School Board Races Offer Opportunity for Change

Traditionally staid affairs, this fall’s school board races in Ventura County could potentially shift the balance of power in several districts and possibly usher in a slate of candidates who want to wrest a high school from a neighboring district.

Sixty-five candidates are running for seats on 11 school boards from Ojai to Thousand Oaks, plus the contentious County Board of Education.

Several of the races have heated up in the final days before the election:

* In the contest for the Ventura County Board of Education, a former Rio Elementary School District superintendent is attempting to unseat conservative incumbent Marty Bates.

* A trio of candidates for the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District want to remove Camarillo High School from the Oxnard High School District and make it part of the Camarillo district.

* In the Oxnard Union School District, only one incumbent is seeking reelection for three seats. With the elementary school district still reeling from a wiretapping scandal that resulted in the dismissal of a top administrator, candidates say they want to bring stability and regain the public’s trust.

Quieter races include those for the Oak Park, Santa Paula, Ojai, Mesa and Mupu school districts.

County Board

The Ventura County school board has the relatively limited educational scope of overseeing the education of students in schools for troubled youth and special-education and vocational programs.

But there have been ongoing battles between Supt. Charles Weis and conservative members of the board, including Bates, the board’s president, over issues such as funding for AIDS education and programs for teen mothers.

Making no excuses for his stance on those issues, Bates believes that boards of education should consist of more than just educators.

“If you have nothing but educators on the board, it leaves nobody to represent the taxpayer and parent,” said Bates, 61, a medical-device marketing consultant.

Taking on Bates is Peter Rogalsky, the Rio Elementary School District’s superintendent for five years before retiring in 1990.

Before that, Rogalsky worked in the Simi Valley Unified School District for 26 years as a teacher, principal and district administrator. The 62-year-old Camarillo resident has spent the 1990s recovering from brain cancer, now in remission, and he works for a company that writes computer programs for school districts.

“Being a career educator, I felt it appropriate that I continue in education,” he said. “The board has been very contentious. I think I can add some stability to the board.”

In the Simi Valley area, Kevin Desrosiers, a senior plant engineer for Anheuser-Busch, is challenging 71-year-old incumbent Al Rosen.

Desrosiers, 41, wants to strengthen regional occupation programs and emphasize more reading in the public school curriculum. If elected to a third term, Rosen wants to stress working with Weis and improving vocational and health education programs.

Ventura Community College instructor Yvonne Bodle will fill the board’s fifth seat, which has been empty since last summer when trustee Angela Miller moved out of state. Bodle is the only person who sought Miller’s seat.

Pleasant Valley

Normally a quiet school system, the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District has been roused by three newcomers pushing for unification.

Incumbent Val Rains faces five challengers--including accountant Suzanne Kitchens and veteran Thomas McCoy--for three seats on the Pleasant Valley board.

A homemaker who ran the school district’s successful bond campaign, Jennifer H. Miller, has joined attorney and bond worker Roger L. Lund and accountant Ron Speakman in urging that local students and tax dollars be brought to the district by incorporating Camarillo High.

Education will be improved by “bringing all the Camarillo schools under one unified school board in one district governed by local people who residents know have control of where the money goes,” said Lund, 29, a Camarillo planning commissioner.

Kitchens, a parent-teacher association volunteer for 17 years, said she is concerned that a unified Camarillo district might not meet state requirements for racial balance or that unification might require another school bond--a daunting prospect for a district that tried five times before it passed a bond measure.

“If the community wants it, I’ll find a way,” said Kitchens, a part-time accountant. “Of course, there’s a cost involved.”

A retired professor at St. John’s Seminary College, trustee Rains said she believes in a cautious approach to unification.

“We have to find out if unification will be affordable and instructionally effective,” said Rains, 65. “The real thing that’s important is whether the students benefit from it.”

Conejo Valley Unified

In the affluent, high-achieving Conejo Valley Unified School District, 11 candidates are vying for three school board positions.

Incumbents Mildred C. Lynch and Elaine C. McKearn are fighting to keep their seats while trustee Richard Newman decided not to run for reelection.

Challenging the incumbents are retired Meadows Elementary School Principal Tim Stephens and Pat Phelps, a parent volunteer who ran the first two, unsuccessful school bond campaigns.

Stephens, 61, who in the past has tangled with the incumbents over his education ideology, gained prominence when his school won the national Blue Ribbon award--a prestigious educational accolade.

He implemented a controversial “meaning-based learning” program, an educational concept premised on the belief that life experiences are more important than rote memorization.

Incumbent Lynch, 81, a former English teacher, is known for her no-nonsense nature and adherence to traditional teaching methods.

McKearn hopes to retain her seat with a promise to keep working for more parent choice in the school system.

Other candidates include Firefighter Michael Dunn, high school counselor Mary Jo Del Campo, electronic technician Dwayne E. Cope, architect R. Burton Ward, registered nurse Terri Tatone-Hitt, attorney Lee Hess and parent volunteer Debbie Lee Bavaro.

Oxnard Elementary

The last year has brought a lot of turmoil to the Oxnard Elementary School District.

