Trustee Area 3 · Tuesday, November 3, 2026
for the Burbank Unified School District governing board
New revenue for our schools.
A budget that works harder, Burbank’s fair share back from Sacramento — and no new taxes.
Ballots reach Burbank mailboxes around October 5. You do not have to vote on every race — fill in the ones you know and send it back.
Who’s the boss?
The bosses are the students, parents, teachers, taxpayers, and the entire community.
And I will serve them well.
About Hai
A Burbank family, and a career spent managing complex projects in aerospace.
Hai Ho is a long-time Burbank resident and was born in Vietnam. He and his wife raised two children in Burbank and are actively involved in the lives of their two very active grandchildren, who also live in the community.
Hai is an aerospace engineer. His last position was Avionics Systems Engineering Manager. Throughout his career in the aerospace industry, he gained extensive experience managing complex projects and operations, fostering collaboration, ensuring quality, and delivering customer-focused, results-oriented solutions. These experiences have equipped him with the skills needed to contribute effectively to the Burbank Unified School District (BUSD) Board of Education. He is known for his dedication, teamwork, and commitment to delivering high-quality products.
He also has deep respect for teachers and the noble work they do every day to educate and inspire students.
Hai looks forward to the opportunity to contribute his skills and give back to the community.
Thank you for your consideration.
Where the money comes from
The job that outlasts a single term on this board.
Communicate with Sacramento about how the current Local Control Funding Formula shortchanges Burbank Unified.
We should propose an increase to the Base Grant when a school district does not meet the requirements for the Supplemental and Concentration Grants for three consecutive years — using that as the example of how to establish a pathway for increasing the Base Grant at all.
We need to work with Sacramento to ensure Burbank Unified receives its fair share of state funding.
What I would do about it
Three things, in this order — and not one of them asks a Burbank family for another cent.
Create a BUSD revenue and resource initiative to find new resources without increasing the financial burden on Burbank families, whenever legally and operationally feasible — a phased, measured plan, laid out in full below.
No new taxes.Conduct a deep dive into the Burbank Unified budget to identify ways to achieve at least 10 percent greater efficiency through new technologies, including artificial intelligence.
No layoffs — work smarter, and use the technology properly.Create a working group to identify ways to retain and attract student enrollment. We need to survey families to understand why they are choosing other school districts, and then build a plan that attracts students from neighboring districts — North Hollywood, Sun Valley and others.
Priority one, in detail
Create a BUSD revenue and resource initiative to find new resources without increasing the financial burden on Burbank families, whenever legally and operationally feasible. Here is the plan, in three measured phases.
Inventory every school facility and asset:
Test a small set of programs in the real world:
Measure each pilot honestly:
Where the revenue could come from
Why this is urgent
Burbank Unified has to get ahead of its budget shortfall and its falling enrollment. Every figure below is the district’s own, and the source of each is printed beside it.
enrollment since 2016 — it has fallen in almost every one of those years. Burbank Unified enrolls 13,820 students this school year. Census Day enrollment reported to the California Department of Education, 2015–16 through 2025–26, with the 969-student charter school that closed in 2017 taken out of the earlier figure.
further decline projected by 2032 — as many as 2,000 more children. Burbank Unified’s own enrollment projection, reported to the board.
a year in revenue that leaves with them. The state pays a district on attendance, so fewer children means less money — every year, and compounding. Burbank Unified’s own estimate of the annual revenue loss at that level of decline.
We need strong leadership to address these issues head-on.
Hai Ho, on the budget shortfall and the falling enrollment
What it looks like in practice
The platform above, turned into the motions I would actually put in front of the board.
Not a study with no end. A group with named members, a remit to find revenue that is not a tax — the Farmers Market among it — and a date by which it reports back to the board in public.
A published review of where the money goes, and what current technology could do the same work for less. The target is 10 percent, and no part of it comes out of anybody’s job.
We are losing students to districts a few miles away and the board has never asked them why. Commission the survey, publish the answers whatever they are, and build the plan from them.
A formal position from this board on the Local Control Funding Formula, and the Base Grant proposal that goes with it, sent to the people who represent us.
Your ballot
Burbank elects its school board by area, and Hai is running in Area 3. Type your address below and we will tell you whether he is on your ballot.
The five Burbank Unified trustee areas, drawn from the district’s adopted map. Hai is running in the one picked out.
Checked against the school district’s adopted trustee-area map. If you are right on a boundary, the county’s record is the one that counts. Your address is used to find your area and is not stored.
Plain questions
Most voters have never had a reason to learn how any of this works. No reason they should have.
Five elected trustees govern Burbank Unified. They adopt the budget, hire and hold to account the superintendent who runs the district day to day, approve contracts, set policy, and answer for all of it in public meetings.
They do not teach, and they do not run the schools themselves. What they control is where the money goes and who is accountable for spending it.
No. School board elections in California are nonpartisan — no party label appears next to any name on the ballot, and the seat is not a party office.
Several reasons at once, and the honest answer is that no one has asked the families who left. Fewer children are being born here — births to Burbank residents are down about 23 percent since 2015. Private school enrollment inside the district has risen. Some families have moved to neighboring districts for programs Burbank does not offer. And housing costs keep young families out of the city altogether.
That is exactly why a survey of the families who left is one of the first three things on this platform.
Because the state pays a district on attendance. Fewer children means less money every year, and the district’s own projection puts that at about 28 million dollars a year by 2032. The costs of running the schools do not fall at the same rate.
No, and it does not mean layoffs either. It means the money has to be found somewhere other than a Burbank family’s tax bill: new revenue the district generates itself, a budget made to go further with current technology, and the share of state funding Burbank is already owed.
Ballots reach Burbank mailboxes around October 5, and election day is Tuesday, November 3, 2026. You do not have to vote on every race on the ballot — fill in the ones you know and send it back.
If you want to help
A campaign for a school board seat is neighbors telling neighbors. Any of these is worth more than you would think.
Get in touch
A question, or an invitation to speak with your group.