Today matters.

At 3:30 p.m., the board will hold a special session expected to address interim leadership. We should be watching closely to see whether the interim is internal or external, whether the decision brings stability or more disruption, and how much explanation the board believes the public deserves. Even if the board is legally permitted to make that appointment without public comment, legal authority and transparency are not the same.

Sheri Morgan and Howard Hills ran on transparency, and moving quickly into major leadership decisions immediately after Dr. Glass’s separation, with limited public visibility and very little public trust, does not feel like transparency. It feels like a process being used as a cover.

Then, at 6 p.m., the regular meeting begins at Thurston Middle School, with an agenda that is far too packed to treat casually: LCAP, budget, communications, technology restructuring, an election resolution, legal services, graduation and promotion services, and a VERY long consent calendar. I will be there for the full meeting, and I hope many parents, staff, and community members are too.

Tonight’s agenda is the first real stress test after this district upheaval — it is a test of whether this community is willing to keep watching what this board majority does when it thinks people are too tired, too busy, or too overwhelmed to follow the details.

Agenda Item 8A: LCAP 2026–2027

The LCAP is the district’s strategic plan for student goals, services, actions, and spending. It is about whether our kids are safe, supported, challenged, included, and prepared, and the agenda materials describe it as a three-year plan tied to student outcomes and support for specific student groups.

The big question, however, is whether the board’s actions reflect the values inside it.

It is hard to approve a plan built around student belonging while creating districtwide instability, and it is hard to talk about social-emotional support while staff and families are absorbing the impact of abrupt leadership decisions. The LCAP is supposed to be about students. The board majority’s recent actions have made it harder to believe students are actually the center of the work.

Agenda Item 8B: Budget 2026–2027

The budget is not presented as a fiscal crisis, as the proposed General Fund budget includes about $94.6 million in revenues, $90.15 million in expenditures, and a positive certification.

But that still does not answer the larger question: is the district now accounting for the cost of a superintendent search, transition support, legal review, separation costs, or the broader cost of losing a superintendent less than a year into his tenure? Howard Hills and Sheri Morgan have spoken often about fiscal responsibility, but creating the conditions for another superintendent search, more legal uncertainty, and more leadership churn is not the kind of fiscal responsibility the taxpayers were promised.

The budget also includes a $1 million legal expense line, and tonight’s consent calendar includes multiple legal services agreements. Districts need lawyers, but the public has every right to ask whether taxpayer dollars are being used to support students or to pay for the consequences of board-created instability.

Agenda Item 9A: Communications Plan

The problem is not the communications staff — we are lucky to have such a great and engaging Comms team.

The concern is that some board members seem to treat communications as another area where they can control process, tone, audience, and narrative, even when the work should belong to experienced staff. A communications plan is not a political tool, and it should not become a way for individual board members to manage optics or clean up governance problems.

The district does not need better spin. It needs less board interference from people who know what they are doing.

Agenda Item 11B: Director of Information Systems and Technology / Coordinator of Learning and Innovation

The district’s CTO retired in February, and staff is recommending two roles: a Director of Information Systems and Technology and a Coordinator of Learning and Innovation. That may be a reasonable structure, and it may even be smart, but losing a CTO and separating the work into two positions is still a significant change.

Parents should listen for practical answers about who owns cybersecurity, student data, software systems, classroom technology, staff support, and emergency response when systems fail. This should be a serious conversation, not board theater.

Agenda Item 12A: Election Resolution

The election resolution is procedural, but it is also a reminder.

We are six months away from change, if this community comes together. Joan Malczewski has already announced her reelection, and more will unfold between now and November. By fall, everyone will have slogans, mailers, endorsements, and polished versions of what happened.

That is why we need to watch now.

Watch who asks serious questions, who respects staff, who protects students, who escalates conflict, who hides behind process, and who understands the role of a board member instead of trying to act like district management. The record is being written now.

Consent Items T–W: Legal Services

The consent calendar includes four legal services agreements, covering general counsel, facilities, special education, AB 218 cases, Section 504, student services, and other legal matters. Again, districts need legal counsel. That is not the issue.

The issue is why so many legal services agreements are sitting on consent during a governance crisis.

What does each firm do? Who assigns the work? How are costs reviewed? Are services overlapping? What is routine, and what is being driven by the board majority’s decisions?

If this board wants to talk about fiscal responsibility, these items should be pulled and explained. They should not be buried in consent with the expectation that the public will not notice.

Consent Item X: Graduation and Promotion Services

The consent calendar includes the BCT Entertainment contract for graduation and promotion services at Irvine Bowl, not to exceed $66,137.98.

I am not interested in turning an event production contract into a fake scandal. Graduation and promotion cost money, and they should be done well.

However, this item still matters because graduation is part of where this board showed us who it was. Graduation location should have remained a site decision made by expert employees, and Dee Perry is on record saying she believed it should be a site decision before voting to change the location anyway.

That is why parents do not trust this board. Not because we are unreasonable, but because we are trusting our own eyes and ears on what happened.

The Real Agenda Item: We Are Watching

The staff work is detailed, the plans are specific, the budget is prepared, the LCAP is comprehensive, the communications item includes a staff presentation, the technology restructuring includes a rationale, the election resolution is procedural, the legal agreements are attached, and the graduation contract includes a scope.

The documents are doing what documents are supposed to do.

The problem is not the agenda — it’s the board majority.

At this point, I am not asking them to govern better, to respect staff expertise, to rebuild trust, or to understand the damage they have caused. They have had every opportunity to do that, and this is where we are.

What we can do is make sure they know we are watching every vote, every consent item, every legal cost, every interaction with staff, every use of process as cover, and every attempt to move major decisions through while hoping the community is too exhausted to follow along.

The board majority may have the votes, but they do not get to cast them in the dark. Not anymore.

So come to the meeting. Stay for the meeting. Listen closely. Take notes. Submit public comment. Talk to other parents. Share what you hear. Make sure the record reflects that this community is not confused, not distracted, and not looking away.

If you want to submit a public comment and are unsure how, I can help. If you cannot attend but have something you hope will be said, send it to someone who will be there.

I look forward to seeing familiar faces and new ones, and I still have hope, not because of this board majority, but because this community is paying attention.

LBUSD Board Meeting Details

Special Session: 3:30 p.m.
Regular Meeting Open Session: 6:00 p.m.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Thurston Middle School Library
2100 Park Avenue, Laguna Beach, CA 92651.

I am done pretending.

Sheri Morgan, Howard Hills, and Dee Perry voted to remove Dr. Glass through a “voluntary separation” after less than a year in a quiet special meeting on a Tuesday afternoon. Joan Malczewski and Jim Kelly dissented.

Call it whatever procedural name they want. I know what I watched.

I watched a board majority ignore public concern, staff support, parent alarm, professional judgment, and every warning sign that this district was being pulled into chaos. I watched the writing on the wall for months: the bylaw change, the graduation overstep, the healthcare audit narrative, the attacks on parent groups, and the constant undermining of district professionals.

And now this.

How dare they.

I am angry because I believe Dr. Glass is good at what he does. I believe he brought seriousness, professionalism, outside perspective, and a level of thoughtfulness this district needed. I learned a tremendous amount by watching him lead, by listening to how he talked about governance, systems, budgets, student outcomes, and what it actually takes to run a district well.

He deserved time. He deserved good-faith governance. He deserved a board willing to support the leader it had hired, rather than undercutting him at nearly every turn.

And he deserved better than this.

There is a person behind this decision. A family. A career. A reputation. A human being who showed up with professionalism and grace while this district’s politics became increasingly ugly. I hope he knows how many people saw the work he was trying to do and appreciated it.

I hope he only gets better from here.

I want to thank Joan Malczewski and Jim Kelly for continuing to stand up for this district. They showed that it is possible to take this moment seriously, respect the gravity of what was happening, and put the long-term health of LBUSD first.

But the rest of us are still here, with the damage.

How dare they gamble with my children’s future. How dare they destabilize the district we chose for its teachers, staff, schools, programs, and community. How dare they take a district that should be focused on students and drag it into a power struggle of their own making.

They do not understand what they are messing with.

This is not just one decision. This is a fracture in public trust. This is a direct attack on the stability of our schools. This is a board majority showing us exactly how it uses power when it has it.

So now, as parents and as a community, we pay attention to everything.

The budget. The LCAP. The legal costs. The healthcare audit. Staff morale. Every agenda. Every vote. Every narrative they try to spin.

And parents need to organize.

Not later. Now.

To Sheri, Howard, Dee, and every person in this community who has spent months undermining teachers, staff, families, parent groups, and the professionals trying to hold this district together: be ready for real accountability.

I have been measured. I have been careful. I have tried to be fair. I have tried to assume good intent even when the pattern was right in front of me.

That is over.

You were not measured with us. You were not careful with our teachers. You were not fair to our staff. You were not respectful of the families who begged you not to destabilize this district.

And then you messed with our kids.

So now we organize, and we make sure this board majority does not keep the power to do this again.

For anyone asking what to do next: start with FUEL.

Sign up for the newsletter. Read the recaps. Share the updates. Follow what is happening with the budget, LCAP, legal costs, healthcare audit, and every board decision from here. This is where families can stay informed, organized, and ready for what comes next.

No more benefit of the doubt.

No more polite silence.

No more pretending this is just school board business.

They came for the stability of our district.

They came for the future of our children — MY children.

How fucking dare they.

I want the board to prove me wrong.

I want to look back on this week and feel like I was being too alarmist. I want to believe I had a pit in my stomach for no reason, that the concern I am hearing from parents, staff, and community members is misplaced. I want to believe this board understands the seriousness of the moment and will choose stability, professionalism, transparency, and the long-term health of the district over individual narratives, personal agendas, or the need to be right.

But right now, I do not feel that way.

Right now, this feels like a make-or-break week for LBUSD.

Not because of one person. Not because of one rumor. Not because of one agenda item. This is bigger than that. This is about whether the board will continue pulling the district into conflict, or finally recognize that its choices have consequences beyond the dais.

