School Board Races Lure Few Candidates : Politics: Despite vigorous public debate over the status of education, few run for the San Diego Unified School Board.

Despite the crescendo of criticism and debate over public education, the number of candidates for San Diego city school board races is the lowest in more than a decade.

Of the three races up for grabs, only one had a contested race as of Thursday. A potential candidate went to court Thursday to try to get on the ballot in a second race, even though she fell short of the required number of nominating signatures. The third contest has only two contestants.

The lack of competition comes at a time when public education is under attack for a lack of success with many students and when a major effort is under way in California to establish free-choice in education, in which public funds could be used by parents to help send their children to private schools.

“I’m surprised, I would have thought there might be two or three candidates in each race, if not five or six,” schools Supt. Tom Payzant said Thursday.

In San Diego’s District D, which covers most of the Mid-City area, Ron Ottinger, a city school district employee, is unopposed for an open seat.

First-term Trustee Shirley Weber will have a clear shot for reelection from District E, which includes Barrio Logan, Southeast San Diego and Paradise Hills, unless Gompers Secondary School teacher Rhoenna Armster can persuade a Superior Court judge to put her name on the June ballot.

Armster went to court Thursday after falling four short of having 200 valid names of registered voters in the district on nomination petitions, as required by provisions of the City Charter governing school elections.

Her attorney is citing as precedence the 1987 Superior Court order placing former San Diego City Councilman Wes Pratt’s name on the ballot, even though he was 21 signatures short, because he had substantially complied with the charter’s intent.

In District A, Ann Armstrong, a first-termer seeking reelection from the La Jolla and University City area, said she was a “bit surprised” at the dearth of candidates in all the races.

She has only one opponent, a retired San Diego math teacher named George Vojtco. Four years ago, she faced off in the primary with four other candidates and beat three-term incumbent John Witt.

Vojtco calls himself a political newcomer who wants to test the power of incumbency through a door-to-door, low-cost campaign to promote his 26 years as a teacher. He says the school district has emphasized too many social programs--listing AIDS education, gun safety and health efforts as examples--at the neglect of basic skills in reading, writing and speaking.

“And they end up not being able to do anything of those basic things well,” Vojtco said Thursday.

“On one hand, I’m very surprised” at the lack of opponents, Ottinger said Thursday of his District D. “You’d normally expect more candidates with an open seat.” In particular, school trustees have traditionally been viewed as being closer to their constituents than other elected officials, and whose races offer citizens more of a chance to affect public policy.

In particular, the Mid-City district appeared to board members such as Armstrong as ripe for a minority candidate, since a majority of the residents are nonwhite. But Ottinger has been preparing for his race for more than a year, meeting with community groups and other people directly involved with the city schools system.

“From the perspective of democracy, I’d like to see more of a debate and more different views out there,” Ottinger said.

Ottinger noted that people pushing for school choice or vouchers--where public funds could be used by parents to pay for their children’s education at any public or private school--probably aren’t interested in running for the school board to improve public education.

“They’re putting their efforts into” qualifying a November statewide ballot initiative for school choice, Ottinger said.

Trustee Susan Davis, who is retiring from the mid-city seat now destined for Ottinger, said many people may be reluctant to run for an increasingly full-time job that only pays a part-time salary--$1,500 a month.

“People smart enough to run recognize that it’s increasingly too difficult to put in the hours effectively and stay employed,” Davis said.

Sheriff Jim Roache juggled his hours constantly when he served on the board while commander of the Lemon Grove substation and was often under the gun from his communities for not spending enough time at schools and meetings.

“I don’t think the lack of candidates results from people being so satisfied” with the state of education, Davis said.

Weber sees the lack of contested races in a more positive vein.

“There is a certain irony in the lack” of candidates, given the level of educational debate, Weber said. “But, when you deal with the people who follow (city schools) education regularly and who come to the board meetings, those people are in the loop, so to speak. I think you’ll find them fairly satisfied.”

Weber said the current trustees are accessible and “allow people to come and be heard, even when folks don’t get their way.

“We haven’t tried to hide any of our failures, so the people who work with schools on a regular basis feel the representation is fair.”

Not surprisingly, Armster sees the situation differently.

“I think it’s absolutely not the democratic way,” Armster said Thursday. She’s a mentor teacher who won a bitter fight with the district last year when an arbitrator said she had been transferred unjustly from Gompers to Lincoln High School for voicing criticism of Marie Thornton, the controversial Gompers principal.

“You need to have competition, an array of people to choose from,” Armster said. “That’s a major reason why I am pursuing (the legal action) to get on the ballot. People don’t want to put their money where their mouth is.”

Armster said many people confuse the boundaries of their City Council district with those of their school board district, and that led her to come up a few signatures short of registered voters living within District E.

“But I’m used to obstacles, and I’ll overcome this one, too,” Armster said.