Bakersfield.com: Kern County news, events, classifieds, shopping, & search

RSS Feed   Print Story   E-mail Story        

Sparse turnout spurs brief forum for BCSD candidates

BY LISA SCHENCKER, Californian staff writer
e-mail: lschencker@bakersfield.com | Thursday, Oct 12 2006 10:05 PM

Last Updated: Thursday, Oct 12 2006 10:09 PM

Five Bakersfield City School District candidates spoke mostly to an audience of empty chairs at a forum Thursday night.

Incumbent Jerry Tate and candidates Bill McDougle, Ed Herrera and Percy Robinson answered questions posed by the League of Women Voters of Bakersfield for about 20 minutes. The forum was intended to go longer with questions from the audience.

But none of the roughly 10 people dotting the district office auditorium had any questions. Six candidates are running for two seats.

"The apathy is really sad," Herrera said after the forum, "when you talk about education and children."

"I hope the voter turnout is a little better than this," McDougle said.

Incumbent Karen DeWalt was the only candidate not to attend. Candidate Wesley Crawford Sr. showed up several minutes late after questions had already started. He tried to get the moderator's attention, but no chair was set for him on stage.

Ultimately, he made his opening statement from the audience after the other candidates had answered all of the moderator's questions.

"I think the problem with the Bakersfield City School District is inclusiveness," Crawford said during his statement. "I have watched this board break policy after policy after policy."

Moderator and league vice president Terri Stanton said she didn't expect Crawford to attend because he never responded to the league's invitation. She said the league asked candidates in the invitation to respond if they planned to attend.

Crawford, a reform minister, said he was never told he was supposed to respond if he wanted to be part of the forum. The other four candidates continued to answer questions on stage throughout the confusion surrounding Crawford.

McDougle, a retired educator, said he always tries to make decisions using a "common sense approach." He also, in response to a question about how to teach English learners, said he believes non-English speaking students should be placed in high-intensity English classes and at least one teacher at each school should be dedicated to teaching those classes.

Each of the four candidates criticized federal education legislation No Child Left Behind when asked whether it is hurting or helping the district. According to No Child Left Behind, all students must be proficient in math and English by 2014. Many schools that don't make enough progress toward that goal face sanctions.

Tate, also a retired educator, said No Child Left Behind has helped the district raise test scores, but he said the downside is it puts a lot of pressure on educators and causes much frustration.

Robinson, a food service manager, called No Child Left Behind "at best problematic." But he said the board can't do much about that.

"Our job is not to judge it," Robinson said. "Our job is to implement it."

Herrera, who owns an insurance agency, said schools don't receive enough funding from the government for No Child Left Behind. He also said he'd like to see the district use explicit direct instruction as a way to better teach English learners. Explicit direct instruction is a teaching method in which students are first told how to do things and given the answers insteadof asked to immediately try things themselves.