Elections are here: What’s happening locally?

Image from FUSD. Top: Fremont Unified School District Citizens’ Oversight Committee Report.

It is Election Day, and the focus on the presidential election has only gotten stronger, bolstered by the widely repeated belief that this may be the most consequential election of this generation. However, many issues that affect us the most are local, ranging from school funding to homelessness and affordable housing. This year, countless local campaigns are playing out in Fremont and the wider Bay Area, with a Fremont Unified School District Board of Education seat being up for grabs, a hotly-contested mayoral race, city council campaigns, state assembly races, and a California Senate seat vacant. In addition, one of Washington High School’s very own is running to be on Newark Unified School District’s Board of Education—U.S. History and Economics teacher Mr. Block. With so much at stake, it is more important than ever for voters to know where their elected officials stand.

Money Matters

FUSD is running out of money. With educational facilities more than sixty years old, schools in the district are constantly facing problems. Recently, Irvington High School shut down due to an electric switch gear overheating, forcing thousands of students to lose an important day of instruction. Aadhyathmik Varahagiri, a student at Irvington, noted how “this isn’t the first time this happened. In 10th grade, we got to leave school early because the heater stopped working.” Fremont is regarded as having some of the best public school’s in the country—Mission San Jose High School ranks 93rd in the U.S. News Rankings—yet its schools are constantly suffering from a lack of funds.

A possible solution is Measure M, a bond measure placed on the November ballot that will provide FUSD with $919 million to address key issues plaguing Fremont schools. In the words of the proposed measure, its purpose is: “To repair/upgrade local schools by updating classrooms/ science labs/ classroom technology/ equipment; replacing leaking roofs; replacing outdated, aging/ deteriorating portables with permanent classrooms; acquiring, constructing, repairing classrooms, facilities, sites/ equipment; and replacing inefficient HVAC, electrical/ plumbing systems with updated sustainable systems…requiring citizen oversight/ audits, and no money for administrators’ salaries.” 

This measure would be a substantial boost to Fremont’s existing Measure E, which authorized $650 million in bond funds ten years ago, and was responsible for $371 million dollars being poured into middle school conversions, and an additional $145 million into the modernization of district schools and facilities. Still, the Board of Education identified 19 projects that lacked sufficient funding, totaling to over 110 million dollars. 

Many of the local candidates have expressed their support for Measure M. Ganesh Balamitran, who is running for an Area 4 Board of Education seat, described the consequences of the bond not being passed, highlighting how the district will have “to look at alternate ways of funding, while shifting the focus from reconstruction and building to maintenance.” Balamitran, a FUSD parent with two children who recently graduated from Irvington High School, has seen first-hand the consequences a lack of funding can have on a school, and emphasizes how the “School Board has a fiduciary responsibility to use the budget to provide quality public education to every student in Fremont.” 

There’s an added benefit to the passage of Measure M: if Proposition 2, on the state-wide ballot, is passed, it would match school district bond efforts and authorize over $10 billion in state-wide general obligation bonds for the repair, upgrade, and construction of educational facilities across the state. This would give FUSD a large sum of money that could be used to fix leaky roofs, faulty HVAC, and ensure that every student is able to succeed.

Bond measures aren’t limited to FUSD—Newark has placed its own bond measure, Measure O, on the ballot, aiming to authorize $205 million without increasing tax rates. Mr. Block is a proud supporter of this measure, calling it “badly needed. The facilities in Newark Unified are about 60 years old at this point and they certainly need upgrades and investment to create a 21st century learning environment.” With students and teachers leaving Newark’s schools for the higher-rated Fremont Unified School District, Mr. Block hopes this increase in funding will provide incentives for community members to remain within NUSD.

Policy and Communication

Mr. Block, who is seeking one of three seats on the NUSD Board of Education, is campaigning with two other candidates whose views align with his. “There are five highly qualified candidates running who are all coming into the situation with good intentions,” Block says. “There are a couple of candidates whose policies align with mine quite closely, so I’ve been collaborating with them. The three of us have a major focus on supporting English learners, and ensuring we reach out more to parents in the district, gathering their input.” 

