Candidates talk budget, revenue streams

The La Cañada Unified School District’s looming budget deficit took center stage Tuesday night at the Governing Board candidates forum with the incumbents arguing that the district has been well managed and the challengers calling for alternative streams of revenue.

The six candidates, incumbents Joel Peterson, Susan Boyd and Scott Tracy, and challengers Ernest Koeppen, Dave Wilcox and Neal Millard, faced off in the La Cañada High School auditorium in a two-hour exchange. Each candidate delivered a two-minute opening statement and then was peppered with questions that were submitted by the 75-person audience and posed by Sharon Mullenix, a moderator provided by the League of Women Voters, Pasadena Area.

The event, sponsored by the La Cañada PTA Council, was the second of two candidates forums that have taken place in the last week. The first, sponsored by the La Cañada Flintridge Republican Club, took place on Oct. 1, with only the challengers, Koeppen, Wilcox and Millard, participating.

Among the topics of discussion Tuesday was evaluation and assessment procedures within LCUSD as they relate to teacher performance. When asked about the importance of student evaluations of teachers, Boyd said they are an important tool but that such surveys must be drafted and analyzed with care.

“I think it is good feedback and [teachers are currently required] to survey their students at the end of each year,” Boyd said. “We know that doesn’t happen with all the teachers, but it is one of the policies that we have established Some of the concerns that have come up are the fact that a lot of the students’ comments are obviously personal and biased, and we have such limited resources I would hate to see us spending time on thousands of surveys trying to decide what we can use and what we can’t use.”

Wilcox and Millard, who both teach classes at universities, said they employ evaluations every semester to improve their own teaching skills, and that high school students are capable of giving constructive feedback. Koeppen said he believes student evaluations of teachers are currently underused in the district. LCUSD should know what its students think of the “product” they are getting, he said.