A conversation with ... Luan Rivera 

Luan B. Rivera is the 2005-06 President of the California School Boards Association, and a member of the Ramona Unified School District Board of Education in San Diego County since 1994.

As a former teacher and long-time school and community volunteer, Rivera acknowledges that California’s public schools face unprecedented challenges in an era of record deficits and increasing state and federal mandates. She holds both a multiple-subject teaching credential and an English as a Second Language certificate. She is the youth coordinator of the Yellow Ribbon Suicide Prevention Program and has participated in numerous activities designed to enhance tolerance among diverse cultures.

Rivera earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and a master’s degree from Roosevelt University in Chicago. Rivera served on CSBA’s Delegate Assembly for seven years and is a graduate of CSBA’s Masters in Governance Program. She has served on numerous CSBA committees and task forces, and continues to serve on the board of the Cities, Counties and Schools Partnership and as a delegate to the National School Boards Association.

Recently, California Schools Managing Editor Kristi Garrett sat down with Rivera to ask about her goals for the coming year and what she thinks schools can do to best help students from a variety of backgrounds.

You’ve spent your career working with young people, especially young people in trouble. What challenges do adolescents face and how can schools help?

We have families with economic pressures, families that are breaking up and students who are struggling with those situations. There is violence in some of our communities and gang-related activity that really impacts our students. I think a lot of our students are really struggling with the issues of today’s society, in addition to the fact that adolescence is a difficult time of life for everyone. A struggling student may feel very isolated and may not really have someone who can support them. But I do think there are things schools can do to help students.

I know it’s difficult; some of our schools have become very large. Their economic resources and time resources are strained by the pressures placed upon them by high-stakes tests. We have focused our curriculum and energy on the development of math and reading skills. But I think schools need to pay attention to the emotional needs of the students and their well-being. Unfortunately, one of the things that schools have cut back on in California is counselors. Most of our counselors have been forced to deal basically with scheduling issues and don’t necessarily have the time to work with students on the affective problems they have. We can look for community organizations to partner with to help bring some of these services onto campuses, but there are other things that schools can do, as well. There are programs out there to develop our students as peer listeners and peer coaches, giving students someone to connect to on campus. I’ve heard of schools where the staff goes through the list of students enrolled in the school and they ask, ‘Who knows this person? Who feels they have a connection with them?’ And then they make sure that there is some one-to-one matching going on so that someone is looking out for every student.

That’s great advice, which leads me to wonder: you were already quite busy doing what you could to benefit students in a meaningful way as a teacher, parent and board member in your local area. What made you decide to pursue education policy-making on a larger scope as President of CSBA?

You know, that was an easy decision. I am so very committed to public education; I feel as though its success is crucial to the continued success of our democratic society. And I felt the need to impact policy on a broader level, because I could clearly see how state and federal policies were impacting our schools. I knew that in order for schools to survive and continue to flourish in the future, that we would have to have a strong voice in Sacramento and in Washington, D.C. We need to ensure that decisions made at the state and federal level really benefit schools and not harm them.

Do you have any particular goals for your year as President?

Yes, I do. I have long been concerned about the lack of funding in California schools, and of course that’s been exacerbated by the current budget crisis in our state and our school system. I would say that this is the most difficult year that I’ve ever seen schools face, and I’ve been involved with public education for a very long time. One of the things that CSBA is doing this year is rolling out an adequate funding campaign for schools. We’re going to look at just what it costs for us to educate students in the state to meet our high standards – and we need to meet all of their needs, not just focus on a particular test, but cover all aspects of the curriculum.

One of my other goals is to continue to address the achievement gap. It’s absolutely essential that we make sure resources are directed toward students who are struggling. We need to ensure that the resources are there to eliminate the gap and that all students are achieving at a high level.

Those certainly are worthwhile goals. In the meantime, local boards are under a great deal of pressure from state and federal initiatives, budget controls and mandates. What are you struggling with most in your local district, and what could you do to address that problem statewide as President of CSBA?

The budget. That really is the overriding issue right now. Obviously it impacts everything, and it’s complicated by the fact that so many districts are in declining enrollment. My district happens to be one of them. First, our schools are not receiving the amount of funding they should be receiving, we’re 44th in the nation in funding overall. On top of that, many of our districts – over 40 percent – are struggling with declining enrollment, so they’re also losing resources because of that. CSBA worked this year to try to get some legislation to relieve the pressure on the districts in declining enrollment. None of those bills were successfully enacted into law this year. We need to continue our lobbying efforts to ensure that legislation is passed to help the districts that are struggling with declining enrollment.

