Danielle Roybal, a children’s advocate, is running for a seat on the Del Mar Union 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 Roybal told us about hers. Why are you running for school board? What makes you a good candidate? I would like to finish the good work I began in the 2022 election. I ran as a concerned parent, teacher supporter and child advocate. Danielle Roybal (Courtesy Danielle Roybal) I have a strong financial background. I opened up the Chase bank at Pacific Highlands Ranch. I have a master’s degree in business administration. I understand budgets and special education law. I have advocated for many children in this district and also understand how to successfully manage and motivate large groups of people (managing up to 150 people in various environments and locations). I consider myself to be a servant leader, open to the feedback of others. I balance empathy and active listening skills with a plan of action to obtain results. I have lived in Carmel Valley for the last 12 years with my husband, a fifth-generation war veteran, and our son. I am also a recording artist and songwriter and strongly support STEAM+. What is the most important issue currently facing your school district? Our biggest issue is the budget. The public has no idea where the money is going, and the board is not publicly disclosing it. DMUSD is community-funded; this means that the funds to run the schools are paid for by our property taxes. We currently have $21 million sitting in the general fund reserves, yet we do not uniformly offer transitional kindergarten (TK), and STEAM+ teachers are on temporary contracts. Litigation is greatly affecting our district and quality of education. Public records requests show approximately over $1 million spent per year fighting parents of students with additional needs. We fundraise through DMSEF efforts, but litigation costs are around the same expenditure. Let’s take a more proactive approach with the community and grant services that are cheaper than costly litigation (not to mention that it’s the right thing to ensure children are properly supported). The funding should be for the kids. What are the top three specific things you would seek to accomplish on the school board? Listen to community concerns and act upon them. I would like to be a bridge within our community to unify parents, teachers and staff. My undergraduate degree is in communications (from UCSD), and I understand the need to unify to work on common goals to achieve great results. I would like to continue working with the community to ensure their voices are heard. I would also like to provide video and Zoom access to board meetings. Let’s help build the public’s trust. Ensure district dollars are utilized wisely. Reduce litigation, and ensure funding actually gets to the children. Bring attorneys in-house and pay them a salary, so that they are not incentivized to start litigation by the billable hour. Permanently fund STEAM+ teachers and transitional kindergarten. We have the funds to do it (currently a 28 percent reserve) — our priorities are simply not in the right place. What would your approach be to district budget planning and spending? What would you do if your district had a budget shortfall? We currently have $21 million sitting in the general fund reserves. This represents almost a 28 percent reserve. The California Department of Education (CDE) places a statutory limitation on school district reserves to 10 percent. The CDE does this in order to ensure funds are dispersed to children. The loophole to this restriction are community-funded districts. However, these districts receive EVEN more funding (through the Local Control Funding Formula) than attendance-based districts. Community-funded districts are usually in very affluent areas (Del Mar, Beverly Hills, Laguna Beach, to a name a few). DMUSD is a community-funded district. DMUSD receives more money from our property taxes and state aid than they would from student attendance. I would follow CDE guidelines with a healthy buffer. This would allow DMUSD to provide additional services for children such as transitional kindergarten (TK) and add STEAM+ classes/teachers to the budget.  How should your school district raise student academic achievement, and what would you do as a school board member to accomplish that? Many parents are currently supplementing their children’s education by hiring private tutors. A district that promotes “igniting genius” in children should include a challenging and varied curriculum that fosters critical thinking. Currently, the district spends thousands on independent education consultants; however, the results are not proven in student academic scores. Instead, I would permanently fund STEAM+ teachers (currently, most are on temporary contracts) and get children excited about learning. It’s proven that by challenging children through additional languages, music, math, science and the arts, we tap into different parts of their brain — that really does ignite genius. In addition, I believe special needs children are amongst some of the most gifted. After all, data shows Einstein, Newton, Edison, Mozart, DaVinci, Van Gogh, Darwin, Gates and Michael Angelo were all neurodivergent. We need to do a better job of supporting this population and reduce litigation by providing children the proper supports. Do you think anything currently offered in school curricula or libraries should be removed? If yes, what, and why? If no, why not? I am currently not aware of any items in the curricula or libraries that are inappropriate. However, I do believe that as a trustee, you are entrusted to represent community voices and make decisions to benefit all children. With this in mind, I believe a school board member should be open to the collective voices of the parents and teachers within the community when developing and selecting curriculum. In addition, I believe children benefit from libraries in the schools. As I understand, two of our most recent schools do not have libraries located within the school. I would like to see libraries within schools going forward. 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 usually a symptom of a deeper problem. Even in corporate environments, it’s been proven that attendance is affected by job satisfaction. There have been shocking teacher satisfaction surveys circulating throughout the community in past years. Teachers have expressed lower morale. The district replied by increasing teacher pay. However, that doesn’t fully address the problem, just like paying a disgruntled employee doesn’t fully increase his/her job satisfaction. Drawing from my expertise managing large teams of people: If a manager is disgruntled, his team will feel the results. The same is true for our schools. Teachers need to feel joy coming to school. Joy is contagious. As our teachers feel accepted and empowered, that will trickle down to the children who will benefit from teacher voices being heard. Better balanced teachers will equate to a better learning environment for our children as well, thus increasing student performance and attendance. Do you think schools should notify parents if their child’s gender identity or presentation at school changes? Why or why not? This is not a topic that will often come up at the elementary school level. However, it’s important to have a discussion around it. I believe in open communication between parents and teachers; each party sharing concerns as appropriate. A child can only thrive in an environment where they are supported; I believe this support should occur at both school and at home. In the end, what matters most is to have a child that is well-adjusted and in a good mental state. If you look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the most basic needs are food, water and safety, but it also includes friendship, family and a sense of connection.