Meet Laura Holmes: Petaluma City Schools, Trustee Area 3 candidate

@Laura Holmes is on the November 3 ballot for the Petaluma City Schools board, Trustee Area 3, listed as Parent/HR Consultant. She is running against John Garcia, a physician and medical director. I have reached out to John for an interview and am hoping to speak with him as well.

Three of the five seats on the board are on the ballot and all three incumbents are leaving. The Area 3 seat is being vacated by board president Mady Cloud. The district also has a new superintendent, Davina Goldwasser, who started July 1, after fourteen years under the former superintendent. If you want the basics first, I wrote up how the boards work, and why Petaluma has nine separate school districts, in Meet Your Petaluma School Boards.

Laura has lived in Petaluma for seven years, by way of Philadelphia, and before that Los Angeles and San Diego, and the East Bay. She and her husband grew up in the East Bay and met in sixth grade, which she says was on her mind when their own son hit sixth grade last year. They have two children in Petaluma City Schools, the district she is running to serve.

Her career is human resources. She started running HR for Target stores in the Los Angeles market in her early twenties, in buildings with hundreds of employees and around-the-clock operations. She burned out, and went to work at a flower shop to decompress. Then a credit union, where she built HR programs from scratch, then more than a decade implementing HR software, then health tech, where she led teams of consultants and carried budgets and millions of dollars of client work. Three years ago her whole team was laid off. She now runs her own coaching and consulting practice.

Why run now?

She starts with the simplest version of it. "Educating our kids is one of the most important things we do as a community, and I wanted to be a part of that."

From there she gets to who is at the table. She says parents currently in the schools were not well represented on the board, and that the moment itself is unusual. "There's going to be three new board members, there's a new superintendent." She describes that as a highly transitional time, and says navigating transition is what she has done professionally.

"I see transition very much as an opportunity. Not that it's easy."

What would you bring?

She starts by saying what she does not have. "I acknowledge I have a lot to learn. I've never done this before. I don't have a background in education."

Then she talks about supporting teams through transition, which is the work she has dedicated her career to doing. After that she names what she would focus on. Student outcomes understood broadly, or what she calls the whole student, meaning mental health and arts and culture alongside math and literacy. Teachers, because "you can't have these positive student outcomes without supporting teachers," with the resources, time and training to do a hard job. Equity, which she says has to show up in how a district budgets. "How we choose to budget reflects our priorities."

Laura also wants facilities built for a changing climate, with the infrastructure and the awareness in place for what that brings. That means air conditioning for hot days, and HVAC that can handle smoke and poor air quality days. For her this is a priority, and she says preparing for it is something the district has to keep doing rather than fix once.

What is the district getting right, and what is it not?

What it gets right, she says, is less a specific program than a willingness to keep going. Education is complicated enough that someone is unhappy with every decision, and she credits the district with continuing to move anyway. "It's a dedication to keep moving forward."

What she would change is communication. She did not say it is what gets decided, but how clearly the district explains the way a decision gets made. She added that, as an HR person, she understands there are things you cannot always share.

Would you revisit how the 2024 bond money is earmarked?

Measures Z and AA passed in November 2024, $70 million and $159 million, and the board approved a plan last December that spends all $229 million on projects running through 2033. She said plainly that she does not know what is procedurally possible here, and was equally clear about her instinct.

"You can create a lot of dust if you start to try and go back and redo what other people have already done." If something looked egregious, she says, questions make sense. Otherwise she would trust the decision made by the people in the seats at the time.

How are you running your campaign?

Low key on purpose. Yard signs because friends asked, maybe flyers, conversations where she can get them. She says she went through the endorsement process and has the Democratic Party's endorsement, and is still talking with the teachers union and the union for classified employees.

"I'm just gonna be me. Not pretend that I'm going to do something because someone else thinks that's how you're supposed to campaign."

Outside the campaign she volunteers in her kids' classrooms, chaperones field trips, grades papers, stocks shelves at the Redwood Empire Food Bank's Food Connections Market, where shelters and agencies shop for the people they feed, mentors, and worked the Friends of the Petaluma River Sunset Fandango. A student at Casa Grande who serves on the school board is organizing a candidate forum in October and has invited all of the candidates.

What would be different four years from now?

She goes to outcomes, and specifically to the groups of students who are not doing as well as the district's overall numbers suggest. Students of color, students from immigrant families, students still learning English. She points to the California School Dashboard, where anyone can see where Petaluma falls short.

Her measure is not one benchmark for everyone. "You can't expect that their goal should be the same score." What she wants is every group and every kid moving, and arriving at the next thing, junior high or high school or a trade or college, better prepared than they were.

Laura's site is votelauraholmes.com. I plan to report on all of the candidates running for the Petaluma City Schools board, and to run each conversation the same way as this one.

Porchmail @Laura Holmes with questions, and thank you Laura for the time.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

More on the schools

Porches built a public data dashboard for Petaluma City Schools, using district audit reports and state and federal enrollment files. Enrollment school by school going back to 1993, per student spending, the $6.1 million in cuts this year, and where the $229 million in bond money is going are all in there.

