The two candidates who are voted into the Southside School
District Board this November won’t join just a board of
trustees.
Hollister – The two candidates who are voted into the Southside School District Board this November won’t join just a board of trustees.
“We want someone who really fits into our family out here,” Superintendent Eric Johnson said. “There is no room for hidden agendas.”
Coming off a year of excellent test scores and a fiscally sound budget, Johnson said the key issue to this year’s election is maintaining the school’s level of academic excellence. There are two seats up for grabs. Incumbent Connie Glosser, an accountant has been on the board for four years. Her opponents, business owner Ron Martin and aquatics director Michael Chambless, are new to school board elections..
Southside School has 260 students, and has seen some major funding cuts recently.
Michael Chambless
Being surrounded by teachers for his entire life has given Hollister resident Michael Chambless a greater understanding for the work that goes into educating children.
“My grandmother was a teacher. My mother was a teacher. My wife is a teacher. My mother-in-law was a teacher,” he said. “So I have quite the background of hearing what problems they face.”
Chambless, 32, is the aquatics coordinator for the City of Salinas, and during the summer season, he’s a part-time forest ranger for the City of San Jose. Chambless said he’s clocked quite a few hours in the classroom for not being a teacher.
“When I’m working as a ranger I do quite a bit of environmental education in the classroom, and right now, as an aquatics coordinator, I’m teaching every fourth-grader in Salinas about water safety,” he said.
While on the job, Chambless supervises 34 people and said his leadership at work, and experience in working with many different community groups as a ranger, will help him reach out to different people in the district. He has no major changes in mind for the school, instead he’d like to help maintain its level of success. Part of the success has to do with taking care of teachers, Chambless said. He wants to make sure those who are currently at the school stay for years to come.
“I want to support the teachers with supplies and time,” he said. “I know they recently lost their prep period and I know how important that is to preparing lessons.”
Chambless also believes its the parents’ responsibility to keep the school up to par.
“I want to make sure parents stay involved,” he said. “Without their support, the school will go out the window.”
Connie Glosser
When Hollister resident Connie Glosser first joined the Southside School Board four years ago, she was the mother of two young students and wanted to become more involved in the school.
Now that her children are in the fifth- and seventh-grade, and she’s invested four years of her life to help maintain the district’s budget and give teachers raises, she’s decided to further contribute to the school’s success by running for another term.
Glosser, 38, a controller/accountant for Peoplewise in Hollister, said one of her strengths as a board member is the ability to watch the district’s money with a magnified glass.
“Over the years, we’ve had to make some fiscally hard decisions but we’ve been able to keep a high level of academia and provide a good education for those kids during hard financial times,” she said. “We’ve definitely dealt with budgeting issues so having an accounting background has definitely helped. I’m always making sure we’re in the black at the end of the year, and not the red.”
Even with a sound budget, Glosser said student programs have dwindled in the past decade, and she’d like to see the board work with the Parent’s Club and the Friends of Southside School Foundation to bring enrichment back into the classrooms.
“In the old days there were a lot more services,” she said. “We’ve had to cut the full-time physical education program, but were able to bring someone in part time with help from the Parent’s Club.”
In the future, Glosser said she wants to secure small classes sizes in the schools, and make sure teacher’s continue to get the raises and respect they deserve.
“We didn’t get to give them as much as we would have liked to because of the budget right now,” she said. “But they deserve the best.”
Ron Martin
Ron Martin’s love for his daughter has turned into a love for Southside School and all of its students.
“My priority in life is my daughter and her education, and that has turned into caring a great deal about the school and all of its students,” he said.
Martin, 49, is the owner of Post Net, and aside from his love for kids, he feels his background in management has given him the leadership skills it takes to be on the school board.
“I’ve owned my own business for six years, and was in management at Fed Ex for five,” he said. “Not only that, but I’m a caring parent who is very involved with the school.”
Since his daughter was in kindergarten, Martin said he’s helped out in the classroom, and has always been amazed at the sense of community at the school. On many occasions, as he dropped his daughter off at school and picked her up in the afternoon, Martin said he’s talked with other parents and teachers and if elected, he plans to continue a high level of communication. Aside from the English speaking families, Martin said he’d like to see more outreach and communication between the school and the homeless shelter and migrant camps located in the district.
“There is a little girl in my daughter’s class who she is very fond of, but I can’t communicate with her mother or grandmother because they don’t speak English,” he said. “I would like to see the migrant parents get more involved, but I think they might be a little hesitant because of the language barrier.”
