GILROY
– Gilroy voters told their local public school officials Tuesday
that education here is at least on the right track.
GILROY – Gilroy voters told their local public school officials Tuesday that education here is at least on the right track.
That’s the message incumbents Jim Rogers and TJ Owens heard last night when voters re-elected both men to another term as trustees of the Gilroy Unified School District. Joining the incumbents on the board are the respective third- and fourth-place finishers in Tuesday’s election David McRae and Tom Bundros.
“I think it says people like the direction we’re going. It’s a vote of confidence to continue the approach we’ve been taking,” Rogers said. “I think it also is a vote of approval for (Superintendent) Edwin Diaz and the work he’s done the last two years.”
Diaz hailed Rogers and Owens as “board members who are in this for the right reasons.
“The community can see they have the best interest of kids at heart,” said Diaz.
Rogers and Owens, both retired educators, gathered with dozens of district supporters Tuesday night at campaign headquarters for Measure I – the GUSD’s $69-million facilities bond also on the Nov. 5 ballot. Owens said he believes voters who have been following the district in recent years understand Gilroy has a school board with open ears and open minds.
“We’ve listened to the concerns. We’ve modified some programs, like high school honors courses and El Portal charter school. We haven’t just given people everything they want, but we’ve made key adjustments,” Owens said.
With all precincts reporting, Rogers had 4,549 votes (21.6 percent), Owens garnered 4,501 votes (21.3 percent), David McRae took in 3,953 votes (18.7 percent) and Tom Bundros landed 3,732 votes (17.7 percent).
David Oberstadt earned 2,421 votes (11.5 percent) and Jesus Florencio Gonzalez got 1,946 votes (9.2 percent).
Both Oberstadt and Gonzalez were first-time campaigners. Gonzalez, running on a platform to make sure Hispanic students got a fair shake in the GUSD, said he would consider running again. Oberstadt said he has not considered whether he would run again.
“I am learning,” said Gonzalez, who has plans to attend more board meetings and district events in the future.
Gonzalez, a self-employed computer components salesman, said Hispanic students in Gilroy will be in good hands.
“I think (TJ) Owens will think of all students in the district and Jaime Rosso is still on the board, too,” said Gonzalez, an eight-year Gilroyan.
McRae and Bundros will replace Vice President Lonna Martinez and Trustee Richard Rodriguez who decided not to seek re-election.
McRae, a facilities and operations supervisor at Stanford University, credited what he called his “broad-based approach” to campaigning for his successful school board bid.
“I tried to address a lot of different issues. I didn’t speak to just one issue. I spent time at board meetings. I talked to the community,” McRae said.
McRae, 39, said he is excited to work with the school board incumbents and agreed with their assessment that voters gave the entire district a vote of confidence by re-electing them. McRae said he would attend each school board meeting until he takes his trustee seat in January.
“I want to develop a rapport with board members and hit the ground running,” McRae said. “Now’s when the real work begins.”
Bundros, who beat Oberstadt by just more than 6 percentage points for the last open seat, said his focus on the district’s overall low student performance apparently resonated with voters.
“The feedback I got in talking with the community is that there needed to be a focus on the performance of schools,” Bundros said. “My verbalization of that need to improve (for instance, test scores) got voters on board.”
Bundros, 54, is a software engineer for IBM. During his campaign, he said he loved to crunch numbers and analyze data. It’s something he and fellow trustees could be doing a lot of in the next few years, when the state’s budget troubles figure to filter down to the local school district.
