Make Votes Count in Orange

The recent agreement in the Orange Unified School District recall battle to accept new wording on two advisory measures produced a rare and temporary moment of minor accord in a long-running dispute. For years, this school system has been torn by convulsions of antagonism, with no end in sight. All of this is headed for a showdown late next month when the district’s voters consider the recall of three school board members. We agree that the district is a mess, but question whether the expense and distraction of a recall battle is wise in the spring of the same year that some of the targeted board members will be up for reelection anyway in the fall.

First to the question of the advisory measures that recently have been before the courts. These turn out to be not much more than a distraction, an effort by the board to win affirmation from voters of some widely shared hopes about keeping taxes down and insuring that fundamentals are emphasized in the classroom. It will not be difficult to garner support in a very conservative district like Orange Unified for those principles. All of that is completely separate from the question of what kind of stewardship the district has received from its Board of Education.

Recall advocates say these separate advisory questions are part of the effort by an intransigent board to confuse the issue of board performance. There no doubt is some truth in that. The issues of whether residents agree with a so-called back-to-basics approach and whether it’s OK to raise salaries without also increasing property taxes are not really based in any pending policy decisions. After a protracted battle, the district and teachers did settle last fall, and even the recall side is putting up no opposing argument now on either of the reworded advisory measures.

Beyond these affirmations of what people want to see in education lie the serious questions about the way the district has been run. This is a school system that wasted enormous time and energy over such questions as whether to comply with equal access requirements for school facilities. It needlessly made an issue of health services for needy youngsters and made a spectacle of its teacher contract negotiations. Teachers, meanwhile, are said to have abandoned the district in droves because of better pay and morale in nearby communities.

It is no wonder that with a grandstanding school board, parents and community leaders are so alarmed that they feel the need to get involved to try to turn things around. But every school board election cycle presents precisely that opportunity for concerned citizens like those offering themselves now as alternatives to incumbents during the recall effort.

The results of any school board election reflect the commitment of residents to vote. For this and for every district, this recall season is a reminder that regularly scheduled elections offer an important chance to make a statement.