10 Will Vie for 4 Seats on Orange School Board

Ten people filed papers Friday to run for four positions on the Orange Unified School District Board of Education in November, including two board members unseated in a bitter recall election in June.

The recall changed the balance of power on the seven-member board, unseating three members of the conservative majority that had been governing the 30,000-student district. But so far, the election of three moderates has done little to quell the infighting that has been a hallmark of Orange Unified for more than a decade.

Now, with recalled board members Linda Davis and Martin Jacobson challenging newly elected trustees Melissa Smith and Kathy Moffat in the Nov. 6 election, observers predicted continued dissension through the fall. Board members Terri Sargeant and Kathy Ward, the two remaining conservatives, each face two challengers.

“Life will be somewhat difficult until November,” said board President Robert Viviano, who is not up for election. “Unfortunately, people are using the board meetings to essentially publicize their views. . . . That is time and effort that could be better spent on children.”

Already, the new board has been the target of a formal claim that it violated the state law by meeting before the new members had been properly given the oath of office. The new majority and its new lawyer contend the meeting was legal.

“This won’t settle down until after the next election,” said Louise Adler, who chairs the Department of Educational Leadership at Cal State Fullerton.

For the last decade, Orange Unified has been an ideological battleground over hot-button educational issues from gay student clubs to bilingual education.

But the most contentious have been teacher pay and benefits. Alarmed by an exodus of teachers and salaries that are among the lowest in the county, a group of parents and teachers union officials began a recall campaign in the summer of 2000.

Defeated board members contend that they had no choice but to keep salaries low to pay for expensive benefits awarded to teachers by previous school boards in the 1970s. They portrayed the recall as an attempt by the state teachers union to take over the district.

In June, by the narrowest of margins, voters pushed Jacobson, Davis and trustee Maureen Aschoff from office and replaced them with Moffat, Smith and John Ortega, all of whom are sympathetic to the teachers’ union.

But on Friday, Jacobson and Davis both pledged to get their seats back.

“I’m not giving up on the children in this community,” said Davis. “The teachers union leadership does not represent the children or the wants and needs of the parents.”

Moffat, her opponent, disagreed. “We are very in tune with the needs of the kids,” she said. “The kids need an adequately prepared teacher in every classroom. They need teachers who feel their needs are honored and respected.”

Trustees Kathy Ward and Terry Sargeant could not be reached for comment. Running against Sargeant are Edward Preigle and Kimberly Nichols. Running against Ward are Al Irish and Rick Ledesma.

Ledesma served on the Orange board from 1993 to 1997, when he was unseated by Ward. He said he is running again because he wants schools to be in better shape by the time his 1-year-old daughter is old enough to enroll.

“The community is very dissatisfied with the previous board,” he said. “Education is not a priority in the previous board’s mind.”