Candidates agree: No bilingual classes

Otherwise, the five Temecula school board hopefuls at a forum Wednesday disagree on the major issues facing the district.

TEMECULA—Five Temecula school board candidates disagreed Wednesday over what they consider to be the most important issue facing the district – growth, classroom instruction or the district’s responsiveness to parents and taxpayers.

But the five found common ground on bilingual education, which they all said should be replaced with English-immersion programs.

Incumbent Rick Shafer and challengers Jerry Hobbs, Patricia Keller, Bob Brown and Ed Elder answered the audience’s questions at a forum at Temecula City Hall sponsored by the Men & Women’s Republican Forum of Southwest Riverside County.

Michael Augustine, write-in candidate Tom Smith and incumbent Rosie Vanderhaak did not attend the event. The eight candidates are vying for three seats on the board.

Shafer and Brown said the most important issue is growth and the need for more school buildings.

Hobbs, though, said classroom instruction is a more pressing concern. “I think we need to get back to the basics,” he said.

Elder and Keller said the board needs to be more receptive to parents and taxpayers.

“The school board needs to listen to its constituents more,” said Keller.

Elder said the district has broken a promise it made when it adopted a year-round, multitrack schedule – that siblings would not be placed on different tracks.

Write-in candidate Smith has made that a key issue of his campaign. Before jumping into the race, he launched a group called Families Attending Schools Together to push the board into guaranteeing that siblings would not be split apart. Elder said he has been endorsed by the group.

All five candidates at Wednesday’s forum said non-English-speaking students should be immersed in English instead of placed in bilingual classrooms.

“It’s essential to our national unity that English remain our common language,” said Hobbs.

Hobbs, a former teacher at Temecula Valley High School, and Keller, a nursing professor at College of the Desert, said they have seen students struggle with English years after they should have been helped.

A proposed statewide initiative, called “English for the Children,” would make English immersion programs mandatory.

Most candidates also agreed that the Temecula Valley Unified School District doesn’t have to worry about the quality of the teachers it is rushing to hire to reduce class sizes in the primary grades.

Shafer said the district has a backlog of qualified applicants, and Hobbs, Elder and Brown agreed that Temecula routinely attracts good teachers. Keller, however, cautioned that the district needs to thoroughly evaluate new applicants as well as veteran teachers.

The candidates will have another chance to air their views at 7 p.m. tonight in the Chaparral High School auditorium at a forum sponsored by the Temecula Valley Council PTA. The school is at 27215 Nicolas Road.



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