برچسب: Orange

  • Grassroots contributions fueled bid to oust two from Orange County school board

    Grassroots contributions fueled bid to oust two from Orange County school board


    Packed crowd anticipates discussion on Orange Unified Parental Notification Policy on Sept. 8, 2023.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    A grassroots movement propelled by small contributions from teachers and local residents ousted two board members from an Orange County school district who supported controversial causes.

    The victory came despite opposing big money contributions from conservative organizations, Republican political figures and business leaders.

    More than 85% of the $227,000 raised by recall supporters came from over 400 individuals giving an average of about $450 each, with the rest coming mostly from teachers’ unions. More than 1 in 10 of the donations came from people who listed their employer as Orange Unified, including more than 25 teachers and board member Andrea Yamasaki.

    The money raised, said the recall movement’s co-chair, Darshan Smaaladen, “reflects the passion for our schools and our students in the district, and the care that our entire community has that we have great public schools.”

    By contrast, just under a third of the nearly $260,000 raised by opponents of the recall came from 115 individual donors, with the majority coming from conservative groups — led by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which describes itself as “the oldest and largest conservative major donor organization in the state of California.” 

    Contributions also came from the re-election campaigns of Assemblymember Bill Essayli and Orange County Board of Education member Jorge Valdez, both Republicans, and the law firm of Shawn Steel, co-founder of the successful campaign to recall Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003. 

    The donations are listed in disclosure forms filed Feb. 17, with some additional large donations reported before the election in early March. Board members Madison Miner and Rick Ledesma — who were repeatedly accused of promoting their own political ideologies at the expense of student learning and well-being — were removed when the recall passed by 3,500 votes.

    Following the money

    The No OUSD Recall group received a number of hefty donations — and was led by the Lincoln Club of Orange County, which gave a series of donations totaling $80,500, just under the $83,261 given by all individuals to that same campaign. 

    The Lincoln Club’s donations, which came from their State PAC and Issues PAC, accounted for 46% of the total campaign’s organizational contributions and 31% of donations across the board. 

    The Lincoln Club of Orange County is funded by various business groups, and more than half of its income comes from the group Angelenos for Outstanding State Leadership, which gets all its money from one organization singly funded by the McDonald’s Corp. 

    The McDonald’s Corp. did not respond to EdSource’s multiple requests for comment.  

    On top of the contributions from the Lincoln Club, three organizations connected to Mark Bucher — the CEO of the California Policy Center, a think tank that stands for the belief that “until we rein in government union power, there’s little hope for reform in our state” — collectively gave $66,000. 

    Bucher said in an interview with EdSource that he “was always an advocate” for the donations to the campaign. 

    He also said he previously served on the board of the Lincoln Club and that he left about a year ago. He claimed that unions have “financed the campaigns of just about every elected official,” and that the donations were an attempt to “offset, very frankly, corrupt practices.”

    Bucher, who supported the election of Ledesma and Miner, also said that “the trustees that got recalled were doing a spectacular job of representing parents and citizens and kids, and they were attacked constantly for it, and school board meetings have been a circus. It’s just ridiculous.”

    He added that his future in political advocacy and spending, including in the upcoming November election, depends on the candidates and issues at stake. 

    The law firm of Shawn Steel — the co-founder of the recall campaign, who has also served as the Republican Party of California’s national committeeman and wrote for the California Policy Center — also supported the No on Recall movement. Assemblyman Essayli, R-Riverside, who authored a failed statewide Assembly bill that would have required schools across California to notify parents if their child may be transgender, also contributed.

    His bill AB 1314 laid the foundation for a similar policy that has been adopted by more than a half-dozen school districts throughout the state.

    The Lincoln Club of Orange County’s executive director, Seth Morrison, along with Bucher criticized the teachers’ unions for backing the recall effort, and Morrison also claimed they were “tied in with a larger Democratic Party.” 

    He said that “they were looking for an excuse to do something like this. This is a bigger thing for them. …That’s something we saw, and we’re happy to engage to defend the people who just got elected.” 

    On the other hand, the recall campaign collected more money for their campaign from a number of individual contributions.

    Most donors to the recall effort gave small amounts, and Smaaladen said that the recall movement’s strategy of asking community members to “donate in honor of” a teacher, along with their matching events, made a large impact on the campaign. 

