Components of Holistic Education

My Vision: I am committed to building an inclusive environment where schools and families work together to help every child reach their full potential. I will focus on increasing access to meaningful resources for students, educators, and families while driving sustainable growth to keep our schools open, growing, and thriving.

Context:

Lakshmi Sharma has lived in the US since Dec 2000, and in CUSD for the past 20 years.

In 2010, one of her children was in elementary school when CUSD experienced a budget crisis and the district was going to impact 100+ teachers, increase in class sizes, increase the number of school off days, and reduce programs offered at school sites. A community, staff, and teachers supported effort , called The Future is Now (TFIN) was launched where she was one of the volunteers representing Murdoch-Portal who worked alongside the community, teachers, CEEF, and staff to raise funds that saved teachers’ jobs and also reduced the impact described above.

Why did I mention this story here? The money raised was divided equally (ratio of teachers to be impacted) among all schools and all students and families saw the positive change. This is one of many examples of how immensely she believes in the power of community, educators, staff and board working together with only one goal in mind: Students Safety and holistic growth.

**Clarification on term "Equitable Access": "Equitable Access" does not relate to equity grading in any form. Go to FAQ page for more details.

Opportunities and Solutions:

• Where does the money to fund our schools come from?

  
  [Lakshmi] Here are top sources (there may be a few smaller ones that I have not captured):

  • Local taxes ,

  • Federal and state budget/grants

  • CEEF(The Cupertino Educational Endowment Foundation ) Fund programs that improve academic achievement, support arts and music education, enhance technology resources, and promote teacher development.

  • PTA/PTSA/PTO

  • LACP ( Latino Achievement and Community Program). A program that supports Latino students and their familiesIt to build a stronger connection between Latino families and the school district.

    • The program helps ensure that Latino students have equitable access to educational opportunities, which aligns with broader goals of diversity and inclusion within the district

    Opportunity to improve: I still need to learn more, but I sense there is an opportunity for those needing help from Pacific Islander, Black, and even majority communities.

    Opportunity to improve: Not all schools have PTA, PTSA or PTOs. or they are run differently. While CSFPTA (Cupertino-Sunnyvale-Fremont Union PTAs) does a good job of representation from PTA/O and provides uniformity , there is an opportunity for continuous growth .
    
    

• Demographic change over past 30 years (From 1994 - 2024) : (sources primarily cusdk8.org, ed-data.org. Also used AI agents to validate some understanding)

  [Lakshmi] Please note these numbers may have slight delta , but still close.

  Asians : 30% to 72%

  White : 60% to 14%

  Hispanic: 5% to 5.2%

  Black 2% to 1%

  Two or More races: 4% (current, I don’t have data for what it was 30 years ago)

  Immigrants: 25-30% to 50-55%

  Community members not sending kids to school: Around 50% [Combination of those whose kids have graduated from high school + don’t have kids + send their kids to private school]

  Opportunity to improve: If the demographics has changed significantly , our mode of communication with the community needs to reflect these demographic changes.

  
  43 languages spoken today. Top 5 spoken languages are:

  • English

  • Mandarin

  • Hindi

  • Spanish

  • Japanese

  Opportunity to improve:
  1. cusdk8.org to be available in at least top 5 non-English language, better if we can design in all 43 languages. Being a technologist I know even our Middle School and High School students can be hired as interns to complete this task
  2. Offer a second language in all schools: There is a lot of data that suggests kids can learn multiple languages faster at Elementary school age, and it also helps increase acceptance and empathy towards another language/ culture. I will address issue with English Learners because one of the major issues with English learners is that it is hard to know if the learning difficulty is because of a language barrier or learning difference itself.

• How does a parent report an incident in a classroom related to a teacher, or an issue with the principal? What is the escalation process and what is the expectation on the time to revolve?

  [Lakshmi] The process of escalation, decision making , and expectation on resolution time are not clear to the community.

  There is no training available either online, or at new parent introduction or at back to school night on what is the escalation path for incidents mentioned in the question.

  There is no guidance on the standard resolution time for different categories of incidents reported.

  A communication by the district on top few concerns raised by the community across different schools and communication with the community on actions taken and/or plan forward

[Opportunity to improve] The escalation process for problem reporting, approximate time to resolution, and communication on decisions made.

• How does a community member (non-board and CUSD staff) raise a concern with the board?

  
  [Lakshmi] Through Public comments in CUSD board meeting. For that:

  1. You need to sign up in advance to be on the list of speakers. If you didn’t sign up in advance, you can’t speak in a given CUSD board meeting.

  2. Current amount of time provided for public comments is 2 minutes .

     1. Medium of communication is English

     2. This time doesn’t take into account if the speaker is English fluent or non-English speaker

     3. No translator is offered for non-English speaking public comments

  Opportunity to improve: Translator for non-English speaking in meeting or allow to submit in advance in preferred language

• How does the population who is not currently sending their kids to CUSD or FUHSD but care about and invest (through the tax they pay ) in the school’s and areas’ growth learn about the changes happening to schools (construction, shutdown, budget changes etc.) and support our schools?

  
  [Lakshmi] No formal way by the board to engage that population which constitutes a huge % of this district’s population.

  Opportunity to improve: Quarterly Newsletter or an App that all residents can subscribe to for communication from the board on major school related changes that impact the budget and also the neighborhood.

• Choice schools like Murdock Portal and Christa McCauliffe multifaceted programs that any family in the district can send their kids to: I found during my door to door knocking that some parents sending their kids to private schools are not aware of their availability of those schools

  [Lakshmi] Opportunity to improve: Improve communication for the availability options to all in the community (including those sending kids to private schools)
  

• Resources like sports, Instructional aid, and other programs are dependent on PTA funding hence some schools may or may not have those fully supported resources.

  [Lakshmi] Opportunity to improve: Just like we have now full time music accredited teacher in our school, add a sports teacher or add a sports immersion program in one of the schools and allow that to be the choice school.
  I understand not all programs can be implemented at the same time. If elected, I will work with the rest of the board, other stakeholders in the school district and outside the school district to make prioritization decisions and make fiscally responsible decisions on execution of these solutions keeping the community engaged and informed.

• Additional Opportunities for Improvement:

  [Lakshmi] These are my personal additional identified areas of improvement. It is a continuously evolving list.

  1. There should be adequate physical infrastructure at all schools for every physically disabled student to access all areas of school.

  2. Work with local corporations to create new programs for students and educators using technology to serve their specific needs