4 Templeton school board candidates tackle questions at forum. Here’s how they compare
Four of the candidates hoping to be elected to serve on Templeton Unified School District’s board of trustees participated in a candidate forum on Oct. 12 to answer questions from community members.
The forum was held by the San Luis Obispo County chapter of the League of Women Voters.
Matt Allison, Janel Armet, Jen Grinager and Jason Tesarz were at the forum, while candidates Fiona Bond and Jay L. Raftery did not attend.
There are two seats open on the Templeton school board in an at-large election — meaning everyone who lives within the school district’s boundaries can vote for two candidates to be elected to serve four-year terms on the five-person board.
Ed Cabrera from the League of Women Voters asked the four candidates at the forum a variety of questions filtered from audience members. The topics ranged from teacher pay raises, LGBTQ+ student rights, the recent recall effort of school board members, and student support.
The forum was held in a packed multipurpose room at Vineyard Elementary School.
Here’s a look at how the candidates responded to key questions.
What do you see as the major issue facing the school district and how would you address it?
To Cabrera’s first question, candidates Grinager and Tesarz focused on the need to amend the learning loss that occurred in the district due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want our kids to have excellence in their education, and we want them to be prepared for when they’re ready to go to college or to a technical school or to whatever it is that they’re planning to do with their future,” Grinager said. “Right now we’re flush with our budget, which is great. But a lot of that money was a one-time source, and so we need to plan for what that is going to look like in the future.”
Grinager tossed around the idea of having students volunteer as tutors and grandparents help in classrooms, which Tesarz echoed as “a great idea.”
“And also, how do we build these systems to make sure that this doesn’t happen on an ongoing basis?” Tesarz asked. “Because, yes, we lost a lot of things with COVID. But something like this may or may not happen again. We don’t know.”
Allison noted that the district needs to “stay focused on what is important” as its main priority and not get sidetracked by divisive issues.
And Armet said the school board needs to focus on retaining its administrative staff.
District teachers receive cost-of-living raises
The Templeton school district gave its teachers a 6% salary increase and 1% increase to the district’s health insurance contributions for the 2022-23 school year. That coincided with the 2022-23 state budget that included a cost-of-living adjustment (or increase) of 6.56% to schools.
Each of the school board candidates said the raises were much needed for the teachers, and that future raises are important for keeping teachers in the district.
“How we’re going to recruit and retain our great teachers is by providing supports to them. One of the supports is financial support,” Allison said. “We don’t live in a community that is inexpensive, we need to make sure that teachers can come here, and they can stay here for the long term.”
Tesarz and Grinager both noted that ensuring future raises are sustainable with the district’s overall budget is important.
Where do candidates stand on rights of LGBTQ students?
Each of the candidates said that LGBTQ students in the district need to be supported.
Tesarz noted that “listening is key” to better understand the struggles these students may have in the schools.
Armet concurred and added that holding special days and events to encourage LGBTQ students feel welcome and included is important.
Allison noted that more than 50% of LGBTQ students at Templeton schools had considered suicide, according to the the most recent data from the California Healthy Kids Survey.
That data show that 52% of seventh-graders, 41% of ninth-graders and 41% of 11th-graders in the district who identify as “not straight,” or gay, lesbian or bisexual, had considered suicide within the 12 months before taking the survey. Meanwhile, 10% of seventh-graders, 12% of ninth-graders and 12% of 11th-graders who identified as straight had considered suicide in the same time frame, according to the survey data.
“Kids who don’t feel safe and don’t feel welcome won’t learn, they will not succeed and we’ll lose them,” Allison said. “So we need to do all that we can to ... foster an environment that includes them, that is welcoming to them, that they know that they’re accepted, and so that they will succeed.”
Grinager said the issue of LGBTQ rights “is not a new issue” and one that she’d seen in her private practice as a therapist.
She noted that she’d sought legal advice from the Pacific Justice Institute — which is designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center and works to advance “religious freedom, parental rights and civil liberties,” according to its website.
“They’ve written a legal opinion that tells me that we as board members, we take an oath to the Constitution. It’s a higher law,” she said. “We are, by allowing students that are identifying as opposite gender to change in the locker room, putting them and everybody else at risk, and it’s against our Constitution. It violates their right to privacy.”
Grinager was likely referring to a 2013 law signed by then-Gov. Jerry Brown, Assembly bill 1266, which requires students be allowed to participate in sex-segregated school programs, activities and use facilities consistent with their gender identity without respect to the gender listed in a student’s records.
Templeton school board recall effort
Candidates Allison, Armet and Tesarz each said they did not support the attempted recall of Templeton school board members Ted Dubost, Mendi Swan and Nelson Yamagata.
The recall failed on Aug. 2 after proponents failed to gather enough signatures to validate the effort.
Grinager was one of the community members who supported the recall effort with the San Luis Obispo County chapter of Moms for Liberty, the group she chairs and which fights “for the survival of America by unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government,” according to its website.
