In Paso Robles, 4 school board seats will be decided. Read our endorsements | Opinion

Voters in four of the seven trustee areas within the Paso Robles Unified School District will elect school board members in November.

Eight candidates are running in total — two from each district. The field includes three incumbents and one former trustee who is looking to regain his seat.

Once again, it’s a race that pits conservatives against moderates, as the far right attempts to regain the control it lost in the last election. This time, it’s pinning its hopes on an outspoken, 19-year-old Republican who has lots of moxie but little experience to tip the scales.

Three of the candidates — Nathan Williams, Adelita Hiteshew and Tracy Dauterman — met with The Tribune Editorial Board. To evaluate the other candidates, we considered statements they made during a candidates forum and on radio interviews in addition to campaign materials and, in the case of incumbents, their records.

Here are our endorsements:

Trustee Area 3: Hunter Breese/Nathan Williams

Williams, the current school board president, is finishing up his first term on the board. He is a retired firefighter and the father of four — including three children in Paso schools and a fourth in college.

He’s impressed us as thoughtful and deliberate — someone who carefully considers all points of view before making a decision.

Williams is laser-focused on issues affecting Paso Robles schools, rather than broader, national issues that have sown so much division and discord in the past.

“As far as using the school board as a political tool for personal beliefs, I think that’s where we go too far,” he told The Tribune Editorial Board. “Our drive is to make sure that we are being fiscally responsible, that we are making sure that academic achievements happen, that we are providing our youth with resources to go beyond our public schools.”

Williams’ opponent, 19-year-old Hunter Breese, is a 2022 graduate of Paso Robles High School.

We need young people to step up and run for office, but aside from being a recent student and serving as president of the Republican Club at Paso Robles High, Breese’s qualifications for public office are thin.

At a recent candidates forum, he relied heavily on his ability to bring a “new perspective” to the board.

“One thing I have on all the other candidates up here is I’m not old,” he said. “You know, some of you might get a little upset with me, but you’re all a lot older than I am and, you know, I can really bring that new perspective.”

Even more concerning is his insistence on politicizing what is supposed to be a nonpartisan office. He makes no secret of his disdain for liberals — including those he would be tasked with representing if elected.

During an interview on KPRL radio, for example, he explained why he decided to move out of his parents’ house and establish residency in a new trustee area.

“I’m 19. I don’t want to live with my parents for the rest of my life,” he said. “I know some Democrats would love to just live with their parents for the rest of their lives and not have to deal with any responsibility. But that’s not me.”

Paso Robles schools deserve school board members who are prepared to put partisan politics aside and focus on education. It does not appear that Breese is ready to do that.

Williams is clearly the more qualified candidate and merits a second term on the board.

Trustee Area 5: Tim Gearhart/Laurene D. McCoy

We are not offering an endorsement in this race, since neither candidate participated in The Tribune’s interview process.

Both candidates appear qualified — Laurene McCoy is an incumbent and Tim Gearhart is a retired teacher and former board member.

We are concerned that McCoy’s hard line on parental rights may not always be in the best interests of students. Take her rigid position on the issue of parental notification of a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

“When it comes to anyone’s child, they (parents) need to know everything. Nothing should ever be withheld or hidden, period. ... I don’t care what the situation is,” she said in a KPRL interview. “I stand on parental rights 100%. I will exhaust it until I cannot exhaust it anymore.”

That position is contrary to a state law that prohibits schools from disclosing a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity (AB 1955, the Safety Act). Even more concerning, a one-size-fits-all attitude fails to even consider that there could be harmful consequences for students.

Gearhart recognizes that: “It’s not 100% do it this way,” he said on KPRL. “You have to look at the circumstances of what the heck’s going on.”

Parental rights are important, but should not take precedence over child safety.

Trustee Area 6: Leo Castillo/Adelita Hiteshew

Both are strong candidates who have been heavily involved in education.

Castillo was student affairs coordinator at Almond Acres Charter School in Paso Robles for three years, following a 22-year career in the Army. He now works as a contractor at Camp Roberts.

Hiteshew has three children in district schools. She’s had a number of volunteer and paid positions with the district, including working as a kindergarten para-educator for three years. She is currently PTA president at Virginia Peterson.

Either candidate would be an excellent addition to the board, but Hiteshew’s history of involvement with the district for so many years — including in times of strife — is especially impressive.

She has not always been treated kindly or fairly by district administration; when she applied to fill a vacancy on the board in 2021, the board president at the time accused her of tending “to be kind of flowery ... a bit emotional in answering the questions.”

The board ultimately chose an 82-year-old, white, male, ultra-conservative election denier over Hiteshew — a well-qualified, Latina parent — in a district where 58% of students are Hispanic/Latino.

That is in the past, and the district is now under new leadership. However, it’s worth bringing up because it demonstrates Hiteshew’s dedication to the Paso Robles school district and its students. That she would still be willing to serve the district after being treated so dismissively speaks volumes about her strength and her character.

It’s past time that she had a seat on the board.

Trustee Area 7: Tracy Dauterman/Kenney Enney

Enney, the incumbent, was appointed to fill a vacancy on the board in 2022, but opponents forced a special election.

At the time, we wrote that Enney “appears committed to ramming through his personal agenda.”

“He has made it clear, for example, that he has nothing but disdain for the teachers union, vilifying members — or at least the leadership — for holding ‘wildly radical anti-American and anti-family beliefs.’”

Enney won the special election, and is now running for a full term.

We have not changed our assessment; Enney still is using his office to crusade for conservative values and to stir up trouble at every opportunity.

He has, for example, embarked on a mission to ensure that only one flag — the American flag — is flown at school buildings and in classrooms. (He did concede, however, that the California flag is acceptable as well.)

And he still doesn’t have much love for teachers.

“When you look at our school board meetings, every meeting you have Paso Robles public educators come in. ... If you want to talk about bringing politics to a meeting, they are probably the ones that do it,” he said on KPRL.

“Case in point, last October, after a school shooting ... they came in and they wore orange, and they wanted the board to write a letter to (Rep.) Salud Carbajal, calling for a ban on automatic weapons. That has nothing to do with the school board, in my opinion. ...”

It’s extremely disappointing that a member of a San Luis Obispo County school board would be obsessed with ensuring that every classroom displays an American flag, while simultaneously disparaging teachers for exercising their First Amendment right to speak out against automatic weapons used in school shootings.

Thankfully, voters have another option.

Dauterman has been actively involved in the district — so much so that it almost seems like she’s already on the school board.

She served on the district advisory committee on school closures. She’s on the transportation working group that is trying to improve service, and on a district community charged with reporting on how funds from a $95 million bond voters approved in 2016 are used.

She’s also PTA president at Winifred Pifer Elementary School, where her two children attend school, and serves on the school site council.

Dauterman has a background in marketing, communications and commercial consulting and recently earned a master’s degree in business administration from Santa Clara University.

She recognizes and appreciates how important it is for the district to communicate not only with parents, but with the entire community.

“We need to have better communication from the school district as to how the schools are doing, how they’re performing. .... It would be great to share more success stories,” she told The Tribune Editorial Board.

As a board member, Dauterman’s priorities would be in the right place.

“We need to be talking about the things that are happening here, locally, that we have the ability to change and improve upon,” she told us. “Working on better academics, improving communications with the community, transportation, there’s a lot of different issues I think are really important for us to address. ...”

The Tribune Editorial strongly endorses Tracy Dauterman, Adelita Hiteshew and Nathan Williams for the Paso Robles Unified School District Board of Trustees.

This story was originally published October 23, 2024 at 10:02 AM.