Ervin, Sperling and Messick run for Modesto City Schools Trustee Area 2 board seat

Three candidates are running for the Modesto City Schools Board of Education position in Trustee Area 2 . This central Modesto area encompasses schools including Davis and Downey high schools and Elliott Alternative Education Center. The school board candidates are incumbent and current board president John Ervin III and challengers Emma Sperling and Roman Messick.

The Modesto Bee asked all candidates to fill out a questionnaire, but only Ervin and Sperling responded.

John Ervin III

Ervin was born in Los Angeles. He is married to Lezzette Ervin and is a father of four. Ervin has volunteered with many organizations in Modesto for over 25 years and is a mentor for Project UPLIFT, a community and after-school mentoring and education program for at-risk youth.

Ervin has been endorsed by the Modesto Teachers Association.

No members of his immediate family work for the school district.

Q: What will be your most important priority if elected?

: The most important priority for me is to address educational equity. Many urban districts often face significant disparities in funding, access to quality teachers and staff, and resources, particularly affecting marginalized communities. By prioritizing equity, as a board, we can help ensure that all students — regardless of their socioeconomic background, race, or neighborhood — receive the highest-quality education.

This can involve advocating for better resource allocation, improving support for underperforming schools and addressing barriers like overcrowded classrooms, outdated facilities, inadequate access to technology or parent engagement. This, I feel, will help us provide a great educational experience and open doors and change lives, as I have seen in my own life.

Q: With the district preparing for its fourth bond measure in the last six years, do you believe facilities at Modesto City Schools are a big issue? Why or why not?

Yes, I believe it's a big issue. It's an issue that the current leadership of the board has decided to address when we hired our current superintendent. As a former employee of Modesto City Schools for 14.5 years, I saw firsthand the rapidly deteriorating conditions of our facilities. Although our maintenance team worked tirelessly to maintain and constantly repair our facilities, we were falling way behind due to the aging and inadequate and outdated infrastructure. Our facilities were more and more sick as they aged and this sickness has had an impact on teaching and learning.

A healthy building/classroom is a very productive one. We are now bringing our facilities into the 21st century with environmentally conscious, safe and innovative technology, with a purpose! The results will be amazing: increased academic achievement, positive working environment for teachers and staff, increased parent engagement and satisfaction and less impact on our environment.

Q: Many parents of Black and LGBTQ students have said that bullying has been a major issue in their child's lives and education. What are steps or plans you have to make sure schools are fostering an open and welcoming environment?

First and foremost, I would bring back Challenge Day . When I was employed with the district as the director of community affairs, I got the opportunity to participate in a Challenge Day. It was one of the most moving and internally beneficial programs that still resonates with me today. I conducted Challenge Days at various high schools and junior highs over a three-year period. Based on personal conversations I had with participating students and teachers, it was a life-changing experience for them, for the better.

The surveys that Challenge Day conducted reinforced that sentiment. Provide intervention and support, which includes counseling and support for victims and bullies, get parents involved in anti-bullying by working with school leadership and other parents to resolve bullying incidents and creating a positive school culture and promote more activities through the performing arts that address bullying and its harmful impact. We need to also continue and strengthen our Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

Q: Modesto City Schools has had a long history with Modesto Junior College and Stanislaus State. What are some plans you have to strengthen these relationships to help promote more students pursuing higher education?

Our current partnership with Modesto Junior College with dual enrollment has made some great results. Enrollment in Early College courses has resulted in significant increases in college credits completed. Students in Early College dual enrollment in 2024 completed 1,963 college credits in 2024, with a 72% and 89.9% credit rate respectively. We will continue to expand college course offerings in the dual enrollment and Early College programs and increase recruitment efforts to enroll more students. This is a win-win opportunity for our college-bound students. My daughter transferred 16 college credits to San Francisco State University by way of the dual enrollment program at Davis High School.