She noted that the recall attempt was made because parents felt there was a lack of communication between board members and the community.
How can Templeton schools serve all students?
Candidates were asked how the district can serve all students, including gifted and talented students, English language learners, special education students and students of color.
Armet and Grinager agreed that the Templeton school district should implement a gifted and talented education (GATE) specialized program.
“And I feel like we can bring in more extracurriculars,” Armet added. “If kids feel that they’re included in a group, whether it is an extracurricular, or it’s our ag program, they’re going to come to school. And so the more opportunities that we can give them to feel connected, whatever that might be, we need to do that for them.”
Grinager added that she thought all students were receiving the services they need and “our services are doing well with all of our student populations currently.”
Tesarz said that no matter what group a student may be in, “feeling connected, feeling engaged and being pushed to continue that learning ... is incredibly important.”
And Allison said he thought that the district needed to work more to better reach out to and engage English learning students to ensure they’re able to be college or career ready.
Experience with financial documents
School board members review many financial documents. Candidates were asked about their experience in that field.
Grinager said she has experience working for the state and as a real estate agent, and that she has “no problem with finances.”
Tesarz explained his experience working as an engineer and with data and statistics.
“The concept of a budget is not rocket science, although figuring out the California rules and guildelines on the budget probably might be,” he said, with laughs coming from the audience.
He added that it would be his job as a board member to provide “oversight and accountability” on the budget to ensure sustainability of the district’s funds.
Both Allison and Armet expressed their confidence in Superintendent and Chief Business Officer Aaron Asplund to provide accurate and proper information to board members on the district’s budget.
“Our job is to hold him accountable to provide us with the proper information that we need to be able to make the decisions,” Allison said.
Vandalism and vaping at Templeton High School
Candidates discussed what they planned to do about vandalism and vaping in bathrooms at Templeton High School.
Tesarz said he would rely on the superintendent to provide information about school vandalism and vaping in the bathrooms to the board so they can discuss next steps. Other than that, he noted he didn’t have “the silver bullet answer” to the question.
Armet, Grinager and Allison each said it was important to ensure parents are involved in these discussions.
“I believe that our schools are on this topic, and I’m very proud of the people that put on these forums for our parents,” Armet said of recent school safety forums in the district. “I just would love to see more parents actually showing up to the forums to learn more about what’s going on.”
Grinager said it would be helpful for the safety forums to be streamed and recorded so parents can watch them when it is convenience for them.
Agreeing with Grinager, Allison also noted that the forums should be held at a time that’s convenient for parents.
“This is a partnership,” Allison said. “We’re not going to be able to control what all of the kids are watching on TikTok and following the latest TikTok trends in school bathroom vandalizing, but together, working with parents, we can create strategies to hopefully try and address those issues.”
How are students of color doing in district?
Templeton Unified School District is a majority-white school district, with 64.9% of its student population identifying as white, according to data from the California Department of Education.
About 25% of the district is Hispanic or Latino; 7.8% two or more races; 1.3% Asian; 0.3% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.2% African American, according to the data.
“It’s no secret that we don’t have a very diverse population here,” Grinager said, adding that she sees people of color on her son’s football team, at baseball and soccer games.
“Our country is being told that we’re a racist country, and I just don’t believe that’s true,” she said. “I think that we have certainly areas that have some racism, and there’s people that are racist. It’s not that it doesn’t exist. But ... it’s not spread throughout our society the way that we’re being told that it is, and I think that one of the things that we can do is start sending that message of positivity, instead of making our kids feel like ... they’re in a marginalized group, and that they need to be thought of as victims.”
Tesarz said he thought of it in two different ways: academically and socially.
“Academically, it’s the same kind of things that we would apply to all students: identifying where the gaps are, figuring out how we can raise the bar for these children, and get them the right education and the things that they need,” he said. “And then around the second piece, I think building that cultural awareness, building that understanding and acceptance across everybody in the schools is extremely valuable.”
Allison noted that Sept. 15 through Oct. 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month, and the district should be holding events to celebrate the Hispanic population in its schools.
He and Armet both said they would like to see an ethnic studies class implemented in the district. Such a course will be required in all California school districts starting in the 2025-26 academic year.
“Students are going to succeed when they see themselves represented in their schools, whether it’s in their curriculum, whether it’s amongst their teachers, whether it’s amongst the activities, and the groups and the clubs that are there,” Allison said. “I’d love to see us engage with more of those kinds of classes (ethnic studies) now, so that our students can ... have an opportunity to experience their heritage in the curriculum.”
Other school board candidate forums
A forum for Cuesta College candidates was held on Oct. 13 via the Instagram account of the community college’s Student Life Department. You can watch it online via instagram.com/cuestastudentlife.
The American Association of University Women will hold a forum for the Atascadero Unified School District board of trustees candidates on Wednesday at 7 to 9 p.m. at San Benito Road Elementary School in Atascadero.
This story was originally published October 14, 2022 at 10:00 AM.
