Shana Hazan, 46, an incumbent school board trustee and former teacher, is running for reelection to the San Diego Unified School District board representing Area B.<\/p>\n
Why are you running for school board, and what makes you the best candidate? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
I believe deeply in the power of a high-quality education to transform outcomes for children and families, and strengthen our city. A fourth-generation district graduate, former public-school teacher and mom of two children in our schools, I\u2019ve proudly served on the school board since 2022, including as board president.<\/p>\n
Since then, we\u2019ve made measurable progress in literacy and math achievement, graduation rates and college and career readiness, while bringing transitional kindergarten, free after-school and summer programs and free meals for all to every school. We\u2019ve expanded arts and athletics and student wellness supports and are leading the nation in advancing educator workforce housing.<\/p>\n
My North Star is to ensure every child can reach their full potential. As a parent, educator, nonprofit executive and community leader committed to collaboration, fiscal responsibility and accountability, I\u2019ll ensure our district achieves its goals of increasing student wellness, literacy and math achievement and college and career preparedness.<\/p>\n
What are the three most important issues currently facing your district? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
Improving student outcomes, fiscal sustainability and affordability and student wellbeing<\/p>\n
1) While our students are making measurable gains in literacy, mathematics, graduation and college and career readiness \u2014 with declining rates of chronic absenteeism \u2014 significant achievement gaps persist. Our challenge is to accelerate progress for our lowest-performing students, sustain growth for those meeting and exceeding standards and ensure every student is prepared for college, career and a thriving life.<\/p>\n
2) The district faces a structural deficit and funding system that remains heavily dependent on unpredictable state revenues. We must remain disciplined and student-centered in our budgeting while advocating for more stable state and federal investment, particularly in chronically underfunded areas like special education.<\/p>\n
3) The high cost of living affects the ability of families and our employees to live and thrive in our communities. Student wellness, affordability, stable housing, supports for working families and enrollment are all interconnected.<\/p>\n
What are the top three specific things you would seek to accomplish on the board? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
1. Improve student wellness on every campus. I will continue expanding access to social-emotional learning, school wellness centers, mental health services, restorative practices, high-quality afterschool\/summer programming, nutritious meals and community school supports so students feel safe, connected and ready to learn.<\/p>\n
2. Accelerate academic achievement and college and career readiness. I will continue using our student outcomes-focused governance model, whose adoption I led as board president, to set clear measurable goals, monitor progress publicly and align resources with evidence-based strategies that improve wellness, literacy and mathematics and college and career preparedness while closing opportunity gaps.<\/p>\n
3. Expand opportunities that keep students engaged. I will continue growing access to the arts, athletic, and enriching after-school and summer learning. During my tenure, arts instruction expanded to every elementary school, middle school athletics expanded and enriching after-school programs are free to all.<\/p>\n
These priorities support the whole child while driving student success.<\/p>\n
How should your school district raise student academic achievement, and what would you do as a board member to accomplish that? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
Raising achievement starts with ensuring every student has access to high-quality, standards-aligned instruction and support to succeed. We finally have clear achievement goals, use standard districtwide measures of formative and summative student progress and have reliable data to tell us where students are falling behind, so that educators can target instructional practices to better support students and our board can make informed decisions about how to direct resources to support the strategies that are increasing achievement.<\/p>\n
While San Diego Unified has adopted five-year goals and annual targets for literacy, mathematics, college and career preparedness and wellness, growth in achievement remains inconsistent as we aren\u2019t effectively scaling the strategies contributing to measurable gains. We must identify the schools and strategies where the greatest growth is evident \u2014 and scale high-impact practices and investments districtwide.<\/p>\n
We must invest in a new evidence-based literacy curriculum and professional learning and sustain investments in principal development.<\/p>\n
Student absenteeism has generally worsened in recent years across California. What do you think is driving absenteeism in your district, and what would you do to reduce it? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
While chronic absenteeism reached 37% following the pandemic, it declined to 18% in San Diego Unified last year. Absenteeism has multiple causes, including mental health, disengagement, family and economic pressures and barriers like limited transportation and immigration enforcement that can make consistent attendance difficult.<\/p>\n
At elementary schools like Marshall and Hamilton, we\u2019ve seen double-digit declines in chronic absenteeism, and we must continue to build on these gains. The improvements we\u2019ve seen in recent years are attributable to the district\u2019s participation in San Diego County Office of Education\u2019s ICAN network and the state-sponsored RAISE program which has increased our capacity to focus on the implementation of proven best practices that reduce absenteeism. We\u2019re also using data to identify challenges and solutions that support students, families and school communities.<\/p>\n
We must continue using data to identify students and schools that need targeted support and partner with families to help overcome attendance barriers.<\/p>\n
Relatedly, many California school districts are seeing enrollment decline, which exacerbates funding problems. What should your district do to drive new enrollment? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
While San Diego Unified is focused on making our schools an even stronger choice for families, research shows that enrollment declines are driven largely by declining birth rates and the high cost of living.<\/p>\n
