Long before Susan Epstein was a Goleta Union School District board member, she was writing stories as a student journalist during her sophomore year of high school.
She wrote an award-winning investigative piece, an “expose,” as she recalls it, on a sudden proposal to eliminate electives at her school. It was in accordance with state law, Epstein’s principal told her at the time. Showing early signs of her analytical style, Epstein deep-dived into the story, discovered it was a choice, not a mandate, to eliminate electives. She broke the story.
“My principal didn’t talk to me for a couple of years,” Epstein said. “When I would pass him in the halls, he looked the other way.”
Epstein experienced a taste of how her actions, research and determination could positively impact the world.
“I have always been very curious and asked questions,” Epstein said. “Journalism was a fun way to talk to anyone and ask them questions. It also taught me to not take everything on face value, to dig a bit deeper.”
Eventually she and the principal were on good terms. He even wrote a letter of recommendation for her to colleges.
About 35 years later, Epstein is still asking a lot of questions — and shaping the world around her.
This past week, she sat in on her final school board meeting — 16 years after she was first elected. Epstein, 50, spent nearly a third of her life on the Goleta Union School District board of education. She stepped down voluntarily this year, worked behind-the-scenes to help her successor, Vicki Ben-Yaacov get elected, and now will expand her management consulting practice to focus on technology for social good.
Epstein’s life and career span a wide range of experiences. She was perhaps the most popular Goleta school board member of the past decade, flirted with a run for a seat on the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors, raised two children and even took a class at the University of Chicago with future President Barack Obama.
It’s a story that Epstein likes to tell — how many of the other students chose to take the law class with retired federal judges. She chose Obama, relatively unknown at the time. Obama wore jeans, was casual, sat on a table in front of the class and would freestyle various topics of the day, such as affirmative action, and then start a discussion.
“I liked him a lot,” Epstein said. “I would never have guessed he would have become president.”
Epstein thought about a career in journalism or communications. Although she originally resisted her father’s suggestion that she become a computer scientist, she eventually gave in.
“I had always been really good at math, but math was not my passion,” Epstein said. “It was a coincidence that I was good at math. It wasn’t my interest.”
At Stanford University, she signed up for an advanced class for computer engineers. She figured if she took it, she could at least say she tried it, and it would satisfy her father.
“I took the class, and I loved it,” Epstein said. “Maybe my dad did know me.”
She would spend her days trying to solve abstract math puzzles. Artificial intelligence at the time was all theory and obscure. Over time, she developed an interest in other things.
“There was this side of me that was interested in humanity,” Epstein said. By the time she was a junior in college, she started to think “about how I could make a difference in the world.”
She said she started to be concerned about sexism, racism, classism and the environment. She got involved in civil rights work and co-founded the Illinois Clemency Project, and some of her work led to the release of four women from prison.
Epstein earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science, in symbolic systems, with a concentration in artificial intelligence, from Stanford, and then graduated from the University of Chicago Law School. She decided to settle in Goleta because, she said, “it is an idyllic community for parenting and for growing up.”
Epstein decided to run for the Goleta school board after she was encouraged by people in the community. Five people ran for two open seats at the time. She came in first.
During her time on the Goleta school board, Epstein in 2005 led efforts to pass a strategic plan, a yearlong effort and the first of its kind. The plan was centered on how to focus on the whole child and not just what happened in the classroom. It balanced arts with academics, created smaller class sizes, and focused on the goal of continuous improvement.
“We didn’t just adopt an iPad for every student,” Epstein said. “We made a plan for learning.”
Test scores in Goleta started to rise, and the achievement gap between white students and students of color got smaller.
“The combination of working toward individualized instruction and recognizing children individually makes a difference,” Epstein said. “That and having really talented teachers.”
The district during her tenure transitioned from processed foods in the cafeteria to creating food from scratch.
“We have a lot of students who get two meals at school, and for many of our students those are their only meals,” Epstein said.
