Dee Perry and Elizabeth “Liz” Bates have built their Laguna Beach School Board trustee campaign around a simple story: two longtime Laguna women, one a former teacher and longtime Board member, the other her former third-grade student, coming together decades later to run for School Board. Their website is filled with Laguna imagery, local traditions, old photographs, familiar places, and repeated promises to keep outside politics away from the District.
It is a good story, but the record underneath it tells a different one.
Dee and Liz, under the “Roots and Results” name, say they are independent candidates, not a slate. Their website emphasizes separate candidate committees, bank accounts, filings, and that each has “her own treasurer.” Yet the campaign says Dee and Liz “campaign together,” calls them the “same team,” describes them as “the ticket,” uses a single website and brand, puts both names on the same yard sign, holds joint events, solicits responses through a shared survey, and repeatedly asks voters to elect both. Liz’s candidate statement calls Dee her “running mate.”
The campaign-finance filings add another detail: the Form 460s list the same person as treasurer for both candidate committees.
Dee and Liz can describe the arrangement however they choose. I am more interested in how they are actually campaigning, and by every practical measure presented to voters, they are campaigning as a pair.
That becomes especially important when the campaign reaches the ballot itself.
Three LBUSD seats are open, and voters will select up to three candidates. Dee and Liz explicitly ask supporters to vote for them and leave the third choice blank. The homepage clearly states: “Three seats. Two names. Only vote for two.” It tells voters that making a third vote “dilutes” the first two and could help elect another candidate.
I understand the strategy perfectly, as bullet voting improves Dee and Liz’s chances. But I think it is a terrible message for a School Board campaign to send.
Every voter has the right to examine all five candidates and use as much of their voting power as they choose. Asking someone to vote for you is campaigning, but asking them to stop evaluating the ballot after your two names goes further.
The contradiction is even bigger because the campaign’s own voter guide tells people to “look at each candidate individually,” reminds voters they “do not have to take a package,” and encourages them to decide each name on its own.
I agree with that advice, and it should apply to the third vote too.
I keep coming back to a key question: who appears in the Roots and Results version of “our community”?
The campaign is saturated with Laguna Beach identity: the wave, Top of the World, Coast Highway, the Pageant, Sawdust, Plein-air painters, Irvine Bowl, Tide Pools, downtown businesses, longtime residents, and generations raised here. Liz’s candidate statement ends with, “That’s Laguna raising its own.” Their priorities repeatedly refer to “every voice in Laguna,” “one Laguna,” and “this town.”
I love Laguna history too, but LBUSD is a school district with boundaries beyond the City of Laguna Beach.
LBUSD serves Laguna Beach and parts of Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods, and Newport Coast. Those families vote in this election, and their children attend these schools. They are as much LBUSD constituents as families whose families have lived in Laguna for forty years.
That is why the unrelenting emphasis on being “homegrown” gives me pause.
Where does the family in Aliso Viejo fit into this version of community? What about the parent who moved here last year? The renter without generations of Laguna history? The family in Newport Coast whose child has never been to the Sawdust Festival?
Deep roots make a good story, but they shouldn’t be a test of belonging.
Then there are the priorities themselves.
Dee and Liz’s platform has good ideas: fresh food, strong arts programs, less mindless screen time, better literacy, outdoor education, critical thinking, and more support for students with disabilities. I agree with plenty of it.
What I find more interesting is how much of the platform is framed as something to bring back, fix, or introduce when some work is already required, approved, or underway.
Cursive is the clearest example. Dee and Liz propose bringing back “classical fundamentals,” including cursive handwriting. California amended its course-of-study requirements effective January 1, 2024, to include cursive or joined italics instruction in grades one through six. Stronger implementation may be a legitimate discussion, but cursive is not new.
The kitchen proposal is similar. Dee and Liz make “real food in real kitchens” a signature priority, yet their website acknowledges the 2026 Facilities Master Plan already prioritizes rebuilding kitchens at Top of the World and El Morro. Measure A’s project list includes modernizing and equipping cafeterias, kitchens, and serving areas. Liz can advocate for what happens inside those kitchens, but voters should know this campaign did not start the capital planning.
The arts are already moving too. The Board majority created an Ad Hoc Arts Committee in October 2025 specifically to improve arts education and strengthen community partnerships. Dee Perry co-chaired it as Board president. The District described the committee’s purpose as making the arts a defining element of LBUSD schools.
The point is not opposition to those efforts, but insight about what is already underway.
Special education deserves even more precision. Dee and Liz say, “let’s stop shipping our kids out of town,” with keeping children home described as the “North Star.” The campaign does acknowledge that some students require specialized settings.
