BARRERA, TRULL, RICHMOND FOR SCHOOL BOARD

Like many closed-campus school districts during this pandemic, San Diego Unified is at a crossroads.

In-person learning is vital for student and economic growth, but it needs to be balanced against staff and student health concerns. The district needs leaders who will reopen responsibly, attack inequities and embrace technology — and leaders who will also disrupt the status quo that hurts the reputation of and student outcomes at the state’s second-largest school district. Easier said than done, of course.

Enrollment was plummeting even before the coronavirus pandemic forced every campus to close in mid-March. From a peak of 142,000 students in 2000, enrollment dropped to 125,000 five years ago and barely crested 100,000 in September. District leaders can point to graduation statistics and national test score gains in asserting it does well by its students compared with other large urban districts.

But an achievement gap that threatens to leave children of color and children from poor families behind may now grow because of the difficulties associated with distance learning.

These same leaders took six weeks to pivot to online education and resume classes following the pandemic shutdown despite a month of bad news suggesting that was what they should have been prepared to do. Going back further, these leaders have also devalued public input by delaying public comment to the end of board meetings, stiff-armed transparency by withholding public records, including documents dealing with teacher misconduct, and misused or poorly tracked state funding meant specifically to help English-language learners, foster children and those from poor families. Moreover, the district’s claims about high graduation rates are undercut by evidence that the district pushed struggling students to transfer or take online classes with few safeguards to minimize cheating.

For years, San Diego school board elections in five subdistricts have largely been won by candidates with teachers union support. Because of election rules allowing general election voters to have a say in all subdistricts — not just the one they live in

— teachers union money and mail is often determinative. That may eventually change if voters approve Measure C, a November ballot measure forcing district-only elections, but for now the reality in

San Diego Unified is that a special interest has disproportionate inf luence over decisions.

This year, the union is backing three candidates

— incumbents Richard Barrera and Sharon Whitehurst-Payne, and Sabrina Bazzo, who was recruited by outgoing school board member John Lee Evans.

Of the three, The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board recommends only one: Barrera, who has been elected to three terms and never had an opponent until now, is the most qualified candidate.

A former labor official and the parent of two sons who went to San Diego schools, Barrera knows district issues as well as anyone. On education reform, where Barrera disagrees with our board’s longstanding support, he cogently and collegially presented another view. He disagreed without being disagreeable, almost a lost art in politics these days, and facilitated a deeper discussion.

In Subdistrict D, which covers the south-central part of the city, Barrera’s challenger is Miramar

College and Point Loma Nazarene University professor and school counselor Camille Harris, who advanced to the runoff election as a write-in candidate. In interviews and Q&As, the knowledge gap between the two was too broad to downplay. Harris faulted the district’s handling of distance learning, but didn’t seem aware of what the district had done.

In the other two races, though, it’s the outsider who deserves a seat on the board for four years.

In Subdistrict A, which includes Clairemont,

Mira Mesa and University City, Bazzo, a health educator, is campaigning against educator and nonprofit consultant Crystal Trull. Both are parents who have volunteered in their PTAs and on community boards. But Trull’s nonprofit background and data-driven approach (and her dissatisfaction about not finding public data on the district’s website) give her an edge over Bazzo.

In interviews with The San Diego Union-Tribune

Editorial Board and in an email Q&A, Bazzo supported the status quo, giving the district a B grade for its pandemic response, repeating the teachers union talking point that charter schools — not mushrooming pension costs — are the major threat to school finances and seeming to be unaware of how much California is an outlier in failing to pursue basic education reforms. By contrast, in her interviews and Q&A, Trull gave the district a C- for how it handled the shift to online learning, spoke of her disappointment at the lack of major progress in reducing the achievement gap among Latino and

Black students, questioned the effectiveness of quality assurance efforts and wondered about the lack of emphasis on a best practices approach in classroom teaching.

In Subdistrict E, which includes the southeast corner of San Diego Unified, there is a similar dynamic, though not as stark. In one of her interviews and a Q&A, Whitehurst-Payne, the incumbent, lauded the district’s response to the pandemic and generally praised its record on academics. The fact

Whitehurst-Payne was the only board member to vote against renewing the superintendent’s contract in 2019 because of years of problems at Lincoln

High School stands out for its independence. And she also makes sharp points about the need for a constant focus on special education.

But her opponent, UC San Diego business development manager LaWana Richmond, offers a cohesive critique of a district that doesn’t do enough to help students whose English and math achievements aren’t up to grade level. She called the district’s transition to online learning “sluggish and lackluster.” And in her interviews and Q&A, she faulted a system that too often tolerated mediocrity.

“[T]here’s zero tolerance for kids who engage in behavior that’s considered unacceptable,” she said.

“But there seems to be a lot of tolerance for adults who engage in unacceptable behavior.”

It’s not easy to say Whitehurst-Payne should lose her seat. But in this era of distance learning, Richmond has a better grasp of technology and seems better suited to meet the challenge of the moment — and to be an innovator in the years ahead.

We recommend votes for Richard Barrera, Crystal Trull and LaWana Richmond for school board — and for Measure C, to make certain this is the last time San Diego voters have a say in choosing trustees in communities where they don’t live.