Tag Archives: teaching

Have We Lost Our Focus? When Adult Politics Distracts Us from the Real Work of Education

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I had an epiphany recently. Maybe it wasn’t really an epiphany as much as the culmination of watching public education change over the course of my career. I’ve spent more than four decades working in education, human services, recreation, family engagement, prevention and intervention, and community-based programs. For most of that time, the conversations we had about education were centered on a fairly straightforward question: What do our kids need to succeed?

We didn’t always agree on the answer. In fact, we frequently disagreed. But the questions themselves were largely about children. How do we help students achieve academically? How do we close achievement gaps? What interventions work for a student who is falling behind? How do we differentiate instruction so that we aren’t teaching every child as though they learn in exactly the same way? How do we keep young people from becoming disconnected from school? How do we provide meaningful opportunities after school and during the summer? How do we address mental health? How do we prevent violence, substance abuse, chronic absenteeism, and school dropout? How do we engage parents as genuine partners in their children’s education? How do we make sure students feel safe, supported, challenged, and connected to their schools? Those were difficult conversations, and we certainly didn’t always get it right. But they were conversations about kids.

We Built Entire Fields Around Supporting Children

Think about how much education has evolved over the last 20 or 30 years. We learned that what happens outside the classroom directly affects what happens inside the classroom. That realization helped expand prevention and intervention programs, counseling, mental health services, expanded learning, community schools, restorative practices, college and career readiness, and family and community engagement.

Family engagement itself has grown tremendously as a field. We moved beyond the old idea that parent involvement meant showing up for Back-to-School Night, joining the PTA, or volunteering at a school carnival. We began asking deeper questions. Do families understand the educational system? Do they know how to advocate for their children? Do educators know how to build trusting relationships with families? Are we engaging families who historically haven’t had a seat at the table? Are schools creating environments where parents are partners rather than simply recipients of information?

That work matters. We have also learned much more about trauma, mental health, belonging, school climate, early literacy, chronic absenteeism, and the importance of connecting schools with community resources. These aren’t always the issues that make headlines or generate viral social media posts. But they are the issues that can change the trajectory of a child’s life.

And Then Something Changed

Increasingly, I find myself wondering whether we have allowed the focus of public education to shift. Instead of spending most of our collective energy discussing instruction, achievement, attendance, graduation, career readiness, mental health, family engagement, school safety, and student opportunity, education has increasingly become another battlefield in America’s political and cultural divisions.

Nationally, we are debating the future and role of the U.S. Department of Education. Here in California, we have debated and enacted significant changes to how education is governed at the state level. Across the country, communities are fighting over books and instructional materials. School boards have debated flags, parental notification policies, curriculum, race, history, gender, student privacy, parental rights, and identity. Issues that once occupied statehouses, Congress, cable news, and national political campaigns are increasingly finding their way directly into local school boardrooms.

To be clear, many of these issues involve legitimate questions of law, governance, parental authority, student rights, local control, and educational policy. They should not simply be dismissed because they are controversial. Parents have every right to ask questions about their children’s education. Students have rights. Educators have professional responsibilities. School boards have governance responsibilities. State and federal governments have legitimate roles in education.

But I keep coming back to another question: How much oxygen are these battles taking out of the room?

Meanwhile, the Kids Are Still Sitting in Our Classrooms

While adults fight, a third grader is still struggling to read. A middle school student is still chronically absent. A high school student is still trying to figure out whether college, the military, an apprenticeship, or a career technical education pathway is right for them. A teacher is still trying to differentiate instruction for 30 students with very different academic needs. A counselor is still helping a student experiencing anxiety, grief, or trauma. A family is still trying to understand an IEP. An English learner’s parents are still trying to navigate an educational system that can be confusing even when English is your first language.

A student experiencing homelessness is still wondering where they are going to sleep tonight. A child is still being bullied. Another child may not have reliable internet access at home. And somewhere, there is a young person who simply needs one caring adult at school to notice that something isn’t right. Those challenges don’t disappear because adults are arguing about politics. That’s the part I worry we are losing sight of.

Public education has always been political in the broadest sense. Decisions about funding, curriculum, accountability, civil rights, school boundaries, special education, language access, and educational opportunity have always involved public policy. I am not suggesting that we somehow remove policy debates from public education. That’s neither realistic nor necessarily desirable. What concerns me is when the political debate itself becomes more important than the educational outcome.

