Dax Choksi, Candidate for Fremont School Board

Dax Choksi is a product manager at Cisco, and the parent of a recent FUSD graduate.  Find out more about him at http://www.dax4schools.org/

1 – What are the biggest challenges facing your School District and how will you tackle them?

Technology – It is heartbreaking to see that our schools are not yet in the 21st century. We need to work to bring Fremont schools to the 21st century. Thy are currently lacking in several technology areas including computers, desktops and communication devices.

Facilities – our facilities are in dire need of upgrade and expansion. In several schools the infrastructure is not adequate to provide an environment where students can thrive and receive education effectively. In addition to this, we have schools with overcrowding. The class sizes are under pressure. This is not going to be an easy problem to solve but I would work to constantly strive to reduce the class sizes.

Academics – Our students need help with common core. We need to provide them the level of support they need. I would put our students as my number 1 priority.

2 – Do you believe there are systemic problems with racial/sexual/gender-based or other discrimination in your district’s schools? How would you tackle them?

* I do not believe that there are systemic issues with racial/sexual/gender discrimination. However, the problem could exist without a lot of people knowing about it. We need to take policy measures to ensure that this is prevented proactively.
* I would prevent this by continuing to enforce the existing regulations prohibiting discrimination and recommend disciplinary action against any person who is found to be violating the regulation.
* I would also seek to educate the youth about the negative impact of discrimination and how it could create a severe blow to the self-confidence of the victim of this injustice.

3 – Do you believe the school-to-prison pipeline is operational in your School District and what will you do to close it down?

I don’t believe we have the school-to-prison pipeline is operation. I however would keep an eye out on making sure that criminals and criminal activity with dealt with very firmly near our school campuses.

4 – Do you support having police officers on campus? If so, in what capacity?

We have campus safety officers at the high schools to ensure a safe environment. I believe that we need to fund more officers to respond if required in any unforeseen circumstances.

5 – What limits to students’ freedom of expression and privacy do you think are appropriate for public schools?

We need to foster freedom of expression to ensure that the kids creativity and mind grows. I would ensure that this is positive and does not in any way impact anybody around them.

Privacy is of great importance and need to be ensured through policy measures and school administration trainings.

6 – What do you think the School District should do to offer support to homeless, foster and impoverished children and children coming from violent homes?

It is absolutely heart breaking to see that some of our kids do not fundamental things such as a shelter. We should invest in ways to deal with to ensure that the kids well being is protected. It becomes difficult to work on educating a kid if he or she does not have home. For kids in homes with violence, we need to work to identify such homes and work with welfare agencies to ensure that the kids are protected at all times.

7 – Given the explosion of autism diagnoses, what is your plan to make sure children and their parents are getting the proper support?

We need to ensure that our schools have adequate funding to ensure that students with special needs get the adequate support, attention and education at our schools.

I would hold informational classes to help parents get awareness on the disease and how they can get in touch with the right personnel in the school district in order to ensure that their needs are being met with.

8 – What should the District do to tackle problems of truancy?

First of all when this occurs we need to work to determine the reason. If there is a reason the student wants to stay away such as something in our school environment, we need to work to solve such issues.

If the kids are staying absent for no reason, we need to work with the associated kids and parents to ensure that we understand the reasons and provide additional support if the kids require. There is some need that the kid has that we are not understanding.

9 – Are you running as a Berniecrat?

No. I am not running as a Berniecrat. I believe that regardless of who we supported before the convention, we should put our differences aside and work together to ensure that the party endorsed candidate wins this election.