Pajaro Valley Unified School District: Turley, Medina, Carrasco look to have clinched seats (2024)

Tuesday, Nov. 26, 5:20 p.m. — After Tuesday’s 4 p.m. vote update, Carol Turley, Jessica Carrasco and Gabriel Medina appeared to have clear paths to securing seats on the Pajaro Valley Unified School District board against Georgia Acosta, Adam Scow and Oscar Soto respectively.

County Clerk Tricia Webber’s office added 1,373 votes to the countywide tally Tuesday. All totaled countywide, 134,232 votes have been counted. The next update is set for 2 p.m. Sunday.

For trustee Area 2, newcomer Turley, general manager of the Pajaro Dunes Association, received 55.1% of the vote, while incumbent Acosta, 54, a Cal State University Monterey Bay adjunct professor, received 44.2% of votes.

Turley told Lookout on Tuesday she feels good about the results.

“I’m feeling great. It seems that it’s unlikely the result is going to change from what we see right now,” she said. “I’m very happy, I’m excited. I’m so thankful for the team that I had, people who walked and knocked.”

In the trustee Area 3 race, which has registered voters in Santa Cruz and Monterey counties, Medina had 53.4% of the vote and incumbent Soto had 46.6%.

Medina said he and his campaign team feel confident that he won the election and announced his victory in his newsletter last week. He told Lookout he feels great and is looking forward to working on the board.

“Seeing that we have a 200 [vote] gap, and seeing the provisional ballots from both Santa Cruz and Monterey County, we came to the determination that it would be very hard for [Soto] to catch up at this point,” he said.

In the Santa Cruz County portion of the district, incumbent Soto received 50% of votes, newcomer Medina received 48.9% – 286 to 280, just a 6-vote difference. For Monterey County voters, Medina had 54.3% of the vote and Soto earned 45.7%.

Trustee Area 6 voters have so far voted 57.2% in favor of newcomer Carrasco, while incumbent Scow had 41.9% of the votes.

Scow told Lookout he was honored to serve on the board and was confident the district would move in a good direction.

Carrasco, Acosta and Soto didn’t respond to requests for comment by publication time.

The PVUSD school board will be tasked with serving its more than 15,000 students and 2,379 employees in its 31 schools. PVUSD is the largest school district in Santa Cruz County. The district’s boundary spans from Aptos to Pajaro in northern Monterey County.

PVUSD, like districts across the state, is recovering from learning loss brought on by the pandemic and is struggling with declining enrollment and budget challenges, teacher retention and the youth mental health crisis.

The school board is responsible for steering the direction of the district as it addresses these challenges. This past year, the board voted to hire a new superintendent, Heather Contreras, and also voted to place a $315 million bond measure on the November ballot to improve its aging infrastructure.

The board will also have to manage ongoing turmoil from a controversial decision not to renew a contract with a firm that helped the district develop its ethnic studies curriculum.

During a board meeting last September, after Acosta and trustee Kim De Serpa accused the founder of Community Responsive Education (CRE) of antisemitism – which several district officials have said are unfounded accusations – the board decided not to renew the contract.

Turley decided to run in part out of frustration at the board’s decision. She and Acosta also have history – Turley served as campaign manager for a group that attempted unsuccessfully to recall Acosta in 2021 over the firing of former superintendent Michelle Rodriguez.

The district’s teachers union and former interim superintendent Murry Schekman both endorsed Turley in the race.

In the trustee Area 3 race, Soto, 53, a longtime construction worker, has said his goals include continuing to advocate for more resources for students, addressing declining enrollment and staff retention.

Medina, 33, has said he was running to improve transportation for students, especially from outlying areas including Las Lomas, south of Pajaro in Monterey County, and to ensure students get the resources they need.

In the trustee Area 6 race, which includes the Freedom area, incumbent Scow faces a challenge from Carrasco, a former district teacher who leads programs at a local nonprofit focused on providing art opportunities to local youth.

Scow, an environmental consultant and musician, was appointed unanimously to the seat last February. He ran for a full term, he said, because he wants to keep fighting for living wages for district staff and maintain and expand arts and music programs. Carrasco ran on a platform of finding ways to improve teacher retention based on her own struggles to juggle teaching while also raising a baby and going to school.

PVUSD trustee for Area 1, Kim De Serpa, is a candidate for District 2 Santa Cruz County supervisor. If elected, the PVUSD board will need to fill the seat whose term expires in 2026.

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