EUHSD Special election
Vote by March 5th.
Voters who live in Trustee Area 5 of the Escondido Union High School District will have the chance to vote for their representative on the school board on March 5th. This is a surprisingly rare opportunity in Escondido where school board seats often go unchallenged.
Current Trustees and the year they joined the board:
Area 1: Bob Weller (2022)
Area 2: Bill Durney (2014)
Area 3: Christi Knight (2013)
Area 4: Ryan Williams (2023)
Area 5: Vacant
The Area 5 Vacancy
The Area 5 seat on the board of the Escondido Union High School District (EUHSD) was served by Jon Petersen from 2000 until he resigned in May 2023. He resigned without explanation 8 days after Superintendent Anne Staffieri announced that she was leaving for a new position with the San Dieguito Union High School District. As we later learned, Petersen resigned in order to apply for the Superintendent position.
The remaining members of the board decided to hire a new Superintendent before filling the board vacancy. Full disclosure: I penned an op-ed at the time questioning the rush to appoint a new Superintendent with only 4 members on the board, two of whom had been on the board less than 6 months, and without doing a comprehensive search.
In June 2023, the board announced Jon Petersen was selected as the district’s new Superintendent.
Appointment
Prior to the appointment of Petersen to his new role, the board had voted to fill the board vacancy by appointment, rather than holding a special election. Four residents of Area 5 applied for the seat and the board interviewed those applicants in early July at a public board meeting.
Some members of the community, (myself included, although I am not a resident of Area 5) objected to another appointment just months after the board had appointed Ryan Williams to the Area 4 seat, and in light of concerns about how the board had handled the Superintendent search. Several public comments before the appointment claimed that residents of Area 5 should get to choose their new trustee rather than the board.
The board disagreed and on July 6, 2023, David Vincent was appointed to the seat vacated by Petersen.
Petition for Special Election
This appointment was provisional however, because California Ed Code gives voters a recourse in the event of an appointment when they want an election. Voters in the affected trustee area can call for a special election via petition with the signatures of 1.5% of registered voters in that trustee area within 30 days of the appointment. Which is what they did.
At the time of the 2022 Area 5 election, the San Diego County Registrar of Voters (ROV) showed 22,509 registered voters. A successful petition required signatures of 1.5% of voters, which would have been 338 signatures. Although people have suggested they would push for a special election in the past, such as when Christie Knight was appointed to the board in 2013, I could not find evidence of a petition-initiated special election in Escondido school districts in recent history.
While 338 may not seem like many signatures, collecting this many within 30 days is not an easy task. Signatures had to be from registered voters in Area 5, which requires going door to door rather than collecting signatures in a location with heavy foot traffic where it could be difficult to determine if someone lives within the limited geographical boundary of Area 5.
Once the petition was certified, the appointment was vacated and the board reverted to 4 board members in September 2023.
California Ed Code dictates the timeline for filling a board vacancy, including the timing of a special election. It was determined that the March 5, 2024 Presidential Primary election fell within the allotted window for holding a special election, and combining the special election with the primary was most cost effective.
The special election is between Brian LaMere, a local business owner with two high school students and David Vincent, a scientist and father.
Appointments vs Special Elections
Our school boards are composed of 5 trustees, each serving one region of the district. When a school board trustee resigns or moves out of their trustee area during their 4-year term, there are 2 options for filling the vacancy: the remaining trustees can appoint someone, or they can call for a special election. In Escondido, every school board vacancy in recent decades has been filled by appointment.
Holding a special election costs the district money and takes time. These were the reasons the EUHSD board cited when they voted to fill the seat by appointment. At the time, it was estimated that a special election would cost roughly $200,000 for a mail-in only election, or $400,000 for mail-in and in-person voting. Combining this with the presidential primary has lowered the estimated cost to approximately $35,000 and $50,000. However, if the board had voted for a special election back in May 2023, Ed Code would have required an election to be held within 130 days, meaning it could not have been combined with the primary election.
Appointments have another advantage for the board. School board incumbency is a huge advantage for a candidate, nearly assuring the board that their pick will go on to win the seat in the next election, assuming there is a challenger. An analysis of 2016 school board races in the US found that 82% of incumbents won re-election, although only 71% beat a challenger to win re-election, highlighting how often school board seats go unchallenged.
Election results
Prior to 2012, school board members were elected at-large, with 2 or 3 seats up for election every 2 years. If there were more candidates than seats in that election cycle, the top 2 or 3 candidates from the pool of candidates won seats on the board.
In 2012, the district began electing board members by trustee area. The transition to trustee areas was spurred by the California Voting Rights Act of 2001, which says that the “use of an at-large election” isn’t allowed if it has the effect of preventing “a protected class, as defined, to elect candidates of its choice or otherwise influence the outcome of an election.”
In EUHSD, Trustee Areas 1, 2 and 3 have each only had one election in the 3 election cycles they’ve had since the school board switched to trustee areas. For Areas 4 and 5, there have been 2 elections in the 3 election cycles since then.
Lack of participation
Unfortunately, even when voters do get the chance to choose their school board trustee, many opt out. Looking at election results from the Past Election Information page of the county’s ROV website, it’s clear that even among those who cast ballots, many voters return ballots without voting in all races.
Smaller races, such as school and water boards, do not generate the same interest as bigger races. These smaller races are often called “down-ballot” races because they appear lower on the ballot, after the higher profile races. Because they are lower profile and lower budget races, voters may not know enough to make an informed choice or they may not think a race is relevant to them so they ignore it.
Using the ROV data, we can calculate the overall voter turnout versus the school board race turnout to see what percentage of registered voters have helped elect school board trustees.
