Area 1
Anna Hermann
AnnaFights4Kids.com
Attorney, parent
Political support:
Democratic Party of Sacramento County and other groups
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
For nearly 20 years — as a parent and a community advocate — I have worked in this district and been effective in making positive change. I’ve engaged parents and teachers, I understand the issues and as a parent myself I have a clear understanding of where we need to go and why.
Why are you running?
We can and must do better for our kids. With a seat at the table, I can help institutionalize sustainable practices and create a long-term budget.
We need to rebuild trust and create financial sustainability so we can focus on our kids. I have the experience and courage to do that.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
Far too many students of color are expelled or involuntarily transferred and suspended — in fact, a recent Black Parallel School Board, NAACP and SDSU study shows that SCUSD expels and suspends more children of color per year than all of LAUSD — a far larger school district.
We need to use restorative practices to keep children on campus and learning. We need to work together to create an education environment that is anti-racist and provides training to all involved — educators, administrators, and parents — so we can do better to keep children in school and address their needs. And we need to be public and transparent about the process, while purposefully centering Black and brown voices in the work ahead.
As a parent whose daughter has embraced a non-traditional role in gender identity, I feel particularly aware of creating a safe place for every student, no matter how they identify. Every student needs access to all the services and support that will allow them to live and learn without fear of harassment.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
Here are things I’ve already worked on in the district to help with the achievement gap:
Tara Jeane
Tara4SacCity.org
Teacher, education advocate
Political support:
Sacramento City Teachers Association and California Teachers Association
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
My experience as a classroom teacher and education advocate at the local, state, and national levels has given me both hands-on experience and a [high level] view of public education. I know how to bring people together, how to have hard conversations, and how to ensure that all needs are considered as decisions are made. I believe our school board, school district, and labor partners can work together to make the constructive change our students deserve.
Why are you running?
I want to do more for kids. I’ve taught around 3,500 students in 17 years in the classroom, I’ve lobbied our local, state, and national leaders for what our schools need, and I want to do more for our students here in Sacramento.
Did you know that on our seven-person school board we don’t have a teacher?
My entire career has been about kids. I’ve worked with my colleagues collaboratively to solve any problem that we’ve faced in education. I know how to read district budgets and Local Control and Accountability Plans, I understand how collective bargaining can and should work, and I’m excited to put a teacher voice on our school board.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
While a glaring issue is the high suspension rates of black students, race and equity issues go much further.
BIPOC students are overidentified in special education programs and underrepresented in specialized, advanced programs. BIPOC students are more likely to get into trouble for behavior that doesn’t get their white peers into trouble. BIPOC teachers and staff are both underrepresented and report experiencing descrimination and harassment.
Additional equity issues include our poor and houseless students, since poor economic conditions often create barriers to student learning, and our immigrant and refugee students, who have experienced traumatic separation from home and often family, and our LGBTQ students, who are at significantly increased risk for suicide.
As a school board member, I believe we must partner with our educators, students, and community to open up a conversation that asks how we can make change together. Only through collaboration can we create a healthy, thriving school district for ALL students.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
Too often a higher-income area can provide supplemental, hands-on experiences with arts, science, history, and travel, while a lower-income area becomes technology driven and test focused.
The good news is that the Local Control Funding Formula (LCAP) is designed to provide additional resources to the students who need them. As a school board member, I will advocate that these resources create academic opportunities for these students, because a school system that believes in student potential and invests resources in their success will close the “achievement” gap.
Area 2
Jasjit Singh
Jasjit4Sac.com
Nonprofit director, lawyer, former teacher
Political support:
Wellstone Democrats and other groups
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
I am a former high school teacher, and the board president of the largest youth organization of its kind in the United States. I attended law school after teaching, with the hopes of becoming a lawyer for good, someone dedicated to creating lasting and impactful change for our communities. I am currently the Director of Programs at California Change Lawyers, where I lead our grants, scholarships, and policy work.
I am proud to have recently co-authored an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States asking them to uphold diversity in our schools. Between the classroom, boardroom, and courtroom, I have almost 20 years of experience working with our young folks.
Why are you running?
I joined parents, teachers, students, staff, and community members during the 8-day Sacramento City Teachers Association strike that ended in early April. As a former teacher myself, I was extremely disappointed to hear that the Board was asking teachers to take a $10,000 pay cut, while voting in favor of giving the superintendent a raise.