Goleta has one psychologist per site, also obtained during Epstein’s tenure. The district also adopted the Second Step program, which focuses on social-emotional learning, and attempted to quash bullying in the classroom and on the playground.
“Eight years ago, people didn’t talk about social-emotional for kids,” Epstein said. “We were talking about it 15 years ago.”
Recently, she was the driving force behind the passage of Measure M, a bond measure intended to raise $80 million for district improvements.
Goleta school board member Richard Mayer got teary-eyed and choked up when saying goodbye to Epstein at her final meeting on Tuesday.
“Over the past 16 years, you have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to all of the children of our community,” Mayer said. “You have demonstrated intelligence, excellent judgment, thoughtful analysis that we have all come to admire.”
Retired Superintendent Bill Banning said of Epstein: “Susan is both tenacious and respectful. She asks hard questions and seeks reasoned responses. She understands change that is cultivated best when urgency and importance are appropriately prioritized.”
Ben-Yaacov said Epstein always took her seriously.
“As a parent, the first time I reached out to the board, Susan called me back and we chatted on the phone,” Ben-Yaacov said. “We started with an environmental topic, but for some reason we ended up talking for three hours, from our science education to how to modernize our classrooms. There is so much that she brings to the table. She was the kind of board member who always listened to parents. She listened to me, and she has the students’ best interests at heart.”
At one point, Epstein considered a run at higher office. In early 2018, she pulled papers to run for Second District supervisor in Santa Barbara County. It was a brief political hiccup in her otherwise stellar public life.
Epstein appeared to be the heir apparent to the seat. She earned early endorsements from seatholder Janet Wolf, state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, former Supervisors Doreen Farr, Susan Rose and Gail Marshall, Goleta City Councilmen Kyle Richards and Stuart Kasdin, Santa Barbara City Councilwoman-elect Kristen Sneddon, retired longtime county Superintendent Bill Cirone and retired county Auditor-Controller Bob Geis.
She was halfway through her fourth term on the school board when she said, “I will champion regional approaches to addressing critical issues like public health and safety, mental health and homelessness, the need for workforce housing, the ongoing drought, and improving water and energy efficiency, and a transition to reliable renewable energy,” in a statement in 2018 about her candidacy.
She was the first to declare her candidacy for the seat. Then, Gregg Hart, a longtime Santa Barbara city councilman, announced his candidacy. Hart also obtained the endorsement of the Santa Barbara County Democratic Party.
A month later, Epstein learned her father’s health had suddently taken a turn for the worse and she sent out a mass email announcing that she would not seek the seat for personal reasons. Her sudden departure surprised even her closest allies.
Epstein told Noozhawk that it was a tough decision, but that she chose to spend the time helping her father in the Bay Area rather than attempting to run a campaign. She returned the roughly $100,000 that she had raised back to donors, and decided to help her father.
“I had every intention of running had this not happened,” Epstein said.
Hart said he admires Epstein’s accomplishments.
“The passionate commitment to public education that guided Susan Epstein’s 16 years of service on the Goleta school board has left a lasting legacy of achievement that will long benefit the students, teachers and families of the district,” Hart said.
Epstein stayed on the school board and has made her mark as somewhat of a pillar of the district. She said she would have it no other way.
She has a management consulting firm and plans to focus on education technology and artificial intelligence.
“There are a lot of ways you can have impact on the world,” Epstein said. “There are many ways to make a difference without serving in public office.”
She also plans to stay on the South Coast.
“If you want to make change, the best place to do it is local,” Epstein said. “We have an amazing school district. It is a microcosm of California. There are thousands of people in the district. There is so much human drama. These are real lives. Children are the future. To be able to impact thousands of lives is really rewarding.”
School board president Sholeh Jahangir said she will greatly miss Epstein.
“When I first met you, I was in awe of your brilliance, your dedication and your intelligence,” Jahangir said to Epstein. “I thought, I am going to sit next to this lady. I am going to look like a big, old ding-dong, but that’s not who you are. You make us shine.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
