Are Santa Clara County School districts violating the California Voting Rights Act by holding at-large school board elections? The prima fascia answer is yes. In September, 2008 Madera County Superior Court James Oakley invalidated, in advance, the results of the November 4, 2008 Madera Unified School Board election.
The preponderance of the electorate in the Madera School District is Latino (82 percent). Due to at-large district elections, it was difficult for Latinos to win school board seats, asserted Jesse Lopez, a retired school custodian, one of three plantiffs. The San Francisco-based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights argued the case and received an injunction requiring Madera Unified to hold elections to the Board by 7 trustee areas.
Locally, only San Jose Unified, the Santa Clara County Office of Education, Gavilan and San Jose-Evergreen Community College Districts hold their elections by trustee area. Ninety-one percent of districts in Santa Clara County hold at-large trustee elections.
The California Voting Rights Act of 2002 prohibits at-large voting if there is evidence that the voting process “impairs the ability” of a minority group “to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) defines “minority” as referring to four specific groups who share a race, color, or national origin: American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black, and Hispanic.
At the Santa Clara County Office of Education Feb. 18 board meeting, the seven-member board elected by Trustee area unanimously passed a resolution supporting fair election practices and the remedies to ensure fair election practices. (I was elected in November to represent Trustee Area 4 in San Jose Unified, and Orchard School Districts on the County Board of Education.) The resolution also encourages local school boards to review the process by which trustees are elected to ensure the process fully supports the letter as well as the spirit of the CA Voting Rights Act. I commend my colleagues for their leadership and vote to bring this matter to the attention of all school districts.
Judging from the comments on my previous blog-posts, there appears to be a consensus by those who take the time to write that schools in Santa Clara County can and must be better for all students, including the most gifted. I totally agree. Perhaps fairer elections by trustee area for many of our 33 school districts will move us, perhaps incrementally, toward meeting the goal. Although no remedy can ever outweigh the best and brightest teachers working in all Santa Clara County classrooms with a rigorous and relevant curriculum.
What do you think about geographically-based elections and their role in improving K-14 education?
Santa Clara Unified was the product of the merger of two school districts. Candidates do have to be from a specific area, but are elected district wide. The impact on school closures and resources also may be affected on the basis of seats, but at- large elections versus district seats. One candidate arrogantly avoided a request by a group of residents in a specific apartment complex, who were parents, to discuss her views on some issues, and there were 48 residents in that complex who voted, and she lost by twenty three votes.
Geography and candidate character are always factors.
When the problems are too large to be dealt with, the next proposal is to re-organize or re-structure. As an example of that kind of thinking, the DiSalvo homily for today is perfect.
Can’t fix it? No matter, reshuffle the parts. That’ll do it.
If the question is how to “improve K-12 education”, you wrote the wrong article.
Over 80% of the text is about whether our elections get the right racial result. Only three sentences talk about educational quality at all.