Area 1
Trustee Area 1 of the high school district is currently served by Bob Weller. Weller ran against Mickey Jackson in 2022, winning 75% of the ballots cast in a race with the lowest turnout of all the school board races in Escondido that year.
2022 results
Registered voters: 10,706
Ballots cast: 3,494 (32.64% turnout)
Votes in school board race: 2,840 (26.52% race turnout)Bob Weller: 2,147 votes (75.60% of ballots cast, 20.05% of registered voters)
Mickey E. Jackson: 693 votes (24.40% of ballots cast)
There was no incumbent in the 2022 race since Tina Pope chose not to run for re-election. Pope had served on the board since being appointed to the board in 2004 when Maurice Cloutier moved out of the district. (Cloutier himself had been appointed to the board in 2001 and went on to win a full term in 2002.) Prior to being appointed to the board in 2004, Pope had applied for 2 vacancies on the board in 1997 and first ran for a seat on the EUHSD board in 1998 when there were 3 seats up for election, but she came in behind Pam Grosso, Dave Parks, Mike Morasco and Kurt Marler.
In the 2006 election, Pope retained her seat on the board, winning alongside Jon Petersen and Pam Grosso in an election that included 6 candidates. Pope never appeared on a ballot again, winning in 2010, 2014 and 2018 by default when no other candidates filed to run.
Area 2
Trustee Area 2 is served by Bill Durney. Bill Durney first ran for a seat on the EUHSD board in 2008 when candidates were voted for at-large. In that race, there were 2 seats open and Durney came in third behind George McClure and Kurt Marler.
Durney ran again in 2014, after the district was broken into trustee areas. He ran against Lou Barrios for Trustee Area 2 and won 55% of the votes cast in the race. That was the last time he appeared on a ballot.. He won by default in 2018 and 2022 when he had no opposition.
2014 results
Registered voters: 17,030
Ballots cast: 8,816 (51.77% turnout)
Votes in school board race: 6,855 (40.19% race turnout)Bill Durney: 3,811 votes (55.59% of ballots cast, 22.37% of registered voters)
Lou Barrios: 3,020 votes (44.06% of ballots cast)
Area 3
Trustee Area 3 is served by Christi Knight. Knight was appointed to the board in 2013 to fill a vacancy when Kurt Marler resigned from the board to lead a mission in Peru. Initially, George McClure and Randy Garcia voted for Virginia Lopez, an attorney who ran for the EUSD board in 2012, to fill the vacancy, while Tina Pope and Jon Petersen voted for Knight. Garcia broke the deadlock by switching his vote. (Garcia himself was appointed to the EUHSD board in 2009 to replace Pam Grosso and was re-elected by default in 2010 when only 3 candidates ran in a race with 3 seats up for election.)
Knight won by default in 2014 and 2016 and appeared on a ballot for the first time in 2020, when she beat challenger Michelle Golding.
2020 results
Registered voters: 19,044
Ballots cast: 15,958 (83.80% turnout)
Votes in school board race: 12,930 (67.89% race turnout)Christi Knight: 8,218 votes (63.56% of ballots cast, 43.15% of registered voters)
Michelle Golding: 4,712 votes (36.44% of ballots cast)
Interestingly, Christi Knight had been a student representative on the high school board in 1994, when Bill Horn was on the EUHSD board and running for County Supervisor. When Knight was appointed to the board in 2013, she was working as a policy advisor for County Supervisor Bill Horn.
Area 4
Trustee Area 4 is served by Ryan Williams who was appointed by the board after Dane White won his campaign to become Mayor of Escondido.
Dane White had first been elected to the board in 2016 when he ran against Cesar Serrano. There were no incumbents in the 2020 race since the prior trustee, George McClure, chose not to run again.
In 2020, White beat two challengers to retain his seat on the board.
2020 results
Registered voters: 19,922
Ballots cast: 16,536 (83.00% turnout)
Votes in school board race: 13,474 (67.63% race turnout)Dane White: 9,487 votes (70.41% of ballots cast, 47.62% of registered voters)
Eric Rodarte: 2,701 votes (20.05%)
Ogechi Okereke: 1,285 votes (9.54% of ballots cast)
Prior to White, Area 4 was served by George McClure, who was elected in 2008 after previously serving on the San Pasqual Union School District’s board. He was the top vote getter in an election for 2 at-large seats with 4 candidates. Kurt Marler won the other seat. In 2012, when EUHSD switched to trustee areas, McClure won the Area 4 seat by default when no challengers entered the race. (Marler won Area 3 by default as well.) In 2016, McClure chose not to run again.
Area 5
Trustee Area 5 was served by Jon Petersen since the district switched to trustee areas 12 years ago, but Petersen served on the board for over two decades in total. Petersen was first elected in 2000 for a short term, then elected in 2002 for a full term. He won by default in 2010 and 2018, with no challengers, but was re-elected in 2022 by large margins, before resigning less than 6 months later.
2022 results
Registered voters: 22,509
Ballots cast: 12,589 (55.93% turnout)
Votes in school board race: 10,358 (46.02% race turnout)Jon Petersen: 7,522 votes (72.62% of ballots cast, 33.41% of registered voters)
Kathryn McCarthy: 2,836 votes (27.38% of ballots cast)
Election Info
Election day is March 5, 2024. Early voting is underway. To find a voting location, visit CAEarlyVoting.sos.ca.gov.
Drop boxes and vote centers close at 8pm on March 5, 2024. If voting by mail, that is the last day for your ballot to be mailed and postmarked.