Correction: Candidate Emmanuel Amanfor's name was misspelled in a previous version.
Three candidates are running for the Twin Rivers Unified School District board of trustees Area 6 in the June 2 primary: Emmanuel Amanfor, Eduardo Ochoa and Adrianne Gonzales.
Trustees, or school board members, are local elected public officials who serve four-year terms and govern school districts. The terms are staggered with openings every two years.
Incumbent Rebecca Sandoval will not run again and has represented Twin Rivers Unified School District's Area 6 since 2012.
The schools in Area 6 of the Twin Rivers School District include Fairbanks Elementary, Garden Valley Elementary, Morey Avenue Early Childhood Development Center, Rio Tierra Jr. High, Smythe Academy Charter, Smythe Academy Charter, and Hazel Strauch Elementary.
Twin Rivers was one of the school districts in Sacramento where teachers walked out of their classrooms in March. Teachers went on strike for 12 days. This was the first strike in the district’s history and it was due to teachers wanting higher pay, smaller class sizes and fully paid family healthcare.
CapRadio spoke with the candidates running for the seat about their vision for their roles as trustees. Candidates discussed why they’re running, what they see as the district's top priorities and their long-term goals.
Each candidate will participate in a community forum on Saturday, May 2, from 9:30 a.m. - 11 a.m., at 450 West El Camino Avenue, in the Stanford Settlement Activity Room.
Emmanuel Amanfor
Emmanuel Amanfor is an executive for the Sacramento County Behavioral Health Services, where he oversees quality management, data analytics, and cultural competence for medical behavioral health programs. He has kids in the district.
He’s also a former chair of the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, a board member of the City of Sacramento Civil Service Personnel Board. He has worked at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, managing reentry programs.
Amanfor said if the people want a different, unique leadership and want someone who can hold people accountable, then he’s the person to vote for.
“I have a wealth of experience when it comes to identifying changes, providing transparency and ensuring that there's accountability in regards to the finances, the budget and opportunity for those who are critically impacted,” he said. “I've also passed through more than $6 billion in oversight in regards to different programs.”
On top of needs in the district, Amanfor said he wants to ensure sustainable wages and budgets for teachers, address school safety measures and academic achievement.
“Advocating for [teachers] to ensure that they get their due payments without any delay and also providing some level of transparency when it comes to the negotiating aspect,” he said. “Secondly, I definitely want to ensure that we're addressing our school safety prior to the unfortunate incident that happened in Natomas High School.”
When it comes to ensuring teachers are funded after the strikes in March, Amanfor said the teachers' demands were reasonable and should have been resolved earlier.
“In order for any students or parents to ensure that the children are getting the best education, you need to pay the teachers,” he said. “That's number one, and it shouldn't be something that you have to constantly negotiate. It should be something that's just accepted when they need their pay.”
Amanfor’s long-term vision for the Twin River School District is to build a collaborative connection with all the trustees to ensure they’re in unity.
“My vision is that number one, being visible to the community members and those who we’re serving,” he said. “Number two, ensuring that there's transparency in regards to our process, policies and procedures and our budget.”
He said he also wants to ensure students and parents are able to access resources such as behavioral health services, academic opportunities and cultural competencies.
Adrianne Gonzales
Adrianne Gonzales is a community leader who has sat on the board for the Gardenland Northgate Neighborhood Association.
She also sits on the Twin Rivers PAC, which is the superintendent Parent Advisory Committee, where she helps bring a parent voice to district conversations.
Gonzales said community leaders asked her to run in the race.
“I'm running for the school board because I deeply care about the success and well being of students, including my own. As a parent, I see firsthand the importance of what strong schools, supportive teachers, and what programs can do for student success,” said Gonzales, who has three kids in the district. “I think every child deserves an opportunity to learn, grow and succeed, and so that's the reason why I'm running for the school board.”
On the top needs of the district, Gonzales said she sees community voices, equity and accountability as primary concerns.
“I think parent voices need to be at the table,” she said. “Currently, the decisions that are being made, I don't feel fully reflect the community's output.”
Rebuilding trust between schools and community is another concern.
“I don't feel like we are really working together because of mistrust,” she said. “In order for our students to thrive, we need to make sure that the schools and the community are working together, and so I would like to bring forward an action plan for that as well.”
Gonzales sees after-school programs as one of the strongest tools for raising student achievement.
“I think one of the biggest things that I see is the after school programs prioritizing funding for those; they are amazing,” she said.” What I would propose is prioritizing those student supports and those programs that really do show that student outcomes change.”
On ensuring teachers are adequately funded, Gonzales said people need to be able to meet at the table and have a conversation regardless of outcomes.
“What I think is we need to elect leaders who are willing to listen, have a conversation, sit down, actually represent leadership, not just take it and be one-sided,” she said.
When it comes to long-term goals, Gonzales said the district can’t reach them without addressing the present. She said the district has quite a few issues, but the number one thing is distrust. Her long-term goal is unity.
“I'd love to see a community where we're all fighting, we're all working together, where people trust the board in its entirety, who show up to meetings, who are present, who are engaged,” she said. “But as of now, we can't do that until we build on trust, and that's the most important, crucial thing we need to do right now.”
Eduardo Ochoa
Eduardo “Lalo” Ochoa works for SMUD’s outreach department. He was raised in Del Paso Heights, formerly attended school in the Twin Rivers district, and currently has a child in the district.
Ochoa said what propelled him to run was the fear of losing representation on the school board.
“We're a district that's heavily Latino… and I was afraid that with losing the current incumbent on the board that we may end up in the district with no Latino representation there…” he said. “I know the other candidates live in our neighborhood, but I was raised in our neighborhood, and I feel like it's important that there's somebody on the board that has skin in the game in our neighborhood.”
One of the biggest needs in the district for Ochoa is safety. He lives across the street from Natomas High School.
“With the recent tragic events, that really brings to light the peril that our kids are at school sometimes and I don't just mean safety gun violence, I mean safety in general,” he said. “One of the priorities that I want to have is to push and promote mental health in our schools, because I think it's crucial to their safety for them to have a safe environment to learn.”
When it comes to funding teachers in the district, Ochoa said if he were to become a member of the school board, he’d be “extremely active and transparent.”
“I want to be able to bring to the community that voted for me as much information as I can possibly give them about any of the stuff that's going on,” he said. “I think that if there was more trust between the community and all our trustees, I think that that would be helpful, especially when it comes to actually negotiating right and doing things in good faith.”
On improving student achievement in the district, he said parent engagement is important. He noted that the district has high graduation rates.
“I think one of the main things that I would like is to study what are the things that we've been doing right in the district, and keep going in that direction,” he said. “So I just think the first thing I would do is identify what has been working and make sure that we can continue some of those things, and find where we can have opportunities of growth.”
