Michael Allman is a polarizing figure. Elected to the San Dieguito Union High School board in 2020, Allman has earned his conservative bona fides. He led the charge against masking in the district, has decried “wokeism” in education, has taken heat for his association with ugly dialogue about trans students and even survived a recall effort.
For many, that brashness is exactly why they support him in the upcoming board election. For others, it’s exactly why they’re working to feverishly unseat him.
One thing is for certain: In the four years since his election, the district has seen turmoil. It’s burned through four superintendents, two board members have resigned and it’s been sued multiple times. One former superintendent even accused Allman of bullying her.
In an unusual move, outgoing board member Katrina Young penned an opinion piece calling on voters to ditch Allman. In it, Young wrote that in her view Allman was “antagonistic towards public education,” and implied that he’d behaved in an abusive way toward fellow board members.
That op-ed didn’t go unanswered. Longtime North County reporter Marsha Sutton fired back a month later in her own opinion piece, calling Young’s op-ed “undignified, lacking in civility and professionalism.” This, Sutton wrote, was just one more example of the district’s teachers union unfairly putting their finger on the scale of board elections. The union has endorsed Allman’s challenger. Voters should not be swayed by distractions related to Allman’s well-documented behavior, instead they should focus on policies, Sutton urged.
The other side: Allman’s challenger, longtime Democratic politico Kevin Sabellico, who in May dropped out of a race for Carlsbad City Council and pivoted to run for school board, hasn’t come out of this election cycle unscathed either.
Allman filed a petition challenging Sabellico’s attempt to list himself as an educator on the ballot, which had already been approved by the Registrar of Voters. In August, Superior Court Judge Wendy Behan overturned the Registrar’s decision, ruling Sabellico could not call himself an educator. Behan’s decision was largely because despite beginning the process of becoming a substitute teacher at San Dieguito, he had not yet actually worked there.
Behan called the educator occupation label “false and misleading,” writing in her decision “The evidence indicates that ‘educator’ is not the candidate’s principal profession, vocation or occupation.” She did however rule that Sabellico’s “board member,” occupation label could stay, given he serves on San Diego County’s Environmental Health and Quality board.
San Diego Community College District Is Asking for Bond Money
For the first time in nearly 20 years, San Diego Community College District officials are asking voters for money. Bond money, to be exact. The district’s board voted in July to add a $3.5 billion bond – Measure HH – to November’s ballot. The measure needs 55 percent of the vote to pass.
If passed, the bond would increase residents property tax by $25 per every $100,000 of assessed property value. Like with K-12 school bonds, community colleges can only use this money for facilities improvements, not to pay staff.
District officials have highlighted two dozen projects at its four colleges they hope to tackle with the funds. Those include building affordable housing at City College and removing asbestos from the walls of campus classrooms, construction of a new exercise science center at Mesa College, renovation of Miramar College’s Aviation and Aeronautical Sciences facilities and renovation of career training facilities at San Diego College of Continuing Education. Also included in the priorities are replacement of early education centers and theatres and renovations to energy systems at multiple colleges.
The bond measure has been relatively uncontroversial. Both the San Diego County Taxpayer’s Association and the Union-Tribune (albeit hesitantly) endorsed it. Voters will have the final say, though.
What’s the Deal with this State Schools Bond Measure?
Local school bonds aren’t the only ones California voters will see on their ballot. State officials have also advanced a bond measure. Proposition 2 would allow the state to issue $10 billion in bonds to pay for facilities improvements at California public schools. Of the $10 billion, $8.5 billion are earmarked for TK-12 schools, including charters, and $1.5 billion would be allocated to community colleges.
For reference: Over the past 16 years, voters have approved about $11.5 billion in bonds for San Diego Unified.
How does the bond work: It’s not as straight forward as local school bonds. The state is offering money raised from bond sales as matching funds for local district projects on a first come first served basis. Renovations, for which the state will pitch in for 60 percent of costs, are eligible for a higher share percentage than construction of new buildings, for which it will only pick up 50 percent.
Unfortunately for new projects, there’s already a long line. According to EdSource, the state’s Office of Public Instruction reports that there are $3.9 billion in unfunded projects dating back to 2022. That means the state may burn through nearly half of the available matching funds right off the bat.
Something new: For the first time, the state is offering higher levels of matching funds – up to 5 percent higher – based on a variety of factors. Districts serving high rates of English language learners, low-income students or foster children are eligible. Districts with lower valuations, and therefore lower bonding capacity, also get a bump.
Want to know more? EdSource has you covered.
Content Bouncing Around My Mind Palace
Union-Tribune’s (former) education reporter Kristen Taketa solicited Q&A’s from hundreds of school board candidates, then she got a message from a reader who told her some of the responses seemed fishy. So, Taketa reread the responses and plugged suspicious ones into an AI detector.
Of the around 110 responses she received to her questions, the detector determined with between 95 to 100 percent certainty that 20 were written by AI. That’s 18 percent of the responses Taketa received. For school systems grappling with how best to deal with an influx of AI that threatens to upend education, that seems bad.
Taketa got in touch with some of the candidates caught AI-handed and they had some pretty interesting responses. For example, Julian board candidate Britni Mushet wrote: “My answers are spoken from the heart. They are re-created in words that AI has come up with for the general audience to better understand.” Give the piece a read, it’s fascinating.