Why wasn't Patty Anderson endorsed by the VTA?

Why wasn't Patty Anderson chosen?
The VTA school board endorsements are fair and impartial. Financial gain has nothing to do with endorsements. Union membership has NOTHING to do with endorsements. I was on a panel that interviewed a Police officer who was a union member. He was not chosen.

The decision regarding Patty Anderson was made in the same way as for every other candidate. It was made as a result of her interview responses and for no other reason. I will also point out that questions about salaries and benefits are NOT asked and NEVER discussed.

Here is a summary of the VTA interview process: All school board candidates are invited to be interviewed by a VTA panel of the membership. The panel is usually about eight to ten VTA members. The panel members ask each candidate the same set of questions. Each panel member privately and independently ranks the candidate’s answers to each question on a numeric scale while the candidate answers the question.

When the interview is completed, the panel member's numbers are averaged separately for each of the twenty or so questions. These averages along with a few outstanding quotes from the candidate are put on a summary sheet for viewing of the membership.

After the panel interviews all the candidates, the panel members compute a single total average of all questions for each candidate. This single number gives a tentative ranking. The panel members discuss candidates from strongest to weakest on the candidate's answers regarding his or her support for PUBLIC education.

Coming to a decision about the final recommendations can take a great deal of time and discussion. One candidate has a marginally better answer on one question, but a much worse one on another, so which candidate to chose. This candidate is a really nice person, but does not seem to grasp what a campaign is about. Could she or he be an effective campaigner? Other times the choices are easy as the "anti" group's candidates generally refuse to talk with the VTA at all. If there are only three slots on the ballot and only three candidates will interview with the VTA, then the choice becomes obvious.

Once the candidates are ranked and chosen by the panel, the names of the panel recommended candidates are first discussed with the VTA Executive Board. The VTA Ex. B. passes on its recommendations (usually the same as the panel) to the Representative Assembly. The Rep Assembly makes the final decision about which, if any, candidates will be supported.

NOTE: All VTA Executive Board and Representative Assemby members are elected by the total membership of VTA in secret elections.

The Rep Assembly meeting is usually very long and involved as panel members present their report and answer questions from the membership. Often this "endorsement" meeting takes two or three hours.

WORTH REMEMBERING:
(1) All members of the VTA Executive Board and Representative Assembly are VUSD, credentialed, full time employees with full time work responsibilities in the Vista Unified School District.
(2) The president of the VTA is not on the interview panel. The president does not pick the panelists. All responsibility for the panel and its interviews lie with the Political Action Committee.
(3) There was no VTA political action committee before the “anti” group seized control of the School Board Majority in 1992 through a “stealth” political campaign.

Before 1992 Vista Teachers Association did not engage in politics have a political action committee, an interview panel or an interview process. All of the political action of the VTA is a direct result of attacks on our VUSD community’s traditional forms of public education by the “anti” group.

In the first months after the 1992 election, the stealth majority and their “anti” agenda turned down millions of dollars of Federal funds and grants and attacked the teaching of comprehensive sex education, and evidence based science in our VUSD classrooms. Only many months, after the chaos generated by the “anti” majority was well underway, did the VTA first begin to organize a political response. Months later the VTA joined in the already established community organized recall of those “stealth” candidates.

This timeline can be verified in the official notes of the VTA Representative Assembly and Executive Board.

If Patty Anderson was not chosen it had nothing to do with anything but her answers to the questions about her support for public education.

In my time on the panel none of the questions were about salary or benefits for anyone. I have been assured that money and salaries have never been part of the discussion for any subsequent endorsement. I repeat again, NO discussion about which candidate would be better for salary or benefits was ever heard at those panels or at the various Rep Assemblies. To falsely assert, as the Anti group does, that the VTA endorses candidates so teachers can get more money is not only false in fact, it is despicable in inference.

In my time the VTA panel questions had to do with the various educational issues of the day—vouchers, charters, sex education, and creationism. They were very straight forward and exactly the kind of questions everyone in out district would like answers to.

I wish every voter in VUSD could see the candidates answer those questions. I believe that if our VUSD community heard the candidate’s answers and saw the professionalism of the interview panel, our community would overwhelmingly support the candidates that are endorsed by the Vista Teachers Association; even Jim Trageser's anti-VTA editorials in the NCTimes might soften.