Our partnership with Stan State is to increase the number of teachers due to current and future teacher shortages. I suggested a couple years ago we should explore the possibility of developing CTE-type programs to train potential future teachers. This would be similar to our firefighter and law enforcement and nursing CTE programs currently. This partnership has led to the development of the Educators Rising at the high school level and the Aspiring Educators at the university level to mentor the high school club as well. This project is our teacher pipeline and will be further developed and strengthened over the coming years. Ongoing communication and active partnerships will be the key to increasing the college opportunities for our students, which benefits our MJC and Stan State partners as well.

Emma Sperling

Sperling was born in Philadelphia. She is married to Jeffrey. She is a mother of two children who both attend Modesto City Schools.

No members of her immediate family work for the school district.

Q: What will be your most important priority if elected?

Representing students' interests. This would involve facilitating effective communication between the district, the school site, and families to make sure we are consistently making choices and compromises with an eye towards what will have the least negative impact on the classroom.

Q: With the district preparing for its fourth bond measure in the last six years, do you believe facilities at Modesto City Schools are a big issue? Why or why not?

Yes. I cannot speak to how effectively previous bond money was spent, or if the amount being asked for is appropriate or will be used for the upgrades actually needed most (the flyer online is quite general). However, I can speak from personal experience that our schools desperately need facilities upgrades. Some of our schools have been renovated and are in great shape, and many are not. My child's elementary school, for example, has increased enrollment this year, which is great and very exciting. However, we don't have enough classrooms and the new portables are still weeks out and we couldn't fit everybody into the multipurpose room to begin with. We definitely need more space and I am positive other schools are facing pressing concerns as well.

I generally approve of spending money on school infrastructure, but I would like to see what sort of maintenance plans and funding are included in any proposal. Poor maintenance of facilities results in decreased longevity and the need for earlier (expensive) replacements. I would also want to make sure that any contractors selected were not just fairly priced but were going to do an efficient and thorough job. Extended periods of construction on campuses are extremely disruptive, and corner cutting can combine with poor maintenance to decrease the lifespan of any upgrades. Additionally, I would want to make sure that any general fund money or other funding sources that could be moved to facilities had been explored in order to (responsibly, where appropriate) reduce the amount we needed to borrow.

Q: Many parents of Black and LGBTQ students have said that bullying has been a major issue in their child's lives and education. What are steps or plans you have to make sure schools are fostering an open and welcoming environment?

Culture starts at the top, and publicly standing against intolerance is incredibly important. All of our children deserve to receive an education in a safe and welcoming environment. My first action item would be to speak with our current equity and intervention specialist to get a sense of what could be done at the board level to be of assistance, and then try to do that. Significantly, though, bullying doesn't look exactly the same from campus to campus. I think it is important to physically visit individual schools, meet with the people who actually work and attend school there, and take a temperature on the campus culture.

I would want to know what the board could do to support improving individual campus cultures to make them more open and welcoming, and less hospitable to bullying. And, perhaps most importantly, I would want to know what needs to be done at the board level to strengthen the campus enforcement of our district's existing zero-tolerance policies regarding bullying, and then make sure that follow-through is effective, efficient and consistent districtwide.

Q: Modesto City Schools has had a long history with Modesto Junior College and Stanislaus State. What are some plans you have to strengthen these relationships to help promote more students pursuing higher education?

I would continue the district's work with YCCD (Yosemite Community College District) to strengthen our existing K-14 relationship. I would also want to reach out and make sure that more students are aware of their ability to take MJC classes in high school (Everybody can! You don't have to be in Middle College) and graduate with college-level credits in addition to their high school diplomas. I would also like to stress that any and all students who wish to move on to college should be prepared and encouraged to do so. But, there also needs to be training and opportunities for those students who do not wish to go to college so that they, too, can hit the ground running after graduation. This could involve partnerships with trade schools and local businesses to provide supplemental training and education, or internships. The children who are students today are going to be leading our community in the not-too-distant future. I think it is vital that we do everything in our power to arm them with the knowledge, skills, critical thinking and reasoning, and empathy to continue moving Modesto forward.

Roman Messick

Messick did not respond to the candidate profile the Modesto Bee sent out.

On his candidate website , he states that he is concerned with standardized test scores at the district, the change of sex education curriculum, and would "advocate for parental inclusion in their children's education, empower local control of our public education system."

He also would like to make training for the trades more readily accessible to high school students.