7 Named to Schools Chief Study Group

Seven people, including newly elected Orange Mayor Jess Perez, have been named to a citizens’ commission to study whether the county should appoint its schools superintendent, the county Board of Education announced Wednesday.

The commission, formed on the basis of a 1985-86 county grand jury report, will meet for the first time Tuesday and has until March to report its findings to the board.

In Orange County, the schools superintendent is elected. But the grand jury report said that appointing, rather than electing, a superintendent would ensure that a professional in the field of education would be placed in the job.

Critics of that idea have said the voters should have the right to make the schools chief directly accountable to them.

Fred Koch, deputy superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education, said Perez will be chairman of the new commission. The other members are: Suzanne Charlton of Orange, a teacher in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District; Janet Garrick of Huntington Beach, a school board member of Ocean View School District; Larry Kemper, an assistant superintendent of Garden Grove Unified School District; Sara Lundquist of Santa Ana, coordinator of Rancho Santiago College’s New Horizons program to help disadvantaged students; Ann Coil of Orange, a partner in Coil Ballback & Slater Associates, a career consulting company, and Jim McNamara of Newport Beach, an executive with the William Lyon Co.

If the commission recommends a change, the county Board of Education could petition the Board of Supervisors to put the issue before the voters in the next countywide election.

To help the new panel, the county board hired a Santa Ana public-opinion research firm to poll a cross section of Orange County residents on the question. Results of that telephone poll, conducted two weeks ago, are expected to be announced later this month.

In 1978, Orange County voters overwhelmingly rejected a proposed change to an appointed superintendent. All other California counties with elected superintendents also have rejected a change.