Concord Councilman Ron Leone. Photo from his campaign website RonaldLeone.net
Former high school teacher, vice principal, and 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.
Durring his time on the Concord City Council Leone has been completely controlled by the Concord Police Department labor union. The PD labor union bigwigs literally order Leone around like he’s a five year old, never have I seen a politician so completely dominated by a single special interest group, he is a complete doormat for the PD labor union. As a result of his work Concord PD officershave huge salaries and pensions, to the point where the city is completely broke all of the time, there is no money left for anything such as parks or recreation or even for road repairs. Concord residents would love to see this labor union stooge Leone get a new job, it’s vital we get him off our council.
I forgot to mention, Leone – durring his upteen years on the Concord City Council – has worked behind the scenes to keep a new library from being being built in Concord. He is anti-library. Thanks to Leone generations of Concord school kids will have to use Concord’s tiny rat-trap library. Why has Leone fought the construction of a new library? His overloards, the big wigs in the Concord Police Department labor union prefer other uses for city money, such as money for gargantuan bloated mega-pensions for Concord police officers – pensions that are bankrupting the city. Elect Leone Superintendent and the schools will go bankrupt and facilites will fall apart – that’s what has happened in Concord with the bumbling Leone running the show.
I agree totally with Lars Anderson. Leone worked behind the scenes to get money to fight gangs in Concord even though Concord doesn’t even have gangs. Astronomical amounts of money – from a bond issue – has been wasted fighting a pretend war against pretend gangs. With homes costing 600K gang members are priced out of Concord. The money earmarked to fight these non existant gangs in Concord could have been used to build a new library. The PD in Concord keeps telling these bonehead council people – like Leone – that we have this gang problem for the sole purpose of keeping the PD budget sky high, which it is. Leone isn’t smart enough to run Contra Costa schools – he a gasbag political hack – just smart enough to be really dumb, put him in that job he will be a stooge for the teachers union, as he has for the Concord Police labor union