Top administrator Pedro R. Placencia was caught secretly tape-recording the phone calls of trustee Jim Suter. He was convicted of making the tapes and dismissed from the district. He anonymously gave the tapes to trustee Mary Barreto, who was cleared of any wrongdoing but nonetheless decided not to run again.

After suffering a stroke, Suter also decided not to run again. In the wake of those events, the superintendent left the district for another job. With two trustees gone, incumbent Arthur Joe Lopez and five challengers are competing for three seats.

Former trustee Dorothie J. Sterling, a 75-year-old retired teacher, said she felt compelled to step into the breach.

“As I watched what was happening with our school district, I became more and more uneasy,” she said. “I felt that the agenda was not the education of the children--somewhere, I think, it turned into a political agenda.”

Challengers Ray W. Gonzales, a father of three who runs the welfare reform career center in Oxnard, and Oxnard High School Assistant Principal Bill Thrasher portray themselves as peacemakers who won’t get caught up in the divisive politics that have sometimes characterized the board.

Also running are Tom Nielsen, a 49-year-old businessman, and retired elementary school teacher Roy Caffrey.

“I don’t come here as a representative of any special interest,” said Gonzales, 41. “I come with a very open mind.”

Thrasher, 63, advocates improving students’ performance in math and reading--even if that requires cajoling administrators, teachers and parents to do better.

“It’s not something done in six months or a year, but we must turn this district around,” said Thrasher, a 31-year Oxnard resident.

Simi Valley Unified

After the district ran through eight permanent or interim superintendents in as many years, the candidates battling for two slots on the Simi Valley school board are trying to prove they will best bring about stability.

Incumbents Norman Walker and Carla Kurachi face five challengers.

Kurachi, the only sitting board member with children in the district’s schools, is seeking a third term.

“I think I can provide the stability and continuity we need to move the district forward in a positive direction,” she said.

Walker, a 47-year-old Baptist minister, said the district must face its needed $22-million face-lift during the next few years and he’s prepared to help manage the undertaking.

Also running are Michael P. Murphey, a government relations manager in Santa Clarita; Lee Yalowiec, a deputy sheriff in Los Angeles; police dispatcher Joe Granish; high school counselor Steven Gould; and John Childress, who is the city’s chief electrical inspector.

Oak Park

Five candidates are vying for three positions on the school board in Oak Park. Two incumbents are hoping to keep their seats in the district that boasts some of the best academic test scores in the county.

Bob Kahn, who helped establish the district 20 years ago, is trying for his third term. Linda Heizer Seaman, who was appointed to the board in January, would like to see more accountability and communication in the district. Newcomers Cindy Vinson, a scientist and volunteer, and Suzan Mantyla, a businesswoman, are also running.

Former trustee Jeri Fox is trying to recapture a seat in the wake of community criticism over a post-homecoming party held at her home where alcohol was served to students.

The party was moved from another house to Fox’s when she learned it would be unsupervised by adults. Nonetheless, Fox said her decision to allow the party was hasty.

“I’ve learned to tell my children no when they ask me questions about helping them in certain situations,” she said. “I have learned that as an elected official, you have to set an example and remember at all times that your personal life does become public.”

Moorpark Unified

In Moorpark, incumbents Gary M. Cabriales, a commercial airline pilot, and David Pollock, a corporate planner, are talking about planning for the city’s continued growth and the possibility of trying again to pass a school bond.

Meanwhile the lone challenger, Internal Revenue Service employee Ted M. Green Sr., criticizes trustees for asking residents to tax themselves with bond measures.

Santa Paula

Challengers in Santa Paula are queued up for a chance to grab two vacated slots on the school board or to unseat Dan Robles, the library director who was docked pay after admitting to downloading sexually explicit material from the Internet at work.

County prosecutors never charged Robles with any wrongdoing. Robles himself has said the situation was mischaracterized by a disgruntled former employee.

Challenging him are Michelle Kolbeck, computer systems analyst William “Chris” Graham, energy technician Anthony E. Perez, Realtor Patricia Harrison and church administrator Maria Taylor Hernandez.

Oxnard Union

In the Oxnard Union High School District, six challengers and two incumbents are competing for three seats and the chance to go forward with building a new school, spend recently approved bond money and possibly grapple with the unification proposal floating around Camarillo.

Running are incumbents Nancy Koch and Robert Q. Valles and challengers Eric A. Daily, a business owner; Irene G. Pinkard, a community college executive and consultant; retired journalist Marvin Petal; homemaker and classroom volunteer Kathy Raffaelli; business owner and former Pleasant Valley trustee Robert L. Rexford; and financial planner Jim C. Manuel.

Mesa, Mupu

In the tiny Mesa Union School District, none of the incumbents is seeking reelection. Homemaker Katherine Wilkinson, lawyer Mark A. Nelson, lawyer Bob Alejandro Owens, structural biochemist Timothy D. Osslund and network engineer Gerard J. Fontes are competing for three seats.

Similarly, no trustees have sought reelection in the Mupu School District, where financial advisor Tim Shield, business manager Chuck Teague and park ranger Leslie Reed are vying for two open seats.