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"The field of candidates running for the Greenfield Union School Board is the most crowded with eight candidates running for three open seats.Greenfield has a small school district, with 3,309 students enrolled in four elementary schools and one middle school. The race is an important one as many changes are nearing, including more local control of state funding and the implementation of the common core state standards.VIDEO: Meet all the candidatesBoard Vice President Sonia Heredia, Board Clerk Jose Vazaquez and Board Member Maria Castillo are all up for re-election.The other five candidates are: teacher Sandra Cante; teacher Paul Dake; principal Jesus Lepe; Parent, Leticia Martinez Argueta, and retired correctional sergeant Juergen Smith.Incumbents Sonia Heredia and Maria Castillo have aligned themselves with Jesus Lepe, Principal of Frank Paul Elementary School in Salinas. Lepe has decades of experience as an educator. He\u2019s worked in many facets, as a teacher in Los Angeles, and principal Mary Chapa Elementary in Greenfield.Six months after accepting the position, Lepe resigned, and he\u2019s been in the Alisal district ever since.Lepe has two kids in the Greenfield district. He says it\u2019s that personal connection to the city that drives him.\u201CWe want a better quality education. We want to retain our teachers. We want to pay our teachers more because they\u2019re leave. There is a high turnover rate and that\u2019s a big issue and a big concern because they\u2019re training with our kids and then leave for somewhere else,\u201D Lepe said. Greenfield has some of the lowest paid teachers in the state.Lepe\u2019s running mate, board vice president Sonia Heredia, also has a background in education. Heredia minored in early childhood development in college. She currently works as a social worker for the Monterey County Office of Education, where she\u2019s been employed for 18 years.Heredia is a mother of four kids in the Greenfield district. She says she too wants to work on ways to keep teachers in the district as well as hire some new ones as well.When asked why she chose to run with a group, Heredia explained \u201CSo we can collaborate ahead of time working together for the best interests of the students and we have a lot of the same goals that we want to bring back for our community\u201D.Maria Castillo worked as an aid for 10 years in the North Monterey County Unified School District. Castillo has worked in classrooms with kids from Kindergarten through High School. Today, you\u2019ll find her working for the One Stop Career Center in Salinas.Castillo says one change she\u2019s truly proud of in Greenfield is the introduction of more technology in the classrooms and wants to see more resources directed that way \u201CI particularly want to ensure that the resources we are going to be getting, because we are going to be having more local control with our funding, it goes to our students and we bring in more resources\u201D.If Lepe, Heredia and Castillo are elected to the board, it would be a violation of the brown act for all three of them to meet and discuss board matters outside of a board meeting.Not everyone wants to see three people dominate the board, like Greenfield mother of two and Special Education Teacher at San Vicente Elementary in Soledad, Sandra Cante.Cante attends board meetings and has been watching its moves closely. She says she\u2019s observed a split in the board, firsthand and doesn\u2019t want to see the district\u2019s progress derailed by personal agendas. Cante\u2019s, husband is also involved and employed by the district. Angel Cante is the executive assistant under the superintendent.If elected, Cante would legally be required to recuse herself from any vote involving her husband and was adamant that even if she wasn\u2019t required to, she would anyway. Cante says she isn\u2019t trying to personally gain anything from sitting on the board, swearing she just wants what\u2019s best for the students\u201CI am born and raised in Greenfield, and I love Greenfield. I was living in San Diego, and me and my husband chose to come back to Greenfield and raise our kids here. We\u2019re passionate about the town and we\u2019re passionate about moving our town forward and moving our schools forward,\u201D Cante said.Former board member and longtime educator Paul Dake wants to get back in the action. Dake served on the board for 6 years and 1 year as its president. He\u2019s spent the last 27 years teaching in the Santa Rita School District.\u201CI have experience working with budgets. I\u2019ve been a negotiator for the teachers in my union. I\u2019ve also sat on the other side of the table with the school district. I have experience working with budgets in dealing with the union and my other experience with the school board so I understand the numbers. And as a teacher I understand what\u2019s required for Common Core,\u201D Dake said.Candidate Leticia Martinez Argueta a parent of three kids in the district and is a fulltime caregiver for her parents. She too goes to board meetings to stay informed. She says the quality of education has improved recently and she can help keep up the momentum. She hopes she can bridge the gap between the board and the community.Argueta moved to Greenfield from Mexico in 1979, she went to school in Greenfield and then King City.Argueta doesn\u2019t have an education background but worked in the banking industry, which, she says could be beneficial when dealing with budgets. \u201CThe children would be really important to me... I think it\u2019s important, the education of our students. The basic thing is I want them to be successful in life, they are our leaders of our future\u201D explains the candidate.Board clerk Jose Vazquez, wants to land his seat for another term. Born in Mexico, Vazquez says he can relate to the struggles of many students in Greenfield. He too had to learn English as a second language. He explains, every vote he casts, is with the best interests of the students in mind.Vazquez has a little history in the education field, he studied for two years to become a teacher. He says his focus is the quality of what\u2019s being taught in the classrooms \u201CI want what\u2019s best for the students, my biggest concern going forward is education and safety\u201D.And lastly, retired Correctional Sergeant Juergen Smith is hoping he\u2019ll be able to make major changes if elected to the board. Smith is unhappy with the way the current board is operating. Smith says he wants to see more money go to the students, school supplies and teachers.Since retiring five years ago, Smith has spent his free time volunteering in the schools. He reads to Kindergarten classes, volunteers in the library and even plays Santa Claus at Christmas time.He promises to maintain that hands on approach if chosen by the voters \u201CWe have four school sites. I\u2019m willing to spend eight hours a day at each school site and on the fifth day I\u2019m willing to go to another school district and meet another Superintendent. Any Superintendent here in Monterey County that\u2019s providing a better education program than what is being currently provided.\u201D\u00A0"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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