This week matters because the public issues facing the district are serious. The healthcare audit matters. The budget matters. The LCAP review matters. Legal costs matter. Staff morale matters. Public trust matters. And the way board members choose to talk about these issues matters just as much as the decisions themselves.

There are decisions a school board can make that do not simply pass with the meeting. They linger. They change who wants to work here, who wants to lead here, who wants to support the district, and how the community sees its schools. A district can spend years building a reputation for strong teachers, strong programs, strong community connections, and student-centered decision-making, only to see that reputation unravel quickly when the adults in charge cannot govern with restraint.

This is what I am afraid of.

I chose this district for its schools and teachers. I chose it because I believe in the quality of education here, the staff, the programs, the community, the arts, the opportunities, and the idea that LBUSD is a place where students come first. But what I am watching now does not feel student-centered. It feels like interference. It feels like overreach. It feels like a board increasingly willing to disregard professional judgment, twist public narratives, and consolidate power in ways that are deeply damaging to the district.

We cannot pretend this just started.

At least for me, I cannot forget the board bylaw change and the way it consolidated more power at the board level. I cannot forget the decision to choose the graduation location, where professional recommendations from district and site leadership were pushed aside on an issue that should never have become a board-level political fight. I cannot forget the way teachers and employees are now being pulled into the fallout of the healthcare audit. I cannot forget the way LCAP results and district performance conversations have been framed in ways that feel less like a good-faith effort to understand the full picture and more like an attempt to build a negative narrative around the district.

And I especially cannot forget the public conduct of an individual trustee who has repeatedly used his position, title, and platform to push one-sided narratives that have made this district less stable, not more transparent.

That needs to be said clearly.

Trustees have the right to ask hard questions. They have the right to disagree. They have the right to speak as individuals. But there is a difference between oversight and public undermining. There is a difference between transparency and narrative control. There is a difference between accountability and using a trustee position to inflame suspicion around staff, district leadership, parent groups, and community partners.

That conduct has consequences.

When a trustee uses a paid advertisement styled like a “School Board Update,” even with a disclaimer, it blurs lines for the public. When the same trustee frames long-standing district partners as part of some problem, it damages trust. When a trustee pushes a version of the healthcare audit that leaves employees feeling blamed or attacked, it does not help the district solve the issue — it makes the district more divided.

And the rest of the board cannot pretend that silence is neutral.

The healthcare audit should be handled with accuracy, care, and responsibility. If mistakes were made, they need to be corrected. If systems failed, they need to be fixed. If public money is involved, the public deserves clarity. But that is not the same thing as allowing the issue to be twisted into a weapon against employees, unions, or district leadership. Staff should not be treated like suspects because a benefits issue was uncovered. Teachers and employees should not have to absorb public blame for something that was clearly systemic.

This board must rebuild trust with staff NOW. Instead, the question is whether board members will allow suspicion to keep spreading.

The same is true with parent and community groups. SchoolPower has been part of this district’s fabric for decades. It was created to support students, teachers, and schools. It has helped fund programs and opportunities that families value. So how did we get to a place where a long-standing parent-supported education foundation can be framed as a problem, or even treated as an enemy of the community?

That should bother people.

It is not normal for a school district to start turning its own support systems into targets. It is not normal for parent groups, staff, district leadership, and community partners to feel like they are being sorted into sides. It is not normal for public service to feel like a constant battle over who controls the narrative.

And that is the issue: control.

The budget and LCAP review should be opportunities for serious, responsible governance. There should be moments when the board honestly assesses student outcomes, district priorities, staffing needs, legal spending, fiscal responsibility, and whether resources align with what students and staff actually need. But those conversations have to be grounded in the full picture, not cherry-picked data, political framing, or an effort to make the district look broken so that more board control feels justified.

There is a responsible way to ask hard questions about the budget, review the LCAP, and examine legal costs, healthcare costs, staffing, benefits, and student outcomes.

But responsible governance requires honesty, context, and respect for professional expertise. It cannot be driven by a desire to win an argument, punish opponents, or make every district issue fit into a predetermined narrative.

This board has enormous power right now. It has the power to calm the district down or inflame it further. It has the power to restore trust or deepen mistrust. It has the power to respect professional expertise or keep overriding it. It has the power to show staff they are valued, or make them wonder whether this is still a district where they want to stay.

That is why this week matters.

The board needs to put the district’s needs above its own. Above individual egos, personal grievances, political factions, and the need to win a narrative. Above the temptation to turn every issue into another referendum on who has control.

Because if the board gets this wrong, the consequences will not be small.

This is how districts get pulled into years of chaos. This is how staff morale breaks down, good people leave, and families lose confidence. This is how future leaders look at a district and decide it is not worth the risk. This is how legal costs rise, public trust collapses, and a district that should be focused on students becomes consumed by adult dysfunction.

And the most frustrating part is that this is still avoidable.

The board can still prove me wrong.

It can prove that the healthcare audit will be handled responsibly, not used as a political weapon. It can prove that teachers and staff will not be scapegoats. It can prove that parent groups and community partners will not be disparaged because they are inconvenient to someone’s narrative. It can prove that the budget and LCAP review will be serious, fair, and grounded in the full picture. It can prove that professional recommendations matter. It can prove that governance does not mean interference.

But it actually has to do that — not with vague statements about student success, polished language about transparency, or carefully framed explanations that ignore the community’s real concerns. The board must demonstrate, through its actions, that it understands how close this district feels to a breaking point.

Because I do not want to be right about this.

I do not want to look back and say the warning signs were all there. I do not want to watch LBUSD become another district that people talk about as a cautionary tale. I do not want teachers, staff, families, and students to pay the price for board behavior that should have been corrected before the damage became permanent.

I want the board to prove that this district is still bigger than the people sitting on the dais.

I want the board to prove it can listen to professionals, respect staff, protect community trust, and make decisions that strengthen the district rather than pull it apart.

I want the board to prove that I am being irrational.

Please, prove me wrong.

Because if this board tears apart the trust, stability, and professional culture that make LBUSD what it is, the district will not simply recover at the next meeting.

The damage could last for years, and the people who will feel it most will not be the trustees.

It will be the teachers.

It will be the staff.

It will be the families.

And it will be the students who deserve better.

I am resharing my earlier piece on school board governance in response to yet ANOTHER paid advertisement from an individual trustee, because it is a clear example of the concern: personal advocacy dressed up as public accountability.

Board members can speak for themselves, but serious concerns belong in the public meeting process, where claims can be questioned, clarified, corrected, and put on the record rather than packaged into a one-sided narrative that the teachers, staff, and community cannot properly answer.

That is the difference between oversight and performance. Governance happens through agendas, discussion, direction, and votes, not paid advertisements that keep dragging the community back into the same conflicts.

You can read the original piece here:

Updated May 13, 2026: Since this guide was first published, LBUSD has entered a superintendent transition, with the district announcing that Dr. Jason Glass will conclude his service effective May 31, 2026.

A lot is happening in Laguna Beach Unified right now, and it can be hard to know where to begin.

There are debates about test scores, facilities, the bond, staff trust, board conduct, district leadership, transportation, special education, and the November election. But the bigger question is simple:

What kind of school district does Laguna Beach want to be?

LBUSD is not perfect, and no district is. Hard questions should be asked about student outcomes, spending, facilities, special education, transportation, and long-term planning. However, asking hard questions is not the same as undermining the people doing the work. Transparency is not the same as chaos. Improvement is not the same as pretending the district is failing.

That is the line I am watching.

I write about LBUSD as a parent who is paying close attention: reading the materials, attending meetings when I can, following the data, and trying to separate what is actually happening from what people are trying to make it sound like is happening.

What is happening now

These are the most current pieces on the superintendent transition, board conduct, and the instability facing the district.

School board governance

These explain the larger pattern: what school boards are supposed to do, and what happens when oversight turns into interference.

LBUSD’s stats & data

There is a lot of conversation about whether LBUSD is succeeding, declining, or failing. These pieces explain why one chart, one test score, or one talking point does not tell the whole story.

Facilities and the bond

Facilities are not just buildings. They shape safety, access, athletics, arts, learning environments, and the daily experience of students and staff.

Why this matters

November is coming, and by the time campaign mailers arrive, everyone will have a slogan.

The work now is to understand the substance before the slogans take over. That means reading the actual materials, attending meetings when possible, following what is happening here, and staying connected with other parents and community members who care about where LBUSD is headed.

FUEL (Families Unified for Education in Laguna) is one place to do that. It is a local parent and community group focused on supporting responsible school board leadership, protecting LBUSD’s strengths, and helping voters stay informed before November.

LBUSD’s future should be shaped by people who understand that public schools are not just budgets, buildings, test scores, or board agendas. They are children, families, teachers, staff, trust, and community.

That is what is at stake.

I keep hearing the same argument about Laguna Beach Unified: scores are low or declining, spending is too high, post-COVID testing is inflated, and the district is underperforming because only about 59% of students are meeting or exceeding standards in high school math.

That number matters, but it should not carry the entire story of the district.

I attended La Cañada Unified schools, a high-performing district that was recently ranked 7th in the country. I know what a small, academically focused community feels like because I grew up in one. I am grateful for that education, but I also know the limits of a school culture built almost entirely around academic achievement.

Academics are important, but so is creativity, counseling, independence, arts, athletics, career pathways, emotional development, and a school culture where children are known as people. This is why my husband and I chose Laguna Beach Unified Schools.

First, we have to read the scores correctly. CAASPP and Smarter Balanced are not old-style letter grades. California’s system is standards-based, and state assessment results are meant to be reviewed alongside other measures, including grades, assignments, report cards, and teacher feedback.

So yes, we should look at Laguna’s high school math number, but then we should look around it.

Laguna remains strong compared with Irvine, Capistrano, Newport-Mesa, and the state. Laguna Beach Unified also has the highest scores in Orange County, a highly competitive region for public education.

High school math should stay on the radar, but using a single number as proof of districtwide failure does not hold up, especially when high school math has been a lower metric for Laguna since the early Smarter Balanced years.

