Rosie Higuera, a private school teacher, is running for the Area 5 seat on the Oceanside 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 Higuera told us about hers. Why are you running for school board? What makes you a good candidate? I’m running for trustee to be an impartial advocate for ALL students and families. I WILL bring excellence to the board of education through: high grades, accountability and transparency between administration, board, community, fiscal accountability/responsibility, ensuring tax dollars are spent on student learning/measurable outcomes. I aim to build partnerships between parents, teachers and the board. Rosie Higuera, candidate for Oceanside Unified School Board I’m an outstanding candidate for school board because I am a parent and an educator, youth mentor and family advocate. I’ve been lead teacher, director and teacher trainer, developing strong early education programs that partner with families to build strong, resilient thinkers. My goals are to listen to the community I serve and help make Oceanside schools safe, worthy of the community’s trust and rigorous academic places of learning, preparing students to compete and work in a globally competitive market. Elect a courageous leader who will not bow to the unions or woke ideologies. What is the most important issue currently facing your school district? The most important issue currently facing our school district is the poor grades and lack of accountability. Despite millions that are given to the Oceanside Board of Education, we find that under Dr. Julie Vitale’s leadership, the grades continue to go in the wrong direction! Grades are in the 30s and 40s in key areas such as reading, writing, math and science — the grades are even more dismal for the special needs and military students. The current school board members continue to vote to the detriment of students and families, voting to give Dr. Vitale raises, rewarding her for her bad policies and poor results in fulfilling her basic duties of learning outcomes. What are the top three specific things you would seek to accomplish on the school board? The top three areas I would seek to accomplish on the board: Investigate why students are failing in reading, writing, math and science and come up with solutions; take a hard look at the budget determine where the waste is and where we can allocate dollars to student achievement; and welcome parent involvement by listening to their concerns and actually addressing and resolving those issue when possible. What would your approach be to district budget planning and spending? What would you do if your district had a budget shortfall? My approach to district budget planning and spending would be to see where each dollar is being spent and why, see the efficiency or inefficiency of each program, evaluate each program and plan spending with student safety and academic success as the TOP priorities. If my district had a budget shortfall, we would evaluate where we can cut spending and make the difficult decisions necessary to thrive. How should your school district raise student academic achievement, and what would you do as a school board member to accomplish that? Our school district should raise student academic achievement by hiring and continually training teachers and staff members of high caliber who hold students to high academic and moral standards, holding students responsible for their behavior and achievement, partnering with families as the most important teacher, advocate and foundation for student outcomes. I would accomplish this by empowering teachers and staff to do their jobs with excellence, holding them accountable for measurable outcomes, encourage the teachers to communicate regularly with parents on students’ progress and come up with an individualized learning plan where parents are actively supporting teachers and teachers are actively supporting parents with respect and accountability for all. Do you think anything currently offered in school curricula or libraries should be removed? If yes, what, and why? If no, why not? Pornographic, graphic novels depicting family rape, homosexual sex or any sex for that matter, literature that promotes high-risk behavior such as gay dating apps, sexting and exploring your sexuality with all genders are HIGHLY INAPPROPRIATE, dangerous/detrimental for innocent young minds and SHOULD NOT be accessible to minors in school libraries that are paid for by tax dollars! Highly sexualized/radicalized material should not be interwoven into taxpayer-funded public education. XXX Sex Ed funded by Planned Parenthood, the Trevor Project, LGBTQ centers or political activists have no business bringing their political ideologies into the classroom that undermine many families’ values. Curriculum that is divisive in regards to race, hatred of self, country and family also has no place in school. Social emotional learning and diversity, equity and inclusion are divisive, destructive tools that undermine strong societies and are wasteful spending! Let’s focus on a world-class education that is globally competitive! What do you think is driving student absenteeism in your district, and what would you as a school board member do to reduce it? I believe absenteeism in my district is driven by the rogue Oceanside board that’s antagonistic towards parents, constituents and taxpayers, and schools are NOT SAFE. The boards removed KOCT cameras, moved meetings to 5 p.m., limited speaking to 3 minutes on ALL agendized items and used lawfare and letters from attorneys to threaten, silence and intimidate anyone disagreeing with their narrative or holding them to account. Many don’t agree with the dangerous ideologies that are aggressively pushed upon students and have lost trust in this board because they put STUDENTS LAST. The voting record of Mike Blessing, Raquel Alvarez, Stacy Begin, Eleanor Evans and Nancy Licona are almost always 5-0 to the detriment of students and families. If our students fail, they are our future, and that is FAILURE for all of us! I would change this by bringing back academic excellence, accountability, transparency and trust and vote in favor of families! Do you think schools should notify parents if their child’s gender identity or presentation at school changes? Why or why not? The schools should most definitely NOTIFY parents of their child’s gender identity or presentation, because the parents are the most important person, teacher, guardian in a child’s life. A child’s brain is not fully developed until age 25, they need their family’s unconditional love and support at all times but especially during childhood.