Countywide : Education Chief Seeks His Sixth Term in Office

Robert Peterson, who has been Orange County’s education superintendent since 1967, announced Thursday that he will seek his sixth four-year term in the June 3 election.

“Some people have asked me why I’m not going to retire,” said Peterson, 65. “My response is that we in the county Department of Education have launched one new program and will soon be launching another, and I want to get both going well since they’re for the good of the children.”

The newly launched program, Peterson said, is the Academic Pentathlon--a five-event “brainpower” contest for students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades. It is a complementary program to the Academic Decathlon that Peterson launched 17 years ago for high school students and has since expanded into a national competition.

Peterson said the other new program, to be unveiled sometime in 1986, “is a motivational program for elementary school children.”

Peterson, who was a principal in the Santa Ana Unified School District before being elected county superintendent in 1966, said he has opposed efforts to make the superintendent’s position appointive rather than elective.