Candidate Q & A: David Rose

Glendora Patch asked the candidates for the Charter Oak Unified School Board to answer questions before the Nov. 5 election. All the candidates answered the same questions via email.

Name: David Rose

Age: 51

Occupation: Special Education Teacher

1. Please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background and why you should be elected.
I am a parent of three kids attending Charter Oak schools and have lived in the Charter Oak area since 1999. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Science and a Master of Arts degree in Special Education. I have taught at the high school level for a total of 13 years now; six years at South Hills High in West Covina and I am now  in my seventh year at San Gorgonio High in San Bernardino. I have a wonderful wife of 25 years and we as a family attend St. Louise Catholic Church every Sunday.

I should be elected to the board because I believe that since I left the board in 2009, the district is going in the wrong direction. The district is losing money every year due to declining enrollment. As of today, parents are taking kids out of the district and sending them to other school districts when possible, believing that kids deserve to be in better schools. There is a group of parents trying hard to turn things around at Badillo Elementary school which is now in their third year on the Program Improvement list. Our administrators, athletic director, and football coaches have their kids or grandkids in private school or in another school district. What does this say about Charter Oak? When I joined the board in 2005, we worked together and in 2007, we created a new vision to move forward with plans to create a competitive & rigorous academic learning environment. For example, we moved sixth graders from the Royal Oak Middle school to elementary schools to create a better and safer atmosphere for the young students. Many parents supported this idea.

We established a new day care center over at the Sunflower campus and we increased funding for technology. Today, I believe that the board mismanaged the budget. Teachers needed extra funding for their classroom while parents are sending their kids to another districts and taking money with them.. For example, in 2009, the current board hired an energy consultant firm from Texas at a cost of $600,000 over five years to tell us when and how to turn off the lights. That is about $12,000 a month over five years, and get this; it is a guaranteed contract. When the board made decision to cut deep into the budget, they kept the firm intact but gave out a dozen pink slips to teachers. That is not acceptable to me. We could have used that extra money for the classrooms and teachers. The most shocking revelation is that the board had paid $10,000 to buy a software program similar to what we pay for our tax preparation software program, but at a cost of about $60 at a warehouse store.

In the last election, the incumbents promised voters that a new swimming pool would be built at the high school within one year after the passing of the $47 million dollar bond measure and as of today, we haven’t seen a single shovel of dirt dug up yet. Have you noticed dead grass at many of our campuses? Parents that send their kids to play for AYSO are complaining now how dry the grass is and that they are concerned about the safety of their kids. I made a decision to run again to give voters a chance to look at all of the candidates and I am going to let them decide how they want our district to run. But I can turn things around. I am not afraid to take up new challenges as we face a difficult task to sustain our limited budget in the next four years. 



2. What do you think distinguishes you from the other candidate? What do you bring to the table?
I think I have the advantages over the incumbents. I have a good sense of understanding about the new Common Core Standards and I know how we should prioritize our budget because I am also a teacher. I am familiar with Special Education laws. I have been on the board previously for one term and I’m very familiar with the budget.

I consider myself an outsider because I want to be an independent voice on the board. Unlike the other candidates who are campaigning together as a team; and they almost always vote the same way. I do not cater to favorism that exists in our district. I will ask questions about our $47 million bond measure and how we should spend it to improve the image of our district. However, if elected to the board, I will move ahead to implement the district reorganization. I am in favor of allowing Glendora residents in the Charter Oak area to unite with the Glendora USD and San Dimas residents in the Charter Oak area to join the Bonita USD to be with the rest of the San Dimas residents. The Covina residents in the Charter Oak area can hook up with the Covina Valley USD as one district. This is cost effective and the best part is that teachers and staff will have job security because the three districts individually have a strong financial base in health care and retirement.




3. How do you plan on working with the school board to address the needs of students, staff and faculty?
I believe we must maintain academic rigor for all of our students and we must put money in the classroom. In addition, I want to assure teachers and staff that their jobs will be protected at all costs and that includes a bold decision on my part to move ahead with district reorganization.

I must think how to provide job protection for teachers and staff in the next ten years. We can’t be worried about the name, “Charter Oak” as it cannot save jobs and money. I have no doubt that the culture in each school will remain the same even after the changes in boundaries through district reorganization. However, I believe we must find a stable district with strong financial footing that can pay teacher’s health care and retirement. We cannot afford to see our district cripple due to lack of funding such as we have seen with the city of Detroit.

I want to board to hear what I have to say. Certainly, it is up to the entire board to decide what kind of future the Charter Oak School District should be, but we cannot pretend that all is well and then they give out pink slips to teachers every year and borrow money to sustain our budget.



4. What are the most pressing issues facing the community? How would you approach and resolve these issues?
Declining enrollment is the biggest concern. Right now, the district cannot sustain itself due to lack of funding. The board is desperate to find ways to bring in new students to increase funding to the budget. The board has no choice but to allow 500 kids to transfer in from another school districts using certain criteria that the laws permit. However, about 100 students in our district already have transferred out. The transferred-in kids are the ones that keep Charter Oak going and it is scary to think that one day the new law would stop all transfer issues and we would have no help whatsoever from the State.

My recourse is to declare our district as a District of Choice. That option is to open up our borders to allow up to 1,000 students to transfer in without the approval of other districts. Because of a new funding mechanism, the local control funding formula (LCFF), will average out the cost of ADA per student and I came up with about $6,900 dollar per student. We multiply that by 1,000 and we can easily add about $6.9 million more to our budget! It is simple and easy to do.

However, the most significant recourse is to apply for district reorganization. That is, to allow portions of several cities their residents to join other city school districts. The reunification makes sense in term of saving money and to provide job protection to teachers and staff.

It is time to move on and oddly enough, one of our Assistant Superintendents once wrote in her Master thesis about Charter Oak and said that she predicted that one day Charter Oak itself will disappear or vanish into the unknown.