Governance requires the discipline to distinguish between what is important and what is simply loud. Not every national political battle needs to become the defining issue of a local school district, and not every disagreement needs to become a test of someone’s political identity.

Sometimes the most important work a school board, superintendent, principal, teacher, or community can do is much less exciting. Improve reading. Reduce absenteeism. Hire and retain great teachers. Support principals. Improve special education services. Strengthen school safety. Expand career pathways. Engage families. Improve graduation rates. Maintain facilities. Provide strong mental health supports. Spend taxpayer dollars responsibly. Make sure every student knows there is a place for them in our schools. None of those things will necessarily trend on social media. But they matter tremendously to children.

The Adult Agenda Versus the Student Agenda

Maybe that’s the distinction I’ve been searching for. There is an adult agenda, and there is a student agenda. Too often, the adult agenda asks who won the political argument, which side the board took, what statement was made, what flag is flying, which book is on a shelf, or which political constituency walked away satisfied. Those questions may matter deeply to the adults involved, but I wonder how often we stop and ask what the student sitting in the classroom needs from us.

The student agenda sounds very different. Can I read? Can I do math? Do I feel safe here? Does my teacher believe in me? Is there someone I can talk to when I’m struggling? Will I graduate? Am I prepared for college or a career? Does my family understand how to help me? Do I have opportunities regardless of my ZIP code, income, language, disability, race, background, or family circumstances? Those are the questions that should keep educational leaders awake at night.

Family and Community Engagement May Be Part of the Answer

This is also why I continue to believe so deeply in authentic family and community engagement. Family engagement should never belong to the political left or the political right. Parents shouldn’t have to agree politically to want excellent schools. Two parents can disagree profoundly about national politics and still sit at the same table and agree that they want their children to be safe, to learn, to have excellent teachers, to be prepared for life after high school, and to have someone notice when they are struggling. That common ground still exists. Sometimes I think we’ve simply forgotten how to look for it.

Authentic family engagement can help us rediscover that common ground because it requires us to listen rather than assume. It asks educators to build relationships with families rather than simply communicate at them. It asks families to become partners in improving schools rather than spectators in political battles. When we sit across the table from one another and start the conversation with, “What do our children need?”, the conversation changes.

Maybe We Need a Reset

Perhaps public education needs a reset. Not a reset where we ignore politics, policy, rights, or legitimate disagreements, but a reset where we remember our primary responsibility: children.

When an issue comes before us, perhaps our first question shouldn’t be, “What will my political side think?” Maybe it should be, “How will this improve outcomes for students?”

Will it help children learn? Will it help teachers teach? Will it make schools safer? Will it strengthen families? Will it create opportunities? Will it improve belonging? Will it prepare students for the world they will inherit? Those aren’t partisan questions. They are educational questions.

And if we cannot connect what we’re spending enormous amounts of time fighting about to better outcomes for students, perhaps we should at least be willing to ask whether we’ve allowed the adults to become the center of public education. Because they aren’t. The kids are!

Maybe one of the greatest challenges facing public education right now isn’t simply funding, curriculum, governance, politics, or another new initiative. Maybe it’s whether we can resist all the distractions long enough to remember why so many of us entered this work in the first place. After more than four decades of working with students, families, educators, and communities, I keep coming back to the same place.

Students first. Not politics first. Not adults first. Not ideology first. Students first! Everything else should follow.

About the Writer

Marcelino “Mars” Serna is an educator, community leader, engaged father, proud “Big Papa,” and husband with more than 40 years of experience serving children, families, and communities. His career has spanned education, human services, recreation, prevention and intervention, and family and community engagement. He currently serves as a Program Manager with the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools and as Vice President of the Fontana Unified School District Board of Education.

Throughout his career, Mars has worked to strengthen the connection between schools, families, and communities, with a particular emphasis on family engagement, leadership development, prevention and intervention, and creating opportunities for young people to thrive. But some of his most important roles exist outside of his professional titles—as a husband, an engaged father, a Big Papa, and a community member who believes deeply in giving back and serving others.

His reflections are shaped by both his professional experiences and the lessons he has learned from family, community, and more than four decades of working alongside students, parents, educators, and community leaders.

At the heart of his work and writing is a simple philosophy: Students first. Relationships matter. Strong schools are built in partnership with families and communities.

Putting Students Back at the Center of School Board Politics

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I first decided to run for the school board after working in the Fontana Unified School District for 15 months (January 2015 to March 2016). During that time, I experienced firsthand the culture and climate of destructive and fear-based leadership, and frankly, that didn’t fit my personal values. I believed our students and families deserved better. So, I made the choice to run for the Board of Education in 2016 with the hope of bringing about positive change.

