Election 2024: Candidates set in Encinitas school board races

For Cardiff School Board, one of the incumbents seeking yet another nod is Nancy Orr. She has been on the Cardiff School Board continuously since 1988. For the math challenged, that’s 36 years.

In 1992, Orr was on the Board that unanimously approved the terms of the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act (LWCFA) grant which, combined with substantial funding from the City of Encinitas, was used to renovate Berkich Park, the shared public park adjacent Cardiff School, when the District did not have the needed funds. The terms of that federal grant guaranteed that the Park would be maintained in perpetuity for public outdoor recreation. A very nice park was built, to the benefit of the school and the community. Did she not bother to read the terms, or did she not understand what she was approving and just voted “aye”? Whichever it was, it clearly didn’t make an impression, because only 7-8 years later she voted to approve expansion of the school into the protected park, in violation of the grant terms. Anyone reviewing the Board’s voting history would be hard pressed to find that Orr ever voted “no” to anything – she always went along with whatever the school administration wanted, even when she could and should have offered her institutional knowledge. In 2018, when the District again sought to expand into the park and was notified that its plans were in violation of the grant terms, did Ms. Orr ever acknowledge her prior approval of the perpetual obligation, or question the wisdom of proceeding with the District’s plan? No – she sat silently while the District spent millions in taxpayer dollars on a gamble that it could successfully avoid the obligation, saying “yes” to everything the administration asked. The District lost its gamble and incurred a great deal of debt in the process.

It may be long past time for Cardiff School District, with its total enrollment of 635 K-6 students in two schools, to be merged into the larger and more responsibly managed Encinitas Union School District. The savings alone from eliminating the $500K+ salary and benefits paid to the district’s top two administrators would go a long way towards offsetting the expense of servicing the 30 year $6.5M debt that the District took out without voter approval in 2022. That debt was approved by both Orr and Stewart, even after the San Diego County Office of Education warned that the annual payments could result in deficit spending. With its steadily declining enrollment, who’s to say if the tiny school district will survive the remaining 28 years of the loan term?

School board members are meant to be stewards of the public trust . They are elected by the community to ensure progress and accountability in the schools. Ms. Orr may nod and smile and say “yes” whenever she’s asked, but she has failed the public trust. It’s time to retire.