Carlos Taboada, School Board Candidate

Carlos Taboada is not a new face in West Contra Costa school board races. A teacher in the district for 21 years, Taboada first ran three years ago and is very vocal about his views as a critical eye of charter schools in the area.

“I think we are in a very crucial moment in our district,” he said.

His motivation to run lies primarily in recentering the focus on public schools.He has a young grandson who will soon enter the school district, but he doesn’t like the way the system is headed. Taboada is very anti-charter, and believes these programs are taking away from what public schools are able to offer students.

“We are turning a blind eye to the threat that charter schools present to the viability of our district,” he said. “Whose interests are we looking after: the 30,000 students in our district, or the interest of the charter franchises?”

One of the biggest issues with charter schools is the public’s general lack of understanding about what they really are, he said.

“They are privately managed and publically funded,” he says.“It doesn’t make sense. How are we going to improve public schools if we’re giving their funds to charter schools?”

Taboada is also interested in addressing an “opportunity gap” he said begins in kindergarten and first grade. Preschools can sometimes be too expensive for working-class families, so children starting school without early education are already behind when they begin kindergarten, he said.

Without providing specific details, Taboada said he wants to launch a pilot program to make sure students get the education they need to keep up, adjusted for specific needs. He wants to test this model for four to five years in an elementary, middle and high school, he said.

“We have such a varied district that we cannot implement the same model everywhere, [we can’t] do one-size fits all,” he says.