During his first campaign for the La Cañada Unified School District Governing Board four years ago, Dan Jeffries was wowed by how well-informed the La Cañada Flintridge electorate was about district-related issues, whether or not they had children in school.
Currently the board’s president, Jeffries, has been looking forward to having similar conversations at campaign stops — and at his son’s baseball practice or while refereeing AYSO soccer matches.
Jeffries is among five candidates for three Governing Board seats in the Nov. 7 election, when voters also will decide whether to approve Measure LCF, the proposed $149 million bond that would help fund capital improvement projects throughout the district.
“I’m always incredibly impressed by our community and the level of awareness they have about our schools,” Jeffries said. “Our community understands the need for keeping our schools first-rate and top-notch. And I think the [election] is a great opportunity to get out there and talk about it. The more we talk about our schools, the better.”
Jeffries said he’s received positive feedback about Stanford University’s Challenge Success initiative, which provides schools and families with research-based tools to create more balanced lives for students.
“I’ve heard from parents who’ve already gone through the process and have kids off at college,” Jeffries said. “They say, ‘This is really good, we totally get why this is important at the high-school level.’ Now one of the big things that the board has the opportunity to do in the next term, taking the ideas of Challenge Success and expanding it to the elementary schools.”
Jeffries has lived in LCF for 15 years, with his wife and five children, including three within the district — a 4th- and 6th-grader at Paradise Canyon Elementary School and an 8th-grader — as well as daughters who’ve graduated from UCLA and Stanford Law School, respectively.
The son of a retired college professor, Jeffries spent much of his career as DUI prosecutor with the L.A. City Attorney’s office, with which he now is focused on using data and analytics to assist prosecutors.
“The other huge thing with the district,” Jeffries said, “is keeping up with technology. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got not only computers available, but we have to make sure our infrastructure is there. We live in a district where most of the families are very fortunate to have good Internet at home, so they expect that and the students expect that there’s going to be Internet available at school, and that teachers are going to make good use of it.”
In his tenure so far, Jeffries and his colleagues have navigated contentious teacher negotiations, helped educators transition to Common Core State Standards and dealt with a state funding formula that leaves LCUSD as one of California’s lowest-funded districts.
For that reason, Jeffries said he is supportive of the district’s early efforts as a part of the Coalition for Base Funding Fairness, which, to start, is bringing together six like-minded districts to lobby state legislators to revisit funding levels.
“I feel like our district is moving in the right direction,” Jeffries said. “We’ve made some tremendous progress on a number of issues. If given the opportunity by the voters, I would like to continue to advance those projects; I have the experience and the passion and the commitment to do it.”
