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May 17, 2022 \u2014 The candidates for County Superintendent of schools, incumbent Michelle Hutchins and challenger Nicole Glentzer, presented their positions at a forum at the Little Lake Grange in Willits on Sunday afternoon. Both candidates are former school superintendents, and each brings a wealth of endorsements to the race. Hutchins counts state leaders, two county supervisors, retired sheriff Tom Allman and the Mendocino College president among her supporters. Glentzer has the backing of the school labor unions, including the employees of the Mendocino County Office of Education, four school superintendents, and two other county supervisors.\nIn her opening statement, Hutchins spoke about building a new system at MCOE, saying, \u201cBefore my first term, the Office passed state money directly to districts, instead of providing the services prescribed by the California Department of Education. This resulted in outdated resources and low student achievement. I changed that. I created a new management team and built the capacity to serve all twelve districts and twelve charter schools effectively and efficiently.\u201d\nGlentzer said if elected, she would foster more local collaboration. \u201cI would be much more targeted in reaching out to our district leaders and to our charter school leaders,\u201d she said, recalling that when she first became the superintendent of the Potter Valley School District, she was introduced to key people and assigned a mentor. \u201cThey provided so much support. And that\u2019s an area I would like to change,\u201d she declared. \nHutchins identified stagnant educational scores as her most pressing concern, and spoke about how she is addressing the problem. She said that currently, if one sub-population of students falls behind, the state provides the County Office of Education what is called differentiated assistance, an approach she regards as reactive, rather than proactive. \u201cThat needs to switch to a more preventative approach,\u201d she said; \u201cwhere we\u2019re not waiting for students to fail, and instead guiding districts with an improvement mindset from the beginning.\u201d She said all 58 county superintendents of schools have asked the State Legislature to change the way differentiated assistance is funded. \u201cAnd that successfully made it into the May revise,\u201d she concluded.\nGlentzer doesn\u2019t believe any of the issues can be addressed without adequate staff. \u201cSo we need to work on recruitment,\u201d she emphasized. \u201cWe need to work on the mental health of the people who are currently in our school districts. And we need to give them the support that they require\u2026I\u2019ve kind of defined the last several years of my career in supporting the adults in our educational system.\u201d She added that schools provide students with things they don\u2019t all get at home, asserting that, \u201cOne of the strongest indicators of student achievement is the family. Do they come from money? Do they speak English? Do they have a house? Those are not things that schools can control, though. But that has the biggest influence on student achievement. So that means that the role of the school is to be the great equalizer for students, to focus on equity.\u201d She said Fort Bragg and Ukiah school districts provide students with \u201creally cool tools\u2026so that the cool things that wealthy kids get, poor kids get, too.\u201d\nWhen the candidates were asked if they had supported students returning to school in 2020-2021, Hutchins provided historical context for her advocacy. She reminded the public that MCOE had crafted a \u201croad to reopening\u201d workbook, that laid out how the schools should return to in-person learning. Then, the day before Ukiah Unified, the largest school district in the county, was scheduled to reopen, the Governor retroactively placed the county in the purple tier, which shut down all reopening plans. \u201cWe called the Governor, and we made a big stink,\u201d she said. \u201cSo much so that it was recorded on EdSource, and you can see the interview\u2026so it made state-level news. Unfortunately, the Governor held firm, and would not allow those school districts to open, despite the noise we made.\u201d\nGlentzer highlighted her work on implementing safety measures, including vaccine clinics. \u201cI was definitely part of pushing hard to get students back into school,\u201d she said. \u201cWe had work with our unions to do, and we had work with our parents and students to do. It was super challenging.\u201d She said that, as a bilingual Spanish speaker, she helped families register for vaccinations, to bring staff and students back safely. \u201cIt was very apparent that through remote learning, students were really suffering,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we needed to do everything we could to get them back into school.\u201d