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Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009

Only 1 of 3 Atwater elementary School District board seats is contested

District vote is new for elementary school board.

ATWATER -- Three slots -- but only one race for seats on the Atwater Elementary School District board.

After reforms last spring, residents will elect school board members based on their neighborhoods.

That means in the newly formed district one, attorney Kelly Fincher will be the only name on the ballot. In district four, Sheila Whitley, a Merced High School teacher, will also run unopposed.

That leaves Mary Ann Navarra, a deputy probation officer for Merced County, and Dale Wilson, a farm manager, to fight for the chance to represent voters in district five.

The area includes most of the district's area south of Highway 99 and more sparsely populated neighborhoods in the west and north.

Both Navarra and Wilson filed election papers on the last day of the regular filing period in a year when one-fifth of the 87 candidates countywide filed on the same day or during an extended filing period.

"I kept watching the newspaper, to be honest, and I saw that no one was expressing interest in running for the school board," Wilson said. "I just thought that I didn't want to see a whole board appointed."

Wilson, 62, manages Finster Ranch in Winton and has two grandsons attending schools in the district.

He served on the Winton school board while the district was struggling with extreme funding issues after the passage of Proposition 13 -- a ballot initiative that capped property taxes -- so Wilson thinks he is uniquely qualified to deal with sustained state cuts now.

(Last year, the Atwater Elementary School District laid off several employees, cut special programs, increased class sizes and began rotating school bus routes -- all to save money after $8 million in cuts over two years.)

"I anticipate that we're going to have a real tough year," Navarra said. "If we can manage to keep a lot of our programs, keep our staff, it will be a lot of positives from there on. We will be able to build our staff, build our programs back up."

Navarra, 43, has a 7-year-old daughter who attends Peggy Heller Elementary School and two grown children who attended schools in the district.

As a board member, she said she'd try to keep classroom sizes down, provide athletic programs and focus on retaining school staff members like librarians.

"My oldest two went through the district," she said. "They went to college. They are successful. I have one still there and I would like her to have the same success as the other two."

Wilson wants to concentrate on the handling of state and federal mandates.

"I have an interest in education. I keep current with the news. I listen to the radio about what the state and federal governments are doing for the system," Wilson said. "I'd like to see that they send money down when they send down mandates."

The Atwater Elementary District Teachers Association hasn't endorsed either Navarra or Wilson.

"We're going to let the people decide," association president Brad Pickle said. "And then we will work with them the best we can to do what is best for the teachers and students of Atwater."

Reporter Danielle E. Gaines can be reached at (209) 385-2407 or dgaines@mercedsun-star.com.