Brea-Olinda School Board Gives OK to New Code of Ethics for Trustees

Brea-Olinda Unified School Board members this week gave preliminary approval for a code of ethics for school board trustees.

The code “doesn’t have anything to do with the board not having any ethics,” Supt. Edgar Z. Seal said. “It has to do with what we’ve been reading in the papers . . . about legislators throughout the county being removed from office or forced to resign for using their position for personal gain.”

The code was drafted so that present and future board members could have something that tells them, “up front, that their job and responsibility is to focus on the total district and not to use their position for personal gain or, maybe, to help out a friend,” he said.

Each board member must take actions that should encourage employees to increase competence and professional growth, the code states. It further obliges trustees to make decisions with honest convictions, “unswayed by partisan bias of any kind” and to consider the position as a public trust not to be used for private advantage.

“If board members live by this code of ethics, they really don’t need to worry about ever getting sued,” Seal said. “And they’ll be great board members.”