Campaign Scare in School Board Race

The next few days will be some nail-biting times for Orange County parents as voters in several school districts decide whether their board majorities will move to the far right, as did Vista Unified School District (in San Diego County) two years ago. If so, will they be led down the same path toward fiscal ruin? Vista’s fiscal health has deteriorated significantly since the extreme right took over, the result of widely publicized decisions of questionable judgment.

Saddleback Valley Unified School District is one that will experience a fierce fight for control of the board. Two mid-term extreme right trustees are tired of being on “the short end of a 3-2 vote,” as trustee Debbie Hughes puts it.

Fellow extreme right trustee Frank L. Ury glibly dismisses all fears that Saddleback could follow in the footsteps of Vista. Instead, Ury characterizes those who make the comparison between Saddleback and Vista as agents bent on a campaign of scare. But there is plenty about which to be scared, when he states that “basically, what this election will be is union versus parents.”

Why is this man always trying to pit us, neighbor against neighbor? Parents and educators in this community have been working hand-in-hand for a long while, with a multitude of successes to show for it. Why does he hold our neighbors who are teachers in such low regard?

If the majority switches, Ury will surely be SVUSD board president by January. Then we can count on an adversarial relationship between the board and our district’s educators as he wages war with their unions. Our children will surely suffer in the classroom.

MARCIA DESROSIERS

Lake Forest