Doris Blum: Veteran Candidate Aims to Maintain Stability

Doris Blum, 78, came to Glendora in 1969 with her husband specifically to raise their two young children in the Glendora Unified School District. After years of being involved in PTA’s, Blum was elected to the school board in 1983. After 28 years on the board, she has seen the district through many phases of economic lows to brighter financial days.

As schools continue to face potentially devastating budget cuts, the long-time school board veteran felt it was not her time to step down.

After 28 years on the school board, why run again?

I think people will understand why I won’t run again after this term, if I were elected. At any rate, I wasn’t sure I would run this time. But right now, things are so difficult and I think they will be even more difficult come next year and the year after. When you have a new member on the board, unless they have been involved for a period of time, it takes time to learn how to be a board member. While they are taking the time to do that, they sometimes have issues that aren’t really issues but they believe them to be. It can make some of the community believe that some things are possible that really aren’t.

To have stability and people who know the history is quite important. I am the board member who is around town, I have time to be at Coordinating Council and all the other events, and I think it’s important that a board member do that.  I just think the kinds of contributions that I make, along with the continuity is important.

The biggest concern facing school districts is the budget. How are you going to address the budget if re-elected to the school board?

Schools are in a big transition with funding, and we really need a different way of funding schools in California. If we don’t get a different funding stream, we will always be struggling like this.

Right now when we talk about the January budget, we don’t have a clue. If the budget comes in at less as they predicted it to, and it has every month, the triggers will be activated and automatically, schools will be cut $2 billion. For us in Glendora, that means $2 million. I’m not sure what a new board member would do with that, and I’m not sure if anyone really knows what they are going to do with that. We’re going to have to make some decisions over the next few years and they will involve priorities and those of us with time spent and knowledge with what has been successful, are in better position to make the decision on those priorities.

What are we going to do with even less funding than we have today? That’s going to be even more difficult. We have cut into the muscle and we’re into the bone now. It is an almost impossible task and for someone new to the job, I think it will be overwhelming. I just don’t know what they can offer. We can talk about innovation and I love innovation and we can talk about that too.

When we talk about technology, I don’t see that we will have electronic textbooks in the next three to five years. Will the licenses be small enough that we can afford to get readers for all of our kids? I don’t think so. We will have to look into it for the future, but with budgets as they are now, I don’t know where we would go with that.

How has District of Choice impacted the district and what do you see for its future in the district?

Our enrollment has been in decline for a long time and part of that is the birthrate, with it going down again. District of Choice will only help us for so long. I was reading about Walnut Valley Unified and they were talking about declining enrollment there again. They have had District of Choice for several years and they are again talking about declining enrollment.

We run one of the businesses with the least predictability of anything. When we crawled out of decline, I didn’t think we’d fall right back into decline but we have with a vengeance. With District of Choice we do what we can do and the best we can for the kids that we have now. Our kids only have one year in fourth grade. They have 13 years with us and they’re gone and if they had a bad year, it will make a huge impact on a young life. Really, I haven’t seen any negatives of District of Choice. Many of the kids who come to us through District of Choice come from private schools. Many of the parents are very involved in their children’s education.

District of Choice saved us from a terrible state of decline, but who knows if it will continue to do so. But right now, we are seeing some great results through District of Choice.

As the oldest candidate in the race how do you feel about age raised as a topic of discussion leading up to the election?

If I didn’t think I was could do the job and perform the tasks ahead of me, I wouldn’t run. I still think I have a lot left to offer the school board and I don’t think my age has been an issue.

What concerns would you have if a non-incumbent were elected to the school board?

I look at [Candidate] Cory [Ellenson] and what he suggests he brings is an understanding of the students. I’m sure every person who went to school has an understanding or perspective of a student. Every person who has been to school has an understanding of school.

I have seen successful board members who have joined the board young. But when I joined the board, my children had gone through the all the levels of K through 12 education…Personally, I think the best person for the job is someone who has had children go through all grade levels because you know what the issues are for each of those years. To not have had that experience is a huge learning curve. Those of us who have had families or have families have gone through a great deal of experiences, and the only way to know about these experiences is to have been there and done that. [Candidate] Irene [Miller] has kids, but -- as far as I know -- she hasn’t been involved in PTA’s or other school organizations.

I think [Candidate] Doug [Ferrell] and I at least have that background to face whatever challenges we are going to face.