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El Monte Union High School District elections (2017)
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Three of the five seats on the El Monte Union High School District board of trustees in California were up for at-large general election on November 7, 2017.[1] In their bids for re-election, incumbents Esthela Torres De Siegrist and Ricardo Padilla ran against challengers Florencio Briones, David Diaz, Christian Trigueros, and Ron Williams. Padilla won re-election, and Briones and Diaz won the other two seats on the ballot.[2][3]
Diaz and Williams participated in Ballotpedia's 2017 survey of school board candidates. Click here to read their responses.
The 2017 election followed a district pattern of adding at least one new member to the board each election year. For information on election trends in the district, click here.
Elections
Voter and candidate information
The El Monte Union board of trustees consists of five members elected to four-year terms. Elections are held at large on a staggered basis every November of odd-numbered years. Two seats were up for election on November 3, 2015, and three seats were up for election on November 7, 2017.[1][4]
To get on the ballot, school board candidates had to file their nomination documents with the Los Angeles County Registar-Recorder/County Clerk by August 11, 2017. Write-in candidates had to file with the county by October 24, 2017.[5]
To vote in this election, citizens of the school district had to register by October 23, 2017.[6] Photo identification was not required to vote in California.[7]
Candidates and results
At-large
Results
| El Monte Union High School District, At-large General Election, 4-year terms, 2017 |
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| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 David Diaz |
24.45% | 2,991 |
| Ricardo Padilla Incumbent |
24.04% | 2,940 |
| Florencio Briones |
21.27% | 2,602 |
| Esthela Torres De Siegrist Incumbent | 20.56% | 2,515 |
| Ron Williams | 5.92% | 724 |
| Christian Trigueros | 3.75% | 459 |
| Total Votes | 12,231 | |
| Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Local and Municipal Consolidated Elections November 7, 2017," accessed November 21, 2017 | ||
Candidates
| Esthela Torres De Siegrist | Ricardo Padilla 
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Florencio Briones
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 David Diaz
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Christian Trigueros | Ron Williams
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Additional elections on the ballot
- See also: California elections, 2017
The El Monte Union board of trustees election shared the ballot with municipal elections for water and irrigation districts.[2]
Key deadlines
The following dates were key deadlines for the November 2017 California school board elections.[8][9]
Endorsements
The Los Angeles County Democratic Party and the LA Fed endorsed challengers Florencio Briones and David Diaz.[10][11] The community organization Evolve also endorsed Diaz.[12]
Diaz was also endorsed by the following organizations and elected officials:[13]
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Do you know of an official or organization that endorsed a candidate in this race? Let Ballotpedia know by email at editor@ballotpedia.org.
Campaign finance
At the time of this election, the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk did not publish school board candidate campaign finance reports online. Ballotpedia staffers requested this information, but the only free method of viewing the files was at their office.
The Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk targeted the end of 2018 to make school board candidate campaign finance reports available online for free. From that point forward, Ballotpedia began including campaign finance data for Los Angeles County school board candidates.[14][15][16]
Reporting requirements
California school board candidates had to file two pre-election campaign finance reports. The first was due on September 28, 2017, and the second was due on October 26, 2017. In addition to those two reports, candidates had to file a semi-annual report on January 31, 2018, if they did not terminate their campaign committees by December 31, 2017.[9]
If candidates did not raise or spend more than $2,000 for their campaigns, they had to file Form 470 instead of the regular campaign finance report on September 28, 2017. They did not have to file any additional campaign finance reports as long as their campaign contributions and expenditures remained under $2,000.[9]
Past elections
To see results from past elections in the El Monte Union High School District, click here.
What was at stake?
