There’s Something About Laguna

How a handful of concerned parents brought a community together and gave me so much more than I expected.

A few days ago, I found myself scrolling through the infamous FUEL group chat, reminiscing about how long this journey has been for so many people in our community. I was reading conversations from nearly two years ago, recognizing names that have since become close friends, remembering the questions people were asking and the concerns they were raising, when I realized something that genuinely surprised me: I had joined the group chat within a week of its creation.

At the time, I knew exactly one person, a wonderful neighbor who had been keeping me up to date on what was happening in our school district. I was a mom with two very little kids, neither of whom was even in the district yet, a full-time career, and a growing concern about the decisions being made by the people responsible for the public schools my family had deliberately chosen.

In true-to-me fashion, I introduced myself to a group of complete strangers and immediately started asking what we could do, who we needed to talk to, and how we could get involved.

I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into.

If I could go back and tell myself what the next two years would look like, the people I would meet, the friendships I would make, the things I would learn, and how profoundly this experience would change my relationship with our community, I don’t think I would believe a word of it.

I have tried several times during this election season to write something about Joan, Shaheen, and Kimberly, and every attempt seemed to fall short of what I really wanted to express without sounding like another piece of campaign material. I know these three women personally, I admire them enormously, and I have been fortunate to develop friendships with each of them. Joan’s understanding of education and governance, Shaheen’s extraordinary ability to make everyone feel welcomed and valued, and Kimberly’s calm, thoughtful, and sometimes hilariously funny approach to even the most difficult situations have left lasting impressions on me.

But as this election comes to a close, I keep thinking about the much larger group of people who made this entire effort possible, particularly the parents who decided that something needed to change and were willing to take on the responsibility of making it happen.

Those early conversations were filled with parents asking questions, neighbors comparing experiences, and longtime community members trying to understand the decisions being made by our school board. Eventually, a group of parents took those conversations and created FUEL, giving people a place to find information, organize, and participate in an effort that would grow far beyond anything those first conversations could have anticipated.

I have tremendous admiration for those parents, who stepped forward without knowing whether anyone would follow, who put their names and reputations behind something they believed in, and who accepted the extraordinary amount of work and public scrutiny that came with becoming the faces of a growing community movement. They had careers, children, families, and responsibilities of their own, yet they took on the enormous task of creating something that gave the rest of us a place to contribute. I hope they know how many people found their voice, their confidence, and their community because those parents were willing to step forward first.

Parents became campaign managers, treasurers, fundraisers, communications leads, and experts in subjects they had probably never imagined needing to understand. People opened their homes for events, offered professional expertise, spent evenings making phone calls, and contributed financially because they believed in what this effort could accomplish for our schools.

By July, the sense of urgency was almost comical. JULY! Election Day was still four months away, and people were practically climbing the walls wanting to get started.

First came the donors and yard signs, followed by dozens of gatherings that brought hundreds of residents together to meet Joan, Shaheen, and Kimberly. Then everyone wanted to start knocking on doors, which sounded simple enough until the people who actually knew how to run a field campaign explained what that would entail.

Fortunately, experienced volunteers and professionals helped turn that enthusiasm into something organized, including Kalvin Alvarez, our field director, who took on the enormous task of coordinating parents, retirees, students, longtime volunteers, and people who had never knocked on a door for a campaign in their lives. Alongside him were our community volunteers developing technology, organizing neighborhoods, training volunteers, and somehow keeping track of the seemingly endless moving pieces.

Having contributed to this effort and witnessed so much of the work happening behind the scenes, I am still amazed by the sheer number of hours people have given, often quietly and without recognition, while managing everything else happening in their lives.

What began with parents trying to understand what was happening in their children’s schools in a group chat had grown into an effort involving hundreds of volunteers from Laguna Beach, Aliso Viejo, Laguna Woods, and Newport Coast, including people whose own children had graduated from our schools decades earlier.

I think we will look back on this period as an important chapter in our community’s history, regardless of the election results. There is something incredibly powerful about watching ordinary people recognize that they have the ability to organize, contribute, and become active participants in the decisions shaping their community, particularly when so many of them had never imagined themselves getting involved in anything like this.

I wrote my first letter to the editor in April 2025 because I was concerned about how our district’s academic performance was being discussed, and I believed the community deserved better information and more context. Eventually, I started A Public Record for Laguna Schools because I wanted somewhere to document what was happening, preserve the history of this period, and offer my perspective on the decisions being made.