    Among a wealth of smaller contributions is also a series of sizable donations from the Orange Unified Education Association, which gave $52,086.50 — or 74% of the campaign’s organizational money and 19.5% of total contributions. 

    Educators and the unions representing them played an important role in both organizational and individual contributions. Teachers — including both the union and individual educators — gave the recall campaign $61,048.82, or 22.9%, of its money.

    Teachers unions from neighboring districts, alongside organizations and political action committees representing educators’ interests, also pitched in, giving just over $7,000 collectively. 

    Local organizations with political affiliations — including the Democratic Women of South Orange County and Democrats of North Orange County — carried far less weight, while the Josh Newman for Senate campaign donated $5,000. 

    Women for American Values and Ethics, which identifies itself as a “grassroots group dedicated to advancing progressive values and ethics,” gave $1,041 to the campaign, and the Community Action Fund of Planned Parenthood donated $2,500. 

    What drove each side of the recall 

    After OUSD’s board fired then-Superintendent Gunn Marie Hansen without explanation in January 2023, a group of OUSD parents and teachers banded together to start the grassroots recall movement. 

    The OUSD recall website explains that the group was motivated by decisions made by the school board, including a series of alleged violations to the Brown Act, banning the pride flag, passing a policy that requires school administrators to notify parents if their children show signs of being transgender and a temporary suspension of the district’s digital library because it included the book “The Music of What Happens,” a coming-of-age story about two boys who are in love. 

    “We knew that this board was not going to listen to parents and the district, and they weren’t going to do what was best for our students,” Smaaladen said. “We became this kind of ragtag group that has evolved into a grassroots movement of hundreds of involved parents.” 

    Smaaladen said the group opted to pursue the recall during the March primary in an effort to save the district money. The recall effort started gathering signatures in June 2023, and by October had collected enough to place the recall question on the ballot. 

    Recall leaders also decided to focus their effort on Ledesma and Miner — and dropped the attempt against board member Angie Rumsey and board President John Ortega because they are up for re-election this coming November. 

    However, the No OUSD Recall group has repeatedly stated in social media posts dating back to April 2023 that the recall effort is an attempt to attack parents’ rights. 

    “When we won our elections to the OUSD Board less than two years ago, we did so on the promise of defending parents’ rights, fighting for curriculum transparency, working to improve test scores, prioritizing student safety and ensuring education is not replaced with indoctrination,” Miner said in a statement to EdSource. 

    “We proudly followed through on those promises, and the radical recall attempt is the resulting backlash.” 

    Now, the five remaining school board members will have to decide whether to appoint two new members or to hold a special election; plus, three of the remaining board members’ terms expire this year. 

    “It has been a tumultuous year with the numerous changes within Orange Unified. The voters have spoken, and I look forward to our board being able to move past the politics and collaboratively focus on how to best support our districts’ students,” said Orange Unified School board member Ana Page in a statement to EdSource. 

    “I deeply appreciate the diverse perspectives and expertise that my fellow trustees will bring to future civil discussions that directly impact OUSD students and look forward to continuing the valuable work of supporting public education.”

    Beyond Orange Unified

    Before the voting started, both sides believed that the recall election against Ledesma and Miner would be consequential — not just for their district but for the state, and possibly, the nation as a whole. 

    “We’re going to see more of this, which is all the more reason why … we’re getting involved to stop it, to tell them that turning around and recalling someone not even a year after they’ve been in office is just a waste of taxpayer dollars. It’s just wrong,” the Lincoln Club’s Morrison said.

    Efforts to recall members of a school board aren’t uncommon in California and across the nation — though relatively few actually make it to the ballot, said Joshua Spivak, a senior research fellow at the UC Berkeley School of Law’s California Constitution Center and author of “Recall Elections: From Alexander Hamilton to Gavin Newsom.” 

    Spivak said the number of school board recall efforts across the country grew especially during the Covid-19 pandemic — which he described as “arguably the biggest impact that a government ever had on our lives in our lifetime unless you were in WWII. But hardly any of them resulted in the removal of an elected official, he said.

    Since then, the number of recalls has dwindled, Spivak said. 

    In 2023, he said there were 102 recall attempts across the country — 29 of which were in California. Michigan, which is known to be the state where recalls are most popular, had 35 attempts that same year. 

