School District's Two Unions Endorse Escarce, Davis and Jordan

By Teresa Rochester

In coincidental decisions, the school district's teacher's union and service employee's union have endorsed the same three candidates - Gleam Davis, Jose Escarce and Michael Jordan - vying for three open seats on the Board of Education.

Officials of both unions said the decisions made last week and on Monday were purely coincidental.

"We were aware of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) endorsements before we made our endorsements," said Marc Sanschagrin, vice president of the Santa Monica/Malibu California Teachers Association. "It was very decisive that these three were going to be the candidates we were endorsing. There was a clear drop off between three and four."

"I applaud the fact that they want to be involved," said SEIU president Keryl Cartee of the candidates seeking the endorsement. "These three were the most clear. It seemed they would be able to handle being on the board."

Escarce and Davis said they were honored by the endorsements. Jordan did not return a call for comment.

"I think this is wonderful," said Escarce, a physician and economist at RAND. "And it's certainly wonderful for my campaign."

"That's good news," said Davis. "I think they [the endorsements] will be very significant to my campaign. It's an honor to be endorsed by those two groups… They are the people that are in the trenches."

Both Escarce and Davis said they plan to help improve the relationship between the Board of Education and unions, which has been particularly strained during the past few years. Both candidates see the selection of a new superintendent, board members and union leaders as the perfect opportunity to improve relations between the various groups in the district.

Escarce said that in his interviews with the two unions - which represent roughly 1,400 district employees -- one of things he focused on was building partnerships.

"If we weren't striving for the same goal it would be very difficult to address the problems in the district," he said. "There's so much turnover in so many leadership positions in the school district, I think it's possible under those circumstances to set the past aside and start working on the future. There's a lot of new actors involved."

"The first thing is to get the lines of communication open as wide as possible," Davis said. "There needs to be an ongoing dialogue going on…We need to find out what's working for the teachers and what's not."

As the candidates talked about including the teachers, Sanschagrin said the teachers want to be resources for the board.

"The board needs to be independent and vote their conscience but we would hope they would use teachers as a resource," he said. "We feel like we haven't been in the loop for the last few years. With a new board we would hope it will be a new leaf that will be turned over on all sides."

Sanschagrin said the candidates the union chose to endorse impressed members of the endorsement committee with their range of accomplishments and credentials.

"The short list is what Ivy League School he hasn't gone to," Sanschagrin said about Escarce. "I'm sure there is something he hasn't done."

"As an attorney she's willing to listen to all points of view," he said about Davis, adding that she probably wouldn't fear irritating half of the population by making tough decisions.

About Jordan, Sanschagrin said, "He's very active politically. He's given education full credit for what he is."

Cartee said that the candidates the union endorsed addressed the issues important to the broad spectrum of employees -- including clerical staff, transportation workers, cafeteria personnel and maintenance employees - represented by the union. The issues included contracting out work and employee benefits.

"The individuals we endorsed came across as very pro-union," Cartee said. "We wanted to see how they would respond to these issues as a board member. They all appeared very committed to the community."