SDYR Podcast with Chairwoman Cynthia Kaui #2 and Guest Jim Miller (Ep 571)

SDYR Podcast with Jim Miller, Cajon Valley School Board President

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hi, everyone, Welcome to thesecond episode the San Diego Young Republicans Podcast.
I'm your host the president chairwoman,Cynthia Cowie. Really excited for everything
that we have for SDYR and justwant to thank our sponsors, Brett Davis
and IQ Podcasts for helping make thispodcast come to fruition. SDYR released our
initial batch of endorsements, so we'reexcited to be able to support our endorsed

(00:25):
candidates all the way down from thecongressional all the way down to the local
race. And so I'm excited towelcome one of our local endorsed candidates,
Jim Miller, who is the GohoneValley school Board Trustee President. Welcome mister
Miller, thanks for having me onperfect So to kick it off, I
first off not only want to thankyou for everything that you're doing for the
school board but also for the greatercounty, but also I would argue you

(00:49):
and venture to say the state ofCalifornia because you are a founding men member
of the San Diego County gun Ownerswho are great supporters of SDYR and help
sponsor our most popular event of theorganization, which is our shooting social So
it's no secret that the Second Amendmentis under attack in the state of California,
but the pro Second Amendment movement hasseen some really significant victories on this

(01:12):
forefront. I know that the courtprocess it takes you know, some time
to play out, but you actuallyare the plaintiff for the Miller versus Bonta
lawsuit. I know that there's somelegal stuff you might not be able to
get to, but just want toget be able to get an updated on
that in regards to you know,the long term impact and how it's playing
out my lawsuits specifically. So there'sbeen different iterations we have kind of like

(01:40):
the COVID arguments, then moved throughthe Ninth Circuit. Bruin gets decided to
need in the Supreme Court, Bruin, New York, come on back,
re argue the case. Now we'reback up on the Ninth Circuit again.
The Ninth Circuit in light of Bruinknowing that they have to basically rule in

(02:02):
our favor, which they don't wantto do, then put us to the
side and then said that we area related case to the Duncan case.
The Duncan cases, the ten Roundsin your magazine or more case that the
anti second Ammic group likes to callthe high capacity magazine case, which we

(02:23):
in the shooting world call normal capacitymagazine case. So because they tied us
in with Duncan, the Duncan oralargument just happened a couple of weeks ago,
but delayed my case because they tiedit to the Duncan case. So
that's where we sit right now.There were two other assault weapons cases,

(02:44):
assault weapons being that made up termfor people who don't like military looking firearms,
that were rejected for saratory by theUS Supreme Court. One was out
of Maryland. I believe the othermight have been out of Illinois off the
top of my head, So we'rekind of on deck for that right now.
Perfect. Thank you for Ryana upedIn. Like I said, appreciate

(03:05):
everything the work that you're doing onthis forefront. So just transitioning to your
race, there is a lot ofparents and families that are transitioning into homeschooling.
Just do the different things with publiceducation and WILK ideology. How do
you think as the school board presentfor Kahoone Valley, like, how do
you think we could be able toreverse this trend and return focus to ultimately

(03:29):
quality education. So in an interestingturn of events for Cahoone Valley, but
our enrollment is increasing. We mightbe one of the few districts in the
state, much less the county thatour enrollment is now back over seventeen thousand
students that we have on the twentyseven school sites. And when we're seeing

(03:53):
that particular engagement, it's twofold.One is the Digtional Kindergarten expansion where they've
changed the dates as to when transitionalkindergarten could start, and that's a program
that I am a huge fan of. My own daughter was in transitional kindergarten
the very first year it was available, and literally every kid in that transitional

(04:15):
kindergarten class that she had are thetop students in their respective high schools at
this point in time. They're theleaders on campus that are very active.
I cannot further support and encourage earlyschooling for your kids. But the other
side is we're having a number oftransfers from our neighboring districts Lakeside, San

(04:38):
Tea, La Mesa, Spring Valley, Almoldasura, the neighboring districts because we
do do things different in Cahone Valley. We're drawing these students from other districts
who want to go to a moredynamic concept of school, keeping in mind