In addition, of course, is the work that we do constantly to impress upon state officials of the need for increased funding for schools. We must continue to work to see that we obtain the money we were promised in the agreement we had with the governor a year and a half ago. We need those resources. Our adequacy campaign is really crucial to make the case to our elected officials and to the public that even the minimum guarantees of Proposition 98 are really not enough to meet the needs of our students.

The public generally supports more funding for schools, but there are always critics who say the money they get isn’t spent correctly or is wasted. How can CSBA help correct that misperception?

I definitely think it’s part of our adequacy campaign. One of the things I think we need to do is talk about what’s happening across the country. How much money are other states spending on schools? And with that funding, what can they provide to their students? I think the contrast is very, very obvious. I think you know I taught in Illinois and the situation in the school district where I taught was very, very different. There were many more resources available for students and for teachers. That’s one thing that’s concerned me the entire time I’ve lived in California.

Did you come to California in the post-Prop. 13 era?

Yes. I moved here in 1979, the year after it passed.

So you’ve seen the decline in California’s investment in its schools?

Absolutely. And I’ve watched it in my own district. We are not able to offer the same level of services to the students today that we were able to offer a few years ago. It’s very disturbing. I also see our class sizes going up. And I think it is also part of the adequacy campaign to let people know how carefully school districts use their resources and how very scarce they are. One of the things that really disturbs me is that the governor is saying we’re getting $10,000 a student. We can do the math district by district in this state and show how that’s just not true. For example, we have 7,000 students in my school district. Our total budget this year – that’s food service, busing, federal income, local interest on our monies, every dollar that comes into our district – is $47 million. Now, if we were getting $10,000 a student from the state, you can do the math – it would come out to $70 million. Where’s the extra money?

That’s a good question. Budget cuts have to be one of the most contentious issues boards discuss. Which leads me to ask, what are the most common sources of conflict on school boards, and what would you suggest as a remedy?

Conflicts on boards are often caused by ideological and political differences. We all ran for school boards because we care about young people and we care about our schools and want to do everything that we can to support them. But just as all of us come to every situation with different perspectives, we also bring different perspectives to school boards. So we really need to listen to each other, and that’s hard – to really listen and to hear what people are saying and to try to really understand their perspectives. And then to look for common ground. Because it’s very difficult for a school district to function when the board and the superintendent are not working as a team. One thing that boards can always do is to stop, think, and ask themselves: ‘Are the decisions we’re making in the best interests of our students?’ That’s what we all really want.

CSBA can help with that through its Continuing Education department. Our Masters in Governance Program really helps board members understand their role and helps give them the knowledge they need to succeed and to work together. And I can’t stress enough the importance of our Single District Governance training and how much that can help school boards overcome some differences they might have and work together better.

Another problem that school boards always seem to be dealing with is recruiting and retaining superintendents and administrators. What are your thoughts about how California schools can keep good leaders?

I think a lot of what we just talked about in the previous question is crucial. It’s really important to build a strong governance team, because when superintendents are looking for jobs they really pay attention to the way that boards function. It’s crucial also to the retention of superintendents and quality administrators. They want to know that school boards are functioning efficiently, that they’re working together, that their focus is on students and student achievement, and that the school board is going to work as a team with the superintendent and the other stakeholders to create an atmosphere that’s conducive to learning and student achievement.

So you’re saying that part of retaining a good superintendent is to be a board that’s known for working well together?

Yes, I think that attracts superintendents and retains them. I recently attended a meeting with the Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning, and they were talking about studies looking at teacher retention. One of the key factors was the quality of the working environment. The same thing is true for superintendents and site administrators. They want to know that they can work in a school district where they can make a positive difference, where they can use their talents and energies to focus on student learning, to make a positive difference for students. School boards need to work with their administrative leaders and other people in their school communities to effect that kind of growth in their students, to create an environment where student achievement is at the forefront. We want the highest-quality people in our schools and we need to show them that we’re going to support them and encourage their efforts.

So districts can “grow their own” administrators?

