This year after over a decade of Steve Harrington in the role, Sonoma County will have a new superintendent of schools.  The position heads up the Sonoma County Office of Education, oversees county-wide education initiatives, and maintains fiscal oversight for Sonoma County’s 40 school districts.

Three candidates are hoping to replace the retiring head of schools: Brad Coscarelli, Ron Meza Calloway, and Amie Carter.

A graduate of Petaluma High School, Carter got her start teaching in Ripon in the Central Valley, but has lived back in Petaluma for the last decade.  Currently the assistant superintendent of education services for Marin County, Carter has worked in education for over 20 years as both an educator and administrator. She said she feels that experience has prepared her best to be the next superintendent for Sonoma County.

"I've worked at every single level in education grades K through 12," Carter said, "I'm uniquely qualified to step into this role. And so that's why I'm running to serve my community and, and help the children in it."

Carter said structural issues are her area of expertise. If elected she hopes to reassess district systems and strategies that have struggled in recent years.

"My doctorate’s in organizational change leadership. So I look at those big system shifts and I think that's where definitely the county office would be there to, to help a district. I think those school boards are dealing with a lot and really trying to make some hard decisions. And I wanna be a county leader. That's got their back and is there to help them out." Carter said.

Among the most important structural issues affecting Sonoma County is declining enrollment.

"This is a California wide process. California data is telling us it could be up to 16% of students declinement. And so it's, it's where we are with our birth rates with, you know, some families exiting." Carter said.

Carter conceded that cuts will be necessary with declining enrollment in Sonoma County’s schools.

"There’s just no way around it, we’re going to have to adjust." Carter said.

But Carter said she is interested in helping Sonoma County’s 40 school districts explore creative solutions to enrollment issues.

"Whether our communities are interested in going down a consolidation or, or unification strategy. I still think there's opportunities to create some cost efficiencies. I've seen models where you can share a superintendent. You can have a superintendent that's overseeing a couple of small districts." Carter said.

With only 34 percent of surveyed Sonoma County students reporting that they feel a part of their community at school during covid, 10 percent below the national average, Carter said covid has made many educators rethink old systems, and she plans to put student voice at the center of new practices.

"The, you know, Sage on the stage. I'm gonna sit here and talk to you is just not gonna work. We need to listen to our students. Uh, I do think technology offers us so many modalities." Carter said. "I've seen VR education where our students are, are able to put on VR headsets and go, you know, walk, walk Gettysburg in the battlefield or, or actually do algebra and see what a parabola looks like." Carter said.

Another major issue for Carter is supporting the mental health of students.

"And for me that looks like investing in teacher training, making sure that teachers have the tools they need to support kids and their mental health and their social health. But then you've also gotta have the resources on campus." Carter said.

Her experience includes building wellness centers at schools in Marin County. .

"And that's where students can, you know, get a pass, go to the wellness center and there's resouces. They can learn mindful techniques, there's therapists there. And if there's, you know, a more acute mental health need, it's there to serve them. You know, we've gotta, de-stigmatize this conversation." Carter said.

To help with recruiting and retaining quality staff for Sonoma County’s schools, Carter said teacher housing would be among her top priorities. 

"The county office of education really can play, play a nice role leaning in on this. The Sonoma County Office of Education already has a parcel of land that we're working on and getting it ready to offer that housing. So that's gonna be a great project. And my hope is it's just the first of many." Carter said.

As for the diversity of the staff, Carter said she recognizes how important it is for student success.

"We gotta do better here in Sonoma. Cause there's a lot of great research around how important it is that your staff look, look and reflect the culture of your students." Carter said.

Carter said she's also prepared to help develop staff from within.

"One of the things that I've done in my county office work is, uh, wrote a grant so that we can start growing our own. We've gone into the, the most highly diverse high schools and started students from their sophomore year and started to educate them about the opportunity to become a teacher we're offering those same students in their senior year, the opportunity to work as para educators in the classroom." Carter said. "And as long as they're doing that, we can support their tuition even after high school."

More information on the superintendent of schools race and the June 7th primary election can be found at registertovote.ca.gov or at the county's election page.

On Earth Day Sunrise Sonoma County marched from Santa Rosa Junior College to the county supervisor chambers.

Sunrise SoCo is the local chapter of the national youth-fueled Sunrise movement aiming to put pressure on elected officials to meaningfully act on the climate crisis.

Organized in coordination with Sonoma Climate Mobilization, members are demanding immediate action, starting with transit justice.

Focused on public transportation, they call for an increase in bus service hours, increased bus frequency, and expanded fare-free access. 

