New School Board Trustee Challenges Status Quo : Education: A former employee, Arthur Joe Lopez shifted the balance of power and lengthened meetings by insisting on reviewing policies.

In 1990, Arthur Joe Lopez left his job as an employee of the Oxnard School District.

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Eight months ago, he returned as a district board member.

Since then, the 43-year-old Lopez has challenged the status quo by questioning the district’s education policies and by trying to rewrite the rules on how it conducts business.

Among Lopez’s complaints:

* Children graduating from the district should be achieving test scores comparable to students in the state’s top public schools.

* Spanish-speaking students need to switch to English faster than they have been.

* The district’s curriculum needs to be reviewed.

Lopez is willing to offer suggestions on how to accomplish his goals, but the board is often divided--usually along ethnic lines.

When Lopez replaced Trustee Jack Fowler, he created a Latino majority on the board. The three Latinos--Lopez, Mary Barreto and Susan Alvarez--often vote the same way. Before last December, Fowler, James Suter and Dorothie Sterling usually made up the majority.

But even the trustees who side with him sometimes don’t like his tactics.

“It has been very uncomfortable,” said Barreto, who is serving her second term on the board.

“Arthur Joe has a very different style, and he does not get much done because it takes him a long time to make a decision. I think he feels that the whole world is hiding things from him.”

Before he joined the panel of five trustees, board meetings ended by 11 p.m., Suter said.

Now, meetings often last until 1 or 2 a.m. because Lopez wants to review the district’s policies, many of which were written by the four other trustees, Suter said.

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Annoyed with the long meetings, Suter suggested that the board pass a resolution to end meetings no later than 11 p.m.

“It’s not fair for the district’s employees to work that late,” Suter said. “How can you expect them to be back at the office by 8 a.m. when they don’t go home until 2 in the morning?”

The president of the board of the 13,000-student district also expressed discontent with Lopez.

Sterling, a 10-year board member, said Lopez’s conduct came as a surprise to her.

“My job as board president has been made more difficult because of Arthur Joe,” she said. “I don’t know what his goal is. Sometimes I wonder if he wants power as a board member or whether he wants some sort of personal glorification. All I know is that he sure has caused havoc.”

Alvarez, on the other hand, applauds Lopez’s enthusiasm. “I think he’s sincere with his concerns,” she said.

Lopez dismisses the negative comments, saying that he sees himself as an instrument of change and that change is necessary to improve education in the district.

“I’m a catalyst for change,” Lopez said. “I think if we are going to do something meaningful we need to take care of our kids because they will turn into the whole human infrastructure that makes this a great or mediocre world.”

The other trustees charge that Lopez is doing his learning about the district during board meetings, but Lopez disputes that argument.

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He says that he learned about the district during the three years he worked as its director of educational television programming--when he put together videos shown in district classrooms.

He defends the length of the meetings by saying he is serving the public’s right to information.

“I’m thorough. I’m putting the business of the people in front of the people,” Lopez said. “I’m being honest, and I realize that sometimes some of the questions may probe deeply, but it’s something I have to do.”

Lopez describes himself as a registered Democrat and devoted Catholic who draws his greatest inspiration from the Bible.

A native of Oxnard, he said he became involved in public education at the age of 13 when he joined a group of UCLA graduate students who were tutoring children in schools in Oxnard’s La Colonia neighborhood.

When that summer ended and the graduate students returned to Los Angeles, Lopez continued the program by recruiting fellow high school students to tutor the children.

The program, which lasted about four years, had 83 tutors at one point, he said.

“It was a key experience in my life,” Lopez said. “That’s when I learned the joy of teaching a child--of seeing children grow.”

After attending Santa Clara High School, Lopez obtained a bachelor’s degree in English at UC Santa Barbara. In 1982, he graduated with a master’s degree in motion pictures and television from UCLA, he said.

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While attending graduate school, Lopez worked as a writer and production engineer for various television shows, he said.

In 1984, Lopez left his television job and went to work for the Oxnard School District.

During his six-year stay, Lopez founded the district’s public access educational television channel, which telecasts school events and instructional programs, he said.

In 1990, Lopez left that job to accept a four-year position at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks.

There, he put together a cable program for the campus and played a pivotal role in turning KCLU, the university radio station, into a regional broadcast entity licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, said James Halseth, who hired Lopez at Cal Lutheran.

Lopez also taught classes at the university, he said.

The university hired Lopez because of his expertise in communications and his professional dedication, Halseth said.

“He is very talented and energetic, and I have always known him to follow through with his ideas,” said Halseth, who now works for Olivet College, in Olivet, Mich. “I think the combination of his energy and creativity are his central characteristics.”

Since leaving Cal Lutheran in 1994, Lopez has been teaching radio and television classes at Moorpark College. When not teaching or spending time with his wife and three children, ages 2 through 6, he said, he is taking care of business in the district.

“I think our kids should have the same opportunities that kids in other school districts have,” Lopez said. “And to provide them with these opportunities, we need to change things.”

Lopez’s campaign platform last fall called for improving the quality of education and building a partnership among the schools, parents and the city. He said one of his goals is to ensure that the district is accessible to the public.

To make it easier for parents to learn about the district’s business, Lopez pushed the board to televise its meetings. He argued that because the district owned a fully equipped studio, all it needed were volunteers to operate the cameras.

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But when it was time to vote on the issue about three weeks ago, Lopez asked that $20,000 be set aside for the project.

“By telecasting board meetings, we would allow the parents to see how the district operates,” Lopez said.

The first meeting was broadcast Wednesday night on Channel 22 on Jones Intercable.

Some of Lopez’s other suggestions have caused division among board members.

On Wednesday, his proposal to switch law firms won 3-2, with dissenters Suter and Sterling saying they needed time to familiarize themselves with the new firm before voting.

Recently he proposed that the district hire a firm to assess its curriculum and instruction program.

Barreto and Alvarez supported Lopez’s proposal, but Sutter and Sterling said the district would be wasting money to conduct any type of assessment.

“I think our teachers are doing a superb job and I don’t see any need for an assessment,” said Suter, who is a retired district teacher and a five-year board member.

But Lopez says that the quality of education defines a city.

“When I was campaigning, I often heard people saying: ‘I’m from Tennessee and back there kids are reading in a much higher level than they are here. Why is that’?” Lopez said. “We can’t have that in our city.”

Lopez acknowledges that he irritates other board members, but said he is determined to follow through with his plans.

“There is going to be some foot-dragging, and there may be some people who may not really accept change,” Lopez said. “But I’m confident that we will bring change.”