    “Orange Unified will be setting a precedent,” Smaaladen said before the election. “But I hope the precedent we set is to send a clear message to those that are elected to school boards: to listen to their community and to make moderate decisions that are in line with what is best for the students and not necessarily their own personal agendas.” 

    She added that the recall election has forced the community to pay more attention to local politics, which she said has already and will continue to “change the trajectory of the district.” 

    “I’ve had numerous voters say, ‘Oh, I didn’t vote in November 2022,’ or even ‘I voted for Madison and Rick, but, you know, I wasn’t really paying attention because everything was fine,’” Smaaladen said. 

    “And when things are fine, it’s good, you can let it be. But now (voters are) paying attention.”





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  • Stefan Bean’s remarkable journey: Q&A with Orange County’s new superintendent

    Stefan Bean’s remarkable journey: Q&A with Orange County’s new superintendent


    Stefan Bean is sworn in as Orange County’s 12th superintendent of schools on July 3, 2024.

    Credit: Orange County Department of Education

    Families of English learners and students with disabilities in Orange County can find inspiration and an ally in Stefan Bean. Supporters of school choice can find an advocate. In June, the five-member Orange County school board unanimously decided Bean has the perspective and skills they were looking for in a superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.

    Two years from now, voters will decide if the board made the right choice.

    Bean, 53, was sworn in last month as superintendent to fill out the remaining two years of the term of former Supterintendent Al Mijares, who resigned because of a lengthy battle with cancer. First elected in 2012, Mijares, a past member of the EdSource board of directors, had battled the politically conservative board majority in court and at board meetings. So the board turned to Bean, who lost to Mijares by nearly 10 percentage points in 2022 but promised to consult with them over policies and control of the office’s $380 million budget.

    Stefan Bean is the superintendent of the Orange County Department of Education.
    Credit: Orange County Department of Education.

    Bean has lived a remarkable life and has an unusual resume for a county superintendent. Paralyzed from the waist down from polio as an infant, he was abandoned on the streets of Saigon before being taken in by an orphanage and then airlifted in 1975 to the United States as part of the Operation Babylift rescue during the chaotic end of the Vietnam War.

    Judy and Gregory Bean took him and dozens of other foster children into their San Diego home and later adopted him. A scholarship recipient to USC, Bean became a public elementary school teacher in Fresno and Long Beach, and has spent the last 25 years as a charter school administrator — as the principal, then associate superintendent and superintendent for 11 Aspire Public Schools in Los Angeles.

    Most recently, he served as the executive director of the Irvine International Academy, a Mandarin language immersion charter school.

    Since his wife died of breast cancer in 2020, Bean has raised their four children, ranging from a daughter who has just graduated from USC, to the youngest daughter, who is in middle school.

    EdSource interviewed Bean about his childhood, his perspective on education, and his priorities as county superintendent for two years before an election contest in 2026. His remarks have been edited for length and clarity.

    Superintendent, talk about your upbringing and experiences in school.

    Judy Bean really taught her family to have compassion for the most vulnerable in our community. She and Dad decided they would care for children who were abused, had issues or disabilities. They had two of their own children and adopted 10, several with disabilities. I had three Black sisters, two Latino brothers, and a Latino brother who passed away at 2 because he had suffered so much brain trauma.

    I went to public school in San Diego, where I struggled in elementary school because English was my second language and because IDEA (the landmark federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) just came out in the ‘70s, and schools were still trying to figure out how to educate students with disabilities. I often found myself in small groups out of the classroom. It didn’t really help with my education to isolate me, and it shaped my drive to be inclusive in education.

    I didn’t do very well until I met Donald Geisinger, my sixth-grade teacher. I remain friends with him 43 years later. He saw right through the challenges that I had and said, “Stefan, you’re just going to give oral presentations and skits on the things that you’ve learned — no need to write.” That whole year I just worked on my verbal skills. I spoke Vietnamese quite a bit, and by the end of that year, I began to speak pretty fluent English. From sixth grade on, I began to get straight A’s and (earned) a scholarship to USC.

    His heart for students and his seeing my strengths was a springboard to do other things, such as speaking in front of 15,000 people in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the disabled.

    How did your experiences shape your perspective on education? 

    Mr. Geisinger and my father saw people and students through an asset lens. Whether they’re on the autism spectrum or have a physical disability or emotional disability — sure, these are deficits, but we as educators must see the assets in those students, and then lift them up and empower students.

