My Priorities · Transparency

The 599 courses no one had ever approved

When you do the public’s business in public, you find what needs fixing — and people trust the outcome, even when it isn’t the one they wanted.

I keep coming back to one idea: it’s not our work; it’s the public’s work. Our state constitution is clear that officials do the public’s business, and it should be done in public. Voters delegate their authority to a board of trustees — and out of respect for that trust, the board should include the community in everything it does.

That’s not just a compliance box to check. When people can watch the real deliberation, they trust the outcome, even when it isn’t the one they wanted. So one of the first things I did was open our process up.

Open by default

When I first joined the board, our policy committee meetings weren’t even open to the public. So I insisted they be opened up — publicly noticed, with agendas that describe each item and the full text of every policy up for discussion posted in advance, changes shown in strikeout, in full compliance with the law, so anyone can see exactly what’s changing. I moved board and staff comments to the beginning of meetings; they used to come at the very end, to a mostly empty room. And I renamed the confusing old “Audience to Visitors” section to plain “Public Comment,” so people actually know it’s their time to speak. Small changes, but each one makes it a little easier to take part.

The audit that surprised everyone

The clearest example of transparency paying off was our curriculum review. A hot, divided debate came before the board, and everyone expected a quick, angry vote. Instead, we moved the meeting to a campus theater to fit the crowd, took input only, and did a careful, layered audit — checking state law against board policy, board policy against the administrative regulation, and all of it against the actual practice at each site.

That review turned up 599 courses being taught with no record of ever having been formally approved by the board — out of only about 650. It surprised all of us: the board, the administration, and our teachers alike. We didn’t paper over it and we didn’t panic. We built a work plan and brought every one of those courses into compliance, out in the open. And because we did it that way — slow, deliberate, evidence first — people on all sides of the original debate came away feeling heard.

Reporting back, and redrawing the map

I also launched an annual State of the District. Cities have a State of the City; our schools do just as much work that deserves to be reported out to the community in a straightforward, even celebratory setting, rather than buried in a board agenda.

And when we had to redraw attendance boundaries — and nothing, believe me, is more emotional to parents than which school their kids attend — we set our goals and criteria in public first, took about a year of community input, and the board actually changed the map in response to what we heard, rather than rubber-stamping a staff plan. People watched trustees argue passionately, and watched some of us change our positions based on what the public said. That’s not a bug in open government. That’s the entire point of it.

“When the public sees the real deliberation — including officials changing their minds — they trust the result. That trust is worth more than any quick vote.”

Transparency takes more time and more patience than doing things behind a closed door. It’s also the only way to earn the confidence of the families we serve. I’ll keep choosing it.

Pete Constant has chaired the board’s Policy Committee for six years, teaches public policy at the university level, and is RJUHSD’s Trustee for Area 2. See the full Transparency record →

My Priorities · Fiscal Responsibility

The move I’m proudest of is one you’ve probably never heard about

Fiscal discipline isn’t about spreadsheets. It’s about making sure a bad budget year never costs your kid their teacher.

I learned fiscal discipline the hard way — helping lead one of the nation’s ten largest cities through the depths of the Great Recession. When you’ve had to make those decisions, you never forget what’s really at stake in a budget: it’s not a number on a page, it’s whether the adult standing in front of a classroom is still there next fall.

So let me start with the fundamentals, because they matter. We’ve balanced the budget every single year. We hold reserves at over double the state’s minimum requirement — and in some years closer to three times it — a genuine cushion, managed right up to the level the state allows, so we can absorb a bad year or an unplanned event without cutting into kids. And we refinanced bonds to save taxpayers over $13 million, retiring that debt sooner and leaving more in residents’ pockets in the years ahead.

The second mortgage nobody talks about

Now the part I’m proudest of — and the part almost nobody hears about. Like most public agencies, our district carries pension obligations it’s paying down over decades. Think of it as a second mortgage: a large, long-term debt with payments you have to manage year after year. The actuaries tell us those annual payments are going to jump sharply around 2030 to 2033. And that money comes straight out of the same general fund that pays our teachers.