The better conversation is this: Laguna is strong overall, has excellent middle school results, and should continue improving its high school math.

Spending also needs some context.

Laguna spends more per pupil - something I’ve covered before. A small basic-aid district has a different cost structure, but the right question is still what students receive for that investment.

That includes smaller ratios, counseling, special education, intervention systems, AP, CTE, arts, athletics, facilities, and the staff needed to make those systems work.

This is where the Local Control & Accountability Plan (LCAP) matters. The LCAP connects goals, actions, services, spending, and student outcomes. Laguna’s LCAP focuses on college and career readiness, social-emotional competencies, student identity, and safe, welcoming schools.

That work is much more complex than a single test score.

The district’s midyear LCAP update shows how students are being identified, supported, monitored, and moved. For example, a student may be Tier 1 (meets or exceeds standards) in math but Tier 3 (needs significant intervention) in reading. He may understand math, but have difficulty with fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, or confidence. If something is also happening at home, test scores alone will not tell that story.

A strong school system ought to address both needs: the academic and the human. That is whole-child education in practice: structured, specific, and labor-intensive.

The LCAP also provides a clearer view of student groups and the student experience. Economically disadvantaged students reached 73.55% proficiency in ELA and 60% in math in the 2024 CAASPP discussion. Students with disabilities improved year over year in both ELA and math, while staying below the district average. English learners also showed strong progress, with 70.7% of students with comparative ELPAC data making progress toward English proficiency.

LBUSD reported that 97% of students in grades 5–12 agreed or were neutral about feeling safe at school. The LCAP also reports that 85% of students agreed their teachers care about them, 88% said they have at least one adult at school who supports them, and 80% of students and 83% of parents agreed that schools provide a safe environment where all opinions are valued.

That does not replace academic outcomes, but helps explain why families value Laguna Beach Unified’s approach.

Laguna Beach High School also delivers considerable opportunities for a small high school. LBHS reports 820 students, 51 teachers, a 208:1 counselor ratio, an average class size of 22, 27% pathway completers, 36% dual enrollment, and 85% earning college credit through CTE, AP, or dual enrollment. The midyear LCAP also reports 27 AP courses, 1,093 AP enrollments, 41% of LBHS students enrolled in at least one CTE course, and 59% of LBHS students having taken at least one AP class.

Those numbers show a school preparing students for college, careers, and life after graduation.

LCAP Community Convening is Today

LBUSD is inviting students, families, staff, and community members to review district progress and give input for the upcoming year. The event is today, Thursday, April 30, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Laguna Beach High School. Childcare will be available for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, and the district is asking attendees to register in advance through the link on its event page.

The district says participants will review student outcome data, including academic performance, engagement, and school climate; examine progress on current LCAP goals, actions, and services; and provide input to inform the Annual Update and future planning.

Instead of asking whether one snapshot proves a point, we should be asking better questions:

1. Are reading and math interventions working for the students who need the most support?

2. How are students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged students, and multilingual learners doing compared with the district overall?

3. Are teachers, counselors, classified staff, and intervention staff being given the time and resources to do this work well?

4. Is the district spending money in areas most closely connected to student needs?

5. How can the board and community assist Dr. Glass, teachers, staff, and site leaders in this work?

These are the questions that help a district improve and treat our students as full human beings rather than data points. As a parent, I care about results and test scores. But I do not want my child reduced to one.

I want my child to be challenged, supported, known, responsible, empathetic, independent, and confident. I also hear from people who interact with Laguna Beach students, especially high school students, that they are often mature, polite, able to talk to adults, and willing to take responsibility. Those qualities do not appear on a CAASPP chart, but they are part of the education many of us want for our children.

Laguna should keep improving, high school math should stay on the radar, and subgroup gaps should be taken seriously. More parents and community members should read the LCAP, attend meetings, and ask good questions.

The people doing the work in this district deserve more credit than they are getting. They are not only chasing numbers but also building systems to help students grow academically, socially, emotionally, and practically.

That is the school district I chose.

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I’ve been getting a lot of questions about how to explain what is happening in LBUSD, and I understand why. The issues can feel abstract. When you attend a meeting, you see it. When you talk to teachers and staff, you hear it. There is real concern, but it is not always one single dramatic moment that people can point to.

What we are seeing is a pattern, and it seems the board majority may be confused about its role.

To be clear, I believe a school board has authority. It oversees the district, sets priorities, approves goals, hires and evaluates the superintendent, and holds the superintendent accountable for results. That is the job.

However, the board is not supposed to run the district day-to-day. It is not supposed to jump into the middle of staff processes, make operational decisions from the dais, chase rumors, pressure employees, or decide exactly how every goal gets accomplished.

The board’s job is to ask: Are we meeting the goal? Are we serving students? Is the superintendent accountable for getting this done?

Instead, what we keep seeing is board members inserting themselves into the “how.” Graduation location is one example. Communication planning is another. Facilities, staffing concerns, investigations, public narratives — again and again, staff are put in the position of trying to do their jobs while also managing board interference, board pressure, or board second-guessing in real time.

This is not transparency or accountability. It is micromanagement.

The cost of all of this is falling on the people closest to our kids. Teachers and staff should not feel like they are constantly under suspicion. They should not have to work under the strain of unfounded rumors, shifting demands, or public questioning that makes their jobs harder and their workplace less stable.

Administrators should be able to lead without constantly managing political pressure. Families should be able to trust that decisions are being made through a stable, professional process. Not through rumor, reaction, or whoever can apply the most pressure via email or in a meeting.

The irony is that everyone says they want strong schools. But strong schools depend on trust, clarity, and teachers and staff being respected enough to do the work they were hired to do.

Oversight and accountability are important. But when a board cannot tell the difference between governing and interfering, it creates the very instability it claims to be solving.

LBUSD has incredible teachers, staff, administrators, families, and students. The board’s role should be to support a system that enables people to do their best work.

Students. Stability. Trust.

Right now, the board majority’s approach is putting all three at risk.

Not in a dramatic movie-scene way, but in a real way. In the parent-group-text way. In the after-the-meeting way. In the “why does everything feel harder than it needs to be?” way. In the way people lower their voice for half a second before saying what they actually think.

This is where the LBUSD community has been living.

Anyone paying attention can feel it. Too much friction. Too much distrust. Too much time spent explaining away things that should never have become normal in the first place. Too many people closest to students are bearing the pressure, while everyone else debates tone, process, and optics.

That is why the rally mattered, because it made something visible that certain people have worked very hard to keep small.

Concern is easier to dismiss when it is isolated. A parent here, a teacher there. A staff member speaks carefully. A comment card. A closed-session agenda item. A conversation after school pickup. A knot in your stomach you cannot quite explain, but cannot shake either.

It gets harder to minimize when it turns into a crowd.

By 4 p.m., the crowd in the district office parking lot was already strong. And not “strong” by the standards of people who are always trying to round things down. Strong in the way that tells you people rearranged their day to be there, and in the way that says this is not a passing mood.

Teachers were there. Staff were there. Parents were there. Grandparents were there. Kids were there. People who have been paying attention for months were there. People who may not have gone to every board meeting but knew something was off were there, too.

I have spent this year deep in it. The meetings, the reporting, the conversations, the effort to understand not just what happened, but what it is doing to the people inside the district. That kind of attention changes you a little. I no longer tolerate any kind of spin, and I am noticing, time and time again, that the same concerns keep resurfacing because no one has actually dealt with them.

So no, the rally did not surprise me. But it did move me.

There is a difference between hearing that people are worried and standing in the middle of a crowd that has clearly decided it is done being quiet about why. And I felt that immediately.

It had that very specific parent-community feeling of ten things being held together at once by people who care enough to make it happen anyway.

One of the laziest ways people talk about moments like this is to act as though public support just appears. It does not. It is built. It is carpooled. It is texted about. It is squeezed in between work, dinner, homework, beach towels, missed exits, and “can you grab mine too?” It takes effort. It takes intention. It takes enough people deciding this is worth being slightly inconvenienced for.

That is exactly why turnout means something.

As we walked, people honked. People waved. People looked up. People noticed. That may sound small, but public attention changes the temperature. It reminds everyone involved that the issue is no longer tucked inside meeting rooms and insider language. It is out where people can see it.

With young kids, I ended up toward the back of the group, which honestly gave me the best vantage point. I could see the whole thing stretching ahead. I could see its size and shape. I could see that this was bigger than a handful of frustrated people trying to prove a point.

As often happens with big rallies here, the walk ended at Main Beach. Of course it did. This is Laguna. The sidewalks lead to the sand. Our civic duty and daily life merge. People show up holding signs and then hand snacks to their kids. They talk about district instability while standing next to the ocean. It is beautiful, absurd, and completely normal here.

While the adults were rallying, the kids were still being kids. They were excited. They were playing. They were looking at the water. They were drawn toward the part of the afternoon that was joyful, free, and familiar. And there I was, sign in hand, thinking: this is why people are here.

Not for spectacle. But for the adults who make school days possible, the people who calm chaos before families ever hear about it, the people who run classrooms, campuses, offices, and the routines that run, and the stability and respect children and staff deserve.

For the basic idea that when the people closest to students are telling you something is wrong, the proper response is to listen harder, not wave it away.

There is a big difference between a community being passive and a community being patient. A lot of people have been patient. A lot of people have tried to gather facts, give grace, watch carefully, stay measured, and hope things settle. That patience is not endless. It was never indifference. It was a restraint.

A crowd like that tells you that restraint has begun to turn into action.

Good. It should.

Because this is no longer about tone, optics, or whether concern can be made to look smaller than it is. It is about whether a community listens when the people closest to students say something is wrong.

This is the kind of threshold you only recognize clearly once enough people cross it at the same time.

By the time we reached Main Beach, the message was already there:

People are paying attention now.

And they are not getting smaller.

I’ll be at the rally today because I care deeply about the people who make school work for our kids.

As a parent, I depend on teachers, aides, office staff, campus supervisors, and school leaders more than I even realize. They are the adults holding the day together. They create the routines, safety, support, and steadiness that families count on every single day.

