Point Reyes Light - October 19, 2000
Bolinas-Stinson candidates oppose split classrooms
By Stephen Barrett
Candidates for the Bolinas-Stinson Beach School District board of trustees agreed Monday to maintain an acclaimed arts program and keep the district's budget balanced, but differed slightly in their enthusiasm for re-establishing an alternative education program or keeping one grade per classroom at any cost.
The four candidates – Kim Bender, Tomas Krakauer, Matt Lewis, and Robert Mowry – are vying for two seats on the school board. Longtime trustee Carole Brill has chosen not to seek re-election, and incumbent Krakauer is standing for his first re-election since filling a vacancy two years ago.
About 40 residents attended the candidates' night at the Bolinas campus, which was moderated by the district's eighth graders in a question and answer format following the candidates five-minute opening statements.
Trustee Krakauer vowed to support a summer school and early intervention program for children with difficulties. He also proposed adding a conversational Spanish program and adopting a long-term plan for introducing new technology.
Since joing the school board two years ago, Krakauer noted he has earned a Masters in Governance from the State School Board Association. A soccer coach and former school bus driver, Krakauer said he said has always encouraged local youths. "I think the kids are the fruit of our society," he said. "I think our kids are unique, and we should do everything we can to support them."
Contractor Matt Lewis, a graduate from Bolinas-Stinson School District and Tamalpias High, said the district's strong arts program allows its students to learn more creatively, but the district is still failing to provide them with the academic and technology skills needed to succeed in high school and beyond.
He said students from Bolinas and Stinson Beach are disadvantaged and quickly fall behind at Tam High for not having mastered skills like keyboarding.
"Our kids are going to Tam handicapped in their education," he said. "Our kids need to type 35 words per minute or they're put in remedial classes. Let's get them over the hill with a running start, and not send them away with a handicapped education anymore."
Publicist Kim Bender, a former member of the district's School Site Council, said she helped write the district's long-term plan, which placed a priority on developing foreign language and technology programs. She said education is the key to giving children an opportunity to live in communities like Bolinas and Stinson Beach when they grow up.
Mechanic Robert Mowry said the school district should take better advantage of its small classes and under-used computer facilities. "We haven't taken advantage of teaching our kids to use technology," he said.
Of the four candidates, Lewis was most opposed to putting children in classes with mixed grades, an experience he said "destroyed my daughters' hearts." He said mixed-grade classrooms make too many demands on teachers and fail to provide for all the students involved. "No matter what the teachers say, they are not equipped to teach multi-grade level classes," he said.
Bender said she would like to keep classes and grades levels "small and seperate," but added that she is not "philosophically opposed" to putting different grades in a single classroom. Both Mowry and Krakauer said they would keep different grade levels in separate classrooms, unless the decision jeopardized the district's finances.
"The reality is the enrollment is going down," Krakauer said. "We're going to have to look at that. That's the reality. I don't want to ever split classes, but I think our teachers are capable."
All the candidates said they would support an alternative educational program to replace the Pine Gulch classroom, a kindergarten through fifth grade program that was shelved this year due to declining enrollment. However, they also insisted that any new alternative program would need sufficient students and community support to get started.
Krakauer added that an alternative program must somehow be integrated with the rest of the district to prevent it from becoming a school within a school. Lewis said an alternative program would require at least 20 students to make it worthwhile.
Noting that she enrolled in an alternative high school program herself, Bender said she would support efforts to start one, but doubted the need for alternative education at this time. "I just don't think it's a priority right now," she said. "We've got a really small enrollment. We've got 11, 12 students per class. What an ideal situation."
The candidates all agreed that the popular arts program should not be sacrificed to improve other educational programs in the district, nor did they find much conflict between the state's educational standards and community expectations for the schools.