Issues in the election
Board votes to hold 2017 election
In January 2017, the El Monte Union board of trustees voted to not change the date of its election on November 7, 2017. The board considered switching the date to November 2018 to fulfill requirements from SB 415, a 2015 voter participation law. The law required local election dates to coincide with statewide election dates by November 2022 if voter turnout was 25 percent less than the average for statewide general elections.[17]
On March 1, 2017, the board voted 3-2 to uphold the decision to keep a November 2017 election on the ballot after the Los Angeles County Registar-Recorder/County Clerk told the district it could save an estimated $167,000 if it extended board member terms by one year and held the election in November 2018. Members of the audience at the March 1 meeting voiced opposition to moving the election date. Some community members said they wanted the chance to vote after former Superintendent Irella Perez was put on paid leave for five months before getting fired with cause in 2016. Both the teachers' union and the classified employees' union voiced support to keep the November 2017 election.[17]
One audience member who spoke at the March 1 meeting said she did not remember any board member voicing opposition to the expenses related to Perez's leave or finding her replacement. Board member Esthela Torres De Siegrist, whose term was up for election on November 7, 2017, said she voted against those expenses. She said she “never wanted to have big expenses trying to get an interim superintendent and spend so much money, because that’s a sin to spend all that money.”[17]
Board members Maria Elena Talamantes, Carlos Salcedo, and Maria Villalobos Morgan voted in favor of keeping the November 2017 election, and De Siegrist and Ricardo Padilla voted against. The seats of Talamantes, De Siegrist, and Padilla were on the ballot in 2017, and De Siegrist and Padilla ran for re-election.[2][17] Padilla won another term, but De Siegrist lost her re-election bid.[3]
Report a story for this election
Ballotpedia researches issues in school board elections across the United States, but information availability is a challenge for us in many school districts. Please contact us about the issues that impact your local school district. Note that not all submissions may meet Ballotpedia's coverage requirements for inclusion.
Candidate survey
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Ballotpedia invites school board candidates to participate in its annual survey. |
Survey responses
Two candidates in this race participated in Ballotpedia's 2017 survey of school board candidates. The following sections display the responses to the survey questions from challengers David Diaz and Ron Williams.
Hope to achieve
When asked what he hoped to achieve if elected to the school board, Diaz stated:
| “ | If elected, I will:: Identify and examine gaps in our educational system to ensure that opportunities and support systems exist to ensure every student succeeds, regardless of special needs, race, ethnicity, or income Seek to provide support services including nutrition, mental health, and other community resources to foster a safe and healthy learning environment. Strengthen partnerships with parents, students, teachers, and institutions to provide each student with what they need to achieve academically and emotionally to graduate prepared for college, career, or community success.[18] | ” |
| —David Diaz (October 15, 2017)[19] | ||
When asked what he hoped to achieve if elected to the school board, Williams stated:
| “ | Accountability, and a more transparent reporting function directly from the Board in my position at least.[18] | ” |
| —Ron Williams (October 11, 2017)[20] | ||
Ranking the issues
The candidates were asked to rank the following issues by importance in the school district, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. This table displays their rankings:
| Issue importance ranking | ||||
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| Issue | Diaz's ranking | Williams' ranking | ||
| Expanding arts education | ||||
| Improving relations with teachers | ||||
| Balancing or maintaining the district's budget | ||||
| Improving post-secondary readiness | ||||
| Closing the achievement gap | ||||
| Improving education for special needs students | ||||
| Expanding school choice options | ||||
Positions on the issues
The candidates were asked to answer nine multiple choice and short answer questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. A link to their responses can be found below.
Election trends
- See also: School boards in session: 2015 in brief
The 2017 El Monte Union board of trustees election was guaranteed to add one new member to the board due to an open seat. Another newcomer defeated an incumbent to win a seat on the board. In four elections held in the district between 2011 and 2017, at least one new member was elected to the board.