(04:59):
that school under the current terms.Modern education was really developed in the late
eighteen hundreds in New York to goaround the harvesting schedule to prepare workers for
the industrial revolution. Six hours aday, give or take, six subjects
a day, give or take.Twelve years, give or take has been

(05:24):
the routine since then. The ideato think beyond that, to competency based
education, to career and career andprofessional development based education, really has not
come about, which is what weneed. I mean, we're working right

(05:45):
now in general education for jobs thatdon't exist anymore or will not exist in
five to ten years. Our studentsdeserve a better future than what's in the
past because those jobs aren't going tobe there anymore. But as a state
eight wide basis one homeschooling, privateschooling, you should have that choice.

(06:08):
Absolutely. But why has the publicsector been impacted? Generally speaking? I
think top to bottom it has beenlack of funding. There's been a serious
funding gap for education. And thenwhat you have is you have these and
we have them in other areas correctunfunded mandates from the governor, from the

(06:32):
state, they can say Cohone Valleyor San Diego Unified or whomever. You
will have these particular programs. Theseparticular programs are important for this sector of
students, and then they don't fundthem. So if you're a parent and

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you have a special EDS need childas an example, and the special ED
is not being funded, what isyour other option? You have to homeschool,
or you have to go to privateschool that has that particular availability,
or you go to the public school, which is the other issue. You
send them to public school, andthen we as a public school have to

(07:14):
find those services and if those servicesare not funded because they're not, we
then have to come out of generalfunding to help that particular student. And
where that really comes into play honestlyon the budget. So each we're a
K through eight district with a charterhigh school, say that each student brings

(07:38):
in approximately fifteen thousand dollars in roundfigures of revenue that we're supposed to use
to educate that student. It's calledada average daily attendance numbers based upon the
student. But if we have aspecial need student and that special need student
requires one hundred thousand dollars in specialservices that we as a public institution must

(08:03):
provide. Now, what you've basicallydone is you've taken the funding away from
five four and a half general edstudents who in theory now don't have any
money coming towards their education. Andthat's the disconnect fiscally from the state down
to what we call the local educationassociations the l EAS. So I think

(08:28):
that's why you're seeing a shift toprivate schooling and to and to public homes
priming, public homeschooling or chartering schoolingthan overall general public ed and that's a
big issue right now. That inaddition to general concepts about some school districts
being overly conservative, which is nota lot, or some being generally speaking

(08:50):
overly liberal, which in this stateis quite a few. Perfect I really
appreciate, I really in depth answer, because you really build the case that
it's great to have school choice.It's great to be able to have the
option to homeschool and have private schooland procles school and charter schools. But
there is a I'm someone that's aproduct of the public school system. I

(09:11):
like to think that I turn outso bad. But when we have good
leaders like you who believe in thepower public education. As long as there's
good financial stewardship and there's good valuesin place and people that want to fight
for families, there's always opportunities tobe able to be successful in the public
school system. So I'm a publicschool kid myself. I went to these

(09:35):
schools myself when I was school age. My kids have gone through these schools,
the same schools that i'm now thetrustee of. I attended, my
kids attended, my brother attended.You can be successful. There's going to
be good kids at private schools andbad kids at private schools. As far
as your social connections, same thingfor public school A lot of that comes

(09:58):
back to the parents. How areyou raising your children, Who are they
going to associate with, and howinvolved are you with their education? How
involved are you with their extracurricular activitiesas a parent, How involved are you
with their social connections, which becomesmore problematic today because of social media and
the access to devices than it everwas in my generation. So I was

(10:22):
the last generation that didn't have thedevice in my hand from the day of
birth. Perfect, So you touchedupon different ways to be able to educate,
and I know that they're along withdifferent avenues to be successful in school,
there's other avenues to be successful inlife, depending on your upbringing,
depending on different examples. Like Iwas someone that went to college after I

(10:43):
graduate from high school. I knowmany that have done that. But there's
also people that believe in the powerof entrepreneurship in being business owners and then
also being able to go to tradeschool. So what's your stance in regards
to be able to promote all thesealternative methods of having a career, you
know, while in maintaining your rolein being the president of cohone Value.