I didn’t win that first election, but soon after, a seat became vacant when Jesse Armendarez won his campaign for Fontana City Council. I sought an appointment to fill the vacancy, but the board deadlocked in a 2–2 split. That decision forced a special election in November of 2017, where the voters put their trust in me, and I was elected to serve.

Over the past seven years, I’ve been proud to see real progress in shifting that culture. We’ve worked hard to create a climate where students come first and where our schools are places of growth, opportunity, and belonging. But the reality is, school board politics often drifts away from children and toward adults, caught up in power, control, and agendas that don’t always serve students.

The role of a school board member should be simple in theory: to ensure that every student in the district has access to a high-quality education in a safe and supportive environment. But in practice, I’ve watched politics creep into the boardroom in ways that shift the conversation away from students and toward ideological battles. What was once a nonpartisan space, meant to serve as a bridge between schools and communities, has become another arena for partisan conflict. Instead of debating how to expand career pathways or strengthen mental health services, we’ve seen debates consumed by “hot button” topics pushed down from the national stage. The danger in this is that it divides communities. Parents are forced to pick sides, staff feel caught in the middle, and students see the adults in charge arguing over culture wars instead of focusing on their futures. The real question of “what helps our kids learn, thrive, and succeed?” gets drowned out.

When politics becomes about adults winning or losing, students are the ones who pay the price. Unfortunately, this isn’t just a national problem; it’s happening in our own backyard. In Chino Valley, school board meetings turned into shouting matches when trustees passed a policy requiring staff to notify parents within 72 hours if a student requested to change their name, pronouns, or use facilities aligned with a gender identity different from their birth certificate. The room was packed with parents, educators, and even state officials. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond was escorted out of the board room for speaking against the policy. The policy ended up challenged in court, with parts later struck down as discriminatory. On top of that, Chino Valley banned Pride flags and even removed rainbow “safe space” cards from classrooms, all while students begged for support.

In Redlands, marathon meetings have centered on banning all flags except the American and California flags and pushing stricter book policies. Parents lined up for hours to speak, boardrooms overflowed, and tempers flared. The focus shifted from building up student opportunities to fighting over symbols and censorship. In Murrieta, a similar parental notification policy passed by a narrow margin, again putting schools in the middle of divisive politics rather than fostering safe environments for learning. And in Temecula, perhaps one of the most visible flashpoints, the board rejected a history textbook simply because it mentioned Harvey Milk. At one meeting, the board president referred to Milk as a “pedophile,” sparking outrage statewide. The district also attempted to ban “critical race theory,” only to have the courts strike the policy down for being vague and unconstitutional. On top of that, lawsuits over free speech and recall elections consumed time, energy, and millions of dollars that could have been spent on classrooms.

These are not examples of politics focused on students. They are distractions, fueled by national culture wars, that divide communities, trigger costly legal battles, and send the wrong message to young people about what leadership should look like. And these requests aren’t limited to Chino, Redlands, or Temecula; they show up in Fontana, too. But every time, I continually ask the same question: how does this help our students learn and thrive? If the answer is that it doesn’t, then it’s not where our focus should be.

These days, it feels like we can’t talk about education, or anything else for that matter, without it turning into a fight about identity. Red or blue. Donkey or elephant. Democrat or Republican. Conservative or Liberal. But life, and especially education, isn’t supposed to be that polarized. Our schools aren’t battlefields for political parties or cultural wars. They are places where children come to learn, to dream, and to discover who they are. The more we label each other, the more we forget that the labels don’t educate a single child.

Despite the noise of politics, I remain hopeful. Over my years of service, I’ve seen firsthand what happens when we set aside division and put students at the center of our decisions. Families, educators, and community members all want the same thing at the end of the day: safe schools, excellent teaching, and opportunities for their children to succeed.

That’s why I believe family and community engagement is one of the strongest antidotes to political division. When we build authentic relationships with parents, when we listen to the voices of students, and when we invite the community to the table as partners, the conversation shifts. It stops being about who is “right” politically and instead becomes about what is right for kids.

