CV School Board Elections Dropping ‘At-Large’ System
Starting next year, Castro Valley voters will start electing its School Board based on which districts they represent instead of the current "at-large" system, following a decision by the Board last Thursday.
The move to a “by-trustee area” election process was prompted by a letter from a Santa Barbara-based law firm representing a Castro Valley resident and a “member of a protected class” who claims Castro Valley Unified School District (CVUSD) is in violation of the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA). The letter threatens a lawsuit unless the district changes its voting procedure.
Although the state law has been in the books since 2002, CVUSD Superintendent Parvin Ahmadi said this threat of legal action against CVUSD was initiated because the district has never had a Latino or Hispanic Trustee on its board.
“I’m very proud of the diversity of our backgrounds and our experiences within our District,” Ahmadi told the Forum. “The law is there to make sure everyone has the same opportunity and the right to vote. I am confident that everyone on the board will have students' best interests in mind, no matter what their background.”
The lawyer representing the Castro Valley resident did not initially respond to calls for comment.
In 2002, the passage of the CVRA prohibits the use of at-large elections of governing board members for a school district if it "impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election." The law was designed to encourage realistic representation and discourage cookie-cutter boards.
Castro Valley’s largest ethnic group is White (36.7%), followed by Asian (31.2%) and Hispanic (16.9%), according to the 2020 US Census. CVUSD’s student body of 9,200 is made up of 24.3% White, 4.9% Black, 34.1% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 23.3% Hispanic/Latino, and 12.9% of students are two or more races.
However, the Board of Trustees has been predominately White, with some representation by Black and Asian residents, most recently Monica Lee and Dot Theodore.
To comply with the CVRA and avoid a lawsuit, CVUSD will hold a series of five public hearings and hire a demographer to divide up Castro Valley into districts using data from the 2020 Census. The first two public hearings (May 9 and May 12) will be held to solicit comments and feedback regarding potential trustee areas. After a few maps are drawn, CVUSD will host three more meetings (June 12, June 14, and June 28) for public comment.
The CVUSD Board would then take a vote on the final maps before asking the Alameda County Committee on School District Organization to approve the change. If the Committee approves the change, “by-trustee area” voting would be held starting with the 2024 Board of Trustees election on Tuesday, November 5, 2024.
Currently, board member seats held by Lavender Lee Whitaker, Michael Kusiak, and Dolly Adams seats are up for re-election in 2024. Trustees Gary Howard and Sara Raymond, who were just elected in 2022, will keep their seats until they are up for a district election in 2026.
Changing to a “by-trustee area” system will have no impact on student and school attendance boundaries, Superintendent Ahmadi said. She added that the Dublin and Fremont Unified School Districts recently went through the same process.
Meeting information, including Zoom login, can be found on the CVUSD website (https://www.cv.k12.ca.us/).