Candidate for State Center Community College District, Trustee Area 7
Why are running at this time?
I’m running because I see a problem, and I think I can help. The education bureaucracy is too large, and our students and instructors are paying the price. Our tax dollars must reach classrooms first to keep the doors open and to support our best teachers.
Our community colleges are the most important educational option available for adults of every age and background. For many, it is an escape hatch out of poverty and into opportunity. That hatch takes the shape of a classroom door, and it’s being shut in the faces of thousands of young people.
This opportunity of universal post-secondary education and career technical training is a promise we have made to all of our young people. It’s a promise that they deserve every opportunity in life, and that promise has been broken by the current Board of Trustees. It is time for new leadership.
Why the State Center Community College District?
For the past several years, I have worked directly on issues of community-wide concern with many Fresno City College students. Their stories of unnecessary hurdles to their educational goals erected by steep budget cuts are very disturbing, as are their stories of an unresponsive Board of Trustees and administration. As the father of a Fresno City College sophomore, I have listened at the dinner table to firsthand accounts of hundreds of students eager to learn being turned away from school on registration day and from overcrowded classrooms at the beginning of each semester.
Why is it important to have a progressive in office?
During my years of community advocacy, I have seen many unresponsive elected officials who all too often prefer to be led by bureaucrats, relying primarily on their recommendations when writing policies, setting priorities and developing budgets. All too often, Trustees fail to actively engage on issues to become true leaders and reliable servants of their constituents. I would strive to become fully engaged with every constituency that is directly or indirectly affected by the decisions of the Board of Trustees and to give voice at the board level to their ideas, concerns and expertise. I would also seek to be a voice to the general public on the critically important role of our community colleges and the need to fully support them.
How can supporters help your campaign?
Donate your time to the effort. Financial support is always needed, too. If you live in the district, ask for a yard sign (link to map: http://www.kevinforeducation.com/scccd_trustee_area_7.pdf).
People can help by joining the Central Valley Progressive PAC’s day of volunteering in support of my campaign on Oct. 13, 9 a.m. to noon. We’ll be meeting in my front yard for a brief training and then go knock on doors, make phone calls, deliver yard signs and more. Everyone is welcome to help in whatever way works best for them. The address is 1204 E. Sierra Madre Ave., one short block south of Shaw Avenue and a block and half east of Maroa Avenue.
My personal e-mail is kevinhall59@sbcglobal.net. My campaign Website is www.kevinforeducation.com, and my Facebook page is www.facebook.com/kevinforeducation. And if all else fails, I’m the only Kevin Hall in the Fresno phone book—old school.
