Bob Lawson
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Bob Lawson represents an at-large seat on the Vallejo City Unified School District school board in California. Lawson won the seat in the at-large general election on November 8, 2016.
Lawson participated in Ballotpedia's 2016 school board candidate survey. Click here to read his responses.
Elections
2016
Three of the five seats on the Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education were up for at-large general election on November 8, 2016. Two of the seats were up for election to four-year terms, and the third seat was up for election to a two-year term due to an appointment on the board. No incumbents filed to run for the four-year terms, guaranteeing at least two newcomers were elected to the board. The race for the two open seats featured candidates Melissa Bandong Bowman, Susan Burton, John Fox, Marianne Kearney-Brown, Bob Lawson, Jeanette McCree-Goudeau, and Chidale O'Hara. Kearney-Brown and Lawson won election to the seats. In his bid for re-election to a two-year term, incumbent Ruscal Cayangyang defeated challenger Hazel Wilson.[1][2][3]
Results
| Vallejo City Unified School District, At-large General Election, 4-year terms, 2016 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Marianne Kearney-Brown |
25.82% | 17,807 |
| Bob Lawson |
20.06% | 13,833 |
| John Fox | 18.70% | 12,895 |
| Melissa Bandong Bowman | 11.34% | 7,821 |
| Jeanette McCree-Goudeau | 9.85% | 6,791 |
| Chidale O'Hara | 8.23% | 5,678 |
| Susan Burton | 5.72% | 3,943 |
| Write-in votes | 0.28% | 196 |
| Total Votes | 68,964 | |
| Source: Solano County Registrar of Voters, "Final Official Results," accessed December 5, 2016 | ||
Funding
At the time of this election, the Solano County Registrar of Voters did not publish school board candidate campaign finance reports online. Ballotpedia staff directly requested this information, but the county did not provide it.
Endorsements
Lawson was endorsed by the community organization Evolve.[4]
Campaign themes
2016
Ballotpedia survey responses
Bob Lawson participated in Ballotpedia's 2016 survey of school board candidates. In response to the question "What do you hope to achieve if elected to the school board?" the candidate stated on October 28, 2016:
| “ | Replace the superintendent if she continues policies that have been disastrous in our district.[5][6] | ” |
Ranking the issues
The candidate was asked to rank the following issues based on how they should be prioritized by the school board, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. Each ranking could only be used once.
| Education policy |
|---|
 |
Click here to learn more about education policy in California. |
| Education on the ballot |
| Issue importance ranking | |
|---|---|
| Candidate's ranking | Issue |
| Improving relations with teachers | |
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | |
| Improving post-secondary readiness | |
| Expanding arts education | |
| Closing the achievement gap | |
| Improving education for special needs students | |
| Expanding school choice options | |
| “ | Teachers are more important in the education of the children than the "suits" in the central office.[6] | ” |
| —Bob Lawson (October 28, 2016) | ||
Positions on the issues
The candidate was asked to answer nine questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. The questions are highlighted in blue and followed by the candidate's responses. Some questions provided multiple choices, which are noted after those questions. The candidate was also provided space to elaborate on their answers to the multiple choice questions.
| Should new charter schools be approved in your district? (Not all school boards are empowered to approve charter schools. In those cases, the candidate was directed to answer the question as if the school board were able to do so.) |
|---|
| No. We already have three, which have drained many promisiing students away from regular public schools. |
| Which statement best describes the ideal relationship between the state government and the school board? The state should always defer to school board decisions, defer to school board decisions in most cases, be involved in the district routinely or only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. |
| The state should only intervene in severe cases of misconduct or mismanagement. State took over our district for five years. |
| Are standardized tests an accurate metric of student achievement? |
| Yes. They are more so than the critics say. Students are being sold a bill of goods when they're continually taught that tests are wicked and bad. |
| What is your stance on the Common Core State Standards Initiative? |
| Not my area of expertise. However, I've never liked the idea that all teachers should be teaching the same thing every day. |
| How should the district handle underperforming teachers? Terminate their contract before any damage is done to students, offer additional training options, put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve or set up a mentorship program for the underperforming teacher with a more experienced teacher in the district? |
| Put them on a probationary period while they seek to improve. If administrators would do their job in observing and evaluating teachers early on instead of always being gone for "important" meetings that change nothing, bad teachers wouldn't get tenure. |
| Should teachers receive merit pay? |
| No. Luck of the draw becomes the master schedule, doesn't it? |
| Should the state give money to private schools through a voucher system or scholarship program? |
| No. Private schools should be just that, not end-runs of the public school system. |
| How should expulsion be used in the district? |
| Students who represent a danger to others should be removed. |
| What's the most important factor for success in the classroom: student-teacher ratio, the curriculum, teachers, parent involvement or school administration? |
| Teachers No student I ever had has said, "I want to be just like the principal." |
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Bob Lawson Vallejo City Unified School District. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
- Vallejo City Unified School District, California
- Vallejo City Unified School District elections (2016)
External links
Footnotes
- ↑ Solano County Registrar of Voters, "Candidate Filed Log (On The Ballot) - November 8, 2016 General Election As Of 08/22/2016," accessed August 23, 2016
- ↑ Vallejo City Unified School District, "Meet Our Board," accessed July 12, 2016
- ↑ Solano County, "2016 GENERAL ELECTION," accessed November 9, 2016
- ↑ Evolve, "Endorsements: November 8, 2016 General Election," accessed October 13, 2016
- ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2016, "Bob Lawson's responses," October 28, 2016
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