Most districts are going to wait for that squeeze and then scramble. I didn’t want to do that to our kids. So rather than wait, we set up a restricted federal trust — an IRS Section 115 pension trust — and have been steadily banking money into it. Because it’s restricted under strict federal rules, that money is protected for exactly one purpose. We’ve put about $7 million into it in a relatively short time, with roughly $3 million more expected this year.

This isn’t an idea I stumbled into locally. For years, my work across the country has been helping governments get ahead of exactly these pension obligations — work that helped bipartisan reforms pass in six states. I’ve brought that same foresight everywhere I’ve served: as a member of Roseville’s Community Priorities Advisory Commission, I urged the city to prepare the same way. It didn’t set up a Section 115 trust, but it did create a dedicated pension reserve fund and has been steadily funding it ever since — real, lasting security for the city’s employees and their retirements.

Here’s the payoff, in plain terms. When that pension bill rises and other districts are pulling the increase straight out of their classrooms, we’ll be able to pay it from the trust instead. It’s a shock absorber for a bump in the road we can already see coming. I’d advocated for exactly this kind of foresight years earlier at the city level; here, we did it even better.

On time, on budget — on purpose

We’ve applied the same discipline to construction. Serving on the Finance and Facilities Committee, I helped move our capital projects — including West Park High School and the district office — to a design-build approach, where one accountable team is on the hook to design and deliver on time and on budget. They have. Public projects don’t always work out that way, and that’s exactly why the delivery method matters.

“Fiscal responsibility isn’t about hoarding money. It’s about making sure the dollars are there, year after year, to educate our kids.”

We’ve all seen what happens when a district lets its finances drift: painful layoffs, bigger classes, cut programs, sometimes state oversight. That’s the outcome discipline prevents. Because our district stays healthy while many around us struggle, we can do the things that actually reach students — pay teachers at the top of our peer districts, protect athletics and the arts, and keep expanding opportunity. Keeping our dollars in the classroom isn’t a slogan. It’s the whole point.

Pete Constant chaired the finance committee of one of the nation’s largest cities and has served as a trustee on multi-billion-dollar public pension funds. He is a founding board member of the Equable Institute, a bipartisan think tank focused on retirement and fiscal policy, and the founder of Verdara, which helps charter-school teachers and employees secure their retirements. He is RJUHSD’s Trustee for Area 2. See the full Fiscal Responsibility record →

My Priorities · Governance & Accountability

Great in the classroom, broken in the boardroom

I ran to protect a district that was already excelling — and discovered the part that needed the most work was how we governed ourselves.

I didn’t run for the school board to shake things up. I ran to protect a district that was doing an excellent job in the classroom. But once I got a look under the hood, I found that while the teaching was strong, the way we governed ourselves needed real repair.

Policies were out of date. Some meetings weren’t being run the way our open-government laws require. And the board’s relationship with its one employee — the superintendent — had drifted, as many school boards do, to the point where the board’s job was treated as rubber-stamping the administration. Good governance isn’t glamorous, and it rarely makes the news. But it’s the structure everything else rests on. So I went to work on it.

Clear roles, read out loud

We reset the line between the board’s job and the superintendent’s: the board sets the destination and holds the administration accountable for results; the superintendent runs the operation. To make that durable, we adopted a clear set of Board Expectations — and we read them aloud at the start of every meeting, so every trustee and every member of the public is level-set on why we’re there. It’s a small ritual that does a lot of work. And it has taken on a life of its own: now, when people bring an issue they’d like the board to consider, they tie it directly to those expectations. It isn’t just our staff who do that — members of the public step up at open comment and make their case by pointing to the very expectation it advances. When the community starts holding you to your own stated standards, you know they’re working.

And when it came time to hire a new superintendent, we ran an open, board-driven search rather than letting a firm recirculate the same rotating candidates from district to district. From there, we invested in real governance and leadership training for the whole team — the new superintendent, the board, the cabinet, and every one of our school-site principals — so everyone was working from the same playbook.

Every policy, out in the open

We audited every policy the district had on the books — hundreds of them — through the board’s Policy Committee, which I’ve served on since my first day and chaired all six years. And we strengthened the rule that governs how policy itself gets made. For any significant new policy, the board now discusses it in public and invites community input first, and does not vote the same day. People deserve to help inform a decision before it’s made — not be informed of one that’s already baked.

