Candidates for Coachella Valley Unified School District's board of education discussed safety, budget constraints and teacher retention, among other issues, during a well-attended forum on Friday evening at the Coachella Library.
Six of the contenders vying for a school board seat participated: incumbent Trinidad Arredondo and Agustín Arreola for Trustee Area 1, representing Coachella; incumbent Jesus Gonzalez and Altrena Santillanes for Trustee Area 2, serving Thermal; and incumbent Jocelyn Vargas and Adrian Rodriguez for Trustee Area 4, covering Mecca. The teachers' union — Coachella Valley Teachers Association — has endorsed Arredondo, Santillanes and Rodriguez.
Thomas Tortez Jr. did not participate, as he is running unopposed for Trustee Area 3, which includes Oasis and the Salton Sea. Adonis Galarza-Toledo, who previously represented the area, resigned in June .
Voters living within the respective trustee boundaries of CVUSD will elect their picks in the November general election to join the district's seven-member board of education, the largest K-12 school board in the Coachella Valley. The elected members will serve four-year terms, collaborate closely with the superintendent , offer feedback on district decisions and budgets, as well as pass resolutions and policies.
Alianza Coachella Valley hosted the candidate forum, with Telemundo 15's Hernán Quintas moderating. Quintas posed five questions gleaned through a community survey distributed by the nonprofit organization. (Silvia Paz, Alianza's executive director, also serves on the CVUSD board.) The candidates had two minutes each to respond to the questions, as well as to introduce themselves and deliver a closing statement.
Here's three of the biggest themes that emerged from the conversation:
Managing budget constraints while supporting and improving essential programs and services
After the state revealed a $27.6 billion budget shortfall and projected a $28.4 billion deficit next year, school districts across California are tightening its belts . These challenges come as districts already face fiscal pressures, including inflation, the expiration of COVID-19 relief funds and declining student enrollment — particularly in areas with falling birth rates and high housing costs that make homeownership difficult for families.
Arredondo said he's proud that the school district staff are highly compensated, as the district is the largest employer in the eastern valley. With 80% of the budget allocated to salaries and benefits — a common practice in school districts — he highlighted the need to use data to assess the effectiveness of programs for students. If a program isn't beneficial, he said, it's time to pivot.
Rodriguez, a tax accountant with 15 years of experience, said sometimes this means making tough decisions to cut programs that don’t provide the best value for the district. “The numbers never lie," he said. "We can’t just throw money at things we want to see,” he said.
Santillanes also emphasized the importance of involving the public in the budget hearing to promote transparency, accountability and data-driven decisions that support student outcomes. Though, Vargas — who said the Local Control & Accountability Plan (LCAP) lacked transparency in the past and failed to create processes for authentic community engagement — said she believes the most recent LCAP is moving in the right direction. She called for live budget data to be shared so the board can make informed decisions throughout the year.
Gonzalez noted inconsistencies in how the budget was initially presented to board members when he first joined. He contributed to Arredondo's point that CVUSD's teachers are the highest paid in Riverside County, but called out the teachers' union with their asks during contract negotiations.
“Unfortunately, what happens is when we get a bit of extra money, right, our 80% is asking for that money," he said. "And then, basically, if we don’t give them that money, we’re an unpopular board with the teachers’ union. And then if we do give them the money, we’re going to have some serious challenges in the next couple years and there’s going to be layoffs. It’s the inevitable fact because we don’t have reserves.”
The Desert Sun reached out about the above statement — that the district does not "have reserves" — to determine whether it was factually accurate. Superintendent Frances Esparza said in an email that the school district has not yet started contract negotiations and, therefore, cannot discuss the matter until bargaining begins. However, she confirmed the district has met its reserve and will provide more details as it nears its first interim report in December.
Student safety and security at school
Arredondo has not shied away from advocating for resource officers on campus . “When I went to CV High School, we never had a Public (Service) Academy, but now we do, right? Meaningful relationships with our law enforcement partners is OK,” he said.
He noted the district has received about 10 alarming reports, which have raised concerns among parents who feel uncertain about the situation and believe communication needs to improve. “Every resource that we can add to a campus to make our campus feel safe or support us is important,” he said.
Gonzalez, however, said that of those 10 reports, all have been falsely reported. “People are basically getting a sensation out of getting the attention by falsely reporting,” he said. “I think those children need to understand the severity of reporting when it’s not true because when it is true, God forbid, we need to be able to take it serious and it would be a real tragedy that something would happen following many false reports and all of us believing that it is a fake report.”
Instead, Gonzalez said having a police officer would neither solve nor create a safer environment, but rather, it would merely satisfy a perception.
In a letter shared with families and posted on social media on Sept. 11, Esparza wrote that two recent anonymous reports of alleged threats of harm toward Coachella Valley High School came from members of one specific family.