| School board election trends | ||||||
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| Year | Candidates per seat | Unopposed seats | Incumbents running for re-election | Incumbent success rate | Seats won by newcomers | |
| El Monte Union High School District | ||||||
| 2017 | 2.00 | 0.00% | 66.67% | 50.00% | 66.67% | |
| 2015 | 2.00 | 0.00% | 50.00% | 0.00% | 100.00% | |
| 2013 | 1.67 | 0.00% | 33.33% | 33.33% | 66.67% | |
| 2011 | 2.00 | 0.00% | 100.00% | 50.00% | 50.00% | |
| California | ||||||
| 2015 | 2.01 | 22.95% | 73.77% | 81.11% | 39.34% | |
| United States | ||||||
| 2015 | 1.72 | 35.95% | 70.37% | 82.66% | 40.81% | |
About the district
The El Monte Union High School District is located in Los Angeles County in southwestern California. The county seat is Los Angeles. The county was home to an estimated 10,137,915 residents in 2016, according to the United States Census Bureau.[21] The district was the 180th-largest school district in the state in the 2014-2015 school year and served 9,388 students.[22]
Demographics
Los Angeles County underperformed compared to California as a whole in terms of higher education achievement between 2011 and 2015. The United States Census Bureau found that 30.3 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 31.4 percent of state residents. During the same time period, the median household income for Los Angeles County was $56,196, compared to $61,818 for the entire state. The percentage of people in poverty in the county was 16.7 percent, while it was 15.3 percent statewide.[21]
| Racial Demographics, 2016[21] | |||
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| Race | Los Angeles County (%) | California (%) | |
| White | 71.0 | 72.7 | |
| Black or African American | 9.1 | 6.5 | |
| American Indian and Alaska Native | 1.5 | 1.7 | |
| Asian | 15.1 | 14.8 | |
| Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander | 0.4 | 0.5 | |
| Two or more races | 3.0 | 3.8 | |
| Hispanic or Latino | 48.5 | 38.9 | |
Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.
Recent news
The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms El Monte Union High School District California election. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.
See also
| El Monte Union High School District | California | School Boards |
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External links
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Los Angeles County Registar-Recorder/County Clerk, "List of Offices to Be Filled November 7, 2017," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Candidate List: Local And Municipal Consolidated Elections 11/7/2017," accessed September 18, 2017
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Local and Municipal Consolidated Elections," accessed November 8, 2017
- ↑ El Monte Union High School District, "Meet the Board," accessed August 2, 2017
- ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Candidate Handbook and Resource Guide," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Calendar of Events," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ California Secretary of State, "Where and How to Vote," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ California Secretary of State, "2017 County Administered Elections," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 California Fair Political Practices Commission, "Filing Schedule for Candidates and Controlled Committees for Local Office Being Voted on November 7, 2017," accessed September 18, 2017
- ↑ Los Angeles County Democratic Party, "Endorsements," accessed October 25, 2017
- ↑ LA Fed, "Voter Guide," accessed October 24, 2017
- ↑ Evolve, "Endorsements: November 7, 2017 General Election," accessed October 25, 2017
- ↑ Diaz for El Monte Union High School District 2017, "Endorsements," accessed October 25, 2017
- ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Campaign Finance Reports," accessed July 2, 2014
- ↑ Daniel Anderson, “Email communication with Brenda Duran, Los Angeles County Public Information Officer," October 7, 2016
- ↑ Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Brenda Duran, Los Angeles County Public Information Officer," January 2, 2018
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 San Gabriel Valley Tribune, "El Monte Union High School District to hold election in 2017 after public outcry," March 3, 2017
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey, "David Diaz responses," October 15, 2017
- ↑ Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey, "Ron Williams responses," October 11, 2017
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 United States Census Bureau, "QuickFacts: Los Angeles County, California; California," accessed August 1, 2017
- ↑ U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Common Core of Data, file ccd_lea_052_1414_w_0216161a, 2014-2015," accessed November 16, 2016
| El Monte Union High School District elections in 2017 | |
| Los Angeles County, California | |
| Election date: | November 7, 2017 |
| Candidates: | At-large: • Incumbent, Esthela Torres De Siegrist • Incumbent, Ricardo Padilla • Florencio Briones • David Diaz • Christian Trigueros • Ron Williams |
| Important information: | What was at stake? • Additional elections on the ballot • Key deadlines |