Two reforms you can feel

The first is about honesty in budgeting. We moved labor contracts to be settled before the fiscal year begins, instead of the old pattern where teachers started the school year not knowing their pay and waited on retroactive checks. You wouldn’t start a long road trip refusing to check what the gas will cost; a district shouldn’t start a budget year not knowing its biggest expense either. And when we settle early and the state later sends more than expected — as happened this year — we honor our word and share it: we reopened just the pay portion of our settled contracts and added a raise and a one-time stipend for staff. That’s better for teachers, it’s more honest budgeting, and it has built real trust — it’s part of why Roseville has become an employer of choice, a district where teachers want to build an entire career.

The second is about fairness. When the district moved to by-trustee-area elections, I insisted the maps be drawn cleanly and lawfully — strictly by the criteria state law requires, with no reference to where any sitting trustee happened to live. I’ve fought for fair, independent maps everywhere I’ve served; I even wrote the charter amendment that created an independent redistricting commission for the City of Roseville. Drawing your own district lines to protect yourself is exactly the kind of politics a school board should stay out of.

“Build the governance to outlast any one of us — so a good district stays well-run no matter who sits in these chairs.”

Here’s the proof that it’s working: other agencies now ask me to teach it. I’ve been invited to train city councils and school boards around the region — and even to present internationally — on how good governance turns a board and its administration into real partners rather than rivals. That’s the standard I want to keep building: a district that’s not only great in the classroom, but sound and steady in the boardroom, too.

Pete Constant is a former city councilmember, a university professor and department chair, a parent of five Oakmont graduates, and RJUHSD’s Trustee for Area 2. See the full Governance & Accountability record →

My Priorities · Student Safety

The nightmare that keeps parents up at night is the one I spent my career preparing for

Real protection and real privacy don’t have to be a trade-off. Here’s how we built both into our schools.

Before I ever sat on a school board, I spent 14 years in law enforcement — patrol, a street crimes unit, robbery investigations, training officer, and police detective. Early on, as a reserve officer, I spent a full school year as a campus police officer. That year stayed with me: I saw firsthand what it means for students to know the officer on their campus by name.

Public safety has been the throughline of my whole career. On the San Jose City Council I chaired the Public Safety, Finance and Strategic Support Committee. I served as a member and then chairman of the League of California Cities Public Safety Policy Committee and of the National League of Cities Public Safety and Crime Prevention Committee, advocating for sound public-safety policy in Sacramento and on Capitol Hill. And today I chair the department at Jessup University that runs our criminal justice degree, where I help prepare the next generation of men and women for careers in law enforcement. So when our schools take on safety, I’m not starting from a briefing — I’m drawing on a lifetime of the work.

When I first ran for this seat in 2020, I made a specific promise: a full safety evaluation of every one of our campuses. We did exactly that — rebuilding each school’s safety plan, individualized to the site, board-approved, and reviewed every single year. A promise kept. But a safety plan on a shelf isn’t safety, so from there we built something more comprehensive — and we did it the way I think this work should always be done: with law enforcement at the table, and with students’ rights protected right alongside their safety.

Turning good practice into permanent policy

Our staff were already doing strong behavioral threat-assessment work when I joined the board — the preventive, team-based practice of identifying and helping a student in crisis before anyone gets hurt. That work deserves the credit, and I give it. My contribution was to insist we not leave it as an informal program that could fade when people move on. I pushed to write it into formal board policy so it was documented, permanent, and accountable to the board and the public. We adopted that policy in early 2022.

Then I proposed we take our model to the California School Boards Association and present it as an example other districts could adopt — which we did, ahead of the state later requiring this kind of policy. I also did the hands-on part: I was the only school-board member, from any district, at a regional threat-assessment training led by Roseville PD and the FBI. I didn’t send a staff member. I went.

Cameras that help — without watching your kids

When Roseville PD offered to connect our campus cameras to its Real Time Crime Center, I understood the value immediately. In a critical incident, officers too often go in blind — we all watched that go tragically wrong at Uvalde. This lets the crime center see the ground truth and guide responding officers to the threat and to the people who need help.

