Kelly Kent for CCUSD School Board

A Vision

for Our Schools

MEETING EVERY STUDENT'S NEEDS

We at Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) are compelled to build relationships with every single student and family to find out if they have the support they need to reach their full potential. Do they have the necessary technology? A quiet place to work? Are they also caring for siblings? And are they also working a job?

Meeting each individual student’s needs requires a racial justice framework. Within this framework, we address the greatest needs first and foremost. This means our black and brown students. Our students with disabilities. Our English-learner students. Our homeless and foster care students. Our students on free and reduced meals. Each of these groups must be top of mind and require our immediate action.

As your CCUSD School Board representative, I will continue to put our historically underserved students first.

Because moving forward means breaking with what we know hasn’t worked. We must create something that finally lifts up every single child as the genius scholar and learner that they are, ensuring that they meet their full potential.

Meeting Every Student's Needs

RECRUITING AND RETAINING THE BEST

Faculty and staff represent the frontline of our values. CCUSD must incorporate cultural proficiency into everything we do, starting with hiring. Our most urgent need is in the form of hiring a diverse body of teachers and administrators who share our values.

Our CCUSD candidates must:

1. Be eager to use the most modern teaching methods.

2. Be ALL IN on cultural inclusiveness, with a working knowledge of how to reach and teach ALL students.

3. Have a successful track record of educating black boys.

4. See relationships as foundational to learning.

5. Be committed to continual professional growth.

We must also be able to retain our current exceptional personnel. Once we’ve identified staff that better reflects and celebrates the diversity of our student body, we must keep them here. It is imperative that we support these professionals by putting our money where our mouths are. The resources can be overtly financial in the form of signing bonuses. Or we can offer our resources as support in the form of space and endorsement of affinity groups and mentoring.

ENGAGING OUR COMMUNITY

Now more than ever, parents and students need to be authentically included as we begin the conversation about remaking public schools in the COVID-19 era. The pandemic has had a profound impact on all facets of our society and has pulled the curtain back, plainly revealing that our schools need innovation, rigor for all, and parity.

Parents know more than anyone else what their child’s full potential as a human being is. Our students, when invited to the table, will tell us what they need to be engaged, challenged, and inspired. These two pillars of our district must be involved in the entirety of this transformational work from imagination to implementation.

A RIGOROUS CURRICULUM

All of our students need to be both challenged and inspired. What will inspire them to come to class every day even under this radically different paradigm? For so many of them that will come with arts integration. For most of them, that will come when they see themselves or the world they feel most connected to reflected in the content. And for all of them that will come with the rigor that accompanies high expectations for every student.

Almost half of our graduates are not eligible for a 4-yr university. We must demand college and career readiness for 100% of our graduating class.

Our secondary sites (6-12) must:

1. De-track English, Math and Science courses

2. Make A-G completion a graduation requirement

3. Adopt A-G eligible courses as graduation requirements that build racial literacy

Our elementary curriculum is inconsistent across and within K-5 sites and often does not reflect the most progressive instructional frameworks.

District administration must support all educators to:

1. Adopt signature best teaching practices

2. Teach accurate and explicitly anti-biased content