There are four board of trustee seats open in the Nov. 3 general election for Pajaro Valley Unified School District. From left to right: Daniel Dodge Jr. for Area 4, Eriberto Estrada for Area 4, Alicia Jimenez for Area 5 and Mads Realmuto for Area 7. (Contributed)

WATSONVILLE >> A total of 10 candidates will be on this year’s ballot to select the next round of trustees for Pajaro Valley Unified School District —  Trustee Areas 1, 4, 5 and 7 are up for reelection on Nov. 3. Santa Cruz Local spoke to the candidates to see where they stand on major  issues brought forth by residents, students, teachers and others.

The Pajaro Valley Unified School District board of trustees is elected by district voters – voters with addresses that fall within district areas.

What they do:

• Provide leadership and oversight of the district’s schools.
• Set budgets, including teacher pay.
• Hire and fire the superintendent. 
• Develop goals for district-sponsored and funded programs.
• Set policies and approve staffing related to mental health, campus safety and other areas.

Three candidates are vying for the trustee position in Trustee Area 1 — retired public educator Andrew Goldenkranz, 68, senior college admissions counselor Meilin Obinata, 51, and general contractor Robin Sukow, 79. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/Report for America)

Three candidates are vying for the trustee position in Trustee Area 1, which includes schools Mar Vista, Valencia, Aptos Jr., Aptos High and Bradley. They include retired public educator Andrew Goldenkranz, 68, senior college admissions counselor Meilin Obinata, 51, and general contractor Robin Sukow, 79. All three are first time candidates.

Andrew Goldenkranz

Goldenkranz has held positions as a board member for Santa Cruz Community Health, Housing Santa Cruz, and Community Bridges, and has also served as a board member and former chair of the Santa Cruz Democratic Party. 

“The core, sort of, my DNA around education is that the action is in the classroom between teachers and students,” Goldenkranz told Santa Cruz Local. “Everything else around the school, all the support services are exactly that — they are support services to enhance what happens between the teacher and the student.”

Goldenkranz said he wants to reorient the district around “legitimate student achievement goals” and hold leadership accountable for those goals. When it comes to teachers, he said he wants to grow expertise from within rather than paying for outside consultants, citing a $20,000 keynote speaker fee he said should have gone to teacher-led professional development instead.

On the district’s budget, Goldenkranz said he wants to set strategic student-achievement goals to use as a “throughline” to tie every new spending proposal to the goal it advances. He also said future service cuts, including any school closures, need a concrete continuity plan in place before he’d support them.

Meilin Obinata

Obinata’s political background includes working as a board trustee at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Similarly to Goldenkranz, she hopes to support teachers as a trustee. 

She seeks to support teachers by prioritizing the use of veteran staff to mentor and pass down institutional knowledge instead of outside management-consulting contracts. She also highlighted the importance of addressing the needs of instructors. “Teachers need resources. They need reasonable class sizes,” she said, noting that she has the endorsement of the Pajaro Valley Federation of teachers.

When it comes to the district’s budget, she said she wants to prioritize transparency by having the district’s budget publicly available online. She also wants to have the public involved in creating the budget from the start, rather than gathering input through committees and, as she said has happened before, leadership acting on it. 

She also wants a genuine strategic plan so the district can start addressing problems long-term instead of jumping from “crisis to crisis.” She hopes to balance financial pressures, like declining enrollment and attendance, with improving the day-to-day student experience to prevent families from leaving the district.

Robin Sukow

Sukow, for his part, pointed out board dysfunction — things like incomplete proposals and, he said, a lack of decorum — as preventing real progress for PVUSD. “COVID exposed a lot of dysfunction in not only our local school board but school boards in general,” he said. He also describes himself as an outsider without a resume in education administration, which he frames as an asset.

When it comes to teachers, Sukow points out low pay and the high cost of living in Santa Cruz County pricing teachers out, citing family members who teach in neighboring districts because they can’t afford to live locally. He said teacher pay increases come down to labor contracts that the board has to weigh against the budget.

When it comes to the district’s budget, he highlights that the district risks state receivership if it can’t balance its budget, calling that his top priority to avoid. He points to his construction-business background, saying budgeting requires “practical decisions” without being “too emotional.” 

His political background includes being vice chair for the Santa Cruz County Republican Assembly and a representative for the sunlight foundation.

