After first considering a shift in election format on September 21, 2016, the San Mateo County Board of Education, the governing body in charge of providing services to support the county’s local schools, confirmed the change on June 2, 2021.
Board members were previously elected “at large,” meaning that each representative had to reside in a specific area of the country and was voted in by all of the voters of the county. The Board of Education is now moving to a voting system where each candidate can only be voted on by the members of the specific area that the candidate represents.
The change is primarily an outcome of the California Voting Rights Act, a law that makes it easier for minority groups in California to sue governments that use “at large” elections to make it harder for minorities to have a voice. Likely due to the risk of lawsuit, the San Mateo County Board of Education made the switch to a system where minorities are able to impact the election of the Board more.
With the goal of assuring more equitable representation in the board, the shift attempts to give minorities more say onto who is voted into the Board. The map used to separate the county into seven trustee areas combines many areas where minority populations live, creating so-called “minority-majority” areas, where minorities have a stronger voice in who represents them on the Board.
Ms. Penaloza Bluvstein, a teacher at San Mateo High School, hopes that the election system will give a voice to minories, stating that although she does not know the most about the elections, “it is probably a good thing because they’ll be more representative of all our neighborhoods.”
However, some, like Trustee Linda Lees Dwyer, the vice president of the board, are concerned about the shift because there may be costs to facilitating the shift. “I feel like it is really wrong to take money out of public education and use it that way” Trustee Dwyer states, concerned about the cost of the new system.
Many also wonder if the borders drawn to separate the seven trustee areas of the county are unfair. Ann Schneider, a member of the Millbrae City Council, said she was “disturbed” by the unfairness of the county separation. Schneider argues that the splitting of the city between two areas limits the city’s voice and lowers the possibility of a Milbrae representative having a seat on the Board.
Although there is controversy surrounding the shift, it will be adopted starting in the San Mateo County Board of Education’s election on November 8, 2022.