(11:05):
Well, I think there's been aninappropriate stigma to an extent that if you're
going to go through high school andthen you're just going to go to work,
that somehow you have not been successful. Right. First of all,
all work, I don't care whatyour job is. All work has value,
period. Right, there is asector of employment for everybody, and

(11:28):
it all contributes to the overall economy. It all contributes to the overall benefit
of society. So let's start there. So at Cahone Valley specifically, we
created an organic original curriculum called theWorld of Work. Now the World of
Work A little bit of quick background. Ed Hildago was an executive at Qualcom

(11:54):
in their HR department. He knewour superintendent. Ed Hildago was building a
pathways for Qualcom employees. Some weremaking quarter million dollars a year engineers,
but hated their job because it didn'talign with their strengths, their interests,
their values. They were just raisedfrom little kids to become engineers. So
he was working on that project andthen he started working with the University of

(12:18):
San Diego on developing out what doesthe world of work look like? Now
he knew our superintendent, we decidedto bring Ed over in that idea,
and then I had the idea asa lawyer, I will throw that out
there to hire him directly. Thereason for that is we now own the
intellectual property that then developed on ourtime. The idea was to take the

(12:46):
RIA set, which is a frameworkthat designs and breaks down as closely as
you can what somebody's strengths, interests, and values are because all the data
points show so that if you areinterested in something you're studying, you're more
likely to complete that If you likeand are aligned with the values of a

(13:07):
company or of a particular employment,you are vastly more likely to remain in
that employment, be happy in thatemployment, and then be successful in that
employment. So how do you turnthat into a curriculum. That's exactly what
we did. We took that curriculum, we built the curriculum, We trademarked
the curriculum. We now sell thatcurriculum world wide to other districts. That

(13:33):
then brings in a revenue stream wherethe only public school district in the country
that has a product that is soldto other districts that brings that revenue back
to our general revenue fund. That'sstill being worked out as far as how
much versus the company that helps sellthat product for us. There's always iterations.

(13:54):
We're always developing it, but mostrecently we just received over a million
dollar grant to continue to develop thatWorld that Work curriculum, and without it,
there's no million dollar grant in CahoneValley, right. We are very
unique in that concept of trying toget ahead and show kids that there are
pathways that go to their core valuesthat they're interested in, that they can

(14:18):
be connected to get them into internships, get them into externships, get them
off campus when they're in middle schooland in high school, get them out
in the community to see how thatworks, and then align that with the
California A through G requirements or thecollege acceptance. And we've been able to
do that with our charter high school. It's very different thinking again falling back

(14:41):
again on competency based education to whatare your competencies? Are you moving forward
with your age group or are younot? And then if you're not,
then how do we develop that?But also how does that dovetail into a
potential career. So we try tointroduce these children to numerous careers, but
it's not a standalone curriculum either.Don't make that mistake. So if you're

(15:05):
in history as an example, Iuse this example all the time, and
we're talking about the Moon race andwe're talking about how we landed on the
Moon. Well, it's not justthis date this happened, it is what
type of education did the astronaut haveto become an astronaut? What type of
risk taking personality did the astronaut haveto become an astronaut? What about the

(15:26):
engineer that designed the rocket or thepeople at ground control. You can turn
that history curriculum into a career's curriculumby demonstrating all of those factors and values,
so that the kids in the classroomthat say I don't want to ever
be an astronaut, I don't wantto I'm afraid of flying, they could

(15:48):
say, oh, I could bean engineer. What does that engineer do?
So it adds to traditional curriculum ina way that has not been thought
of before. It's very different thanwhat I see. My own daughter's in
high school right now. She's ata very good high school, but it's
very different. The world of workis in the detail and how it goes

(16:11):
towards the child versus where I seethe career pathway concept at the high school
level, where the child's supposed togo and find the career. See so
if the career finds you and youmatch up to that career, success is
going to happen. So the RYOSECstands for different different bases, so realistic,

(16:37):
entrepreneurial, social. It should comeas no surprise that my letters are
e n s for entrepreneurial and socialright that involves lawyers, people in sports,
and politicians. That's me in anutshell right there, beautiful. I
really appreciate that descriptive answer, becauseI remember being in high school and all