When those adults say something feels off, we, as parents, should pay attention.

From what the rally organizers shared, teachers and staff are asking the community to stand with them around a few basic things: students, stability, trust, respect for school staff, and decision-making that reflects the needs of kids and the broader school community. They are expressing growing concerns about disruptions to governance, communication, and professional boundaries, as well as a sense that community input is not always reflected in decisions.

That matters to me.

I have a young child in this district, and maybe that is exactly why this feels so simple to me. A good school day depends on adults being able to do their jobs well. It depends on trust, respect, and enough stability for people to stay focused on students. When that foundation starts to crack, families should not treat it like someone else’s problem.

I’m also going to the LBUSD board meeting after the rally because support should be visible. If parents believe teachers and staff deserve respect, that should show up both outside and inside the meeting room.

I want a district where talented people want to stay. I want the adults closest to kids to feel trusted and backed by the community they serve. I want school leadership centered on students and steady operations, not churn and distraction.

So, that is why I’m showing up today.

The health of a school district is not measured only by outcomes on paper. You can feel it in whether the adults in the system can work with clarity, trust, and respect. Right now, too many people are signaling that something is off, and we should take that seriously.

If you have been feeling concerned, unsure, or quietly paying attention, this is a good day to show up. The rally begins today, April 16, at 4:00 p.m. at 550 Blumont, with a walk toward Main Beach, followed by the LBUSD board meeting at 6:00 p.m. at the Thurston Middle School library.

In Laguna Beach, the cost-per-pupil number gets hauled out whenever someone wants to argue that LBUSD has become too expensive.

It is a neat little talking point. Look at the number, compare it to a district like Irvine, decide Laguna must be bloated, and move on. What gets skipped is how that number is built, how a basic aid district actually works, and what students are getting from that investment. It also skips an inconvenient fact: LBUSD says it ranked No. 1 among Orange County unified districts in statewide English language arts, math, and science scores.

That is why I have very little patience for people who use “cost per student” as if it proves the district is overspending. Most of the time, it proves something else: a lot of people are eager to judge a school system by a single number they do not really understand.

The number people keep weaponizing

LBUSD’s 2025-26 general fund budget shows about $87.5 million in expenditures. The district’s September 2025 Opening of Schools Report says LBUSD opened the year with 2,333 Preschool-Grade 12 students. Using these numbers, the district’s operating cost comes out to roughly $37.5k per student. The same budget shows about $33.8 million for certificated salaries, $12.9 million for classified salaries, and $20.7 million for employee benefits. Together, that amounts to about $67.4 million, or roughly 77% of general expenditures, for salaries and benefits.

That should not shock anyone who understands how schools work. Nationally, the National Center for Education Statistics reports that salaries and benefits account for about 79% of current public-school expenditures. School districts are labor-heavy institutions because educating children is labor-heavy work.

The number can get even bigger depending on what critics decide to fold into it. LBUSD’s 2025-26 budget also shows about $13.1 million in transfers out, including a routine transfer to capital reserves and a one-time $11 million transfer tied to the LBHS pool modernization project. If someone tries to blend those transfers into the operating picture, the all-in figure rises into the low $40k per student. That may be useful for a broader conversation about district outflows. Still, it is not the same as the annual classroom operating cost, and too many people treat those numbers as interchangeable.

What students actually feel

LBUSD’s April 2026 staffing report lists average class sizes of 18.4 in K-2, 22.9 in grades 3-5, 23.7 in grades 6-8, and 19.6 in grades 9-12. Those numbers shape how much attention children get, how manageable classrooms feel, how much room teachers have to respond to individual needs, and how much stability families can expect.

That part tends to disappear when people start yelling about cost per pupil. The real question is what that investment is buying. In Laguna Beach, part of the answer is lower class sizes than many communities can offer and a school experience that feels more human and less crowded.

And there is serious research behind that. The Tennessee STAR experiment, one of the best-known randomized studies in education, found meaningful gains from reducing class size in the early grades from about 22 students to 15. Follow-up work found that those early classroom differences persisted into adulthood, including a higher likelihood of college attendance. One NBER paper estimated an internal rate of return of about 5.5% from reducing class size from 22 to 15 students, and Raj Chetty and coauthors found that students assigned to small classes were 1.8 percentage points more likely to attend college at age 20.

No one is claiming every class must be tiny to be good, but lower student-to-teacher ratios are not some luxury for rich parents. Class size is one of the few school inputs with unusually durable evidence behind it.

What people are really criticizing when they criticize staffing

When people complain about “high cost per student,” they are usually reacting to the cost of keeping experienced adults in schools.

They are reacting to teachers who have stayed long enough to move up the salary schedule. They are reacting to step increases, column movement, and rising health benefit costs. They are reacting to the reality that recruiting and retaining good employees in a wealthy coastal community is expensive, whether those employees live nearby or drive in every day.

Experience is not some sentimental talking point either. Research in Education Finance and Policy found large returns to teacher experience for middle school teachers, including higher student test scores and improvements in student behavior, with benefits extending well beyond the first few years of teaching. The Learning Policy Institute’s review of the literature reaches a similar conclusion: experience continues to matter more than the old “it stops after year three” line suggests.

That is part of what people are actually looking at when they decide LBUSD’s staffing costs offend them. They are looking at the price of stability. They are looking at the cost of keeping people who know the school, know the community, and know how to do the work well.

Basic aid changes the whole setup

LBUSD is a community-funded basic aid district. The budget shows that local property taxes exceed its LCFF entitlement, allowing the district to retain those property tax proceeds rather than relying on state aid as usual. For 2025-26, the budget projects about $78.9 million in LCFF and property-tax revenue. That financial structure is not the same as the structure in a district that depends much more directly on formula-driven state money.

So when people compare Laguna’s cost per student to a non-basic-aid district and pretend they have made some clean apples-to-apples case, they have actually skipped the most important part of the setup.

That does not mean spending should avoid scrutiny. It means the scrutiny should at least be intelligent.

California is not the benchmark people think it is

A lot of these conversations quietly assume that if Laguna Beach Unified spends more per student than the California average, then something must be wrong.

PPIC reports that California districts spent about $23k per pupil in 2023-24, but California ranked only 16th nationally on raw per-pupil spending and 31st once labor-cost differences were taken into account. So no, the statewide average is not some obvious proof point that districts above it must be reckless. Sometimes it just means the baseline is lower than people imagine.

If we want perspective, it makes more sense to look at other small, affluent, high-expectation districts around the country than to keep obsessing over California districts built on different assumptions. Scarsdale Public Schools in New York says it serves about 4,800 students, and its 2025-26 budget report puts spending at about $191.5 million. Falls Church City Public Schools in Virginia approved a 2025-26 operating budget of about $69.4 million, and official enrollment reporting there showed stable enrollment at 2,712 students. Those districts are not identical to Laguna Beach, and interstate accounting is never perfectly clean. Still, they show something the local critics prefer to ignore: communities with means and high expectations also spend real money on schools.

More money does change outcomes

There is also a deeper point here. The old “money does not matter” line has not held up especially well in the research.

One major study of school finance reforms found that a 10% increase in per-pupil spending each year for all years of public school led to more years of education completed, higher adult wages, and lower adult poverty rates. The same research found spending increases were associated with lower student-to-teacher ratios, longer school years, and higher teacher salaries. A later NBER review concluded that a policy increasing per-pupil spending for four years would improve test scores 92% of the time and educational attainment even more often.

That does not mean every extra dollar is automatically well spent, but it does mean the reflexive claim that higher spending is suspicious by definition is not well-supported.

The adults children count on

One thing that gets lost in these arguments is how much of a child’s daily life is shaped by the adults at school.

Teachers and staff are with our children for huge parts of the day. They are the ones helping them settle in, learn, regulate, recover, grow, and move through the ordinary moments that make up a school life. They see the hard days, the breakthrough days, the tired days, the proud days, and the days when a child needs a little more patience or a little more belief.

That matters to me as a parent. I want the people around my children every day to feel supported, respected, and glad to be there. I want them to stay. I want a district where strong educators and staff are treated like the foundation of the student experience, because that is exactly what they are.

When people reduce school spending to a complaint about cost per pupil, they lose all of that. Critics turn the adults who hold schools together into a number. I do not see them that way, and I do not want this district to start treating them that way either.

What I want from LBUSD

I am not interested in Laguna Beach winning some symbolic prize for looking cheaper on paper. I am interested in what students experience.

I want strong teachers in classrooms. I want them to stay. I want lower ratios where they matter most. I want stable staffing, meaningful support, good electives, functioning schools, and adults who are supported enough to bring their best to children every day.

LBUSD is lush by public-school standards. Good. I want that used. I want every available dollar aimed at making the student experience richer, steadier, smarter, and harder to replicate.

Children do not go home talking about cost per pupil. They go home carrying what the adults around them did with their day.

If a large share of LBUSD’s budget goes to teachers, staff, and operations that make school feel stable, rigorous, and well-supported, then that money is doing exactly what I want it to do.

A good school day is made possible by adults whose efforts only become apparent when something goes wrong.

My son is just beginning his journey in Laguna Beach Unified, so I am still learning this district as a parent. He rides the school bus, which means that from the moment he leaves in the morning until he gets home, I am trusting other adults with a huge part of his day. This mindset changes how you view school. The more I learn about LBUSD and the more I hear from people who know these schools well, the more obvious it becomes that the calm, ordinary school day parents count on is not a default setting but is built by people doing many small things well.

From the outside, a good day at school can look boring, which is usually the point. Drop-off happens, class starts, and kids make it through the day by learning something, eating lunch, working through whatever social or emotional hiccups come up, and coming home more or less intact. Nothing dramatic happened; no major disruption occurred. It is easy to look at that and think, well, that is just a normal day, and that isn’t something worth celebrating. However, in many ways, an ordinary day is the whole thing.

