Trustee Races Could Tilt Power Balance at Orange Unified

ORANGE —  A campaign with a combustible mix of political ideology and education policy took shape Friday as 11 potential candidates filed for four seats up for grabs this fall on Orange County’s most controversial school board.

Three of four incumbents in the Orange Unified School District filed to defend their seats in the Nov. 4 election, including conservative board President Martin Jacobson.

But Jacobson’s frequent political ally Max Reissmueller did not file before the Friday afternoon deadline. If Jacobson loses, or a centrist or liberal candidate fills Reissmueller’s seat, the four-member conservative majority on the seven-member board would lose the power it has held since 1993.

Reissmueller could not be reached Friday for comment. The filing period for his Area 5 seat, the eastern edge of the 29,000-student district, was extended to 5 p.m. Wednesday because he bowed out. But the fields for the other three seats are now set.

The Orange school board has drawn attention for its recent decision to scrap bilingual education in favor of an English-only program. Some irate Latino parents and rights groups have sued the district in an attempt to reverse that action. But the bilingual decision, unanimously approved by the board, is not necessarily the most controversial issue in the district.

Candidates and observers say the most contentious issues are likely to be proposals to privatize school services and eliminate counseling services provided by nonprofit agencies, and a continuing controversy over the rejection of grants for social services. Relations with the teachers union may also be a hot issue.

Orange Unified has been in the vanguard of a recent drive by conservative activists to gain influence on the county’s school boards. Trustees Jacobson, Reissmueller, Bill Lewis and Maureen Aschoff, a generally conservative bloc on the board, are frequently accused of dividing the community.

“When you start tackling difficult and controversial issues like back-to-basics, phonics and bilingual education, these are all pet projects of the liberal agenda,” said Ken Williams, a conservative member of the Orange County Board of Education who lives in the district. “The educational establishment hates this.”

Jacobson said he relishes the chance to take on the teachers union--which has been critical of him--and other nonconservatives.

“I think it’s going to be an important race because the battle between the conservative philosophy versus the union philosophy has reached a pretty good climax.”

Jacobson’s only challenger in Area 1, which includes Anaheim Hills and parts of Orange, is Gisela Meier, co-founder of Community Network for Education, a group of several hundred parents, teachers and community members critical of board attempts to cut social services.

“I think this board needs a different direction, one focused on children and not politics and ideology,” Meier said.

The only contenders for Reissmueller’s seat so far are William G. Vasquez, a Santa Ana resident who is the assistant city manager for Chino, and Janice J. Doezie, an Orange attorney.

Trustee Rick Ledesma, who represents Area 7 in eastern Orange and is viewed as a moderate, faces four challengers: Robert L. Douglas, an Orange maintenance worker; J. Carolan Smyth III, a self-described “merchandising planner and educator”; Kathy Ward, an Orange banking consultant; and Bea Gonzalez of Orange, an employment technician for the city of Santa Ana.

In Area 4, Trustee James Fearns, a critic of the board majority, faces one challenger: Linda Davis, a Villa Park community volunteer.