Editor’s note: Updated on Tuesday, March 28 to include information that Noe Garcia dropped out of the race for the Trustee Area 3 seat.
Five Santa Clarita residents are still in the running to fill the vacant Trustee Area 3 seat on the William S. Hart Union High School District Governing Board.
The vacancy was created by the resignation of Rob Hall who stepped down to take a position with his company’s Singapore office.
The applicants to fill the vacancy include: TimBen Boydston, Kenneth Dean, Noe Garcia, Cherise Moore, Hilary Schardein and Teresa Todd.
Applicant Ann-Marie Bjorkman told The Signal she removed her name from the running Monday morning. And applicant Noe Garcia dropped out of the race Tuesday, according to Dave Caldwell, public information officer for the Hart District.
On Wednesday at 6 p.m., the remaining five applicants will be interviewed in 10-minute sessions and publicly debated before one is selected by provisional appointment to represent Trustee Area 3, which encompasses portions of the Golden Valley High School and Hart High School attendance areas.
Because of the board’s choice to hold a provisional appointment instead of a special election, The Signal attempted to review each candidate’s application but was turned down by the school district.
The Hart District said it would not release copies of the applications, citing advice from its legal counsel and legal precedent set by Wilson v. Superior Court (1997) and California First Amendment Coalition v. Superior Court of Sacramento County (1998).
The Signal built profiles for four of the five based on information provided by the applicants or pulled from previous Signal stories.
Information for one of the applicants, Schardein, was not available and therefore is not included below. Attempts to contact them were unsuccessful.
Here is a look at the Hart District Governing Board Trustee Area 3 applicants, listed alphabetically by last name:
TimBen Boydston
A resident of Santa Clarita for more than 40 years, TimBen Boydston knows the valley he was born and raised in well.
He attended school at Sulphur Springs Elementary, Placerita Junior High School, Canyon High School and College of the Canyons, before earning his bachelor’s degree in theatre from California State University Northridge.
Boydston served as lab technician in the United States Air Force for four years before opening his own businesses and acting as a commercial property manager focusing on redevelopment in Santa Monica and Hollywood.
For more than 10 years, Boydston has acted as executive director of the Canyon Theatre Guild in Old Town Newhall where he helped the company grow and build.
In 2007-2008, Boydston who served 16 months on the City Council after being appointed to serve out Cameron Smyth’s term when he was elected to the State Assembly.
From 2012 to 2016, Boydston served as a member of the Santa Clarita City Council and sat on the City of Santa Clarita Arts Advisory Committee.
Boydston ran for re-election to the council in November, where he finished third, and applied in January to fill the vacancy left by councilmember Dante Acosta’s election to State Assembly.
Kenneth Dean
For 17 years, Kenneth Dean was a high school teacher in the Hart District classroom and an interior design instructor in the district’s Regional Occupational Program (now called the College and Career Readiness program).
When his ROP class was canceled, Dean decided to “keep his foot in education” by applying for the governing board position in a district he knows well.
Thirty years ago, Dean helped found the city of Santa Clarita as a founding father and member of the City Formational Committee.
Years following, he served as president of the Santa Clarita Civic Association and a member of the City Open Space Committee and the Santa Clarita Citizens Transportation Committee.
Currently, Dean serves as vice president of The American Beauty Classics Homeowners’ Association where he oversees community management activities for the community’s some 500 homes.
Professionally, he is a self-employed interior designer, as well as an art director and set director in the movie industry.
In the November election, Dean ran for a seat on the Santa Clarita City Council in the November election as well as in the provisional election to fill Dante Acosta’s seat in January.
Cherise Moore
As a senior researcher for the American Institutes for Research (AIR), Cherise Moore works on national and state level projects in postsecondary education, adult education and career technical education for administrators and teachers.
This research includes budget development and management, project planning and coordination, project review, evaluation and development, and delivery and completion of project tasks.
Prior to working with AIR, Moore acted as the director of educational support services in the Burbank Unified School District, the director of adult education in the Burbank Unified School District and an administrator in the Tempe Union High School District.
In addition to her work with AIR, Moore serves as a Hart District Career and College Readiness teacher in the Exploring Careers in Education and Exploring Careers in Hospitality and Tourism sectors.
She also has experience in the Hart District as a member of the Career Collaborative Committee, a board member of the WiSH Education Foundation, an interim administrator at Golden Oak Adult School, a member of the Parent Communications Council and a board member of the Golden Valley High School Parent Advisory Committee.
Moore holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA, a master’s degree in urban planning from UCLA, a master’s degree in educational administration from Arizona State University (ASU) and a Ph.D. in Public Administration from ASU.
Actively involved in community service, Moore also works with Willamette University, Zonta International and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.
Teresa Todd
Since 2008, Teresa Todd has acted as President and Chief Executive Officer of Point of View Communications, a full-service marketing, advertising and public relations agency in Santa Clarita.
For four years, Todd acted as a board member in the Sulphur Springs Union School District from 1999 to 2003 where she provided governance for school policy development, instructional programs, school site construction and improvement projects, special tax elections and budgetary oversight.
During that time, she also received her Master’s in Governance certificate from California School Boards Association in 2000 and served as a member of the Santa Clarita Valley Council PTA Executive Board for a total of seven years.
With advanced degrees in strategic public relations, and marketing and finance from University of Southern California (USC), Todd also had classroom experience working as an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University for four years and in the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism for a semester in 2016.
Currently, she serves on the board of directors for Carousel Ranch, Canyon Property Owners Association and the Valley Industry Association.
The candidate interviews will take place at the beginning of the public Hart Governing Board meeting Wednesday. The meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the Hart District Office located at 21380 Centre Pointe Parkway.
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