SSUSD to choose new board member, discuss school site
The governing board for the Sulphur Springs Union School District is slated to interview the applicants for a vacancy on the board Wednesday, as well as approve an appraiser for the district’s newest school site.
District officials plan to interview both candidates for Trustee Area No. 3, which was the seat held by Brenda Martinez Gerson, and then “deliberate on applicants that were interviewed” once the interviews are complete, according to the agenda. The agenda also provides an option for the board to select a candidate to fill the seat, if the board so moves.
The approximately 5,300-student district on the east side of the Santa Clarita Valley is also expected to select an appraiser to evaluate the site of a school for the Skyline Ranch project, which is a Pardee Homes development expected to add about 1,200 houses not far from Golden Valley Road.
Trustee Area No. 3 candidates
Martinez Gerson’s territory included an area almost in the middle of SSUSD’s geographic boundaries, which reaches to approximately Terri Drive and Soledad Canyon Road on the western edge and Jakes Way on its eastern border.
Elected to serve in 2018, Martinez Gerson recently announced her resignation due to an apparent move out of district boundaries.
Two candidates applied to fill her seat: Oscar De Leon Jr. and Daniel Maldonado.
Maldonado is a library aide who graduated from Ganesha High in Pomona in 2013. He has lived in the Santa Clarita Valley for seven years, according to his application.
He is applying “to give back to the community and to assist in better preparing local youth for high school, university/college and desired future careers,” according to his application for the seat, which was included in the SSUSD board meeting agenda.
De Leon has lived in Canyon Country for 17 years, according to his application, which listed his job as “territory manager.”
“I believe in helping. I believe that we can make a difference.”
Skyline Ranch
After the interviews, the board also is expected to select a firm “to provide appraisal for a 10-acre potential future public school site,” according to the board’s agenda.
The district is slated to add a school within the approved plans for the Skyline Ranch project, a master-planned Pardee Homes development off Golden Valley Road.
Plans for the development include about 1,200 homes, an 11-acre park, an elementary school, 25 open-space lots, 13 debris basins and four water tanks.