was so important, because that’s one strong piece. 

Reporter Bell: Ms. Gill, you previously stated that you want to enable students’ exploration of career and life possibilities and support students on their chosen pathways towards fulfillment in life and likelihood. How do you plan to create programs in our high schools to more specific career paths? 

Candidate Gill: That’s a terrific question, thank you. We’ve done some of that work at my urging and at my colleagues on the board’s urging. One of the challenges of having such robust program offerings, especially at the high school level, is that it can be difficult to navigate your path, and we don’t want students to miss out on opportunities to explore classes that they might be interested in if they only tried. So one of the things we did was completely revamp the website. Used to be sort of like a phone book, but had all our course offerings and color code it to make it a little bit easier for students and their families to navigate and figure out, what are some pathways that appeal to me, and if I’m interested in this pathway, then what are the courses that I need to make sure I take. That can require a lot of planning, and so we also hired some college and career counselors. Now we also, we already have academic centers and we have our wellness staff, but these folks are specifically looking at students who maybe they’re the first student going through our district, so they don’t have an older sibling who can say, listen, you need to make sure that you take, you know, this math class first, and this. So those folks are looking for those opportunities to guide students who might need a little bit extra guidance to navigate and not miss out on opportunities, because we have such a plethora of them. And then we have our whole career technical education program, which is incredibly varied. We don’t have the same course offerings and program offerings at each of our high schools. Part of that is just that we have such breadth. We can’t replicate it across all three comprehensive high schools. Part of it is that we can’t find instructors, necessarily, who have had the industry expertise. But we have six industrial kitchens over here, and we have a full woodworking and cabinetry making program, and on and on and on and on and on. So much work, and I am hoping to expand on that in the next four years. Thank you very much. 

Reporter Boggs: Are there any last words you would like to say about you as a candidate, or anything that you would like our readers to specifically know?

Candidate Gill: Well, thank you for this extraordinary opportunity. We appreciate the work that you do. We appreciate you creating this opportunity for us to see all four candidates in one sitting. I think this is the first time we’ve appeared together, but we might be going on the road, you know. It is my honor to serve as your trustee. I am a teacher’s kid. I have lots of teachers in my family, and public education opened up the world for me, and so I serve out of gratitude for the impact of public education on my family, on this community, on my kids and I want to make sure that that opportunity is as robust and is continuing to improve for you and for all the students who come after you. I love my job. I truly love my job. I am so enormously proud of each of you and of our district, of our teachers, of our administrators, of our staff, this is an extraordinary place. It’s really worth working hard for, and I am happy to do that work. Thank you.

Candidate Enderle: Can you repeat the question again? 

Reporter Boggs: Are there any last words you would like to say about you as a candidate, or anything that you would like our readers to specifically know?

Candidate Enderle: I’ve been involved with my kids since they started playing sports. I used to run an automobile dealership. I was really successful in the automobile industry, and I quit so I could coach my boys and be in their lives. I took a pay cut getting into real estate. Now, looking back, it was not a pay cut, but I made the choice to take care of my boys and be a part of their lives. My boys are right now playing ball at Moorpark Junior College and CLU. I am not in their lives coaching. I stay away. I’m not that dad. I would like to be involved with the kids. I think that you guys deserve so much more. I’m looking at my background in finance, looking at the budget. I know, I know it’s really the government, because let’s not make anyone accountable for what they do. You know, being a booster president at Westlake. The snack shack. It costs over $100,000 to redo the snack shack because no one negotiated the real price. I had one of the booster parents contacts or whatnot. He would have redone it for $5,000. It was a $95,000 switch, and you say it because of code, that’s why it was done. You look at their snack shack versus yours, yours isn’t up to code. So the bureaucracy of what, what the government is doing, I’m tired of it. I’m really tired of it. It’s like, it’s like, you know, that was like they pulled a sub zero refrigerator that was less than 10 years old. Sub Zero refrigerators have a 10 year warranty and replace it with another sub zero refrigerator, and the other sub zero refrigerator got lost. It’s like the school board needs to do a better job. You know, I don’t think they’re really hands on. I don’t think they’ve been around the children and the kids, because you can tell. It’s just, it’s well, this is what the government says. It’s well, then push it, but we’re going to sue Facebook. It’s like, guys, let’s protect the kids. Let’s get you motivated to be our future. Looking at you, which one’s going to be the next editor in chief of a high magazine. If magazines are still around, which one of you are going to be? Maybe a president, a vice president, CEO, CFO, an inventor. You’re our future. So I’m taking my time to invest in you. Because I think you’re worth it.

Candidate Sylvester: Thank you for this. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your engagement. Yes, we have a number of forums coming up. This is the most important. Being able to talk to students directly and listening to the questions you’re asking also signals what you all think is important. So thank you for that commitment. I, too, about 25 years ago, made a choice. I stepped away from a pretty high powered, high paying job to shepherd my kids through school, and I was incredibly involved and learned quite a bit about school sites and the district. I have to say, when I became a trustee four years ago, I was amazed at how much I didn’t know. There’s a very steep learning curve. Very steep learning curve. School budgets. They’re not like any other organization, anywhere. I have an MBA, I’ve never seen a school the way we run our [finances] here. All of the acronyms, understanding the different curricula, understanding and getting to know the different student groups. There is so much to learn. And I feel that over the past four years, I feel fortunate I’ve been part of a board of good governance trustees. We are a high functioning board. We have done a lot, but there’s a lot more to be done. Clearly, there’s a lot more to be done, and I feel that with the knowledge I’ve gained over the past four years, coupled with all of my experience, 19 years worth within the CVUSD, coupled with my pretty strong business background and my experience there, makes me very well positioned and very, very fortunate when I look forward over the next four years. So thank you.

Candidate Van Volkinburg: I would also like to thank you for this opportunity to meet with you and to discuss various policies that are ongoing and have you asked me the questions that you did. Because I would really love to sit and talk to each one of you for probably three hours a piece at various coffee places or luncheon places. My reason for doing this is because I have your best interest at heart, and I’m not just blowing smoke. I raised my six children. I don’t have an MBA, but I do have 44 years of parenting, and I have grandparent skills now, and yes, I have been involved in many school districts, and as I previously mentioned, I did serve as a trustee on the board up in Northern California. I think it was a grand total of only three years, because we moved back to Southern California. However, that experience, along with my parenting skills, I believe, qualifies me to engage in this endeavor. And I would really encourage you to go, also backtracking slightly, to the comment that was made about you, somebody opened the schools when it was safe, when it was safe to do so. Just go to the CDC website. Your age bracket was never vulnerable. Please check facts and don’t take my word for it. Anyway, I feel it’s important to clarify that, because that is what I’ve been accused of, also by certain people online, of disinformation. And no, it’s not disinformation when you go straight to the government source and find out that you were representing one, less than 1% of population in terms of vulnerability. So long story short, I would really love for you to go out and talk to your friends and tell them that I just care about you. All of you. And I don’t care what color: black, white, green, purple, I don’t care. I don’t care what your sexual preference is. I don’t care, I just care that you all turn into productive citizens in the future.