Aghajanian Leading in Pasadena School Election

With two-thirds of the ballots counted in Tuesday’s election to fill a vacant seat on the Pasadena school board, Alex P. Aghajanian was leading with 54.6% of the vote compared to 45.4% for Rene Amy.

If the trend stands, it would be a reversal of the November primary, where Amy, a father of two and the district’s most vocal critic, received 28% of the vote while Aghajanian, a father of three and an attorney, barely made the runoff. “I think these early voters are a positive sign, but there’s a long way to go,” said Aghajanian at a campaign party in Pasadena.

But Amy said he expected Aghajanian to be ahead early. “Last time I pulled ahead late in the evening,” Amy said.

Results for write-in candidate Peter Soelter won’t be available for a few days, the county registrar’s office said.

Tuesday’s special election for the Pasadena Unified School District--which draws students from Pasadena, Sierra Madre and Altadena--stemmed from the resignation last summer of board member George Padilla. The winner will serve out the remainder of Padilla’s term until March 2001.

Throughout the campaign, Amy and Aghajanian played on parental discontent, portraying themselves as reformers. Both promised that, if elected, they would seek to drastically change the way the 24,000-student system works.

Amy, 40, a Pasadena contractor and admitted gadfly, has gnawed on school officials for more than two years, exposing district country club retreats, book shortages and instances of staff members viewing pornography on the Internet.

He has called for the replacement of the superintendent, citing the “C” grade she gave herself at a recent public hearing. He also vowed to eliminate what he calls “educrat ideas.”

Aghajanian, 43, an Altadena lawyer, pledged a back-to-basics approach to end what he labels teaching by gimmicky programs. He said the ethnically diverse district needs to establish a strategy for where it will be five years from now.

Both candidates decried Pasadena’s test scores, which show 10th-graders scoring below their peers in the Los Angeles Unified School District on state standardized tests. Those results underscore that many of the area’s brightest students go to private school.

Among them are Aghajanian’s children.