The San Mateo Union High School District (SMUHSD) Board consists of five members, each with the mission of improving the academics and health of students in Aragon, Hillsdale Capuchino, Burlingame, San Mateo, Mills, and Peninsula Alternative High Schools. Over the past few years, the SMUHSD discussed topics such as the lights in the football field, flex time, and the new buildings at Aragon. These projects were drafts at first, but with work, they became reality.
To get approval, an idea or proposal for changes within the district needs the support of three out of five board members. Linda Carlton, the Director of Maintenance, Operations and Facilities Use, says, “[Factors taken into consideration by the board are] need for the project; scope of the project, the overall goal of the project and what we want to achieve; what and who will be impacted; how the project will impact the surrounding areas and potential risk taken to complete the project; total project budget; what future costs will be associated with the project (maintenance, wear and tear, utilities, etc.); and funding source.”
Board Member Marc Friedman explains, “Anyone is free to come to a board meeting and speak up during public comments. [People can also] write us emails on the [district] website, and we preach ideas that way. The board is a policy-setting organization, so the best way is to work through staff: people like the superintendent, the principal, the associate and deputy superintendents, and so forth.”
Although the board mostly works in the public, there are some matters discussed in closed session. Board President Peter Hanley states, “[According to the] Brown Act legislation, there are only specific topics that we can close the board meeting on. Those are things around student matters, discussion of student discipline and student privacy issues. Those are held in closed session the same way with employee matters, any employee evaluations, employee discipline issues are held in in closed session, or issues around litigation [are].”
After approval, the board has to figure out a way to fund for the project. Board Member Robert Griffin elaborates, “Every year we legally have to have a budget, so we passed the budget last year. The year starts July 1 and goes to June 30. We organize it or allocate it out for certain areas. This is the income, and our income primarily comes from property taxes. We allocate it to salaries, services, for the athletic program, for every type of activity we do. If we have a budget, we also have a reserve, [which is similar to] a household budget [for emergency purposes] when you run out of money.”
However, there is a distinction in the process between ideas of one school and of the whole district. Griffin describes, “The administration and the school site make procedures, or [the board] makes something called administrative policies and administrative regulations. We would not change how reservations are made at Aragon, like the baseball field … If it’s only impacting that site and it doesn’t go against [our] policies, the site might be able to make a change. The principal might talk to the superintendent. And then they might just go do it.”
Each person in the district has a unique role, with the board members representing the people’s voices, the superintendent implementing the projects and maintaining the organization of the district, and the principal focusing on solving the problems within each school. Hanley elaborates, “A board member has to take into account what everybody says and tries to make a decision that’s in the best interests of the organization of the school district.”
Superintendent Kevin Skelly explains, “The principals are in charge of a bunch of the [ideas] from the schools… If it’s a major idea, there are some discussions with me. I’ll inform the board and depending on what the issue is, it might come to the board with a vote, or it might be something that we try and then report to the board.”
Throughout the past few years, the board has worked to improve the environments of SMUHSD schools. Over the next few months and years, students will see what the board has in store next.
