Countywide : Education Official to Seek Boss’ Job

The head of one of Orange County’s vocational education programs filed papers Thursday to run against his boss for Orange County superintendent of schools.

Darrell Opp, 53, a Laguna Beach resident who has been chief educational officer of the Central County Regional Occupation Program for the last eight years, criticized Supt. John F. Dean for not cutting the budget or the staff enough during his four-year term. He also called on the department to place a greater emphasis on job training for youth.

“I think there needs to be a change,” Opp said in an interview Thursday. “The Orange County Department of Education ought to be a leader in the economic recovery of this county, and I’m not seeing that in this leadership. Leadership should be assisting the school districts in areas of weakness, and that area of weakness is job training.”

With a $70-million budget and more than 1,000 employees, the Department of Education does not oversee local schools but provides services to the 27 school districts in Orange County. The department also collects data for the state, runs special education programs and offers alternative schools for juvenile delinquents and expelled students.

The nonpartisan election is June 7. Dean and Opp are the only official candidates so far. Today is the filing deadline.

For Dean, 67, a former Whittier College professor who was elected to the post in 1990, Opp’s candidacy is akin to a slap in the face.

“Whatever happened to trust and confidence in one’s employees. . . . He reports to me! We have managers who are supposed to bring me solutions, not problems,” Dean said Thursday. “If he’s been this concerned about things, why didn’t he tell me? That’s what we pay our managers for, to bring problems and propose solutions so we can do something about it.”

But Opp said his decision to run for the post, which serves as a figurehead for the county education Establishment, is more about himself than about Dean. He said he will give priority to job training, business-school partnerships and adopting “common sense” curricula.

Opp grew up in Santa Ana, graduating from Santa Ana High in 1958, and has lived in Laguna Beach since 1975. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography from Cal State Long Beach and a master’s in educational administration from Pepperdine Univeristy. Previously, he worked at the Orange and Garden Grove unified school districts and in private industry.

During his first year on the job, Opp promised, he would conduct a department audit with an eye toward trimming the bureaucracy.