Cecilia Iglesias
The Santa Ana Educator’s Association – the union that represents local public school teachers at the SAUSD, spent months attacking SAUSD Trustee Ceci Iglesias and her fellow conservative Republican, Angie Cano, while promoting their own slate of SAUSD School Board candidates – Rigo Rodriguez, Mark McLoughlin and Alfonso Alvarez. But in the end Iglesias emerged as the top vote-getter in the 2016 General Election while Cano barely lost by only 183 votes.
As for the teacher’s slate, only Rodriguez and Alvarez emerged victorious (assuming that Cano doesn’t edge out the latter when the final vote tally is announced this week).
The two candidates recruited by SAUSD Trustee John Palacio – Beatriz Mendoza and Bruce Bauer, worked hard but were unable to prevail over the better funded teachers’ union slate.
The SAUSD School Board election results are a major victory for Palacio as he has shown a willingness to work with Iglesias on the past. As a former Republican Palacio has always treated Iglesias with respect. For Iglesias her victory has to be a major relief as the teachers’ union attacked her for months without mercy, even resorting to lying about her alleged support for Donald Trump. Ironically Trump won his Presidential election – and it is quite possible that Iglesias and her political party will benefit from that.
Cano, a graduate of the SAUSD and UCI, is the daughter of immigrants and she is a smart businesswoman. Iglesias is herself an immigrant, from El Salvador. The teachers’ union called them racists but the voters saw through that bogus charge.
This election was clearly a referendum on school choice as Iglesias and Cano support school choice, including our charter schools, while the teachers’ union slate did not. Moreover the liberals drafted by the teachers’ union all supported restorative justice, an unproven scheme that could make our public schools more dangerous.
Palacio now controls the SAUSD School Board majority as I expect that Iglesias will side with him and his ally on the Board, Valerie Amezcua, more often than not. That will leave Rodriguez and Alvarez on the outside looking in. The alliance won’t be a particularly comfortable one for Iglesias as Amezcua has quite often been rude to her. But the real loser will be the Santa Ana Educator’s Association. They will have to wait until the next School Board election to try to take control again.
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Probably too soon to call this one. McLoughlin is backed by the same group that helped Beckie Gomez defeat Robert Hammond in the county race last June. In that election, Hammond lead by nearly a thousand on election night only to lose by about two-thousand. We'll know a lot more at 5PM today.
Hey David. That is true. But he is such an awful candidate! I do hope he loses.
Glad to see the greedy teachers union waste their money! Another year of Ceci annoying the heck of them.... AWESOME! Go Ceci!
This is not good for our schools ... We need someone who actually puts our students and teachers first!
Iglesias and Cano are good for our schools, given that they're underperforming. As a product of all SAUSD schools, I couldn't be more excited for those students in my city! Congrats Ceci and Angie. I'm proud to have you in our board.
They are not the solution.
Handing control of the school board to a slate of teachers' union candidate was likewise not the solution. They already demanded a 16% raise even though their Union President already makes $145K a year. And lives in Tustin.
They can say they put "students" and"parents" first but in my opinion that's not the case.
Remarkable spin. The Teacher's Union wins 2 of 3 seats and that amounts to a failure! The Union cleaned Iglesias & Palacio's clock. Palacio's 2 candidates came in last. And, Pulido & Solorio's pal Rigo Rodriguez wins which has to have Palacio seething.
I guess the union can't count. Palacio has 3 votes so he controls the board majority. His candidates did their job. McLoughlin lost.
lol nice edits. Arturo (embrace your brownness!) originally posted the hailing victory of Cecilia and Angie. Union still got 2/3 of our candidates up there, and we got raises approved with this balance in power :D
Your perceptions are interesting. As the SAEA Political Action Chair, I can comfortably say that we NEVER accused Ms. Iglesias of being racist. And with her current Facebook links to the Fox News coverage of Mr. Trump's inauguration, I think we have good reason to doubt the assertion that she is not a Trump supporter.
It is a moot point as Trump won and now a pro charter school advocate has been nominated to run the Federal Dept. of Education. This means Iglesias is now in a unique position to be able to help the SAUSD via her GOP connections. You should be happy she won. The rest of the SAUSD School Board will have zero pull in DC.
A moot point? The truth is a moot point?