SANTA CLARITA / ANTELOPE VALLEY : LOCAL ELECTIONS / SANTA CLARITA SCHOOL BOARDS : Candidates Split Over Voucher Initiative, Conservative Movement

A conservative movement has polarized three school board races in this northern Los Angeles County area, while divisiveness on two other school boards have carried over into the campaigns.

Several challengers in the William S. Hart Union High, Sulphur Springs Union and Saugus Union school districts have voiced support for Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative, along with fiscal restraint and a “return to teaching the basics,” all popular conservative themes.

Although they do not acknowledge that they campaign together, incumbents and moderates have accused the conservatives of trying to destroy public schools for the benefit of private, Christian ones and of promoting a conservative Christian agenda through public education. Conservatives have mocked the incumbents as old-guard politicians who have failed to teach children basic skills.

Saugus Union School District

“If you want to make changes, you’re always the one that people don’t like,” said Douglas Bryce, one of the conservative candidates running in Saugus Union and president of the Santa Clarita Valley Young Republicans.

Bryce said he decided in June to run after a school bond to build two new schools passed. More than three out of four voters supported Measure S, but Bryce said the district misled voters about its fiscal condition, and he chastised officials for then giving teachers a 2% pay raise.

Bryce, who identifies ideologically with fellow candidates La Vaughn Ane, a homemaker, and Dan Stromberg conceded that the district has been generally sound and responsive to parents, but said the board could do more to involve parents.

Board President Betty Lund, who, along with Eileen Connolly, is running for reelection, said that the school bond’s wide margin of victory shows voters’ confidence in the district and that Saugus Union’s test scores have been good.

“We have no major problems in our school district and we’ve just come off a very successful bond election where we had more than a thousand volunteers, and you don’t get that without a lot of support,” said Lund, who criticized Ane and Stromberg for not appearing at any candidate forums.

“How can you campaign on having more public input and then make yourself unavailable to those very people that you say you are trying to communicate with?” Lund said.

Other Saugus Union challengers are Jim Chaffee, security director; Rose Koscielny, registered nurse; Gary George Murr, small-business owner, and Catherine Powers, church office manager and former PTA president.

Springs Union School District

In Sulphur Springs Union, the entry of conservative candidates supporting the voucher initiative so offended trustee Art Wilde that he changed his initial decision not to run for a fourth term and has mounted a write-in campaign.

“I can tolerate less-than-qualified candidates; I can even cope with unknowledgeable ones,” said Wilde, who changed his mind after the entry deadline. “But what we have here is a situation where they are trying to tell the public one thing and do the extreme opposite.”

Like the vast majority of school board members across the state, Wilde said Proposition 174 would create a system that would drain money from public schools, contradicting the conservative challengers’ statements that they would be fiscally responsible.

One of the candidates supporting the voucher initiative is Michael McGuire, an insurance salesman.

“You can save money or lose money through the voucher,” McGuire said. “The bottom line is the state has all the money and thus the control. You put that voucher in the parents’ hands, and you’ve just removed control from the state and put it into the parents’ hands.”

McGuire is best-known in the community for his opposition to the district’s creation of a voluntary, after-school program on AIDS. McGuire said he wants to keep schools out of social issues.

“They’re moving away from the traditional curriculum and going into the area of being parents,” said McGuire, who withdrew his first-grade son from public school and enrolled him in Santa Clarita Christian School.

McGuire, who distributes his campaign flyers with those of Dale Terese Whitmore and contractor Gary DeRevere, said “we’ve got fine schools” in Sulphur Springs, but adding things such as the AIDS program to the curriculum reduces concentration on subjects such as mathematics, reading and writing.

Also running are Sheldon Wigdor, a program business manager, and school board President Kerry Clegg.

William S. Hart High School District

In the Hart district, Peter Warren is the lone conservative supporting the voucher initiative in a field of five candidates.

“We need to be able to respond to any kind of changes that would have to be made if Proposition 174 were approved,” said Warren, an engineer who has no children or previous relationship with the district. “It seems to me that the current board was denying the possibility that it would be approved and so it failed to address the changes it would need to make if it were passed.”

Warren, who is getting help from Bryce and the Young Republicans as well as local church groups, faces newcomer Patricia Hanrion and board members William Dinsenbacher, Sandra Loberg and Dennis King.

“The funding mechanism of 174 would be absolutely disastrous to public education and it’s structured in such a way that it could never be changed, realistically,” King said. “Something as revolutionary as that should have some means of making adjustments to it.”

Castaic Union School District

The Castaic race has highlighted the divisiveness that already permeates the board. The bickering led trustee Jane Pederson to resign two months before her term expired.

Six candidates are running for three seats. Board member Gloria Mercado, a frequent critic of Supt. Scott Brown, has aligned herself with Ethel Matlen and business consultant Wendi Milka, while board President Irene Massey, who has been generally supportive of Brown, heads a slate that includes nurse Nora Emmons and accountant Dirk Gosda.

Mercado and trustee Lester Freeman, who was elected two years ago, have often been at odds with Massey, Pederson and board member Bruce Fox over management of the district. At issue have been poor test scores, maintenance of school buses and the superintendent’s use of a district credit card.

Newhall School District

In the Newhall district, an equally contentious race has developed between board President Michael McCabe and Trustee Zandra Stanley, both of whom are running for reelection. Also running are Stanley’s husband, pension plan consultant David Rapoport; Susan Edwards, a substitute teacher, and John Castagna, an accountant.

Stanley has feuded with Supt. Michael McGrath almost since she joined the board four years ago, accusing the district of financial mismanagement and allowing test scores to fall, an allegation that is disputed by some scores and supported by others.

McCabe, who is running for his second term, said he has offered leadership in terms of closing the rift that existed four years ago between the district and its unions. He also said Stanley has been a divisive and destructive influence on the board.

Santa Clarita Community College District

In the Santa Clarita Community College District, incumbent Ernest Moreno and businesswoman Joan MacGregor are running unopposed in separate districts for seats on the board.