Mary Jo Carreon, who currently serves as president of the Pleasanton school board, has confirmed her run for a second term to represent Area 1 this November.

“As a current trustee, and current school board president, I have the experience and knowledge of how our school district works and the ongoing work that still needs to get done,” Carreon said in a press release Wednesday. 

Carreon has been serving the district for roughly 30 years now — she was a teacher in the district for 26 years, teaching second grade at Alisal Elementary School for 20 of those years. When she retired in June 2020, she decided that her job at PUSD was not over, which is why she decided to serve on the school board.

Throughout the past four years, Carreon said she has been a part of a board that reopened schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped pass the $395 million Measure I general obligation bond and began planning the construction of new school facilities thanks to the Measure I funding. 

She was also chosen to serve as this year’s board president at the beginning of the year.

Carreon said that because of that experience, and as a former teacher who understands what it’s like being in the classroom, she is the perfect candidate for the board.

“I always believe in giving back to the community,” Carreon told the Weekly.

With Superintendent David Haglund leaving PUSD and the district hiring former Menlo Park City School District superintendent Maurice Ghysels as its interim leader, Carreon said having experienced individuals like herself on the board is especially important.

“I think stability and consistency is what our district needs,” she said.

After the teacher’s union almost went on strike during an impasse in contract negotiations with the district, Carreon said she also wants to continue to repair the relationships between the district and the community of parents, teachers and even students.

She said she has been recently going to different schools as part of a listening campaign and has been compiling a list of grievances that is over seven pages long where people have been telling her several underlying issues that she is committed to tackling in her second term, if she is elected.

“It’s been so incredibly painful because they were brutally honest and they were telling me where the breakdown was and some of the lack of trust, the lack of transparency,” Carreon said. “Some people felt that they weren’t being heard.”

She said she plans on giving the interim superintendent the list of grievances so that the district can begin addressing some of the issues right away by working with the community and rebuilding that trust. 

She said engaging with staff, students and parents and fostering those relationships will also be important as the district faces a budget deficit that will force the school board to make difficult decisions on reductions and as the board looks to hire Haglund’s permanent replacement.

“We need to gather community input and then hire our next superintendent, we need to make difficult decisions with budget reductions and we need to work together to ensure equity in our schools,” Carreon said in her press release. “I am committed to this work and to ensuring that every child receives a world-class education.”

She said she would like to see more town halls regarding the budget so that people can learn more about just how dire the situation is with the budget and so that community stakeholders can provide more input on possible solutions.

“I want people to be walking alongside us the whole time saying ‘these are my ideas’ … so that we have more community engagement,” Carreon told the Weekly. “It’s been my experience that parents want to be part of the solution. They’re not there to just complain, they have great ideas and we really need to work together.”

“I’m all about working together to find solutions,” she added.

Article published in Pleasanton Weekly by Christian Trujano