40-Year Schools Trustee Is a Study in Dedication

Throughout her four decades serving on the school board, Elaine Garber has never called in sick. Not when she had the flu. Not when she gave birth to her son. Not even when her husband died.

At tonight’s school board meeting, the 72-year-old Garber will celebrate her 40th anniversary as a trustee of the Hueneme Elementary School District. The only reason she ever missed a meeting was to conduct district business out of town.

Though she holds the distinction as the longest-serving board member in Ventura County, Garber has a long way to go to reach the state record--58 years.

For most people, sitting through just one school board meeting can be an act of endurance. But for Garber, hundreds of meetings only show her passion for educating the young.

The onetime teacher and longtime historian can’t imagine not being a school board member. Neither can her fellow trustees.

“Elaine is our cornerstone,” trustee Shala Gudino said. “I don’t know what we would do without her.”

Garber, whose neatly curled brown hair tucks around her cheeks, is no-nonsense. She is willing to take chances, but is not impulsive. She is aggressive, but not pushy. She is knowledgeable, but not pretentious.

“It’s just been a happy marriage between me and the school district,” she said. “I get so much pleasure, and I learn so much from being on the school board.”

During the school year, Garber spends several days a week visiting classrooms to read a story to kids or watch a student stage play. At open house, she has run from one school to the next, trying to visit all 11 before the night is over.

“She’s literally everywhere. Wherever there is an event, there is Elaine,” Supt. Bob Fraisse said. “It gives her credibility as a school board member, because she’s out there in the classrooms.”

Fran Griffith, who has taught at Hathaway Elementary School for 43 years, remembers playing ballgames and having barbecues with Garber and the other board members in the 1960s and ‘70s.

Through the years, she said, Garber has been there for the teachers.

“The district was so small that we all became really good friends,” Griffith said. “We just all molded together.”

Raised in Minneapolis, Garber attended the University of Minnesota, where she met Duane, her husband of 43 years. Two weeks after their first date, he made her a ring out of a quarter, which she still wears. A few months later, they were married.

During a trip to California, the young couple visited Port Hueneme to see a relative and decided to stay. They bought a house on 7th Street, near the naval base. Duane worked as an engineer, and Elaine taught at Oxnard Elementary School. They had two children, a girl and a boy.

In 1959, she ran for the Hueneme school board, but lost. But when one of the new members resigned, the board appointed Garber.

“I remember thinking, ‘I’m not qualified.’ ” she said. “I’ve been a student, I’ve been a teacher, but I don’t know how to be a school board member.”

But she listened and learned.

Now, new trustees listen to and learn from her.

“She has so much knowledge and wisdom, it’s amazing,” said nine-year trustee Darlene Bruno, who considers Garber a role model. “She’s a person I look up to. We hope she’ll keep running.”

Garber has run for the board almost a dozen times. In all the campaigns combined, she has spent only $25. That was the year she thought there was a chance she might lose, so she had some fliers printed.

Ernie Almanza, who has served on the Rio Elementary School District school board for 34 years, joked that he has been trying to catch up to Garber for years. “I guess somebody’s got to be first,” he said. “More power to her. She’s a great gal.”

In her time, the Hueneme district and its board have changed significantly.

For the first 25 years, she was the only woman. Now there are three. In 1959, there were five schools, compared with 11 today.

The 8,000-student district is also more diverse. Forty years ago, students were 85% white, compared with 19% today. The district is now also poorer, with more than two-thirds of students qualifying for free or reduced lunches.

Despite poverty, the district has earned national recognition for its use of computers in the classroom. Many attribute that success to Garber. In fact, trustees named a new technology building after her.

“She was the person solely responsible for our district getting into the age of technology,” said Hueneme Elementary Principal Wayne Flaaten. “If it hadn’t been for her, we would have been behind the curve, rather than ahead of the curve.”

When she first brought an old Commodore personal computer into the district office 20 years ago, Garber said teachers and principals didn’t know what to think. But she kept urging educators to give it a try.

“I have quantities of patience,” she said. “I just wait until people are ready.”

Garber also pushed for board members to sit in on salary negotiations between administrators and the teachers’ union. In the stormy sessions, she has consistently pushed for higher salaries.

Although Garber has taken unpopular stands, when she considered retiring in 1998, she received a barrage of phone calls urging her to reconsider.

Her next project is to tackle achievement test scores, which were below the national average across the board. She knows that will require addressing underlying problems--students who don’t speak English, uneducated parents and poverty.

“But our big challenge is not only to raise test scores,” she said, “but also to imbue more of a sense of a love of learning.”

She wants to get more books in the schools, improve teacher training and expand the ways reading is taught in the classrooms.

Despite her strong opinions, Garber remains quiet during school board meetings. She gets irritated at pettiness and keeps the focus on the big picture, Fraisse said.

“She only speaks when she has something to say,” he said. “So everybody listens when she does speak.”

Other board members follow suit. As a result, Hueneme is known for having the shortest meetings in the county--two hours once a month.

On occasion, board members clash. They just don’t bicker.

Garber’s commitment to public service goes beyond the Hueneme school district. She has also served on the Ventura County school board and has worked as a county housing commissioner.

She helped start Port Hueneme’s Harbor Days celebration more than 30 years ago and still serves as its treasurer. She volunteers her time preparing income taxes for low-income residents in Oxnard and Port Hueneme. And she is director and past-president of the Ventura County Historical Society.

“She is truly a countywide citizen,” said Supervisor John Flynn, who taught in the Hueneme school district in the early 1960s. “She has an amazing amount of interest in the county, and she brings a larger perspective to the district.”

Board member Bruno said Garber’s enthusiasm amazes her.

“Elaine Garber is this community,” she said. “At 70-something, she has more energy than I have ever had. I couldn’t even try to keep up with her.”

Garber calls herself a born student. As a young girl, she would check six books out of the library every week. Soon, she exhausted the children’s section and had to move on to the regular library.

She still makes time to read mysteries, occasionally takes courses at Oxnard College and studies astrology.

“I wake up every morning thinking I’m productive and useful,” she said. “If I know there’s something I can do, I’ll do it. And I’ll stay with it.”

FYI

A celebration honoring Elaine Garber’s 40 years of service on the Hueneme school board starts at 6:30 tonight at the district headquarters, 205 N. Ventura Road, Port Hueneme.