Los Alamitos Unified School District has moved away from its at-large voting system to one based on five trustee areas. The Orange County Committee on School District Organization and the State Board of Education both recently gave final approval to the adoption of the trustee-area voting system, which will be in effect for school board elections in November.
Under the new system, a voter will select one trustee to represent their area of the school district. The change in the election system will have no effect on school attendance boundaries.
The Board of Education acted because the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) strongly discourages at-large voting and highly encourages area-based voting as a means of ensuring that minority group voting rights in a community are protected and not abridged or diluted. Most California cities, school districts and public agencies have converted, or are in the process of converting, to trustee area-based voting. Some school districts and public agencies have been sued for not shifting away from at-large voting. In each case, the public agency has lost and been forced to pay steep legal costs with money that otherwise would support students and instruction.
To make the change, the Board of Education last August hired a professional demographics firm that drafted 11 maps of possible voting areas that met legal criteria. The Board then conducted an exhaustive effort to communicate with residents about the process and solicit public input on the voting area maps.
“The involvement of our entire community was incredible!” said Los Alamitos Unified Board of Education President Meg Cutuli. “Hearing from our residents influenced the Board’s decision. Instead of breaking our district into small isolated sections, it was everyone’s goal that we would continue to work as a unified district where kids come first.”
After holding 36 hearings and public outreach meetings throughout the District, the Board unanimously adopted the Green 4 map, which includes a majority non-white trustee area (Area 1) in the northeast part of the District and divides Leisure World between four voting areas. The map spreads district schools across the voting areas: Rossmoor and Hopkinson Elementary are in Area 3; Lee, Weaver and Oak Middle School are in Area 2; Los Alamitos Elementary, Los Alamitos High and McAuliffe Middle School are in Area 1; and McGaugh Elementary is in Area 5.
Board member Marlys Davidson resides in Area 1; David Boyer and Diana Hill reside in Area 3; Board President Meg Cutuli and Karen Russell reside in Area 5; and no members live in areas 2 or 4.
School board elections will be held in November for voting areas 2, 4, and 5. Elections for areas 1 and 3 will be held in 2022.
Complete information about the process of adopting the new electoral system can be found at the District website https://www.losal.org/voting.
