Canada's loss is Pleasanton's gain Canada's loss is Pleasanton's gain (March 04, 2005)

by Jeb Bing

W ith volunteerism down and vacancies on Pleasanton commissions and boards often hard to fill, we need more Canadians like Debbie Look. She moved here from Vancouver five years ago when her husband Chris became chief technology officer for Intellambda Systems in Fremont. Their two children, Kristen, now 20 and a junior at UC Davis, and Andrew, 16, a junior at Amador Valley High School, enrolled at Harvest Park Middle School and Amador respectively.

Having served as president of the British Columbia Confederation of Parents Advisory Council, a PTA equivalent for the whole province, Look became active in the parent organizations at both of her children's new schools. Soon after, the parent faculty organizations at Harvest Park and Amador became affiliated with the PTA with Look as a major advocate. She joined the Pleasanton Council of PTAs when it was organized two years ago, and is now its president. A book and library enthusiast, she has also been involved in the local public library's Booklegger Program and is already into her third year on the Pleasanton Library Commission, where she is now the chairwoman.

In her PTA work, Look spends from 20-25 hours a week on organization activities, meeting with her executive board, school Superintendent John Casey, and the eight separate school PTAs that represent Amador, Harvest Park and six elementary schools. With 5,000 members locally, Look believes the PTA has political and funding strengths at the local, state and national levels to foster favorable legislation and programs for kindergarten through high school senior students.

Last week, she chaired the Pleasanton PTA Council's first annual Founder's Day luncheon, a national event that has special significance here because it was Pleasanton's own Phoebe Apperson Hearst who founded the organization 109 years ago. County Supervisor Scott Haggerty, hearing about Look's efforts to fund a child abuse information and education program in the Pleasanton school system, dropped by with a $7,000 contribution from his office to support a project he has long endorsed. The donation is nearly half the $15,000 Look and her organization hope to raise to pay for the program, which alerts teachers to emotional and physical characteristics among children they teach. The program, taught by the nonprofit, independent Child Abuse Prevention Agency in Fremont, also teaches children how to protect themselves from abuse and how to report it if they think they or someone they know is a victim. She said that while we might assume Pleasanton children are seldom abused, if ever, Haggerty told her that 1,200 abuse cases were reported in the Tri-Valley last year.

Other hot-button issues Look and the PTA are handling include state budget issues and pending legislation affecting Pleasanton schools. She has also signed letters the PTA Council sent to Sacramento urging support for measures that would allow students to carry asthma inhalers if their physicians and parents approve, and to urge support for bills that limit the kinds of drug testing policies on school campuses and to facilitate parental rights in student interrogations.

As Library Commission chairwoman, Look's pace has accelerated even more, with the group's main focus on expanding the 30,000-square-foot library that a consultant said should be at least 71,000 square feet based on the growing population it serves. At conferences and workshops and with frequent trips to other public libraries in the Bay Area, Look and her commission hope to win approval from the City Council this spring on hiring an architectural consultant to start designing a new library for Pleasanton.

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