Carmel Unified is a high-performing school district, but election season looks for change.

Carmel Unified School District is a good school district by many measures. Per-pupil spending is over $20,000 thanks to high local property taxes. The class sizes are small. 

U.S. News has ranked Carmel High as the 52nd best high school in California out of over 2,000 schools. Not bad. But it could be better, according to some candidates running for two open school board seats.

There are three newcomers running – Lisa Talley Dean, Sara Hinds and Tess Arthur – alongside incumbent John Ellison, who is seeking re-election.

CUSD has long been high-performing and well-funded. What hasn’t remained consistent is leadership, specifically the superintendent. “This is the first year in the last four years that we ended and started with the same superintendent,” Ellison says, referring to Superintendent Barbara Dill-Varga, who started in 2017.

If Ellison keeps his seat, he says he plans to capitalize on that stability: “What happens when we constantly have to transition is things don’t move forward.” He notes things that are coming to fruition, like Carmel High’s dual enrollment program with Monterey Peninsula College.

Win or lose, there will at least be at least one new face on the board, which Ellison says is a good thing: “Board turnover is healthy for a district.”

Hinds, a former PTA president and CUSD graduate herself, is emphasizing inclusiveness. “CUSD needs to develop more vocational, career tech and trades classes for students whose path is not a four-year university,” she says.

Arthur has worked as a substitute teacher for CUSD for 12 years, which she says gives her a unique perspective: “I know what happens behind the scenes.”

She’s particularly proud of helping shepherd through a new soccer field in Cachagua, breaking ground this month. “I’m a yes person,” she says. “I’m about partnerships and making things happen.”

Talley Dean wants to increase the district’s accountability. In particular, she wants to know if the education kids receive at CUSD actually keeps them in college or lands them a good career. “We have all this data, but we’re not using it to our full advantage,” she says.

She recalls a 2018 article published in Carmel High’s student newspaper, The Sandpiper, about a spike in rejection letters from prestigious universities, despite high GPAs and test scores.

Talley Dean acknowledges that college has become increasingly competitive, but thinks something went wrong: “There should be no reason with a budget of $58 million our kids don’t have the resources to be competitive. [CUSD] is a good district, but are we exceptional? Not yet.”