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Votes are still being counted in last week’s local school district board races, but the candidates who were ahead on election night are still leading their competitors.
Below are semi-official results posted by the San Mateo County Elections Office on Wednesday, Nov. 11. These results include all ballots except for provisional ballots. Only about 3% of the county’s ballots remain to be counted, according to the county.
Sequoia Union High School District
Two newcomers have held their leads to fill two contested seats on the Sequoia Union High School District’s governing board. District residents, for the first time, voted based on the geographical area of the school district where they reside.
Rich Ginn, a parent and business owner, pulled ahead in the race for the Trustee Area C seat, which represents Woodside, West Menlo Park and Portola Valley, with 9,363 votes (37.8%). Incumbent Georgia Jack, who initially led on election night, has 8,361 votes (33.8%), while Shamar Edwards, school principal, has 7,034 votes (28.4%).
“I am so humbled to have had the support of many community members and elected officials as I sought reelection to the Sequoia Union High School District board,” said Jack in an email to supporters on Thursday, Nov. 12. “Unfortunately, I must announce that I was unsuccessful in securing a second term.” She noted that without her representing Redwood City on the board, the board will lack a voice for the 40% of the district’s students who live in Redwood City.
Candidate Shawneece Stevenson has 8,827 votes (71.6%) in Trustee Area E, which includes Menlo Park neighborhoods east of Highway 101 as well as East Palo Alto. Jacqui Cebrian, who dropped out of the race in September to support Stevenson, has garnered almost 3,507 votes (28.4%).
Incumbent Carrie Du Bois is running unopposed to represent Area B, which includes Redwood City, Belmont and San Carlos.
The new school board members will be tasked with helping hire a replacement for Superintendent Mary Streshly. Streshly resigned in September following a mutiny by the district’s teachers union and 22 school administrators, who said they had no confidence in her leadership and called for her firing.
Las Lomitas Elementary School District
Jason Morimoto and Jody Leng are ahead to fill two open seats on the Las Lomitas Elementary School District’s governing board that governs Las Lomitas Elementary School in Atherton and La Entrada Middle School in Menlo Park.
Morimoto is leading with 3,412 votes (nearly 40%), Leng has 2,794 votes (32.7%) and Molly Finn has 2,330 (27.3%).
Morimoto, Leng and Finn are all newcomers.
A financial executive, Morimoto said closing equity gaps in the district is his top priority. He said he also hopes to focus on financial oversight and COVID-19 safety.
Leng is an anesthesiologist who was the only physician on the Las Lomitas Pandemic Recovery Planning Committee, which aided in the district’s COVID-19 response.
The school board will soon have to decide how to fill the seat of former president Jon Venverloh, who resigned on Sunday, Nov. 8, after his wife posted racist and misogynistic tweets about Vice President-elect Kamala Harris over the weekend.
Menlo Park City School District
Francesca Segrè and David Ackerman are leading the race to fill two open seats on the Menlo Park City School District’s governing board.
Segrè has 8,672 votes (46.4%), Ackerman has 7,385 votes (39.5%) and Robert Maclay trails behind with 2,645 votes (14.1%).
Ackerman, the former principal of Oak Knoll and Encinal schools, has been on the school board for four years. Ackerman has endorsed Segrè, a former journalist who applied for appointment to an open school board seat last fall. Maclay is a district parent whose children attend Oak Knoll.
Besides responding to the challenges from the coronavirus pandemic, newly elected board members will face the district’s persistent achievement gap between students of different socioeconomic backgrounds and whether the district will renew or replace a parcel tax that district staff has said is only a “temporary solution” to the district’s financial woes. Measure X, the parcel tax that passed in 2017 with an initial rate of $360 per parcel, will expire in 2024.
Ravenswood School District
Vote totals for newcomers Bronwyn Alexander and Jenny Varghese Bloom indicate that they have won the two seats on the Ravenswood City School District Board of Education.
The election count released by the San Mateo County assessor and chief elections officer showed Alexander, a former Belle Haven Elementary School teacher, has maintained her first-place finish with 3,470 votes, or 23.1% of the votes counted; Varghese Bloom, whose daughter is a Ravenswood kindergartner and whose son attends the district’s preschool, has secured second with 3,241 votes, or 21.6%. In third place, incumbent Marielena Gaona Mendoza has 2,090 votes, or 13.9% of the votes.
San Mateo County Community College District
In the San Mateo County Community College District race for Trustee Area 5, which includes parts of Menlo Park, East Palo Alto and Redwood City, Menlo Park resident John Pimentel was leading with 25,552 votes (50.6%); Redwood City resident Lisa Hicks-Dumanske had 21,285 votes (42.2%) and Blair Whitney had 3,631 votes (7.2%).
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