Election night results on Tuesday night showed Jacqueline Inda Karlsen and Valerie Amparan leading in their respective races for the Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education.
For Trustee Area 1, Inda Karlsen had 63.9% of the vote while her opponent, Mark Philibosian, received 35.6%.
In Trustee Area 4, Amparan had a lead over incumbent Rose Muñoz with 43.6% of the vote.
Candidate Kevin Guay received 17.9% of the vote.
Those who are sworn in will be a part of the school board that selects the new superintendent to replace Hilda Maldonado, who is set to retire at the end of this school year.
Born and raised in Santa Barbara, Inda Karlsen is the president of the Hispanic Chamber Foundation. She is known for advocating for immigrant families and her work at the La Casa de la Raza building in Santa Barbara.
It marks her second run for school board after previously running and losing in 2008.
“I feel like this race for me was more about the constituents in my district that wanted to select somebody that was like-minded that cared for the community,” Karlsen said. “So I feel honored that I had that.”
Philibosian spent three years at BlackRock and most recently was a management consultant at Ernst & Young.
He grew up in Goleta and graduated from Dos Pueblos High School. He now has two children with his wife, a Santa Barbara teacher of 12 years.
Amparan has 15-plus years of software-as-a-service leadership, and is a part of numerous local organizations such as 4 Kids 2 Kids and the Junior League of Santa Barbara, and led a Transition House library renovation.
“I’m really thankful for all the supporters I’ve had along this journey and all the new friends I’ve made,” Amparan said. “This has been a really fun campaign to run, and I just want to say how thankful I am to have a community that cares about education and our students.”
Muñoz has served on the school board since 2018 and was born and raised in Santa Barbara. She has a master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California.
Semi-official election results were released around 1:48 a.m. Wednesday and additional updates will be released in the coming days as more ballots are processed and counted. Final, certified results will be available by Dec. 3.