    Leading from the heart

    When you say lead from the heart again, how does that translate into action?

    You lead with empathy. My mantra has been you involve those who are most affected by decisions. It’s not top-down directed. Obviously there are certain legal and personnel decisions that would have to be made without input. But a lot of decisions that impact educational programming can involve the community and can involve the stakeholders that are impacted by it.

    I assume that would be a particular strength in dealing with parents of English learners and parents of students with disabilities.

    Absolutely. I now represent many students who have traditionally been left behind. I certainly identify with those students, and I hope that they will look to me as a voice for them.

    Your predecessor had a contentious relationship with the board.  Since the board chose you, I assume you are more philosophically in tune with them.  

    I can’t speak on behalf of Dr. Mijares, but I certainly have the utmost respect for his leadership. If I can lead in a collaborative, transparent manner, then I think we can resolve any dispute between the board and the County Department of Education. In my appointment process, I shared my commitment to building collaboration, transparency, and trust and continuing to support our 28 school districts.

    How will you do this?

    It is common for school districts to have committees in which two (out of five members), sometimes three if you have a larger board, can serve on these committees to really give input (without violating the Brown Act governing open meetings) and receive feedback.  

    You have been quoted as saying you want to “further expand” the board’s work supporting charters and open up more parental options for education, including charter schools and home schools.  Is this a matter of using the bully pulpit?  What can and will you do?

    As people have been learning about me and meeting me and hearing my vision, they would say that I’m far from using this as a bullying pulpit. It’s the complete opposite, actually. My vision is to lead from the heart in which we serve our principals and serve our schools in this work. But to answer your question, this board certainly believes in alternative education models and therefore charter schools. I believe that most of the superintendents that I’ve met believe that our students have different needs. Therefore, in the name of equity, we must provide what our students need. 

    How does that work with homeschooling, though?

    Many home schools now are charters, and charters are heavily regulated in all aspects. We support charter schools that do the independent study model, which is a lot like home school. We don’t support the private home school models. We do have within the department an independent study model in which students learn from home.

    County offices can approve countywide charters but don’t charter proposals go through their individual districts for approval?

    A charter school’s initial application goes to a local school district, and then if it’s denied there, they can bring it to their county as a county charter school. That’s one pathway. And then usually, those county charter schools can then later submit to be a countywide charter school. We have over 30 charter schools.

    But don’t county boards have restrictions on when they can overturn a local decision?

    If a district has denied a charter, they of course have to explain the reasons why. Then that charter can take it to the county board of education and say, “OK, this district denied us for A, B and C. And here’s how we have responded to A, B, and C. So now we would like you to authorize the charter.” There are few restrictions. Our county can certainly do that. 

    The importance of social-emotional learning

    What is your view of social-emotional learning (SEL)?

    Social-emotional learning is very important in schools when we do it as a team in a collaborative way. That includes our parents. Social emotional learning is simply helping our students navigate through the challenges of their lives. Helping them to become resilient. That’s exactly what I grew up with. I’ve had many adversities that our students experience. To overcome those, adults, including my parents, teachers, counselors, speech pathologists, special education providers, all of these people helped me to overcome my challenges to become resilient and competent. And that’s what SEL should be doing.

    I have cautioned educators (not) to use it as a political tool to push forward something that may not be protecting our students. For instance, I believe 100% that parental involvement is absolutely critical in our education system. And so, if SEL is being used to exclude some of our parents, then we’ve missed the mark. That’s where I’m critical.

    What are your priorities for the next two years?

    The first priority is just to continue understanding the assets and the values of the department of education throughout Orange County.

    My second vision is to remain at the forefront of 21st century competencies and skills and lead the way for our students through our OC Pathways partnerships with districts and ACCESS (Alternative, Communit​y, and Correctional Education Schools and Services) what we call our 29th school district. We serve thousands of students across our county in an alternative education setting and model.

    Assuming you do want to run in two years, what will you point to and say, “I’ve made this change, and it’s visible and it affects the way students succeed or not.”

    It will be in the areas of where we will lead the nation, in college and career readiness. I wholeheartedly believe in that vision. One of my pushes will be to use some of our reserves to provide grants to our school districts in order to create and promote innovative programming. Three groups I spoke with recently were focused on artificial intelligence, different technical skills and student leadership. Our districts will come up with great ideas, and we will honor them with resources to implement them.





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