Election could diversify board
Voters will select school trustees by district elections for the first time
Morgan Hill voters are facing a watershed election Nov. 8— to select school trustees by district elections for the first time, to help diversify the sevenmember board.
Two incumbents face three challengers to lead the 9,200student district, which serves Morgan Hill and South San Jose. The board could end up with two or three Latinos, compared with just one now, leading a district that is half Latino.
“It will change the direction and leadership of our district,” said Rick Badillo, currently the lone Latino on the board, and who at one time was on the losing end of 6-1 votes.
The Morgan Hill school
“It will change the direction and leadership of our district.” — Rick Badillo, Morgan Hill school district trustee
board abandoned its atlarge voting system last year when threatened with a voting-rights lawsuit from Latino residents.
Demographic politics aside, the district faces serious issues. Test scores are mediocre: Last spring, only 52 percent of district students tested proficient in English and 41 percent in math. Results for low-income Latino students were dismal, with proficiency scores just 27 percent in English and 17 percent in math. The scores are lower than both Santa Clara County as a whole and San Jose Unified, which has a higher percentage of lowincome students, a figure that broadly correlates with achievement on tests.
But the overarching issue in Morgan Hill Unified has been trustee behavior. In the past 12 months, one trustee resigned in fear of her safety, another sent vulgar and disparaging remarks via district email, one was the target of an aborted recall, and another — Badillo — was searched by police during a board meeting over a false report of a gun. Factional politics led to a monthslong deadlock and distracting sideshows. All the candidates said they would work to restore civility to the board.
In Trustee Area 5, incumbent Thomas Arnett, 32, is seeking to retain the seat he won in a special election in June. Arnett, an education researcher, is campaigning to ensure the district meets all students’ educational needs.
He is a former middle school math teacher who now researches innovative teaching for the Redwood City-based Clayton Christiansen Institute, which promotes “disruptive innovation” in education.
He said he would like “to figure out how do we support district schools and give them a chance to innovate and advance student learning.”
Arnett has collected no endorsements but has received $16,000 from Washington, D.C.-based Leadership for Educational Equity, the political arm of Teach For America. He has a kindergartner and first-grader at the Charter School of Morgan Hill, and a preschooler.
Challenging Arnett is Angelica Diaz, 33, a director at a health advocacy group. To narrow the achievement gap, she hopes to engage more parents in education. “Student achievement is primarily affected by parent education level, learning English as a second language and socioeconomic status,” she said.
She also supports more training for teachers.
Diaz is backed by the Morgan Hill teachers union and the South Bay Labor Council, among others. She is the mother of a 3-year-old and a 6-month-old.
In Trustee Area 6, incumbent Badillo, 56, a construction manager, is seeking a second term. He advocates boosting student achievement, teacher staffing and salary, and reducing class sizes.
About board behavior, Badillo said he’s learned from the past four years and regards them as “opportunities to better ourselves and to model transparency and respect.”
He has received $5,000 from California Charter School Advocates and $1,500 from a group supporting Latino Republicans. He has two children, a tenth-grader and an eighth-grader.
Challenging Badillo are Albert Beltrán Jr., 39, an auditor for San Jose Unified, and Mary Patterson, 53, a director at the San Jose-based Health Trust.
Beltrán is concerned about student achievement and campus safety, the latter based on responses posted in the district’s California Healthy Kids Survey.
He is reaching out to teachers to understand their experience in the district. “No matter what board policy is set, it’s the staff and teachers who implement it,” Beltran said.
He is backed by the teachers union, trustee Donna Ruebusch and former trustees Claudia Rossi and Kathleen Sullivan, among others. He has a 3year-old and a 1-year-old.
Patterson said she would advocate in Sacramento for increasing per-pupil funding to schools, and increases in teacher pay and better support. She favors personal outreach to parents and removing barriers that keep them from accessing resources at school.
She is endorsed by Morgan Hill Mayor Steve Tate and the South County Democratic Club, among others. She is the mother of an 11thgrader and seventh-grader.
Not on the ballot is Teresa Murillo, who will win a seat representing Trustee Area 7. She was the lone candidate to file to replace Bob Benevento, who is not running for re-election.