Meet Don Aust for the Shasta County Board of Education

---

Don Aust is running for a four-year seat in Area 2. He’s one of five candidates competing for two four-year seats in that Area. Candidate responses to seven questions have been curated and paraphrased for this format. A note that four candidates declined to interview with Shasta Scout about their run for the SCOE Board: Richard Gallardo, Michele Renee Tyson, Teresa Roberts, and Jackie LaBarbera.

Scout: Describe your background and what motivated you to run for the SCOE Board. 

I was a teacher and administrator for 30 years, 29 of those here in Shasta County. For the last 16 years I was a superintendent principal up in Black Butte school in Shingletown. I retired about three years ago and since then I’ve been helping with my grandkids. My adult children work in the educational field just like I did.

When I saw that there was an opening on the SCOE Board I decided I have the time to give back. I’ve always been in small rural districts here in Shasta County and SCOE is very supportive to small school districts, providing training for administrators like myself. During my time at Black Butte school, if I ever had a question, I could call anybody at SCOE for some advice. They also gave a lot of training for my staff. So I’d just like an opportunity to give back. I really want to see that SCOE continues to help serve the small districts, especially in Area 2, because most of those are very small rural districts.

Education is complicated. There is LCAP (Local Control Accountability Plan), special education, transportation, food service, passing bonds. It’s all a lot of work. These smaller districts have to work together and need SCOE’s support, and that’s what I would want to see continue. At times, big grants become available and it’s impossible for a small school district to jump on that and do it themselves.

When I was an administrator, I could have spent my whole day in my office doing paperwork but I didn’t. I spent my evenings in my office doing paperwork because during the day I wanted to be out with students. It’s all about the students. 

Scout: What is the Shasta County Office of Education responsible for? 

I don’t know if they’re responsible for it, but they certainly give a lot of support to small school districts. As I said before, they provide training and a lot of collaboration between the districts. Their main responsibility is watching over school districts’ budgets, just to make sure they’re spending correctly. They don’t dictate how you spend your money, but you have to send your budget to them, and your LCAP to them so that they can give final approval–which guides how you’re going to prioritize your funding. 

I think for me, that was sort of a minor part of what they did. The support that they gave was just invaluable. It was the only way I made it 16 years as a superintendent, or as a principal of a small school, because it’s just too complicated to do everything that a big district like L.A. Unified does, and yet we have to follow the same state regulations. It’s almost impossible for a superintendent or principal, with limited resources, to keep up on all of that. 

Scout: What oversight does SCOE have over individual school districts? 

The Board has no authority over policy for any district in the county, but a lot of people seem to think that they do. When it comes to school policy they have no authority whatsoever. 

When I was a superintendent, if a parent or a community member didn’t like a decision that I made, at times they would tell me, “well, I’m going to the SCOE Board to get this changed!” Good luck. SCOE can’t tell districts what to do. That is a real misconception. It sort of surprises me that there’s so many people running for the SCOE Board, because individual school district boards have much more power.

Scout: How do the Board’s responsibilities differ from individual school boards? 

Individual school districts have a lot more students. SCOE actually has very few student programs that they run directly: the court school, special education, and preschool. So it’s a very limited number of students. The local school districts have more students and more power. For example, they can hire and fire the superintendent. At SCOE the superintendent is an elected position. 

Scout: Have you received donations of over $1,000 and if so from what groups or organizations? 

No, I’ve received no funding from any group.

Editor’s note: Shasta Scout reviewed Aust’s campaign finances via the Shasta County Elections Office and found no contributions documented as of October 4.

Scout: Discuss your thoughts on public education in Shasta County. 

I 100% support public schools because the end game is that they’re supposed to represent all students. I’ve been in Redding for over 30 years. I raised my kids here. They all went to public schools in Redding, went on to college, got their masters. One is a certified librarian, and one’s a school psychologist, both here in Redding. I’ve been helping with my grandkids, volunteering at their school since I retired three years ago. They’re doing just great in school, and I’m impressed by what I’ve seen with their teachers. When I was a superintendent, we would go and visit schools, visit classrooms, see how their instruction was. I was always very impressed with what I saw, by the dedicated teachers and administrators really trying hard to do what they could for all of their students. I think that it’s sort of unique in Shasta County that even though we compete for students, we all cooperate and collaborate very well. Our main goal is that we want the best for students.

Scout: What are your thoughts on “Parents’ Rights?”

I mean, I get that you’d want to know about your student. I want to know about my kids. But this term is currently being defined pretty narrowly, and it’s referencing a very small minority of situations (at least here in Shasta County) that policy might have an impact on. I know there’s a lot of talk about teaching kids, I don’t know what you call it, “wokeness.” And I’ll tell you what, I never saw it at my school district or in the schools I visited. It just was not a big issue. I don’t see that kind of stuff happening, at least here in Shasta County. So I think that people maybe are making too big a deal out of these issues here. Maybe it’s in the Bay Area, and I knew there was an issue in Chico, but I certainly have not witnessed that happening here.

I have my own personal beliefs, but I have no political agenda. When I was a superintendent, I never brought my personal beliefs forward. We never discussed politics. We just discussed how to run our school district. I think that’s how it should be, because we are representing all students and all parents, no matter whether they’re Democrat, Independent, Republican, I don’t care. I just want to do the best I can for all of the students in that community. I have nothing I’m trying to prove with politics. I just want to run programs that help students. 

---

Have a correction to share? Email us: editor@shastascout.org.