I meant to mention that. I think growing your own is a very positive idea. If you’ve got people that you recognize have talent, helping them to get the credentialing and education they need to move up is certainly a benefit. When you know somebody and you know their talents, you can place them in just the right environment so that they’re going to meet the needs of students and flourish using their own abilities. That’s really a very good direction to go.

Let’s focus on the conditions of children again for a minute. Recently, Hurricane Katrina made us all more aware of the realities of urban poverty. What do you think school leaders can do about generational poverty so all schoolchildren have a better chance of reaching their potential?

First, I want to say that we absolutely have to deal with this issue. It’s crucial. We owe it to our children to make sure that we meet the needs of every child and help them to succeed. I think there are a lot of things we can do. I keep talking about the adequacy campaign, but I feel as though that’s a crucial piece. This funding issue is huge, and we need the resources for all of our students, but particularly for the students you’re asking me about – the ones who are living in generational poverty. We really need to be able to direct resources to them in a very focused way to help them close the achievement gap and meet their needs.

One of the things that CSBA does that I think is very effective is to work with our Program Improvement schools on governance issues. We help school districts to focus on what governance means, how to set policies that will close the achievement gap, and where to focus their resources. All of those are very important questions that school boards need to tackle. As board members, we need to educate ourselves as to the needs of our children, and the needs vary considerably depending on what their individual situations are.

There are ways we can do this. At our conference in December there’s a workshop that I think is fascinating. It’s based on a book by Ruby Payne called “A Framework for Understanding Poverty.” The workshop is going to address issues surrounding economic diversity. This is based on an in-service program for teachers in San Bernardino City Schools. I took a workshop like this in San Antonio at the Celebrating Opportunities conference and it was fascinating. We see the world through our own eyes, and it’s sometimes hard for us to relate to the individual situations that other people face. Going to a workshop like this and looking at the world of people in different economic levels and seeing what their focus is, how their background impacts them and how they see the world, is extremely helpful, I think, for school board members and other people in the educational community to help them better address the needs of the student.

Did any of Ms. Payne’s theories surprise you?

I wasn’t surprised by the concept. It just gave me another perspective, and I thought it was fascinating to get that insight. I guess it’s also a lesson that we can never learn too much. It’s a cliché that we need to be lifelong learners, but I think that’s really true. I would just encourage board members to seek out opportunities like that all the time, because you add to your pool of knowledge and your understanding of your students and their lives.

I also think a crucial way of helping our students and understanding them better is to really work to bring parents into the schools. We know the impact that parent involvement has on student success. Sometimes that’s a lot of work and it does take effort on our part to reach out to those parents to create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable.

Related to that is the new “conference model” CSBA is rolling out at our upcoming annual conference. The conference model is designed to include all interested parties as the group looks at the needs of students in various ethnic groups – students of Hispanic background, African American students, American Indian students, Asian-Pacific Islanders and students served by county boards. They’ll look at issues that face them and their cultural background to better help all of us understand the needs of those students. I think it’s helpful for board members to become involved in those kinds of activities and educate themselves so that when they are setting policies in their districts and focusing resources, they know they’re being used in the ways that meet the needs of their particular students.

I have one last question for you. In the coming years, which area of CSBA activity do you think will change the most: advocacy, professional development, district services or education about policy issues?

That’s a difficult question, because I see CSBA evolving all the time. I think we’re always watching the milieu that we’re operating in, the needs of our members, and the changing political scene so we can continually update all of our services to make sure that we’re best meeting the needs of the students of California and our members.

I’ve spoken a lot today about the adequacy campaign – that’s something new for us. We’ve always advocated for funding in the schools. We’re always out there in the Legislature, working with the governor’s office, presenting our case and trying to get the resources we need for our schools. But we’ve never taken the time to sit back and study the issue, look at what we really need in an organized fashion to really meet the needs of our students instead of just working to get our piece of the pie. And then presenting to people the concept that this is what it really costs and doing more of a public relations campaign to let the general public know how important this is. So I see that as a shift in some of our advocacy services.

I also think that our district services are changing because they’re responding to the needs of our districts. I think a perfect example of that is the new GASB 45 Solutions program that we’re offering to help districts deal with some of the new accounting regulations. As new regulations are placed on districts, our services change to meet the needs of our members.

Well, you’ve given us a lot to think about. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us.

It’s been my pleasure.