Raymond and Howard Lead CVUSD Board Votes

Gary Howard

Sara Raymond

Castro Valley voters are currently favoring Sara Raymond and Gary Howard as their choices for School Board of Trustees as the mail-in ballots continue to be counted. Final counts are expected to be certified on December 8.

As of Monday, at 5 p.m., Raymond had 5,010 votes or 36.65%. Howard generated 4,610 votes or 33.73%. Tina Sachs received 4,048 votes or 29.62%. The top two candidates are expected to be seated and installed at the December 14 Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) meeting. 

The election is notable in that all three candidates ran on platforms of improving student achievement, maximizing equity, and providing transparent budgeting. Each candidate was endorsed by community leaders, current CVUSD board members, and teachers.

"I want to thank everyone who supported me and everyone who voted in the election," Howard told the Forum. "It'll be a great honor to return to the school board, and there is a lot of work to do. We need to finish the recovery from the pandemic, and then, we need to make our schools even better. I look forward to continuing that work."

All candidates said they spent a lot of time listening to the community and reaching out through various events and of course old-fashioned neighborhood visits.

"It was important to me that I stay focused on what I was offering as a candidate and true to my values," Raymond told the Forum. "I feel that my team and I ran a positive campaign.  I’m especially happy with the high volume of one-to-one contact that we were able to make with people in the community. Those conversations were so rewarding to me and helped me get to know Castro Valley in a new way.  Should the numbers hold up as the vote count is finalized, I’m very much looking forward to getting to work on behalf of the families and teachers of CVUSD."

While Castro Valley has a strong foundation for producing a quality education, those that sit on the Board of Trustees will still have many issues to tackle in the next few years.

A California Department of Education report released in October revealed Castro Valley saw 68.4% of all its public school students meet or exceed English Language standards (nearly unchanged since 2019). Math scores, however, took a 5.5% dip to 57.7% this year, down from 63.2% in 2019.

The Board will also need to continue to allocate the rest of the $123 million for building and renovations raised by Measure G Bond (2016). This includes the sports fields at Creekside and Canyon Middle Schools are on the list as well as additional facilities upgrades at Castro Valley and Redwood High School.

More than 97% of the district's $129.1 million budget comes from State funding and yet, CVUSD receives the least funding per student of any district in Alameda County. As for spending, $102.4 million, or 84% goes to salaries and benefits (teachers, staff, and administrators) with the remaining $19.6 million (16%) being spent on everything else.

With the voter's passage of Prop 28 this month, the CVUSD Board will likely need to prepare for additional state funding earmarked for arts and music education in K-12 public schools. Schools would be required to report how funding was used to directly benefit students. Larger schools would be required to spend 80% of the funding to employ new staff and 20% on training and supplies.