(17:00):
that pressure of like deciding what youwant to do for the next fifty years.
I don't know many people that knowhow to do that. But there's
nothing wrong with being able to plantthose seeds and be able to put students
in those kinds of environments as earlyas middle school and high school, so
that way they are more prepared todecide or at least have a more clear

(17:22):
starting point in regards to where theycan go, because you know, not
everyone is meant to go to college, and that's perfectly okay. We need
business owners, we need people thatcan, you know, build homes and
be carpenters and whatnot. And there'sand I appreciate what you said to like,
all good work is noble. Somy last few questions for you,
mister Miller, is it's no surprisetoo, we've noticed following the COVID nineteen

(17:45):
pandemic that the teachers unions have reallybeen at the forefront in regards to opposing
pro parental school board candidates such asyourself. Because of the pushback and those
taking stances with being able to putfamilies and parents first. So for your
race, in particular for reelection,do you anticipate, you know, a

(18:08):
tough reelection this cycle, and youknow, for our community, we have
a very strong base here. Howcan we all support you and follow your
campaign? So the first part ofthat question is the union concept. The
interesting thing about Cahone Valley. Right, we're in the East County of San
Diego. I grew up out here, my kids grew up out here.

(18:33):
I like to still call it it'sstill it's still America in the East County.
We still have values. We're stillagain Second Amendment is out here.
We still go to church out here. We still have family values. We
were the largest public school district inthe state of California that stayed open during

(18:55):
COVID. All right, so Iwant to break that down, just very
quickly, shut down on March sixteenth, twenty twenty two weeks to flatten the
curve. Remember that. Okay,we take spring break early. We take
our spring break early, our kidsbecause of our superintendent. Before I got
there, we're already working on remoteone to one technology. They had chromebooks

(19:18):
that they took home very unusual fora K through eight school district, and
having a third grade or take homethe chromebook is not something most school districts
have. They have iPads or chromebooksat school, but not take ho so
our kids were already used to workingoff of a computer. That helped.
We then had a meeting with twohundred of our administrators, our bargaining units

(19:42):
which are classified, and our certificatedstaff, their leadership. And there's only
one place in San Diego that wouldhold two hundred people at that point in
time because everybody's terrified, the CoronadoMaria. And for three days we worked
through how are we going to getthrough and reopen and have have a curriculum
for these kids. Well, thestate mandated that schools stay open for essential

(20:08):
care workers, police officers, firefighters, nurses, and I would be remiss
if I did not say gun stores, because we won that case for the
Santa Canta gunnars, so that wasdeemed a critical critical source. Well,
other school just didn't do that.We did. So we had three thousand

(20:29):
kids back on campuses, remote learning, but with a tutor. Right now,
you have an actual adult educator orpara educator in the classroom with these
kids that got us through that semester. Now they shut down summer school.
Could not have summer school, rememberthat, but you could have camp.
So Davin Newsom could send his kidsto camp, but you couldn't send your

(20:52):
kid to summer school. So usingthe Second Amendment background that I have,
where we're always trying to work aroundthe crazy laws that this state puts together,
well, Camp cajone was born.So we just called summer school camp
and all of a sudden, wecan have kids in school. We had
over six thousand kids on campus thatsummer. One transmission of COVID one from

(21:18):
a special ed student to a specialed assistant. That was it. Because
we mandated all these things. Weworked with UCSD to put their virus load
monitors in our wastewater. We workedwith a local biotech so testing the kids
could spit into a tube instead ofhaving their brain scraped with that big swab

(21:40):
going up their nose. And whatsecond grader doesn't want to spit? Right,
So we worked out of the boxand we're able to stay open.
By that fall, we had anA and B on campus schedule already that
was at least a year ahead ofmost people, and then we went to
full time school by that semester.I tell you that story to answer your

(22:02):
question, do you think we couldhave done that without janitors, bus drivers,
lunch ladies, teachers. No,to have them on board in our
district in the East County was vital. So we are unique. We are
a unicorn somewhat. We have aRepublican board that has a collective bargaining unit

(22:27):
in the teachers union and the classifiedunion that pulls in the same direction because
we do try to, at leastmost of us, try to take the
politics out and say, Okay,what is really in the best interest of
these kids. Well, the bestinterest is to have them in class.
The best interest is in person learning. So we've worked through that issue.

