Orinda voters will choose among three candidates on Nov. 3 for the Contra Costa County Board of Education’s Area 2 seat: incumbent Sarah Butler, Pamela West and Sibyl Minighini. The three have distinct professional backgrounds and different vantage points on how the county’s schools should be governed.
The county board is separate from Orinda’s local school boards, but its reach extends across every district in the county. The five-member board oversees educational programs run by the Contra Costa County Office of Education, approves its budget and curricula, hears appeals involving interdistrict transfers, charter schools and expulsions, and reviews proposed changes to school-district boundaries, decisions that ripple through every classroom in Orinda, even though the board itself meets in Pleasant Hill.
Butler, the incumbent and current board president, has served since 2018 and previously spent four years on the Orinda Union School District board. A UC Davis graduate in environmental planning and management, she has built her tenure around county-level oversight of the office’s programs and budget.
Also a former Orinda school-board member, is West. Her career has unfolded in real estate investment and affordable housing; she now heads U.S. Affordable Housing at Nuveen. A former middle-school teacher, West holds an MBA in real estate and finance from UNC Chapel Hill.
Minighini is a school psychologist with San Francisco Unified. She sought a seat on the Acalanes Union High School District board in 2024, one of six candidates for two openings.
Whichever candidate prevails will shape decisions that rarely make headlines, but touch every Orinda classroom.
