Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : School Board Trustee Won’t Seek 2nd Term

A high school district board member who only last month got a new mailing address to retain her seat beyond July 1 when a change in the district boundaries put her residence outside the limits will not seek reelection.

Sophia Waugh, long active in education issues, announced at a board meeting Wednesday that it was “time my husband be my priority.”

She said, “It’s time education, things like this, take a back seat.”

Waugh’s decision means the Antelope Valley Union High School District board will have at least two new members after the November election, in which three seats are available. Board President Steve Landaker said last year that he would not run again. He affirmed that decision Wednesday.

Incumbent Charles Whiteside said he will seek election to a second term. The terms of the other two seats on the five-member board do not expire for two more years.

Whiteside, Waugh and Landaker have each served one four-year term as trustees for the high school district, which is recovering from a $14-million deficit.

Although she will not be campaigning for her own reelection, Waugh said she will devote a lot of effort from now until the November election to defeating a controversial initiative that would give parents tax-funded vouchers to help pay for sending children to private and parochial institutions.

Over the next four months, she will also do a little of what she intends to do full time once her term expires--travel with her husband, a movie industry employee.

Waugh’s four-year term was almost cut short after voters in the rural communities of Acton and Agua Dulce approved expanding their school district from K-8 to K-12. The unification put Waugh’s Agua Dulce residence outside the high school district’s boundaries, forcing her to arrange for an address in Lancaster to retain her eligibility beyond July 1, when the unified district legally came into existence.

In making the announcement last month about the Lancaster address, Waugh said it would be best for the district if she served the remaining five months of her term rather than have someone with no experience take office.