Candidate still battling, with hope

Andrew Edwards

School board candidate Jim Peters’ interest in public education

started with a legal fight.

Peters is running for a seat on the Huntington Union High School

District’s board. In 1994, he and the Ocean View School District

become locked in a highly publicized legal battle to determine

whether then 6-year-old son, Jimmy,could sit in a mainstream

classroom.

News reports from 1994 stated the school district tried to block

Jimmy, who is mentally disabled, from attending regular kindergarten

classes at Circle View Elementary School, despite Peter’s objections.

The district contended Jimmy was too disruptive to sit in a

mainstream class, though he returned to Circle View in 1996 as a

second-grader.

Jimmy ended up in a private school when he started fourth grade,

Peters said.

Peter’s legal battle changed his life, he said. The former

businessman gradually adopted educational consulting as his life’s

work, and began to meet with parents who had disputes with school

officials -- particularly problems relating to special education.

“I just kind of drifted into this,” he said.

Peters listed his consulting activities as working with Orange

County school districts, testifying before Congress and working with

the Florida state government to organize a conference for parents of

disabled children. His campaign flier boasts a snapshot of him

standing next to the state’s governor, Jeb Bush.

Peters is raising three children with Sally Dashiell, a former

board member with the high school district. Though the two have been

romantically involved for 12 years, they have never officially tied

the knot.

“They say, ‘If it’s not broke don’t fix it,’ but we are really

looking at [marriage] for all of the funny reasons,” Peters said.

None of Dashiell’s and Peter’s children are attending local high

schools. They are pursuing individualized study programs.

“Kids grow at their own pace,” Peters said.

The son of a Baptist minster, Peters grew up in Connecticut and

his father was active in the civil rights movement, Peters said. He

remembered people from a wide range of religious backgrounds planning

activities in his childhood home.

“They used to work on freedom rides around the house,” he said.

“Talk about a great melting pot.”

Peters has run for a local school board seat every year since the

legal battles began, so far, unsuccessfully. He was a candidate for

the Ocean View board in 1994, 1996, 1998 and 2000. He ran for the

high school district’s board in 2002.

He said he started small with a “grass-roots” approach, but this

will be the year he goes all out to win.

“Not only is it grass roots, but it’s also professional, bringing

in a campaign manager, spending six times more money.” Peters said.

He anticipates spending about $48,000 on the race.