I’m running because I know I can do better. I know that I would advocate to fund our record surplus to recruit and retain teachers, provide them with fair salaries, support their mental health needs, and further their professional development. I’m running because I know I would advocate to fill our schools with nurses, social workers, and psychologists. I’m running because I am unafraid to speak up and unafraid to vote in opposition, when doing so is the absolutely right thing to do.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
There is no ‘one glove fits all’ approach to education. Students come from various socioeconomic backgrounds, with lived experiences, from historically neglected or underrepresented backgrounds, and all this requires some level of individualized support. Instead, with the board’s failure to fully commit to teacher salaries, mental health, and professional development, students with high needs suffer the most.
A recent report showed that Sacramento City Unified School District has a suspension rate of 13.5% for Black students, in comparison to the overall 3.5% suspension rate average in California. This means Sacramento City Unified has the third highest suspension rate for black students across almost 1,000 districts in the state. It is well established that suspensions and expulsions lead to direct interaction with the criminal system and exacerbates the path into the school to prison pipeline.
The district’s recent reports indicated an 82% overall graduation rate, and 42% A-G course completion, which are required courses to be eligible for UC or CSU admission. When broken down by race or even by individual high schools, the data tells a stark story. Black students had a graduation rate of 71% and only 28% were qualified under A-G course completion. Latinx students had an 82% graduation rate and only a 31% A-G course completion rate.
I will visit every racial and equity issue brought to my attention, to build a clear and concise plan to address gaps such as the ones listed here. I am running to increase transparency, build a system of accountability, and commit to equitable spending. My goal is to build a school system that supports our teachers, listens to the concerns of our parents, and puts our kids first.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
To address the achievement gap in the district, I will work to ensure all schools have adequate staff in classrooms and in the administrative offices. This includes advocating to have an adequate number of counselors and mental health professionals on campuses, proportionate to the population and its need.
Addressing the achievement gap issue in the district requires one to address the racial segregation in the district as well. While most of the district is composed of Latinx students, many of those students attend some of the lowest performing schools with some of the highest socio-economic issues.
I think it’s also imperative to revisit the Local Control and Accountability Plan, which would address the local control funding formula. Understanding how the district is funded and bringing reform to how that funding is distributed could be a major way to close the achievement gap.
All district employees should be required to complete racial sensitivity training, with annual refresher courses. Other ways to improve conditions would be to update handbooks so they identify language and vocabulary that may offend others or be considered unacceptable. Human resources guidelines should specifically provide recourse for racial harassment, and explicitly state a zero-tolerance policy.
The district should also hire a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer full-time. Currently, the district has only hired a liaison.
Leticia Garcia
LeticiaGarcia4SchoolBoard.com
Education advocate, SCUSD school board trustee, parent
Political support:
No public endorsements received; married to California Assembly member Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento)
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
For the last ten years, I have been an advocate for public education — advocating from budgets to policies — to help students succeed.
As a Sacramento Unified School Board Trustee, I have successfully worked to:
- Expand opportunities and programs for students and families, like universal pre-K and before and after school programs.
- Increase workforce investments by adopting fair contracts for workers
- Lead the $750 million Measure H funds to improve school facilities
- Secure $1 million in state funds for California Technical Education so that students have more options after graduation
Why are you running?
I am the mom of 14-year old daughters who attend our schools. I know firsthand the opportunities and challenges we face, and the need for stability. I am running for re-election because I am committed to rebuilding our district and getting our schools back on solid ground to meet student needs.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
I want to ensure that funds, programs and services support the students and schools with the highest needs.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
Further expanding preschool and transitional kindergarten to our youngest learners, and continuing to support students academically and emotionally to catch them up to grade level standards. It's important to also support students who need accelerated learning.
I am running for re-election because I am committed to rebuilding our district and getting our schools back on solid ground to meet student needs.
Area 6
Darrel Woo (Incumbent: Currently holds this seat)
DarrelWooForSchoolBoard.com
SCUSD school board trustee, former teacher, part-time professor
Political support:
Stonewall Democrats of Greater Sacramento and other groups
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
I am the incumbent school board member, and a former teacher. I've made hard decisions to better the learning experience of our students and put the kids and their education first. I also have the experience and relationships with the schools and faculty members where it counts in order to implement these improvements. We have come a long way since reopening our schools and working hard on getting our students back on track. This year, we have a positive budget which will allow us to give more services to students.
Why are you running?
I am running for re-election because we are making headway and progress toward getting our students back on track since re-opening the schools since the pandemic. I would like to continue doing the hard work necessary to continue improving our schools and educational system.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
We are addressing race and equity with our multi-tiered support services (MTSS), which is a systematic approach that incorporates different levels of services which the students need.
