Orinda residents will no longer vote together for Acalanes Union High School District trustees, and in some cases, even parents with children in the same schools will vote in different election years with different candidates.
That’s the outcome of the current board’s approval of the final map that divides the district into five voting areas. Each area will elect a single trustee for the five-member board, with half of Orinda voting for a trustee in 2026 and the other half in 2028. No Orinda resident has been on the board since Chris Severson stepped down at the end of 2024.
The changes were prompted by the threat of a lawsuit under the California Voting Rights Act, claiming the district’s at-large voting process “is racially polarized, resulting in minority vote dilution” and specifically reduces the ability of Latinos to elect or influence the election of candidates of their choice.
The district board concluded it had no choice but to comply or face potentially crushing financial consequences.
The final map – chosen from seven options developed over 10 weeks and five public hearings – splits north and south Orinda into Trustee Areas 4 and 5 respectively, using Highway 24 as the dividing line.
Area 4 includes a sliver of Lafayette in addition to Orinda. Area 5 includes the rest of Orinda, most of Moraga, all of Canyon and a slice of Lafayette.
Although a detailed, street-level map is not available, an interactive map at the district’s website allows you to enter specific addresses to find out which area they fall into. (https://bit.ly/4hZdJ6U)
At the Oct. 15 public hearing, District Counsel Jonathan Salt explained why the Orinda trustee areas each include parts of other cities.
“There’s no way to draw maps in this district where every single city or census-designated area is kept intact,” Salt said. “For starters, Walnut Creek (the attendance area for Las Lomas High School) is too large – it’s 29,000 people and each trustee area must have between 23,000 and 24,000. Even if you wanted to keep all of Orinda or all of Moraga together, they each would need to add between 4,000 and 7,000 more people (to meet the population requirement) and those would have to come from somewhere.”
In championing Map 2 during the final vote, trustee Nancy Kendzierski referred to the reason for the District’s move away from at-large elections, as saying she wanted to go back to “the core reason we are here, which is the protected classes and representation of those groups. Map 2 has two trustee areas that have the highest concentrations of these groups, and it goes highest on the Latino concentration.”
That was an argument that appears to have won the day.
The implementation of the new system will take place over a three-year period, as current trustees complete their staggered four-year terms ending in 2026 and 2028. Residents in Areas 1, 3 and 5 will vote first, in 2026.
Kendzierski, currently an at-large trustee, lives in Area 5, and Stacey Schweppe lives in Area 1. Jennifer Chen and Paul Chopra, who both live in Area 3, will have to decide whether to run against each other for reelection.
In 2028, the district will complete the transition with elections in Areas 2 and 4. Current Trustee Wendy Reicher’s term expires, and she could choose to run for reelection in Area 4, where she lives. Area 2 currently does not have a sitting board member.
Despite the change from at-large elections, trustees have continued to emphasize that all board members should represent the entire district, not just their voting areas. At the AUHSD Sept. 17 board meeting, they passed a resolution reaffirming their “primary responsibility is to act in the
best interests of every student in the district.”
