Talking Points

Sandra Nichols:

• is the only PVUSD Trustee who is a career educator. She has 30 years experience teaching in California public schools and is a 22-year member of the American Federation of Teachers.

• is the Board leader who publicly and continually works to "hold the line" on administrative salaries and even reduce administrator stipends and positions so funds can be targeted to classrooms.

• was a solitary vote against creating a Deputy Superintendent position which the board later cut. She opposed the sweetheart contracts awarded Assistant Superintendents during the district's budget crisis. She voted against hiring a part-time Interim Superintendent and for two years urged board members to seek a full-time Superintendent.

• is a teacher and administrator of English Learners in Santa Cruz county schools. She is fluent in English and Spanish and worked on PVUSD's English Learner Task Force to help create the new EL Master Plan.

• was unanimously elected as PVUSD Board President (2003) and twice elected as Vice President. She has served on the Inter-Governmental Relations Committee working with city and county government leaders for the past seven years.

• was the school board leader in the creation of an "opt-out" statement on student emergency cards to protect the rights of parents to withhold student information from military recruiters.

• is the trustee with a record and a reputation for publicly supporting environmental protection. She placed a proposal on the Pajaro Valley school board agenda to fuel the county's largest fleet of school buses with renewable bio-diesel. The proposal was promptly implemented.

• organized and led a coalition of county educators, CampaignSOS, to lobby legislators and local media for improved school funding and better teacher compensation, and against the Governor's attack on schools and public employees. Members included County Superintendent of Schools Diane Siri, PVUSD Superintendent Mary Anne Mays, and SCCS Superintendent Alan Pagano.

• worked to bring healthy food choices to student lunches and reduce junk food in local schools as a Pajaro Valley school board leader and member of the County's Children and Youth Commission.

• is the school board leader who is publicly outspoken against racial, ethnic, and socio-economic segregation of schools.

• was the lone vote on the school board against a plan to privatize social security for part-time and temporary school employees.

• is the school board leader in the three-year struggle to name the first Watsonville area school after a Latino hero.

• is the county's leader — for three years — advocating for an alternative to a high school diploma, and a standard for all high schools issuing a Certificate of Completion, for those students who meet all graduation requirements except the High School Exit Exam.

• is the only Santa Cruz County educator known to serve as a teacher, an administrator, and a trustee for three different school districts at the same time.

• is a published author and columnist on matters of interest to educators and parents (www.Education-Matters.com).