Q&A; -- Leading the schools’ charge

Although Lido Isle resident Judy Franco has spent the last 22 years on

the Newport-Mesa Unified School District board, she doesn’t appear tired

of it. In fact, she’s still quite adamant about doing what’s right for

the district’s students and still enjoys watching them grow from the

lower grades to the ranks of collegedom.

Earlier this month, Assistant City Editor James Meier met Franco at

the district office in Costa Mesa to discuss her past, current and future

involvement in the district.

Q: What sparked you to join school board 22 years ago?

A: I care a great deal about educational opportunities for all kids.

Having grown up in a family that was public school-oriented, with a

father who’s a public school administrator and then myself becoming a

teacher and parent, I felt that I could contribute to the school

district.

And when a seat was open and they were going to do an appointment, I

came along with about six or seven other people and we were interviewed

by the remaining six board members, and I was appointed. And then I ran

18 months later, and the rest is what I’ve done.

Q: Are you seeking reelection in November?

A: I haven’t made that decision yet. Everybody keeps asking me that. I

still think that I make a contribution, but that’s a decision that I’ll

make closer to August, when we pull papers. A lot of things have changed

in my life, so I’ll make that decision. I just haven’t totally made that.

Right now, I don’t see any reason perhaps not to. But it’s a ways off

yet.

Q: What keeps you going on the board?

A: Watching students mature, become lifelong learners and watching

them graduate and be ready to become productive citizens. For most of

them, they go on to college, and they’re ready for that. Some of them go

into the work force, and they’re ready for that.

So, you watch a class go from kindergarten to 12th grade, which has

been my privilege to be able to do on several occasions, including three

of my own kids. It gives you a feeling of having accomplished something.

You haven’t really accomplished it, but they have and you have provided

them with the tools they need to be successful contributing members of

society.

Q: How is this stint as president so far different from your first in

the 1983-84 school year?

A: Well, one of the ways it’s different is that we, back then, did not

have a strategic plan. (It was created in 1999.) We operated under a

different set of guidelines, if you will. We had a K-12 curriculum that

was structured and followed the state requirements, but it wasn’t with

the goals and objectives that specifically stated as they do in the

strategic plan. It’s not something that we had gone into the community

and said, “What would you like to see happen?”

I think having a strategic plan gives a lot of structure, if you will,

to a district that enables it to run very effectively and enables it to

direct its resources where they need to be directed, which is the

classroom. And while we truly thought, in the very beginning of my school

board years, that that’s what we were doing, I think today we are doing

it much more effectively than we were then. So, in that way, there is a

difference.

Q: Would you say there’s a lot more parental input and involvement in

making these decisions than there was back then as a result of that plan?

A: There was a lot of parental involvement back then, but we did not

have the committee structure that we have today. It was more parents

coming to committees and making a statement, parents contacting school

board members and getting their viewpoints known that way. Then, and now,

I was very much involved with the PTA structure within those schools that

are PTA. So I had a lot of knowledge, if you will, of what was being said

and what the parent community wanted to see happen in their schools.

But it wasn’t set up the same way. It didn’t have a citizens budget

advisory committee. It didn’t have an audit committee. We didn’t have the

Comite, for example -- what has come out with the committees on the

English-language learners. We didn’t have those committees. And it runs,

I think, far more effectively to direct the vast majority of your

resources, your energy, everything to the kids in the classroom to

improve their education.

Q: If you had to choose only one, what would be the most important

issue the school board could take on?

A: Probably the issue that needs to continuously be addressed is to be

sure that what we do in terms of policy, in terms of budgeting our

dollars is done within the parameters of the strategic plan, that it

addresses and continues to address the needs of the K-12 students within

our system.

If I had to choose one thing, that would be it, that we continue to

make that our priority, that it continue to be the way we do things

within the district and that we continue to look at the district as a

whole while at the same time understanding that we are two communities

but we are one school district. You’re two cities and one school

district, but the needs of the kids are the same. They need to have the

resources and they need to have the teaching staff and parental

involvement that will enable them to become the best that they can be.

Q: What have been the biggest challenges for you on the board?

A: I don’t know if there is anything that has stood out as being a

challenge. Ensuring that there is parental involvement, that there’s

ample opportunity for parents to have a say and to be heard, and to have

their concerns addressed. It’s an ongoing challenge to be sure that there

are open lines of communication all the way across the district.

It’s always a challenge to look, now that we have the strategic plan,

to be absolutely sure what is in the budget line items are within the

goals and objectives of the strategic plan. So that’s always a challenge.

I think staff would tell you that it’s more of a challenge for them

because if it’s not, we’re going to pick up on it.

And, you know, it was a challenge to hire two new superintendents in

the time I’ve been on the board. John Nicoll had been a superintendent

here for a number of years when I went on the board, and since he retired

we’ve hired two others -- “Mac” Bernd and now Rob Barbot.

And I suppose somebody would say the bankruptcy was a giant challenge.

Now that occurred in December and I became president in December in that

year. We worked with our parent community, with our teaching staff, and

we did what we needed to do to address that big issue. We had three brand

new board members, so that was a challenge because you have three brand

new board members coming in with, well, two had been on the board for two

years and there was one who had been on a little more than that and two

of us who had been on longer -- Jim de Boom and myself.

So, working with the community with all of us pulling together to make

this not have anymore of an impact than was absolutely necessary, if you

will, on the classrooms, doing everything that we could to keep any

impact out of the classrooms and impacting the educational needs of the

kids that we were responsible for educating -- that was a challenge.

I think we addressed it. We had a citizens budget advisory committee

in place at that point in time, and we enlarged it to include teaching

and classified staff, and we also add some more parents to it. I would

say a large percentage of their recommendations were what we did to

handle the bankruptcy as it occurred in Orange County. But, in that

respect, we were really not that much different than every other district

in Orange County. We all had the same kinds of problems.

We had a hit that was perhaps larger because we’re one of the four

districts that had borrowed to invest. That had worked very well the

first year, but not very well the second year -- that was the bankruptcy

year.

The community came together and said, “Let’s do this together. Let’s

do the best that we can do and make this work.” And that’s how we got

through that. Everybody. It was not pointing a finger at blame. It was

pointing instead to say, “We’re here. We want to help. Let us help. Let

us work together. Let us be part of the team.” And that is what we did.

Q: What do you foresee as the largest issues ahead for the school

board?

A: There’s a number of them. There’s being sure that our curriculum is

aligned with the new state standards. That’s one. There’s being sure our

students are as prepared as we can possibly get them for the high school

exit exams. There’s the budget and what the state is going to do with

next year’s budget, which will be an ongoing decision-making process

until whenever they complete that.

There is continuing to be sure that everything we do ties into the

strategic plan. I know I keep going back to that, but it is up there,

over there, all around the board room because this is the district -- the

strategic plan is how we operate.

BIO

Name: Judy Franco

Age: 65

Residence: Lido Isle for 34 years

Title: President of Newport-Mesa Unified School District board, on

school board for 22 years

Occupation: Retired teacher; taught eighth and fourth grade

Education: Bachelor’s degree in history with a minor in English from

UC Berkeley, also earned her teaching credential there

Family: Husband of 44 years John; four sons Jack, David, Jim and Mark;

and four grandchildren

Hobbies: Reading, various activities with youngsters

Involvement: Youth and Government program, sailboat races for adults