A proponent of the recently suspended Dual Language program, Mr. Block believes that the program would have benefitted from continued investment, rather than suspension. In addition, Mr. Block is in favor of student participation on the district board, something both Fremont and Newark Unified already engage in. Mr. Block has also proposed the transformation of abandoned district properties into subsidized housing for teachers, giving staff an incentive to stay in the district. Overall, Mr. Block’s policies revolve around increasing connectivity between the district and parents while pushing for new programs and initiatives that benefit both students and staff. 

Fremont has its own Board of Education race, with Ganesh Balamitran running against recent Irvington High School graduate Rinu Nair. Both candidates have experience in the district, with Mr. Balamitran serving on the FUSD Superintendent’s Budget Advisory Task Force, and Ms. Nair being a former chair of the FUSD Wellness Committee. In these positions, both candidates gained a closer understanding of the workings of the school district, working to address the main issues that plague students—a lack of funding and a paltry amount of mental health support. 

Mr. Balamitran believes that the responsibility of the Board lies in “setting direction, providing administrational support, ensuring accountability, building community relationships, and advocating for the children in public schools.” If elected, he hopes to prioritize student success in not just the traditional four-year college pathway, but also in the arts, community college, trade school, and sports. He also prioritizes resources for Special Education classrooms, a group which is traditionally overlooked. He’s also attempting to support students’ wellbeing by improving “mental health resources available to FUSD students [and] working with educators, students, staff, and parents to find solutions.” 

His opponent Rinu Nair hopes to prioritize a quality education by creating curricula that is comprehensive and covers a wide range of subjects to meet every student’s goals. She would also like to boost options for students to take the courses they want and need. Ms. Nair also hopes to boost campus safety by upgrading existing facilities and maintaining a safe learning environment for all students. She believes this can be done through the maintenance of the school resource officer (SRO) program, saying in an interview with India Currents that she believes the program will help “deter crime and address threats on campus quickly.” However, her inexperience has been highlighted by her opponents, having recently graduated from high school herself and not having been involved in district affairs past her involvement in the Wellness Committee. 

The issue of SROs is highly contested—proponents hail it as an effective deterrent against possible threats on campus, while opponents express discomfort at having armed officers on an academic campus and see it as an expenditure that can be reduced to save costs. FUSD has a Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Fremont and the District, where both parties pay upwards of a million dollars to maintain the program. A point of contention between the candidates, Ms. Nair supports the continuation of this program while Mr. Balamitran has suggested a reworking. 

On the other hand, with only one high school in Newark, only one SRO needs to be maintained. Mr. Block says that the presence of an SRO depends “on the individual and what the school needs. At Newark Memorial, we have a school resource officer who started recently and who is very rooted in the community, who attended Newark Memorial himself, and who I think will be a positive presence on campus.” 

Mr. Block highlighted the importance of communication between elected officials and their constituents. California Assembly Member Alex Lee, who represents San Jose, Milpitas, Fremont, and Sunol, pointed out how his constituents communicated with him constantly during the pandemic with his legislation on housing affordability being a direct result of these conversations. This is something we rarely see in Fremont—most people don’t even know who their City Council members are.

Much of this lack of awareness comes from a decline in local journalism. Assembly Member Lee revealed that there are “conversations at the state level about how to bring more funding into local journalism, about how Big Tech should fund more of it, but I think in general, there needs to be a revival of it.” Mr. Block agreed, lamenting how “the decline in local journalism over the last 30 years or so has made it difficult for people to keep tabs on what’s happening in government.” To make up for this, Mr. Block said he “would commit to making [himself] available via phone, via email, via text, at school board meetings, [and] I would really challenge the superintendent to find better ways to reach out to families.”