AUHSD’s Jessica & Annemarie blow off Community Forum. Vote Germaine & Roberto!

incumbents Jessica Guerrero & Annemarie Randle-Trejo

Sometimes you just gotta laugh so you don’t pull your hair out.

Heard this one? Jessica Guerrero, incumbent president of the Anaheim Union High School Board running for re-election, and long criticized for lack of accessibility, promised the DPOC when she asked for their endorsement recently that she would “start holding community meetings, if she was re-elected.” After FOUR YEARS in office, this occurs to her? Don’t be shocked when I tell you that was good enough for the DPOC, she got their endorsement. Takes a lot for that lazy gang to not endorse an incumbent, even when a Democrat ten times better is running against her.

It gets worse.

On Sunday LULAC, along with Los Amigos and OCCCO, put on a Community Forum at the Library for all six candidates running for AUHSD seats. Strict, fair, objective rules, they’d been planning it for over a month, and dozens of voters, parents & teachers showed up, including Board supporters. But the two incumbents, Annemarie Randle-Trejo and Jessica, BLEW US ALL OFF.

Teacher and bookstore owner Liz Gracian brought a sign!

The very polite LULAC moderator announced that Annemarie and Jessica were “unable to be there.” I take issue with that characterization. They didn’t WANT to be there, they didn’t want to face the public, they don’t want to face their opponents, and they can’t justify their records.

Annemarie didn’t even bother to respond to LULAC’s five weeks of invitations. And Jessica, at the last minute, claimed she had a “prior commitment.” Later that day, posted on Facebook, you could see Jessica’s “prior commitment.” She was hanging out with a few supporters at Tierra Mia Cafe. Yeah, I’m sure that was real important and had been planned since July.

Oh, MUCH more important than facing questions and undecided voters!

We were legit disappointed to be blown off by these incumbents. Most of us there had supported both of them in the past, and even though we have serious questions about some of what they’ve done in recent years, we were hoping to hear their side of things. This Forum came after months of unsuccessful attempts to get both of them to the Anaheim Democrats Club – they both refused because they feared it would be “an unfriendly crowd.” Several of our Club members are critics of the Board, but there were still some supporters/apologists left as well. But they wouldn’t come and wouldn’t come, and we kept hearing from the very lovable and convincing Germaine and Roberto, and so earlier this month we voted to endorse those challengers. (Not unanimously though!)

Let’s go back a little farther. It’s not a normal thing for there to be a big mass repudiation of a School Board. It’s unusual. It pretty much started in March 2024 with the Board’s unnecessary mass firing of hundreds of teachers. Or to be accurate to a fault, as I was when I told the tale here, they wanted to get rid of 111 teachers, but not knowing which ones they sent out layoff notices to 253 teachers, the teachers and community fought back for 3 months, during which time over 90 teachers left for less dysfunctional districts, then in June they called off the mass firings.

As bad as that nightmarish episode was, it illuminated a deeper problem with Jessica, Annemarie and their colleagues – they were merely rubber stamps for an autocratic Superintendent (Mike Matsuda) who wanted to get rid of teachers for his own reasons. Annemarie and Jessica asked no questions, did what the Supervisor told them. And this is a reversal of the natural order of things – these elected Board members are supposed to be TELLING THE SUPERINTENDENT WHAT TO DO.

So two years later we have these three fine folks running against their asses.

The three candidates who want your vote. (Except one might be a Trumpy)

There are other issues these three challengers have with the Board, other than the 2024 layoffs and the Board’s general subservience to the district administration / superintendent. They were all discussed at the forum which you can watch on video at the bottom of this story, but it would have been helpful to have Jessica and Annemarie to, again, get their side of things. Things like:

• “Grade inflation” – teachers not allowed to give well-deserved D’s or F’s, and forced to graduate students who never bother showing up.
• Most graduates deficient in math and English, and unprepared to excel in college.
• Money wasted on A.I. programs which don’t help the students think, which are not secure, and which are lobbied for by insiders.
• General nepotism and cronyism in the District.
• A vastly overgrown and overpaid District crawling with assistants to assistants.
• Rampant bullying, and not enough counselors and mental health workers.

Any answers to those concerns, from the Board incumbents? We’ll never know.

Roberto Garcia is running against Annemarie in Area 2, the green area above. He was inspired to run by his cousin Mia’s suicide after being bullied at school last year, and has attended every meeting since. He is an engineer, good with numbers, and has discovered a lot of waste and shaky accounting since watching the district.

But in the audience was elementary board trustee Juan Alvarez. Juan’s been on that Board for 8 years, is running for re-election and hence is a loyal part of the Incumbent Protection clique, in the bag for Jessica and Annemarie. And Juan made a good bet that Roberto would not yet be familiar with educator jargon. So, speaking as quickly as possible, he asked Roberto,

“How do we foster linguistically and culturally sustaining pedagogy in ethnic studies, if you even know what that means, and are you in favor of continuing this work in the context of community-based learning structures?” 

Death by JARGON!

In Area 1 (the yellow area above) both Germaine Neumann and Alfonso Rodriguez are running against the absent Jessica. Germaine has been immersed in Anaheim education since her brilliant son Vincent was in elementary school – he’s now in college – and she is a CPA. A great combination for a school board with recurring fiscal trouble. She’s really built herself a mass, grassroots movement for this election, and has a fine website I can link to. Her slogan is “Every student. Every classroom. Every day.”

Alfonso seems like he’s probably a fine teacher. He agreed with nearly all Germaine’s and Roberto’s critiques of the district, and it was great to hear his perspective as a teacher. He did rub the entire room the wrong way though, when he dismissed Trump’s ICE reign of terror as no worse than Obama’s deportations:

Annemarie has been on the Board 14 years, since 2012. She really doesn’t seem to be running much of a campaign this year. She’s reported no donations, has sent out no mailers, put up no signs, knocked on no doors that anyone knows of. She did go and get the honorary DPOC incumbent endorsement, as well as that of the Labor Fed and Carpenters like we should listen to THEM about education. For the first time, the teachers’ union did NOT endorse either Annemarie or Jessica, no surprise after what those two put them through in ’24.

Jessica on the other hand, HAS been trying to win. She lent herself $31,000 somehow, has a team of pro’s and has sent out a couple of lame mailers. She’s been meeting with anyone who’ll be nice to her, but shies away from anyone who might not be, anyone who might have tough questions. She spends a big chunk of her time taking pictures with famous politicians that she can put on her Instagram.

But what do you think of these two, blowing all of us off? I know incumbents do that a lot, they figure they don’t need to face any difficult questions, they don’t need to bring any attention to their lesser-known challengers. They don’t have to! I propose THAT BEHAVIOR SHOULD NOT BE REWARDED. I was glad to see today that Councilwoman Natalie Rubalcava has agreed to debate her challenger Elia on Oct. 6 – good for NR! I am on the warpath against Tom Umberg who has refused to do a debate with HIS Board of Equalization opponent Denis Bilodeau at my Club or anywhere else – and amazingly, right after preaching that politicians should HAVE to debate their opponents. Except, not Tom Umberg.

Arrogance and disrespect for the public is what most of these politicians exude, and I propose WE show THEM the DOOR.

Grace Arzola gets Tonight’s Last Word.