Beating out a 12-year incumbent, Lucia Mar Unified School District board’s newest member, Mike Fuller, said he brings something that’s lacking to the dais: a different point of view.
Fuller’s win over Vicki Meagher, a teacher in the district for 38 years who prided herself on being pro-teacher and pro-student, was closer than Fuller thought it would be. He told New Times that he was fully expecting the win but was shocked that it was only by 74 votes.
“I know some people thought, ‘Oh, you beat an incumbent,’ but yeah that’s what I assumed was going to happen,” he said. “I didn’t think it was a long shot, and this community was not very happy with [this board], so I had that also on my side. Just a couple of years ago, the community was up in arms and a major group of people were trying to recall a large group of them.”
In 2021, community members sought to recall three board members for extending online learning from home during the COVID-19 pandemic: Don Stewart, Colleen Martin, and Dee Santos.
Although the recall effort was unsuccessful, Fuller said it as a gateway for him to run for the school board.
After coming to the Central Coast in 1969 when his father started working at Diablo Canyon Power Plant, Fuller said he never wanted to leave. He attended Cal Poly, became a financial planner, and in the late 1990s was an Arroyo Grande City Council member.
He took time off from local politics while his children were young, and he said he’s been itching to be involved in the community again. Since he now lives outside city limits and can’t run for the council, he decided to try and fix the problems that he said have faced Lucia Mar since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“That raised a lot of concerns with families of our particular district. Our kids were kept out longer than even the state required, so there was a lot of uproar in our community. It got quite deep,” he said. “I was hearing the frustrations and stuff; I’ve seen the consequences of it. They’re severe.”
So Fuller’s campaign focused on improving the district financially and increasing parents’ rights within the district.
Something that needs to be addressed fast is the loss of student enrollment over the past 10 years, Fuller said.
“The Lucia Mar School District has lost 1,089 students. That’s a serious issue, a serious number of students, and a major role in less revenues,” he said.
Trying to maintain the same number of schools in the district with fewer staff and a smaller budget is a major problem that Fuller said board members need to give attention to.
Fuller said he has contacted the families of students who left the district and has been told that they shifted to homeschooling, private schools, or charter schools.
Now, the district needs to work on bringing these families back to the district, he said, adding that it can be done through paternal rights.
“Let kids in school be educated, and let parents be involved,” he said. “Don’t block them out of school board meetings just because you don’t want to hear from them during a time like COVID because you don’t like what they’re saying. If you keep them out of meetings, you diminish their voice.”
By reaching out to parents in the school district, Fuller said he’s heard that they want the school to be strictly educational and leave social issues to be discussed at home.
“They don’t want all that extra nonsense,” he said. “It creates stress and angst for kids in school. Just keep school school and let all the other stuff happen outside of schools. My opinion is to let the families educate kids on all social issues and all that and let the family values prevail in that child. Don’t have the school getting involved in those kinds of things because obviously they’re not going to know what the family wants.”
Fuller campaigned on these ideas with two others, Paul Bischoff and Paul Hively. But Fuller said the three men didn’t know each other before campaigning together and came together through their like-mindedness.
Bischoff, who ran against Don Stewart for the Trustee Area 1 seat, was thinking about running but wasn’t sure if he wanted to commit, according to Fuller. Fuller said he called him up and asked if he wanted to do it together.
The two became a duo running under the slogan “Rebuild the Board,” and they decided they should team up with the Trustee Area 2 candidate who was running against Dee Santos.
“I thought who could run for Grover Beach, and through much checking around and asking around, I met Paul Hively,” he said. “I didn’t know him before, but he ended up being a small-business man, working for himself, a level-headed, practical guy who has kids in the district and cares a lot.”
The other two candidates lost their races.
Since Fuller’s victory over Meagher, he said he’s experienced a “lukewarm” welcome from other board members.
“I’d say it’s mixed. I wouldn’t say it’s warm, and I didn’t necessarily expect it to be with only two board meetings,” he said. “There’s some that are more talkative, some I don’t know fully, some of them it’s just personality and they’re quieter.”
While one differing opinion might not make too much of an impact on the board, Fuller hopes that his win encourages others with independent ideas to run for local politics. Δ
Reach Staff Writer Samantha Herrera at sherrera@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Feb 6-16, 2025.