By Dianne Anderson

Felicia Alexander may be relatively new to the San Bernardino Unified School Board, but generally speaking, the school board is not new to her.

With both parents as teachers, her childhood was steeped in the educational tradition, and school board meetings were the typical dinner-time conversation. Her mother was an educator for over 30 years with the L.A. Unified School District. Her father, a retired aerospace engineer, went on to teach at Compton Unified.

“I attended a lot of school board meetings growing up. It’s something that my mom emphasized. At dinner time, that’s what we did. We watched the school board meetings,” she said.

It stuck. Her daughter is also an educator.

As a parent of children that graduated from SBCUSD, she was always involved from grade school through college. Now, she has grandchildren in the district, and she feels it’s all about lifting up all students.

In the months ahead, she plans on attending all meetings whenever she can to become acclimated to parent and staff concerns. Last week, she attended a Local Control and Accountability Plans (LCAPs) meeting and took note of one parent speaking up on the call.

“This parent was focused on children with special needs, primarily children with dyslexia. The information presented to her after she highlighted her concerns is that there is information and resources out there for the children with those particular concerns that she cited,” she said.

Finding information can be an issue, but she feels the LCAP meetings offer an opportunity to have these discussions to educate the community, parents and scholars on available resources that the school district offers.

“Every week there is some type of meeting. It’s a matter of ensuring that the communication is available for parents, and [those] that don’t have the same opportunity to attend these meetings,” she said.

Funding from the state’s Local Control Funding Formula requires school districts to include parents in the decision-making process and development of LCAPs for their student’s success.

For now, Alexander’s goal as the newest board member is to become fully familiar with the concerns of parents, students, and also staff to make sure they are receiving the support that is required.

To deal with disconnects in access to resources, she said the district’s website features a lot of important information. School board meetings are also easy to access on Youtube.

“From a visual aid perspective, I would say it is resourceful. There’s always room for improvement, but the only way that we can improve is to hear from those that need the information who are looking at it,” she said.

Alexander, who was appointed in February by the SBCUSD Board of Education, will serve until the 2024 election.

Since coming on board, she is excited to participate in events, and be upfront to help inspire the scholars, including a recent Read Across America event to connect with students. She feels the district has done a good job of being relevant with great programs for students.

“It’s just a matter of making sure that they’re available to everyone and ensuring equity is extremely important. We want to make sure we do right by our scholars,” she said.

Alexander, who is married to Ward 7 Councilman Damon Alexander, said together, their pet project in organizing the Annual Turkey Trot has also proven to be a great day of family fun, and a way to instill community pride. Many schools participate in the race for relatively free.

At this point, she said she is still getting familiar with the district landscape, and meeting colleagues, but is excited for the new superintendent, Mauricio Arellano, to see what his focus is, and what he would like to see implemented.

Ultimately, budget is a concern. However, resources for the students are also a priority.

“I would like to see our rating improve. I want us to proceed to where we were pre-COVID. [With] recruitment, we have great educators, and it would be nice to see continuing recruitment of the best and the brightest talent.

No conversation about education would be complete without a focus on equity, something that she said is also very important to her.

“As an African American female, I feel that if there are racial disparities out there, it’s extremely important to address them upfront. I know the district has good resources to do so,” she said. “It’s definitely a critical matter with any disparity that we need to address right away.”

For SBCUSD School Board meetings, see https://www.youtube.com/user/SanBdoCitySchools