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Pleasanton Unified School District Trustee Kelly Mokashi confirmed this week that she will be running for a second term on the Board of Trustees during the upcoming November election.
As of Monday’s announcement, Mokashi is the only person running for the Area 3 seat on the board.
“I have proudly served Pleasanton’s school community for the past four years,” Mokashi told the Weekly. “I am committed to continue serving our school community.”
Mokashi, a longtime educator and former adult member of the city of Pleasanton’s Youth Commission, was first elected to the school board in November 2020.
Mokashi currently works at Fremont Unified School District as a community school coordinator at Cabrillo Elementary School. She is a seven-year resident of Pleasanton and has three kids attending two schools in Pleasanton.
Before her time in Fremont, Mokashi had nearly 30 years of experience working in public schools nationwide and in the educational technology industry.
“I am proud to leverage my diverse educational background and leadership experiences to provide keen insight and fresh perspectives to benefit our students’ needs,” Mokashi said.
During her time on the board, Mokashi said she has been proud of her work as a trustee delegate for the California School Boards Association, which is an independent nonprofit association that represents many school districts and county offices of education in California.
According to her campaign press release, she worked at the association with other district trustees to advocate for statewide policy change regarding kindergarten through second grade universal screening for reading difficulties, including the risk of dyslexia.
“I am also proud of advocating for students with disabilities, and multilingual learners, and for promoting equitable opportunities for all students,” Mokashi said.
She has also advocated for one-time funding for sports coaches and led the efforts to bring back intramural sports after the pandemic, according to her press release.
Mokashi said she was most recently proud of the relationships the district has been forging with the teachers and classified employees unions amidst the recent impasse in negotiations with the teacher’s union, which she said demonstrates her “leadership capacity to listen and advocate for PUSD staff and employees despite the contentious negotiations.”
“Repairing relationships has to be focused at all levels, including at the board level, where tension has arisen recently due to conflicting viewpoints,” Mokashi told the Weekly.
She said that’s why it will be important to not just listen to teachers, parents and community members’ concerns, but to also engage in proactive strategies that will bring everyone together and elicit constructive feedback through brainstorming sessions so everyone can collectively find solutions that work for everyone.
“I will continue to ask the tough questions, voicing potential concerns representing the residents I serve,” Mokashi said. “More than ever, I will work with the board to hire the best candidate to fulfill the superintendency position to help lead our PUSD community forward for years to come.”
She said if elected for a second term, she plans on improving collaboration with the community in order to identify long term goals and priorities that will benefit the students. She said that starts with moving away from a top down administrative structure when making big decisions as the district faces imminent budget cuts and a budget deficit.
Mokashi said there is a continued need for increased oversight of decisions that impact the district’s budget and the district needs to work on resolving ongoing issues with “overspending contractual services and expensive litigation related to special education services.”
She also said the district will need to do an extensive review of all programs and their effectiveness in order to determine where cuts need to be made while also looking for alternative funding sources. She also prioritized long-term planning and vision setting to prevent further deficit spending in the future.
“I want to provide more conservative financial oversight by the PUSD board and ongoing transparency to ensure that every dollar spent reaches our students,” Mokashi said. “Budget cuts must be the furthest from the classroom, meaning leaner management and district-level staffing and ensuring that our students are not impacted at the classroom level.”
To learn more about Mokashi’s campaign, visit www.votekellypusd.com.