I have been an integral part in adding ethnic studies to the high school curriculum, decreasing class sizes in elementary schools, and helped create a partnership between the district and Regional Transit to give free bus rides to students.
Some of my accomplishments have been ensuring lunches were prepared and distributed to students and their families during the school closures due to the hazardous air quality from nearby wildfires, and more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
For me, food literacy also became a priority, and after partnering with Floyd Farms next to Leataata Floyd Elementary School, the board is able to provide students with fresh vegetables which are grown by children who learn to tend the vegetables, where they come from, and how to eat healthy.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
When COVID hit, the focus shifted from in-person classroom time to students needing to learn at home while maintaining classroom culture and community.
Serving on the board, I was successful in advocating for children’s rights to quality education by providing more than 20,000 computers to students in the district in the first month of the pandemic closures and partnering with Comcast to provide Wi-Fi to students, including utilizing school buses to be hot spots for students with spotty Wi-Fi [at home].
I was also instrumental in opening vaccine clinics at many schools and vaccine testing stations at Serna Center during the pandemic. When schools were reopened, I made sure they opened with updates including clean water stations, air conditioning and HEPA filters and ensured classrooms were thoroughly cleaned and repainted.
Taylor Kayatta
Kayatta.com
Attorney, Accountant, Parent
Political support:
Democratic Party of Sacramento County and other groups
What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
I have both the professional background and the personal motivation to fix our schools. I am driven by the desire to prevent other families from experiencing the problems my family did obtaining special education services for my son. I spent five years as an auditor for the state, looking into departments, programs and school districts. I am a certified public accountant with a foundation in audit experience.
I know how a school district should be run, and I recognize when a school board is not delivering on its responsibilities to ensure proper district function. I am also an attorney who has worked for multiple government agencies. I know how to ask the questions that need to be asked. I know how to fight for our students and communities.
Why are you running?
Our students deserve a voice that recognizes and understands the need for improvement in how our school system is run. I got involved in closely following my school district when my family couldn’t get my son the special education services he needed. Since then, I have unfortunately found that the systemic issues preventing us from getting services for our son seem to exist throughout the district. Teachers and individual administrators appear to mean well and want to help, but barriers always seem to pop up. I am running to hold our district to task for these failures and to ensure that families in the future will not experience failures my family experienced.
What are your views on race and equity issues?
As I have spoken with other parents in the district and read the data, I have been disturbed to see just how differently black and brown students in my district are treated than some of their peers – and not just because they are more likely to attend schools in less wealthy areas. They are suspended at disproportionate rates, their parents are not invited into conversations with teachers and administrators the same as other parents and services and programs relevant to their lived experiences are not prioritized.
As a board member, I will make sure to pay attention to the needs and interests of the entire community. I will take a combined macro- and micro-approach to leadership: focus on the needs of school sites in my area while recognizing the larger picture and working on systemic changes. Most importantly, this will mean really listening. I will solicit input from and listen to representatives of less privileged schools to understand their needs. I will appropriately balance what I’m hearing from some vocal community members against what I might not be hearing from others. I will make sure that the district gathers the appropriate data about the needs of all of our schools and the entire community, so that the board can act on good information.
How do you plan to address the achievement gap?
Our schools are the cornerstone of our community, and if they are failing to provide the basics of education for students then our whole community will be worse off. For many children, addressing achievement gaps means improving the general quality of instruction around core subjects. I strive to change that by having a board that holds our administrators accountable for doing what they set out to do. My support will be around hearing the best plans from the experts and making sure that whatever plans the board agrees with are fully implemented.
I plan to pay specific attention to the needs of children with disabilities — a focus that I found to be missing in this district through my own family's experience getting my son speech services. The school district can and should address issues affecting subsets of our community like students with disability simultaneously as it works to improve education around core subjects.
If a child with exceptional needs requires additional support, then they should get it in an appropriate manner to continue to learn core subjects. Focusing on the needs of some kids also shows us how to make education better for all kids. The concept of universal design for learning is something that accomplishes this and which I support. Support which may be necessary for someone with exceptional needs may also be something worth offering to the entire class.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly identified Jasjit Singh's endorsements. He is endorsed by the Wellstone Democrats in addition to other groups.
Srishti Prabha is an education reporter and Report For America corps member in collaboration with CapRadio and The Sacramento Observer. Their focus is K-12 education in Sacramento’s Black communities.
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