Recall Seeks to Reshape School Board in Orange

A passerby wouldn’t know it from the tranquillity of Orange’s quaint downtown, with its old-fashioned drug store and traffic circle, but the city is home to one of the state’s most fractious, battle-scarred school systems.

Name an education-related hot button and the Orange Unified School District has pushed it to the point of pitched battle. Bilingual education. Gay clubs on campus. Clinics at schools. Teachers deserting the district en masse.

Now, two groups are the main forces behind a campaign to recall three school board members that is drawing interest statewide and from as far away as Washington, D.C. The Christian conservative movement, which openly battles with teachers unions, is supporting the last high-profile school board in the region to have a hard-line conservative majority. The mighty state teachers union, backed by many parents, is throwing its weight behind the recall effort.

“This is like the Arabs and Israelis,” said Louise Adler, chairwoman of the Department of Educational Leadership at Cal State Fullerton. “They have turned Orange into Jerusalem.”

If the community is ground zero for an ideological showdown, it’s not apparent in the streets and sidewalk cafes of Old Towne, where children zip on skateboards past vintage buildings that date to the city’s orange-growing origins in the 1880s.

For the locals, the recall campaign is likely to be most visible in mailboxes, which are likely to be stuffed with last-minute mailers as Tuesday’s election approaches.

For outsiders, though, the recall campaign has become a referendum on issues that extend far beyond district boundaries.

The establishment GOP is vigorously backing the board members in what is supposed to be a nonpartisan election, and the party has staked its influence on the outcome. On the other side, the California Teachers Assn. is committed to seeing the board go down.

“You’ve got a board whose view is there shouldn’t be a union and a union radicalized by all these years of conflict,” said Adler, an expert in administrative conflict and the politics of education who has been active in the county’s Democratic Party. “Both sides have blown it.”

Two-thirds of the $89,078 raised by the anti-recall group has come from outside the district.

More than half the $69,614 war chest of the recall committee comes from local teachers unions and the massive CTA.

“This is a bit of a test case on the popularity of a school board that is implementing a very far right wing agenda,” said Elliot Mincberg, legal director for the Washington D.C.-based People for the American Way, which tracks and opposes the religious right.

The Christian conservative group Focus on the Family also is interested.

“This locally elected and supported school board is being threatened by a national teachers union,” said Dick Carpenter, an education analyst with the Colorado-based group.

Targeted board members insist that their positions have nothing to do with religion, though their agenda mirrors that set down by Christian conservative groups.

If the recall is successful, board supporter Mark Bucher warned that the CTA will “do a recall whenever they don’t like the way someone votes.”

Bucher was a founding member of the Orange County Education Alliance, which surfaced in the early 1990s to place anti-union conservatives--most of whom were Christian--on school boards.

The alliance’s power has waned recently, as conservatives were voted out and others didn’t step forward. Orange is the last conservative board standing, Bucher said, and holding out against the teachers union is crucial.

The teachers union contends that it is involved mainly because conditions for teachers have gotten so bad.

“It’s salary,” said Shirley Guy, a consultant from the state union who is advising the recall. “It’s working conditions. It’s attitude. It’s respect. We’re not involved with this because of its national implications.”

There is no disputing that matters have reached a contentious pass in the district. About 700 of the district’s 1,500 teachers have fled during the past few years, in many instances replaced by less-experienced instructors.

“We feel that the present school board does not support public education,” said Paul Pruss, president of the Orange Unified Education Assn., the local teachers union. “Basically, what is at stake is nothing less than the survival of Orange Unified as a provider of quality education.”

The recall targets board members Maureen Aschoff, Martin Jacobson and Linda Davis and would replace them with more moderate candidates. Much of the controversy dates back to the bitterly contested 1997 election, when a more hard-line majority came to power and launched a litany of conservative initiatives.

First, the board attempted to drive social services such as free counseling and medical care from district schools. It ultimately backed off, but since has rejected grants for student counseling and job training.

Next the trustees virtually eliminated bilingual education a full year before a statewide voter initiative did the same thing.

The board also has trumpeted a “back to basics” philosophy--popular among Christian conservatives, but not with teachers.

The district gained nationwide notoriety in 1999 when it blocked a gay student support club at El Modena High School.

Students sued, backed by national civil rights groups. The district finally allowed the club, provided students don’t discuss sex.

What rankled teachers most was the board’s swift move to cut back on expensive retirement packages, while salaries inched upward. This set off a long series of lawsuits and complaints to labor boards on both sides.

Board members say their hard line will ensure future solvency, but Orange teachers say the district now can afford to boost pay.

Supporters of the current board say these battles are proof that they can stand up to special interests such as the teachers unions and national civil rights groups.

But board member Bill Lewis, a conservative who backs the recall, said he believes his colleagues are not listening to the public and are captivated by their stature as the last conservative board around.

Many parents who once ardently supported them are turning against the board because of the teachers.

“I’m a Christian,” said Kelly Walker, a former board supporter who now backs the recall effort. “I think this board has done some wonderful things. I was so thankful [about their opposition to the gay club] . . . But I don’t want my son’s teacher to leave the district.”

*

Times staff writer H.G. Reza contributed to this report.