New SUSD board members prepare for new year

After much campaigning, current board member Patty Buchanan, retired Redwood Middle School teacher Susan Germeraad and parent and consultant Cynthia Miller were elected to the Saratoga Union School District (SUSD) board of trustees on Nov. 4. The other candidates were community volunteer Laura Tillett and software engineer Yongjian Wu.

Buchanan hopes to keep the district’s positive learning environment alive, as well as maintain students’ well-being.

“I intend to keep [students’] academic success at the forefront of any decision,” Buchanan said.

Ensuring that the school board remains open and communicative with parents is also important to Buchanan. For example, televising events may allow more people to watch council meetings. She also plans to make sure that community conversations are held regularly so that all stakeholders have the opportunity to share ideas and concerns with the board. According to Buchanan, communication with parents was not strong in the past.

“Although we may feel that a message has been sent, our audience may not have received it,” Buchanan said. “It is the school board's responsibility to find communication channels that are effective and that provide a two-way exchange of information.”

Miller said she will be able to contribute much of her financial knowledge to the board, as it is her primary area of expertise.

Like Buchanan, her No. 1 goal is to work with the board,   teachers, parents and community to improve communication in the district. Problems that she has dealt with in the past involve the unexpected changes with Redwood’s Wednesday release times.

“Parents were both surprised by the change and concerned that learning on those days was substantially reduced,” Miller said.

The new math pathways as a result of the new Common Core curriculum and the transition between Redwood and Saratoga in terms of curriculum and expectations were also problems in the past, according to Miller. One specific way Miller will improve communication is by opening a blog about SUSD.

“The good news is that I believe many of the current and newly elected school board members agree with me about the importance of solving this communication problem, so we will all work together on it,” Miller said.

The Falcon could not reach Germeraad for comment.