School Board Candidates Discuss Bond Measure, Superintendent at Forum

The forum held Wednesday for the San Bruno Park School District board race gave residents a glimpse of three very different candidates. 

While incumbent , who has been on the school board for the last five years, said that he mostly supported the direction the district has been going, challengers and Chuck Zelnik called for a change in the way the district has been doing business—with Capote saying that the district lacked trust with the community and Zelnik suggesting that the district needed a new superintendent. 

School board President Jennifer Blanco, who is also one of the candidates running for the two open seats on the board, wasn’t at the forum. 

Here are the responses the candidates gave at the forum, which was sponsored by the League of Women Voters of North and Central San Mateo County. 

Support for Bond Measure Varies 

When asked whether they supported the that will be going before the voters on Nov. 8, both Martinez and Capote said they supported the measure. However, Capote said he believed a citizen advisory committee needed to be set up to monitor how the funds get spent. 

Zelnik doesn’t support the measure and questions why the district placed it on the ballot. He said the district’s previous bond measure, passed in 1998, still hasn’t been paid off, and he disagreed with the district’s plan to that were used as part of the proceeds from the sale of the former Carl Sandburg site. 

“What has led the district to this bond?” Zelnik asked at the forum. “They had $30 million to use, but it went somewhere else.” 

In response to a question about how the district should fund the second part of the if the bond measure doesn’t pass, Martinez said there is no other alternative. The first phase of the project was funded by Sandburg money and is currently underway. 

Capote said the district would have to either find a creative way to use more Sandburg funds or look to outside funders. 

Zelnik returned to his position that the district misused the Sandburg funds by asking the state last year for permission to use some of the money for non-capital improvement projects. Then the district lied, he said, when it told the state that it wouldn’t need any capital improvements for at least five years. 

Change Needed in District’s Top Leadership?

Several questions asked for the candidates’ thoughts on the leadership of the district, especially Superintendent David Hutt. 

Noting that the district was recently , someone asked the candidates whether some of the district administration should be fired. 

Martinez said he felt the district was taking its program improvement status seriously and wouldn’t change any of the top leaders. 

“The superintendent has been a very strong educational leader,” he said. 

Capote said he didn’t have enough information on the top leaders to have an opinion, but he suggested that the district’s leaders look to Allen Elementary as an example for how other schools in the district could successfully exit program improvement status. 

Zelnik said a lot of extraneous work has been placed on principals—a move that has hurt schools’ test scores. It is time for at least Hutt to lose his job, he added. 

“I think it’s time to change the administration at the top and some of the rank and file…because the kids only get one shot,” Zelnik said. 

Capote later said that the district would have to look at whether they can hire someone as good or better than Hutt if he were to be replaced and it would take looking at his whole body of work. He said the same analysis would need to be done when considering whether keeping Associate Superintendent Lynn Orong in her position. 

“It’s more than just looking at the administration and saying, ‘Let them go,’” Capote said. “But you have to have a plan to replace them and ask, ‘Do we have that ability?’” 

The forum also touched on issues such as school maintenance, bullying, teacher pink slips, raising revenue for the district and the that was completed over the summer. 

Someone even asked whether each one of the candidates possessed the character to fire an administrator or expel a student, if the situation came up during their tenure on the board. 

They all said yes, although Martinez and Capote said they never enjoyed having to fire someone. Zelnik, on the other hand, said he has never been bothered with terminating someone’s employment when the evaluation process has been set up properly—unlike the process that has been set up to evaluate Hutt’s contract, he added.