Key Issues Await Winners of Quiet Ventura School Board Race

VENTURA —  It has been a low-key affair, this race for three seats on the Ventura school board.

With less than a week to go until Election Day, there has been no mudslinging to speak of. Only four of the seven candidates have spent any significant cash on the campaign.

Even the race’s lone candidates’ forum, held earlier this month at Buena High School, produced a civil dialogue on how best to guide the 16,800-student district over the next four years.

But while the campaign has barely stirred the political waters, there is a torrent of issues swirling below the surface and awaiting the winners of the Nov. 4 election.

Over the next four years, school board members will face a range of key decisions that will help shape the district’s future and launch it well into the next century.

They must decide how to spend $81 million from a bond measure approved by voters in June and designed to meet the needs of the next generation of students. There are related issues, such as how to absorb a rising tide of youngsters filling city schools to capacity.

Board members also will likely have to choose a successor to Supt. Joseph Spirito, who is expected to retire when his contract expires in two years.

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The three incumbents--Velma Lomax, Cliff Rodrigues and John Walker--say they deserve an opportunity to see the projects they started come to fruition. The four challengers--teacher Bill Bateman, facilities director Lou Cunningham, teacher Cynthia Hansen and businessman Dustan Howard--say they think they can do a better job.

But they all agree that the election is key to charting the future for a school district that only recently has shaken off the ill effects of a series of controversies, including a contentious decision last year to redraw boundaries to ease crowding at Buena High.

Here is a look at the candidates:

Bill Bateman

Like all the candidates in the race, the 48-year-old Bateman wants to help decide how to spend the district’s bond money. But he said board members must also push beyond construction projects and return the focus to the classroom and student needs.

“My goal for the whole campaign is that kids should come first, and I think that has been forgotten,” said Bateman, a teacher at a county-run school for locked-up teens and the father of a second-grade student at Portola Elementary School.

For the past two years, the nine-year Ventura resident has been co-president of Portola’s Parent Teacher Organization. He has been a teacher since 1986.

Bateman said he wants to improve technology in the classrooms and shore up facilities in need of repair. He said he also wants to see board members visit schools on a more regular basis to learn firsthand about classroom needs.

“I talk a lot about the flavor of the month in education, about how teachers are being bombarded by different curriculums,” he said. “I want to work on stabilizing the curriculum and let teachers use their training and intelligence to choose from the various curriculums out there.”

Lou Cunningham

As facilities director for the Oxnard Union High School District, the 53-year-old Cunningham believes he is in a unique position to help guide the Ventura district over the next four years.

And he said he knows what he is talking about. Before taking the job in Oxnard two years ago, he was operations manager for eight years for the Ventura Unified School District.

“I believe I can bring a lot of knowledge as far as the bond monies are concerned and on making sure they are spent on all the right facilities,” he said.

Cunningham said he wants to establish a stronger curriculum for middle-of-the-road students, and he said he favors holding back students if they are not ready to move on to the next grade.

He said he is most disturbed by what he perceives as a school board that has marched in lock-step in making decisions, often not taking public input into consideration.

“I don’t think the community is being heard at all,” Cunningham said. “I just think the district is establishing these policies with little regard for the public. I say it’s time to give yourself a voice in your child’s education.”

Cynthia Hansen

Hansen was driven by a fundamental urge to run for a school board seat. It will be only a matter of years before her two children, ages 3 and 5 months, begin moving through the public school system.

“I want to be involved in their education,” said Hansen, 38, a teacher for 10 years in school districts stretching from Los Angeles to Ventura. “I think the school board has come a long way in the past five years. But it’s time to stop talking about fiscal issues and start talking about educational issues.”

Hansen wants to see more training opportunities for teachers and the expansion of class-size reduction efforts to the upper grades.

She said her experience as a teacher and a mother makes her the perfect candidate for the board. And she said if she doesn’t win a seat this time, she will try again next election.

“I feel there are several members of the board who don’t know what’s going on in the classroom,” she said. “Most of the candidates will do fine with the bond issue and they will be able to select a good superintendent. But I think it’s time to start concentrating on what’s going on in the classroom.”

Dustan Howard

Howard, 44, was launched headlong into the school board campaign by last year’s decision to redraw the district’s boundaries to ease crowding at Buena High.

As a result of that policy change, one of his daughters was scheduled to transfer from Buena High to Ventura High after her freshman year. She is now a student at a private high school in Ventura.

“If they were doing even a halfway decent job I wouldn’t be running,” said Howard, who runs his own retail glass company. “We tried to reason with them at the time but they didn’t seem to have any common sense.”

Howard said he is more than a one-issue candidate. He believes the board lacks leadership and takes too much direction from Supt. Spirito. And he said board members need to do a better job of listening to parents.

“I don’t think there is any individuality or innovative thinking on the board,” Howard said. “I’m running because I think I can do a better job than they are doing.”

Velma Lomax

After one term in office, Lomax, 46, said she wants to finish some of the projects she and the other board members started.

She said the board is pushing forward with a plan to meet the district’s long-range needs. Trustees also are continuing to forge a better relationship with city officials in an effort to help schools cope with development and growth.

“I think what people want is some continuity,” said Lomax, a self-employed computer systems technician. “People have no major complaints. I know there are some people who are angry about some things, but even they have to admit we are going in the right direction.”

Lomax said she wants the district to continue to push forward with a statewide effort to shrink class sizes in the primary grades. And she said she wants to continue to boost technology in the classroom and craft programs for students who are not college-bound.

By helping pass the bond measure, she said, the board has done a good job charting a successful path for the future.

“Now that we’ve done our housekeeping, it’s time to move forward and put some of these projects in motion,” she said.

Cliff Rodrigues

Rodrigues, 56, also is seeking a second term, and he said the board’s main purpose over the next four years will be to press forward with projects promised to voters who supported the $81-million bond measure.

“What we need to do is move forward and be held accountable to the citizens of Ventura by doing the things we said we were going to do,” said Rodrigues, who is the director of communications technology and bilingual education for the county schools office.

Before taking a job at the county schools office, Rodrigues taught Spanish at Cabrillo Middle School for seven years.

Rodrigues said the district has been moving in a good direction, pointing to higher test scores and the district’s financial stability as measures of accomplishments during his tenure.

In the future, he said, he wants to continue class-size reduction efforts, improve technology and improve the district’s relationship with the city to address issues of growth and development.

“We need to be an active player in those kinds of decisions,” he said. “And I think we are headed that way. As long as we keep at it, we are going to be able to foster a good working relationship.”

John Walker

Two-term incumbent Walker said there are a variety of ways to measure how successful the school board has been in recent years.

Walker said the district has gone from the brink of bankruptcy to the point where it is now recognized as one of the best fiscally managed districts in the state.

And he said it has gone from having a superintendent in the early 1990s who earned a no-confidence vote by district employees to having a superintendent who has developed a solid relationship between teachers and management.

“I think it’s important to have board members in place who remember when we were nearly bankrupt,” Walker said. “I just think the board has worked very hard to get to this point.”

As a general manager for GTE, Walker said he brings the kind of business experience that will be needed to push forward with the kinds of construction projects that will be necessary to accommodate growth.

And he said he believes the board has proved its effectiveness during his eight-year tenure.

“I think most of the community recognizes that we have done a good job,” he said. “We have a good superintendent. We have raised test scores. We have done all the things we promised we were going to do.”