Voters also select McRae and Bundros to GUSD school board
The voters of Gilroy gave a stamp of approval to their local
School Board on Tuesday night by electing incumbents Jim Rogers and
T.J. Owens.
Voters also select McRae and Bundros to GUSD school board
The voters of Gilroy gave a stamp of approval to their local School Board on Tuesday night by electing incumbents Jim Rogers and T.J. Owens.
The voters also nominated newcomers Dave McRae and Thomas Bundros to four-year terms.
“I’m pleased. It’s humbling on one hand,” said Gilroy School Board President Jim Rogers, who received more votes than any other candidate. “I think it’s a strong endorsement of what the board is doing and what Edwin Diaz (Superintendent) is doing. The community accepts our plans for the district, endorses them and is giving us the authority to proceed.”
Following Roger’s 21.6 percent of the vote was Owens with 21.3 percent, McRae with 18.7 percent and Bundros with 17.7 percent.
The top four vote getters in the six-man race were elected to the dais.
Rogers and Owens were the district’s only incumbents who sought reelection. Board members Lonna Martinez and Richard Rodriguez, both with extensive backgrounds in education, did not seek new terms.
Rodriguez was the superintendent of San Jose’s Burbank District and Martinez was on the faculty at San Benito High School. Their decisions not to run helped pave the way for newcomers McRae and Bundros.
“They can’t be replaced. They both were outstanding,” said T.J. Owens. “But we look forward to a good working agreement with the new board members. I appreciate the fact that I was reelected and I’m going to work even harder to represent the district.”
Owens, an educator for 40 years, went on to say that every child in the district should receive a top-notch education and be prepared for the world when they graduate.
The current goals of the district are to have all students reading and performing in math at or above grade level by 2004-the year passage of state-mandated exit exams are required for graduation.
Since Gilroy schools are in need of $155 million in repairs and upgrades, McRae decided to run for the position because he felt his background would be valuable to the district in the event that Measure I, which provides $69 million to repair and upgrade the district’s facilities, passed, which it did with 62.7 percent of the vote.
McRae is currently employed by Stanford University in its facilities department. He also worked for Gilroy Unified’s maintenance department from 1982 to 1990.
“I feel great,” said McRae. “I’ve got a couple of months to transition into the position and get to know the other board members and develop a rapport with them and get ready for the challenges of the future.”
McRae also wants to get to know the public more too.
“I’m also going to work hard to know what the community wants,” he said. “As representatives of the community, that is our top priority. I think we need to set the expectation bar as high as possible and then find a way to jump over it.”
Bundros is a software engineer for IBM in San Jose. All six of his children went through Gilroy Unified.
As a member of the Alliance for Academic Excellence that sought the resurrection of honors programs at the high school level, Bundros was asked to toss his hat in the ring.
“Education of kids is a very high priority,” he said. “I thought it was only fair to put my feet where my mouth has been for years. You can only go so far complaining. Eventually you’ve got to do something.”
Bundros went on to say that he thinks the new board will work well together and believes that everyone is aligned for the most part.
Bundros would like to see that the current ninth-grade pilot-honors program is fully implemented and that performance improves throughout the entire district.
Rogers is excited about the new board’s diverse makeup and thinks it will bode well for the district.
“Lonna and Richard will be tough to replace but the two new board members have talents,” Rogers said. “I’ve known the Bundros family for a long time. Tom and his wife have been very active in the district. He’ll give us a different perspective. Losing school people was tough, but we’ve got a good combination now.”