Federal law already requires placement to be as close as possible to a child’s home. It also requires something just as important: placement decisions must be based on the individual student’s IEP, made with parents and knowledgeable team members, comply with least-restrictive-environment requirements, and respond to that child’s particular needs. The U.S. Department of Education has described individualized, case-by-case decision-making as the overriding rule.
That nuance is important, especially from a candidate with decades in special education. Keeping students close to home is a worthy goal, but sometimes the program that meets a child’s needs is elsewhere. A School Board cannot turn a legal, individualized process into a campaign slogan.
That brings me to the people currently working inside LBUSD.
Dee spent 35 years working in Laguna Beach schools as a teacher and speech-language pathologist before serving on the Board. Her campaign makes that history central to her qualifications.
This year, Laguna’s teachers unanimously endorsed Joan Malczewski, Shaheen Sheik-Sadhal and Kimberly Smith. Classified staff backed the same three at 98%.
Dee received no teacher endorsements, even though she is a retired teacher herself. For me, that is one of the hardest facts in this campaign to accept.
Teachers are not a monolith, and neither are classified employees. They have different politics, personalities, schools, jobs, and experiences. An endorsement does not tell voters what to do. But if I had spent 35 years as an educator in this District and the people currently doing that work overwhelmingly chose three other candidates, I would do serious self-reflection and take it seriously instead of discounting it. Voters should too.
Dee and Liz also work hard to distinguish themselves from FUEL Forward PAC and describe themselves as grassroots. The campaign says there is “no PAC behind this,” emphasizes that “small amounts genuinely pay for this,” and contrasts its structure with the PAC supporting Joan, Shaheen, and Kimberly.
Political Action Committees (PACs) are hardly some insidious intrusion into public life. They are a routine part of elections, including local ballot measures and candidate races, on all sides. Voters should absolutely examine who funds them, what they spend, and whose interests they represent. They should apply the same scrutiny to candidate committees.
Dee and Liz’s filings help you do exactly that.
Through September 19, Dee reported $8,385 in monetary contributions, and Liz reported $6,660. Across the two committees, I found eight distinct itemized contributor names, with five appearing on both filings. The median itemized contribution to each campaign was $500. One contributor gave $5,000 to Dee and $5,000 to Liz. Contributions below the $100 itemization threshold totaled $35 for Dee and $60 for Liz.
When a campaign repeatedly describes itself as grassroots and tells voters small contributions fund the operation, the filings become part of how voters define it.
Which brings me to the endorsement I cannot shrug off: Reform California.
Dee and Liz have made keeping “Sacramento politics” and outside political interests away from Laguna schools one of the central contrasts of its campaign. Its bullet-voting message specifically tells voters that Laguna Beach schools need “homegrown, rooted leadership” rather than Sacramento politics.
Reform California is a statewide, very conservative political organization led by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio. Reform California describes itself as a movement dedicated to taking California back from “far-Left politicians and special interests.” It recruits and supports candidates, distributes voter guides, campaigns against every tax increase, promotes voter-ID policies, and is working explicitly to increase Republican power in Sacramento.
Reform California’s Orange County voter guide now endorses exactly two people for Laguna Beach Unified School District: Dee Perry and Elizabeth Bates.
It gives voters the same strategic instruction used by Roots and Results: “Vote only for these candidates. Leave all other choices blank.”
On that same guide, Reform California recommends a No vote on LBUSD Measure A, describing it as a “costly” property-tax increase (median cost for a homeowner is $100/year) and attacking District spending.
The endorsement tells voters which candidates Reform California believes best fit its political priorities. I want to know whether Dee and Liz welcome that endorsement. I want to know where their views align with Reform California and where they diverge, particularly on Measure A, where their campaign says neither candidate has taken a position. Those are fair questions, given that Dee and Liz have made local independence and keeping outside politics away from Laguna schools part of their identity. At the same time, Reform California’s endorsement does not establish that Dee and Liz sought it, coordinated with the organization, or share its position on Measure A.
None of these issues exist in a vacuum. Together, they tell voters considerably more about the “Roots and Results” than the ocean wave on the yard sign.
This is a campaign built around two candidates who emphasize their autonomy while campaigning almost entirely as a pair; a definition of “local” centered tightly on Laguna Beach even though the District reaches beyond it; priorities that are in several cases already law or already underway; a grassroots identity supported so far by a small group of contributors; and a former LBUSD teacher who did not earn the endorsement of the teachers or staff currently working in LBUSD.
Then Reform California selected Dee and Liz as its two choices for School Board, told voters to leave the third seat blank, and opposed Measure A.
Roots and Results asks voters to look for the Laguna ocean wave. I am going to look past it.