Q&A With Barbara Pennington, Candidate for Walnut Creek School District Board

Walnut Creek Patch is featuring Q&A profiles with the five candidates vying for three seats on the Walnut Creek School District governing board. We will run one candidate Q&A each day this week in alphabetical order.  

This district usually does not have contested elections for its board. Patch writer Lou Fancher submitted a series of questions to each candidate, asking their views on such issues as teacher tenure, how the district can cope with ongoing budget cuts and the debate over bringing all K-8 Walnut Creek schools into one district. She also asked them to explain their educational philosophy and the personal and professional experiences that would make them qualified for this important job.

Today's Q&A is with Barbara Pennington.

Click on the names below to read the Q&A with the candidate or candidates whose profile has run. 

Monday: Angela Borchardt 
Tuesday: Jon-Michael Johnson 
Wednesday: Tobias Lester
Coming UP:
Friday: Robert Stankus

Incumbent Barbara Pennington has lived in Walnut Creek since 1983.  She attended Pensacola Junior College, Eckerd College, and received her bachelor's degree from Northeastern Illinois University.  She was born in 1953 and is retired after a career in financial services management.

Pennington has been an advisory member of the Walnut Creek Education Foundation, financial secretary for Grace Presbyterian Church and a library volunteer at Walnut Creek Intermediate School.  She has served on the Walnut Creek School District Governing Board since 2002.  She said she expects to spend less than $500 on her campaign.

Pennington and her husband, Timothy, are parents to Zack, 23, and Abby, 19.  Both children attended Walnut Creek schools.

Question: What is the role of the school board in relationship to the school administration?  

Board members are elected by the community to govern its schools and to make sure its schools are serving the public. The board is responsible for setting direction for the district with the involvement of the community, adopting policies that support the district vision, and monitoring the effectiveness of the district policies. The superintendent is responsible for implementing these policies throughout the district. The board receives feedback on the effectiveness of its policies from both the superintendent and the community.

Question: How do you think the state should reform its process so that public schools are not left with an annual budget crisis?

We need more revenue and less expense and unfortunately, politics is preventing sound fiscal decisions! When Prop. 13 cut property taxes, the state became more dependent on income, sales and corporate taxes for its revenue. These taxes are a volatile source of income which works fine when the economy is strong, but which drops precipitously when the economy is weak.  One reform would be to create a revenue mix that is more stable and predictable.  Our state's referendum process results in the voters determining fiscal policy with formula-driven spending requirements like Prop. 98 for education, and revenue sources that are specifically earmarked, like Prop. 42, for transportation.  These restraints reduce Sacramento's ability to negotiate budget changes when the state's fiscal outlook changes. Finally, the biggest reform would be to do away with the two-third majority required in both houses to pass a budget.

Question: What measures can the school board take to improve student  achievement?

Almost all of the decisions a school board makes are related to students' academic success. The Walnut Creek school board ensures that staff development is a priority. A good teacher is a powerful influence on a student's academic achievement, and we are fortunate to have many, many excellent teachers in the Walnut Creek school district. As a board member, I am very proud of the coaching and collaboration model we have implemented in our schools to ensure that all teachers can share best practices and thus become even better teachers.

In addition to staff development, the board supports academic achievement by ensuring that the schools are safe, clean, pleasant places to learn, with healthy food choices and places to be physically active. The community within the Walnut Creek school district places a high value on its schools. In 2002, our board authorized Measure C and now oversees its funds to upgrade facilities and technology. Among the results have been new fields and playgrounds, and a technology infrastructure that better supports students' needs. By authorizing our parcel tax, Measure H, we created an additional revenue stream with the specific use of its funds for hiring more teachers and supporting staff development, libraries and classroom technology. My deepest thanks to the community for passing our bonds and our parcel taxes.

Our district recently received its May 2009 STAR testing results. Our STAR scores over the past five years show that student achievement continues to improve across the district.

Question: What is your position on standardized testing, teacher tenure and allowing students who live out of the district to attend Walnut Creek schools? 

Standardized testing: I think standardized tests are good for identifying groups of students who are not meeting grade-level standards. It is also invaluable in seeing how groups and the district are doing over time, one of the few objective diagnostic tools a district has to measure effects of changes to curriculum or instructional practices. These tests are very stressful, however, for some students and they certainly are not a measure of creativity or thinking outside the box. As a parent, I used standardized test scores as a small piece of evidence as to how my child was doing in school.  I relied most on the teacher's evaluation of academic performance.

Teacher tenure: Teacher tenure is state law put into place originally to protect teachers from arbitrary disciplinary actions and terminations.  During his/her first two years with a district, a teacher is evaluated by his/her principal. At the end of this probationary period the district either offers a permanent (tenured) position or dismisses the teacher. Our principals take very seriously their responsibility to ensure that a teacher who becomes tenured with our district has demonstrated good teaching skills. They meet annually with the superintendent to review the probationary teachers and discuss their potential for a tenured position. We are fortunate that our district has excellent working conditions and attracts a number of candidates for its openings. Given that teacher tenure is state law, our district focuses on staff development to make our teachers as effective as possible.

For the good of its students, a district needs the best possible teachers regardless of how long they have been teaching. Our district is fortunate in that in its K-5 elementary schools, the instructional coach/teacher collaboration model we have in place provides professional support and development for our teachers. They meet weekly to improve their skills and collaborate on how to best support individual students who are not meeting standards. These teachers are continually reviewing and improving their instructional methods. Although due to budget cuts the number of instructional coach hours has been reduced drastically, the culture of professional staff development is strongly rooted in our elementary schools.

