Education consultant Kelly Kent powered her way past a local parent organization- backed slate to first place in Tuesday night’s Culver City United School District Board of Education race, closing a chapter on one of the divisive and vitriolic campaigns in recent memory.
Kent, who has a Ph.D in neuroscience, endured months of assaults on her qualifications as well as a concerted effort to diminish her endorsements and campaign allies. Despite the attacks, she tallied 1,188 votes, 41.2 % of all ballots cast.
Culver City voters split the difference between Kent and one of two candidates who were endorsed by United Parents of Culver City, a four-year-old nonprofit group that has forged a majority on the school board.
Anne Burke, who ran a joint campaign with immigration attorney Scott McVarish, came in second to Kent with 1,461 votes or 23.9 %. Both members of the slate ran on their records as school volunteers and what their supporters insisted was their superior knowledge on how to manage the school district’s $106 million capital improvements bond.
Despite a local blog sympathetic to the United Parents of Culver City slate pronouncing prematurely — and ultimately falsely — that Kent’s campaign had been dealt a “fatal blow” last month, the campaign began to surge late in the race and her backers attributed this to the school board member elect’s dogged grassroots door-to-door campaigning.
Her margin of victory of over 400 votes was larger than current board president Nancy Goldberg’s over Laura Chardiet in 2011.
“She’s a natural,” Councilwoman Meghan Sahli-Wells said at Kent’s election night victory party. “She really connected with people and that’s what you have to do in order to win local races.”
Kent, who is a member of the city’s parks, recreation and community services commission, said she takes solace in not responding to the attacks and in her decision to run on her platform of representing all students, improving the district’s sustainable habits and considering more innovative instructional programs.
“I’m so thankful that we made the right decision and that we did not succumb to the whim of an emotional painful moment,” the board member-elect said prior to all of the polls closing. “We weren’t always able to ignore it. There were lots of times when we talked about responding, but it would have been a distraction from the ultimate goal.
“As soon as the most nasty, desperate [tactics] occurred, that’s when I knew that they were running scared and that made me more confident about winning.”
Kent said one of her primary reasons for seeking a seat on the school board was to offer a vision different from the members backed by the parent group. Having dedicated volunteers and politically savvy consultants in her campaign was one of the biggest factors in her decisive win, she added. “I had the right people advising me and I and I made the right moves,” Kent said.
Former Culver City Mayor Gary Silbiger, whom Kent credited with providing advice and political strategy that was crucial to her victory, said voters found Kent’s academic background and her interest in representing students of all socioeconomic backgrounds appealing.
“She’s very good at listening to people. She has a huge interest in treating all students equally and we need to do some work on that in Culver City,” Silbiger said. “She’s the only candidate who talked about that.”
Burke, a member of the El Marino Language School’s Parent- Teacher Assn., proposed few initiatives outside of what she said was her experience attending bond sessions. She could not be reached for comment.
McVarish, perhaps the most experienced and outspoken of the candidates, was considered in certain political circles to be the heavy favorite, wound up in third place 1,228, just 26.8 % of the vote. He and Burke campaigned almost exclusively on the bond initiative that will be used to repair the city’s schools, although McVarish proposed creating a trio of academies at the high school, including an industrial arts academy to give students alternatives to attending college.
McVarish did not respond to emails for comment.
Kent said she saw the laser focus on the bond as a losing argument early on in her campaign and therefore decided to focus on other topics. “I really think that was a bad strategy. At the district level, the bond is very important but it wasn’t so much to voters. They wanted to think that the candidates that they elect are going to be trustworthy and [manage the bond funding] the right way,” she said.
Silbiger said Kent’s win is a repudiation of the nasty campaigning conducted on social media and blogs and could pave the way to a return of running campaigns on issues that voters care about. “This is the second school board campaign where there were a lot of lies and misinformation and issues that had nothing to do with education. I think a lot of people in this race decided to look at the candidates and their ideas and didn’t pay much attention to things that are irrelevant,” he said.
Kent and Burke will replace Goldberg and Chardiet on the board, who decided not to seek reelection earlier this year. Chardiet was the campaign manager for McVarish and Burke.
The new school board-members elect will be officially sworn in next month.
Gary Walker contributed to this story.