New view for outsider

After years of fighting the system from outside, newly elected Ocean View School Board member John Briscoe has a fierce list of changes he hopes to make from within.

Last week, Briscoe was one of three new members elected to the Ocean View board in last week’s election.

Rather than taking what he called the “easy road,” gaining union endorsements, sending out mailers and putting up signs on the corner, Briscoe went out every day to face the public. Day after day, the board member hopeful sat on the pavement out in front of every school in the district, getting to know students as well as registered voters.

“The kids going back and forth to school don’t really see the political process — they just see a bunch of signs,” Briscoe said.

“You should see the person running. It shouldn’t be about closed-door decisions.”

Briscoe, who ran unsuccessfully in 2002, garnered nearly 20% of votes this time with his exhaustive tactics — even recruiting his 16-year-old son in on the campaign to call low-propensity voters.

Now that’s he’s in, Briscoe plans to address a number of concerns he has had with the district, among them the staff’s responsibility to report potential child predators, even if it means reporting a teacher. “The district has no policies that require that the administration report and disclose such suspicious behaviors,” Briscoe said.

Underlying all of this, Briscoe’s main concern is keeping kids in the public schools.

Parents want their children prepared for life with fundamentals they are not receiving in Ocean View classrooms, Briscoe said.

“I can’t say what they are doing, but they aren’t doing what parents want to see,” Briscoe said.

Fellow board member-elect George Clemens wants to make the city’s schools some of the most desirable for parents in the area. That means fixing facilities, some of which are 50 to 60 years old, Clemens said.

“It’s a lot of things — technology in the classroom is one,” Clemens said. “Smartboards and computers require additional electric power.”

In the Huntington Beach City School District real estate has become an issue for different reasons.

Going into her 17th year on the board, Shirley Carey thinks the district needs to reevaluate unused properties and those rented out to private schools, mainly the Kettler and LeBard school sites.

“I think those focuses will go down the path of ensuring academic excellence,” Carey said. “Long-term planning impacts the community as well.”