In a district like Laguna, where expectations are high and families are used to strong outcomes, it is easy to focus on the parts that are easiest to see: academics, enrichment, arts, athletics, polished presentations, and student accomplishments. But schools do not run on reputation or on the expectation that people have of them. They run because all day long, on every campus, adults are doing a hundred small things that keep the day from slipping sideways.

Before a lesson is even underway, the day is already being managed from ten different directions. The front office is fielding attendance issues, parent communication, late arrivals, early pickups, and any other random problem that comes up before the first bell. Teachers are not just preparing content; they are taking in the room, figuring out who is ready to learn, who is off, who is upset, who needs redirecting, and who might need a softer start. Campus supervisors and support staff are watching movement, safety, tone, and all the little moments that can either stay small or turn into something bigger.

That matters because kids do not arrive at school as blank slates but walk in carrying all kinds of things. Sometimes it is excitement, stress, or a bad morning; sometimes it is a rough interaction, a problem with a friend, or just being off in a way that an adult has to catch before it turns into a harder day. A lot of what makes a school day work comes down to whether the adults around them notice early enough.

Families usually do not see that part. We usually find out (from our child) whether they had a good day or if something big happened. What we often do not see is the teacher who resets the room before it gets away from her, or the aide who helped a student regulate before frustration became a bigger disruption, or the counselor who stepped in before a problem grew legs. We do not see the office staff member solving multiple things at once while trying to keep the day moving for everyone else. We usually see the result and miss the critical interception.

And schools run on interception more than people think.

A smooth transition between classes is not a small thing. An orderly lunch period is not a small thing. A student getting support before they unravel is not a small thing. A classroom recovering quickly after a wobble is not a small thing. Those are not side notes to learning but part of what makes learning possible in the first place.

That is also why it misses the point when people talk about school quality as if it lives only in the big visible outcomes. Of course, test scores matter. Of course, arts, athletics, and college outcomes matter. But the quieter truth is that those things rest on an enormous amount of unglamorous work. A high-performing district is still one that depends on people doing difficult, repetitive, very human work well every day, with little room to coast.

Custodians help create order and dignity. Office staff hold together communication and logistics in ways most families probably do not fully realize. Aides and support staff are often the ones keeping a student, a classroom, or a moment from tipping in the wrong direction. Teachers are constantly adjusting, redirecting, reading the room, and trying to protect both learning and emotional safety at the same time. Administrators are responding to student issues, staff issues, family concerns, schedule problems, and whatever else lands that day, whether expected or not.

None of that is flashy, which is probably one reason it gets taken for granted.

The more I learn about how districts actually function, the less patience I have for the idea that a smooth school day is just what naturally happens in a place like Laguna. We are not perfect, and no district is, but it matters to recognize the ordinary wins that let so many kids move through the day safely, steadily, and ready to learn. A calm day matters. A small problem that stays small matters. An adult stepping in early matters. Those things may not look impressive from the outside, but they are a huge part of what parents are actually relying on.

If people want excellent schools, they have to value more than the outcomes. They have to value the adults and systems that make those outcomes possible. That means understanding that a day that feels seamless to families may have required enormous judgment, flexibility, patience, and coordination to keep on track.

A good school day may look ordinary from the outside, but it is built by many people, carried by constant small decisions, and protected by adults whose work is easiest to miss when they are doing it well. For children to make it through the day safely, supported, and ready to learn is not just routine. It is an accomplishment.

Every time a school funding bill starts circulating, the same question comes up: Does this affect Laguna Beach Unified?

With SB 743, the answer is no.

This bill, called the Education Equalization Act, is not written to change how a district like Laguna Beach is funded. It is aimed at helping non-basic-aid districts, which still rely on the state’s main school funding formula. The bill wants to create an Equalization Reserve Account, and the interest from that account would be used to increase per-pupil funding in those non-basic-aid districts.

Laguna Beach Unified is different. LBUSD says it is a community-funded district, meaning most of its funding comes from local property taxes rather than the state formula used by many other districts. In plain English, Laguna Beach is not the kind of district SB 743 is built around.

That is the part that matters most. SB 743 defines a non-basic-aid district as one that received state LCFF apportionment funding in any of the prior three fiscal years. The bill also explains that basic-aid districts are those in which local revenue already exceeds the LCFF amount. So the bill is focused on districts that need more state support, not on districts like Laguna Beach that are primarily funded locally.

There is also no basis for acting as if this bill suddenly strips Laguna Beach of money. The bill itself says its purpose is to help close per-pupil spending gaps without reducing the amount of state funding any school district receives. People can debate whether it is good policy, but the bill is not written as a direct hit on LBUSD.

It would also not take effect automatically. The bill says this framework becomes operative only if voters approve a constitutional amendment with specific conditions. So even on its face, this is not an overnight rewrite of school finance for districts like Laguna Beach.

The simplest way to understand SB 743 is this: it is an attempt to provide more help to districts without Laguna Beach’s property tax base. It is not a bill that changes Laguna Beach Unified’s basic-aid status, nor is it aimed at pulling local funding away from LBUSD.

Over the last several weeks, I’ve written a handful of letters to the editor about Laguna Beach Unified. On the surface, they cover different issues: graduation, academic progress, the health care reconciliation, and school bonds. But to me, they are all about the same thing: whether the adults making decisions are keeping students, staff, and the district’s long-term health at the center.

That is what I’m trying to write about - sometimes it is one agenda item or a single public narrative that does not survive basic scrutiny, or it serves as a reminder that staff and teachers deserve more credit than they get. But the throughline for everything I do is the same: good schools need good governance, honest public conversation, and adults who know the difference between oversight and interference.

• Graduation Is Not a Board Power Test - Laguna Beach Independent

• The board makes the call, schools carry the load - Stu News Laguna

• Empathetic Citizens Are Built by Staff and Teachers - Laguna Beach Independent

• The Math Behind the Outrage - Laguna Beach Independent

• The tax line that launched 1,000 complaints - Stu News Laguna

By now, the terminology is less of a problem than the distance it creates. Once a conversation gets buried in bond mechanics, it becomes easier to lose sight of what people are actually trying to understand: what this money builds, what still needs work, and what voters would really be weighing if a 2026 bond shows up.

What bond money actually turns into

Most people do not care about bond mechanics for their own sake. They care about what the money turns into.

And in a school district, that usually is not the glamorous stuff. It is the expensive stuff. Roofs, HVAC, electrical systems, plumbing, site drainage, safety upgrades, accessibility work, classroom modernization, technology backbone, and major site work. That is the kind of work school bonds are built to cover in California.

LBUSD’s own capital project history makes that easy to see. Over the years, district facilities work has included the LBHS stadium track and turf replacement with drainage improvements, Top of the World classroom replacement, HVAC and energy-efficiency upgrades, Artists Theater accessibility and systems upgrades, Thurston classroom modernization, and Thurston Field modernization.

People see the campus, the programs, and the student experience. Bond money is often paying for the systems and spaces underneath that experience, the parts that are easy to ignore right up until they stop working.

The pool, and where the 2001 bond fits in

The pool has started to get talked about like it is some extra that the district decided to splurge on. That is not what this is.

LBUSD says the existing pool has reached the end of its 30-year lifespan and needs major upgrades, along with related improvements to the gym and locker rooms, to meet current standards. The district has carried the pool through work sessions, design revisions, environmental review, and formal board action as part of its long-range facilities planning. The final 2023 Facilities Master Plan update included pool modernization with a 2024 to 2027 timeline and identified cash flow requirements. The board later approved the modernization concept in October 2024, then approved construction contracts and related oversight in January 2026, with construction scheduled from June 2026 to June 2027.

The 2001 bond does not directly fund the pool. That authorization was approved in 2001, issued in the 2001 and 2003 series, and later refinanced through the 2010 and 2020 refundings. In other words, that borrowing authority had already been used for earlier generations of facility work.

But it is still part of how the district got here. By using the 2001 bond to cover earlier rounds of major capital work over time, the district did not have to cash-fund all of those earlier needs at once. That gave the district, over time, more room to build separate capital fund reserves for future facility projects. Those reserve funds are now part of the pool's support.

The reserve question

“Reserves” gets tossed around in these conversations like it ends the debate all by itself. It does not.

The cleaner way to think about it is this: the district used bond financing for earlier waves of major facilities work, and it also built reserve funds over time for future capital needs. The current pool project is being supported through those reserve and cash-transfer structures, not through leftover 2001 bond proceeds. Reporting on the January 2026 approvals said the project had about $20.4 million already allocated, including an $11 million General Fund transfer in the current fiscal year, a planned $4 million transfer in fiscal year 2026-27, and $5.4 million from the capital reserve fund.

So when someone says the pool is “draining reserves,” that is too loose to be useful on its own. The stronger version of that concern would focus on cash flow, reserve targets, and opportunity costs. Is the district using too much cash and reserve capacity on this one project, and what does that mean for the next round of major facilities needs? That is the real question.

District first, community too

LBUSD’s project materials state that the conceptual design is built around the programmatic needs of the district’s aquatic and athletic programs, while also recognizing that the pool functions as a community resource. That is the cleanest way to put it. It is a district pool first. It also has community value.

The point there is that the district is not building a city pool on behalf of the city. It is modernizing a district facility that the wider community has historically used.

As for the city, LBUSD says the Laguna Beach City Council voted on March 12, 2024, to end the joint-use agreement with the district and to pursue a separate city-operated 25-meter pool. So if the point is to be straight but fair, it is this: the city had a chance to stay in a shared arrangement and chose a different path. LBUSD then moved forward with a district-led project that still acknowledges community use, but is being designed around district needs first.

The master plan is the point

LBUSD says its Ten-Year Facilities Master Plan has been in place since 2015, is updated annually, and guides long-term planning for maintenance, renovation, modernization, and capital improvements across district facilities. The plan also notes that some projects can take about three years from planning to construction.

That is not evidence of distress. It is what a district is supposed to be doing. If anything, the worst sign would be aging facilities and no serious long-range plan behind them.

What a future bond could actually support

A future bond would not be about the current pool construction itself. It would be about the next wave of major capital work that the district’s planning process is meant to identify and sequence over time.