But I also had a concern about student privacy, so I asked the board to hold the item while we negotiated a formal agreement with real protections: an audit trail every time the cameras are accessed, no facial recognition of students unless a student is the threat, and activation only during a genuine critical incident. I personally consulted with an FBI agent for an outside review of that agreement. When a hoax threat targeted one of our campuses this spring, that partnership let law enforcement respond and clear it quickly. Real protection and real privacy, by design.

An officer who knows the students

One of our campuses had only ad-hoc, rotating deputy coverage — sometimes none at all. I met one-on-one with county leadership and walked the campus with them so they could see the need firsthand, and I pressed both sides to come to the table and reach a fair, dedicated staffing arrangement — which they did. An officer who knows the students and the campus isn’t just there to enforce; they’re there to build the kind of relationship that makes law enforcement a resource students trust.

“My job isn’t just to make our campuses safe. It’s to make them safe the right way — with experience, sound policy, and respect for our students’ rights.”

Keeping our kids safe is the most basic promise a school makes to a family. It’s a promise I understand from both sides of the desk — as the officer trained to run toward the danger, and as a parent who put five children through these schools. I intend to keep it.

Pete Constant is a parent of five Oakmont High School graduates, a retired police officer and university professor, and RJUHSD’s Trustee for Area 2. See the full Student Safety record →

My Priorities · Academic Excellence

The graduate who already had a college degree

Real excellence isn’t just for the university-bound. It’s what happens when you refuse to write off a single kid.

At last year’s graduation, I watched one of our students walk across the stage to collect a diploma he had more than earned — because that same spring, he had also completed an associate degree. A full college degree, finished before he finished high school. I’ll be honest: I was a little envious my own five kids never had that chance.

For a long time, our district did an excellent job with one kind of student — the university-bound student headed for a four-year school, with strong International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs to match. That is worth protecting, and we have protected it. But when my own oldest kids were in high school, I barely knew what dual enrollment or career technical education even were, because there wasn’t much of it. So I set out to widen the definition of excellence — to make it serve every student, not just the ones on the Ivy League track.

College credit, earned in high school

We grew dual enrollment from a handful of courses into offerings on every one of our campuses: real, transferable community-college units, taught right at the high school by teachers with master’s degrees, under a shared agreement with Sierra College. This isn’t an Advanced Placement class, where the credit only counts if you pass an exam and your college chooses to accept it. These are actual college units, in hand, on a transcript. That’s how a student like the one I watched last spring can walk the graduation stage with an associate degree already earned — and a real head start on tuition and time.

Career, not just college

We built career technical education up to the same level, designed hand-in-hand with Sierra College and regional employers so the programs actually connect to careers: the Health Academy at Oakmont with hospital and medical-office internships, a mechatronics pathway aligned to Sierra College and advanced-manufacturing employers like Bosch, construction technology sponsored by the local trades, and environmental resources built with the City of Roseville. We also brought two campuses together as Roseville Pathways — including a Middle College partnership with Sierra College — so students who learn differently graduate with real opportunity and none of the old stigma. Educators from across the state have asked us how we did it.

None of it works without great teachers

So I treat our teachers and staff as part of this very same priority. Because our district stays fiscally healthy while many around us struggle, we can pay at the top of our peer districts, honor the full years of service of the experienced teachers we recruit, and share unexpected state dollars back with our staff — as we did this year, adding a raise and a $2,000 stipend when the state budget came in stronger than expected, rather than pocket the difference. The results show: our principals and administrators have been honored as regional leaders of the year, Antelope earned recognition as a 2026 California Distinguished School, and teachers move toward this district, not away from it. The adult standing in front of a student is the single biggest in-school factor in that student’s success, and we work hard to attract and keep the best.

“Excellence isn’t one path. It’s making sure every student — college-bound, career-bound, or finding their own way — leaves us ready for what’s next.”

That is what a great district does. It refuses to decide, at fourteen, which kids are worth investing in. It keeps the doors to college wide open and builds new doors to careers right beside them. That’s the work I’m proudest of — and it’s the work I intend to keep building.

Pete Constant is a parent of five Oakmont graduates, a university professor and department chair, and RJUHSD’s Trustee for Area 2. See the full Academic Excellence record →