After nearly two years of turmoil over teacher pay, the Santa Barbara Unified School District is looking at entering a new era.

Superintendent Hilda Maldonado appears to have weathered the storm of controversy surrounding the exodus of her cabinet and heavy criticisms from teachers.

The teachers union waged a very public campaign for a better contract that included marches, rallies, and picketing at district headquarters, including earlier this week.

In the end, the district and the Santa Barbara Teachers Association reached an agreement that favored a 10% salary increase for 2024-25 and a total of 5% in increases for the 2025-26 school year – “and potentially more if the district’s property tax revenue increase is more than 5%.” The union wanted a 15% salary increase next year and 8% the following year.

Last year’s board president, Wendy Sims-Moten, opted against running for another term. A total of three seats are open. Board member Bill Banning, who was appointed a year ago, is running for office. Sunita Beall, who was also appointed, is seeking to stay on the board.

Trustee Area 2

Sunita Beall

Beall has served for nine months on the school board, much of which has been centered on dealing with the teacher backlash. She said that if elected, her strongest focus would be on ensuring success in adopting the new English Language Arts curriculum.

“As you may be aware, this curriculum is based upon the science of reading, also referred to as Structured Literacy,” she said.

“If the district does not graduate literate students, we have failed as a district. Achieving a high literacy rate in all our students also provides lifelong equity — a board and district goal.”

She also wants to increase support for the arts and music programs in junior high school.

“Another goal I am pursuing is fostering student engagement at all school levels,” she said. “In elementary school, where we have the highest engagement, this would involve continuing high-quality academic, art and music programs, and promoting family engagement.

“Junior high school is where many students leave the comfort and familiarity of elementary school, and so I would like to see junior high students form diverse family groups, much in the way the academies in high school help smaller communities form within a larger school.”

At the high schools, Beall said she wants to work with the academies and add more CTE pathways “that not only provide students with immediate work opportunities as well as allow them to complete A-G requirements so that they have future opportunities to attend college, whenever they choose to do so.”

“Having high-quality enrichment in the form of arts and music as well as social and academic clubs is extremely important,” she said.

Beal said the tone of the district needs to change, and that starts with the board members and Superintendent Maldonado.

“The board needs to hold itself as well as the superintendent accountable for actions that improve community engagement, as well as actions that cause harm to those relationships,” Beall said.

She noted that Maldonado has worked hard to introduce new ELA curriculum as well as support ongoing improvement and adoption of better math curricula.

“Part of this process has been to align all the teachers at all the schools with this curriculum and to make sure that all teachers are adequately trained to teach these subjects,” Beall said.  

John Robertson

Robertson said he is running for the school board to help the community.

He was a teacher in the district for more than 40 years. He retired two years ago.

“Now I want to give back to the community, and since classroom teaching is what I know best, I decided serving on a school board makes good sense,” Robertson said.

For nearly 30 years, he taught kindergarten through 12th grade. He worked as an instructor for the past 15 years at Santa Barbara City College in the English as a Second Language and English Skills departments, and as a lecturer in the English for Multilingual Students Program at UCSB.

If elected, he said he hopes to focus on learning loss and “make sure students who were locked down due to COVID a couple years ago have adequate opportunity to recover the quality instruction they may have missed,” Robertson said.

His other goals include helping teachers manage students to access their smartphones and social media in ways that promote curricular goals. 

He said he also wants to recognize that parents have the ultimate authority for their children’s upbringing and learning, and that he wants to limit or eliminate projects and policies that are “obsolete, inefficient, ineffective or inappropriate.”

Regarding Maldonado, Robertson was vague.

“The past few years have presented educational institutions with uniquely difficult challenges, including schooling over Zoom calls and an explosion of social media activity,” he said. “The current school board has not adequately resisted adopting these unproven technologies, to the detriment of our students, whose test scores in basic skills including literacy and math reveal a need for attention from Superintendent Maldonado and new board members.”

Trustee Area 3

Bill Banning

Banning said one of his main goals is to retain and recruit excellent educators, which he believes ties to strong student success.

“This involves continuing to address competitive compensation and ensuring that teachers receive the support they need in and out of the classroom,” Banning said.

One of his top priorities, he said, is to ensure that schools remain safe, supportive environments where students are deeply engaged in their education and have the resources they need to succeed.

“I will continue focusing on equity in education and providing academic and emotional support for students with diverse needs,” Banning said.

Regarding the year of tense negotiations with the teachers, Banning said the district must focus on improving communication, morale and trust within the district.

“I am committed to fostering open communication and building stronger relationships to ensure all employees feel valued and supported,” Banning said.

He said he respects the passion and dedication of the teachers.

“While we may not always agree, we are united by a shared goal: doing what’s best for students,” Banning said. “I’m optimistic that we can continue strengthening our relationship and focusing on initiatives that benefit both teachers and students.”

Regarding morale, Banning said the board has made progress.

“I am particularly proud of leading efforts to implement renewed protocols for superintendent evaluation and board self-evaluation — important steps toward sustainable governance,” Banning said. “If elected for a full term, I will help bring stability to the board to strengthen the governance and citizen oversight of SBUSD moving forward.”

Experience, he said, will help guide the board.

“My two years as an appointed board member, combined with my long career as a teacher, union member, principal, HR and negotiations leader, and district superintendent will position me to provide the experienced leadership and stability SBUSD needs,” Banning said.

Phyliss Cohen

Cohen said she has been “nurturing the hidden genius within every child, and for nearly 40 years I have had the wonderful experience of motivating students to achieve their greatest potential no matter their abilities.”

Cohen said she is running for school board to help students, their families,
teachers and the community.

