Orange County’s Board of Education has been a source of contention for years, as the conservative board majority – Mari Barke, Tim Shaw, Lisa Sparks and Ken Williams – has battled over budget authority and other policy matters with the separately elected county superintendent Al Mijares, who was a long-serving establishmentarian.
We’ve applauded the board’s commitment to expanding school choice by approving charters schools, although we’ve expressed dismay when the board veered into culture-war issues. In the 2022 election, we backed the incumbent board members and – surprising to some – also Mijares. Despite the acrimony, we saw him as a capable administrator and a check on the board’s worst tendencies. He and the board incumbents won their races.
Now Mijares has retired after being on medical leave. The board recently appointed 2022’s losing candidate, Stefan Bean, to replace him. The executive director of a charter school, Bean is well qualified and passionate about choice issues. We saw it as a red flag when during the election he failed to substantiate his claims about schools teaching sexually inappropriate materials, but his post-appointment media interviews are encouraging.
Bean reiterated his support for educational choice, per comments to VoiceofOC: “I believe in parental rights and parental right to choose which school their child goes to. We have adversaries of parents trying to block their choice, so I’m 100 percent behind intra and inter district transfers.”
He vowed to end lawsuits between the board and superintendent. In an interview with the Register, he touted parents’ right “to know what their children are being taught and to be a part of the decision-making process on the content and curriculum children learn.” He struck a conciliatory tone.
The board has limited authority, as it mainly serves as a pass-through agency that sends state funding to 28 school districts. It does, however, have the power to overrule charter-resistant districts and runs the alternative school system for incarcerated and foster-care youth. That makes it an important office, so we’re encouraged the new superintendent is so committed to choice.
We wish him the best.
