3 seek 2 available seats on the Laguna school district board
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Three candidates will be competing for two seats on the Laguna Beach Unified School District board in this fall’s election.
Incumbent Jan Vickers will seek her fifth consecutive board term, while challengers Howard Hills and Peggy Wolff will also vie for a place on the five-member board, which includes Ketta Brown, Carol Normandin and Dee Perry.
Current board President William Landsiedel, who has served on the board since 2008, will not seek reelection.
Vickers, 69, has lived continuously in Laguna since 1968 and was hired as an adult-education instructor in 1972. She has been a school administrator, artist and foster parent.
“I prepare and attend meetings, asking questions and giving input,” Vickers said in her candidate statement on the Orange County Registrar of Voters website. “I am responsive to students, staff, parents and ready to carry forward the concerns and issues brought to my attention.
“I will represent you conscientiously.”
Within the schools, Vickers, who has teaching credentials in elementary, secondary and early childhood education, has been a substitute teacher in all four district schools and participated in PTA and curriculum committees. She has delivered food to needy families through a program with the United Methodist Church.
Hills, a constitutional lawyer and author, graduated from Laguna Beach High in 1970 and has been supporting public schools for nearly 50 years as a volunteer, offering substance-abuse mentoring and helping out at career fairs. His uncle, Bob Hills, graduated from Laguna Beach High in 1942.
Hills, 64, consistently has called for video recordings of school board meetings, which the district implemented last year, as a means of boosting transparency and flow of information.
The “school district’s budget and spending, personnel practices, fiscal accountability and policy-making must be managed in an orderly and open way,” Hills said in his candidate statement. “We also need to involve the community and our trusted teachers in the exercise of local control over local schools without undue reliance on costly outside consultants and lobbyists importing generic policy solutions.”
Hills said civic literacy is important, and he suggests a student government program in grades 5 through 12 that would teach democratic citizenship skills.
Wolff, a community volunteer, taught fourth grade in the Newport-Mesa and Tustin school districts, and in Laguna Beach was past PTA president of Thurston Middle and Top of the World Elementary schools. She developed budgets, managed finances and oversaw projects and volunteers.
Wolff, who has daughters at Laguna Beach High and Thurston, was also a trustee and executive officer of SchoolPower, the nonprofit organization that raises money for Laguna’s schools.
“I am known for my can-do attitude, with no job being too big or too small to tackle,” Wolff, 52, said in her candidate statement. “I will bring the same strong organizational skills that have enabled me to effectively lead PTA, a diverse volunteer organization. I will bring my inherent sense of responsibility to see that taxpayer funds are wisely spent.”
The American Assn. of University Women’s Laguna Beach branch and League of Women Voters will host a candidates forum at 6 p.m. Oct. 6 in the Artists’ Theatre at Laguna Beach High.
Twitter: @AldertonBryce