Demographic shifts and the cost of living are outside our control, but we\u2019re committed to providing a high-quality education with evidence-based literacy and mathematics instruction, arts, athletics, dual-language programs, career pathways, wellness supports and enrichment. Families deserve flexibility; our school choice program allows them to select the schools best suited to their children.<\/p>\n
While we can\u2019t reduce housing or gas costs, we help ease the financial burden on families. Free afterschool and summer programming and free meals for all students save families thousands of dollars a year by pairing a high-quality education with extensive no-cost offerings that make life easier for working families.<\/p>\n
We recently opened 52 in-person enrollment hubs to help families with enrollment.<\/p>\n
How would you approach your district\u2019s budget planning and spending? What would you do if your district had a budget shortfall? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
We must protect the classroom and investments with the greatest impact on student success while being disciplined and transparent with every public dollar.<\/p>\n
San Diego Unified faces a structural deficit, so difficult choices are unavoidable. I do not believe in across-the-board cuts. Instead, we must continue to align resources with our student outcome goals,and prioritize high-quality instruction, our educators and staff and programs that demonstrate results.<\/p>\n
During my tenure, the district has balanced its budget while increasing employee wages and maintaining strong benefits. We have used strategies including natural attrition, a supplemental early retirement program, eliminating redundant positions, exploring health-care savings and using bond funding for capital expenses so general-fund dollars can remain focused on people and instruction.<\/p>\n
We must also continue advocating for the increased state and federal funding required to deliver on our promise of an exceptional education for all students.<\/p>\n
The federal government has never fully funded special education, and as California districts face tougher budgets, the impact can be especially hard on this area. Given the constraints, what should your district do to best serve its special education students? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
We have to protect the services students with disabilities are legally entitled to receive while ensuring they have the support needed to thrive. That requires adequate staffing, manageable caseloads, individualized services, inclusive learning environments, and well-supported educators.<\/p>\n
San Diego Unified should continue strengthening enforceable special education caseload protections, paraeducator and behavioral supports, planning time and compensation for caseload overages. The district should also continue building our \u201cgrow your own\u201d pipeline by supporting special education credentialing, paraeducator-to-teacher pathways and partnerships with local universities.<\/p>\n
We must also continue advocating for increased state and federal special education funding, as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has never been fully funded, shortchanging children and families and placing an unsustainable burden on local districts.<\/p>\n
California recently updated policies governing how schools respond to immigration enforcement activity, requiring more signage and staff training on granting access, among other things. How should your district respond and implement this and other directives from the state Department of Education? How else should the district protect immigrant students? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
Every child has the right to attend school safely and receive a public education regardless of immigration status, and San Diego Unified is dedicated to fostering safe, stable, nurturing, and welcoming environments for all students and staff irrespective of immigration status.<\/p>\n
I am proud to be part of a welcoming district that is steadfast in our commitment to uphold the safety and wellbeing of all students and families. Our commitment is evident through family resources like these: https:\/\/www.sdusdequity.com\/protecting-studentsWe implement state requirements fully, clearly and consistently and ensure families understand their rights through partnerships with community-based immigration legal service providers.<\/p>\n
Going forward, I support ongoing staff training, clear protocols for responding to immigration enforcement, accessible multilingual and culturally responsive information for families and prominent family-facing materials explaining students\u2019 rights and protections.<\/p>\n
From cell phones to laptops, and from tablets to AI, what is the most appropriate and beneficial role of technology in the classroom? How should your district balance benefits, risks, distractions and accessibility needs? (150 words max)<\/p>\n
Technology should support learning, not distract from it or replace the essential human relationships at the heart of education. The most beneficial technology is purposeful and developmentally appropriate and demonstrably improves learning or access.<\/p>\n
I supported San Diego Unified\u2019s phone-free school day policy and introduced our unanimously-approved learner-centered technology initiative. The district has removed non-instructional streaming platforms (like YouTube) and gaming from district-issued Chromebooks and eliminated Chromebook use in transitional kindergarten classrooms.<\/p>\n
I support the development of a policy with clear expectations for district-issued devices, developmentally appropriate limits, stronger parent controls, digital citizenship education and regular review of instructional software to determine whether it improves learning.<\/p>\n
AI deserves particular caution. I support responsible, evidence-based evaluation and guardrails to ensure AI is safe and age-appropriate, protects privacy and supports learning.<\/p>\n
Technology should never compromise student wellness or replace the creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and human connection that make great teaching and learning possible.<\/p>\n
Did you use AI to assist in responding to these questions? If so, please explain how and why.<\/p>\n
AI was used to aggregate all my previous writing (endorsement questionnaires, public statements, campaign website) on the topics addressed in the Union-Tribune\u2019s questions. I referenced this aggregated content to write my answers to each question.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shana Hazan, 46, an incumbent school board trustee and former teacher, is running for reelection to the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":495237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[1400,15,204,989,100,13,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-495236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-2026-elections","tag-education","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/495237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}