MOORPARK : Teacher Uses Her Power of Persuasion

Although she has no vote, Cynthia Coler has learned that the power of persuasion can be an effective voice for teachers on the Moorpark Unified School District board.

Nominated by her fellow teachers in September, Coler is the first teacher representative to sit on the Moorpark Board of Education with its five voting members--a rare position on a school board anywhere in the state.

Even though Coler considers herself a novice to politics, she has already had some success bringing other board members around to her point of view.

In November, for example, board members were considering paying themselves for time spent on school board matters. But Cole argued that it was unseemly for board members to pay themselves at a time when budget cuts had made deep inroads into school programs.

In her quiet, yet persistent manner, she swayed board members to put off the touchy subject until budget discussions in the spring.

Coler, 30, concedes that friends say she is assertive, but she does not believe that she needs to be argumentative to make her point.

“My position on the board is not to go in and make great changes. I need to do my work in a positive and constructive manner,” she said.

Coler’s position as a teacher representative to the board is new to the school district, but the concept is not a new idea, said Brian Lewis, public affairs advocate for the California School Boards Assn.

“It’s been done before and is not totally unique, but relatively uncommon. We’ve seen it done here and there around the state,” Lewis said.

The push for a teacher representative came from school board member Tom Baldwin, who believes that Coler will be able to help the board in certain deliberations, although he said he would like to see more input from her.

“I haven’t seen as much as I’d like, but she’s feeling her way along too. Anybody new to the board tends to go slow,” he said.

As the teachers’ representative to the board, Coler is allowed to enter into all board discussions, except those dealing with teacher contract negotiations or personnel decisions.

In late September, Moorpark teachers elected Coler as their representative. Coler is a member of the Moorpark Educators Assn., a union with 184 members out of 226 teachers in the district.

But she said she views her position as a representative of all teachers, union or not.

“I want to help teachers help children,” Coler said. “To get there, I ran for the board, that was the tool. . . .