Three local men in running for Lodi Unified Board of Education seat

Courtney Porter of Lodi, Kanwaljeet Gill of Lodi and David Sorgent of Woodbridge will vie for the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education Area 4 position when voters hit the polls for the Nov. 6 general election.

Dr. Daryl Talken, who currently holds the Area 4 seat representing Henderson and Independence schools, Lakewood, Podesta Ranch and Woodbridge elementary schools and Millswood Middle School, is not seeking reelection when his term expires at the end of 2018.

Porter worked for the district for 37 years as a teacher and science department chair along with serving as an aquatics director and head water polo coach for Lodi and Tokay high schools. He is a graduate of University of the Pacific, and served two terms on the Lodi Education Association Executive Board.

Gill currently works as a real estate agent with Bokides-Hesseltine Real Restate Company, and has previously worked for Dameron Hospital, the Northern California Transplant Bank and University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, among others. He is a graduate of California State University, Fresno and serves as a volunteer sports coach with the Lodi Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department.

Sorgent began his teaching career at Stagg High School in Stockton, where he worked as an English teacher, coached football, basketball and the academic decathlon and served as chair of the English department until 1991, during which time he also taught parttime at San Joaquin Delta College. He is a graduate of University of the Pacific, and served two six-year terms with the San Joaquin County Board of Education.

One of the biggest issues facing the district is school safety, with many of Lodi’s schools installing new fences, security cameras and systems to monitor when visitors enter and leave a school site.

Another issue the district must contend with is technology in education, with the some schools currently piloting a program that allows students to take home Chromebooks and some teachers using Google Classroom to teach students who leave the country for extended periods of time.

Porter, Gill and Sorgent touch on these issues and more on Page 4 in a questionnaire from the News-Sentinel.