Key topics define Ventura school board race

Fiscal solvency, the need for better accountability, raising classroom test scores and the desire to adopt a Christian-based curriculum are just some of the hot-button issues among all candidates in the running for seats on the Ventura Unified School District Board of Education.

As the race closes in to within a month of Election Day, three incumbents seek to retain their places on the board against two challengers.

As a newcomer in 2005, attorney Mary Haffner was appointed board president in just her first term. She seeks another four-year term along with Velma Lomax and John Walker.

Lomax, who has worked as a computer specialist and teacher within the district, is pursuing her fifth consecutive term. Walker, the personnel director at the Ojai Unified School District, is the Ventura school board’s current longest serving member, first elected to his post in 1989.

All three incumbents are challenged by Monique Dollonne, the director of the Ventura-based Coalition for Accountability in Education, and David Norrdin. Both Dollonne and Norrdin have previously run for school board positions.

For Walker, Lomax and Haffner, solving the district’s growing budget problem — an injurious $15 million in state cutbacks over the past year — is central to all three board members’ campaigns.

“On everyone’s mind is the budget and another potential for a round of midyear cuts,” Haffner said. “As a school district, our board will continue … looking at ways to save operating costs. At the same time, we’re trying to keep the cuts as far away from the classroom as much as possible.”

Haffner, who also chairs the county’s Regional Energy Alliance, proposes efficiencies such as energy-saving, green-friendly lighting in classrooms as ways of reducing costs in the long run. The district, according to Haffner, is eligible through the Alliance to receive financial aid, which has been applied for.

With an accomplished finance background, Walker says the board has made great strides in becoming fiscally sound since the district nearly went bankrupt in 1993. He backs the board’s move to sell several pieces of parcel properties, which yielded officials $2.5 million that was placed in reserve.

“Given the state of the budget, I feel it’s very important we continue being financially responsible and staying on cue. I think that’s the single most important thing right now,” Walker said.

Both Walker and Lomax are proponents of raising standardized test scores in Ventura classrooms, urging changes in the structure of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. According to Walker, Ventura schools, which serve more than 17,000 students, is one point behind the state Department of Education’s test score goal of 800 for California schools.

“We’re constantly lobbying our legislators on the state and federal level. I really believe the Ventura Unified School District needs to get a grass-roots campaign together so it’s fair for our students,” Lomax says. “I think the collaboration we have with our community keeps the school district out there.”

Financially, Lomax says she is confident that the district will remain in the black, attributing it to the efforts of the current, incumbent school board.

“Consistency is really important at this time,” she said.

Dollonne, whose organization trains parents and community members to demand more accountability in schools, ran for a board seat two years ago, when she received 4,200 votes without the support of any special interest groups.

Unlike her opponents, Dollonne believes the district has been sorely uneven in the distribution of its funding, the school board has not been forthcoming about it, and quality varies from school to school as a result. Her platform is a call for better transparency.

“It’s hard to do everything at the best level if communities are in the dark,” she said. “You have to respect the parents and make them part of the decision-making table.”

If elected, Dollonne says, she will work toward establishing organizational plans for each school in the district. She claims this is not the case for all schools in Ventura. Combined with a lack of disclosure of how the district’s tax revenue is spent, she notes that this partially explains district students’ overall C-grade ranking in reading and writing skills because the same programs are not available in all schools.

“Do they have wonderful and effective programs? Yes,” she said. “Do they have access to all of them? No. The resources are allocated differently.”

Her insistence on better accountability has not been without its share of trouble. Dollonne disclosed her 2003 arrest for trespassing outside Montalvo School, which charges were later dropped.

She attributes the incident to administrators having tried to halt her attempts to uncover inconsistencies in funding for the Ventura elementary school.

“As soon as I starting learning things about the district, they harassed me,” Dollonne said. “When you start asking about accommodations, the harassment team comes after you.”

Norrdin, a regular fixture at school board meetings, takes no position on any financial or educational issues.

“What I’m running on is overpopulation,” he said. “My administrative platform is … a planned parenthood-style organization on every middle and high school campus, distributing contraceptives without parents’ permission.”

Norrdin, who also wants Christianity and Creationism taught in Ventura classrooms, has urged strongly an introduction of birth control and contraception availability in local schools, so teen pregnancies can be diminished. The Ventura resident says the problem is exacerbated by children living in Ventura County illegally.

“We need a mandatory program because the schools are all overrun with illegals,” he said. “We’re spending money to educate them, and they’re having kids and having kids. There are too many children. If they don’t speak English and they’re here illegally, kick them out.”   

All five candidates have been invited to attend a candidates forum on Thursday, Oct. 15, 7 p.m. at Ventura College’s Guthrie Hall, 4667 Telegraph Road, Ventura. The event is hosted by the Ventura County League of Women Voters. Further information on the Ventura school board candidates can also be obtained by visiting maryhaffner.com, johnbwalker.com, moniquedollonneforschoolboard.com, and by e-mailing velmalomax@yahoo.com.

paul@vcreporter.com