Endorsement: Jason Carter for Sonoma County Board of Education

Valley voters on Nov. 8 will consider two candidates squaring off for the Area 1 seat on the Sonoma County Board of Education, which mirrors the District 1 supervisorial territory, covering the Sonoma Valley and eastern parts of Santa Rosa. Incumbent Gina Cuclis, a longtime Valley resident, faces a challenge to her seat from Santa Rosa native Jason Carter, a recent transplant to Sonoma.

The Board of Education guides the Sonoma County Office of Education (SCOE) in its mission to support the county’s 40 school districts in their efforts to implement educational programs and strategies, meet legal mandates and provide fiscal oversight – all with an eye toward improving student achievement.

Whichever candidate wins the seat, he or she will partner with the SCOE superintendent and area districts in meeting the ongoing challenges of the still-new Common Core curriculum, the Smarter Balanced state testing system, education funding, support for at-risk youth, inter-district transfer requests, and more. SCOE helps foster student engagement through sponsoring spelling bees, film festivals, a coding contest and more.

Additionally, many of the Office of Education’s programs are geared toward helping at-risk students stay the course in school and earn their ever-valuable high school diploma or General Education Diploma. Court Schools provide instruction for kids in court-supervised programs; the Community Schools program is designed to meet the educational needs of at-risk youth on the verge of dropping out, and SCOE coordinates the development of the County plan for providing educational services to expelled students.

The Santa Rosa-based SCOE has more resources for students than a lot of Sonomans probably realize.

Challenger Jason Carter was recently hired by the City of Santa Rosa as director of its Violence Prevention Partnership, working with high-risk youth to keep them out of gangs. Before that, Carter had been the program director for the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County. While there, he launched the Youth Development Program in 2012 that prepares at-risk kids with the skills to earn their high school diploma and learn workforce development, while offering college and career mentoring for youth ages 16 to 24 who’ve dropped out of school.

Carter says he was, himself, an at-risk youth – having grown up in a poor household, he dropped out of school, turned to drugs and, he says, “really lost my way.” After turning his life around, he’s dedicated his career to helping kids - kids like he once was - to do the same.

Cuclis is seeking her second term, after winning the Area 1 seat in 2012. A longtime champion for improving quality of life in the Sonoma Valley, Cuclis has made school attendance a priority in her first term and looks forward to keeping a sharp eye on the SCOE budget and furthering the implementation of the Local Control Accountability Plan to guide how state funding is spent. Cuclis is a veteran of navigating the SVUSD landscape – her twin daughters graduated from Sonoma Valley High School in 2011. In her nearly four years on the board, Cuclis has dedicated countless hours to bettering the education environments of local students.

Cuclis recently failed in her bid to unseat Susan Gorin in the June primary for the 1st District Supervisor. While that campaign was underway, Carter launched his candidacy for the Board of Education, and has secured endorsements from the other four members of the Education Board, as well as four of five members of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District board of trustees, plus three of five Sonoma City Council members.

The role of the Sonoma County Office of Education is at times a mystery to the average district resident and we hope that whoever wins the Area 1 seat will dedicate a portion of their efforts to better establishing the needs SCOE meets – especially regarding its advocacy for the Valley’s at-risk students.

Which is why we think Jason Carter is the better choice in this election.

Carter’s first-hand knowledge of the struggles of at-risk youth – and their capacity to overcome them – are hard to match. He’s walked in their shoes.

In addition to his new responsibilities around gang prevention, he’s served on the board of directors of the College Tee Project, which promotes higher education awareness in younger grades; was a member of the Luther Burbank Center for the Arts Latino Advisory Committee; served on the Sonoma County Probation Department’s Keeping Kids in School Committee; as well as on the Sonoma County Workforce Investment Board’s Youth Committee.

Carter is literally “on the ground” with youth on the edge, which is where SCOE’s services are most needed – in its Community Schools dropout-prevention program, court schools for kids in juvenile hall, and its education plan for expelled students.

Carter says SCOE’s services are underutilized in the Sonoma Valley and that his experience and connections he’s made working with at-risk programs in Santa Rosa give him the unique ability to build better partnerships between the Office of Education and SVUSD.

These are the kids SCOE can help the most. And Carter appears uniquely qualified to serve them.

We recommend Jason Carter for Sonoma County Board of Education.

– Jason Walsh, editor

– John Burns, publisher