Gunnar Paulson
The issues
Why are you running for office?
I am running for office because public education is in a fight for its survival. The public and our children need a board member who understands the issues and will make the tough decisions to defend our precious birth-rite, a public education. I want all children to have the opportunities I and my children have had.
In your view, what are the top three issues facing the school district? How are you qualified to address these issues?
The top three issues are: Survival of public education for all children, safety of our students and a fair and equitable education for all our students. What makes me qualified to address these issues are my proven experience. I know the challenges we are facing and what it will take to meet these challenges head on. I have already instituted programs leading us in the right direction such as a strategic plan, equity department, expansion of our cte programs, increased graduation rates to above the state average.
How would you assess the performance of Governor, President Trump and Secondary of Education when it comes to educational policy?
Governor: Poor- He has not fought to raise funding for schools, Local control of school boards has been eroded, and He has allowed programs such as Tax Credit Scholarships expand to enormous amounts taking needed dollars away from school districts.
President Trump: Poor- He has divided our country, raised the yearly deficit to over $1 trillion dollars and is not truthful.
Secondary of Education: Poor at both the national and national levels; Not friends of public education.
Share your opinion on the changes to school safety and gun ownership enforced in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Public Safety Act.
Our state legislature has made some changes such as requiring a School Resource Officer for every 1,000 students and providing money for mental health. The problem this was done while not providing a reasonable amount of money in addition to this legislature. We have no extra money to harden our schools to ensure safety. They need to do much more about gun ownership. Yes, they changed the minimum age, this is just a start.
Share your opinion on the guardian program and arming teachers.
As chairman of the board I introduced legislation to only allow the School Resource Officer to carry a gun on campus! It also remains to be seen what will happen with the appropriated money for the guardian program if all is not used.
What are your plans for school safety and how do you plan to accomplish it?
We have done the following: We put a school resource in every school and two in the high schools. We have implemented active shooter training for all students and employees, added more social workers to identify problems and recommend them to our system of care to receive help. We also did safety assessments of all our campuses. We now to harden our schools to make them safer.
Alachua County Public Schools has shown to have an educational gap, where more white students are passing tests than black students. What are your plans to approach this educational divide?
We created an equity department in July 2017. During the last year this department has been studying the statistics regarding this problem, involving community groups for their inputs, given cultural sensitivity training to our teachers and employees, brought in expert speakers to talk to our employees. We recently on August 14, 2018 had a community workshop presenting what we have found and in September we will adopt a plan with a goal of eliminating the gap in 10 years.
(Editor’s note: Paulson didn’t complete the survey.)
