Seat on Board of Education : Santa Ana Teen-Ager Aims for State Post

Like so many other Southern California teen-agers, Mike Enomoto is into outdoor activities.

“Skiing is fun,” he said in a recent interview. “And I like tennis; I was on the Saddleback (High School) tennis team last year. I also really like baseball; I played Little League for many years.”

But Enomoto, 16, of Santa Ana is also into scholarship: He is an A-plus junior at Saddleback High, carrying three advanced (honors) courses in his academic load. And he is also into public service: On Jan. 8, Enomoto will fly to Sacramento to compete with five other high school student semifinalists for the 1986-87 student slot on the state Board of Education.

Three of them will then advance to the finals--an interview by Gov. George Deukmejian, who will select the winning student.

‘A Great Experience’

“It’d be a great experience just to get to meet the governor,” Enomoto said.

Enomoto, a Japanese-American whose relatives have been in California since 1891, said he hopes that he makes it even further than the finals: He wants to serve on the 11-member board. “The student member is supposed to represent the youth of California,” he said. “It’s a high honor and a big responsibility.”

Unlike student members of local school boards, the student representative on the state board is a full, voting member. The student board member thus has a role in formulating educational policy in the nation’s most populous state.

“Santa Ana (Unified School District) doesn’t have a student representative on its school board,” Enomoto noted, so he has never served on a board before. He applied for the position at the suggestion of one of his teachers at Saddleback.

175 Applicants

The 175 applicants from throughout the state were narrowed to 12 quarterfinalists, including Enomoto. The 12 made presentations to student delegates at the California School Board Assn. convention in early December in San Francisco. That convention reduced the field to the six semifinalists.

“It was like making a campaign speech,” Enomoto said of his presentation. “Then they’d ask us questions about issues, such as bilingual education.”

And what does he think of bilingual education--teaching students in their native language as well as English?

“It’s kind of a touchy issue,” he said, diplomatically. “It varies from school district to school district. In Santa Ana, I think it’s imperative that they have it. The Santa Ana school district has the second highest ESL (English as a second language) population in the state. It’s a definite need in my school district, but I think in other school districts it wouldn’t be such a need.”

A Crucial Problem

Enomoto said he has learned firsthand of another crucial problem in statewide education: overcrowding of classrooms.

“It’s something I see every day, and it really bothers me a lot,” he said. “At my high school, we have more students than lockers. There should be adequate facilities for all students.”

Enomoto has a 4.6 grade-point average. The standing is higher than the all-As 4.0 because he gets extra credit for taking college-level honors courses.

His school activities include being on the speech and debate team and taking part in the Academic Decathlon and the Southern California Academy of Science research program. Enomoto’s father is an architect, and the youth said that while education has always been stressed in his family, “I never felt pressured. My father always told me he didn’t mind if I made A’s or Cs as long as I was doing my best.”

Interest in Military

For casual reading, Enomoto said, “I like (James) Michener’s books, and I like Tolkien’s ‘Lord of the Rings’ books.”

Besides reading and sports, Enomoto said he has a strong interest in the military. “Military science--the techniques and the strategies--have always interested me,” he said. “I guess it started from when I played with toy soldiers and tanks. When I go to college, I definitely want to be in ROTC, and my preference is Army ROTC.”

Enomoto hopes to be admitted to either Stanford or UCLA. His goal is to be a physician.

But college is 1 1/2 years away. For now, the immediate goal is to be selected for the state Board of Education. “I had no idea I’d get this far,” he said with a smile.