Who won San Diego school board races over COVID-19, unions?

In what was widely seen as a power struggle between outsider conservative school board candidates and candidates backed by unions, San Diego County doesn’t appear to have a clear winner in this year’s midterm elections.

School board elections are supposed to be nonpartisan, but this year’s elections became partisan battlegrounds as conservative groups mounted campaigns to train and elect parents with their values to school boards, while Democrats and teachers unions supported their own sets of candidates to oppose them.

But the majorities of the candidates endorsed on both sides of the political spectrum won their races. That’s because no group endorsed candidates in all of the more than 80 contested San Diego County school board races this year, and a few candidates were endorsed by groups on both sides.

As of Friday night with only an estimated 11,000 ballots countywide remaining to be counted, 30 out of the 56 school board candidates in San Diego County endorsed by the local Republican party in contested races had been elected or were ahead in vote results.

About half of the 67 candidates in contested school board races endorsed by Reform California, a conservative political group, were elected or leading. So were 60 percent of the 56 candidates in contested races endorsed by RMNNT, a conservative group affiliated with the Awaken Church that seeks to raise a political “army,” has posted election fraud conspiracy theories and has suggested that families take children out of public schools and home-school them.

“Overall, we’re pleased because we made a lot of progress in, number one, getting candidates this cycle to actually put up to run who are parent-oriented and reform-minded,” said Reform California Chairman Carl DeMaio. “And secondly, the results actually are great in certain school districts where we had concerns.”

Meanwhile, three-quarters of the 53 candidates in contested races who were endorsed by the California Teachers Association — a few of whom had also been endorsed by conservative groups — won election or were leading in vote results, compared to 34 out of 55 candidates endorsed by the local Democratic party.

Teachers union-backed candidates held on to seats in large districts including San Diego Unified and the county board of education.

A Democratic edge

In most of the races where teachers union-endorsed candidates went head to head with conservative-backed candidates, teachers union-endorsed candidates won, voting results show.

Kisha Borden, regional director of the regional California Teachers Association, said it was encouraging to see people support “pro-public education” candidates, particularly after seeing attacks earlier in the pandemic on school boards and teachers by people “denying history,” “attacking LGBTQ students or educators” and “wanting to privatize public education.”

“(Voters) are supporting the pro-public education candidates and not those people who are spouting those extreme talking points that frankly aren’t actually happening in our schools,” Borden said.

But local Democratic political consultant Eva Posner said conservatives were more successful than she had hoped.

“There was certainly a higher right-wing victory on school boards throughout the county than I would like,” Posner said. “If the Democrats and labor don’t focus on candidate recruitment and support in 2024, it could get even worse.”

The Republican party, Reform California and RMNNT had all made an effort this year to recruit parent candidates to take over school boards, motivated by unhappiness with pandemic school closures, mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates and the performance of union-backed board leadership. Some candidates endorsed by these groups have also criticized school districts’ racial equity initiatives and programs meant to help LGBTQ students.

San Dieguito Union High School District has been roiled in recent years by conflict, much of it political. At this protest in May, residents were divided over whether to fire or reinstate Superintendent Cheryl James-Ward after her controversial comment about Asian student academic performance. Others called for polarizing trustee Michael Allman to resign.

(Bill Wechter/For The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Their ideological opposites were Democrats and teachers unions, who have voiced concerns that the conservative candidates would dismantle equity and inclusion efforts and create more of the kind of chaos that has roiled school boards like San Dieguito and Coronado over the past two years.

In many of the districts where conservative candidates captured seats, registered Republicans outnumbered Democrats. But candidates with conservative backers also scored single seats on some boards in blue-leaning areas, including Chula Vista, Carlsbad and Del Mar.

Several conservative candidates who had gained local fame during the pandemic failed in their school board bids. Among them were Sharon McKeeman and Scott Davison of Let Them Breathe, who both ran for separate seats in Carlsbad, much of which has turned majority-Democrat in recent years.

Those candidates also include Frank Xu, who ran for the Palomar College board and is president of Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, an organization that purports school districts are spreading critical race theory.

Aubrey Huff, a former San Francisco Giants player who was banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation about COVID-19, lost his bid for Solana Beach’s school board. And Gerri Machin, who has helped lead a group that purports school boards are spreading critical race theory, also lost her bid for a Coronado school board seat.

Teachers union held ground in San Diego Unified

In what turned out to be an expensive and highly partisan race for a seat on the San Diego Unified School Board, Republican and curriculum company manager Becca Williams lost to Democrat and county policy adviser Cody Petterson.

Williams attributed her loss to two factors: the fact that registered Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in her sub-district, and the campaign efforts and spending by the district teachers union.

The union spent at least $91,000 on mailers and ads to oppose Williams and another $162,240 to support Petterson. By comparison, the conservative political action committee spending for Williams spent at least $54,760 for Williams and $59,760 against Petterson.

Williams said she thinks the union’s spending and partisan attacks on her show that she gave them “a heckuva fight.”

“I do think I gave them the biggest fight they’ve faced in a really long time,” she said.

Two years ago, voters changed the way trustees are elected to the San Diego Unified School Board to be by sub-district only, rather than at-large. Part of the reasoning was to minimize the influence of big spenders in helping to decide school board races.

But this year’s election suggested that San Diego Unified candidates with the highest-spending backers — namely, the teachers union — still dominate.

Cody Petterson won his San Diego Unified school board race with the backing of the teachers union.

(Courtesy photo)

Petterson and Shana Hazan, who won the other open San Diego Unified seat, together benefited from $231,200 in independent expenditures by the teachers union, and Hazan raised more $90,000 in personal campaign contributions. Her opponent, Godwin Higa, raised $7,600.

Petterson has said it was important for him to have approval from teachers unions, because teachers are integral to the work of a school district. It’s “preposterous,” he said, to have school board candidates who are hostile to teachers and their unions.

“A scenario in which teachers did not consider school board races important to become involved with would not make any sense,” Petterson said.

Where conservatives succeeded

Conservatives had more success outside the city of San Diego, particularly in East and North County.

Conservative-backed candidates swept races in Bonsall, in Escondido’s elementary and high school districts and in Fallbrook’s elementary and high school districts. They also secured board majorities in Lakeside and Alpine.

In Chula Vista Elementary School District in usually blue South County, county health administrator Delia Dominguez Cervantes pulled off an upset against incumbent Leslie Ray Bunker and will join a board that has long been dominated by union-backed candidates. During her campaign, Cervantes argued that schools were sexualizing students, teaching a “very divisive curriculum” and failing students academically, as shown by low numbers of students passing standardized tests.

Anthony Carnevale, a real estate agent who ran for the Cajon Valley School Board on a campaign of opposing teachers union influence and what he called “radical gender ideology and critical race theory,” captured a seat and ended the 12-year tenure of incumbent and union-backed Tamara Otero.

Phan Anderson

(Courtesy of Phan Anderson)

And Scot Youngblood, an orthopedic surgeon who helped lead opposition to mask and COVID-19 vaccine mandates, scored a seat on the Coronado Unified School Board.

In the tumultuous San Dieguito district, union-backed candidates reclaimed their majority on the school board, but conservative-backed Phan Anderson ousted incumbent Julie Bronstein from her seat.

Williams said she thinks school board races across the county were highly influenced by local factors, including voter registrations in each district, the size of each school district, how satisfied voters are with their school districts and levels of campaign spending.