San Luis Obispo County’s largest school district is spoiled for choice this election cycle thanks to the 10 people running for four seats on the school board.
Speckled with controversy for the past two years, the Lucia Mar Unified School District witnessed outcry over mask mandates and distance learning during the thick of the pandemic, efforts to recall three board members who voted to follow those safety guidelines, and confusion over social and emotional learning classes perceived by some to be critical race theory.
Trustee Area 5 incumbent Colleen Martin said it’s been a long time since a school board race has been so packed with candidates. Two current board members aren’t seeking reelection, which she called “unusual.”
“It must have been in the early ’90s since we had this many run,” Martin said. “It probably has to do with the national attention on school boards in the past two years.”
Martin has firsthand experience with some of Lucia Mar’s recent history. She was one of three board members whom the parent-led Central Coast Families for Education Reform unsuccessfully tried to recall last year. Last September, some community members protested in front of her house during a virtual school board meeting in retaliation for her decisions on masking and school shutdowns.
Running this November to retain her seat after 16 years on the board, Martin is up against new blood—Gary Joralemon, a retired county chief deputy probation officer.
“It takes quite a while to understand the Brown Act and learn how to govern under its regulations. I sat in the audience for school board for 10 years prior to running for school board,” Martin said. “I spent a long time learning about schools and what my lane is as a policymaker. That’s one of the differences between us—knowledge and experience.”
Their stances on the presence of law enforcement on school campuses is another difference she highlighted. Martin said she wants more counselors on-site to boost student safety.
In contrast, a call to extend full support to “school resource officers” is high up on Joralemon’s candidate platform document. He told New Times the term means the same as police officers.
“Today’s police officers are much, much different than 15 or 20 years ago,” Joralemon said. “But there has to be clear communication between the officer and the school.”
His decision to run stemmed from comments Lucia Mar Board President Don Stewart made at an August 2021 meeting where he questioned the need for police officers in schools.
“Calling it a resource officer is a really interesting title,” Stewart said at that meeting. “If the resource is safety, I’m not sure who is supposed to feel safe: the children, the adults on campus, or the parents at home?”
Joralemon said Stewart’s comments troubled him. He added that these officers don’t respond to crimes for the most part, but rather develop “trust-based relationships” with the students to ensure safety.
Similar to schools across the nation, Lucia Mar grapples with how to keep campuses safe in the face of school shootings. Joralemon said he hopes officers can help with the safety element and applauded the district for employing more counselors.
But he also criticized the district for its employment practices, specifically in relation to a bus driver with criminal history who sexually assaulted an elementary student during the 2016-17 school year. This May, Lucia Mar paid out a $10 million civil settlement for negligence in the case.
“If I’m on the board, I’m going to work to never hire any staff member that has a nondisclosure agreement from another school. They hired the bus driver from Santa Maria knowing he had a nondisclosure and misdemeanor for peering inside the building,” he said. “Being the Juvenile Hall superintendent really conditioned me to imagine every bad thing that could happen and proactively do everything to avoid it.”
Other candidates are also concerned about protecting students on campus. One of them is Ashley Smeester, a district parent and former behavioral analyst running against Andrea Naemi-Vergne and Daevin Thomas for the Area 3 seat. Like Joralemon, Smeester is running for the first time.
“My son came home one day and told me a list of all these kids in a group. Apparently, he was approached and told that he needed counseling and presented like it was wonderful,” Smeester said. “He wanted to join the group of kids. But what are the protocols for when a student needs counseling?”
She added that while crisis support is necessary, she would work on figuring out what that would look like, with an emphasis on preventative care and more support for teachers.
Teachers, too, are interested in holding board seats. Two such candidates are Nipomo residents Roxana Maldonado—a Spanish teacher in the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District—and retired Nipomo High School math teacher Donna Kandel. Maldonado hopes to beat Scott Bloom and Eileen T. Pham for the Area 6 seat, while Kandel competes with Luke Davis in Area 7.
“I want to make sure that the needs of all students are met by ensuring high quality education for all,” Maldonado said,” from kids that have special needs to strong vocational programs to college prep. Especially here in Nipomo, considering we have a rich history in agriculture, it’s really important to me to support agricultural pathways.”
Kandel stressed that candidates need the “lived experience” of being teachers to fully understand the nuances of serving a school district. Lucia Mar’s gallery of candidates make up people from eclectic backgrounds, with a real estate agent, an engineer, and an agricultural businessman in the mix.
Current Area 7 Trustee Chad Robertson, who isn’t seeking reelection, said he’s all for such diversity and believes school boards should have term limits.
“One of the beautiful things about the public school system is that governing board trustees are elected by the public,” he said. “Continual change is a good thing, it encourages views and brings in varying perspectives and community members at all different levels whether you have kids in the district, are a retired teacher, or a business owner.”
Robertson told New Times that his two daughters graduated from the district and are now college students, taking away his primary motivation to remain on the board. But Robertson has advice for parents voting in the district.
“Don’t vote based on the one or two titles under the candidate names. We’ve seen that happen,” said the 10-year seat holder. “Read their candidate statements. Google them, attend a board meeting, whatever it takes. Parents: Do your homework because the person you’re voting for has a direct impact on the lives of students and the environment they work in, and the staff of Lucia Mar.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal at brajagopal@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Sep 15-25, 2022.
“Kandel stressed that candidates need the “lived experience” of being teachers to fully understand the nuances of serving a school district.” Nope!
Teachers across the country didn’t do students any favors. Kids are 2 grades behind in standardized testing. 20 years of progress lost. Sure, the pandemic was a tough situation, but teachers unions milked the situation longer than the pandemic required.
I will never vote for a former/current teacher for a school board.
What about the other candidates?
Gary J is a good guy. Will make a great board member.
I found it contradictory that Chad Robertson supports term limits and says that continual change is a good thing, yet he is endorsing Colleen Martin who is running for her 5th term on the Lucia Mar School Board. That would be 20 years at the end of this next term! He says continual change is good, yet his candidate is saying that the change would be bad because it could bring 4 new members and that it would be too hard to bring them all up to the current standards. I agree with what Chad says here…do your homework, read about each candidate and even reach out to ask them questions. Your children’s future is at stake.