Janet Lindgren to Run for School Board

Janet Lindgren, who served on the Oxnard Union High School District Board of Trustees for 22 years, has decided to run for a seat on the Ventura County Board of Education this fall.

Lindgren, who will seek the seat filled by board member Wendy Larner, is the second person in less than a week to announce candidacy for a seat on the bitterly divided panel.

“I have been upset at how things have gone on the board,” Lindgren said.

Lindgren has criticized the board’s majority--represented by Larner, President Marty Bates and board member Angela Miller--who have come under fire for supporting what opponents have called a conservative Christian agenda.

“The board is there for students--not to push a narrow agenda,” Lindgren said.

Lindgren said she was upset by the board’s majority decision last spring to exclude AIDS Care and Planned Parenthood speakers from teacher-training seminars. She also criticized a vote to reject a $500,000 federal jobs-training grant, if it was offered.

Paul Chatman, president of the Ocean View School District Board of Trustees, who announced Tuesday that he will run for an open seat on the board, cited similar reasons for his candidacy.

Lindgren, a Camarillo resident, said she was asked to run for Larner’s seat by several local school board members, teachers, parents and members of the American Assn. of University Women. Larner said last week she had not decided whether she would seek reelection for the seat representing Ojai, Camarillo, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Piru and Somis.

Lindgren, 68, served on the board of directors of the California School Boards Assn. between 1979 and 1993 and represented that body on several State Department of Education panels.