Ginger and Gerald.

Who is Gerald Wayne Perttula?

The candidate who would become the trustee for seat number 6 on the Community College Board graduated from Claremont McKenna College and received a BA in Psychology.

His first job after graduation was as an instructional assistant for a special education class. The students were autistic and developmentally delayed, as well as physically handicapped.

Within a few years, he received a multiple-subject teaching credential from Cal State Los Angeles, and taught for 2 years in the public school system.

He took an opportunity to work at Hughes Aircraft Company (Fullerton) in the Presentation Department. After five years, Gerald moved to Northrop Corporation in Hawthorne California, where he worked for ten years as a Proposal Engineer.

Gerald has long been an advocate of education. "Education is the fuel for the knowledge-based society. Education creates opportunities, and allows families to thrive, by enriching people in pragmatic and cerebral ways." In the year 2000, he received a Masters degree in Educational Administration.

In his current position as a Senior Program Specialist, Gerald works with juvenile offenders in the secondary court school system, as well as with teachers and administrators on the classroom implementation of the California K-12 Content Standards.

"I want to build more partnerships between the community colleges and the court school students. A beginning of such a liaison exists between the outstanding LA Mission College Culinary Arts program and the Juvenile Court School Camp Holton."

Court School students are capable of performing at - and above- grade level, but creative strategies must be used to optimize their learning, using "scaffolding" techniques. Many students are English Language Learners who learn best with direct, explicit, systematic, and sequential instruction. "It takes a lot of energy to effectively teach students at-risk."

Because of a language barrier, many Californian students entering the community colleges need similar instructional strategies. But for determined and dedicated students, writing expository essays can be done successfully. But the success takes time and effort.

"Writing is the culmination of a long sequence of increasingly complex linguistic activities, such as automatically linking graphemes and phonemes, decoding and encoding, word recognition, identifying morphenes, understanding syntax, grammar, vocabulary defintions, connotations, denotations. And when these are mastered, a person can begin to write intelligibly."

"The ability to communicate with the written and spoken word is a miracle."

More online classes for community college students is a main policy issue for Mr. Perttula. Some experienced "online teachers" can manage a "class" 4 times larger than a "regular" classroom teacher, and this is an excellent tactic to boost revenue and maintain a positive cash flow. "We need to attract a new demographic to the community colleges; young mothers, handicapped, elderly, late-shift workers; all the people who would find it impossible to sit in a classroom from 9:00AM to 3:00 PM. Online classes are the future for the community colleges."

"As a Board member, I would do everything to expand web classes at all community colleges, by training more instructors to manage the required technologies. It will pay off for everybody."


Additional and Related Websites:

770 Wilshire LA Community College District Board Offices

Will More Online Classes Save the Community Colleges?

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L.A. Mission College Election Topics

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