Late last month, Pleasanton Unified School District Trustees finally voted on District Map 4, solidifying the change to area-based trustee elections starting November 2022.

“The board of trustees are the governing body over our sixteen school sites in Pleasanton, and they guide policies that help support the district’s mission to support all of our students,” said Patrick Gannon, PUSD Director of Communications. 

Over the past 10 years, the Pleasanton demographic has changed drastically, as many minority groups have begun populating the area. However, the school board of trustees has still remained predominantly white despite the changes in demographic.

 “In the past, we’ve been missing key issues on education for kids of lower socioeconomic status and more diversity in our schools,” said Leah Allari (‘22).

Previously, members of PUSD practiced at-large elections, where members of the community could elect any member from Pleasanton as a whole with no regard to school lines. However, because of the California Voting Rights Act, there has been more resolve to switch to area-based voting.

“An at-large method of election may not be imposed or applied in a manner that impairs the ability of a protected class to elect candidates of its choice or its ability to influence the outcome of an election,” said an excerpt of the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) in a PUSD presentation given last year.

Due to  the CVRA, the city of Pleasanton received a lawsuit last year from a law firm in Southern California and had to switch to area-based voting. Pleasanton transferred to area-based elections in 90 days.

“Dublin Unified School District transitioned to area-based elections 2 year ago. A lot of California cities and school districts are being compelled to make this change. [Pleasanton’s] school board was somewhat unique in that we chose to make the transition ourselves,” said Gannon.

Area-based voting is essentially Pleasanton split into 5 smaller districts for voting and representation purposes. Each district votes for a trustee for the living in their district, which leads to there being 5 members on the Board of Trustees.

“We have 2 school board members who have currently chosen not to rerun this November, so that will be our first election where area-based trustees will be elected: two of them for the November 2022 election,” said Gannon.

The purpose of switching to area-based elections is to make sure every group in Pleasanton is represented more fairly. Students at Amador would be better represented because of the push for more diversity in the school board.

“I agree with switching to area-based voting because I think it’s a better way to address the diversity in Pleasanton and the changing demographic. It causes more diversity in terms of representation because people generally vote for what is most representative of them and generally, Pleasanton is increasingly becoming less white and our school board should be able to reflect what how our schools look like,” said Allari.