Startling Synchronicity

An extremely cordial race is in progress in the Hope School District, which consists of three elementary schools. Three candidates, none of them incumbents, are vying for two seats. All three are UCSB graduates married to former schoolteachers, and all have children attending Hope District’s elementary schools. They each emphasize financial responsibility. Chris Gallo, a Merrill Lynch financial adviser, currently serves as the Hope School PTA’s financial secretary, and he has also been active on the school site council. Chad Prentice, an attorney in private practice and a mediator, is on the Monte Vista School PTA’s executive board, and campaigning to reduce class sizes in the upper grades. (By press time he had not responded to inquiries.) Jason Kelly, founder and CEO of Rincon Technology, has been active with youth soccer, the Educational Foundation, and the Vieja Valley School PTA. He is emphasizing test score improvements, as well as better music, arts, foreign language, and technology programs. Last year, Hope District evicted students who had transferred in from outside the district because it allowed the district to get more money per remaining pupil. Kelly said he wants to help the district, which lost much of its middle class in the move, “put the drama of all the transfer challenges behind us, and move forward by building a great community.”