Oscar de la Torre

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Oscar de la Torre

Prior offices

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District school board At-large

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Education

High school

Santa Monica High School

Contact

Personal website

Oscar de la Torre is an at-large member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified Board of Education in California. He ran for and won re-election in the general election on November 4, 2014.

Biography

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De la Torre graduated from Santa Monica High and went on to get his master's degree in public administration in 1998. In 2002, he founded a nonprofit youth agency.

Elections

2014

See also: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District elections (2014)

The election in Santa Monica-Malibu Unified featured four seats up for general election on November 4, 2014. There was no primary election.

Three at-large incumbents, Oscar de la Torre, Laurie Lieberman and Ralph Mechur ran for re-election. Incumbent Nimish Patel did not run for re-election. The three incumbents who ran faced challengers Patricia Finer, Craig Foster, Dhun May and Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein.

Incumbents Oscar de la Torre and Laurie Lieberman and challengers Craig Foster and Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein won the four at-large seats.

Results

Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District,
At-Large General Election, 4-year term, 2014

Party		Candidate	Vote %	Votes
	Nonpartisan	Laurie Lieberman Incumbent	20.8%	15,247
	Nonpartisan	Craig Foster	16.5%	12,126
	Nonpartisan	Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein	16.7%	12,277
	Nonpartisan	Oscar de la Torre Incumbent	16.3%	11,990
	Nonpartisan	Ralph Mechur Incumbent	15.7%	11,522
	Nonpartisan	Dhun May	7%	5,169
	Nonpartisan	Patricia Finer	7%	5,148
Total Votes				73,479
Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Los Angeles County Election Results," accessed January 2, 2015

Funding

At the time of this election, the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk did not publish school board candidate campaign finance reports online. Ballotpedia staffers requested this information, but the only free method of viewing the files was at their office.

The Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk targeted the end of 2018 to make school board candidate campaign finance reports available online for free. From that point forward, Ballotpedia began including campaign finance data for Los Angeles County school board candidates.

Endorsements

De la Torre was endorsed by the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association, Education Workers of SEIU Local 99, Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and the Advocates for Malibu Public Schools' (AMPS) PAC.

Campaign themes

2014

De la Torre highlighted the following issues as priorities on his campaign website:

“	Support Our Music and Arts Education When budget cuts threatened our music program, I voted to support music and the arts. The result has been that SMMUSD students are one of the few nation-wide that have access to instruments and music instruction at every grade level This support has led to our music program and students being recognized as a world-class program. Improve Campus Safety by Implementing Consistent Student Discipline Policies The consistent application of discipline policy is essential in creating a safe and orderly learning environment. Uniform discipline across all grade levels is necessary to keeping our students safe from bullying and violence. In addition, we must strive to combat the culture of violence in our society by teaching conflict resolution and non-violence within our curriculum. While on the school board I supported the implementation of “cool tools” to teach conflict resolution strategies to students in elementary grade levels. My goal in the coming months is to expand this curriculum, in a relevant form, to the middle school and high school grades and create an in-house suspension strategy that strives to get rid of behavioral problems, not the students. Student rights come with responsibility. Behavior that disrupts learning or threatens the safety of students must be addressed through both effective student/parent interventions and consistent application of a uniform discipline policy. Staff training on policy implementation and parental notification and involvement must be the cornerstones of our discipline reform. Teach Future Generations to Protect Our Environment Through Recycling and Environmental Education Every educational institution must teach a semester on the environmental impact of human interference in our earth’s eco systems. The future of humanity depends in great part on how we sustain the earth that gives us life. We have a responsibility to protect future generations and the natural environment that we are apart of. The awareness that we raise in children is the most effective plan to accomplish this goal. In my first term I led discussions on how we can develop a district-wide recycling program. I have facilitated meetings between school district staff with the Department heads in the City of Santa Monica to coordinate our recycling efforts. I believe educational components should exist to teach future generations to protect mother earth. The effects of global warming, consistent pollution of air, water and land can only be addressed in the short and long term through education. Moreover, I have consistently called for comprehensive testing so that we can ensure a learning environment that is safe from hazardous toxins in our public schools. Support Excellent Teachers by Reducing Class Size. Our faculty is one of the best in the county and we can sustain this by ensuring that our faculty remain one of the top paid instructors in the region. The best investment of our resources is in teacher quality. We need to support our teachers by reducing class size and implementing a professional development model that provides our teachers opportunities to learn the best practices. In the final analysis, the interaction that takes place between student and teacher is what matters most in education. I believe that it should be a priority for our school district and City to compensate our teachers at the highest level possible. This will attract the brightest and most energetic minds to the profession. Along with that, I would prioritize funding for staff development for teachers and staff to better serve our diverse student population. Close the Achievement Gap and Improve Human Relations A quality public education is the most effective tool in reconciling social and economic inequality. That being said, the “academic achievement gap” between student groups is the most pressing civil rights issue of our time. Now more than ever, our quality of life depends in great part to our competitiveness in a global economy. Our failure to prepare all students for the demands of a multi-cultural, high-tech, knowledge-based economy will undoubtedly have detrimental effects on all facets of our society. The road to excellent public schools is equity and equality in education. In 2001 I co-Chaired the districts’ Strategic Plan on Equity and Equality in Education. We developed a set of recommendations that have guided the district in its effort to provide an empowering learning experience for all students. I supported the creation of the Equity Fund tand the Vision for Student Success that will distribute resources to our schools of greatest need. Finally, we need to hold high expectations for all students and provide a rigorous curriculum with after school and summer support services for students who need them. I want to serve as an example to students who come from low-income backgrounds that through hard work and a commitment to education, anything is possible. We must eliminate the achievement gap by strengthening our schools of greatest need. We need to hold our school leadership accountable for results while providing the necessary staff development and resources for success. Giving parents a greater role in supporting the education of our students must be a part of the solution. Also, focusing attention on the needs of our boys while striving for gender equity and expanding opportunity for accelerated instruction and interventions for all students will be my focus in the coming months. Finally, we need to use our community’s diversity as an opportunity to teach cultural awareness. I am proud to have led the creation and implementation of the Ethnic Studies course at Samohi. I plan to work to expand on our success in this are to ensure that SMMUSD becomes a model district in how we prepare students to lead in a multi-cultural society. Support Schools as Community Centers Past voter support for Measure BB and Measure ES means that we can realize our vision of creating campus-community centers that provide recreational and learning opportunities during and after school for our entire community. This family-centered approach to school facility design and programming will revolutionize the use of our school sites to support life long learning. Various members of our community participated in our facility master planning process and I want to ensure that the ideas developed through this process serve as the guiding force of our decisions regarding facility improvement. Protect Students By Supporting Student-Centered Policy-Making On June 15, 2006 the SMMUSD Board of Education amended the school districts’ inter-district attendance policy that will add protections for students who involuntary lose housing, which was endorsed by SMRR. Under this new policy, “involuntary loss of housing resulting from apartments being removed from the rental market, buildings being red-tagged, or evictions to accommodate owner-occupancy should not interfere with a child completing his/her education in the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD).” This is one of many examples of our School Board meeting the needs of our residents. As a SMRR endorsed School Board member, I am proud of the student and resident-centered approach that guides our school districts’ policy making.	”
—Oscar de la Torre's campaign website (2014)

Recent news

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Oscar de la Torre News Feed

See also

• Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, California
• Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District elections (2014)

External links

Suggest a link

• Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District
• Office website
• Campaign website