{"id":468423,"date":"2026-09-18T23:18:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468423\/"},"modified":"2026-09-18T23:18:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T23:18:14","slug":"dr-jeff-cole-anaheim-elementary-school-district-candidate-mark-his-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/468423\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr. Jeff Cole, Anaheim Elementary School District candidate: Mark His Words!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Dr. Jeff Cole, a distinguished education leader, special-ed teacher and former president of the Anaheim Elementary School District (AESD) board, is running for that board again, because he is seriously concerned about the fiscal health and future of the district (and other districts.) The main thing he wants to see is serious structural reform of these bloated bureaucracies\u2026 but we\u2019ll get to that in good time.<\/p>\n

What people first want to hear about Jeff Cole is, what happened back in the primary when he was supposed to be running against Dr. Stefan Bean for OC Superintendent of Education, and then suddenly wasn\u2019t? We should start there.<\/p>\n

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There is no more stubbornly klepto-MAGA outfit in our County than the OC Board of Education. Dedicated to the sabotage of public schools and devoted to the Charter School industry, they dependably approve any Charter good or bad, after those have been rejected by their local districts; and they rile up the Rube Vote by, sincerely or not, going all in on every Culture War controversy. Elected in low-turnout June elections, the five-member Board keeps its far-right makeup with the lavish support of the Charter School industry and the OC Republican Party (currently co-chaired by education saboteur & Jan. 6 rioter Leandra Blades!)<\/p>\n

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But until his tragic death by cancer in Jan. 2025, the Board had to work (uncomfortably) with a very honest, competent and popular OC Superintendent of Schools named Al Mijares<\/a>. The extremist Board made things as hard as possible for the pro-education Mijares, but he just kept getting re-elected and accomplishing great things in the district<\/a>, ever since being appointed in 2012 by a more reasonable, Republican iteration of the Board. <\/p>\n

In 2022 Mijares easily beat the extremist candidate Stefan Bean 55% to 45% despite all the Charter money and OC GOP backing Dr. Bean got. The Register, despite its conservative bent, couldn\u2019t even get themselves to endorse Dr. Bean because of his unsubstantiated conspiracy-peddling.<\/a> (OC schools teaching inappropriate sexual material to kindergarteners anyone?)<\/p>\n

And then, in January 2025, Al Mijares died of cancer. And wasting no time, the Board appointed their extremist friend Dr. Bean to take his place as Superintendent. And when Bean came up for a real election last June, our friend Dr. Jeff Cole filed to run against him, and he could have won. The Bean \/ OCBOE crowd also feared he could win, and they pulled out all the stops to keep Jeff off the ballot.<\/p>\n

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That\u2019s what we all saw on our ballots last June: Superintendent of Schools \u2013 Dr Stefan Bean \u2026 and no other choice. How did that happen? <\/p>\n

The General in the fight to keep Dr. Cole off the ballot was old charter school bulldog Mark Bucher<\/a>, board director of the\u00a0California Policy Center<\/a>, and with a team of high-powered Republican attorneys from Sacramento, Bucher sued our registrar of voters to take Jeff\u2019s name off the ballot, using an ambiguously worded 2024 law to claim Jeff was unqualified for the post. <\/p>\n

This is \u201cin the weeds,\u201d but the new, untested 2024 law<\/a> updated the requirements for County Superintendent from an \u201cadministrative authorization\u201d which Jeff definitely has to an \u201cadministrative credential\u201d which he may or may not have, depending how you define it. Even the Republican lawyers opposing him said he\u2019d probably have a 50-50 chance of prevailing in court, and so did Lee Fink, the hotshot OC Democrat attorney Jeff consulted. And it woulda been good to have that law ruled on and clarified. Except that if Jeff did NOT prevail, and had to pay the legal fees for both sides, it could have cost him $100k. Also, an unfavorable ruling would have impacted some other races adversely, e.g. in San Mateo. <\/p>\n

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The legal battle was not the only one waged by Bucher and Bean on Dr. Cole. One night Jeff received an anonymous phone call, from a man growling \u201cWho do you think you are, running against Stefan Bean?\u201d Someone working on Jeff\u2019s house when he was out teaching reported a couple of guys who dropped by yelling his name, and saying \u201cTell him we\u2019ll come back later.\u201d The next day the process server came and served Jeff with Bucher\u2019s paperwork, but said he knew nothing of anyone coming by the day before. (That\u2019s when Jeff put up security cameras.) And menacingly, one of the Sacramento attorneys told Jeff, \u201cAll of this will go away if you just drop out.\u201d<\/p>\n

So all things considered, and not willing to risk $100k plus maybe his safety, Jeff asked a judge permission to withdraw from the race, which he got. The Register and other press reported or implied wrongly that he was removed by a court order brought on by Bucher \u2013 when the truth is he asked to withdraw. So Dr Bean got to run unopposed \u2013 your OC Republican Democracy at work! Bean and Nothingness.<\/p>\n

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A scenario we haven\u2019t seen before in this County but is entirely possible, a scenario that nobody seems to have considered but which is probably the last thing any Anaheim education leader would like to see, is this: A local district that fails financially, that DEFAULTS (which is not hard to see happening to some of our Anaheim and Santa Ana districts) can be taken over by the backward, kleptocratic OC Department of Education, now led by Dr. Stefan Bean.<\/p>\n

