Juan Manuel Vargas, a classified school employee in the local high school district, is running for the Area 3 seat on the Escondido 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 Vargas told us about his. Why are you running for school board? What makes you a good candidate? I’m running for school board with a background as a parent, school employee and community member. I attended Escondido public schools and earned an associate degree in social and behavioral sciences. Juan Manuel Vargas (Courtesy Juan Manuel Vargas) Families and students in my community face long-standing barriers, including overcrowded housing, parents working multiple jobs and children feeling unsafe at home and school — all worsened by the pandemic. School board members must work with all educational partners — parents, staff and teachers — who know what works or what creates barriers for students. As a school employee, I understand the challenges of financial difficulties and feeling undervalued. It’s vital that educational partners earn a livable wage and feel job security. These experiences will ensure that district decisions are grounded in understanding the community that we serve. I am confident in my ability to represent the community effectively and contribute meaningfully as one of the five voices on the board. What is the most important issue currently facing your school district? The most important issue for our school district is raising academic achievement in a way that is both equitable and sustainable, particularly in a community with long-standing social and economic barriers. Pre-pandemic, as a parent I felt that the school district began to gain positive traction on the issue. Obviously when the world shut down, priorities shifted. Now that we’ve begun to adapt to the aftermath of the school closures, I am hopeful we can regain our momentum. What are the top three specific things you would seek to accomplish on the school board? Community: Schools should serve as community hubs, providing not just academic support but also creating and sustaining community partners so we can open the doors to support families with essential services like health care, legal aid and more. With the recent community schools grant, we have a chance to bridge the gap between families and schools. I will support and engage in maximizing such opportunities to enhance our community involvement. Opportunity: Engaging with students, parents, teachers and staff is crucial for shaping effective opportunities. We need to seek and consider input before making decisions to address real challenges and improve our district. Sustainability: Fiscal responsibility is essential. We must strategically fund programs and invest in staff while protecting classrooms and employee jobs from budget cuts. Effective programs need staff support, and staff well-being directly impacts student learning. With my experience as an active classified school employee, I will ensure transparency and sustainability in our district’s initiatives. What would your approach be to district budget planning and spending? What would you do if your district had a budget shortfall? Active school board members need to be engaged in the budget process from the beginning of every fiscal year. I plan on being completely engaged in the process, speaking to all stakeholders — including teachers, classified employees and parents along with our district cabinet members — to ensure that the decisions I am voting on when it comes to the budget are rooted in a thorough understanding of what services our district is able to afford. This engagement will also provide transparency with stakeholders if and when budget shortfalls do happen. This will also enable collaborative solutions to sustain essential programs and keep the cuts as far away from the classroom and staff as possible. How should your school district raise student academic achievement, and what would you do as a school board member to accomplish that? Student academic achievement is looked at through several lenses and is measured in various ways. With that being said, I do not believe there is a one-size-fits-all solution to the issue of struggling academic achievement — but I do think we need to think outside the box. This is why we need to continue to engage with our students, families, teachers and classified employees to ensure that the programs we are implementing have positive measurable outcomes and are sustainable. This engagement fosters opportunities for collaboration to come up with out-of-the-box solutions that are realistic with the goal of supporting our students academically. As a school board member, I too will be one of those stakeholders mentioned, and as long as I do not run into any concerns with the Brown Act, I will engage in these conversations to the best of my ability. Do you think anything currently offered in school curricula or libraries should be removed? If yes, what, and why? If no, why not? I do not think any of the materials currently included in our curricula or libraries should be removed. I have confidence in the vetting processes that ensure the books and curricula are suitable for their intended age groups and reading levels. I believe in the importance of exposing students to a variety of ideas and cultures, and reading is one of the best ways to achieve that. If a book does get challenged, I believe in the opportunity to engage in conversation with stakeholders and go through the proper procedures to ensure we are not removing an opportunity for our students to engage in new ideas that may not align with the person challenging the book. 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 this problem is multifaceted. There are community barriers, such as multiple families living in houses built for one — meanwhile parents are out working multiple jobs to feed their families, making it hard to prioritize their children’s education. Many families have to walk their children to school because of the lack of transportation services to our general education population, making students miss school days when their parents cannot take them to school. There are children who are afraid to be themselves at school because of the current political climate. There are many other factors that are driving student absenteeism. And as a school board member, it should be my job to ensure that we are making the best connections to the community to address it head-on and provide the proper resources to address these and whatever other barriers are in place that prevent our students from being in school. Do you think schools should notify parents if their child’s gender identity or presentation at school changes? Why or why not? Student safety should be at the forefront of every conversation we have at every level of our schools. Creating an environment that is fruitful for our children to learn should be on that same level. As children grow and form their identities, they may struggle to express themselves to their parents but might confide in educators they trust. Laws like California AB 1266 and district policies that protect both students and educators are crucial for maintaining this trust. Outing a student, especially when they are still figuring out their identity, is harmful and irresponsible. Working in education myself, I cannot see how outing a student would be relevant to helping a student. We already deal with things like students contemplating suicide, self-harm, drug use and other issues that need intervention and prevention. Identifying yourself as LGBTQ+ does not constitute similar interventions.