We don’t have to agree on everything to agree on this: our students deserve the very best we can give them. Every decision, from budgets to policies, should be measured by a simple question: How does this help our children learn and thrive

When I first asked, “What happened to politics being about issues instead of red vs. blue?” it wasn’t just a rhetorical question; it was a challenge. A challenge to myself, to my colleagues, and to our community to remember why we serve. Politics should never be about winning points for adults. It should be about solving problems for children. It should be about ensuring every student, regardless of background, has the chance to succeed. As a school board member, I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I do know this: the work becomes clearer when we strip away the partisan noise and focus on what truly matters, students, families, and the future of our communities. If we can do that, if we can come together around the issues that unite us, we can build schools and communities that reflect the very best of who we are.

Disclaimer: The views and reflections shared in this blog are my own and do not represent the official positions of the Fontana Unified School District Board of Education or the San Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools.

Beyond the Mandate: Sustaining Equity Efforts in Education

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Hello friends and family! It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog. Now that I have handed over the baton of Board President at Fontana USD, I’ll have more time to dedicate to writing on various topics. This blog will try to explain one of the many Executive Orders signed by President Trump.

For 39+ years of my career, I have worked in communities of color to support families and individuals in becoming strong leaders, advocates for underserved children, self-sufficient, and confident to create change in their communities. As you all know, each time there is a leadership change at the federal level, the pendulum swings in a different direction.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order titled “Initial Rescissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions,” which revoked several directives from the previous administration, including Executive Order 13985. This order aimed to advance racial equity and support underserved communities, a goal that led to the creation of programs addressing systemic inequities across various sectors, including education. Its rescission will undoubtedly have far-reaching implications. The new order also mandates ending all federal DEI or environmental justice positions and services within 60 days and assessing whether any programs were rebranded to preserve their previous function. As Kevin Gordon, President of Capitol Advisors Group, noted, even education programs promoting a diverse educator workforce and approaches that consider students’ backgrounds may now be at risk.

To understand the impact, it is crucial to consider the original intent of Executive Order 13985. This order sought to eliminate barriers for historically marginalized communities by increasing federal support for initiatives that targeted inequities. For example, grants aimed at promoting equity provided crucial resources for schools in disadvantaged areas, while data-driven strategies illuminated systemic disparities and drove accountability. These efforts were not just abstract policy goals but practical tools that directly benefited families and students in need.

The rescission of this order signals a significant shift in federal priorities, with several key consequences for education. Equity-focused initiatives that supported marginalized students will face a steep decline, reducing opportunities for targeted funding and resources. Locally, we have already witnessed districts like Chino Valley, Temecula Valley, and Murrieta Valley scale back their DEI initiatives. The emphasis on building a diverse educator workforce and designing culturally responsive approaches is now in jeopardy, weakening the support systems that have been instrumental in fostering inclusive educational environments.

One of the most concerning changes is the reduction in federal data reporting requirements. Collecting data to monitor and address disparities has been a cornerstone of transparency and progress. Without this focus, it will become increasingly difficult to identify areas needing improvement. This lack of data-driven accountability risks reversing years of progress in creating equitable systems.

Reflecting on my own experience, I’ve seen firsthand how equity-focused programs transform lives. I remember a district where federal grants funded mentorship programs that connected students from underserved communities with college-educated role models. These programs didn’t just close achievement gaps but also inspired students to believe in their potential. The thought of losing such initiatives is heartbreaking.

Despite these challenges, I believe local school districts can and should take proactive steps to continue advancing equity. Grassroots efforts can play a pivotal role in filling the gap left by federal retrenchment. For parents, this might mean joining or forming equity-focused committees at their children’s schools. Educators can advocate for professional development opportunities that prioritize inclusivity, while community members can partner with local businesses and nonprofits to fund programs at risk of losing federal support. Collaboration and creativity will be essential to sustaining these vital efforts.

In Riverside and San Bernardino counties, there are already examples of communities stepping up. Some districts have partnered with local organizations to create equity task forces, ensuring the voices of students and families are heard. Others are leveraging state grants to preserve initiatives that federal funding once supported. These grassroots actions remind us of the power we hold to create change from the ground up.

Beyond education, the ripple effects of rescinding Executive Order 13985 could extend into workforce diversity, community health programs, and environmental justice efforts. These interconnected challenges highlight the importance of advocating for equity across all sectors. By maintaining a focus on these broader implications, we can work toward systemic change even in the absence of federal support.

So, when given lemons, we must make lemonade. Despite these setbacks, I encourage each of you to remain engaged, informed, and active. Advocate for local policies that promote equity, attend school board meetings, and support initiatives that uplift underserved communities. Together, we can sustain the progress made and continue to work toward a more just and equitable future.