A normally sleepy school board race in northeast Long Beach has gotten an unexpected injection of partisan politics and campaign spending this year.<\/p>\n
For 14 years, incumbent Long Beach Unified Trustee Diana Craighead has easily held onto the District 5 seat<\/a>. First appointed to the board in 2012 to fill an empty spot<\/a>, she has often won re-election without facing a challenger. This year, though, it\u2019s a three-way race among Craighead, grassroots organizer Sara Pol-Lim and charter school teacher Maureen Flaherty. Flaherty\u2019s presence in particular, and her association with a national conservative group Moms for Liberty, has raised the stakes and spurred powerful players in Long Beach education to try to influence the outcome.<\/p>\n Flaherty has advocated for vaccine choice rather than mandates, barring trans girls from girls\u2019 sports and curriculum that \u201ceducate[s], not indoctrinate[s].\u201d She also wants parents to have more control over the types of books students have access to in school.<\/p>\n She has collected endorsements from a litany of conservative politicians, including gubernatorial candidate Chad Bianco, the current sheriff of Riverside County. Her ties with Moms for Liberty, an organization that has advocated for book censorship and against curriculum on critical race theory and LGBTQ rights, have spurred LBUSD teachers to organize against her.<\/p>\n Keep up with LAist.<\/p>\n If you’re enjoying this article, you’ll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less. <\/p>\n The Teachers Association of Long Beach, the union that represents thousands of certificated employees in the district, has thrown its weight behind Craighead \u2014 some members motivated less by Craighead\u2019s platform than by fear of a win for Flaherty.<\/p>\n Chris Callopy, executive director of TALB, lived and taught in Orange Unified in the 1990s and 2000s when voters elected and later recalled conservative school board candidates<\/a>, what Callopy called \u201cprecursors to the current MAGA and Moms for Liberty movements.\u201d<\/p>\n At a union meeting last month, Callopy warned his membership that a similar school board takeover in Long Beach could threaten their civil rights and protections as teachers \u2014 especially for members of the LGBTQ community. \u201cThis is crisis mode,\u201d Callopy said, \u201cPay attention and get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n In response, TALB has endorsed Craighead and so far used about $45,000 in political action committee funding to support her campaign \u2014 including through mailers, opposition research, door-knocking and even an attack ad against Flaherty that claims she is \u201cToo MAGA for school board\u201d and \u201cWrong for our kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Flaherty said TALB is misrepresenting her priorities.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re attacking me without knowing my real positions,\u201d she said, adding, \u201cI\u2019m not one thing. I have multiple beliefs.\u201d She clarified that she wants all students to thrive and feel they belong in school and that she voted for gay rights in the past.<\/p>\n She\u2019s been critical of teachers unions, saying they protect lazy educators. Flaherty said TALB\u2019s campaign against her shows they\u2019re afraid she has a real shot, even with Long Beach\u2019s Democrat-heavy electorate<\/a>. \u201cThey\u2019re obviously worried that I have a chance of winning or they wouldn\u2019t be doing that,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Craighead and her other challenger, Sara Pol-Lim, espouse more liberal political ideologies.<\/p>\n Craighead has championed a model of governance that aims to boost student performance and close equity gaps \u2014 focusing on the performance of Black students in particular. Though outcomes have lagged, Craighead has vowed to \u201cstay the course\u201d in the hopes that more significant improvements are on the horizon. She supports, and voted for, the district\u2019s equity policy and inclusion of the district\u2019s immigrant community.<\/p>\n