Based on the district’s bond history and planning framework, a future bond would most logically support the same kind of big-ticket infrastructure school bonds are typically used for: roof replacements, HVAC upgrades, electrical work, site drainage, modernization, accessibility, and safety or technology upgrades.

That is also why districts keep coming back to bonds. Even a well-maintained district is still dealing with a physical plant that ages in waves. One project gets done, another one rises on the horizon. The master plan is supposed to make that visible before it becomes an emergency.

I wish to be careful because we cannot say that a future bond is officially tied to one or two named projects in the current master plan. But what I can say with confidence is that if a future bond is proposed, it would most likely be justified around the next round of major facilities modernization and systems work, not day-to-day school operations.

What a 2026 bond would really ask

If a 2026 bond shows up, voters should be looking past the word “bond” and asking a much more practical set of questions.

Are these projects necessary?

Are they the kind of projects that make sense to finance over time?

Is the project list clear enough for voters to understand what they are approving?

Is the repayment structure reasonable?

Is the district being transparent enough about tax rate, timing, and oversight?

LBUSD’s public materials show that the district has already modeled future GO bond election scenarios and tax-rate targets. That does not mean a 2026 bond is automatic. It means the district is doing the kind of forward-looking planning districts usually do before they ever place a measure before voters.

And if the district brings forward a measure with a clear project list, a responsible repayment structure, and meaningful public oversight, that would be a standard and rational way for a school district to handle long-term capital needs.

A school bond is not automatically a good idea in every case. But pretending it is inherently a bad one is just as unserious.

Where this lands

After all the jargon, the argument is still pretty simple.

What needs to be maintained?

What still needs to be built or modernized?

What funding tools actually fit that kind of expense?

And is the district being honest enough about the needs, the costs, and the trade-offs so the public can make a clear-eyed decision?

People usually judge a district by what happens out front. The harder job is preserving the structure behind it and working over time.

Part 3: Laguna Beach Unified’s bond history, without the finance fog

Once I got into Laguna Beach Unified’s actual bond history, it became pretty apparent that much of the confusion is not really about disagreement. It is about vocabulary.

People throw around terms such as bond, series, refunding, and tax rate as if they all mean the same thing, or as if hearing one of them means the district is quietly doing something new behind the scenes. A lot of the time, that is just not true.

Before people start speculating about what a future bond might mean, it helps to understand what Laguna Beach Unified has actually done over the last 25 years. I would like to note that Proposition 39 was already available in 2001, as it had passed in 2000 to create the 55% path people are more used to hearing about now, but districts can still run a traditional two-thirds bond election instead. Laguna Beach Unified’s 2001 bond used the two-thirds route.

I found a pretty straightforward timeline: a $39 million GO bond authorization approved in 2001, two series issued under that approval, a refunding in 2010, another refunding in 2020, plus a separate Crystal Cove CFD history that people tend to lump in without explaining.

The GO bond Laguna Beach actually approved

The main local general obligation bond in this window was approved on June 5, 2001, when voters authorized $39 million in GO bonds for Laguna Beach Unified. It passed with about 80.36% in favor and was documented as a traditional two-thirds special-election bond, not a Proposition 39 bond.

That matters for a couple of reasons:

1. It shows there is already a local history here. This is not some brand-new financing idea suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

2. The 2001 bond did not come through the Prop 39 structure, which shows that not every school bond follows the same rules or comes from the same legal framework.

The documented purpose was what you would expect from a facilities bond: capital improvements and modernization, including the kind of work people rarely get excited about until it stops working, like roofs, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, and classrooms. In other words, the backstage systems.

One bond, more than one sale

This is where people tend to get lost, and honestly, it is also where a lot of sloppy shorthand takes over.

The bond measure was what voters approved in 2001, and it is the authorization.

The district did not necessarily borrow the full $39 million in one shot. Instead, that authorization was later issued in two separate bond series: Series 2001 for $22.3 million and Series 2003 for $16.7 million, issued by the County of Orange on behalf of the district.

A series is not a new vote or a “surprise” second bond. It is one actual sale under authority voters had already approved, and not evidence that the district quietly went back for more.

People hear “Series 2003” and assume it must refer to a new bond issued in 2003. It did not. It means the district was still drawing on the borrowing authority voters had already approved in 2001.

Districts do this because projects do not all move at once, and it usually makes more sense to borrow in stages than to take every dollar up front and pay interest on money that is not yet needed.

What changed later

Then comes the next word that gets people spun up: refunding. A refunding is basically a refinance. It is not the same thing as a new bond measure.

Laguna Beach Unified’s records state that on August 4, 2010, the district issued 2010 GO Refunding Bonds to refinance the earlier Series 2001 and Series 2003 bonds. Then in 2020, it refinanced again. The district’s June 2024 audit reports the outstanding GO debt as 2020 General Obligation Refunding Bonds, originally issued at $16.33 million, with $9.94 million still outstanding as of June 30, 2024.

This is not the district quietly stacking new debt on top of old debt. It is the district restructuring of existing debt.

In the 2020 case, the district conditioned the issuance on achieving at least 5% net present value debt service savings on the refunded bonds. This is exactly the kind of thing districts should be looking for when they refinance. The same documentation also notes that the 2020 bonds were sold competitively and refunded $18.135 million of the 2010 GO refunding bonds.

So again, the vocabulary matters:

A bond measure is a voter authorization. A series is one sale under that authorization. A refunding is a refinance of debt already issued.

Once those three things are separated, the local history stops sounding nearly as mysterious as people make it out to be.

What the bond has cost us (the taxpayers)

This is where the conversation usually gets oversimplified.

Laguna Beach’s school bond has not cost taxpayers today’s rate for its full life. At the time of the 2001 election, the district said the new bonds would cost about $36 per year per $100,000 of assessed value (if you paid $10,000 a year in property taxes, the bond cost $250).

This number did not stay fixed forever. Bond tax rates change over time depending on the amount of principal remaining, the debt's structure, whether it is refinanced, and how assessed values grow. In Laguna Beach Unified’s case, the later refundings are a big reason that today’s number looks so different from the original 2001 estimate.

That means there were some cost savings for taxpayers for the 2010 refunding, which refinanced the earlier 2001 and 2003 series. The 2020 refunding refinanced that 2010 debt, which Laguna Beach Unified estimated saved taxpayers $4 million.

By the time you get to the current period, the rate is much lower. Orange County tax-rate books show Laguna Beach Unified’s bond rate at $10.18 per $100,000 of assessed value in 2021-22, $9.71 in 2022-23, $8.83 in 2023-24, and $8.76 in 2024-25 (if you paid $36,000 in property taxes, the bond now costs cost $250).

This information will hopefully counter a lot of the lazy rhetoric around school bonds. The school bond authorization does not lock taxpayers into one flat number forever. Over time, assessed value growth and refundings substantially reduced the rate.

The separate Crystal Cove piece

There is also another piece of Laguna Beach school-related public finance that can muddy the waters if people are not careful.

Laguna Beach Unified has a separate Community Facilities District, CFD No. 98-1, tied to Crystal Cove. That is not the same thing as the district’s main GO bond. It is the Mello-Roos special tax debt, which follows a different structure. The district’s broader bond history summary explicitly treats the GO bond line and the Crystal Cove CFD line as separate financing tracks.

What I found is that this CFD had bond anticipation notes in 1999, special tax bonds in 2004, and special tax refunding bonds in 2012. The district’s reporting says the underlying purpose was still school-facility related in capital terms, including facilities, land and rights-of-way, planning and design, and environmental evaluation tied to mitigation obligations. As of June 30, 2024, the district reported $6.41 million in outstanding debt.

That is worth mentioning because people often collapse all district-related debt into a single bucket and then talk about it as if it were all the same thing. If someone is trying to explain Laguna Beach Unified’s debt picture without distinguishing between the 2001 GO bond history and the Crystal Cove CFD, they are leaving out an important part of the story.

What still gets twisted

This is probably the most frustrating part of this topic.

Once people decide they want to treat “bond” as a stand-in for “problem,” every related term starts getting bent in that direction too. “Series” becomes “more borrowing.” “Refunding” becomes “more debt.” Older authorizations are discussed as if they were fresh asks.

This is exactly why it is worth slowing down and naming things correctly. Not because the jargon is exciting, but because once terms get sloppy, the conversation gets more fractured right after them. And at that point, people are not really arguing about the district’s history anymore; they are arguing with a version of it that has already been flattened into a talking point.

Next up

So that is Laguna Beach’s school bond history in broad strokes.

Next, I want to get into what bond money actually turns into, what Laguna Beach facilities projects people can point to, what the master plan is doing in the background, and why that part of the story is usually easier to understand once the finance language is out of the way.

Part 2: What a school bond actually is

A future bond is easy to campaign against. Explaining what one actually is takes a little more effort.

Before I started digging into this, I had a vague idea of what a bond was. I knew it had something to do with school facilities and that it showed up through property taxes, but beyond that, I probably understood it about as well as most people who talk about it casually. Which is to say: not that well.

And before people keep throwing the word around, it helps to stop and define it.

By now, “bond” has become one of those words people use as if everyone already knows what it means. Usually they do not. Or they know just enough of it to turn it into a talking point.

So, before getting into Laguna Beach Unified’s local bond history, it helps to slow down and get clear on the structure: what a school bond is, what kind of bond California districts usually use, and what is supposed to keep that process from turning into a blank check.

What the word actually means

A bond is borrowing.

In the school district context, that means investors provide money up front, and the district repays that money over time with interest. In public finance, these are municipal bonds. For California school districts, the most common version is a general obligation bond, or GO bond.

The reason districts use bonds at all is the same reason I started this series with facilities rather than finances. The cost of major infrastructure does not fit neatly inside a normal year-to-year operating budget. Roofs, HVAC, electrical work, modernization, accessibility upgrades, safety work, and major site improvements are large capital expenses. GO bonds are one of the main tools districts use to pay for them over time instead of trying to cram all of that cost into one moment.

