In California, One County Board of Education is Not Like the Other

If awards were to be given out for going above and beyond for parents, students and options in education, the prize would go to the Orange County Board of Education.

However, not everyone is a fan. 

The Orange County Committee on School District Organization, or “County Committee’ for short, is the body responsible for school district territory transfers and boundary changes. The Committee utilizes taxpayer funds to hire legal counsel and redistricting consultants. However, the direct funding is overseen and approved by the Superintendent of Education.  

In 2021 this small bureaucratic backwater, seldom heard from, staffed, and funded by the Orange County Superintendent’s office, made headlines for trying to wrest control of the redistricting process from the Orange County Board of Education itself. In theory, the Board, and the Superintendent work together for the benefit of students. But in Orange County, the Superintendent and Trustees are separately elected and while they should work together toward a common goal, in Orange County that’s not always the case. 

An example of that enmity is the Committee appointment process. Appointees are typically current or former school board members, but all of them don’t have to be. Recently, an opponent of one of the current OCBE trustees was appointed to this body. The one thing almost all of these appointees have in common is that they lean to the left of the political spectrum and most are strong backers or have been backed by teachers’ unions. It is one of the many back door tactics the unions are using to take down a pro-charter education system overseen by the Orange County Board of Education. Here are the details.

Every 10 years, coinciding with the release of U.S. Census data, public entities must revise trustee areas to reflect population changes, a process known as redistricting. In late 2021 the Orange County Board of Education (“OCBE”), following 30 years of precedent, engaged in a laborious and transparent redistricting process. OCBE publicly hired a nonpartisan demographer who presented and analyzed ten different trustee area maps over nine meetings, including three public hearings. OCBE approved a map, Map 5, which had a 0% population deviation (one voter between the largest and smallest trustee areas) and considered all communities of interest to achieve compliance with the Voting Rights Act. Public comment overwhelmingly favored Map 5. County Committee counsel and staff were present at every OCBE meeting.

On December 10, 2021, OCBE submitted Map 5 to the County Committee for review in advance of the Registrar of Voters December 15 deadline. What had historically been a perfunctory act became a partisan hit job. OCDE and County Committee staff who had been lying in wait during nine previous meetings suddenly revealed themselves and their intentions.

The County Committee took no action on Map 5, completely ignoring the December 15 deadline. Instead, they surreptitiously retained a high-priced demographer and lawyer beholden to the Democratic power structure. The demographer, Paul Mitchell of PDI a political data company, who was previously employed by Speaker Pelosi, has shamelessly and publicly boasted that he offered services “exclusively to Democrats.” The County Committee then introduced two maps never reviewed by the public nor OCBE. One map created three Democratic majority districts and left only two Republican majority districts. For reference, every district was held by a Republican at that time.  Incumbents were completely gerrymandered from their trustee areas and/or were pitted against each other. One map, introduced by a CTA activist, contained partisan voting data and metadata indicating it was drafted by Democratic Congressman Lou Correa’s staff. Ultimately, the County Committee approved a trustee area map with a 7.6% population deviation that severely marginalized Vietnamese voters. 

In response the Orange County Board of Education petitioned the California Board of Education (“State Board”) to become the County Committee as is the case in 35 of California’s 58 counties. OCBE cited direct accountability to voters and fiscal oversight as the primary bases for the petition. The State Board has never denied such a request. For the first time ever, CDE recommended rejecting a county board’s petition to become their County Committee. What is more, the State Board, at the recommendation of CDC, did not even provide OCBE the opportunity a formal presentation, instead relegating them to 60 seconds of public comment. OCBE withdrew the petition knowing the bureaucratic fix was in.

What forces were behind these Machiavellian moves?  In walks Superintendent Al Mijares, stage left.  He was the director and producer. He can select County Committee members. He wrote the checks. He employed all the staff so he, and he alone, dictated policy. Before Mijares’ superintendency, the County Committee never so much as questioned OCBE’s redistricting maps. But in 2021, after Mijares was roundly embarrassed in a public dispute over hiring of the Board General Counsel, the County Committee became Mijares’ instrument to seek revenge. Mijares understood that the County Committee was the embodiment of a deeply entrenched bureaucratic power structure in which 11 appointees could conceivably defy the will of the voters and eliminate a duly elected County Board of Education. So, he took his shot. Mijares got his map, but the voters still reelected Board incumbents.

Even though the elected superintendent Mijares has not been seen publicly in over a year, this remains a cautionary tale. The County Committee still exists, meets privately, and exercises untethered dominion over our school district boundaries and trustee areas. Sadly, the voters cannot remove them. 

What the voters of Orange County and in other counties across the state can do is vote for those who are willing to take on the teacher’s union. If that happens, the real winners will be the parents, students, and ultimately California, as these students who are given options for their education will benefit, are our future.