School districts in San Diego County are eyeing legal threats across the state as cautionary tales that could prompt big changes in the way school boards are elected, spurring them to pick leaders from specific areas rather than the district as a whole.
The threats have already generated buzz at the San Diego County Office of Education, which hosted a meeting in April with school district officials from across the region to talk about whether local school systems could be vulnerable to similar, potentially costly suits.
A case last year in Madera, a small city northwest of Fresno, argued that Latino voters were drowned out and disadvantaged by citywide elections there, which put all candidates up before all voters. Such elections can put governments in hot water under the California Voting Rights Act if challengers can prove that there are clear racial patterns in voting that drown out distinct groups.
Advocates say that if more school boards follow Madera and change their ways, they have a better chance of becoming as racially diverse as the cities they cover.
"You're going to see the face of school boards literally changed," said Robert Rubin, an attorney whose San Francisco firm brought the case.
Like most California school systems, all school districts in San Diego County elect their school
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