Unfortunately, the pilot coaching/collaboration program we started at WCI in the math department last year had to be cut because of budget constraints. Still in place, however, are the late-start Wednesdays established several years ago to create time for professional development and collaboration at the middle school. That development is led by each department head and therefore varies by department.

Allowing students who live out of the district to attend Walnut Creek schools:  Our district is funded by the state based on attendance. (Not enrollment, so try to take those vacations on nonschool days!) The number of school-aged children who live in our district has been declining for the last several years. Fortunately, we have a number of children from neighboring districts who want to attend our schools.  By allowing these inter-district transfers, we are able to keep our revenues up.  If we rely only on our district's children, we are in danger of having to close one of our smaller elementary schools. With our inter-district transfers we are able to keep all our neighborhood schools open. Although we try to keep our inter-district students at the same school, priority is given each year to students who live in each school's attendance area.

How do these inter-district transfers affect our school's academic performance? Last year, our WCI principal analyzed the academic performance of transfer students and compared it to students who had been in our district since kindergarten. He found that our transfer students performed the same or better than our district students.  At our Sept. 7 board meeting our superintendent announced that our district is "full"' and will no longer be accepting transfer students this school year.

Question: What specific steps can be taken to deal with the achievement gaps in Walnut Creek schools, especially gaps related to students' socioeconomic backgrounds? 

Each of our schools has identified its achievement gaps and has put strategies in place to address these gaps. Each principal has worked with staff on target students and on specific steps to support these students.  Last school year they reported to the board twice – once with their gaps and strategies and then a presentation at the end of the year on whether the selected strategies had been effective.  Some of those strategies :

In all of our elementary schools our teachers meet regularly with instructional coaches. In addition to staff development, these meetings are used to follow individual students who are below grade level. These teachers and their coach determine specific strategies to bring each child up to grade level. These children are monitored all year.

We have Reading Recovery-trained teachers in each elementary school. They tutor first-grade students who have been identified by their teachers as poor readers.

Both Murwood and Buena Vista are Title 1 schools (significant number of free- and reduced-lunch students) and both have federally funded teachers who work on reading comprehension with poor readers.

One of our largest gaps was with eighth graders in general math at WCI. The math department and WCI's administration put together a specific program to monitor and support these students. The results:  a 14-point increase in STAR scores over the previous year!  WCI also has after-school math support and has reconfigured its sixth-grade math classes to better support struggling students.

Question: If you win a seat on the board, how will you listen to the people who elected you?

That is easier than it used to be, since almost everyone in our district has e-mail. My home phone number and e-mail are on the district's website: Please do not hesitate to call or e-mail. I attend PTA and PTO meetings, Back-To-School Nights, Open Houses, and WCEF meetings and fund raisers. I shop regularly at the Safeways on Mt. Diablo and Tice Valley boulevards and am at the farmers market almost every Sunday. If you see me anywhere, feel free to let me know what you're thinking!

Question: How will you work with parent groups and the Walnut Creek Education Foundation?

Because of the support of the parent organizations and the Education Foundation, our district is able to give our students an excellent education. Thank you to all of the volunteers in those organizations. I am a past president of the Education Foundation and have been an advisory member since 2004. If elected I will continue to attend its monthly meetings. Last year I attended many PTA and PTO meetings to explain the need and purpose of the parcel tax and to explain the governor's budget. If elected, I will continue to attend PTA and PTO meetings.

In the spring of each year the board holds a special meeting of all parent club presidents and the Education Foundation. At that meeting we look at everyone's proposed budgets for the upcoming year so that we know who is paying for what and can identify funding gaps.

Question: How will you work with other local organizations, such as the city of Walnut Creek, to bolster services provided to students and the school communities?

In the past, the Governing Board has met with City Council once a year to discuss the safety and well-being of our students and the program services we offer for children. Last spring, we decided that in addition to the annual full board and full council meeting, we would have more frequent 2X2 meetings consisting of one or two City Council members and one or two board members. This would allow us to fully focus on pertinent issues and make more timely recommendations if action is needed. Those begin this fall.

Question: What is your view on the longstanding debate about merging all Walnut Creek K-8 schools into one district? 

Wouldn't it be great if Walnut Creek could have one school district instead of five?  A lot of analysis would have to be done to determine the fiscal and cultural impact on our district. Union contracts, class sizes, facilities conditions and curriculum - the most obvious issues - are all different. Our district office staff has been cut way back because of the budget. There are no resources to determine the fiscal impact. Even more important, the Mt. Diablo district has no interest in giving up those schools. And our district works really well now. It is large enough to have a diverse set of ideas, yet small enough to support a consistent culture throughout.

Question: What is your educational philosophy, and did it develop in response to your experiences as a student or from a some event in your life?

I strongly believe in public education and that all children are entitled to an education that gives them the means to follow their passions, to be educated voters and to contribute positively to our global community. I am comfortable that the decisions I've been part of during the last eight years on the governing board have contributed to the excellent education this district gives its students.

Question: What unique history or challenge shaped your interest in education or in seeking this position?

My 25 years of experience in financial services management taught me the importance of conservative fiscal decisions to ensure fiscal solvency and the role of management in moving an organization forward. When I was president of PALS PTO and then the Walnut Creek Education Foundation, I had the opportunity to be involved in districtwide strategic planning and districtwide fund-raising efforts. I was and still am impressed by the teamwork among parents, teachers, staff and administrators working together to deliver a quality education to all of the children in the district. I am honored to be part of that team, and hope to continue my participation.