"We are actively working with the Riverside County Sheriffs to identify if this was or was not a false report," Esparza wrote. "We urged the Riverside County Sheriffs to support a thorough investigation of these reports."
Santillanes said that the issue begins with teachers and staff, as they are the “first line of defense when it comes to any safety protocols being breached,” she said. “They’re the ones that are going to be locking the doors. They’re the ones that are going to be protecting our children when it comes down to it. I mean, that’s just the fact.”
She shifted to a story about bullying, noting that she and her husband are raising two of their grandchildren. She said one of her grandchildren’s teachers consistently reports bullying incidents, while another does not. She emphasized the need for uniformity across the board to ensure consistent communication by including training resources, safety drills and safety plans, as well as collaboration with local partners like fire stations, sheriff’s departments and the teachers’ union to develop the best emergency safety plans.
Rodriguez echoed this sentiment, noting the importance of considering students' thoughts and feelings regarding safety concerns at school. He pointed out that social media often serves as a breeding ground for bullying and highlighted that many safety issues arise from online interactions. He stressed that families and communities must monitor their children's activities on social media.
Vargas said the board has explored various options to ensure the safety of students and staff, but believes they have not delved deeply into the root causes of the issues. She linked school safety to the school-to-prison pipeline affecting people of color. “I’ve always been very (critical) of how it is that we are replicating and reinforcing that narrative within our district … so one of the things is really looking at basic needs within our students,” she said.
While attending Desert Mirage High School in Thermal, Arreola said he never felt unsafe at school because he participated in various clubs and activities, serving as a leader due to his teachers recognizing his value. Offering additional resources and expanding opportunities, he said, would be one of the best ways to prevent future threats or false alarms in schools.
“I think that is the best way to combat when students are not feeling heard or seen, not by punitive measures, not by putting sheriffs in schools,” he said. “Students, especially students of color, deserve to have additional resources offered to them.”
Retaining high-quality teachers
The LCAP process revealed a lack of professional development for staff, Vargas said, leading the district to allocate funding for that support. She added that the focus now is on retaining teachers to meet the needs of students in special education and English learners.
“I think the other piece is really looking at this from an equity perspective,” she said, “so just really looking at how we can support staff that’s within our communities to be able to pursue these opportunities.”
Rodriguez and Arreola shared similar responses on providing teachers with the proper and up-to-date training to deliver the best instruction. Rodriguez added that the district needs to continue to offer competitive pay to attract top teachers and ensure that they “feel supported and not vilified” to do their jobs well, while Arreola added he'd like to see the board reconsider incentives like a gas stipend for teachers traveling to schools near the Salton Sea, while maintaining fiscal responsibility within the district.
Santillanes noted a consistent topic from the forum: Teachers at CVUSD are well-paid, she said, but they need ongoing support and the freedom to share their concerns with the board. She said she attended the most recent board meeting on Sept. 12 after hearing that parents planned to express concerns about the recent lockdown at Coachella Valley High School .
When she arrived, the school board remained in closed session and didn’t reconvene until about 8 p.m. She noted that public comments at Salton Sea Authority Board meetings, where she serves as a member, typically occur at the beginning.
“That’s how it needs to be set up because I want to hear from the teachers. I want to hear from the parents. I want to hear from the students,” Santillanes said. “I don’t want to leave people lingering for an hour, an hour-and-a-half and then they’ve got to get home. By the time you’re coming out of (closed) session, there’s two people in the room and that needs to change.”
Gonzalez emphasized the need for accountability among teachers. He cited Alianza as a partner in its restorative justice practices but noted that the program “falls on deaf ears” because some teachers have not fully embraced it. While he praised the board for ensuring that teachers receive the highest pay, emphasizing their commitment to educators, he called out the teachers' union — specifically the president — to reciprocate that support.
“Making racial comments about our music program, that our music program only promotes drums … making comments that we only hire Mexicans, right? Those kinds of comments are very irresponsible,” he said without elaborating, sparking a stir among the teachers in attendance. “And if that is the head of the teachers’ union, that is the difference between the board and the leadership of the union.”
Arredondo shared that since he was first elected four years ago, he has walked 22 sites and visited over 300 classrooms in four years.
“It’s because I’m a board member, I make it a priority — as I’m elected, as I’m given medical benefits by the school district — that I do my job and support teachers in the classroom, that I support staff as I’ve walked around with them,” he said, noting that he attended professional development trainings with teachers over the summer.
“I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do because I’ve already done it,” he said. “But I can tell you that I’m going to continue.” Though he did add he plans to continue to advocate for professional development, support high school students in programs and develop local teachers.
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Jennifer Cortez covers education in the Coachella Valley. Reach her at jennifer.cortez@desertsun.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: CVUSD school board candidates discuss safety and budget constraints at community forum
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