"What we're really asking for that is increased investment from the county, as well as Santa Rosa city council and Petaluma... in the transit systems...doubling the budget would be incredibly transformative."

Those are the words of a local high school student and Sunrise SoCo activist Amy. She said the demands are within reach.

"About 10 to $12 million investment split between those cities; the county has like $2.3 billion budget. So asking for like, I think from the county specifically would be like 6 million we've estimated." Amy said.

Fellow teen organizer Rachel said the focus on transportation justice is key in transitioning away from fossil fuels.

"There are a lot of efforts on the county state level, even federally, to take climate action. We're seeing a huge uptick in electric vehicles, but the other side of that is that often we're leaving people behind. And so that's why investment in public transit is so important." Rachel said.

Rachel said Sunrise SoCo has been well-received by some local elected officials and says she's hopeful more will act on climate change.

"Our experience working with, I think it was the Sebastopol city council members a couple years ago was that they were really, really open to what we had to say. They don't necessarily totally agree with all of our policies or everything that we're asking all the time, but they're definitely very on board to talk more about these solutions that we're proposing." Rachel said.

Residents east of downtown Santa Rosa don't expect the silence of a remote mountain village. But their patience with the thumping whoosh of helicopter blades wore thin long ago. Next week, that may start changing. 

 

That's because a new contract between the county and what's now Providence-Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, is set to take effect. It requires the medical center to conduct both sound and air quality studies, acceding to demands from neighbors.

 

Mary Pack is one of them. In her 17 years living near the facility, problems and excuses have only intensified, she said. 

 

"There's increased noise, there's increased fumes, there's increased--there's these flights going right down our street, all we hear is 'oh, sorry, that pilot, yes, he or she went off and we educated them,' but it's not changing. It just keeps happening over and over," Pack said. 

 

While there are three approved flight paths to the helipad, pilots answer to the Federal Aviation Administration, not local authorities.

  

Officials concede that only fifteen percent of helicopter flights were incoming trauma patients and that air transport to other medical facilities had increased.

  

Neighbors and hospital officials say the facility receives an average two round trip flights per day.

  

Several local residents, including Warren Schenstrom, said the choppers are filling the air with fumes. 

 

"These lingering fuel odors can be so strong, that they cause my eyes to water and create a fuel taste in my mouth," he said. 

 

Supervisor Chris Coursey said the community deserves responsiveness. 

 

"They've been offered and take part in a seat at the table, they have a voice, but there's not a lot of feedback to that voice and complaints don't seem to go anywhere," he said.

 

Hospital officials say they are willing to compromise. Santa Rosa Memorial C.O.O. Frank Burn agreed to the new studies.

  

"If the belief is that a noise study is valuable, so be it," he told the board. 

 

The new contract starts on May first.

All roads lead to Sacramento.

That's one takeaway from the convoluted series of events that led to tens of thousands of PG&E wildfire victims losing one of their top advocates in the state Capitol this week -- just one day after veteran lobbyist Patrick McCallum pitched Gov. Gavin Newsom's staff on the idea of a $1.5 billion loan to ensure survivors are fully compensated.

The PG&E Fire Victim Trust announced Wednesday that it and McCallum had "agreed to part ways, effective immediately, in light of certain recent publicly disclosed developments."

Those developments could pose problems not only for the already beleaguered Fire Victim Trust -- which a KQED investigation found has been slow to pay victims and quick to rack up big bills for lawyers and consultants -- but also for the California State University system. 

McCallum, who is married to Sonoma State University President Judy Sakaki, allegedly sexually harassed several women at a party at his house. The women reported the incidents to then-provost Lisa Vollendorf, who in turn reported them to CSU officials, prompting retaliation from Sakaki, according to a claim Vollendorf lodged against CSU and which the system paid $600,000 this year to settle, according to investigations from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat and the Los Angeles Times. McCallum denies the allegations.

Sakaki, who denies retaliating against Vollendorf, initially defended her husband but announced Monday that she is separating from McCallum. She's now facing challenges of her own: The executive committee of Sonoma State's academic senate voted Thursday to advance a vote of no confidence in her leadership, and Democratic state Sen. Bill Dodd of Napa said her response "deserves close scrutiny by the CSU chancellor and board of trustees as to how the interests of students and employees can be best served going forward."

It's the latest scandal to embroil CSU, whose chancellor resigned in February amid accusations that he mishandled sexual harassment complaints against a high-ranking colleague while president of Fresno State. The system has since launched multiple independent investigations into its own policies.