With eight applicants to choose from, SCOE board fails to reach consensus to fill vacancy

“I think each board member has different ideas about what makes a good board member,” said Michael Orlicky, the current president of the Shasta County Board of Education. 

Speaking to a reporter today, Orlicky speculated that those different ideas are why the board was caught in a deadlock at a special meeting on May 6. Trustees were tasked with filling the vacancy left behind by former SCOE trustee Robert Brown, who resigned mid-term in March for health-related reasons. The SCOE board normally has seven seats. Because the board is currently operating with an even number of six, there was no tie-breaking vote. 

Despite a highly politicized SCOE race in 2024, the board has voted unanimously a significant amount of the time over the last year. But last week’s meeting was not one of those moments of consensus. 

Trustees Jackie LaBarbera, Teresa Roberts, and Authur Gorman voted for applicant Ronnean Lund, whose application showed no prior experience as an educator or school board member. Trustees Jessica French and Laura Manuel voted for applicant Denise Yergenson, who previously served on the Redding Elementary School Board District. Trustee Orlicky voted for applicant Dr. Daniel Sloan, a professor of business administration at Simpson University. 

Despite several attempts to recast the votes, no single applicant was able to gain the required majority to be appointed. 

Acknowledging that deadlocks are relatively rare, Orlicky said he wondered how trustees will overcome the potential for such impasses for the next several months. 

Who were the applicants?

In application materials, some noted their direct experience with teaching, working in education-related fields or leadership on past school boards. 

Those with relevant experience included Simpson University faculty member Sloan, former elementary school board member Yergenson, Madison Zimmerman, a former SCOE student board member and current member of the technology planning committee at Shasta College, and Michael Hernandez, a former Southern California middle school teacher.

The other applicants were Lund, currently an election commissioner and board member of the Anderson Cottonwood Irrigation District, David Schrank, who has trained coaches and coached youth soccer and soft ball, Brennem Miller whose application indicated that he was a “prior business official”, and longtime community organizer Eddie McCallister. 

Orlicky, a former classroom teacher, said he used his votes to prioritize a candidate with teaching experience, a background in finance, and someone he felt had deep connections to the community. He added that on the current SCOE board, there is a lack of budgeting experts, or trustees that have worked professionally as educators. 

“When you’re on a board, you set policies, and those policies directly impact the classroom … but they’re made by people who’ve never been in a classroom,” he said. 

For him, the clear choice was Sloan. Like Sloan, Orlicky is a staff member at Simpson University. He provided Sloan with one of the several letters of recommendations included in his application. 

Manuel, who clarified that she was speaking on behalf of her own decision-making process and not for the board as a whole, said she prioritized Yergenson for a similar reason, experience, in her case as a school board member in the past. 

“We were appointing someone for a term that’s just several months long. So I think having somebody with the ability to step in and be able to do it right away — that was important,” she said. 

French, who also voted for Yergenson, could not be reached for comment on what values she prioritized during last week’s vote. Similarly, LaBarbera, Gorman, and Roberts, all of whom voted for Lund, did not reply to a request for comment today.

According to Lund’s application, she has “no specific ties to any particular school district.” She indicated that she is a “critical thinker,” saying this has informed her work on other county boards regarding elections and water management. 

After the board’s failure to appoint by a majority vote, SCOE announced that the seat will remain vacant until the November election, when voters will choose a new trustee — in accordance with California Election Code.

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