Severson Steps Down, Leaving Orinda With No Vote on Acalanes School Board

    When Walnut Creek’s Stacey Schweppes was appointed to the Acalanes school board last month, it left Orinda and Miramonte High School without a vote on the district’s Board of Trustees.
    Schweppes replaced Orinda’s Chris Severson, who resigned in December, and she will serve the remainder of his two-year term, barring an unlikely petition to force a special election. Severson had been on the board for six years, but stepped aside due to an accumulation of personal and professional issues that hampered his ability to serve on the board.
    “I could have done it,” he said, “but I didn’t want to be a marginally engaged board member.”
    That left the four remaining trustees with the task of either calling for a special election – which would have cost the district $1 million or more – or appointing a replacement until the 2026 election.
    Only two people applied for Severson’s seat, and both were from Walnut Creek, and both ran for the board in 2024. Schweppes was the highest vote-getter, and the board made the obvious choice by selecting her for the spot.
    Schweppes will be the only Walnut Creek representative on the board. Two of the other four members are from Moraga, and two are from Lafayette. Since Walnut Creek has the largest high school of the 
four in the district (Las Lomas), and also has 44% of the electorate, the appointment makes sense, but it also leaves Orinda, and Miramonte, on the outside looking in when decisions are made about funding and staffing the high schools.
    Many jurisdictions, including schools, have shifted to district elections in recent years, in part because of the 2002 California Voting Rights Act that all but forces districts to move away from at-large elections should a legal challenge be raised.
    Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman has developed a cottage industry with such challenges, filing lawsuits against jurisdictions with at-large elections, and charging $30,000 while forcing the shift to district elections.
    Dividing the Acalanes board into five different districts would guarantee regional representation – though Walnut Creek would likely wind up with two seats and Moraga and Orinda could end up with just one between them – but it does lead to other issues.
    “When you move to trustee areas,” said Acalanes Union High School District superintendent John Nickerson, “each trustee only represents that area. It’s a different dynamic. You’d like to have a board that is focused on the best interests of all the students in the district.
    “Over the past 20 years, there’s been balanced representation,” says Nickerson, who has worked in the district for 26 years and has been superintendent since 2011. “The last election skewed that a little bit.”
    With the present preponderance of Lafayette and Moraga board members, there’s always the possibility that decisions will be made that benefit Campolindo and Acalanes more than Las Lomas and Miramonte.
    “It’s less than ideal,” said Severson.
    But Nickerson and Jennifer Chen, the president of the board who is from Moraga, believe the trustees have been faithfully working to serve all four high schools equally.
    “The intent is to create connections with the district as a whole,” said Chen. “Each board member is assigned as a liaison to a school and a community.”
    Still, the board could decide to move to district elections without the threat of a lawsuit from Shenkman, but in Severson’s six years on the board, “We’ve never had a meeting about it.”
    Though the process is costly – around $100,000 – and complicated by allowing trustees to serve out their terms, it’s become routine since the Voting Rights bill of 2002. And if Shenkman files a lawsuit, the district will be compelled to begin the process, though it would then cost $30,000 more.
    At this point, however, the idea of shifting to district elections has not been a priority for the trustees.
    “I don’t see it (getting on the agenda) in the near future,” said Chen.