Patti Ackerman
Time spent inside a classroom is what pushes Patti Ackerman, currently serving as board president, to campaign for re-election.
“I’m running because I’m an educator,” she said at a candidates’ debate last week. “It’s never been about myself, it’s been about student learning.”
Ackerman, a previous Manhattan Beach Preschool Teacher of the year, said the Hermosa district’s small size means that teachers are able to build close relationships with students in a way that is not possible with larger districts.
“Teachers can really make themselves available, and the administration is also available to them,” Ackerman said in an interview. “The parents are also more involved, it’s almost like a family atmosphere.”
At the same time, the district’s character creates financial challenges. Ackerman pointed out that, under California’s new Local Control Funding Formula, Hermosa is the lowest-funded district in Los Angeles County, and is therefore highly reliant on contributions from the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation.
She was previously the president of the foundation, and is proud of her recession-era service. There was considerable pressure at the time to give the foundation’s entire endowment to the district to fill a large budget shortfall. She led the board in resisting, and that decision, she said, has put the foundation in a place to contribute for years to come.
In the event that state funding levels were to return to pre-recession levels, Ackerman would like to see the district invest in language and arts enrichment programs.
After the narrow failure of school-facilities bond Measure Q last November, Ackerman agrees with the other three candidates that a serious outreach effort is needed to pass a bond in the coming year. When it comes to getting such a bond passed, Ackerman backs the common-sense strategies of greater communication and specificity. But she also adds one of her own from her experience last time around: “Tell people we’re not going to touch Valley Park.”
Lisa Claypoole
Lisa Claypoole occasionally gets frustrated with the constant desire to compare school districts.
The current school board member said in an interview that while the Manhattan Beach Unified School District does have more funding, a competition-focused analysis distorts what should be the focus: instruction.
“Tremendous facilities don’t necessarily equal top-notch education,” Claypoole said. “Are the students receiving a great education in the classroom everyday? That’s the question we need to be asking ourselves.”
Claypoole, who currently serves as the activities director at Mira Costa High School, grew up on welfare, and was drawn to education as a profession after high school teachers showed her that more was possible in life.
Believing that the true work comes in how things are implemented in the classroom, Claypoole said the most important decision a school board makes is in hiring a superintendent. She gives current HBCSD Superintendent Patricia Escalante high marks, appreciating her commitment to remain on the job.
“She has been a tremendous find,” Claypoole said.
Claypoole pointed out that many of Hermosa’s previous superintendents had spent comparatively little time in office, using the district as a “stepping stone” to other positions in education. Such turnover, Claypoole said, is the opposite of what the district needs.
“When we have consistency over time, that’s when we thrive,” she said.
In terms of passing a school-facilities bond measure, Claypoole agrees the board must do a better job of outreach if it wants to avoid another frustrating defeat, as occurred with Measure Q last November. But she believes the board would be better served by trying to bridge a gap in the community created by the debate over oil extraction than by reaching out to Hermosa’s large community of younger, childless residents.
“We live in an incredible community with a lot of Peter Pans, who never want to grow up,” Claypoole said. “We need to capture the people who can help us.”
Monique Ehsan
Monique Ehsan is “thrilled” to send her children to Hermosa schools. But Ehsan said she is convinced that the schools can be even better.
“I could not have landed in a better place,” Ehsan said at a candidates’ debate last week. “But there is lots of room for improvement. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be running.”
Ehsan previously served on the district’s Facilities Planning Advisory Committee. While there, she got an up-close and personal look at North School, considered the favored location for a new facility to ease crowding in the district.
Provided that facility-upgrade funds become available through passage of a bond measure, Ehsan would like to see North School become a “walkable, bikeable” campus for its intended populations of third- and fourth-grade students.
And although she has said that potential traffic impact must be studied, she is convinced that even local residents will ultimately be won over.
“North School is going to be a gem,” Ehsan said. “It’s going to be something that will enhance property values.”
Ehsan, an attorney, says that if elected she would emphasize the importance of the district doing “due diligence.”
“You can’t make good decisions unless you do good research,” she said.
Ehsan helped found the Hermosa Educational Renewal Operation, which aims to enhance communication between the district and the residents it serves. The organization, she says, fosters the kind of dialogue that would boost the odds of passing a school-facilities bond in the coming year.
Her experience has convinced her that a more professional and detailed approach is needed to sway cost-conscious residents, especially the large share of Hermosa residents who do not have children in the district.
“I’m not saying we need to pick out the curtains,” Ehsan said at the debate. “But we should look at Redondo and Manhattan Beach and spread that information, so that residents know what they’re getting.”
James Scott
During last week’s school board candidate debate, James Scott answered a question about the potential size of a renovated North School with two pieces of common sense.
“The bottom line is, you need to make decisions based on what’s good for kids,” Scott said in the debate. “You can never have too many classrooms.”
The response shows how Scott, who has experience as a teacher and a principal, sees the facilities challenge the district faces as intertwined with its educational mission.
“Overcrowding is the main problem. Everything else comes second to that,” he said.
But Scott, who co-founded the advocacy group Hermosa Educational Renewal Operation, also thinks the district has to keep all of the city’s residents in mind as it makes decisions.
He points to the potential impacts of re-opening North School on the neighborhood, especially if it wants those residents’ support in passing a school facilities bond measure.
“You don’t need to be a traffic engineer to see that it really needs to be addressed,” Scott said in an interview. “I’ve talked to residents on Silverstrand [Ave.], and understandably they’re concerned about the impact.”
Scott views Hermosa residents as civically engaged. But his stance on the district’s shuttered all-day kindergarten program, for example, suggests that he has not intent to promise them the world.
“I think it was a mistake to go for it,” he said. “I was premature to go to full-day kindergarten without the facilities to support it.”
Speaking with residents, Scott has found that many rejected Measure Q, the school facilities bond measure that was narrowly defeated last fall, because of uncertainty over how the money would be spent. He maintains that his ability to engage with these residents makes him a good choice to bring both boosters and critics into the fold.
“I’ve spoken with lots of residents who voted against Measure Q and are supporting me,” Scott said.ER
