Bellflower Unified School District elections (2015)

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2015 Bellflower Unified School District Elections
General Election date:
November 3, 2015
Table of Contents
About the district
Method of election
Elections
What was at stake?
Candidate survey
Key deadlines
Additional elections
External links
See also
California
Bellflower Unified School District
Los Angeles County, California ballot measures
Local ballot measures, California
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Two seats on the Bellflower Unified School District Board of Education were up for general election on November 3, 2015.[1] Incumbents Debbie Cuadros and Jerry Cleveland ran for re-election. They faced challengers John Coleman and Ole Nervik for the two seats.[2][3] Both incumbents won re-election.[4]

See how this race compared to past school board elections in both the district and the state in the "Election trends" section. Cleveland participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates. To read his responses, check out the "Ballotpedia survey responses" section.

About the district

See also: Bellflower Unified School District, California
Bellflower Unified School District is located in Los Angeles County, Calif.

Bellflower Unified School District is located in Los Angeles County in southwestern California. The county seat is Los Angeles.[5] Los Angeles County was home to 10,116,705 residents in 2014, according to the United States Census Bureau.[6] During the 2012-2013 school year, Bellflower Unified School District was the 120th-largest school district by enrollment in California and served 13,721 students.[7]

Demographics

Los Angeles County underperformed compared to the rest of California in terms of higher education achievement in 2013. The United States Census Bureau found that 29.7 percent of county residents aged 25 years and older had attained a bachelor's degree, compared to 30.7 percent for California as a whole. The median household income for Los Angeles County was $55,909, compared to $61,094 for the entire state. The percentage of people below the poverty level was 17.8 percent, compared to 15.9 percent statewide.[6]

Racial Demographics, 2013[6]
Race Los Angeles County (%) California (%)
White 71.5 73.5
Black or African American 9.2 6.6
American Indian and Alaska Native 1.5 1.7
Asian 14.6 14.1
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 0.4 0.5
Two or more races 2.9 3.7
Hispanic or Latino 48.3 38.4

Presidential Voting Pattern,
Los Angeles County[8]
Year Democratic Vote Republican Vote
2012 2,216,903 885,333
2008 2,295,853 956,425
2004 1,907,736 1,076,225
2000 1,710,505 871,930

Note: Percentages for race and ethnicity may add up to more than 100 percent because respondents may report more than one race and the Hispanic/Latino ethnicity may be selected in conjunction with any race. Read more about race and ethnicity in the census here.

Voter and candidate information

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The Bellflower Unified Board of Education consists of five members elected at-large to four-year terms. Board members are elected on a staggered basis every November of odd-numbered years. There are no primary elections. Three seats were up for election on November 5, 2013, and two seats were on the ballot on November 3, 2015.[9]

School board candidates had to be at least 18 years old, residents of the school district and qualified voters. They could not be employees of the school district while in office.[9] To get on the ballot, candidates had to file their declaration of candidacy with the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk by August 7, 2015.[10]

To vote in this election, residents of the district had to register by October 19, 2015. Voters could cast vote-by-mail ballots from October 24, 2015, through Election Day.[10] Photo identification was not required to vote in California.

Elections

2015

Candidates

At-large
Jerry Cleveland Green check mark transparent.png Debbie Cuadros Green check mark transparent.png

Jerry Cleveland.png

  • Incumbent
  • Member from 1995-2015
  • Businessman

Debbie Cuadros.png

  • Incumbent
  • Member from 2011-2015
  • Graduate, Chapman University
  • Associate partner and co-founder, Simeio Solutions
  • Retired Senior Master Sergeant, United States Air Force Reserves
John Coleman Ole Nervik

Placeholder image.png

  • School district employee

Placeholder image.png

  • Retired parcel driver

Election results

Bellflower Unified School District, At-large, General Election, 2015
Candidate Vote % Votes
Green check mark transparent.png Debbie Cuadros Incumbent 32.5% 1,378
Green check mark transparent.png Jerry Cleveland Incumbent 29.3% 1,243
John Coleman 20.9% 884
Ole Nervik 17.3% 732
Total Votes 4,237
Source: Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "NOVEMBER 03, 2015 - LOCAL AND MUNICIPAL CONSOLIDATED ELECTIONS: Final Official Election Returns," accessed November 24, 2015

Endorsements

Challengers John Coleman and Ole Nervik were endorsed by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO.[11]

Incumbent Debbie Cuadros received endorsements from the following organizations and elected officials:[12]

Campaign finance

Campaign Finance Ballotpedia.png
See also: List of school board campaign finance deadlines in 2015

At the time of this election, the Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk did not publish school board candidate campaign finance reports online. Ballotpedia staffers requested this information, but the only free method of viewing the files was at their office.

The Los Angeles Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk targeted the end of 2018 to make school board candidate campaign finance reports available online for free. From that point forward, Ballotpedia began including campaign finance data for Los Angeles County school board candidates.[13][14][15]

Campaign finance reporting requirements in California vary depending on how much money candidates spend or raise. For candidates planning to raise or spend less than $1,000, an Officeholder and Candidate Campaign Statement Short Form (Form 470) must be filed with their county or city elections office. If candidates plan to spend up to $1,000, including their own funds, they must also file a Candidate Intention Statement (Form 501). "If a candidate does not raise any money and personal funds are used only to pay filing or ballot statement fees, the candidate is not required to file the Form 501," according to the Fair Political Practices Commission. If candidates raise money outside of their own funds, a separate campaign bank account must be established.[16]

Candidates raising or spending more than $1,000, including their personal funds, must file a Candidate Intention Statement (Form 501), file a Statement of Organization (Form 410) and establish a separate bank account for campaign funds. They must then file Recipient Committee Campaign Statements (Form 460) to disclose their contributions and expenditures throughout their campaigns. If they receive more than $1,000 from a single source within 90 days of the election, they must file a 24-hour Contribution Report (Form 497).[16]

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If you have any information regarding the campaign finance disclosures in this race, please contact the school board elections team at elections@ballotpedia.org.

