LYNWOOD — Four challengers were unsuccessful in their bids to unseat incumbent school board members Rachel Chavez and Alfonso Morales during Tuesday’s Lynwood Unified School District’s election, with Morales being the highest vote-getter.
Morales received 1,030 votes. Chavez came in second place with 768 votes.
Even though absentee ballot votes put challenger Dorothy Plummer-Jones in first place at the start of the night, the longtime Lynwood educator lost her bid in the school board race with 678 votes, placing her in third place.
Anastasia (Ana) Ventura, who won the endorsement of two of the biggest unions in Los Angeles along with Morales, came in at fourth place with 654 votes.
Nancy Montes had 587 total votes, followd by Gloria Garcia with 171 votes.
The vote count will not become official until the county Board of Supervisors approves the final vote canvass from the Registrar of Voters office later this month.
Hours before the final figures were posted online by the county Registrar of Voters, Morales said he wasn’t sure what the results of the election would be. Flanked by family, friends, Mayor Pro Tem Aide Castro, school board President Jose Luis Solache and union representatives at an election gathering at his home, he said “it is going to be the people’s will.”
Morales said he was looking forward to installing an administrative team at the district level to guide the district to financial solvency and academic success.
In regards to his critics who say he has had four years to move the district forward, Morales said “you have to give people an opportunity to grow and then to execute based on what they’ve been able to learn. … There does come a time though, when you’ve had that opportunity too many times. I’m not there yet.”
On Wednesday, Morales said he “felt good” about his re-election. The final numbers are a good sign, he said.
“I hope that the people in my community know that I really want to help. … I believe the votes are a reflection of that,” he said. “I went out there and in campaigning, I heard so many different concerns, and I want people to know that I heard them. I listened, and I want them to know that I’m genuine when I say that I want to help.”
First on his agenda, Morales said, is to make sure that the school board works as a unit by utilizing all of the skills each board member has to make the best decisions possible for the school district.
Not only can he now say he brings to the table his four years of experience on the board, but as a board member with four more years ahead of him, Morales also brings with him, he said, his ability to be logical, practical and his ability to broker compromises.
Chavez, who has been a board member for nearly 20 years, didn’t really campaign. It’s not that she doesn’t believe in campaigning, she said, “it’s just that people know who I am. … They know that there are no agendas up my sleeve, there never has been, and people know that. That’s a trust you earn by your actions.”
Though she has the longest tenure on the school board, Chavez said that doesn’t make her the sole authority on the board, nor does it mean that the district’s failures all fall on her shoulders.
On the contrary, she said, she’s been a minority vote on the board too many times to count, always opposing the majority rule on agenda items she did not think were being approved in the best interest of the district.
“Sometimes experience does count,” she said. “Because there have been times in the past, when new individuals are elected to the board and they think they know everything. How can board members who have been on the board for a year think that they know what to look for in a superintendent? You don’t. Then when you don’t ask questions and you ignore red flags. Maybe I am old, but I’m not in my grave. I’m still alert and I know I can still help this district.”
Changes have been happening over the last four months, and will continue to do so, said Chavez.
“Sometimes politics get in the way, and sometimes our wheels are just spinning, but there have been gains in the last 20 years,” she said. “When I was first elected, all of our schools were at the bottom [of the ladder]. All of these ratings and scores, those came with the No Child Left Behind Act. But in the past schools were divided into quartiles, and Lynwood was in the 17th percentile. We weren’t even in the middle quartile. I will tell you that in the last 20 years, our schools have progressed a lot, especially seeing how some of our schools are near the 800s in state scores. So I feel good about the progress. I can sleep at night because I know that I have never committed a vote that has ever hurt our children.”
Overall, Chavez said she is grateful for voters’ support and as difficult as the next couple of years will be for board members, including the upcoming selection of a new district superintendent, she’s looking forward to it.
In an interview before the polls closed across the street from a polling location at Lynwood Middle School, Ventura said she didn’t know what the outcome of the night would be, but was excited, and at least, she said, “we had a good run.”
This election, and all of the grassroots efforts that went into it, via the union’s support, Ventura said, she realized how President Barack Obama won his election.
Not only that, she said, she also realized that she loves being involved in her community and vows to stay involved if she doesn’t get elected.
“Whether I win or lose, I think I will still be involved. … My kids are all grown, off to college, I think I have found my niche,” she said. “I really liked the involvement and really being able to get into the grind of things. … And I never realized Lynwood was as big as it was, walked streets never knew were there. And talking to the people, hearing their different points of views, it’s engaging. I don’t enjoy hearing that we have so many problems, but realized people want to be heard.”
Also, Ventura said, in her campaigning she got the opportunity to work with current school board members and learned that school board members can’t [run] the school district alone.
“I definitely learned that,” she said.
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