School Board

SEATS AVAILABLE: 3

Polly Ann Vigil

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Linda Lee Ann Small

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Caro Jauregui

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Jennifer De Baca Sandoval

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Roland Cano

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Vito J. Adragna

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

Question 4: Do you see a role for arts education in the development of district Local Control Accountability Plans (LCAPs)? If so, how would you hope to use arts education to advance the eight priority areas identified in the LCAP template?

Troy Anthony Chavez

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Board Member

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

Growing up I was a very angry kid and did not have many healthy outlets, besides hurting myself. However, one day I decided I was tired of being hurt and wrote my feelings on paper. Once I read what I had wrote I immediately felt relieved and happy. Because, the emotions I read were no longer scary or sporadic.

I found an outlet that didn’t harm me and enabled me to be true to myself and everything, everyone around me.

Currently, I have two published poems and feel saved from the arts. I do not know where I would have been without the arts.

Question 2: How can arts education support student outcomes such as English language development, reducing the achievement gap, and preparing youth for college and/or meaningful careers?

The arts will enable children to delve deep within themselves. They will not simply know how to write but they will know how to create.

Making something visceral and an entity that will make them feel proud of who they are.

This feeling will embolden them to take on a career and not be afraid of the future.

Question 3: What do you think the role of the School Board should be in ensuring that students have continued access to a broad range of study subjects, including the arts (broadly defined)?

I feel as a board member it is their duty to ensure that the arts are properly funded and advised correctly.

Students should engage with the arts with proper equipment and tools to explore the wonders of creativity.

I am a firm believer in protecting art programs abroad.

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?

My goal is to find solutions that will not strip anything from the current programs. Moreover, I also want to evaluate the current programs and their effectiveness in order to prevent hemorrhage the budget. Consequently, funding and emboldening the programs that help our children thrive, especially art programs.

Mayor

SEATS AVAILABLE: 1

Owen Newcomer

City: Whittier City
Position Seeking: Mayor

Question 1: Please share the most meaningful arts and cultural experience you had growing up.

Theater Appreciation was the title of the class at Los Angeles Valley College. It sounded boring, but easier than my other options when I was a student. I enrolled and discovered live theater. I married a lady who teaches ballet, and she even has roles for me in her students’ performances. I have portrayed the father in the Nutcracker and the king in Sleeping Beauty. The arts enrich my life.

Question 2: What do you think should be the role of City Council in the development and support of the region’s arts and cultural infrastructure?

Whittier has a long history of supporting community theater and art in public places. Our city Community Theatre hosts Whittier’s plays and musicals. Our Art in Public Places collects a fee from new developments to fund art throughout the city. Developers also have the option of placing art in their new projects instead. We have even combined art along our Greenway Trail, which is an abandoned railway and now home to a bicycling and hiking trail with landscaping and mobiles.

Question 3: What’s your vision for the city? What role, if any, does art and culture play in achieving that vision?

Art makes us feel. Usually, it makes us feel good–good about ourselves, good about our community and good about our neighbors. Art in public places makes those locales more interesting. It also makes it easier to arrange meetings. When I say, let’s meet at the Red Dress, you know exactly where I will be. There is only one Red Dress sculpture in Whittier.

Questions 4: A recent report by the Otis College of Design found that 1 in every 7 jobs in LA County is supports the creative sector and economy in Los Angeles County. What strategies, if any, would you pursue to enhance the region’s creative economy (i.e. cultural tourism, indirect and direct jobs, nonprofit and for profit organizations)?

Whittier has many art related businesses, and one of the longest operating local art collectives in the region: the Whittier Art Association. The Whittier Conservancy has promoted tours of historic homes districts, along with the historic businesses. The Whittier Uptown Association promotes art themed pub crawls and holiday events with art as featured part of the celebration, such as Dia de los Muertos art exhibits.