That does not mean every bond proposal is automatically a good one. It just means the tool itself is not unusual. It is standard.

What makes a GO bond different

A general obligation bond is not just borrowing in the abstract. It comes with a dedicated repayment source.

In California, GO bonds are typically repaid through a voter-approved property tax levy. That is possible because Proposition 13, which capped general property taxes, also preserved an exception for voter-approved debt. So when people talk about bond repayment through property taxes as if it is some kind of trick, it is worth saying plainly: it is not. That is how this type of borrowing is designed to work under California law.

That is also why it is important not to blur the distinction between the regular district budget and bond financing. A GO bond is not the same thing as the district quietly shifting operating costs onto taxpayers. It is a separate financing tool for specific long-term capital purposes.

What the money is actually for

This is one of the biggest points of confusion, and probably one of the most useful places to slow down.

GO bond proceeds are generally supposed to go toward capital purposes: school sites, construction, furnishing and equipping school facilities, permanent improvements, and sometimes the refinancing of older bond debt. They are not supposed to be used for ordinary operating expenses like teacher salaries, administrator salaries, or the day-to-day cost of running the district.

That is why I keep coming back to the distinction between what happens on stage and what happens backstage. The annual budget keeps the show running. Bond money is usually about the structure behind it: the systems, the repairs, the upgrades, and the parts of the district most people do not think about until something fails.

If people are arguing about a future bond as if it were just another version of district spending, they are missing the most basic difference.

The 55% threshold, and what comes with it

One of the reasons school bonds get debated so much in California is that the voter threshold changed.

Under older rules, school bonds generally needed a two-thirds vote to pass. Proposition 39 later created another option: certain school facility bonds can pass with 55% voter approval instead. That lower threshold is often what people mean when they say school bonds got easier to pass. But that is only half the story.

If a district wants to use the Proposition 39 structure, it has to include accountability measures. This includes a specific project list, annual independent audits, and a citizens’ oversight committee. There are also tax-rate assumptions tied to this structure. For unified districts, that generally means no more than $60 per $100,000 of taxable property value for bonds under one election authorization.

So yes, the threshold is lower, but the tradeoff is that the district is supposed to be more explicit and more transparent about what the money is for and how the public can follow it.

That part tends to disappear when people want to reduce the whole thing to “they made it easier.”

The guardrails people should know about

A school bond is not just one vote and a check.

There are multiple guardrails built into the process, and this is where the conversation gets more technical but also a lot more useful.

There are rules around what the proceeds can fund, how long bonds can run, how they are structured, and what kinds of assumptions districts are allowed to make. California has also tightened restrictions over time around more aggressive structures like capital appreciation bonds. On top of that, districts are expected to provide good-faith estimates of financing costs before issuance.

Then there are the oversight pieces. Depending on the structure of the bond, the public should be able to see project lists, audits, and committee oversight after approval. That does not mean every district explains these things well - many do not. But the framework is there, and as taxpayers, we should expect to see it.

That is really the line people should hold a district accountable to. If a district wants the public to support long-term borrowing, the public should be able to see what it is for, how it will be financed, and how the money will be tracked.

Who is actually involved

Another thing that gets lost in public discussion is that a school bond is not just the district deciding it wants money and then putting a question on the ballot. There is an actual financing process behind it.

The district board identifies needs and adopts a resolution to call the election. County officials are often involved in issuing the bonds and holding proceeds in county treasury accounts. Municipal advisors help with financing structure and timing. Bond counsel handles the legal matters. Underwriters or competitive bidders purchase the bonds in the market. Disclosure documents are prepared, and continuing disclosure rules apply after issuance.

That does not mean the process is automatically perfect. It does mean there are more layers to it than most people realize.

Honestly, that is part of why so much public debate around bonds feels thin. People are often reacting to a political version of the issue, not the actual mechanics.

What this clears up, and what it doesn’t

Understanding what a GO bond is does not tell you whether a specific future bond is a good idea.

It does not tell you whether the project list is reasonable. It does not tell you whether the district’s timing is right. It does not tell you whether the tax-rate assumptions are persuasive, and it definitely does not tell you whether the district is explaining the need clearly enough.

What it does do is clear out some of the lazier arguments:

⇒ A school bond is not just another way of saying “more district spending.”
⇒ It is not the same thing as the regular budget.
⇒ It is not supposed to fund routine salaries and operations.
⇒ It is not something that appears out of nowhere if a district is doing its planning the way it should.

Once those basics are clear, the conversation gets a lot less muddled. Without them, it is very easy for people to campaign on the word instead of explaining the thing itself.

Next up

Now that the structure is on the table, the next question is the local one: what has Laguna Beach Unified actually done with bonds?

That is where I’m going next: the district’s 2001 bond authorization, what a series is, what refunding means, and how Laguna Beach’s bond history gets much less confusing once the vocabulary is stripped down.

Part 1: Why even a well-funded district still needs bonds

School bonds are not exactly the kind of topic people race to read about. They are technical, easy to tune out, and full of words like ‘authorization,’ ‘series,’ ‘refund,’ ‘levy,’ and ‘assessed value.’ Which is part of why they are so easy to distort.

As I started digging into Laguna Beach Unified’s bond history, it became clear this wasn’t something to squeeze into one post. There was too much to explain, and too much that gets flattened when people start using the word “bond” as shorthand for financial trouble.

Lately, some people have started talking about a potential future bond as if its mere existence would prove the district is in distress. That may be a convenient talking point, but it is not a serious explanation of how school finance works.

So I am turning this into a series.

Over the next few posts, I am going to walk through why school bonds exist in California, what a bond actually is, Laguna Beach Unified’s bond history over the last 25 years, how the facilities master plan fits into all of this, and what people should expect if a 2026 bond is eventually introduced. If people are going to campaign on this, the least the rest of us can do is understand what we are actually talking about.

What people see

People usually judge a district by what happens on stage: academics, programs, teachers, student life, and the overall experience families see and feel. But school bonds are more often about the backstage systems that make all of that possible.

California school districts finance major, long-lived facility work primarily through long-term debt, most commonly general obligation bonds. These are used for modernization, new construction, roofing, HVAC, safety upgrades, accessibility work, the technology backbone, energy projects, and major site work. In other words, bonds are generally about the physical plant of the district, not the day-to-day cost of running schools.

That distinction is where this whole conversation starts, especially in districts people think of as well-funded.

In budget, but not built for this

A district can be financially stable, academically strong, and fully within budget while still not having enough money on hand to fund large capital projects from its annual budget. Pretending otherwise may be politically convenient, but it is not financially serious.

The regular school budget is built to run schools now. It pays for teachers, staff, transportation, student support, utilities, classroom operations, and everything else it takes to keep school going each year. It is not usually built to absorb a major roof replacement, a campus-wide HVAC overhaul, large-scale plumbing modernization, drainage work, or a pool project all at once. As I was digging through this, that distinction became pretty clear: operating funds are mostly tied to salaries and day-to-day education costs, while major building replacements and modernization are large, infrequent expenses that fit better with long-term financing spread across the useful life of the asset.

So when people ask, “Why can’t the district just stay in budget?” the answer is that it can stay within budget and still face real infrastructure costs that do not fit neatly into the regular annual budget.

The limits of “trim and save”

The other common question is: why not cut back, save over time, and pay cash?

Because trimming around the edges of an operating budget usually does not create enough room for major capital projects. Those costs do not arrive in a smooth, predictable way. They come in waves.

In going through the district’s records, one thing that stood out was how uneven facility costs really are. School buildings are always aging, and the big expenses do not arrive neatly. They come in waves: roofs, HVAC, electrical, site drainage, modernization, and safety upgrades.

There is also a fairness argument here. A major facility project often serves students for years, often decades. Long-term financing spreads the cost over time, which means the people benefiting from those facilities over many years also share in paying for them. That is usually more realistic than trying to force one year’s budget to absorb the entire cost at once.

So yes, districts should budget responsibly. They should maintain reserves, sequence projects well, and avoid unnecessary costs. But even if they do all of that, they may still not be able to save their way into every major infrastructure project.

A moving target

Another reason bonds remain part of the conversation is that school facilities are not static. Buildings age, but standards also change.

Accessibility requirements change. Safety expectations change. Energy requirements change. Technology needs change. Programs change, too, which means the kinds of spaces schools need can change with them. In the district’s own planning documents, this shows up in how they discuss long-range capital planning, changing enrollment needs, and programmatic shifts like universal transitional kindergarten.

So even a district that is doing a decent job of keeping up is still dealing with a moving target.

That is part of why long-range planning matters so much. Laguna Beach Unified’s Ten-Year Facilities Master Plan describes annual updates and multi-year sequencing, and notes that facility projects can take roughly three years from planning to construction. That is not the kind of work you do at the last minute.

A district planning for long-term infrastructure is not evidence of a crisis. It is what responsible governance looks like.

Behind the curtain

Bond money does not just become debt on paper; it becomes actual facilities that people use. In Laguna Beach Unified’s planning timeline, one example is pool modernization, with construction targeted to begin in June 2026. That is the kind of thing that takes this out of finance jargon and into real life.

The public sees the performance. Facilities planning is more about what is happening backstage: the systems, structures, and long-term repairs most people never think about until something stops working.

And that is really the point underneath all of this. It is not just about whether the district borrows - it is about how the district maintains the spaces where students learn, the facilities families use, and the infrastructure the community expects to function.

Next up

A future bond is easy to turn into a slogan. It is harder to explain what one actually is.

That is where I’m going next: what a general obligation bond is, how it works in California, and what taxpayers are supposed to be able to see before one ever reaches the ballot.

As a Southern California native, I grew up in La Canada schools, where the expectation was pretty simple: academic excellence above all else. When my husband and I moved to Orange County, we had two priorities in mind: great schools and being close enough to the beach that it’s actually part of your life. Laguna Beach Unified checked both boxes. Now, as a parent of two, I’m grateful for the teachers and staff who show up every day and make that “high standard” feel real.

