- Tell us about yourself.
My name is Michael Vargas, and I’m a registered Democrat. I’m an attorney and law professor at the McGeorge School of Law where I teach part time. I am actively involved in the local legal community and a number of community organizations, including the local Rotary, and I serve on the Sacramento County Equal Employment Opportunity Advisory Commission. I have a long history of public service, and I’m excited by the opportunity to continue to serve Elk Grove as a Trustee on the Elk Grove Unified School Board.
2. What makes you a qualified candidate for school board?
I have been an educator for the better part of 13 years. I started my career working part time in a dual-enrollment program at the University of Southern California helping high school students from LAUSD learn about college. This motivated me to get my Masters in Education, where I focused on student development and higher education administration. I spent four years working in higher education, supporting students as they made the transition to college and then as they transition into the work force. When I eventually graduated from law school, I almost immediately began teaching in higher education as well, teaching courses on startups, business, employment, and civil rights. This long career with one foot in education gives me an array of skills and knowledge that is needed on the school board from supporting student development outside the classroom to getting our students into college or a good career.
3. Why are you running for the school board?
I am running for Trustee on the Elk Grove Unified School District board because I want to help students and families get back on track after COVID-19. I think that I am especially well positions to do that given my background as an educator. My first career was in education administration, where I specialized in student development, particularly in marginalized communities. I worked with students to help them manage the transition from high school to college and then the transition from college to the workforce. That experience is precisely what we need on the school board as we manage the transition back to school and start to address the long-term educational and social impacts of COVID-19. Particularly in our marginalized communities, where COVID-19 hit especially hard and where public resources were less accessible, we’re seeing the lasting effects of the shutdown. And that is impacting so many other areas of the educational process.
4. What race and equity issues might you consider during your tenure?
The issue of equity is particularly important to me as a mixed-race LGBTQ+ person. I faced my share of discrimination and intolerance at all levels of education. My experience is just one, but it gives me an appreciation for the challenges faced by our students and families who comes from under-resourced or marginalized communities. The district’s equity plan is still relatively new, and we need to be willing to monitor, tweak, and refine it to ensure that it is meeting the goals we set out, especially around disproportionality in discipline and academic achievement. I plan to make that a priority. However, I also want to promote and expand access to support programs for marginalized students including supporting the Native American Education Program, expanding access to enrichment and extra-curricular programs for homeless and immigrant students, and bolstering LGBTQ+ support programs. I also want to ensure that all of or district policies are LGBTQ+ inclusive, a project I plan to pursue immediately upon taking office.
5. How are planning to address the achievement gap in your district?
There is no quick fix to the achievement gap, and it requires us to acknowledge that the roots of the problem are deeply intertwined with much bigger social challenges. However, schools can take a big step toward addressing the achievement gap by equalizing access to school programs and services. We know that the more time our students spend on campus, participating in school programs, the better their academic and developmental outcomes will be. We should ensure that all of our students, particularly those who may have limited financial resources, have the opportunity to participate in these programs, whether it is sports, band, theater, math league, or any other school program. We also need to do a better job of communicating with families. Family engagement is a critical component of academic success, so we need to create opportunities for families to actively participate in their student’s learning and achievement whether that is through governance appointments, booster clubs, or getting them out to school events. We need to more actively engage with parents.
6. Any additional information/platform
That district faces a number of persistent problems in the wake of COVID-19. The most pressing of these is the teacher shortage, which has now expanded into special education teachers, paraeducators, and even bus drivers. We need to tackle this issue by addressing both recruitment and retention. We need a plan for catching the attention of a smaller pool of applicants, but we should also be incentivizing homegrown teachers. We can do this by expanding the REACH program, which helps our paraeducators and staff get their teaching credentials. However, we also need to focus on retention. Elk Grove is a great place to live and our schools should be a great place to work. We need professional development programs designed to keep our teachers, paraeducators, and staff in the district, and we need to pay competitive wages and benefits.