Meet Your Recently Elected School Board Members!

Congratulations to Jamie Calloway, David Glasser and incumbent Miriam Walden, who were elected to the Albany School Board on November 7. They shared their goals as members of the School Board with The Cougar. Their answers are published verbatim below.

1. What will your first step as a member of the School Board be?

Jamie Calloway: As a new board member, the first thing I want to focus on is listening and learning. I have a lot to learn about how the Board runs, what the day-to-day workings of the Board are, and what the Board’s facilitation process is like. The District administrators are very skilled at what they do. This is true, also, of my fellow board members. I think I would do a great disservice to myself and to them if I began my term thinking that I already know what there is to know about Albany schools. I hope we–meaning the new and remaining Board members as well as District administrators–can take the time to get to know one another and establish common goals for the future of our district.

David Glasser: To reach out to all community members to increase their participation in board policymaking and participation in the District’s planning process.

Miriam Walden: Well, one thing that I’ve been unable to get to for months is reconvening the Food Services Committee to look at the challenges that we’ve had implementing our proposals for better quality and more nutritious food in our schools. Our staff has been able to make some changes (esp. at the elementary level) but many of the plans have been difficult to implement, and we have yet to even begin an overhaul of the food service at the High School. The committee of parents, students and staff that was working on this issue hasn’t officially met for a year — but there are some important things we could be doing. So, I’ll be trying to reconvene that group soon.

2. What are your plans specifically for Albany High?

Jamie Calloway: My son went to elementary school in Albany, and now he’s at AMS. Because my personal experience with the high school is so limited, it’s absolutely essential that I speak to and learn from others who are intimately familiar with AHS and its needs. While I was campaigning, I met several students and parents who were able to tell me what they saw as the greatest needs at AHS. I want to continue having these discussions and then prioritize accordingly the issues that are raised. Problems with overcrowding came up time and again in my discussions with AHS families; that is certainly a problem that must be solved. It’s also important to me — and this is true at all levels, not just for the high school — that the teachers’ voices are heard and respected when changes in curriculum and policy are implemented.

David Glasser: I’m not anywhere close to answering that question yet. I would like to hear from AHS students and parents about their concerns first.

Miriam Walden: The first thing I should say about this is that I have enormous respect for our AHS students, staff, administration and parents. I believe that our school sites need and deserve a lot of control over their own decisions and the creation of their own school culture. I don’t think anybody at AHS needs the school board to come riding in and tell you what to do. I have been following the discussions about AP classes, student stress, the achievement gap, etc. with great interest and concern. I hope that we can develop a good process for discussing these issues and putting them into the bigger context — which in my mind is “what makes for an exciting, rigorous, comprehensive curriculum that is accessible and appropriate for all students?” Because so many folks are working so hard on the WASC review right now, the most appropriate thing for now is probably to let this conversation take shape within the WASC process.

3. How did you celebrate your victory?

Jamie Calloway: I’m a pretty cautious person. Overly cautious, really. I did have a celebratory dinner with my family the day after the election, but I won’t feel truly victorious until I feel that I’m doing my part as a Board member to serve Albany schools.

David Glasser: A quiet sunday dinner with several of the people that helped me with the campaign.

Miriam Walden: It is definately nice to be done with the campaign. My family and I enjoyed a few dinners out on Monday and Tuesday (not really because of the election but because it was my son Samuel’s week to take home the 2nd grade Room 3 mascot, a stuffed elephant, and we had to take “Pounds” out to see all our favorite places!) I also took my husband to see Howard Zinn with Mos Def and Alice Walker et al at the Berkeley Community Theater on Thursday night. They were reading from “Voices of a People’s History” which was really cool. (Mos Def read Frederick Douglas and Malcom X.) A lot of my students at Berkeley High came, and some students from Leadership High in San Francisco. It was exciting to be in a room with so many great people working for change — young and old. I am really tired. I need some sleep, but I also have lots of work to do for my students and for my graduate school classes. Sleep will have to wait.

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