If you haven’t heard of it, you can track any district through the LCAP, the Local Control and Accountability Plan. It’s the district’s public plan, updated each year, that lays out goals, the actions they say they’ll take, and where the money is going. I pay attention to it because it’s one of the few places where you can see priorities, spending, and results side by side, rather than scattered across a bunch of presentations and talking points.

Many districts reference CAASPP in their LCAPs as a primary progress indicator, which is California’s statewide testing system. Most people know it as the Smarter Balanced tests in English and math (grades 3 through 8 and 11), plus the California Science Test at each school level. These scores aren’t the whole story, but they’re one of the few apples-to-apples comparisons we have year to year across districts.

Laguna Beach Unified is outperforming other large, high-achieving Orange County districts on state tests, and it’s well above both the county and state averages.

2025 CAASPP Smarter Balanced results, percent meeting or exceeding the standard

English Language Arts, Orange County comparison

• Laguna Beach Unified: 77.53%

• Irvine Unified: 74.53%

• Capistrano Unified: 71.99%

• Newport-Mesa Unified: 61.70%

• Orange County average: 59% (reported by OCDE)

• California average: 48.81%

Math, Orange County comparison

• Laguna Beach Unified: 72.13%

• Irvine Unified: 70.50%

• Capistrano Unified: 62.67%

• Newport-Mesa Unified: 50.34%

• Orange County average: 49% (reported by OCDE)

• California average: 37.30%

If you zoom out statewide and look at the districts people always bring up when they say “best in California,” Laguna is still right there in the mix. Not always the very top score, but clearly in the same top band, and still far above the statewide averages.

English Language Arts, California district comparison

• La Canada Unified: 89.08%

• San Marino Unified: 85.71%

• Piedmont City Unified: 84.74%

• Laguna Beach Unified: 77.53%

• Los Alamitos Unified: 75.91%

• Poway Unified: 73.68%

• Arcadia Unified: 71.97%

• California average: 48.81%

Math, California district comparison

• San Marino Unified: 84.74%

• La Canada Unified: 84.01%

• Piedmont City Unified: 82.17%

• Laguna Beach Unified: 72.13%

• Arcadia Unified: 68.28%

• Poway Unified: 66.43%

• Los Alamitos Unified: 64.43%

• California average: 37.30%

It’s also easy to look at the top of the list and assume “highest score” automatically means “best district.” But comparisons get slippery if you ignore who a district serves. The California School Dashboard shows 5.4% of La Canada Unified students are socioeconomically disadvantaged, compared with 18.5% in Laguna Beach Unified. Those are different student populations, with different needs, and that context helps explain why headline averages can look different even when both districts are doing a lot right.

LBUSD is small enough that a stronger or weaker cohort in a tested grade can shift the overall percentages more than it would in a much larger district. And honestly, I’m glad Laguna focuses on more than test scores. I want my kids to be ready for the real world: emotionally, academically, and socially. A perfect number on a test isn’t the goal.

The LCAP helps keep us focused on trends, on how different student groups are doing, and on what the district says it’s doing to improve, not just on a one-year snapshot. If you’re skimming it, I’d look for clear goals, results broken out by student group, and actions specific enough that you can check next year whether they actually worked.

If we want Laguna Beach Unified to stay strong, we can’t assume it will just happen on autopilot. Our teachers and staff work hard to create the learning environment in which our kids are succeeding. It also requires us, as parents, to pay attention to the school board governance. When decisions come up, I keep coming back to the same three questions: does this match the strategic plan, does it support the LCAP goals, and is it actually good for students?

Sources

• LCAP overview, California Department of Education

• LBUSD LCAP (2025–26)

• CAASPP and ELPAC portal (official)

• EdSource CAASPP results database

• California statewide averages (Smarter Balanced)

• Orange County Department of Education summary (county averages)

• California School Dashboard, Laguna Beach Unified student population

• California School Dashboard, La Canada Unified student population

• Smarter Balanced results by district:

  • Laguna Beach Unified

  • Irvine Unified

  • Capistrano Unified

  • Newport-Mesa Unified

  • La Canada Unified

  • San Marino Unified

  • Piedmont City Unified

  • Poway Unified

  • Los Alamitos Unified

  • Arcadia Unified

Looking back at Orange Unified now, it feels obvious. Of course, it spiraled. Of course, it ended in recalls. Of course, it became a statewide story.

But that’s only clear in hindsight.

At the time, nothing seemed dramatic. It just looked like routine procedure.

A special meeting was called over winter break. That is allowed. The board moved into closed session. Also allowed. A majority voted to terminate the superintendent without cause, which is permitted under contract and state law.

On paper, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

But in reality, everything changed.

That vote changed the way the board operated almost overnight. It showed that the majority was ready to act quickly and decisively in areas that had once felt more cooperative and stable. After that, things heated up quickly.

Not long after, the board suspended access to the district’s digital library because of a complaint about a book. This was followed by debates about parental rights and curriculum transparency. Instead of quiet talks among professionals about what students should read, these conversations were now happening in public meetings. Each decision, on its own, could be justified. Every action was technically within the board’s authority.

But together, these actions create a precedent. And precedent carries a lot of weight.
When the board steps into day-to-day operations, trust can fade. This shows why clear boundaries are needed to maintain stability.

Within a year, voters in Orange Unified removed two trustees from office.

No dramatic bylaw changes were needed. The board already had the authority. What changed was how they chose to use it.

Now bring that closer to home.

In Laguna Beach, we recently saw the board vote on where graduation would be held. That could appear trivial, but in the past, decisions about graduation logistics have been made at the school level. When the board makes decisions like venue selection, it shifts the boundary a bit.

This isn’t just a symbolic change. Graduation decisions impact contracts, staffing, accessibility, rehearsals, communication, and a lot of behind-the-scenes work that school teams have already started. When the board votes on the venue, it changes both the outcome and who is expected to make these operational decisions.

There has been talk in the community about curriculum access and book oversight. If the board starts discussing voting on books in public, that’s not a small change. It’s the kind of issue that can quickly go from a concern to something political.

Once the board starts voting on these boundaries, the incentives shift. More issues become open to votes because the precedent has been set. Facilities priorities and timelines can turn into bargaining chips. Projects might be delayed or reshuffled based on board politics rather than professional planning. Curriculum oversight can shift from reviewing frameworks to controlling content. Even individual books can end up on the agenda. No one has to act recklessly for this to happen - it’s just what occurs when governance takes over operations in public.

Leadership stability is a big reason why this matters. I want to be clear: Dr. Glass has earned the opportunity to do the job he was hired for. People can disagree on issues without destabilizing the superintendent position. When the superintendent is steady and the board focuses on governance rather than management, the district can stay focused on students.

LBUSD uses the same governance structure as Orange Unified. A majority can call a special meeting, control the agenda, adopt policies, and make personnel decisions in a closed session.

These powers aren’t unusual - they exist in almost every school district in California.
The real difference is restraint.

Boards are meant to govern by setting direction, approving budgets, and adopting policy, thereby promoting district stability and trust. Superintendents and site leaders manage daily operations, and when these roles are clear, districts function smoothly. When roles blur, even slightly, tension and instability increase, risking district cohesion.

Voting on where graduation is held might not seem like overreach. Talking about which books should be in libraries might feel like a good response. But every time the board steps into operational matters, it sets a new standard. And once a norm is set, it’s hard to go back.

The story of OUSD shows us that escalation usually happens slowly, which is why it’s so important to practice restraint before things get out of hand.

What keeps a district steady isn’t changing the bylaws; it’s having clear guardrails.
Guardrails like clear roles and transparency demonstrate how careful processes safeguard the district’s stability and trust.

Oversight serves as the board’s job. The real question is whether that oversight stays at the policy level or becomes a matter of running daily operations by majority vote.
Just because the board can vote on something doesn’t mean it should.

Orange Unified shows how fast things can change when a board majority starts using its authority more forcefully. It opened with a simple procedure and ended with recalls.
The best way to keep a district stable is to act early, before tensions grow. If you wait until things heat up, it’s much harder to bring back balance. That’s why clear guardrails and defined roles are so important to prevent problems from getting out of control.

That’s the part people often overlook.

And that is the part worth paying attention to now.

School board governance should focus on making clear decisions and being accountable, not on creating drama or repeated conflicts.

The board’s authority comes from what happens during meetings: the agenda, public questions, motions, and recorded votes. This is where direction is set, and responsibility should stay.

When a board member starts treating governance as their own storyline, the district gets pulled onto a second track. Instead of doing the work through the meeting process, we get a separate effort to guide public perception: who is credible, who “discovered” what, what last year really meant, and what people should conclude. That might be satisfying for the person doing it, but it is corrosive to the institution because it keeps dragging everyone back to relitigate issues that have been addressed.

This is why the distinction is important. Board members do have free speech, but holding office means they must protect the integrity of the governance process. They need to be clear about when they are speaking for themselves and when they are speaking for the board. LBUSD’s bylaw on public statements makes this clear: board members should know their statements might be seen as representing the board, so they must label personal views as their own, not as the board’s position.

When a board member uses paid ads to keep district conflicts going, it blurs the line between personal opinion and board work. This keeps the community focused on old disagreements instead of moving forward.

Accountability does not need a superfluous story. Real oversight means asking clear questions about policy and results, following up over time, and using formal steps the public can see, such as making requests through the superintendent, properly bringing items forward, and making decisions by vote.

It is also unfair when a board member takes conflicts outside meetings and spreads them through paid ads in local papers. Staff cannot respond publicly to a board member’s one-sided version of events as they can to a public comment. This leaves the district managing public perception instead of focusing on work that helps teachers and students. Meetings then become more about fixing the latest version of the past than making decisions.

If there are real concerns, there is a clear and professional way to address them: bring them to the meeting, put them on the record, request a formal report, propose a policy change if needed, and vote. If a claim is important, it should be tested openly through the board’s process, not pushed through a separate story that the institution cannot properly answer.

I do not expect the board to be perfect. What matters is making progress, making clear decisions, and a board that uses its authority in public, through the right process, with measurable results.