It was never intended to become a journalistic endeavor or anything particularly grand. I had questions, loved research, and enjoyed the process of understanding how our public systems actually work.

Somewhere along the way, California Education Code and school board bylaws became recreational reading, which I recognize is probably a fairly alarming development for someone with two young kids and an already demanding job.

But I kept writing, and people kept reading.

Throughout everything I have written, my fundamental beliefs have remained consistent. I believe excellent public schools are worth protecting, educators deserve respect, public resources should be managed responsibly, and elected officials should understand both the responsibilities and limitations of their positions. I believe in asking difficult questions, examining the evidence, and holding public institutions accountable, even when doing so is uncomfortable or unpopular.

Those convictions were there long before I joined that group chat, although I certainly never anticipated how many people I would meet because I decided to start expressing them publicly.

My oldest is now in elementary school, and under normal circumstances, I would probably still be getting to know other parents through school drop-off, birthday parties, and the occasional PTA event. Instead, I have been introduced to an extraordinary cross-section of Laguna Beach, including retired educators, longtime residents, fifth-generation locals, young families, community leaders, and people whose children graduated decades before mine were born.

Laguna is such a wonderful place. It is steeped in tradition and somehow always a little eccentric. It is conservative and liberal, sophisticated and absurd, fiercely independent, deeply opinionated, and often astonishingly generous. People have long memories, very strong feelings, and an almost unbelievable capacity to become involved when something captures their attention.

I absolutely love it.

And while my family has always felt fortunate to be part of this school district, I now feel connected to this community in a way that would have taken me decades to experience otherwise.

Some of the people I now consider close friends are people I likely would never have met under ordinary circumstances. Others have encouraged me, challenged my thinking, shared their knowledge, trusted my judgment, and recognized strengths in me that I hadn’t fully recognized in myself.

With a career I love, a husband, and two children, I certainly wasn’t expecting to stumble into some new chapter of personal discovery through local school board politics.

But here we are.

I have learned to trust myself more, to be comfortable standing behind my conclusions, and to recognize that I have something meaningful to contribute. I’ve also learned that having people around you who believe in you, particularly when you’re navigating something unfamiliar or difficult, can change the way you see yourself.

There have certainly been unpleasant moments along the way, some of which I would happily never repeat, but even those experiences have taught me something about my own resilience and the importance of staying grounded in what I believe.

I hope everyone who has participated in this movement has a moment to appreciate what they helped create.

I know how difficult that can be when you’re still answering messages, solving the next problem, trying to get your kids to bed, and wondering how there are somehow another twenty things that need to happen before tomorrow. But I hope the parents who started FUEL, the people who stepped forward to run for office, the volunteers who spent their weekends knocking on doors, and everyone who contributed in ways large and small can recognize the significance of what they accomplished together.

I am grateful to the people who created this opportunity for our community, to Joan, Shaheen, and Kimberly and their families, to the teachers and classified staff who have dedicated themselves to our children, and to everyone who has read A Public Record, shared an article, challenged a conclusion, offered encouragement, or simply stopped me on the street to introduce themselves.

And I am especially grateful for the friendships that have grown out of this experience, because those are the things I know I will carry with me long after the election is over.

Whatever happens today, I intend to keep writing, keep asking questions, and keep holding our district’s leadership accountable, including Joan, Shaheen, and Kimberly if they are elected. They know me well enough to understand that my commitment to our schools and our children will remain exactly where it has always been, and I hope the community engagement we’ve seen throughout this election continues well beyond it.

For anyone who has not yet cast a ballot, I hope you will participate. Vote for school board, Measure A, City Council, statewide offices, Congress, and everything else on your ballot. Make your own decisions based on what you believe is best, and exercise the right that allows all of us to have a voice in the direction of our community.

We are all neighbors, even after the election. Our children will still attend these schools, and we will still share the responsibility of working together to make this district the best it can possibly be.

And again, to everyone who showed up, who made room for someone new, who shared their knowledge, who believed in what this community could accomplish, and who helped turn a handful of concerned parents into something so much larger, thank you.

You gave me friendships, confidence, a much deeper connection to the place my family calls home, and a chapter of my life I will never, ever forget.