Meet the candidates for LUSD Board Area 1

Incumbent Bonnie Cassel of Lodi will be challenged by Susan MacFarlane of Lodi for the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education Area 1 seat when voters hit the polls for the Nov. 6 general election.

Cassel began her current term as Area 1 trustee in 2014, representing Ansel Adams Elementary, Davis Elementary, Live Oak Elementary, Lockeford Elementary and Victory Elementary schools, Houston Middle and Morada Middle Schools and Turner Academy at Tokay Colony, and has served on the board of education since 2006. She is a graduate of University of California, Davis and is an active member of the San Joaquin County Historical Society and Museum, where she teaches third-grade students about life in 1889 at the Pioneer School.

MacFarlane is currently self-employed, and has worked as an insurance adjuster in the past as well as a Science Olympiad coach for the school district. She is a graduate of California State University, Chico and has served as president of the parent-teacher-student associations at Morada Middle, Elkhorn Elementary and Davis Elementary schools as well as president of multiple sports boosters for Tokay High School.

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.

Cassel and MacFarlane will touch on these issues and more in a questionnaire sent from the News-Sentinel on Page 13.