Past elections

What was at stake?

2015

Election trends

School Board Election Trends Banner.jpg
See also: 2013 school board elections

With two seats on the ballot on November 3, 2015, nearly half of the seats on the Bellflower Unified Board of Education had the potential to change hands. Both incumbents, however, were re-elected to the board. They defeated two challengers. In 2013, three seats were on the ballot, but only two incumbents ran for re-election. They both won another term, and a newcomer was elected to the open seat. An average of two candidates ran per seat in that election.

The school board elections in 2013 and 2015 had a higher average number of candidates run per seat compared to the 2014 state average of 1.91 candidates per seat in California's largest school districts. Those races also saw fewer unopposed seats. No seat went unopposed in 2013 or 2015 in the Bellflower Unified School District elections, but just over a quarter of school board seats up for election in 2014 in California's largest school districts were unopposed.

Ballotpedia survey responses

Candidate Connection Logo - stacked.png
See also: Ballotpedia's school board candidate survey

One of the four candidates in this race participated in Ballotpedia's 2015 survey of school board candidates. The following sections display the responses to the survey questions from incumbent Jerry Cleveland.

Top priorities

When asked what his top priorities would be if elected, Cleveland did not respond to the question.[17]

Ranking the issues

The candidate was asked to rank the following issues by importance in the school district, with 1 being the most important and 7 being the least important. This table displays the candidate's rankings:

Issue importance ranking
Issue Cleveland's ranking
Expanding arts education
3
Expanding career-technical education
2
Balancing or maintaining the district's budget
1
Improving college readiness
4
Closing the achievement gap
5
Improving education for special needs students
6
Expanding school choice options
7
Positions on the issues

The candidate was asked to answer 10 multiple choice and short answer questions from Ballotpedia regarding significant issues in education and the school district. A link to the candidate's responses can be found below.

Key deadlines

The following dates were key deadlines for the Bellflower Unified School District election in 2015:[10][18]

Deadline Event
June 8, 2015 - August 7, 2015 Candidate filing period
July 31, 2015 Semi-annual campaign finance report due
August 5, 2015 - November 2, 2015 24-hour campaign contribution reporting period
September 7, 2015 - October 20, 2015 Write-in candidate filing period
September 24, 2015 Pre-election campaign finance report due
October 19, 2015 Voter registration deadline
October 22, 2015 Pre-election campaign finance report due
October 24, 2015 First day voters can cast vote-by-mail ballots
November 3, 2015 Election Day
February 1, 2016 Semi-annual campaign finance report due

Additional elections on the ballot

See also: California elections, 2015

No elections shared the ballot with the Bellflower Unified School District. A number of other school districts in Los Angeles County, however, also held school board elections on November 3, 2015.[19]

Recent news

The link below is to the most recent stories in a Google news search for the terms Bellflower Unified School District California. These results are automatically generated from Google. Ballotpedia does not curate or endorse these articles.

Bellflower Unified School District elections (2015) - Google News

See also

Bellflower Unified School District California School Boards
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Seal of California.png
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External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, “2015 Scheduled Elections,” accessed January 27, 2015
  2. ↑ Bellflower Unified School District, "BUSD School Board, 2014-2015," accessed January 27, 2015
  3. ↑ Los Angeles County, California, "Candidate List," accessed August 11, 2015
  4. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "NOVEMBER 03, 2015 - LOCAL AND MUNICIPAL CONSOLIDATED ELECTIONS: Semi-Final Official Election Returns," accessed November 4, 2015
  5. ↑ Geology.com, "California County Map with County Seat Cities," accessed July 1, 2014
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 United States Census Bureau, "Los Angeles County, California," accessed August 6, 2015
  7. ↑ National Center for Education Statistics, "ELSI Table Generator," accessed April 29, 2015
  8. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Past Election Results," accessed July 1, 2014
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Bellflower Unified School District, "Policies, Regulations, Bylaws," accessed August 6, 2015
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Calendar of Events," accessed July 29, 2015
  11. ↑ Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, "Endorsements," accessed October 26, 2015
  12. ↑ Debbie Cuadros, "Endorsements," accessed October 27, 2015
  13. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Campaign Finance Reports," accessed July 2, 2014
  14. ↑ Daniel Anderson, “Email communication with Brenda Duran, Los Angeles County Public Information Officer," October 7, 2016
  15. ↑ Abbey Smith, “Email communication with Brenda Duran, Los Angeles County Public Information Officer," January 2, 2018
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Fair Political Practices Commission, "Local Candidates, Superior Court Judges, Their Controlled Committees, and Primarily Formed Committees for Local Candidates: Campaign Disclosure Manual 2," accessed August 5, 2015
  17. ↑ Ballotpedia School Board Candidate Survey, 2015, "Jerry Cleveland responses," October 28, 2015
  18. ↑ Fair Political Practices Commission, "Filing Schedule for Candidates and Controlled Committees for Local Office Being Voted on November 3, 2015," accessed August 5, 2015
  19. ↑ Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, "Local And Municipal Consolidated Elections - 11/3/2015," accessed July 29, 2015
2015 Bellflower Unified School District Elections
Los Angeles County, California
Election date:November 3, 2015
Candidates:At-large: • Incumbent, Jerry Cleveland • Incumbent, Debbie Cuadros • John Coleman • Ole Nervik
Important information:What was at stake? • Key deadlines • Additional elections on the ballot
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