This would happen in stages. These are the duties of a county Board of Education<\/a>, regarding the various local Boards in its jurisdiction:<\/p>\n

Provide fiscal oversight to the county\u2019s 28 school districts.<\/p>\n

Review and approve districts\u2019\u00a0Local Control and Accountability (LCAP) Plans<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 state-mandated plans that districts use to set goals and spending to improve student outcomes.<\/p>\n

Provide professional development and legal guidance for districts.<\/p>\n

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Clearly the OCDE has been negligent in fulfilling any of that fiscal oversight, or we wouldn\u2019t be seeing the recent failures and unnecessary teacher firings. They shouldn\u2019t have let Santa Ana and AUHSD fire teachers, shouldn\u2019t have let things get so bad that they felt they had to. This is likely the \u201cbenign neglect\u201d of a Department and Superintendent that, ideologically, doesn\u2019t believe in public education and wants to see it fail.<\/p>\n

And when one of our beloved districts does fail, financially, when it defaults, Bean\u2019s OCDE will be able to take it over. They will send in a \u201cfiscal expert\u201d and then a \u201cfinancial adviser,\u201d who will be able to tell us what we can and can\u2019t spend our money on, what our priorities should be. None of us central-county liberals want to be dictated to like that by anti-education extremists. But it is something that could happen, if we don\u2019t keep our fiscal house in order. <\/p>\n

Go ahead and call Dr. Jeff Cole a \u201cCassandra.\u201d But in this year that the Odyssey was remade as a blockbuster film, we should remember that Cassandra turned out to be right.<\/p>\n

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Enrollment and therefore state funding can be expected to decline until at least 2030, says Dr. Cole (and everyone else when they\u2019re being serious.) Crises like the 2024 ones in Santa Ana and AUHSD can be expected to recur. Cole laments that the victims of these crises are ALWAYS the most vulnerable members of a district, those who have the most difficulty fighting back, and who also have the most impact on students \u2013 STAFF and TEACHERS.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, District Administration, like any bureaucracy with no brakes on it, just grows and grows, as do administrators\u2019 salaries and benefits. This is where Dr Cole (and other reformist progressives like Germaine and Roberto) would like to see necessary cuts. NOT in teachers or staff. Jeff told the Anaheim Democrats Club that, if he became trustee again, he would resign before ever sending layoff notices to teachers as the AUHSD did in \u201924.<\/p>\n

I recently wrote about the \u201cCommunity Schools<\/a>\u201d movement; everybody was celebrating the new permanent funding for Community Schools in Anaheim and across California. It all comes down to how the idea is implemented though. Everyone likes the idea of getting parents, students and teachers more involved in school decisions, and providing more services on campus. But to Dr. Cole, Community Schools are a model of putting Administration in its correct, SUPPORTIVE place; of \u201crightsizing\u201d Administration and returning democracy and justice to education.<\/p>\n

While simultaneously being fiscally sane. <\/p>\n

Dr. Cole was on the AESD Board years ago, and he is concerned for its survival now, so he is running to be on the Board again. Because of the District he lives in, that means he\u2019s running against Juan Alvarez, who was first elected (with a lot of our support) in 2018, has frequently been the Board President, and is running for his third term. So the Anaheim Democrats Club invited both of them to our September 3 meeting.<\/p>\n

A lot of things were discussed in that hour, (including the three big Alvarez controversies of early 2025 \u2013 the removal of Mark Lopez, his replacement with Alvarez\u2019 cousin, and the quadrupling of the Board\u2019s stipend from $500 to $2000.) But those will have to be another story \u2013 I have this video cued up to where Jeff talks about his fiscal concerns with the AESD.<\/p>\n

You hear how dismissively Juan reacts to Jeff\u2019s concerns? Everything is fine. We project forward three years as required by the state (Jeff thinks it should be five years.) Even the OCDE says we are fine. (Sounding like rehab-resisting Amy Winehouse singing \u201cIf my daddy says I\u2019m fine\u2026\u201d) <\/p>\n

\u201cJuan knows better,\u201d says Jeff charitably. \u201cBut right now he\u2019s focused on his re-election. He\u2018s boasting of his success in doing the bare minimum. But his District is dipping into its reserves, and once those are gone, there will be real hard choices \u2013 we\u2019ll be insolvent, we\u2019ll get a negative certification from OCDE, they could take over.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dipping into the reserves \u2013 that got my attention. I checked up on that and it\u2019s true \u2013 I\u2019ll have some figures by tonight (Friday.) Can I use a whistling past the graveyard image now?<\/p>\n

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********************************<\/p>\n

I wish I could say Dr. Jeff Cole is running a spirited campaign (like Germaine is.) Or that he had a website I could link to, but I don\u2019t think you want to see it. I would vote for him if I lived in Area 2 (the green area below.) And I think you should too if you live there. <\/p>\n

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But in the likely event that the incumbent Juan prevails, I at least hope that the Board takes some of Dr. Cole\u2019s concerns, criticisms and ideas to heart. (I don\u2019t think I even mentioned them all \u2013 it\u2019ll save a lot to move all district employees\u2019 health care coverage to the state employees\u2019 plan. For example!)<\/p>\n

MORE ON AESD TO COME!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With the author, at Germaine\u2019s EL NOPAL fundraiser.
Bald old white & bespectacled is the new cool.<\/p>\n

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