And for the governance basics, who sits on which board and what those boards decide, Meet Your Petaluma School Boards is the place to start.

@Laura Holmes is on the November 3 ballot for the Petaluma City Schools board, Trustee Area 3, listed as Parent/HR Consultant. She is running against John Garcia, a physician and medical director. I have reached out to John for an interview and am hoping to speak with him as well. Three of the five seats on the board are on the ballot and all three incumbents are leaving. The Area 3 seat is being vacated by board president Mady Cloud. The district also has a new superintendent, Davina Goldwasser, who started July 1, after fourteen years under the former superintendent. If you want the basics first, I wrote up how the boards work, and why Petaluma has nine separate school districts, in Meet Your Petaluma School Boards. Laura has lived in Petaluma for seven years, by way of Philadelphia, and before that Los Angeles and San Diego, and the East Bay. She and her husband grew up in the East Bay and met in sixth grade, which she says was on her mind when their own son hit sixth grade last year. They have two children in Petaluma City Schools, the district she is running to serve. Her career is human resources. She started running HR for Target stores in the Los Angeles market in her early twenties, in buildings with hundreds of employees and around-the-clock operations. She burned out, and went to work at a flower shop to decompress. Then a credit union, where she built HR programs from scratch, then more than a decade implementing HR software, then health tech, where she led teams of consultants and carried budgets and millions of dollars of client work. Three years ago her whole team was laid off. She now runs her own coaching and consulting practice. Why run now? She starts with the simplest version of it. "Educating our kids is one of the most important things we do as a community, and I wanted to be a part of that." From there she gets to who is at the table. She says parents currently in the schools were not well represented on the board, and that the moment itself is unusual. "There's going to be three new board members, there's a new superintendent." She describes that as a highly transitional time, and says navigating transition is what she has done professionally. "I see transition very much as an opportunity. Not that it's easy." What would you bring? She starts by saying what she does not have. "I acknowledge I have a lot to learn. I've never done this before. I don't have a background in education." Then she talks about supporting teams through transition, which is the work she has dedicated her career to doing. After that she names what she would focus on. Student outcomes understood broadly, or what she calls the whole student, meaning mental health and arts and culture alongside math and literacy. Teachers, because "you can't have these positive student outcomes without supporting teachers," with the resources, time and training to do a hard job. Equity, which she says has to show up in how a district budgets. "How we choose to budget reflects our priorities." Laura also wants facilities built for a changing climate, with the infrastructure and the awareness in place for what that brings. That means air conditioning for hot days, and HVAC that can handle smoke and poor air quality days. For her this is a priority, and she says preparing for it is something the district has to keep doing rather than fix once. What is the district getting right, and what is it not? What it gets right, she says, is less a specific program than a willingness to keep going. Education is complicated enough that someone is unhappy with every decision, and she credits the district with continuing to move anyway. "It's a dedication to keep moving forward." What she would change is communication. She did not say it is what gets decided, but how clearly the district explains the way a decision gets made. She added that, as an HR person, she understands there are things you cannot always share. Would you revisit how the 2024 bond money is earmarked? Measures Z and AA passed in November 2024, $70 million and $159 million, and the board approved a plan last December that spends all $229 million on projects running through 2033. She said plainly that she does not know what is procedurally possible here, and was equally clear about her instinct. "You can create a lot of dust if you start to try and go back and redo what other people have already done." If something looked egregious, she says, questions make sense. Otherwise she would trust the decision made by the people in the seats at the time. How are you running your campaign? Low key on purpose. Yard signs because friends asked, maybe flyers, conversations where she can get them. She says she went through the endorsement process and has the Democratic Party's endorsement, and is still talking with the teachers union and the union for classified employees. "I'm just gonna be me. Not pretend that I'm going to do something because someone else thinks that's how you're supposed to campaign." Outside the campaign she volunteers in her kids' classrooms, chaperones field trips, grades papers, stocks shelves at the Redwood Empire Food Bank's Food Connections Market, where shelters and agencies shop for the people they feed, mentors, and worked the Friends of the Petaluma River Sunset Fandango. A student at Casa Grande who serves on the school board is organizing a candidate forum in October and has invited all of the candidates. What would be different four years from now? She goes to outcomes, and specifically to the groups of students who are not doing as well as the district's overall numbers suggest. Students of color, students from immigrant families, students still learning English. She points to the California School Dashboard, where anyone can see where Petaluma falls short. Her measure is not one benchmark for everyone. "You can't expect that their goal should be the same score." What she wants is every group and every kid moving, and arriving at the next thing, junior high or high school or a trade or college, better prepared than they were. Laura's site is votelauraholmes.com. I plan to report on all of the candidates running for the Petaluma City Schools board, and to run each conversation the same way as this one. Porchmail @Laura Holmes with questions, and thank you Laura for the time. ♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️ More on the schools Porches built a public data dashboard for Petaluma City Schools, using district audit reports and state and federal enrollment files. Enrollment school by school going back to 1993, per student spending, the $6.1 million in cuts this year, and where the $229 million in bond money is going are all in there. And for the governance basics, who sits on which board and what those boards decide, Meet Your Petaluma School Boards is the place to start.