From left to right: Daniel Dodge Jr. for Area 4, Eriberto Estrada for Area 4, Alicia Jimenez for Area 5 and Mads Realmuto for Area 7. (Contributed)

In Trustee Area 4, incumbent Daniel Dodge Jr., 44, faces off against challenger Eriberto Estrada, 18. The area includes the schools of Mintie White, E.A. Hall and Watsonville High School.

Daniel Dodge Jr.

Dodge was first elected as an Area 4 trustee in 2018 and works as an employee of Vallarta Supermarkets. On the topic of working with the superintendent, he said he plans to weigh recommendations from the superintendent against feedback from constituents,  and is willing to oppose the administration when he believes a proposal conflicts with community needs. ““I’m here to serve the people. It’s not the other way around,” he said.

On the topic of mental health, Dodge said he opposed cuts to district mental health clinicians and wants the district to find other ways to provide services to students. He suggested expanding partnerships with local organizations, the county and the state, and specifically mentioned working more closely with Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance, or PVPSA.

When it comes to supporting teachers, Dodge said he wants to make himself available through email, phone calls and in person meetings and offer support to teachers beyond just what’s happening in the classroom. Asked about special education, Dodge said special education should be prioritized and wants the district to seek additional state and federal funding for services. 

Eriberto Estrada

Estrada is currently a student at California State University, Monterey Bay and has experience as a community organizer. On the topic of working with the superintendent, Estrada said he would compare information from the superintendent and administration with what families and other community members are saying. “At the end of the day, the community is the one who’s affected most, and that’s who we should be listening to,” he said.

Speaking about mental health in the district, Estrada said he wants to create safe spaces for students to share their mental health needs and that the district should find funding to restore mental health counselors on school campuses. He also said reducing counselors could create a larger gap in services and that student mental health should be treated as a funding priority.

When it comes to teachers, Estrada said that “what teachers need now more than ever is respect” from the superintendent and school board, as well as pay that reflects that respect. On the topic of special education services, he said access to special education services should not depend on a family’s financial situation and that the district should allocate more funding to special education and look for creative ways to increase available funding.

Trustee Area 5 includes the schools Diamond Technology Institute, H.A. Hyde, Starlight, Cesar Chavez, Landmark and New School. Of the three Trustee Area 5 candidates on the ballot, only Alicia Jimenez, 56, appears to be actively running for election. Jennifer Schacher withdrew from the race in August, endorsing Jimenez, while Curt Wilcox was arrested in September and is facing felony charges related to his campaign filings — he has not responded to requests for an interview. 

Alicia Jimenez

Jimenez is a retired PVUSD administrator and a first time candidate for the role of Area 5 Trustee. “While I have all of this experience working for PVUSD, I would go in knowing that I have a lot to learn,” she said. “I’m advocating for the students and the families in my community, and while I’ve been doing it throughout my career, it’s also a very new way of looking at things.”

Jimenez said teachers need more support from administrators. She plans to earn teacher’s trust by meeting with instructors from each school, starting with those in her district, to find out directly what needs are not being met. To support student mental health, Jimenez said she wants to continue partnerships with nonprofits like Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance and advocate at the state level for more mental health funds, and general education funding.

On the topic of special education, Jimenez acknowledges the district’s responsibility to provide services to every student, regardless of the need. As a trustee, she hopes to research and find viable options for the parents and speak to families to understand what specifically they need so she can take it back to the district.

Finally, in Trustee Area 7, which includes the schools Rio del Mar, Renaissance High and Pajaro Valley High, incumbent Misty Navarro faces a challenger in Mads Realmuto, 41. Navarro, an emergency physician at Salinas Valley Health Medical Center, declined an interview for this guide.

Mads Realmuto

Realmuto has worked as a Sustainable Schools Advisory committee member and is a first time candidate. As a trustee, he hopes to provide the superintendent direction by setting goals and guardrails, and providing oversight.

 “I think right now in terms of what our teachers need, it’s positive engagement and effective communication. I think right now we don’t really have a measure in the district for what is that employee satisfaction,” he said. 

Realmuto hopes to support teachers by exploring ways to connect students to supportive services to alleviate the pressure on teachers and create more relationships between all of the entities serving students, from the unions, the district and outside organizations.

On the topic of mental health, he said the district needs to rebuild its capacity of clinicians within schools in order to address student mental health needs and the recent rise of suicide amongst teenagers. He hopes to do so by examining screen time usage during school hours and how that impacts student mental health, applying recommendations from the Sustainable Budget Committee and conducting listening sessions of students to make sure they feel safe and supported.

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