Donna Prenta Donna Prenta

Donna Prenta is the challenger in the Ventura County Board of Education race and believes her strength as a candidate lies in her ability to establish interagency cooperation.

"I really stress resolution and I'm an excellent arbitrator," Prenta said.

In the past, Prenta has worked as a child advocate, helping parents with disabled children obtain the special services their children need. She has served in a number of public positions, and was a member of the county's Mental Health Board, where she helped to strengthen interagency relations and extend the agency's services. Prenta has also worked with the Simi Valley Community Advisory Committee and as president of the Special Education Advisory Committee.

"It takes a lot of coalition building and consensus building to make sure that everyone in the district is working well together. I've always been a consensus builder and aimed to establish cooperation," Prenta said.

If elected, Prenta would like to see an increase in the number of vocational programs offered to students.

"Not every student is going to college, and there are wonderful vocations out there that are crying out for interns, but students aren't given that opportunity," Prenta said.

According to Prenta, Ventura County receives 25 percent less funding than other counties for its vocational programs, and only 2.4 percent of the student population is given the opportunity to participate in such programs.

"We need to build more collaboration with economic development associations and identify entry level jobs that these employers are crying out for but can't fill," Prenta said.

Attendance is another issue Prenta would like to tackle.

"Gateway schools serve the needs of special population students and students that have been expelled, but they only have a 55 percent attendance rate because kids are forced to go all the way to Camarillo to attend," Prenta said. "By their own admission, the county board is approving charter schools because they're saying that our schools aren't meeting the needs of the students. There certainly is a need, and we need to look into starting programs out here."

Dean Kunicki Prenta would also like to see the County Board of Education offer internship opportunities in Simi Valley to Simi residents.

"Students in the fashion and merchandising program are brought all the way to Thousand Oaks when Simi Valley has a brand new mall and is having trouble finding enough people to work there," Prenta said.

Dean Kunicki

Dean Kunicki is the current governing board member of the Ventura County Board of Education and is seeking reelection. He believes past performance is highly indicative of what to expect in the future.

"I've lived in Simi Valley for 28 years, and during that period I've been a person that volunteers my time back to the community," Kunicki said.

Some of Kunicki's proudest accomplishments include founding the Simi Valley Education Foundation and a nonprofit organization for the parks' district, serving on the planning commission for eight years, organizing campaigns to help pass school bond measures and creating a city ordinance that banned the establishment of drug paraphernalia stores in Simi Valley.

"I believe my actions have shown a commitment to kids and to this community," Kunicki said.

Kunicki believes the challenges for the county board lie in the regional occupational programs that provide students with vocational training.

"We teach classes on auto-body repair, welding, computers and training for medical technicians, but we do it all with very limited funding," Kunicki said. "When the program was set up in the state, funds were distributed based on population, and because we were a farming community at the time, we were placed on the low end of that funding mechanism."

Kunicki has recently been meeting with the state secretary of education and local legislators to devise guidelines that will examine discrepancies in the current distribution of funding.

"We've had great success with our regional occupational programs, but it's hurt by a lack of funding," Kunicki said. "Some of the programs we can have taught at the local level, such as communications programs and web programming, but programs such as automotive repair in Camarillo require tools that are very expensive."

Kunicki would also like to continue his tradition of prudent spending at the county level.

"We have a budget that is balanced, more funds in our reserves than is required by state law, and we are able to fund building projects with internal funds rather than bond measures," Kunicki said. "The regional occupational program is the only program where we have control over the money that comes to us; with our other programs, the spending is dictated by the state. We have to make sure our money is spent right."