(22:48):
Part of my practice as you know. But for their listeners right is I'm
an NFL sports agent for twenty sevenyears. I've been in the National Football
League RIP sending labor right football playersagainst management in contract negotiations, arbitrations,
and everything else you can think of. That gives me some unique background on

(23:11):
collective bargaining or contracts associated with ourteachers unions and our classified unions. Well,
they like, frankly having somebody thatknows what they're talking about, instead
of being told what to think bywhomever. So I have no pushback,
and I have the support of ourparticular union leadership, which is I know

(23:34):
unique. I'm one of the onlyin fact, I might be the only
Republican in San Diego County that canclaim in every race I've run so far,
they have the endorsement of conservative groupsinclusive of the party and the teachers
or a teachers union. I shouldsay, it's just doesn't happen unless you

(23:56):
are really doing the work, andvery fortunate that way. Now, Parents'
rights on the family law attorney,family law attorney, professional sports agent,
I fight for parents' rights literally everysingle day in court against family court services,
child welfare services, the deadbeat dadsof the world. So there's nobody

(24:22):
more uniquely qualified to understand the needsof parents. Plus again, I still
have school age children, my grandkidsare still have older kids too. My
grandkids are now in the school districtfor my older daughter, so I have
a lot of vested interests to makesmart decisions, not politically necessarily based decisions.

(24:45):
And the parental notification issues. Therewas actually a press conference today and
Sacramento on this exact issue. We'llsee what the legislature, what the written
word looks like tomorrow, because that'sgoing to come out tomorrow because they're trying
to There's three current cases in thestate of California on parental notification rights associated
with everything from transgenderism and other topics, and now the legislator's trying to take

(25:10):
it out of the courts hands andredraft some law. So that is very
much in flux right now. Butlong story short, if you send your
kids to school, you should knowwhat's going on in the school period.
Perfect last question before we end thepodcast is how can everyone follow your campaign
and support you? So Miller forschool board dot Com. I have a

(25:36):
number of articles, interviews, mycurrent plan, there's a lot there.
We have a huge fundraiser coming upbecause I do a few things right school
board sports agent just finished the NFLdraft lawyer, I respectfully don't have time
to do twenty small fundraisers and Iwant to have fun when I do a

(25:59):
fundraise. So on June fourteenth,we're gonna go on my friends private yacht.
It's one hundred foot vote and we'regonna cruise San Diego Bay. That's
that's not a twenty dollars show upand have some have some pinwheel sandwiches,
right it is. It's gonna betwo hundred and fifty dollars ahead, but
you will have a great time fora few hours on an amazing boat with

(26:22):
some great people and good company.So that's our next fundraiser. Love to
have people join that are not necessarilyconnected to us outside or connected to us
inside of my group of friends.So no, please go to the website,
you know, make a donation,and in the donation little box put

(26:44):
yacht cruise, and then I'll getback to you and tell you how to
get there, because we don't we'renot gonna publicly display where the slip is
for obvious reasons, I think.But vote if you'd like to contact me
and volunteer. You know, we'regonna hang up signs, we're going to
do walking, we're gonna do allthose things that need to be done to
win these races, and we're gonnaget out and we're gonna get done.

(27:06):
I'm the incumbent. This will bemy last term, it's my intended last
term, and you don't want toturn over what is the equivalent. I'll
be a business that has a threehundred million dollar budget, two three hundred
employees. We're the largest employer inthe East County. To somebody that doesn't
know what they're doing, we needto have keep experience on the board.

(27:29):
Long story short, perfect. Thankyou so much, Jim Miller, really
appreciate your time. That concludes oursecond episode of the suy R podcast.
Next month, we're going to beinterviewing Matt Gunderson, who's running for the
forty nine Congressional district, and AlcoholMayor Bill Wells is running for the California
Congressional District fifty one, so staytuned for that. But thank you all
for tuning in and be sure tosupport Jim Miller for cohone Valley school Board

(27:53):
Trustee President. Go to Miller forschool board dot com. Thank you everyone,