Andrew Taban

District: William S. Hart Union High Trustee Area 4
Position Seeking: Governing Board Member

Question 1: Please share a meaningful experience you had with art (visual, dance, drama, music, media arts) while growing up.

While growing up, I had been involved constantly with the arts (since 4th grade). It helped me grow as a person and become more social and involved in my schools. With the arts in school, and being involved, I was able to see my social life, and academic life grow, and continue succeeding in my school, and personal life.

Question 2: What kind of creative solutions would you suggest to support student outcomes such as English language development, closing the achievement gap, and preparation for college and/or meaningful careers?

I believe that student success begins with of course the students. As a board member, I believe we need to meet with our students and see what they think should be in the schools, as well as talking with teachers to see what we can improve on. One of my large goals is to get the community engaged in the education system. Also, we can continue our involvement with our community college to continuously see how we can prepare our students for college, and even careers.

Question 3: What do you think should be the role of the School Board in ensuring that students have access to a broad range of study?

I believe the role of the board in regards to students is involvement. We are a group of individuals voting on a broad scope of items, and many of those effect our students. Like previously stated, we need to work with students to see what they think should be in classrooms. So often we make policy or create change in schools without asking our stakeholders (being the students, teachers, parents, and community members) how the outcome of it has effected them.

Question 4: In light of the Local Control Funding Formula and development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs), what are your creative solutions for achieving goals in the eight priority areas?

We have seen our schools do an excellent job in working towards achieving our goals. What I have personally seen is schools coming to the board meetings, and explaining what we have achieved, and what we need to work on, but also HOW we need to work on it. As of now, I think the schools are working on it, but as time progresses, I am sure we can squeeze room for improvement.