“As a substitute teacher, I have come to know the school district from the grassroots perspective and can guide the district/board to support programs that will benefit all concerned,” Cohen said.

If elected, she said she wants to bring back phonics into the classroom and focus on programs that will help kids with dyslexia learn to read.

She wants smaller class sizes and focus on the science of reading.

“Once a child can read, they can easily master other subjects such as mathematics,
the sciences, history and all other subjects,” Cohen said. “Reading in the early years is critical to the student’s emotional, psychological and educational well-being; equally
important is creating a healthy and safe learning environment.

“The more we focus on tests, the more we kill creativity.

“It appears that our country’s school system and America’s public schools K-12 are completely failing our next generation in solid grounding, in economics, civics, history, literature, government, philosophy.”

Cohen said students are no longer informed about “America’s great unique heritage, and the superior form of government with goals of producing well-informed citizens who
love this country and are eager and able to defend her.”

“Instead, the focus is on radical political and sexual agendas,” she said, “and a disdain for the principles and ideas that make our nation great.”

She called Maldonado “a very bright, intelligent and well-educated woman.”

“She comes from a large urban environment, which has not translated well into the Santa
Barbara Unified and classrooms,” Cohen said.

Chris Wichowski

Wichowski has been endorsed by the Santa Barbara Teachers Association. If elected, he said he plans first to address the budget, staff retention and special education.

“We need a proper budget because we are a unique community,” Wichowski said.

He said that most of the district’s funding comes from local taxes. He said Montecito Union School looks like a country club, while Santa Barbara Unified’s roofs leak when it rains.

“The fact that the current school board members and SBUSD leadership are struggling to provide a proper budget, culminating in a negative financial impact on those working with our children, is inappropriate,” Wichowski said. “This same budget failure impacts teacher retention and reinforces the lack of trust SBUSD staff have with the current school board members and its leadership.”

Wichowski said he has nothing against his incumbent opponent, Banning or Superintendent Maldonado. He said Banning worked with the best man in his wedding for the Solana Beach Elementary School District. The individual vouched that Banning is a good man, he said.

“However, based on personal experiences and talking to the community, it is not working as things stand,” Wichowski said.

He acknowledged Banning’s experience in education as the Superintendent for Goleta Union, but, he said, it’s not enough.

“His skill sets don’t fit what we currently need, and the ones he is supposed to have. He consistently demonstrates that he doesn’t possess the needed skill sets, such as leadership and how to properly address current student and teacher needs,” Wichowski said. “This is why those he is supposed to work with and support did not endorse his candidacy; they endorsed me.”

Wichowski said he will support the teachers.

“I know the difficulties teachers face in and out of the classroom and the educational standards that current and future students will need to meet,” Wichowski said. “When a school board member or the superintendent talks about equity, I choose to work in special education to tackle the issue. When the same current leadership talks about improving the quality of education and literacy, test scores are getting worse.”

He said the board members talked about how they were supportive of teachers, but then they renewed Maldonado’s contract and then dragged out a long contract dispute.

Wichowski, who has a kindergarten-through-12th grade teaching credential, a special-education teaching credential and a master’s degree in education, said he knows the ins and outs of this district and will make it functional for all parties involved.

Trustee Area 5

Celeste Kafri

Kafri said that Superintendent Maldonado “cares deeply about our students” and that she is dedicated to working with the school board and the community to improve learning outcomes for all students.

She said that Santa Barbara Unified has strong board members who are smart and dedicated.

“However, we need to use our time in board meetings as effectively as possible to drive results for students,” Kafri said. “If elected, I would advocate for the board to adopt a framework like the one on Effective School Boards.org to evaluate ourselves quarterly. We need to focus on our own performance as a board, since the most effective school boards have a major impact on student achievement and well-being.”

As a board member, Kafri said she would work toward a day when every student in Santa Barbara Unified is challenged, supported and thrives.

“I believe I have the right mix of skills and temperament to help our board improve our schools,” Kafri said. “I am collaborative, persistent and curious. I make decisions based on evidence. With an MBA and a certificate in education finance, I would ensure we leverage every dollar of our limited resources to do the most we can for all our students.”

Kafri said reading is a foundational skill for students.

“If a student does not read well by third grade, the rest of school is a challenge,” she said. “If we improve reading instruction for all students, outcomes also significantly improve for students in special education. In 2023-2024, 12.41% of all special education students in SBUSD met or exceeded grade level in English Language Arts (ELA).”

She said Santa Barbara Unified needs to look at how other district are teaching students.

“Districts and schools in our area and throughout the country have made substantial progress in teaching more students to read well,” Kafri said. “We need to look to them for guidance in creating our own districtwide literacy action plan.”

Jason Lekas

Lekas has a bachelor’s degree in humanities and an MBA.

“I am running for the school board to advocate for an education system that empowers both teachers and students to excel,” Lekas said on his website. “My goal is to create a school system that celebrates merit, fosters intellectual growth, and prepares students to be thoughtful, engaged citizens.”

He said on his website that he is deeply committed to fiscal responsibility and the crucial role a board plays in holding leadership accountable.

“I believe that money misspent is money not used to create positive outcomes for students, which demands a different kind of board supervision,” Lekas said. “Effective oversight ensures that resources are wisely managed and every decision aligns with our mission, ultimately providing all students with the opportunities they deserve.”

His campaign slogan is “educating with purpose, managing with care.”

If elected, he said on his campaign materials, he would advocate for a school system that empowers both teachers and students to excel; celebrates merit and fosters intellectual growth; and prepares students to be thoughtful, engaged citizens.

“I am passionate about making a positive impact on our schools and respectfully ask for your support and vote,” he wrote.

The election is Nov. 5.