Devesh Vashishtha, a family physician and medical director of a City Heights clinic, is running for the Area A seat on the Poway Unified School District board of trustees. The San Diego Union-Tribune asked all the candidates running for school board in districts around San Diego County about their policies, plans and priorities. Here’s what Vashishtha told us about his. Why are you running for school board? What makes you a good candidate? This is a difficult time for PUSD. Our superintendent was recently fired, and we are navigating a budget shortfall. In this moment, we need ethical, compassionate leaders with policy expertise who will listen to community input and guide PUSD to a brighter future. Courtesy Devesh VashishthaTrustee Area A Candidate Devesh Vashishtha (Courtesy Devesh Vashishtha) As a father of two young children and a family medicine physician who provides primary care for all ages and leads a community clinic, I am well-positioned to serve as a trustee. I have 10-plus years of healthcare advocacy experience, and I am one of two physicians on the statewide Medi-Cal committee that determines medication coverage for 15 million Californians. Because of my unique skill set that would complement our existing trustees, our campaign is endorsed by current trustee Darshana Patel. I am comfortable navigating complex systems to serve my patients, and I will use these skills to deliver results for PUSD students, teachers and community members. What is the most important issue currently facing your school district? For the next several years, PUSD will struggle with a budget shortfall. This is a complex issue caused by decreased state revenue from capital gains taxes. It is compounded by the expiration of onetime COVID-related funding, a lower-than-expected cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) and unfunded mandates. As we work to solve this budget shortfall, I am uniquely poised to help PUSD navigate the complex relationship between state, local and district-level funding. I have worked to build connections with leaders at various levels of government who endorse our campaign, including City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert and Darshana Patel, the current PUSD area A trustee who is running for California Assembly District 76. If I am elected as a PUSD trustee, I would ensure that PUSD maintains a strong relationship with these leaders, allowing us to make budgetary and policy decisions in sync with local and state governments. What are the top three specific things you would seek to accomplish on the school board? Supporting teachers: I am very concerned about the challenges our teachers face in affording to live and work in PUSD. As a young person with a young family, I am acutely aware of the perfect storm of student debt, astronomical housing costs and high child care costs. I will advocate for fair wages and benefits for our teachers, and I support increasing resources in the classroom. Student mental health: I want PUSD to prioritize student mental health, especially around social media use and screen time. We can include a curriculum that teaches children how to build healthy relationships with technology. We should also strengthen recent parental efforts to create mental health crisis response teams across high schools in PUSD. Data-driven policymaking: With my medical and clinical research training, I believe strongly in using data to guide policy. I would bring this data-based approach to decision-making for PUSD. What would your approach be to district budget planning and spending? What would you do if your district had a budget shortfall? As a medical director of a large clinic with 35,000 patient visits per year, I have the financial understanding to manage a complex budget. PUSD is a very large district, with annual revenue and expenditures of $550 million. Because the state of California requires school districts to report their budget before the official state budget is released, we must prioritize having sufficient reserves during each budget cycle. PUSD had adequate reserves this past fiscal year, and we were able to weather the current budget shortfall without letting go of any staff. In addition to maintaining reserves, we must always look five years ahead and anticipate future challenges. We should refinance bonds to secure more favorable interest rates and sell unused parcels of land to generate revenue. We must learn from history and never repeat the “billion-dollar bond” financial fiasco of 2011. We should prioritize fiscal responsibility in decision-making. How should your school district raise student academic achievement, and what would you do as a school board member to accomplish that? Well-supported, outstanding teachers empower high-achieving students. At PUSD, we must ensure that our teachers have the support they need for fantastic instruction. In addition to supporting teachers, we must implement programming to increase the depth and breadth of education, so that PUSD graduates are ready to take center stage in a global economy. We can achieve depth by expanding upon our partnership with colleges including Palomar and Cal State San Marcos, and adding UC San Diego soon. In these programs, motivated PUSD students take courses that count for both high school and college credit. We can improve the breadth of educational offerings by increasing our language pathways starting in elementary school. We already offer Spanish and Mandarin immersion, and I hope to see more languages included soon. I want PUSD graduates to be well-rounded, globally-minded citizens. Do you think anything currently offered in school curricula or libraries should be removed? If yes, what, and why? If no, why not? PUSD, like all public school districts, should be a place with free and open exchange of ideas. I want our children to hear diverse stories and also learn about people who may look, worship or love differently. I do not support removing material from the PUSD curricula or libraries. I am very concerned about the book-ban movement, which stokes unfounded fears and seeks to suppress the stories of diverse groups including LGBTQ+ people. Suppressing knowledge is fundamentally un-American and over time can lead to dangerous societal changes including authoritarianism. If there are ideas that our students or families disagree with, we should equip our students to articulate arguments around these ideas. This process drives intellectual development, avoids suppression of ideas and makes world-class learners. What do you think is driving student absenteeism in your district, and what would you as a school board member do to reduce it? Absenteeism is one of the most important issues for PUSD. This is because high levels of chronic absenteeism (18 days, or 10 percent of school days missed or more per year) incur financial penalties from the state. One of the greatest driving factors of absenteeism at PUSD is that post-COVID, our families have a different mindset about in-person attendance. Virtual and hybrid models do not substitute for the benefits of in-person learning. As a school board member, I would work with the district to highlight the importance of attending school. I would emphasize the connectedness that comes from attending in-person and support an attendance awareness campaign across PUSD. With my medical background, I would help PUSD create guidance for families about what is considered an appropriate physical or mental health reason to miss school. Do you think schools should notify parents if their child’s gender identity or presentation at school changes? Why or why not? California state law clearly establishes that schools cannot identify parents or guardians about changes in gender identity. I do not believe that schools should notify parents about changes in gender identity. PUSD is an inclusive district where students of all backgrounds are welcomed and supported, and I want to continue this approach.