By David Rolland
Four West Marin men - two ranchers, a contractor, and a retired minister - will vie next Tuesday, Nov. 7, for two seats on Shoreline School District's Board of Trustees.

In the district's central region, Tomales contractor Tim Furlong will attempt to unseat rancher Al Poncia of Tomales, who's been a trustee for 16 years and seeks his fifth term.

To the south, incumbent trustee Carl Munger, a retired reverend and educator from Inverness, will defend his seat against challenger Curtis Fjelstul, who manages George Nunes' E Ranch on Point Reyes.

The seats of trustees Rich McCudden and Clairette Wilson are not being contested and don't appear on the ballot.

Trustee Al Poncia had not intended to run again, but said that some fellow trustees persuaded him to do so to maintain continuity on the board.

He told The Light he believes eight to 10 years is enough for one person to serve on the board.

However, the rancher added, the district in recent years has had much to cope with, including the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding and the development of bilingual education - a controversial program from its onset.

Poncia, 55, said things are getting back to normal, and that the current board has just begun to work together and truly "trust" each other. "We, as a board, are on a roll," he said, "[but] we don't rubber stamp each other. We have diverse opinions.

"This will be my last term [if elected]. There are talented people out there who should be brought into the mix."

Before Poncia got back in the race, he told Furlong that he would not run again. Not wanting to battle for a seat, Furlong saw an open chair and decided to go after it.

Furlong, 50, told The Light Tuesday that trustees have become unapproachable, and that parents in Tomales know his door is always open. He said he "represents a silent majority...

"[Trustees] don't have a good handle on what goes on in the community, or in the district," he said.

Furlong, who coaches girls varsity basketball at Tomales High School, said several teachers at the school urged him to run. Like Poncia, Furlong was born and raised in Tomales.

"Having lived out here for a long time," Furlong said, "you get into the politics of things."

The two candidates hold opposing views on the district's two-year-old bilingual program. The program was started to help Spanish-speaking students keep up with English-speaking students in class, but has not completely satisfied all Latino parents and students in the district.

Poncia, who two years ago twice voted against proposals for a bilingual program, said he will support the program, but has reservations: "I think it takes too much time to get [Latino] kids up to speed."

He added, "I've had people call me this month and say [Latino students] are getting more attention than they should." On the other hand, Poncia said, some Latinos "say they're not getting the bang for their buck."

Asked how the program can be improved, Poncia responded, "We all need to keep our cool and talk about it."

He said Latino parents should take on much of the responsibility for helping their children learn English. "We need to bring the parents into the mix," he said.

Poncia said parents who only speak Spanish in the home are doing their children a disservice and bogging down the bilingual program. "If we have to be so politically correct that we have to tell the parents they have to get on the friggen horse and pull the cart," then so be it, he said.

He stressed that he doesn't want to suppress Latino culture or language, and that his criticism is also directed at some English-speaking parents.

Furlong strongly supports the bilingual program and said that its English-speaking critics are missing the point. Latinos certainly need to be taught English, he said, but Anglos too have much to gain by learning Spanish.

As the Latino community grows, he said, West Marin residents would be wise to learn its language. He said townspeople are lucky to have Latinos the checking their groceries at the market and depositing their checks at the bank. "They are invaluable to those businesses," he said.

Furthermore, the rancher said, employers more and more are searching for job applicants who can communicate with Spanish speakers.

"People don't realize the advantage goes to us," he said. "You better open your eyes and realize that it's important that we are bilingual."

He added that teachers need to set a better example of racial harmony in the classroom, which students can carry out to the playground. Left to their own devices, "kids do fine," he said. "It's adults who cause the problems."

Furlong said he would like to see the district give more attention to those students who need helping keeping up. The "gifted" students generally will take care of themselves, he said. "I perceive myself as someone who's for the other guy."

He said he would like trustees to help set up booster clubs for poorly funded programs like art and music, much as they now do school sports.

In the other contested race, E Ranch manager Fjelstul (pronounced Fee-YEL-stul) emphasizes the need to teach basic skills in his challenge of incumbent Munger.

"I'm primarily doing this for the children," Fjelstul said of his candidacy. "It's the only reason. It's for the education of our kids."

The rancher has three stepdaughters in West Marin School, one of which, he said proudly, is enrolled in the bilingual program. He went to school in Canada and Australia, and received a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from the University of Colorado.

At one time Fjelstul owned a medium-sized dairy in Hawaii. He has lived in Marin County for about 20 years, and has run E Ranch for the past five years.

Having three stepchildren in the district will help him keep in touch with Shoreline at education's fundamental level, Fjelstul said. He'll not only be involved during meetings, but at the dinner table as well, he said.

Fjelstul said he learned at a seminar sponsored by the Marin County Office of Education that candidates might be better off not promising a list of changes.

"If you go in with a lot of [grand] ideas, you're going to fail," he said. "If I get on the board, that's when the work begins."

Above all, he stresses the need to teach basic reading and writing skills to prepare children for standardized tests.

"It's imperative we learn to read and write," he said. "They can have an entire library on the Internet at their fingers, but what good is it if they can't read it?"

Fjelstul pledged to keep government money coming into the district. More than half the district, he notes, is federal parkland not on the property-tax rolls.

His opponent, Carl Munger, is looking to get elected to his third term. He has taught elementary school and for 18 years was headmaster of Midland, a private high school in Santa Barbara. He is also an ordained minister.

At times he volunteers at soup kitchens for the needy, and has served on the Point Reyes National Seashore Interpretation and Education Board. He has three grandchildren in the district.

Munger said this week he is proud of the work accomplished by the B-team, a brainstorming group made up of school administrators, staff, teachers, and trustees.

Like Poncia, Munger said the board is gaining momentum and is now heading in the right direction. "I have a feeling that our board has made lots of strides in gaining trust, and the board is functioning with kids as our main interest," he said.

Munger wants trustees to become members of the different school site councils "and spend more time listening and bringing the administration into school issues."

He said he wants to see "the bilingual method really take hold and work from kindergarten up," and to increase opportunities for English-speaking students to study Spanish language and Latino culture.

Munger also advocates higher teacher salaries. "It's tremendously important that we pay teachers enough so they feel they are professionals and not nursemaids," he said.

"I'm not talking about paying them inordinate salaries, but they ought to be able to make a living."

All told, the Shoreline board is made up of seven trustees from the three regions of the district, which includes the coast from the Point Reyes peninsula north to Bodega Bay.