Editors note: The Guardian is interviewing candidates for the fall elections, and to give everyone the broadest possible understanding of the issues and our endorsement process, we’re posting the sound files of all the interviews on the politics blog. Our endorsements will be coming out Oct. 6th.
Equitable access, restorative justice, parental participation and the achievement gap. Those are the main issues that Kim-Shree Maufas brought up when she sat down with the Guardian to talk about why she is running for re-election to the School Board.
“It’s about education,” Maufas said, as she talked about the need for equitable access and opportunities throughout the San Francisco Unified School District.
In October 2009, the Board voted unanimously to develop a plan to replace some student suspensions with a restorative justice approach. Since then $1 million has come into the district to fund this initiative and those monies are being used to focus on the relationships between teachers and students, Maufas says.
‘The teacher is no longer the person at the chalkboard, handing out assignments,” Maufas said.
Now, Maufas wants to lessen the amount of time that some students—particularly African American, Latino and Samoan students— spend outside class because they have been sent to the principal’s office.
“The most important daytime relationship for these kids is the ones they have at school,” Maufas said.
Listen to Maufas talk about why she supports the new assignment process and open AP and honors classes for all, why she is in favor of a bond to raise more money for local schools, and the untold story of how she came to use a SFUSD credit card to pay for some personal expenses.
“The thing is that the Chronicle did not have all the information,” Maufas said. “They just had the part where I had used the credit card.”