Corruption & Conflicts of Interest
The biggest challenge in any public school district is the undue influence of special interest groups who put the interests of adults before the interests of our kids. Whether financial or ideological, whether on the school board or in the classroom, we aim to expose these conflicts, educate the community and eliminate them so our public schools are places which have only one priority - educating our children.
Politics-Free Schools
Schools should be free of political messages and influences - especially in our classrooms and during instruction. In fact, it's the law. We are partnering with CORE Action on their "Keep Politics Out of Classrooms" campaign to ask teachers to display the following poster in their classrooms and carry out the primary purpose of K-12 education: “As your teacher, I will remain neutral on controversial topics regardless of my personal opinion."
.png)
Politics-Free School Boards
School boards are non-partisan governing bodies which should be free from the influence of political agendas. Unfortunately, many board trustees run for office to advance political agendas and have their campaigns funded by political parties.
Many times these trustees see public schools as the best opportunity to indoctrinate kids into their political view, and they push resolutions, programs and curriculum which promotes those views while excluding others. Many time these trustees are politicians interested in power who are willing to trade their votes for campaign contributions and endorsements by political parties and partisan special interests.
Regardless of the reasons, trustees of any political affiliation should be focused on the same thing - providing a high-quality education to our students. None of that needs to be partisan.
Corruption-Free School Boards
School boards trustees take an oath to put students first and have a fiduciary duty to the district and the community the district serves. That means they cannot vote for anything that benefits special interest groups over the interests of students.
Unfortunately, one special interest group - the teachers unions - have spent decades gaining power on school boards - by funding and endorsing their own candidates for school board - to protect their own financial and political interests over those of students.
Teachers are prohibited by law from serving on school boards. Why? It would be a conflict of interest for them to vote on their own raises. BUT...if they organize into a union, they can endorse and fund the campaign of a board member who will represent their interests just as if they held the seat themselves!
In Carlsbad Unified alone, we have 3 board members were funded and endorsed by the teachers unions - including one who was employed by the union (and now collects a six-figure pension), one who teaches in a neighboring district and negotiates for her own union, and a retired teacher. Their voting records are exactly what you would expect - they vote for raises and benefits for the unions instead of smaller class sizes or updated curriculum and resources for students.
