Fran has been your School Board representative since 1996, when she won the General Election with 69% of the vote.

• Served as an officer of the Board for two years
• Acted as Board liaison to Clark Foundation grant for middle school reform
• Participated on state and national councils of urban school districts
• Monitored California charter school expansion as a member of the California School Boards Association Charter Schools Task Force

Fran has been a teacher and understands our public school strengths and weaknesses. She knows our community.

• Taught English as a second language to adults
• Worked as a substitute teacher in many San Diego high schools
• San Diego has been her home for 30 years
• Volunteered on school PTAs, site councils and district school committees
• Served as board member of the Sierra Club and San Diego Repertory Theatre

Fran's two daughters were educated in San Diego public schools and at the University of California. Grace is a lawyer; Clare is a high school literature teacher. Fran's late husband, Ted, was a physician and researcher at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation.

A Harvard graduate in history, Fran attended public school in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. In addition, she studied journalism at American University, learned Spanish at UCSD and obtained a California teaching credential from Point Loma Nazarene University here in San Diego.

Fran on the current state of the San Diego City Schools

As a public school leader, teacher and parent, I know our public school system has strengths and weaknesses. I speak out for genuine education reforms that will serve all San Diego students and I approve policies that are well-intentioned, well-planned and well-executed. By definition, that excludes the expensive Bersin/Alvarado "Blueprint for Student Success" which I have said needs improvement and refinement since its inception two-plus years ago.

    In five years on the Board of Education, I have championed school reform that includes strong math, science, social studies, music, art, languages, practical arts and physical education. (I would concede that drivers' education could be privatized.) I believe small classes are good for students and their teachers and should be expanded beyond grades K-3. I want to see our academic programs, teaching materials and instructional practices fully aligned with rigorous California state standards. I believe excellent public education is broad-based, rests on the foundation of a comprehensive curriculum, and is available to every student at every level of competence. Excellent education is never narrow and focused only on remedial literacy and watered-down mathematics for the many, while reserving elective choice and variety in course work for the few.

    I have been fiscally conservative throughout the past five years. I have voted to concentrate spending our $1 billion budget on students and teachers in classrooms -- not on unaccountable consultants, padded administrative salaries, "business-model" bonuses for doing one's job properly, outside lawyers and expensive land deals. We are entering a period of belt-tightening austerity because of economic slowdown, so this quality will be tested.

    The Board of Education needs to pull together and make wise choices in coming months. The Board needs to reflect, to stop rubber-stamping every profligate scheme brought to the dais by the Superintendent and Chancellor of Instruction, and to do the right thing for our students. (That includes assigning one San Diego Unified Police officer to every secondary school campus in the system -- something we still lack, even after shootings at two East County schools in 2001.)