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Facing no opposition in Tuesday’s elections, Redwood City School District board President David Weekly and Vice President Cecilia Marquez have a clear path to retain their seats.
Weekly returns for a second term while Marquez heads into her third.
“My primary priority is ensuring all our students who join us in kinder or TK are fully English literate by the end of third grade,” Weekly said in an email to the Pulse. “Evidence in scientific literature is overwhelming that, especially for our multilingual learners, it becomes increasingly challenging to catch up after third grade if this goal is missed.”
RCSD’s efforts have already brought about “meaningful upward movement in English scores,” he said, “and my intention is for the district to be itself a system that learns and can measure itself by the degree to which we can grow every student each year, using pedagogical best practices.”
Like other districts, RCSD has been contending with ongoing budget constraints and falling student enrollment. The district made budget-cutting and cost-savings measures totaling about $13 million in the previous two fiscal years.
The district also pursued but narrowly fell short on the Measure C parcel-tax initiative on the June ballot. The measure would have raised $12.2 million annually over eight years for teaching positions, educational programs and managing class sizes.
Weekly, however, expressed confidence that the district can navigate through the fiscal uncertainties well.
“In terms of the budget crunch, I’m really proud of the hard work that staff, unions, parents and community members did to help right-size our spending,” he said.
“That work has now paid off and it’s looking like we are going to be okay for our next budgetary cycle without needing to do yet another further difficult round of reductions,” he added. “Of course as our overall student population reduces, we will need to continue reducing administrative overhead to direct our resources to supporting the classroom environment effectively.”
Fiscal stability remains a top priority for Marquez, she said in an email to the Pulse. Though Measure C failed to reach the needed two-thirds supermajority threshold, “the strong majority support (65% yes votes) from our community demonstrates how deeply Redwood City values its public schools.”
Her other focus includes “sustaining our momentum in community engagement and continuing to invest in our outstanding teachers and staff,” Marquez said.
Marquez added that she looks forward to continuing to work with her colleagues on the board as presently constituted.
“I am incredibly proud of our current board,” she said. “We share a mutual respect that allows us to engage in constructive dialogue, disagree agreeably and always prioritize student success.”
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