Ron Leone, former Deer Valley Vice Principal, announces run for County Schools Superintendent
Concord Councilman, former teacher and A.U.S.D. Director of Student Services
By John Crowder
Concord City Councilman and one-time mayor Ron Leone, a former vice principal at Antioch’s Deer Valley High School, confirmed today that he is running for the position of Contra Costa County School Superintendent in the June 2018 election. Incumbent Karen Sakata, serving in her first term, has not yet indicated if she will seek re-election.
Leone, who is also a former Teacher of the Year and was the Director of Student Services for the Antioch Unified School District (AUSD), has been involved in education for over forty years. In an interview with this reporter, Leone said he is running because, “education is my passion. Everything I’ve done over my career has led me to this point, and I want to use my experience to ensure our students achieve academic success.”
According to his bio on the City of Concord’s website, “Ron Leone, a resident of Concord since 1978, was elected to the City Council in 2010, re-elected in 2014. He served as Mayor in 2012 and Vice Mayor in 2014 and 2016. Leone served 35 years in education as a high school teacher and principal. He was the teacher of the year in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District and teachers’ association president. He coached high school baseball, and several championship mock trial and constitutional academic teams.”
“I believe that I have the vision our schools need now,” he continued. “In many ways, our schools throughout the county need help. For example, last year the Grand Jury delivered a report on truancy that was very troubling. Our county is one of the worst in the state for truancy, but I know first-hand that we can turn this around. I served as the Director of Child Welfare and Attendance in Antioch some years ago, and was the first to conduct truancy sweeps, coordinating with local law enforcement. Students who were truant were given Saturday school, and phone calls went home to parents. In subsequent sweeps, we found that, by having real consequences for the students who skipped school, we dramatically reduced the number of repeat offenders.”
Leone also mentioned the financial challenges he plans to address.
“Another potentially serious problem is the County Office of Education’s unfunded liabilities,” he stated. “They continue to grow, and this will undoubtedly impact our ability to keep dollars in the classroom, if it continues. We faced the same issue in Concord, but by exercising the leadership needed to tackle the matter, we were able to pay down the debt and create a $30 million reserve.”
Vocational training is strongly advocated by Leone. He described a Regional Occupation Program (ROP) his students used during his tenure in Fremont.
“The Mission Valley ROP Center that was developed was part of a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) with three school districts,” he said. “I believe this approach would work for our County, as well. I’m proposing a vocational training center in Central Contra Costa County. Students from several school districts would be able to attend after school hours.”
Leone wants to work closely with the local school districts in the County. As of today, he’s already met with twelve of the County’s local school district superintendents.
“One of the things that I’m seeing is that the County Office of Education can help our local districts through expanded support of teacher training,” he said. “In addition, we want to encourage school districts to implement programs that advance academic achievement, and to help engage parents in their students’ success.”
Prior to being elected to the Concord City Council, Leone served for 16 years as an elected member of the Mt. Diablo Hospital District Board, as well as Chairman of the Board of the John Muir Hospitals, and the City’s Planning Commission.
Leone invites anyone interested in learning more to contact him at RonaldLeone@comcast.net.
the attachments to this post:
Hi Mr. Leone
I wish you all the best, and will support you.
G.Cheema
Ron is a good man and has the political experience as a Council Member & Mayor, combined with his decades of work as a teacher and administrator to be a very viable candidate for County Superintendent of Education!!
Ron has my full support and endorsement.
This is not a person I would vote for ever. He fouled up the Gas City settlement and cost the district a lot of money. I was at the hearing they allowed the public in. He has not been honest as a Concord council member and milked the Concord
community Hospital district of every dime he could. Has experience yes but nothing about it is commendable. He is also responsible for the mess with the awarding of the Concord Naval Weapons Construction to a very questionable company even though at some point he had to recuse himself.
great! another “feed at the trough” pro union hack. We need to stop sending admin types to higher office. it’s the same old same old. don’t expect change til we the voters force it. stop promoting failure upwards!
I have known Ron for many years. He is one of the most honest, sincere people out there. He has always looked out for, and done the best for his community, the schools and the children he serves. Ron is a man of honor. One that you can trust to make the hard decisions.
As a Concord City Council person Leone has been awful, especially in the area of steering tax dollars back to residents. Leone has done nothing to replace Concord’s tiny rat-trap library, a library many call the “Shame of the City”. His primary – only focus really – has been working to raise the pay and pension packages of police officers. He is almost completely controlled by the PD labor union. When a big vote takes place he has to make a phone call to the PD labor union bosses to get his marching orders. Locals call the police department labor union bosses Leone’s “overlords”. Leone’s claim to fame while serving on the council is his “work” getting huge sums of money to fight criminal gangs. In fact, we don’t have a gang problem in Concord, homes are 650K and up, gang members can’t afford to live in Concord, any more than they can afford to live in Orinda or Lafayette. The PD has manufactured Concord’s “gang problem” to keep the PD budget sky high. The huge sums of money flowing into the PD – to fight pretend gangs – is being used to hike PD wages into the stratosphere, and to finance 140,000 PD managers, who will be retiring with 120 K pensions (for life) The big losers have been Concord’s children. The council has catered to adults only – notably Concord’s seniors – they have the votes, children can’t vote so they get nothing out of Leone and his cronies on the Concord Council. I can’t think of a worse guy to elect Superintendant, he cares nothing about kids, he doesn’t listen – accept to FATCATS who write big campaign checks, and to the greedy Concord PD labor union.