Two candidates vie for LUSD board Area 5

Incumbent Ron Heberle of Lodi will be challenged by Ramon Yepez for the Lodi Unified School District Board of Education Area 5 seat when voters hit the polls for the Nov. 6 general election.

Heberle has held the Area 5 seat since 2010, representing Heritage Elementary, Lawrence Elementary, Clyde W. Needham Elementary, Erma B. Reese Elementary, Vinewood Elementary and George Washington Elementary schools, Joe Serna, Jr. Charter School, Liberty and Lodi high schools and Lincoln Technical Academy.

He is a graduate of California State University, Sacramento, served with the Lodi Fire Department for 30 years before retiring and has served on multiple academic and aquatic boosters, volunteered as an Elementary Science Olympiad coach and has been a member of various parent-teacher associations.

Yepez is currently a graduate student at University of the Pacific, where he is pursuing a master’s degree in data science. He has worked as a statistician trainee with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Sacramento from May 2016 to April 2018, a research associate with the Greater Sacramento Area Economic Council from October 2015 to April 2016 and from June to August 2015 he was a international intern for the U.S. Department of State in Madrid, Spain.

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. Both Heberle and Yepez agree that school safety should be one of the district’s top priorities.

Another issue the district must contend with is technology in education, with 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. Heberle feels that although technology can be a valuable tool in the classroom, it cannot replace a teacher while Yepez stressed the importance of adding coding to the curriculum.

Heberle and Yepez will touch on these issues and more in a questionnaire sent from the News-Sentinel, which appears on Page 16.